If we take into account it should potentially be in the old continent Hyjal if not Nordrassil.
yes, this would be good.
I wonder how many people realise it is night elves’ nature love is why their buildings and temples are so beautiful looking.
I honestly expect a new night elf city to be even more beautiful than Suramar, but not as gilded, except for their Highborne section.
when you think about it, loving the beauty of nature, would inspire great works of art in stone or wood or marble.
This explains way their ancient cities were so incredible, it also explains partly why the Temples of Elune are stunning, they’d save the best for her.
And this also proves why Darnassus’ marble buildings are spot on too, in the new architecture from legion, the equivalent would be just as stunning as Suramar or Zin’Azsshari.
Using magic to draw stone - both arcane and nature mould it also makes sense, if marble is available through magic, this would be preferable to using wood even if you can make wood for the sole purpose of accommodation… you wouldn’t want to on the scale that a city required seeking rather to preserve natural beauty
There is also a difference between a druid and a non-druid night elf. a non druid night elf loves nature, however they are not “bound” to it and only see it. Druid’s beauty is purely in nature, other night elves, priests, warriors, craftsmen, tradesmen, mages and arcane users, especially those who have the talent, even those who went to fel would not be content with the life of the druid alone. This makes sense.
The long vigil’s absence of arcane and it’s 10,000 year long mission may have necessitated such an existence, but that doesn’t mean it was the preferred or optimal to all but druids.
And yet some don’t realise you can love nature and not want to live in a tree. Afterall, do not all elves get their arcane affinity and a love for nature from night elves? it is apparent clearly in the Nightborne, even more so than in the blood elves, but if you know Warcraft lore, the high elves loved nature too, not on the scale of the night elven druids off course, or rather they didn’t have a large enough sect or group/faction that loved it on that level, they would have had some though who did.
Elves are more green loving than humans and most other races. Many of the civilization advanced races tend to have an honour or respect for nature, rarely an intrinsic love like the elves do. And yet people also wrongly presume that less advancement in your civilization means you are lesser or more stupid - at least it is good that people know enough about Warcraft orcs and trolls to disabuse the oft hat notion.
yet they still make the commonly held assumptions about elves, especially night elves too - but I suspect that is more based on ignorance of the lore and generalising based on what you see without the information that puts it into context. As often happens in visual media where the information isn’t presented audibly - most gamers hate to read. Pictures much better.
It will be up to developers to faithfully present and build a new night elf city. They didn’t properly with Suramar for the nightborne - the question then becomes would they do a new one for the night elves, copy Suramar for them or actually allow Suramar to be the centre for city loving night elves along with Nightborne and use Hyjal as some sort of nature reserve park capital.
the Well of Eternity there however promises or at least should warrant some great use for the night elves rebuilding. The whole reason it was restored by Illidan was so that one day they would rebuild. If the legion’s potential return caused it to be hidden instead o utilised, with their destruction and the night elves on the brink now, needing to rebuild not just civilization now, but their entire race, it stands to reason that it should be used.
This would be a powerful enough source to build something extraordinary for them, night elves building a great city looking ahead to the future where the race would once more be thriving… rather than a small fort to fit the current numbers.
they do have the intelligence, through the arcane to have that foresight as well as a touch of the divine through their priest to have some sort of foretelling of the future - or at least the wisdom to plan for centuries even millennia ahead.
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Tyrande leading the night elves, and Veressa Windrunner leading the High elves (Silver covenant) also took part in the night fallen resistance to free Suramar. By that logic, the night elves and High elves are now part of Suramar too.
I agree with most of what you said, but this specific information has a few flaws. So this is just a friendly correction.
After legion and after the Nightborne joined the horde, it is unknown what happened to Moonguard’s fate. This information is even from the wiki.
Rebuild Nordrassil, Make NE Great Again!
The NE will be great when I start being their Queen again.
MUHAHAHAHAHA
Imo blizz should just make a dalaran sewers version in stormwind and call it a day.
It’s a bunch of tree hippies, just copy paste some stuff, expand it a little, add some rats, shrooms and draw some trees and they should be happy.
If your idea of giving them land is throwing them In Stormwind’s sewer like a bunch of forsaken, then might as well not give them any land at all.
Night elves have always had one of the most beautiful lands (though I might be biased because I like purple). Yet almost all of their lands was either stolen by the horde, ruined by civil war or the sundering, or got burned into oblivion.
Compare that to the beautiful cities of the horde elves. It’s easy to see why night elf players want something a little more nicer. Almost half of Kalimdor belonged to them, just re-design one of the those places like nordrassil or Ashenvale, and they are done.
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The Night Elves are pretty broke and not reproducing much if I remember my lore.
They’ll be extinct pretty soon if they keep trying to rebuild, get killed, repeat.
While I am all for a new city for the Kaldorei, I think we’re gonna have to think outside of the box a little bit when speaking of how a new city would and should actually take shape to reflect their contemporary culture.
The vast cities of the old empire composed of hewn stone belongs to the echoes of the past. The empire was built before druidism became such an ingrained aspect of their civilization, so the Elves didn’t regard nature with the degree of respect and reverence that they do now.
Extracting rocks for the sake of raising a city with huge temples and palaces doesn’t make sense anymore. Yes, you can point at Darnassus and say that it was largely composed of stone, but it was a balanced mix of stone and woodland. I don’t think, however, that Darnassus was even accurately depicted in the game. Illustrative art of the city shows it actually stretches up along the trunk and boughs of Teldrassil rather than existing WITHIN the trunk of Teldrassil. It is far more intermixed with the environment in actuality.
Stone cities speak of avarice in the broadest sense - excess, gluttony, selfishness, pride, covetousness, etc - all which led to the downfall of Azshara’s beloved empire.
It was after this that druidism entered the picture and the practice of druidic arts basically become a part of the Kaldorei, irreversibly so. It is also the key that served to humble them, which is a major point here.
I think a new city needs to reflect that the Kaldorei have learned from their past mistakes. Therefore, I imagine it’d resemble, in terms of architecture, the rural buildings and temples scattered about in Kalimdor. Wood, essentially. Wood and a little bit of stone turned into modest domiciles, shops, and sites of reverence dedicated to both Elune and the Wild Gods is what makes sense next for them.
The Highborne do not really exist anymore. They have no clout whatsoever, no influence, and no say. There would be nothing built to satisfy any wishes they might have, because their kin, Tyrande and Malfurion, are still skeptical towards their arcane practices.
I’d honestly love to see Blizz do something unique. For instance, make Winterspring the new capital. A wintry scenery for the Elves is a fresh breath of air, even if we have Ironforge, but the city is inside a mountain. This new city for the Elves would not be so. Strategically, it also makes sense. Winterspring is on the eastern side of Kalimdor. They can build a port connected to the lower lands of Kalimdor, and then the rest of the world.
I suppose you could say that this evokes the issue of gardens and flora for embellishment within the city, but honestly, we’ve seen plants in WoW that thrive even in places such as Winterspring, Dragonblight, and Dun Morogh.
A little bit of magic, perhaps even enchantments, could take care of that issue. Eversong Forest is after all enchanted and is because of that rendered as in a perpetual autumnal state.
If enchantments can affect an entire freaking land such as Eversong, the Kaldorei could use their nifty tricks to grow a variety of plants within a city located in a wintry setting.
It’s just unique and a brave step to take, but refreshing. I feel like Winter has a bad reputation, but it can make for quite idyllic landscapes. In a fantasy world like WoW, Blizz could do whatever they wanted with Winterspring without having to worry about conforming to realism.
Rework Winterspring. Give it high res textures all over, a complete makeover, with an impressive yet humble capital to call a new home for the Kaldorei.
If Winterspring is out of the picture though, which I suppose it is, then i’d say Ashenvale or Feralas makes the most sense as settings. Hyjal is a sacred place and while it does currently accommodate refugees in the lore, they are not going to be staying there forever. There will be no city that close to the World Tree. Won’t happen.
Ashenvale and Feralas are strategically and conveniently located however, in relation to the rest of the continent. In regards to ports - that might prove an issue, as they’d have no eastern ports.
However, the Kaldorei should be thought of as living in close relationship to Nature after Malfurion introduced his people to the ways of druidism. The Highborne are gone. The greedy application of the arcane is gone, among the Kaldorei. I think they’d make use of their untarnished, raw surroundings for new establishments more so than they did back in the empire, when their purpose didn’t align with that of the wilds and nature.
Those are my thoughts about that, anyway.
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I never truly considered Winterspring to be there new home. It’s close to both Hyjal and Moonglade - it can be a great place for the Elves to resettle and build themselves.
You’ve given an excellent idea that keeps the kaldorei close to their core, which is is Kalimdor and their W3 vibes.
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Just because fans call to go back to Kalimdor does not meant hey wouldn’t like another alternative if it was nice. Why do you think Suramar keeps coming up?
The reason fans want kalimdor back is the same reasoon any race who hwas lost their home would want it back.
As a developer, I would be acutely aware of this, but, that doesn’t mean I don’t have something better for the fans.
What are fans really sking for? are they asking for kalimdor or are they asking for a decent night elven new home? Are they asking for savagery? or are they really just asking to be respected, viewed as powerful and dangerous – think!!!
The evidence is all there. When you look at WC3, nighte lves were never really savage, so when fans talk about wanting night elves savage like Wc3, you, Leia who have no care for night elves mis-interpret that to mean they want primitve… no, they want dangerous.
Night elf fans have always love to have nice and beautiful things too, that why many people played night elves before blood elves were playable. When blood elves came out, many did switch, but many did not etiher preferring the values of the alliance over that of the elven group that seemed clear betrayers inspite of their fancy art work…
Some just can’t see beyond the superficial.
Only your bringing Suramar up.
I think they’ve already done this, and several times, teh results have been the same.
Should they do so yet again and reimaigne everything for them… or should we try to understand exactly what they are trying to show us the night elves are when it comes to things like cities etc…
This is a huge multi-faceted and very anceint long lived race… they are high civilziation who have intelligence andw isdom able to adapt to a situation to achieve a result they feel is vital. They ddi the long vigil to stop the legion returning it was an enormous sacrifice for them… yet they remained kaldorei, showing that even though they adapted to a new situation for an extended period of tiem for a very justifiable purpose… they remeain themselves.
Which is why then the long vigil ends in WC3, what results after is
- moving out of isolation
- establishing and building a new city a nd temple
- the return of arcane magic.
what did not happen is:
- All night elves suddenly becoming like pre-sundering night elves
- Forsaking nature completley just because they’ve got the arcane back
- Turning into an urban race over night.
we’ve got to see who they are, some of them are urban some not, priests were without a temple for nearly 10k years, and build one when their 10,000 year long task ends
Also got to understand these are elves who lived in a highly advanecd civilziation, Tyrande, Malfurion, Illidan, Jarod,Maiev all come from Suramar as well as teh bulk of their forces that one victory of the queen. And many have been around that long
FOr them , it’s more like our modern society or a futuristic version of it, that have to live without electricity and all the things that power can build to stop invading aliens from coming, wwith the core of our people from that age still alive, still remembering and still knoweldgeable but having the tencity and uprightness to stand firm, until the day this ends. which it does in WC3, and the threadt firmly in Legion.
Some people get too caught up in the druid fantasy, some too much in the mage fantasy to realise that these are just part of very diverse and multi-faceted people and that these are all aspects of a full race. they have no trouble thinking of humans with this amount of variation, but fantasy has locked them into thinking elves as some sort of one thing only group, it’s hard to eimagine them as tehy are.
Well the developers have celarly defined what the night elves are, they have detailed lore of much of the race, and show us things about the night elves in game and inbooks.
I don’t think they need to re-define their style yet again, I mean they have been really consistent from the start about it all.
it’s always an allied race or a classic level 10 character keyboard thugging lol
What enabled the Kaldorei to embrace that advanced and high tech civilization 10k years ago pre-sundering was the Arcane, literally. Their progression in terms of the tools they used and later invented, their defenses, their offenses, constructs imbued with the Arcane and brought alive - the Arcane permeated absolutely everything.
To say that the Kaldorei people do not belong to one group solely is mostly right - they’re not strictly adherents of druidism, nor the arcane. Yes, they are a people irregardless of whether they incorporate the use of any sorts of magic into their society, but the fact of the matter remains - the reckless application of the Arcane was what led to their downfall, and the Arcane inspired Azshara and her ilk to almost establish a dictatorship, or maybe they actually did, because their mastery over it and the ways it could be manipulated granted them that sense of superiority.
Tall palaces stretching far towards the stars was the epitome of Kaldorei arrogance. Their indulgences, which were heavily based on impulses of desire, pride, and general excess. Even the carnal, one might assume. It seems to be later, during the long vigil, that the Kaldorei began to appreciate monogamous relationships. Marriage and the like, a union between two people. This is just an example of how they were humbled. After the Empire’s fall, druidism had taken root in their civilization, pretty much replaced the totalitarian rules as enabled by the Arcane, and inspired a new set of rules to define the new civilization when born out of the ashes.
We also see that when the Night Elves do not covet luxurious cities and domination of large swathes of land, they sort of recede back into an appreciation for what the world has to offer, as though this is how they were meant to live all along - in mutual respect with their environments, resources, while dedicating their thanks to Elune.
Worship and devotion to the Goddess has always been of utmost importance to them, and we see that Elune, as their Mother and the one who chose them to be her favored children, also have close ties to nature. She mated with Malorne even, giving birth to Cenarius, the one who would teach Malfurion the ways of the world itself.
They split their people in two essentially. You have the Sisterhood on one side, the druids on the other - men and women fulfilling different roles. The men largely represent Malorne, the father of their teachings, while the Sisterhood represent Elune, their source of worship and celestial powers, including believed to be the Kaldorei’s maker. Bring those two together and you have a mirror of Elune’s and Malorne’s union - a union of Nature and the Stars - a balance. Not too much of one or the other. (Priestesses are speculated to also be wielding the Arcane btw. Kind of like how the Moonkin Spec describes its powers as being a meld of Nature and Arcane, merged into a perfect balance and manifested as celestial energies of the sun and moon. The Sisterhood use similar magic).
The Kaldorei derailed from their original purpose, I dare say, when under Azshara’s rule. Too arrogant, too greedy, too much avarice.
I think a new city should reflect that - what the Kaldorei were always meant to be, when walking the path Elune wanted for them.
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A new temple will obviously be at the heart of the new kaldorei city.
Do you think it should be like the Darnassus Temple or maybe a new take? Maybe luminous glass walk-ways, reflecting off the moonlight.
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Whatever new place they will get, I hope they don’t just focus on the Druid or priestess aspect. As Night elves are much more diverse than that.
Also focus on some “Highborne” aesthetic like the one we saw in the ruins of Dire Maul. The Highborne of Dire Maul along with their leader rejoined night elf society in cataclysm. They also heavily defended Teldrassil during BFA and even teleported many civilians (both night elf and worgen) out. Give them at least one room that is elegant filled with books, sort of like a library in Dire Maul.
So basically don’t just make it nature and moon, yes that will be majority of the city’s aesthetic but at least dedicate one room to other groups of the night elf society. The groups that are usually forgotten or invisible.
That’s actually why I had this idea that Feralas would be the perfect place for night elves to rebuild their city. Perfect mixture of Hunter, Druid, Mage, and priest elements.
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Unlikely, since the new recent book did not give much insight into the alliance presence within Feralas.
Also, the only “night elf” presence within Dire Maul itself are wraiths and ghosts that haunt the city. That suggests that the Highborne’s quest to restore Dire Maul, in Cataclysm, has failed.
Cuz Ogre superior.
Ogre does the smash smash, the nelves does the run run.
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Let the Nightborne restore Dire Maul instead. 