Amirdrassil
The final chapter of Guardians of the Dream became available to players who have killed Fyrakk this week. Having saved Amirdrassil from Fyrakk’s assault, the World Tree has finally grown large enough to be replanted in Azeroth, revealing a whole new continent in the Dragon Isles! West of the Ohn’ahran Plains, the continent of Amirdrassil is similar to the same location in the Emerald Dream, but there are important differences that suggest this zone is meant to be more than just a fun novelty tied to an expansion’s end.
In the current game, Amirdrassil is still largely unpopulated – but we already know that will change as early as 10.2.5. Most Night Elves who survived Teldrassil have already relocated to this new World Trer – this is the kaldorei’s new home – bringing up the question: is the Dragon Isles the right place for this?
The Problem
The first elephant in the room we really have to mention is the nature of the Burning of Teldrassil. The War of Thorns was an extremely dark time in both Azeroth’s history and the history of World of Warcraft. Canonically, the Night Elves went through genocide, specifically as the Horde were making attempts to wipe them out of Kalimdor. Though the Alliance is said to have won the Fourth War, it has to be said that the Night Elves’ removal from an entire zone feels very… effective. Even if they do have a new home and a new World Tree, the Night Elves can’t help but feel displaced. They haven’t just lost Teldrassil, they’ve lost Kalimdor.
There is also the issue that the Dragon Isles are an expansion zone. Traditionally, we only spend time in a zone during a new expansion. Even much beloved major home cities – like Suramar or Boralus – are largely abandoned. Players can be found in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, or they can be found at whatever city hub makes up the current expansion. As Dragonflight draws to a close, there is a legitimate fear that the Night Elves will be left behind, forgotten.
However, we’re beginning to think the Dragon Isles are meant to be different from a lot of previous expansions. And we think there’s a practical reason behind this zone being chosen for Amirdrassil, rather than Kalimdor.
The Practicality
When Dragonflight introduced dragonriding, it was an experiment. If this feature proved unpopular, it’s likely we would never have seen it again. Instead, it’s been a resounding success. Not only will dragonriding be the standard from now on even for low-level characters, it’s being renamed to “dynamic flying”, is being unlocked in all old-world zones as early as 10.2.5, and is being applied to all flying mounts by 11.0.
However, this doesn’t come without its problems. The old world wasn’t built with dragonriding in mind. In fact, its maximum speed will be limited to 80% outside of the Dragon Isles. As the game progresses and evolves, the old world is, well, old.
Since the world revamp in Cataclysm, most of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms has been stuck in the past. The storylines of those zones were rewritten to revolve around an expansion that is long since over. Another world revamp to reflect the changes that have happened in the game since is long overdue, but it’s not that simple. We’re unlikely to see an entire world revamp again. Instead, Blizzard has chosen to slowly rework things over time.
At the same time, World of Warcraft also seems to be purposefully repositioning the Dragon Isles, not as an expansion-specific series of zones, but as a central hub. In The War Within, Dragonflight will be the new player experience. New players will be introduced to dynamic flying in the first quests they do. Any zone created after Dragonflight will be built with dragonriding in mind. World of Warcraft has changed, fundamentally, with this expansion, and it feels like the Dragon Isles are being positioned to represent and act as central to this “new world”.
We’ve seen hints of this already, with the Tauren of the Ohn’ahran Plains and the Netherwing of Outland relocating to the Dragon Isles. Over and over again, the story of Dragonflight seems to be insisting that we should not feel done with the Dragon Isles. Amirdrassil’s new location only serves to re-emphasize this point – it does not seem that the intention is to cut the Night Elves off from the rest of the world. Rather, the Dragon Isles is being established as not only part of the world, but central to it.
This is also probably why Mount Hyjal is, for all intents and purposes, being snubbed. Though Nordrassil was destroyed in Warcraft III, this original World Tree is regrowing. Lore-wise, Nordrassil has been home to the Night Elves for far longer than Teldrassil ever was, and would be a perfect place for their home again. However, Nordrassil was also introduced to the game in Cataclysm – exactly the expansion that is causing the current need for the world to go through a revamp.
Practically, it’s probably easier to build a new zone that takes dragonriding into account and connect it to the continent that was built around that feature than it is to try transplant a new zone into the old world. The Dragon Isles do at least seem to be intended as more central to the world going forward than expansion zones have traditionally been. Whether or not it will work out in the long run remains to be seen.
It is worth pointing out that, even now, Amirdrassil is still comparatively tiny. Unlike Teldrassil, the zone of Amirdrassil is not a city at the top of a tree – but rather a zone with the tree in the center. We wonder if the tree will stay this stunted for the next twenty years of World of Warcraft, or will it grow over time? And if it does, could it move again – perhaps during another world-shattering moment like, say, the awakening of Azeroth? We’ll have to wait and see.
