I started playing World of Warcraft in about 2006 , and it ’s a testament to the allure of its world — the fantastical war - laden realm of Azeroth — that I ’m still play it 12 years later on . In that time , the world of Warcraft has changed so much . And now , ahead if its latest expansion , one big alteration to that public is tearing me up inside .
World of Warcraft has been kept live for 14 years by its expansions , and its seventh ( ! ) , Battle for Azeroth , is correct to fall out in two weeks . Warcraft revolves around the taradiddle of two often fight back cabal — the Alliance and the Horde — as they tussle with each other to eke out a living on the often turbulent world of Azeroth . While recent expansions have seen experiential menace that have brought the Alliance and Horde together as leery friend ( the most late , Legion , saw them working together to block a demonic invasion age in the make ofWarcraft ’s decades - old lore ) , Battle of Azeroth is being hail as a return to the classic Warcraft - ian ideals of the Alliance vs. Horde dispute that drive the original scheme games in the series .
mighty now , to fete the impending arrival of Battle for Azeroth , WoW player can participate in a questline name the “ War of Thorns . ” Its direction is the inciting event that reignite the battle between the two factions — the Horde ’s siege on , and eventual wipeout of , the ancestral rest home of the Alliance ’s Night Elves , a elephantine tree diagram off of the seashore of the westerly continent of Kalimdor called Teldrassil .
The destruction of Teldrassil has been known about for a while , but since the conclusion of the plot line went live on the secret plan ’s servers this workweek , World of Warcraft ’s fandom has been … let ’s sayvery dividedabout the manner this part of the story has played out . Especially in its enactment of the Horde ’s current leader , the undead ranger Sylvanas Windrunner , who has been a darling and prominent form in Warcraft ’s narrative since the franchise ’s other days as a real - time - strategy serial . And also because of , you hump , the fact that basically half of the actor foundation has been dragged into commit a pretty frightening act of war(craft ) , whether they require to or not .
But while WoW players are engaged debate for and against this in style chapter in the plot ’s 14 - twelvemonth - foresightful story , I ’ve found myself weirdly more upset about Teldrassil ’s destruction than I plausibly should be about a location in a video game . Teldrassil is n’t just an of import place in the game ’s lore to me ; it ’s the first part of Azeroth I ever visited in World of Warcraft .
When I was a spry teenager all the mode back in 2006 , the very first character I made to play World of Warcraft with was a Night Elf Druid ( I like imp , and I like elves that cast deception ; this is a fantasy trope that I have yet to mature out of almost a decade and a one-half subsequently , although I ’ve long since stopped playing that Druid ) . I had no estimation what I was doing because those were n’t really the days when you could go appear up usher for optimal gear or power rotations — but I was love every second of this uncanny and wonderful secret plan still , enchanted by the mystical forests and in darkness - alight purple chromaticity of Teldrassil ’s environments .
That curiosity of geographic expedition would turn over to love fairly quickly , and despite subscription lapses here and there , the fascination I felt spend hours wandering through that digital space — struggle off jumbo spiders and furious bear - like creatures called Furbolgs , before finally making my way of life to the rattling bodily structure of the Night Elf capital metropolis , Darnassus — cement what has become an enduring adoration for Warcraft ’s mankind and level . Even though my many WoW characters ( yes , a lot of them Night Elves ) in the years since have travel well beyond Teldrassil ’s roots and onwards to new adventures , I ’ve always found myself coming back , just to enjoy the atmosphere and its quietness , huddled away from the fuss and noise of WoW ’s with child , busier cities like Stormwind or Orgrimmar .
But now that this chapter in WoW ’s story has progressed , my characters who go through the “ War of Thorns ” ca n’t go back . Teldrassil is gone — my mages attempting to expend their teleport turn are unceremoniously dumped on the shore of Kalimdor instead . On fly mount , an unseeable paries eventually bars you from getting close to what is now the smoldering ruins of the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . All you may do is watch as it quiet continue to incinerate .
The version of Teldrassil that existed before it was all toasty is n’t really being removed from the game tout ensemble of course — that would be sincerely mad . It ’s a rarity that the developers , Blizzard Entertainment , actually permanently remove part of Azeroth from World of Warcraft altogether . The big elision to this would be the sweeping change the 2010 expansion ( Cataclysm ) bring to the two main continents of Warcraft , Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms , completely reworking the design and narratives of zone that had been in the game since the very beginning . As with other area of the game that have been affected by major moments in Warcraft ’s overall tale , there will be tools — garb up within the fabrication as the influence of the timeline - controlling Bronze Dragonflight flinging you back into the past — to provide players to revisit the zone as it was before the event of Battle for Azeroth . I could visit Teldrassil any time I wanted , with the military press of a clit .
But it would n’t be the same .
It ’d be like looking back at a photograph — a point in time trapped in a bubble to think of it by , but you ca n’t really go back to those memories and re - experience them . I can kid myself all I want take the air around the Teldrassil of the past that I ’d spent day , perchance even actual hebdomad , of my life in ( those donjon queues could take a while , and I always liked the atmosphere there while I waited for them ) . But the second I tread out of that bubble , the minute I permit the chronicle continue , it once again turn to smoldering ash , and those quondam memories I have are all that can remain .
I realize that this outpouring of melancholy is all a mo giddy — I’ve never actually visit this place , I ’ve just be given a parcel of polygons around inside another bundle of polygon , in a video game about magic and monsters and other fantastical , not - real thing . Darnassus is n’t really mine , it belong to to me and the million of other players who ’ve too trudged digital avatars through it for years and years .
But the world make by the fabrication we love most , disregarding of medium , have the power to channelize us to places unlike anything we can experience in our actual sprightliness . The synergistic lineament ofthe world in video games , in exceptional , have a power beyond other mediums to root us in those fantasies even more deep , to feel connections to these worlds that are made even more personal by forthwith place the role player within them . World of Warcraft ’s 14 - class history — a living story that ’s mature and spread out and evolved , all while being find by a community of billion who are living it out together — carves out a niche for itself that push those personal connectionseven deeperthan almost any other biz can claim to . There ’s nothing really quite like World of Warcraft , in that way .
It ’s why , when I finished the storyline that culminates with Teldrassil ’s combustion , I could n’t aid but feel weirdly like I ’d lost something that ’s been part of my “ real ” life story .
video recording gamesWorld of Warcraft
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