The Fate of Dalaran in The War Within... Devs Explain Why They're Doing it

The War Within Alpha is HERE and with it all the datamining, hero talent testing, warband updates and new zones you'd expect. But we need to talk about Dalaran, and how it is destroyed by the Nerubians at the very beginning of the World Soul Saga...

[TaliesinEvitel]

No confirmation yet on the drop rate for War Within raid gear but for Dalaran it is very high

[beeurd]

Citizens of Dalaran! Lower your eyes to the ground and observe!

[nigelhirth]

I'm calling it now. Khadgar remains behind to make some heroic last stand, then we find out later he got saved at the last minute when he shows back up with Medivh in tow.

[rae_diant]

I rp as a kirin tor mage. im both extremely excited and absolutely DEVASTATED

[olhristov]

I like the idea of Xal being intimately aware of what pivotal role Dalaran played in the last alien invasion and is making sure it won't be able to provide the same support against hers. Good start! RIP Dalaran ;(

[MagCynic]

I cannot wait to see how spiders stuck to the ground managed to take down a floating city that even alien spaceships couldn't take down.

[xxKatsimexx]

Seeing the Sandstone Drake flying with Dragonriding mechanics is all I needed to see.

[deployed]

The end of Shadowlands made it seem to me that Khadgar was facing his mortality head-on when he visited Orobos, to the point that his inclusion in DF made me think that he had witnessed his demise in some prophecy and that was going to be explored in DF. Nothing happened. Other than "Kirin Tor are in Azure Span, so Khadgar is too, and gets wrapped up in Kalec's story because of their shared time in Dalaran as leaders of the Kirin Tor", his presence in Dragonflight felt very wasted.

That said, stories change, and with the case of Tony Amendola, his availability or even his willingness to be involved voice acting may well be coming to an end. The guy is in his 70's, and not being beholden to VO contracts where he has to drop everything with little notice for a few days may well be something he is done with. That is obviously a lot of conjecture, but its worth allowing a character from a respected actor to have an end. We all know how frustrating things get when VAs get changed, regardless of the reason.

[BobMobBom]

The real question for this expansion is:

are we receiving a new "Dalaran Crater" portal?

[Draethar]

What if Khadgar doesn’t die. What if they think he died and he comes back as Khadgar the White!

[PenguinPlays]

Dalaran's been my favourite city for a while. I love its music, the old lamp lighter guy, the random tiny details. My fav memories are probs running around with my friends there playing tag :)

[HollyToadstool]

As a Roleplayer I am devastated. We used Dalaran for our Weekly Market (visited many many RPers every week) for YEARS. It's home for many of our characters.
I would like to move to another cool hub like SW or Gilneas but we're neutral and my character is Forsaken. I am not happy about this. :(

[vii]

Makes me wonder how long they knew that this would happen to Dalaran, since the portal to Legion is Azsuna in the portal rooms.

[Dhalin]

Just as long as they replace Dalaran with another city that has similar logistics and design. I loved Dalaran because all of its features were so close to each other, and travel times were minimal which made it easy to get stuff done. I don't really like huge sprawled out cities. It's fine if you have everything in the center core, and then have a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter around it, but I hate it when you have to travel a mile between the AH and the bank, for example.

[stephiec]

If they kill off Khadgar the whole Medivh future plot would go out the window. I don't think he's dead, but then again, I'm coping really hard here for him to be alive 🥲

[filipfenix]

So the Legion did a Planet wide invasion with SPACE SHIPS and all, and Dalaran was perfectly fine with that, but a bunch of spider right.

[spindoggytheexplorer]

Fascinating. Personally after back burnering Khadgar for 2 maybe even 3 expansions killing him off would be a colossal misstep. Let’s hope they aren’t that stupid. I’m all for killing off important characters for dramatic impact but it doesn’t hit right when the character isn’t important anymore and they just scrap him. This better be good man.

[Big.Stepper.]

Trying to explain why it's ok for him to use a massive spoiler in the title for clicks when he knows it's a shitty move.

[autumnleaf]

I genuinely hate this. Knowing Dalaran, my favourite city, is destroyed and Khadgar, one of my all time favourite characters, gets killed actually severely reduced my hype levels for this expansion.

[nicolaj]

Just a heads up, your vid title is also a spoiler