Titan cities, Zul'Gurub, Zul'Aman, and Zuldazar, maybe Undermine, and... I dunno.

Yeah.

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Yes. Who knows, maybe they sailed east to Darkshore? It could be a shorter trip.

Um, yes. I thought that was established. It was a jungle, part of the Gurubashi Empire, Sundering, desert.

How about Zandalar? It would be interesting to see where that fit.

Also the location of the Qiraji Empire. After their defeat, some went south and created AQ while some went north and created AN.

Maybe add the titan and old god areas.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

This is the exact map I've been thinking about yesterday. Strangely, if you look at it, the land positions have an almost circular form with the middle (eastern sunken Kalimdor "bay") suggesting that this is where Well of Eternity was.

Then I started thinking. We know that 80% of the continent was destroyed, right? This means that the Great Sea would need to be 4x as big as the remaining land. On maps, it's not. In fact, it barely reaches half the land size. If Kalimdor was supposed to be 80% bigger prior to Sundering, then the Great Sea would have to be 10x its current size - if I put this into a rough sketch:

http://www.shrani.si/f/3C/tv/47vKiHdU/azeroth.jpg

I'm sure you'll agree with me that this is one hell of an ocean. Remember, this whole place had to be filled up with land, Darkshore had to be close to Well of Eternity and people on the edge of Well had to run aaaaaaaallll the way to Mt. Hyjal before the explosion hit them. If Kalimdor is only 100 miles long (which is a silly figure to begin with), survivors would have to run around 250 miles to reach the mountain. While the well was exploding / imploding. Specifically, if it takes, say, 40 days to reach Sunwell from Booty Bay (official figure is 80 days including cartography), it would have taken survivors around 120 days to reach Mt. Hyjal. That is a very slow-motion disaster there and Azshara sure did take her time in that tower of hers

That is what I have been trying to say.

Although I think your map shows the ocean too big. I think the current map is correct and what it looked like back then. Or maybe somewhere between your map and the current map. Remember, the land we see now is 20%. Add 80% to that and it would look like the current map, not the map you showed. That is like 120%.

Plus the Darkshore thing makes no sense with whatever map someone creates. There is now way, that I can see at least, how Darkshore could have been next to the Well of Eternity when it is now located on the other side of Hyjal – which was closer to the Well since the survivors ran for that area. Darkshore somehow ran away from the Well too and didn't stop until it was past Hyjal and safe?

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

Crap, I linked the wrong map where I calculated the size wrongly. This is the right one:

http://www.shrani.si/f/32/Pz/1ufCAhDr/azeroth.jpg

Regardless, the other figures are correct. This still shows those continents far apart, with massive ocean size, Mt. Hyjal far from the Well, but what's even scarier is the night elven empire, spanning a good half of this massive continent. If I compare Kalimdor's size to Europe, then the elven empire spanned roughly 8x as much - i.e. it would be 4.5x as big as Russia today or approximately the size of British Empire at the height of its power. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Darkshore makes sense if it was lost to the sundering and its inhabitants rebuilt in a new location. I cant find any links at the minute, but there are cases in UK history of villages and towns that are lost due to coastal erosion being rebuilt in a completely new location. Normally they are refered to as "New (Insert random village name here)" but not always, so it could just be that the inhabitants of Darkshore returned from Mt Hyjal to find it gone and resettled in a new location using the same name.

That map looks like what I have been thinking.

Blizzard needs a better mapmaker or information because it makes no sense at all. It sounds like they just threw lore out there without thinking of what was previously added. I think if someone was to make a map using only written info, and not referring to maps, a very different looking map would come about.

I wanted to note something. The survivors weren't really next to the Well. They were, I believe, somewhere between the Well and Hyjal. It still would have been a great distance I think. The only people next to the Well were riding dragons. The Highborne that helped Tyrande escape did start next to the Well, but they had left before the Well started going crazy. I know the Highborne were using horses at top speed it said. I am not sure if they would have been able to catch up to the survivors who were already running for Hyjal though. Another great distance to me. Also they didn't run all the way to the exact spot of Hyjal. They ran to an area near Hyjal, probably Azshara or Winterspring, and then the waters started contracting. It says they looked at the new coastline that had just formed. They then migrated to Hyjal as a rallying/gathering point. Afterwards they began their civilization again, mostly in Ashenvale I believe.

Well they sure don't make it sound like it. They say in the quest that these ruins were once on the shore of the Well. Plus they are ruins. Why would they rebuild ruins? Also there are various highborne ghosts floating around there. It doesn't really make sense. They messed up unless the Well was in two locations, both in the middle of the continent and west of Darkshore.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

Rob actually I think that map is pretty good, you could add more stuff there.

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A horse can gallop for about 10 miles, as proven by pony express riders in 19th century. The distance between Well and Hyjal, given 100 mile Kalimdor would be around same, meaning the highborne would need to gallop with horses for at least 10x as much as possible which would take them approximately 10 hours, if horses could handle it. These numbers increase exponentially as the actual size of Kalimdor increases.

EDIT: oki, I've expanded on my map a bit:

http://www.shrani.si/f/2D/F5/2acw55ca/old-azeroth.jpg

I've been thinking about racial migrations a bit. We have Aqir/Silithid south and future Nerubians up north, Vrykhul north and Arathi east, trolls along south, southeast and northeast of the continent. Strangely, migrations seem to have been going to great lengths avoiding the well of eternity - for instance, trolls, instead of expanding straight north towards the well (which would be logical considering water up there) have gone all around from south to northeast, then split aqir in the west, creating silithid and nerubians in the process - it wasn't until this point that the kaldorei popped up now that the trolls were practically encircling the place. At first I was thinking of adding a mountain range around the well, with the only real access point to the northwest, but then I realized that the titan road actually came directly south from Ulduar. Perhaps the well was originally protected similarly as Uldum and this protection somehow failed, allowing kaldorei ancestors to find it. Another explanation might be hidden in Elune, where it is said that she helped primitive night elves evolve without becoming corrupted - perhaps previous expeditions to the Well ended badly, hence everyone avoiding the cursed place.

In any case, the Kaldorei managed to take the whole northwestern sector and expanded far to the east, easily defeating the trolls there and pushing them south (Zandalar, future Kezan), west (Tanaris) and east (Stranglethorn).

Legion invasion would then make people run to their respective core lands (or in Kaldorei case towards their holy mountain, as their core lands were being invaded), thereby ensuring more survivors when the cataclysm actually happened.

I still don't know what to do with Ameth'Aran and other places in Darkshore, though. I mean, both tablets in Ameth'Aran and Narassin's questline about Althalaxx are contradictory to the core (especially since Narassin was clearly close to the well when it exploded). The only way we'd be able to explain this is if he somehow managed to shield both cities and teleport them to safety (much like Dalaran was ported to Northrend). Still, why would he do that, only to sap highborne powers for his own, in the middle of cataclysmic disaster and just after he had woken up to realize he had new powers? To top it all off, there's nothing in Darkshore indicating that the towns weren't built there - after all, there are known kaldorei ruins even further west (Azuremyst) and to the south (Dire Maul).

I think the idea that 80% of the landmass sunk is very exaggerated. From all maps we have seen, that is just not possible.

Also Kalidar (Teldrassil), IoQ, Azuremyst and Bloodmyst would probably not exist since the water level would be so much higher.
I asume that the cities on the isles outside of Feralas were built after the Sundering and than got destroyed by other causes.

You all are looking way too much into this. I look at the facts, and then for the mechanism I blame magic.

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It is very fun to get an idea of what Ancient Kalimdor might have looked like. ^^
And also it is possible that Blizzard will set future games in it. Such as a Caverns of Time: War of the Ancients expansion and even a Warcraft 4 set in the past with Vrykul, Trolls, Night Elves and Aqir as the playable factions.

Yeah, but you (and others) are saying lore couldn't have happened because you can't figure out how it happened.

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I mentioned that before. The only thing I could think of is a natural barrier – like mountains – that blocked the trolls thus making them migrate more northeast instead of straight north. There should be an opening somewhere to the east of the Well though because a faction of forest trolls left the Amani empire and migrated to the center of the continent, likely becoming the dark trolls.

Darkshore makes no sense really.

You should add the Drakkari empire since the ice trolls were living up north at the time of the Sundering. Maybe add the tauren and the furbolgs since they helped during the WotA. Also Tanaris was the western edge of the Gurubashi empire. Not sure what that does to the goblin area but maybe they were just too small of a group.

It looks like some night elves did escape to another continent during the Sundering, unless they just went there later and died, because there are night elven spirits as far north as the Ruins of Shandaral in Crystalsong Forest. The mobs have names like "Shandaral Druid Spirit".

Well Blizzard is the one exaggerating then.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

IoQ?



Slightly relatedly, About the other titan facility? Strand of the Ancients. It's tropical (way out of place for Northrend), and holds a Titan vault similar to Wintergrasp. Also a likely place for the Path of the Titans to lead.

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For the Burning Hollow!

Isle of Quel'Danas.

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The holy trinity: The Tauren, the Troll and the Blood Elf (The hairy beast, the freaky cannibalist and the pervert sex monster)


(Yes, I am a Horde only player but I NEVER play Orcs)

I see...used to that being shorthanded as QD.

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Path of the Titans can be seen in Strand of the Ancients and goes past it further south. Also, let me remind you that Sholazar Basin is a very tropical land right in the middle of frozen landscape, even chilled by the northern waters. Titans do these kinds of things, probably using some form of internal warming to keep the place's temperatures above normal (kinda like a greenhouse).

SotA is supposed to be located just south of the Dragonblight and is actually called Ulduran (or Alduran). I do not know if the Path of the Titans is supposed to stretch further than that.

I just think Darkshore was originally intended to be on the other side of the continent kinda like the Azuremyst Isles seemed to be (although the lost Isles look similar to the 2 islands).

The path goes beyond it. Take a shaman and have Far Sight used on the hill above the fortress. You'll notice that the path continues past it, though it soon cuts off (as nobody should see that anyway). Even if you don't use Farsight, you'll see the path get close to the fortress, but never turning towards it.

Darkshore couldn't have been ment for the other side, as even Warcraft III displays Azshara (with the port of Nendis) there. I am actually kinda amazed that Blizzard pushed night elven home so far to the northwest, since the core of their lands was shown around Ashenvale and Azshara in the first place. They prolly tried keeping them away from Orgrimmar

Those names never made it into retail, so it is dubious if they exist.

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Some areas on the edges of the continent could have been "under" the ocean before the Sundering lowered the planet's water level.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

Indeed; I've a pet theory that Deadwind Pass was a large lake at one time, and either the Sundering or the meteor crash that formed the ley line focus at Karazhan caused it to empty into what's now the Swamp of Sorrows and the old Black Morass.

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For the Burning Hollow!