Alliance Boat Routes

[Allarielle]

I'd like to see more boat routes added for alliance, as well as a couple taken away.

Keep Existing:
* Menethil <> Theramore (Human ship)
* Feathermoon <> Feralas (Night Elven ship)
* Auberdine <> Rut'Theran (Night Elven ship)

Remove Existing:
* Auberdine <> SW (Human ship)
* Auberdine <> Alah'Thalas (Night Elven ship)

Add New:
* Menethil <> SW (Human ship)
* Menethil <> Alah'Thalas (High Elven ship)
* Menethil <> Southshore (Human ship)
* Auberdine <> Feathermoon (Night Elven ship)
* Auberdine <> Theramore (Human ship)

The advantages of this are several.

First is lore. The distance from SW to Alah'Thalas is only a fraction of the distance from Alah'Thalas to Auberdine - a journey of weeks, rather than months - and the humans and high elves have traditionally been allies even if relations have become strained recently. It just makes sense that the humans and dwarves would have been the first to sail to the high elves' aid, and would be the ones maintaining a constant supply route.

Second is gameplay flow. The current design feels like it pushes High Elf characters into levelling via Darkshore. My design puts them into Menethil Harbour after finishing their intro quests, making all three of the other levelling routes equidistant (more on that in a bit).

This also opens up travel that has traditionally been kind of annoying. Being able to get from the northern Night Elf stronghold to the southern one just makes sense, but it also makes it so alliance players don't have to run through either the Barrens or Desolace to get to southern Kalimdor.

As for SW <> Menethil and Menethil <> Southshore, this connects the eastern kingdoms maritime powers along trade routes they surely would have had in lore, and also makes it easier for players to get to these locations without needing to slog through Dun Morogh > Loch Modan > Wetlands or Wetlands > Arathi > Hillsbrad. The latter of those routes is particularly annoying, since at the level where Hillsbrad quests are appropriate, Arathi is almost a death run only saved by the fact that the there mobs are sparse.

Finally, this brings Menethil Harbour back to the central role it originally had. Players go to Menethil first, then from there they can easily get anywhere the Alliance holds sway. Auberdine is the centre of the Night Elves martine routes. Theramore is the centre of the human maritime routes on Kalimdor. Menethil is the centre of the Alliance maritime routes in the Eastern Kingdoms. And Stormwind once again has maritime access to the rest of the Alliance, instead of just the Night Elves.

To make this idea the best it could be, I'd also make two other relatively minor changes: I'd add a tunnel connecting Ironforge to Dun Agrath, so Dwarf players can access Menethil Habour without having to make a hero's voyage down to SW and back again or out to Loch Modan and back again, and I'd add a quest that Alliance characters can accept in Feathermoon Stronghold that flies them directly to Thalanaar, so accessing 1k Needles and Tanaris no longer involves any trekking through contested or high level territory.

Edit: If the issue of too many ships for too few docks is a problem in Menethil, the routes could be adjusted to go round robin or bouncing instead of direct - SW > Menethil > Theramore > Menethil > SW and Menethil > Southshore > Alah'Thalas > Menethil.

Edit #2: Depending on design philosophy, routes could also be added SW <> Booty Bay and Theramore <> Ratchet. Possibly Ratchet <> Steamwheedle Port?

TLDR:
* Auberdine goes to Rut'Theran, Feathermoon, and Theramore
* Theramore goes to Auberdine and Menethil
* Menethil goes to Theramore, Alah'Thalas, Southshore, and SW
* SW goes to Menethil only
* Alah'Thalas goes to Menethil only
* Feathermoon to Thalanaar is made easy mode with a free flight
* IF to Menethil is made easy mode with a walkable tunnel
* Feathermoon and Southshore are both made easy mode with new boat routes where none existed before

[Darien]

I support this, if only because Stormwind Harbour is awful and I hate it. Menethil is where it's at, and where it should continue to be at. It's another step toward restoring Ironforge to its rightful place as capital of the Alliance.

[Berdal]

While I support this, I think SW should have 3 boat routes. After all it's the alliance capital.

[Allarielle]

Maybe SW could also have a route to Booty Bay, and another to Theramore? As it stands BB and ratchet are much easier for Horde to access, so I don't think it would be completely unreasonable. There's also the idea that SW will have routes to future zones, like Kezan, Kul Tiras, Northrend, or whatever zones wind up being south of the Blasted Lands or north of the Swamp of Sorrows.

[Octosaur]

I'd like to see more boat routes added for alliance, as well as a couple taken away.

Keep Existing:
* Menethil <> Theramore (Human ship)
* Feathermoon <> Feralas (Night Elven ship)
* Auberdine <> Rut'Theran (Night Elven ship)

Remove Existing:
* Auberdine <> SW (Human ship)
* Auberdine <> Alah'Thalas (Night Elven ship)

Add New:
* Menethil <> SW (Human ship)
* Menethil <> Alah'Thalas (High Elven ship)
* Menethil <> Southshore (Human ship)
* Auberdine <> Feathermoon (Night Elven ship)
* Auberdine <> Theramore (Human ship)

The advantages of this are several.

First is lore. The distance from SW to Alah'Thalas is only a fraction of the distance from Alah'Thalas to Auberdine - a journey of weeks, rather than months - and the humans and high elves have traditionally been allies even if relations have become strained recently. It just makes sense that the humans and dwarves would have been the first to sail to the high elves' aid, and would be the ones maintaining a constant supply route.

Second is gameplay flow. The current design feels like it pushes High Elf characters into levelling via Darkshore. My design puts them into Menethil Harbour after finishing their intro quests, making all three of the other levelling routes equidistant (more on that in a bit).

This also opens up travel that has traditionally been kind of annoying. Being able to get from the northern Night Elf stronghold to the southern one just makes sense, but it also makes it so alliance players don't have to run through either the Barrens or Desolace to get to southern Kalimdor.

As for SW <> Menethil and Menethil <> Southshore, this connects the eastern kingdoms maritime powers along trade routes they surely would have had in lore, and also makes it easier for players to get to these locations without needing to slog through Dun Morogh > Loch Modan > Wetlands or Wetlands > Arathi > Hillsbrad. The latter of those routes is particularly annoying, since at the level where Hillsbrad quests are appropriate, Arathi is almost a death run only saved by the fact that the there mobs are sparse.

Finally, this brings Menethil Harbour back to the central role it originally had. Players go to Menethil first, then from there they can easily get anywhere the Alliance holds sway. Auberdine is the centre of the Night Elves martine routes. Theramore is the centre of the human maritime routes on Kalimdor. Menethil is the centre of the Alliance maritime routes in the Eastern Kingdoms. And Stormwind once again has maritime access to the rest of the Alliance, instead of just the Night Elves.

To make this idea the best it could be, I'd also make two other relatively minor changes: I'd add a tunnel connecting Ironforge to Dun Agrath, so Dwarf players can access Menethil Habour without having to make a hero's voyage down to SW and back again or out to Loch Modan and back again, and I'd add a quest that Alliance characters can accept in Feathermoon Stronghold that flies them directly to Thalanaar, so accessing 1k Needles and Tanaris no longer involves any trekking through contested or high level territory.

Edit: If the issue of too many ships for too few docks is a problem in Menethil, the routes could be adjusted to go round robin or bouncing instead of direct - SW > Menethil > Theramore > Menethil > SW and Menethil > Southshore > Alah'Thalas > Menethil.

Edit #2: Depending on design philosophy, routes could also be added SW <> Booty Bay and Theramore <> Ratchet. Possibly Ratchet <> Steamwheedle Port?

TLDR:
* Auberdine goes to Rut'Theran, Feathermoon, and Theramore
* Theramore goes to Auberdine and Menethil
* Menethil goes to Theramore, Alah'Thalas, Southshore, and SW
* SW goes to Menethil only
* Alah'Thalas goes to Menethil only
* Feathermoon to Thalanaar is made easy mode with a free flight
* IF to Menethil is made easy mode with a walkable tunnel
* Feathermoon and Southshore are both made easy mode with new boat routes where none existed before

I'm not a fan of any of these as changes.

Feathermoon is neat for RP but is effectively unnecessary because Theramore is a much better FP location which is more central to places that matter so you're only really making it notably easier to get to Feathermoon and Silithus, both of which aren't that hard to get to from Theramore to begin with and both of which benefit from their zones feeling isolated.

Moreover the reason Auberdine being accessible from Stormwind is advantageous is all low-level questing zones are easily reachable by all playable races with very little confusion as to where to go and quests from those zones flow together more naturally. The same is true for Menethil-Theramore which have far more similar levelling brackets. Alah'thalas to Stormwind is thus also unnecessary because it would only save a single boat-ride so whilst it makes more logical sense it's still not really necessary gameplay-wise.

Menethil-Southshore has potential in that it links two relatively similarly-levelled zones but Southshore should really have a lot more quests if that's the goal, otherwise the natural levelling path takes you along the flight-points of Arathi and through to Hinterlands/Chillwind and for such a small distance the only reason to really have the boat would be so lower levels can skip Arathi Highlands which... they kinda already can if they just swim but I can see the convenience of it.

Stormwind doesn't need to go to Menethil because the Deeprun already goes to Ironforge, and whilst I'm not against a tunnel you still would end up having to cross through high level mobs on the journey from Hawk's Vigil down to Menethil so it's cool but not a whole lot more beneficial than using the FPs, especially as there will be no low-level need to travel to Menethil because there's no need to change the current ferries.

I'm not against shifting stuff around but I don't see an actual need for any of these changes given the current system is a lot more functional for allowing easy traversal for low-level characters who don't have access to mounts and who are at risk from mobs. I don't think we need to make Menethil the centre of the maritime world, especially as it only used to be that way because Stomwind's far larger and more useful port wasn't in the game.

If places like Kul Tiras are added in future I can see a need for more sea-lanes but as it stands I think what we have works fine.