The Insider recently sat down with the World of Warcraft design team and learned more about Silvermoon City, one of the two new capitals that will be introduced in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Read on to see the ideas that led to the rise of the blood elf capital, and its rebirth from the ashes of the Third War...

The Scarred City

The rich and detailed history of Silvermoon City provided the dev team with a wealth of possibilities from which to weave the blood elves' mystically-charged capital. One of the central themes of Silvermoon is the idea that it is the scarred descendent of a once-proud elven metropolis. When Arthas and the Scourge plowed through the defenses of Silvermoon during the Third War (a tragic event that occurred in the timeline of Warcraft III: The Reign of Chaos), they tore a path of destruction through the city and the surrounding landscape. In The Burning Crusade. this translates into a divided Silvermoon. The blood elves' capital is split in half, with one side recently restored to its former grandeur, while the other is abandoned and left to ruin.

Before the coming of the Scourge, Silvermoon City was the heart and the capital of Quel'Thalas, the high elves' magic kingdom. Quel'Thalas was an idyllic sanctuary in where the high elves could pursue their arcane studies. For close to seven millennia, the elven kingdom and its capital Silvermoon stood, and the homeland of the high elves flourished. But all this changed when the Scourge came to claim the most sacred and precious possession of the High Elven nation – the arcane energies of the Sunwell, located at the heart of Silvermoon. By the time Arthas and his army of the dead turned southward, no one remained in Quel'Thalas – at least no one living.

With the design of Silvermoon City, the dev team sought to capture this pivotal event in blood elf history. In a way, Silvermoon also serves as a look into the psyche of the blood elves as a whole, and as we'll see, not everything is quite right in the newly rebuilt capital.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

What does elven architecture look like? In previous Warcraft games, players could only catch brief glimpses of the magnificent and otherworldly constructions of Azeroth's high elves. As players led their armies through the forests of Quel'Thalas or whittled down the high elves' defenses in Warcraft III, they caught brief peeks at elven structures. In World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, players will be able to take a much more detailed look at the blood elf way of life.

The blood elves are trapped in a struggle with their hunger for magic, caught between mastering this desire or letting it master them, and the duality of Silvermoon reflects their inner struggle. One side ruined, one side restored to its former glory; magnificent on the outside, lingering darkness on the inside. Small details like floating flowerpots and the omnipresent glowing green crystals further underline the idea that the rulers of this city are completely drunk on magic. But the truly interesting insights reveal themselves when players look closer at what is going on in Silvermoon City. Beyond the luscious avenues, behind the rich billowing curtains, lie dark and gloomy interiors, and those who explore the other side of Silvermoon City may find that the city's beautiful facade serves only to hide the true, more-sinister side of the city...