In an unmarked area of the map, a solitary white tower stands on the coast. This tower can be found by swimming round from northern Tirisfal Glades, staying close to the shoreline so as not to induce fatigue. Its purpose is unknown but it has been speculated that it represents an abandoned idea for allowing player to access Quel'Thalas. Other theories are that it is part of upcoming content to do with the next expansion (unlikely, at this point) or was left over from before Quel'Thalas's current form was conceived. Much of the surrounding terrain bears the hallmarks of a "cookie-cutter" terrain editor fill and it is equally possible that this location is nothing more than the result of a bored developer playing around in an unused area of the game.
If you continue past this tower, you can see that the blood elf starting area is not, in fact, part of the Eastern Kingdoms terrain. (It is not located on the Eastern Kingdoms continent server.) This can be seen in the second image, where the character is swimming in the sea, but her map shows her in the middle of the Ghostlands. Players attempting the reverse of this trick (accessing Tirisfal from the Ghostlands) will find invisible walls blocking their path.
A similar situation does exist for the draenei islands, but fatigue makes it difficult to test. Mages can climb to southern Darnassus, and mounted slow fall their way to where they should be able to make it to the Exodar, but a wall prevents it. Player death is the usual result.
Originally, Quel'Thalas was intended to be in the game at release, but was eventually postponed. When the first expansion was made, they decided to cut the nation into two zones, and to place it on the Outland continent server, making it easier to restrict access to those who had purchased the expansion. You can check this by hearthing to Outland from the blood elf or draenei zones (or vice versa) — no loading screen will appear, as your character does not need to be transferred between continent servers. This also causes the minimap arrow for party members in the blood elf zones to appear on your minimap when you are in Outland.
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The white tower at night.
Port and ruins
- The Tall White Tower 1.jpg
The hidden tower
- Map Bug 1.jpg
The map glitch
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- WoWScrnShot 111607 192057.jpg
