Well, this is the lore forum
Its why they are breaking down faction barriers as technology allows. The game doesn’t have the healthy numbers it needs to really support a two faction game.
Most of it is hold over from WC3 and prior lore and the fact that NE’s are related to a lot of existing lore so its logical they pop up here and there.
Like the Legion expansion, can’t talk about the first invasion and the sundering without talking about the Night Elves.
So you drag them through the mud, use them as a tool to tell the main story you need to tell and move on to the next one. Rinse and repeat.
Like for example, we need to tell a story about the Horde finding itself again, which victim should we use? Well the Night Elves are close by so they make the most sense.
See? its that easy.
Moonguard is full of alliance players 
3 Likes
Which I’m all for on various levels.
Agreed but I think a lot of these systems are so foundational to how the base game was designed that trying to merge auction houses, cross guild and cross queues that something will break if they don’t do it properly. Lots of engineers are probably currently in cubicles trying to make a 20 year old system work
I have no idea what Smallioz is talking about.
Alliance always has the BG merc up, is down to 10% warmode bonus, and if you look at the PVP leaderboard for all PVP brackets, Alliance is like 80% of it.
Ever since xfaction everything, a large population of people who were previously playing Horde moved back to Alliance because they no longer have to play Horde for groups.
2 Likes
I’m willing to believe that. Can’t imagine something so big and old being very cleancut. Especially after hearing the Classic people talk about some of their struggles.
I don’t know the numbers so it isn’t something I care enough to argue about. Like I said, I don’t have issue finding people or doing stuff when I need. And I’m nowhere near top tier competitive, so whatever. I played Horde at times in the past but their queues for everything were horrible. So I actually had an easier time for that on Alliance.
I would argue that it is in the spirit of the franchise. In 1994 the orcs won the game and burned Stormwind to the ground. In WCIII, an entire human kindgdom was lost to the Scourge. The high elves lost 90% of Silvermoon’s population and became Fel addicts. Gilneas was lost. The Orc’s planet exploded. Garrosh dropped a nuclear bomb on Theramore, etc etc.
And when the Night Elves were first introduced, their forest was immediately being cut to the ground in one of the most obnoxious levels in the game, where you basically create a lumber yard and cut down thousands of trees. Then their mountain exploded into a ball of fire in the end.
Will agree that the franchise always had a horde bias, and they wrote themselves into a corner by trying to soften the faction while simultaneously having them continue to be villains. And they 100% bit off more than they could chew with the War of Thorns and disrespected their source material.
The Night Elves are a beautiful & unique race, so I understand why their fanbase has such a hard time with their land becoming a war zone. It’s unfortunate because the game itself needs to have most of its locations be filled with war/conflict. Amirdrassil will at least be a safe haven for the race where they don’t have to constantly defend themselves
2 Likes
My favorite thing about Amirdrassil is it is pristine. None of the druid of the flame damage transitioned into the second main world zone. Its a perfect little chunk of land where I am not bombarded with all the signs of deforestation and plague and general unpleasantness.
1 Like
You could argue that but if you had searched up my post history you would see I also complained about Theramore, Southshore, Gilneas and yeah even Stormwind couple of times. The pretty sympethatic race gets victimized because we need drama 
If Blizzard blew up a million goblins or gnomes, it would be a comedy skit.
That is its only winning thing for me and Blizzard totally stumbled into it by accident, I don’t think it was even on their radar.
If Amirdrassil had a temple of the moon, and some better strategic asset placements I would have been happy.
I would call this 40% effort, if there was 40% more effort I would have been very happy.
Take couple of the stone pathway structres and put it in the center without overstepping on the water and make the central area into a plaza. The “Temple” could be a large dome upheld by large columns with the center space on the ground open. With full of moonwell water that seems to spring up from the spiral in the grown we see.
Add couple more wooden houses more interlinked to create better alleys, color their roofs into the different districts and that would have been plenty.
Really we only needed two real unique assets this temple of the moon and a custom tree for the portals to both the emerald dream and other cities, we already have the twisting circular tree branches to act as the portal entrances.
This though? They just went into their asset bank, plopped couple stuff down, linked them with roads and called it a day.
I actually agree with you, shockingly, that some stone architecture would be good to see. I would love to see the Shen’dralar get their own little enclave using legion highborne ruins assets as well.
I am not 100% sure they are done though, as grass still is sticking out of the floor of several buildings so… I shall remain hopeful on that front.
At certain point you may have to question whether the franchise is for you or not.
I do think that going forward, each race should have a safe haven that is off-limits. The rest of the world though? Not so sure
I wonder… the dream lockout that they have right now for the isle. Do you think perhaps they might just leave it up for Horde players?
What this city needs is a central location to unite the sparse houses and towers.
Even by 0.5 level of effort they could have made something really decent by just using current existing assets strategically cutting them, recoloring them and placing them to make some unique stuff.
A 100% 1.0 update would have required more verticality with stairs interlinking the branches of the tree and built in promenades into the tree but even I wasn’t that optimistic or expecting that level of dedication unless the new city was going to be a raid.
I honestly wish it was a raid rather than the weird dream thing we got.
Like I said if I see something fun worth experiencing I will play it.
Its why I have not touched Shadowlands at all. Its all garbage so I refuse to engage with it.
That would be my guess. After alliance players finish the forsaken undercity quest they are promptly kicked out of the area.
1 Like
Look for suspiciously weird looking textures or unnaturally flat planes.
If there is going to be anything, its going to be there.
The grass sticking out of the ground is not a big indicator. Its just clutter clean up.
That’s fair. Though sometimes if a franchise is a bad fit it starts to resemble masochism. I had a journey like that with Guild Wars 2
To me Night Elf aesthetic has always been cool, and It is odd, since i’m not a nature guy, But I think it is the mix of japanese and western aesthetic.
This looks good to me, But I’m hoping for some of that stonework they have, maybe some Watcher themed stuff.
1 Like
Gets my matches
I’m ready for round 2.
2 Likes
When I first entered Darnassus as a wee little lad, I really liked the stone ruin architecture more than the tree lodges. I had always hoped there would be somewhere more of that. Well my wish came true with Suramar but… yeah the Horde needed that I guess 
I guess Telogrus Rift is nice too, empty rock floating in space.