An RPer's reflection on Darnassus - four years after logging out for the last time

Lore Story Forum
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I wasn’t intending to make this post, but this process went somewhat differently from what I expected.

As I indicated in another thread, I made peace with the idea of subscribing for a month so that I could raise several topics to discuss the state of the lore, the game, general principles, and what would be required to get me, a Night Elf fan, to return to being a regular customer. For the full story on what incited me to finally do that - there’s a thread you can consult. This is a story about something I ended up doing before I could post.

I unsubscribed towards the end of Warlords of Draenor because I didn’t trust Dave Kosak with an entire expansion of Night Elf lore (given Val’sharah I feel somewhat vindicated), and because I didn’t like the PVP changes. My friends were kind of in the same position I was, and while I was working out a way to put up with the new environment, they convinced me to quit. So I did.

On the final night that I played this character, I logged out while she was standing on one of the ledges in the Temple of the Moon. It’s the one on the right as you walk into the temple itself, near the tree. Back when I would roam the city for random RP - as Cenarion Circle shared a phase with the big RP realms, I would occasionally stand there and emote the character ruffling her (warden) cloak, or popping a coffee bean into her mouth. The latter was this little character quirk that I introduced, where she got confused about how humans enjoyed coffee, and ended up carrying a bag of beans around to snack on. It was somewhat fitting to find her standing there when I logged back in this evening.

I was expecting that this would be quick and efficient. I’d register to the game that the character was alive so that the forums would recognize it. Maybe take a couple of pictures for those interested in what the character used to look like, that sort of thing. But to my surprise, people remembered me. See, Cenarion Circle has OOC channels for its RP community - and I tried to be active in it. Apparently all of those times of going out to Ironforge for Troubadour night, where my character would proceed to tell horrifying cautionary tale stories about cute little animals getting killed - all in deadpan - made an impression. So as I was talking to the community that I used to RP with, I started out into the city.

To no one’s surprise, it was a ghost town. I think I saw one other player character in the whole city. I was expecting that. What I wasn’t expecting was how eerie and how depressing that felt to me. Because of the phasing, while sure, things were sparse, you could always find some people out doing something, and some of those people you could walk up to and have a conversation with. Today there was just… nothing. The city really was dead, empty. It was like I was a character in the Langoliers because frankly? I kind of was.

Meanwhile I’m talking with some folks in the OOC channel, talking about life, why I’m back, the limited nature of why I’m back (I’m only subbing for a month here, after all), about how work is going, that sort of thing. I didn’t really have the heart to tell them why I was upset with the lore of course, although they know now that I’ll be posting here for a bit again, so I guess it won’t take them long. But I remember them saying "oh! I’ll get on " - the name escapes me, sadly. That’s when I explained again that I wouldn’t be around for long and that I certainly wouldn’t want to RP - how could I? The idea of it, in the retail environment? That’s just too depressing for me.

I ended up semi-seriously picking new talents. I had a free opportunity to do so after all. The PVP talents were… interesting I guess, not that I’d find much use for them now. Back when I played, I tried my very hardest to be the best that I could be, working hard to get Best-in-Slot gear. I did this for RP reasons as well - I figured that if I was going to RP as a warden, then I better have the martial chops to back it up. What would the point be now, though? The entire fantasy of even being competent is just… gone.

I didn’t intend to open my time here by being this melancholy, but, this is why I get worked up over the lore given what’s happened. I used to say that Teldrassil wasn’t the big thing that mattered in my opinion. It was the fact that the playable race appeared to be comprehensively humiliated in an onscreen celebration of Horde formidability that Blizzard refuses to let us make up for. Today gave me an education about why Teldrassil and Darnassus actually did matter to me.

For those reading this though, I hope this lets you somewhat in to my thought process to underline how events like the War of the Thorns, which we are still living with today, can completely destroy any and all motivation to play, let alone pay for the game. I subscribed thinking that I’d do so for a month, say my peace, get it memorialized, and be gone. I didn’t expect that the mere act of registering that my character existed was going to hit me quite like this, however.

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I sympathize greatly with your plight. For a lot of people the game world was a place of familiarity and camaraderie away from the plights of life. It saddens me greatly to see an invested player-base torn apart and divided by terrible decisions in the narrative. I always likened it to a model train set. It is extremely hard to craft something intricate and complex for people to marvel at and enjoy for years. It is very easy to destroy it all with firecrackers for cheap shock value. That’s what the whole of BFA felt like. “How can we smash apart the world for maximum views?” And damn the consequences for those invested.

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I’ve seen similar sentiments regarding a very similar event done in another MMO, and one I suspect Blizzard tried to emulate: The destruction of Lion’s Arch in Guild Wars 2. It wasn’t around for nearly as long as Darnassus, but given the much more central nature of it I find comparing them to be pretty fair in terms of their impact on players, roleplayers especially (I started RPing in GW2).

Even after it was rebuilt, it wasn’t the same, and while the new version looks neat, it lacks the same feel as the old one, which is gone forever. At this point the ‘new’ version has been around longer than the old one, but the sentiment remains.

I will say that GW2 handled their version far better than Blizzard did, and that’s saying something, given the story arc was… questionable at times.

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you people never gonna stop whining about that tree

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Cool. Thanks for chiming in 3 years late to say the same thing every other NE player has said 100 times already, but wordier.

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I get you, champ, I really do. I don’t think the gesture was lost on anyone. Heck, BFA was so bad for me that I didn’t even make it past the midway point. It was just… urgh. Mechanical shortcomings aside, the story context was miserable and demoralizing to play through.

Now I’m back for Shadowlands, and I guess I’m having fun (mechanically, anyways. This is a pretty low bar after BFA. The story is really muteable. Not in the fun kind of muteable, but, high drama, the stakes have never been higher nonsense.) but BFA has done a lot of damage for just about every aspect of the story I cared about and I’m not sure if I have the trust to see it given the appropriate care by the people currently behind the reins.

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Yeah - I’ve been active on a few discords since BFA launched, and it hasn’t escaped my attention that a lot of Horde players have hated BFA for justifiable reasons as well. My sympathies go out to you as well, because I know that the vast majority of you didn’t ask for this - and I hope that in my time here, we can agree on a few proposals that will resolve those matters as well.

I guess on the point of trust, I get where you’re coming from. My ability to trust Blizzard with anything ran out in MOP, which brought me to the point of arguing on these boards in WOD against any and all proposals for Night Elf content of any stripe because of that lack of trust. I can’t say I was wrong, but things weren’t as bad then - they are that bad now. Something has to be done to repair the game, and I know that in a limited fashion, they DO listen to what’s being said here. Do I take the risk of them twisting those suggestions in their weird and awful little Blizzard way? Yes, but there’s also a chance that by nudging the conversation more towards solutions and a focused look at what went wrong and why, that something could change for the better. I guess what I’m saying is - listen to that lack of trust - it’s telling you something, but don’t let it preclude you from presenting solutions.

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I dont wanna be a debby downer however i believe you should just curb this expectations, several months before SL release we had lots of discussions trying desperately to get to a compromise.

Nobody could agree on anything except maybe 1 thing, yeah bfa was such a disaster to the lore the most we could agree was that blizzard screwed the lore FUBAR.

There is no coming back from this one, once your fantasy is broken suspension of disbelief goes out of the window which is why both factions are trying to reassert their fantasy however some solutions are just incompatible.

Look, you know what i want? i want the entire horde razed whatever means necesary, they dont deserve to be on azeroth now more than ever, however i know im not getting that since there are people playing the horde that didnt asked for this crappy story, unfortunatly that would be the only way for me to reassert my fantasy since whatever this is that im playing is not what i was sold when i rolled night elf, hell this entire game is supposed to be a power fantasy.

From my point of view there are too many people to appease so a big chunk of them is going to go unsatisfied, personally im here because of my guild to raid and morbid fascination and not of the good kind, bfa’s story was super disgusting to say the least i feel i was basically conned to buy an expansion on false pretenses.

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You could be talking about Orgrimmar here, at least as far as retail goes. (Not trying to make any kind of “gotcha” point, just saying that this effect is already in WoW.)

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It is a wonderful post, and well thought out. Even if it of course has been said several times prior. I do however have to mention, that this part never really existed in game or in the short stories.

Throughout the course of BfA, the Horde won one battle. Barely. And that was the WoT, the battle we had to win to forever mar us as the villains of the story (even into SLs). That sole victory was not a celebration of “Horde Formidability” as it was repeatedly reinforced that had both Tyrande and Malf been on the field at the same time, the entire Horde combined could not hope to win against a single Alliance race. From that point on (when Teld wasn’t very clearly being kept out of the Horde BfA story) … that war and that event were purely used as a means for the writers to constantly shame the Horde playerbase. Which, even in SLs, they are still doing. This was never settup as a matter of pride for anyone but a small vocal minority.

The NE position by the end of BfA is truly disgusting and miserable, there can be no doubt about that. But they are not the only ones. The Horde Faction Identity has likely been irreparably damaged from all this, and several of our core Racial Fantasies have been left deader than the Forsaken. That doesn’t even get into our miserable Character roster situation. All to allow Sylvanas to settup SLs. In short, BfA was a mess.

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Hello Droite,

I’m certainly familiar with your argument, and I tend to discount it on the basis of presentation, framing, and aesthetics. This is a visual and interactive medium - and visuals overwhelm text when it comes to memorability and impact. Here are some facts to chew on:

The human brain can process entire images that the eye sees for as little as 13 milliseconds.
People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than those following directions without illustrations.
Approximiately 65% of the population are visual learners.
People remember up to 80% of what they see, compared to only 20% of what they read.
Viewers retain 95% of a video’s message compared to 10% when reading text.
One minute of video is worth up to 1.8 million words.

I don’t have the trust level to post links yet, so apologies for breaking this up and omitting the http:/ - but you can find my sources for those statements here.

forums. scrollsoflore. com/showpost.php?p=1626429&postcount=300

But to drive the point home, I’ll quote Lindsay Ellis: “Framing and aesthetics supersede the rest of the text. Always. Always. Always.”

What I’m getting at is this. I read Elegy and A Good War. I am aware that Nathanos stated that the Horde was losing on every front. I learned about that developer interview where they announced the winners of the Warfronts too - but when I look at what the game’s visual and interactive language is telling me, it’s not that I hold a candle to your faction - and that’s completely demoralizing.

I’d like to pause here as well to note - a vanishingly small percentage of the population is as well versed in these things as we are. Most people don’t even read quest text, but they do passively engage with what’s put in front of your faces. Our lizard brains do the same thing, which for players like me produces a feeling of cognitive dissonance when we’re told that the Night Elves put up an incredible defense and are worthy of being respected as a playable race, but we’re shown an experience that was built from the ground-up to be a tragedy. It’s not good enough that a fact is simply established - it has to be made clear if it is to matter.

The War of the Thorns had two prepatch questlines, a massive marketing campaign, several novellas, and two cinematics - all showcasing the power of the Horde and downplaying the paper-strength of the Night Elves’ resistance. Darkshore was fantastically flawed - not completely terrible, but it didn’t come close to making up for that - and if we are to have a balanced rivalry again, something does have to make up for that. The closest thing that I can come up with that strikes at your experience is Dazar’alor, which I argue the trolls need to hit back for - but it’s also not something that remedies the problem from my perspective because, well, I don’t play a human. Faction balance unfortunately isn’t fully achieved by “just give the Alliance a win and give the Horde a win” - there are subcultures, and they ALL need to be catered to.

I am with you entirely on the point of the story shaming the Horde playerbase. This is a problem, that problem needs a remedy too. It is, however, a different problem from the one that I’m drawing a line under. It also requires a different solution.

I’ll be blunt, I’ve read a lot of your commentary over the past couple of years, and you do strike me as someone who generally doesn’t pay heed to what other players within the franchise want. I do stand by what I said in the other thread. That said, if I’ve been misreading you, then I look forward to discussing how both situations can be remedied.

Look, you know what i want? i want the entire horde razed whatever means necesary, they dont deserve to be on azeroth now more than ever, however i know im not getting that since there are people playing the horde that didnt asked for this crappy story, unfortunatly that would be the only way for me to reassert my fantasy since whatever this is that im playing is not what i was sold when i rolled night elf, hell this entire game is supposed to be a power fantasy.

Regarding this - I want to move away from this framework that in order to feel powerful, we have to destroy other peoples’ enjoyment. It should be obvious by now that Teldrassil was a mistake. It wasn’t something that should have been done to ANY playable faction, and merely repeating something like that on Orgrimmar or Thunder Bluff would only compound those issues for other players. There is no question in my mind that the Night Elves need a big onscreen win. Yes, it has to be against the Horde - but, no, we are being irresponsible if we propose to them: “penance content” that they just have to suck down like we did.

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To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what part of my post you take issues with? Because if you are going to discount content and purely focus on a “Framing” and “Aesthetics” level … then under no circumstances was Teldrassil or the WoT ever portrayed as a “Celebration of Horde Formidability”. Unless what you are doing is exclusively looking at these events through the Lens of an Alliance/NE player, and simply making assumptions about the Lens the Horde was given. For example, since you just came back, have you taken the time to play the Horde side of BfA to get a window into the framing and aesthetics we were presented?

Every single cinematic within BfA that deals with the Burning of Teldrassil portrays it as (without question) a horrific, shameful, and terrible thing. Saurfang’s entire character arc is centered around his dispaire of that event, concluding with “The Negotiation” where he (a Horde legend) admits that the Horde never had Honor. Only that the next generation may deserve a chance at it. And beyond those cinematics, and one Saurfang quest, Teldrassil is actually alarmingly absent from the Horde BfA story. I think, its mentioned once by Lor’themar … in a really passive way. As if Blizz was hiding it (which they were).

Never at any point (beyond Blizz’s own writers bubble) was the WoT or the Burning of Teld ever portrayed as even a good thing for the Horde. Let alone some reinforcement of our “Formidability”.

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First off - not sure what happened with my first reply to you. I can’t see it anymore - but I’m glad to see that it made its way to you.

I think the disconnect here is that you’re not separating the Horde’s sense of competence from its sense of relatedness. I am. Those are different pillars of motivation for playing video games, and they have different inputs. I am coming at this from a competence point of view. You’re coming at it from a relatedness point of view. The framing and the aesthetics present the Horde as unmistakably competent - the quests, the art, and the cinematics present you as an unstoppable conquering army that would make a Warcraft 2 fan proud. But as you pointed out - it’s also presented as a horrific, shameful, and terrible thing.

This leaves us with two problems. For me - I’m not motivated to participate in the faction rivalry because I am given this feeling that no matter how well I do in the actual game - and I was an endgame PVPer, that’s what my gameplay content was - my side will always lose. I will always be presented as something that my faction rival can effortlessly cast aside. Again, I have Elegy and A Good War to cling to - but those don’t have anywhere near the impact that visuals do, and they certainly do not matter unless you’re in like… the 5% of the population that will actually read those.

For you? You were lied to, repeatedly, about what your faction was and what it stood for. You were railroaded into being the bad guy in a standard good versus evil narrative that Blizzard decided to push - without really caring that this sort of thing was incompatible with the rivalry-based MMO that they had created, and with what they had initially sold their players.

Past that, I am not getting into a comparison fight with you. I’m just going to offer you this deal. I’ll listen to and respect your problems if you do the same for mine. I’m happy to discuss different solutions, but we’re not going to get there if we spend all of this time minimizing each others’ problems.

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I’m frankly not sure where you’re getting this either. Unless again, you’re only looking at it from a NE/Alliance viewpoint. The Horde was really weird in the WoT, especially if you played the prepatch on the Horde side. The Faction itself seems to have been suppressed and regressed to relying on tech and tactics dating back to BC. With the exception of a few Cata era gob shredders littered around. A great example of this being the SUPER catapults we used against Teld, when the Horde does actually have seige equipment now that could span that distance. Rocket propulsion is not a new thing.

You have Orc troops blindly rushing into Wisp Walls to their mass deaths. You have us only being able to break the Ancient lines of the NEs through a very lucky find of Azerite deposits in the area. You have us having to find a “smugglers path” to get behind NE forces, because they had us completely locked down Zorom’Gar. Above all, you have the Horde making an apparent plan to invade a Skyscraper sized Tree on an Island in a Sea … with no means to get there. No Airships, No Zepplins, and the only ships we canonically had were a handful of ones we somehow stole from the NEs.

“Competent” isn’t what I’d classify the Horde as during the WoT. If viewed from the Horde side.

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Again, I’m aware of all of that - when War of the Thorns was being released, I viewed videos of the quests as I was putting together my commentary. I also saw the art and the cinematics. I’m well versed in this content, and I think at this point you’re trying to isolate elements that do not matter to the overall point of the content, elements that require you injecting your perspective as a lore nerd - most people aren’t lore nerds. They’re not thinking “oh, where are the shredders and airships?” They’re thinking “oh, look at those poor Night Elves getting crushed by the big evil Horde” - that’s how Blizzard wanted it, and that’s what they delivered.

I think overall I can see where this conversation is going, and I’m not interested in following it any further. The only thing I would leave you with is that I try to think in terms of what a member of the general audience sees in this content, versus what those of us with a full grasp of the lore know. My method of analysis considers how the story is told overall, as opposed to focusing on tiny lore details and text.

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After Sylvanas is killed let’s audit the Horde, that should be punishment enough for destroying Teldrassil

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Audits aren’t adversarial in nature. Audits are a regular process that’s there to ensure reliability in the subject matter - and it’s typically better for auditors to have a cordial, but professionally skeptical relationship with their audit clients.

Just wanted to clear the air!

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I’m glad, at long last, in 2021, the long unanswered question of “Are Night Elf fans upset and why?” has been resolved.

It took a while to get here, as that community is famously reserved and quiet, but finally we know.

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I will miss Teldrassil as much as you do.

But I take issue with the characterisation of the War of Thorns as a humiliation of the Night Elves.

Lordaeron fell from within, Quel’thelas was literally rolled over by Arthas’ Scourge after one of it’s own betrayed their trust.

Darkshore and Teldrassil did not fall that way. The Horde bled for every inch of forest it took and only Saurfang’s generalship during a time when the Night Elf’s best had been diverted away gave them the victory they got.

It was a heck of a lot more than the Forsaken got when Lordaeron was sieged and blighted.

Cannonically speaking the Alliance won both Warfronts so the Night Elves do have some redress for their losses while the Forsaken have none, and have again to face being regarded as villains by their own faction… again.

If you’re expecting the Night Elves to roll over lore because they’re your favorite race, then you’re probably right in resigning further play.

I can’t say that you’ll find what you need in Shadowlands because your expectations seem to be beyond that which you can expect to find.

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As a rule, its generally not a good idea to back up your stance by moving goal posts 4 times in 4 posts. Nor is ending each of your posts with “I dont want to discuss this with with you, I know where this is going”.

You made the argument that BfA was a “Onscreen Celebration of Horde Formidability”, I gave content from the game that shows its anything but that. You then made the argument that content is not as important as Framing and Aesthetics. I then countered by using the cinematics and the Horde story that neither the Framing or Aesthetics were evidence of your claim of Horde Formidability. You then shifted to competence being the defining point, specifically competence shown in Game. I then used actual examples from the Horde WoT pre-event showing competence being in short supply (outside of the boats, thats just dumb). Finally, you shifted to “we should look at it through the general audiences eyes”. Pretty sure the general audience made up their mind about who was good and who was bad purely based on who was the more conventionally attractive. Anything after that is simple reaffirmation of biases.

I make no secret about me generally disliking the conceptual NE Racial Fantasy, so you got me on that. It is not my cup of tea, I prefer underdog stories, and the NEs are anything but. But your method of “analysis” seems to be starting with a Conclusion and then went into the content viewing everything from that lens to reinforce it. Or at least that is what moving goalposts like that indicates.

EDIT: And btw I am a Lindsey Ellis fan too. Her video essays are great.

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