If they really had to use another fairy forest aesthetic. It being more fall and wintery would at least fit the whole…death aspect of the Shadowlands. I dunno, I too am kinda bored with the fairy forest aesthetic.
We already have the Emerald Dream meeting the “this is naturey things go when they die and look its nice and green and forest-y”.
Ardenweld would have benefited if it was at least more wintery.
Ok maybe, that is your personal view and nothing wrong. But it is just personal taste.
Like I have said other people like it. I myself love it. I woudl find hindu stuff boring as hell and I despised pandaria for it.
But stop claiming stuff that is just not true. The Zone has nothing to do with NEs, it has more troll elements in there than NE. The zone even retcons NE lore and diminishes it.
The Zone is meant to NOT feel connected to any race at all. Blizzard explicitly said so they wanted to do some otherworldly stuff there.
shy shoudl Trolls, Tauren or whatever feel more welcome there? NEs don’t do either.
The ONLY connection you do towards NEs are … it has trees and is purple.
But as I pointed out so does Shadowmool, Terrokar, Zandalar. Are these also NE zones? No.
So this is what I mean with you refuse to see what is.
You are so stuffed up with the idea that this is for some reason a NE zone that you lay claim to it for other races and be mad about it. Even though you just came out of an expansion that was half exclusively troll.
Shadowlands don’t cater towards ANY race at all. Not even light followers. That is the whole point of it. Shadowlands are meant to be disconnected from azeroth and a place where everyone goes no matter the planet.
And yes I meant that kyrian stuff.
I ship them!
I don’t mind part of it being fairy forest, and I wouldn’t expect every possible biome to be represented. I just think it would have been nicer to include a little bit of beach jungle and savanna to at least represent locales where different races have bonded with. Like a melancholy beach area in a corner where it looks like the sea stretches out to infinity, or a snow-dusted plain where the brush is hibernating, things like that.
What you’re talking about? I never said Fearie land is nelf zone, I said that celtic/ germanic mythos were associated with them this is why it gives nelf vibes. But my major complain was that it’s yet another boring enchanted forest no.7 (if not more).
And it retcons what exactly? The only thing that i know is weird case of Ursoc who was seen in Emerald Dream and then for some reason moved to fearieland.
And they failed. Because it doesn’tlook otherwordly. This is why I said trying different theme and mythos would’ve worked. Something that was not touched at all before.
And Germanic/ Celtic themes - but somehow you always miss this part - this is the part that makes their themes match. Not the trees.
No I said for the 5th time - that the reason why I dislike it is because it’s another Fearie forest with silly stags and unicorns. It doesn’t really explore anything new, because it’s everything we had so far just painted blue.
1/4 at best. And way to miss the point.
But it does, with the nelf plot and Loa plot.
Night Elf or not, just seems to boring to me.
Which is what I said. The Nightmare is using the Dream’s connection to these places to assault them. It doesn’t have a particular affinity for any biome, it just wants to overrun everything with red and black thorns.
I’m curious, where? Elune has a bit of a Selene/Luna motif, which is Greek/Roman. Her and Tyrande share aspects of Artemis/Diana, also Greek/Roman. And the Warrior Woman trope goes back to the Amazons, also Greek. I suppose Druids, in name only. The scant information we have on irl druids paints a very different picture than Warcraft (and most other fantasy settings’) druids.
There were a few Celtic names and locales peeking in around the edges of Gilneas and Kul Tiras. But Ardenweald is the first mostly Celtic place.
I meant the way it was presented. That you enter a zone and have connection to various domes.
Yes the druids, the fey dragons, driads and the stags and the runes / runestones. Cenrius is actually a Germanic Lord of the forest aswell.
Yeah, and I wish there was something else. Something completely new.
Those are a relatively recent creation. Mostly from DnD, and a few other 70s-80s sword and sorcery settings.
Cenarius’s name is drawn from the Celtic god Cernunnos. But he’s just a dude with antlers (he honestly looks more like Broll than anyone else). The centaur-like basis for Cenarius and his children is, again, Greek.
Incidentally though, I did forget the Wildhammer, whose blue tattoos are a nod to stereotypical Picts, and have vaguely Celtic-ish names and place names.
I mean, it seems completely new to me, from its Celtic overtones and finally, genuinely fey creatures (not just walking twigs with big heads), to it completely upending Emerald Dream lore.
When I say something completely new, I mean it. Something that was never there in WoW before. And as far as I know Celtic belief didn’t feature reincarnation.
If we’re going to the Shadowland to see new otherwordly planes and they show off pixies and stags and unicorn in enchanted forest then by any means - it is not anything new, that is repetitive.
You explained what i was thinking much better then i did. I was expecting something outlandish not another purple forest. it just seems lazy
Hey, I don’t have any issue with beautiful or natural zones. I quite like them. I just find that the ‘druid’ zones we often get tend to be rather repetitive. As I said, they could at least change up the type of forest.
If it is any consolation, I am pretty neutral on Maldraxxus too. Scourge themed wastelands don’t interest me much. Frankly none of the options in Shadowlands particularly appeal to me. For a hellish wasteland, the Maw feels rather generic to me for a fantasy landscape.
I just wish Blizzard would be a bit more imaginative. If we have to have more druid stuff every other expansion, they could at least try to spice it up with some new flavors. Does every druidic forest have to feel like a HD version of Ashenvale?
Most Horde races come from barren, challenging environments, such as deserts. or glaciated places.
Huh? no they dont, only orcs (their own fault btw) maybe goblins and now vulpera, the rest had their own cities or biomes with a reasonable amount of resources or never indicated any kind of shortage.
It is … kind of the gerneal theme, yes.
I every high fantasy settings druids are mostly associated with forests.
Yes sure nature has more than that but you woudl normally not associate a plain with a druid. It is all about associations and general feeling.
And if you want to capture that nature/druid theme, you use a forest.
Plains are more associated with the Shire for exmaple, so …more cultivated lands used for farms or animal herding.
Not necessarily feral and wild nature.
Sure you have jungles but these are more connected to trolls and their empire stuff.
Blizzard is a company that doesn’t understand subtile things or even nuences. They can only go full scale in one direction.
Jungle = trolls
Forest = nightelves
Barrens = orcs
etc.
I don’t know but for me it is something that I grew up with and that suites my own personal taste. I love forests I love trees, I LOOVE the whole NE concept and symbolics. I love Owls and moon symbols and all of that. It just is so deeply grown into my identity that I actually wouldn’t even want that to change.
I wouldn’t want a NE zone that is for example a desert. Even though a desert is nature too.
Let’s be real, It is a forest and has cold tones (purples and blues), that is why you’re thinking it reminds you of Night Elves (to the Original Poster). The actual designs don’t match night elf themes at all.
It doesn’t make sense to want a tropical jungle (which i assume is what one would associate with trolls more) or warm colors when ardenweald is supposed to be the “winter and autumn” of the emerald dream’s summer.
Also, to counter the point further of Ardenweald having too much nelf themes, From what i’ve seen, it doesn’t feature any kind of stonework, which is big in Nelf designs.
It has neutral forest themes, neutral winter themes.
is not that all druids zones look like night elves zones, it’s that all night elves zones are druidish because night elves society is deep rooted in druidism and nature
Which is an issue in itself.
We don’t have much NE culture in the game beside druidsm … there is very few that goes into the Priestsses of the Moon direction and even less Sentinel culture.
And the druid culture thus is also shared with other races and often set to neutral which hurts NE identity even more.
Except ardenweld is suppose to not just be an exclusive night elf zone its suppose to be for all races in tune with the wild and yet it feels exclusively for night elfs. If this was made to be specifically for night elfs i wouldnt have a problem but it isnt its made for beings of the wilds. Honestly if it was just all jungles i would have a problem with it as well.
Here you are:
Its you personal pereception problem that you associate everything that is a forest with NEs.
That doesn’t mean every forest is NEs.