Can we talk about how BfA did Gilneans dirty? Coming into BfA Blizzard was like:
1) You lost your home once already? Weeelllll… how about you lose your second home in Teldrassil. LOL good luck living in the streets of Stormwind!
2) Remember how we made Gilnean NPCs have “long coats” in-game and depicted them as wearing long coats in the comics, hearthstone, etc, and then updated Genn’s model in Legion to have a long coat, and then when heritage armors were announced Worgen players were asking to have a long coat like Genn? Weellllll… we are going to give the long coat to Kul Tirans.
3) Remember how Gilneas had a dark, gothic vibe with dark forests that had monsters lurking in them while the people fight off these monsters? That whole theme that separated them from Stormwind? Welllll… we are going to give that to the Kul Tirans too with Drustvar.
4) Remember how we made Worgen “unique” druids by making them Harvest Witches who follow the “Old Ways”, but we didn’t expand on that at all and just gave them the same druid forms as Night Elves? And remember how we made the Gilneans a big part of Hallow’s End and had them be the reason for the Wicker Man practice coming to the Alliance? Welllll… we are giving the wicker connection and stuff to the Kul Tirans also with Drustvar, and giving them their own unique druids and expanding on the lore for their druids while giving them unique wicker forms. Sorry not Sorry.
5) You know how all the allied races are getting their own cool racial flag in the embassy and the Darnassian flag is there also? Welllll… we are going to add the Gilnean flag for the Heritage quest but we are just going to slap the Stormwind logo on it. You already homeless and living in Stormwind so you are part of their kingdom now right? Right… I mean your king is already licking Anduin’s boots and kissing the ground he walks on soooo.
6) Remember how for the last 10 years the Gilneans have been saying “Our curse grants us strength” yeeaaahhh forget all that. Tess Greymane is going to realize that the curse just freaking sucks, it doesn’t define the Gilneans anymore, and basically needs to die out with this generation of Worgen. Lol racial pride? Who needs that!
I am being salty today. Now I don’t believe any of this was intentional on Blizzard’s part to screw Gilneans/Worgen, at least I hope not, but man. It really feels like this race is just an afterthought to Blizzard. It feels like they took everything that made them unique and different from Stormwind Humans and gave it to the Kul Tirans. So the Kul Tirans get the themes and aesthetic of Gilneans, AND have their own kingdom and capital, where does that leave the Gilneans? It really feels like Blizzard is trying to fade them away into just assimilating into Stormwind.
Gilneas deserves better!