Most people didn’t… that doesn’t mean the Night Elf RP community wasn’t irreparably damaged by War of Thorns and Teldrassil.
My experience is in the RP community, but all the OG Night Elf guilds are dead and gone now. Even my own guild has become more of a DnD Discord Server now.
If I can jump in on stuff I’d love to see in this dream scenario:
Me coming back to play Classic and only Classic doesn’t reflect positively on the War of Thorns. I don’t even have Shadowlands on my account and I never will unless they get their act together and start fixing the Kaldorei narrative instead of pretending that the War of Thorns didn’t happen.
My point is you are still paying for a subscription to play classic which is free with the subscription so Blizzard still wins. They didn’t lose anything. They still have your revenue stream.
Look, I was sad when Hamlet, Gertrude and Laertes die at the end of Hamlet, but I wouldn’t tell Shakespeare to go back and fix the narrative or I won’t buy any more tickets to the Globe ever again.
I’m not saying WoW is at the level of Shakespeare, but they had revenue of 6.4B in 2019 and their last reported quarter in 2020 shows a year over year increase of 52%. There stock went from $59 to $92 a share last year. They aren’t going to change things until they start losing revenue.
EDIT: Maybe all the night elf players can do a reverse of what happened with GameStop. They can all buy short positions on Blizzard, cancel their subscriptions, cash in, and then demand a rewrite of Teldrassil.
Scroll down to note 10 for context on that. Blizzard’s net revenues from external customers went from 392 for the three months ended September 30, 2019 to 393 for the three months ended September 30, 2020. The YTD data is a bit better, with it going from 1,113 to 1,264 - but we also have to account for the fact that 2020 had a global pandemic that saw a rise in revenues across the industry.
Most of the gains are actually coming from the Activision side of the house. FTQE 9/30/19 it was 209, and FTQE 9/30/20 it was 773. YTD 9/30/19: 794, and YTD 9/30/20 it was 2,285.
Granted, this only tells us so much because Warcraft’s revenue isn’t comparable on a year over year basis - you normally have to pay attention to the changes in deferred revenues to determine if the customer base is growing or shrinking - but I do want to point out that Blizzard didn’t get the 52% increase that your’e talking about.
Source:
http^s://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/718877/000162828020015105/atvi-20200930.htm
Clapped by the Warden that mains Accounting Spec. 
When shadowlands is over players enter back Azeroth a few years into the future.
World Revamp.
Sylvanas loyalists all over Darkshore and Ashenvale.
Scarlet Crusade style Alliance reclaimers in Trisfal and Silverpine.
Horde players reclaim northern lordaeron zones.
Alliance players reclaim nothern kalimdor zones.
Kills some baddies, some good feel cinematics for both sides and give these races new capitals and heritage armor.
Use these new capitals as the new expansion capitals to fight the next big baddie that manipulated Azeroth in another war while players (and big names like Andiun and Thrall were away).
There. Remedy to situation.
Youre welcome.
I should add as well - the Monthly Active User (MAU) trend is pretty interesting. You can see it on page 39. For some reason we’re down to 30 mm. Now, the last 10-Q that I examined seriously was the third quarter of 2019 - which was a bit of an anomaly as it saw the release in classic, and the attendant bump in MAUs (of 1 mm). It was coming off of a trend of having come down from 37 a year prior, then 35, and then 32, with BFA representing around 2 million of that in the quarter after it was released. Now we’re down to 30, which is the lowest Blizzard has ever been at (or at least in a very long time - if memory serves, they broke over 40 in 2017ish).
No see this isn’t allowed to happen because if the Night Elves get a win over Horde of any kind then the Horde players are just losing again even if they don’t have to quest through that loss they’ll be aware of it and that’s unacceptable.
If normal people read the notes on financial statements, we’d be out of a lot of work.
Nah, someone’s got to do all of the work to make sure that the financials are right at the end of the day.
The events should have made for stronger Night Elf Roleplaying Guilds. You had a major event happen to the race and that should have inspired calls for action, PVP, the works… the way that Pearl Harbor woke up the sleeping giant called America back in the day, or how the Alamo is still a rallying cry for Texas despite the fact that it was a total slaughter.
The fact that it didn’t suggest more that the cause was a lack of interest in roleplaying, possibly because of the increasing grind nature of the game… all the time that’s spent in repetitive actions in order to get things like faction based gear and flying.
Because 30mm is the best caliber when it comes to CAS.
https://giphy.com/gifs/aka-warthog-thunderbolt-EALO8hNUTnz8c
I disagree. I think the fact it didn’t do what you were expecting is a) they took our roleplaying spot away, and b) this crap is demoralizing.
I love RP, but do I want to RP as a crying refugee who can’t beat their faction rival so all there’s left to do is mope about it on the streets of Stormwind? Hell no.
If it’s good enough for the rest of the Alliance that isn’t a Bronzebeard Dwarf or a Stormwind Human to do it for a decade and a half…
I’m with you in one case only - Worgen. With gnomes, you knew what you were getting into because the inciting event was offscreen, same with Draenei, who nevertheless had a capitol city.
We’ve discussed this previously. Offscreen tragedy does not hold a candle to making players actively go through it. There’s a reason no one complains about losing Felwood or about the War of the Ancients.
Your roleplaying spot?
Are you seriously telling me that there was only one single spot in the entire game world that you could roleplay your Night Elves?
Yes yes we’ve all heard about your College Thesis in how Elves Are More Special Than Anyone Else
Darnassus was pretty substantial, and its importance came down to being convenient enough for people to actually go there to RP - there was a good critical mass there to support random RP - and the way in which it supported the notion of being something separate from Stormwind.
That’s gone now - and it’s the most easily identifiable reason for the disappearance of Night Elf RP guilds, followed again by demoralization.
Your looking at nine months ending 9/30 . I am looking at 12 months rolling and 3rd quarter year over year for Activision Blizzard. Yes it is a 52% increase.
Even if we use your numbers they are doing better. I stand but what I say. Until they start losing money they aren’t going to changer.