Elf Fatigue

Lore Story Forum
41

Elf fatigue? If anything I’ve seen Orcs and Humans nearly everywhere this expansion. I’m starting to get annoyed with it tbh and I’m a pretty big fan of orcs myself. I’d kill for more racial representation.

Night Elves? Too busy getting their faces kicked in and got sidelined with a single WF for placation.

Blood Elves? One side quest chain in Zuldazar in a far corner of the map, mind you. And the first, what, 5-10 minutes of Nazjatar? Oh, and Liadrin appeared as a WF commander.

Void Elves? Appeared at the Battle of Lordaeron, one or two War Campaign missions, and a handful of WQs Horde side. That’s it.

Nightborne? Once again, a side quest chain in Zuldazar and appearing sporadically in Nazjatar.

9 Likes
42

Yeah, pretty much, and that’s because of how Blizzard wrote Night Elves - basically they wrote 'em like every fantasy franchise write elves.

They’re timeless, ageless beings saturated with magic. Each has lived a lifetime longer than entire other species have EXISTED. Peerless war, with a direct channel to a goddess and the earth itself. Any individual night elf could probably pretty easily be a match for any given Dragonflgiht leader, because Blizzard wrote them to be these ultra-powerful badasses so that just one of them could make the entire continent of Kalimdor a hard place for an entire army of orcs in WC3.

You take your ubermensch elves though, and you make them a playable faction in an ongoing story, and you kind of have to give them some downgrades. Else they’d just stomp all over everything uncontested, and that’s not much of a story. Same with the draenei really, for exactly the same reasons.

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43

Wasn’t there talk ages ago about a, ‘Dark Alliance?’ That the core Alliance races had these cursed/corrupted counterparts that were getting along?

Worgen - Cursed Humans
Dark Iron Dwarves - Dark Dwarves
Void Elves - Corrupted Elves

Then there was talk about how they were getting along. Well, at least we see the velves and DID getting along a bit. Or we can surmise as much. Just need to get the Worgen in there.

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44

I quite like the sorcerous aspect of the Dark Irons. It’s taken something of a back seat recently with the focus more on flame and shamanism, which is a neat way to flesh them out, but I hope it doesn’t stay this way.

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45

Yeah, though only ever as a fan idea and theory I think.

Worgen are more or less shuffled with Night Elves and interact with them the most in BfA, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing either if they continue on with the Night Warrior concept and some of those themes spill over to Worgen more. I’d prefer that a lot in fact, and maybe even would find it cool if Worgen are affected by the Night Warrior too as their curse is directly linked with Elune.

Night Warrior Night Elves seem to also tap into some form of shadow magic, but it’s perhaps not Void in flavor but more in the “dark side of the moon” sense, which I think is a cool way to have shadow magic derive from different sources instead of being strictly tied to Void. (Thinking also of how the Light comes from different sources, whether that’s pure faith or the Sunwell.)

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46

Human fatigue is a bigger problem. Elves are interesting in the form of historical presence on Azeroth and constantly adapting to the ever changing world. They are certainly more interesting than humans who dominate the Alliance story at every turn.

Elves are awesome in the way that they change perspectives and have clear racially divided cultures. How Night Elves, Blood Elves, and now Nightborne view one another. (Void elves don’t count. They’re just blue skinned blood elves with no culture or politics that differ them beyond spooky void.)

Human fatigue is definitely a problem right now. So much so; areas where it would make so much sense for an elf to be involved… isn’t. Tyrande and Malfurion have a long bloodied history with Azshara… lets throw Jaina, Genn, and Mathias at 'em…

13 Likes
47

As much I hate to admit, elves do sell and ironically they have more flaws than the perfect mary sues humans and orcs. Still I agree with the sentiment Elves are getting the orc treatment of MoP-WoD which only generates more rencor and burnout of them as a whole.

3 Likes
48

If I can borrow and slightly alter a quote from Batman Returns:

Max Schreck: Elf fatigue? Bruce. Shame on you. No such thing. One can never have too many elves.

I think the next expansion should be nothing BUT elves. The new continent is Dorei, the Elftopia. All of its zones are devoted to a different kind of elf. High Elves become playable for the Alliance, and San’layn become playable for the Horde. Each zone has its own new capital city for the specific type of elf that lives there. The Age of the Elves has dawned.

2 Likes
49

One of the big problems with the Alliance is its heavy reliance on “Stock Fantasy Race” stuff. Elves, humans, gnomes, and dwarves? Gosh oh golly gee like we haven’t been seeing THAT team and every variation of it since the 1960’s.

It really doesn’t matter what race they use for a scenario, it will FEEL stale, dated, and predictable. Unless they used Pandaren or Draenei, then it would just seem silly (unless Azshara sunk the turtle… ooooh there we go)

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50

I think Azeroth has a new name!

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51

Really? I feel humans have been overused. Everytime I see a human being the spotlight character in what I feel should instead obviously be someone who has ties or history to X given event really grinds my gears.

For the Alliance - I’d like to see more of Velen moving forward for his people (The Draenie) / perhaps picking up some artifacts & ideas to move forward and solidify their position in Azeroth.

As for the Horde - I really thoroughly enjoyed the Tauren heritage questline and would love if they moved forward deeper into that story line of Life, death and especially: The spirits.

5 Likes
52

I don’t think I’d mind much if the next expansion took us to the other side of Azeroth, and we find no humans or orcs there.

Imagine a gigantic mountain on this continent that is the home of a kingdom of dwarves, and there’s a borderline class-warfare story division to go with it. Like, the kingdom is divided into two parts; upper and lower.

The peak of this mountain is basically a gigantic diamond, so the dwarves living in the mountain above sea-level consider it holy, and built their halls of marble with shafts and mirrors to redirect the, ‘sacred light,’ of this gem down into their halls, where the white marble captures it and spreads it, lighting the interior bright as day. You’ll find the occasional splash of color from stained glass windows. The place just gives off this feeling of extreme opulence and prosperity. The dwarves you see walking around wear thick white and blue robes. They have white beards, gold beards, copper beards, silver beards… Like, it’s a lore thing that the color of their hair/beards is based off of precious metals. The cornerstone of their society would be orders of Mages, Priests, and Druids. The three blend together as they’re aware that magic is the power of the titans.

Then you’ve got the lower part of this kingdom so deep beneath the mountain that it’s beneath sea-level. Within you find what looks like off-shoots of the Dark Iron Dwarves, but instead of the red glow, you see purple. They seem infinitely poorer than the dwarves living above, dressed more in mail and plate than clothing, and you learn it’s because cloth is expensive in this mountain. They’re also more combat oriented, because they face all kinds of horrible things the deeper they dig into the world. Their society revolves around three orders as well; warlocks, shadow priests, and shamans.

So the fun thing is… these two different kinds of dwarves are actually part of the same exact kingdom. The kingdom itself is ruled by a council with the head of each of the 6 orders sitting on it. There’s actually relative peace between the two groups. The deep dwarves trade their precious metals and gemstones to the high dwarves whom covet such materials as sacred (the deep dwarves mock them as weak metals), while the higher dwarves offer in return food that the deep dwarves can’t grow so far below the world (veggies, fruits, meat, etc…)

Just feels like an interesting set-up. No humans in sight. Heck, turn those, ‘Orders,’ into Clans and it’d probably be an even more interesting set up.

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53

Yes, please Blizzard I beg you to ignore us. We don’t want your god damn attention, take your terrible writers and go ruins Gnomes or Tauren for a change.

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54

Blizz just needs to tue up night elf stuff then lay off the elves no new elf races no elf city zones

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55

i don’t feel elf fatigue.

i feel exactly like this :

The CGI cinematics takes all the lights and focus meaning that everything else was just incredible minor, zandalar,kultiras,talanji,jaina, all minor.

This is all about the horde civil war and their spooky warchief.

But at the same time, i really enjoyed by example the horde elfs.
Like lord’themar and thalisra interacttions with genn and jaina during 8.2 and 8.2.5.

if anything i would like to see more about elfs interacting even more, veressa, alleria, and of course all the nelfs.
like, i can’t believe how incredibly minor the other 2 sisters have been.

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56

“We’re going to do this contrived and awkward thing to aggressively cater to night elves because priests getting a balance spec would be so offensive to them”

Blizzard ple-

“What’s that? every race that isn’t a night elf going balance looks incredibly dumb and has zero lore supporting it? who cares, they’re not night elves. In fact how about every nature theme is going to automatically fall within their sphere of influence”

Bli…

“Actually, this new race of victorian human werewolves that have no resemblance or similarities to Night Elves whatsoever are now going to be an extension of their lore and will never get to develop independently”

Blizzard please there are other races that exist besides Night Elves

releases DHs “WHAT’S THAT I CAN’T HEAR YOU. DO YOU LIKE NAZJATAR BY ANY CHANCE? HAVE A WARFRONT WHILE YOU THINK”

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57

i wouldnt mind a new city of night elves.

58

Sand elves.

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59

yeah thats kinda what i mean. Night Elven lore is overused these days, sure even if the night elves themselves aren’t their themes are everywhere, being shoved down other peoples throats. They kinda are the anti-stormwind. Stormwind has no themes or history being explored, yet humans dominate the narrative, night elves are a much smaller part of the narrative, yet they dominate the games themes and lore.

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60

I will admit that Reallyhappy at least has a point when it came to the Darkshore Warfront, which while it gives Forsaken gear and initially looks like a Forsaken vs. Night Elf storyline, just turned up being a Night Elf vs. Night Elf storyline.

1 Like