It’s just unfortunate how quick the community is to jump to conclusions and melt down. A lot of us tried to point out that this bleak narrative was nothing more than doomer headcanon, and we were villainized. The OP was sooooo combative too. What a waste of his energy (and ours)
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Both sides are at fault tbh.
Some NE fans (myself included) have become cynical about kaldorei content after years of being mistreated by the story but we have to admit many posters here love jumping to any NE topic to say they are tired of participating in elven topics and look for every oportunity to basically stalk NE fans to contradict their views.
This is a never ending cycle.
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My problem with the Nelf community is that they are consistently jumping to the worst possible conclusions whenever anything in the story is left vague. And then we are told that the burden of proof is on US to prove otherwise, and we’re treated with hostility if we don’t want to blindly accept their interpretation of the story.
I am trying to have more empathy since a lot of people seem to be genuinely distressed by this storyline, but it is hard because the Nelf community has become so toxic. I feel bad for that poor guy that excitedly posted those pictures of Amirdrassil and was immediately bombarded by negativity. I think we are going to see more Nelf fans who are ready to move on and I’m curious how the doom-brigade is going to handle that
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I am definitely a Kaldorei Fan. I always have been, I just did not jump to the worst case conclusion. There was no reasonable way they were going to just abandon so much land. It seemed nuts to me to consider it as possibility, particularly with the fact Amirdrassil is intended as the final payoff for all the suffering of BFA-SL. They could of left it undeveloped very easily. Or left it in a construction state like Brill is now for an expansion or two. They chose to go the extra mile despite the costs in manpower it incurred.
Now… There are a few things that make it better. Making the default darkshore phase the alliance victory one and removing the blight from Lor’danel be excellent. They could put the portal in town instead of randomly on the beach in the past.
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Uhm…
So here’s the thing that outsiders see and you can’t from the inside, and why the whole “both sides are bad” argument falls flat.
BfA was objectively bad for night elves, no doubt there.
Shadowlands really wasn’t though.
Yeah, ok, the whole souls sent to the Maw hurts. But that’s not “night elf mistreatment” because everyone’s souls went to the Maw in BfA. All races. Humans, orcs, blood elves, dwarves, trolls, tauren and yes. Night elves too.
But which race got a special questline to save their lost souls? Night elves. Which race got a continuation of their story where their leader got portrayed as a bad momma? Night elves (though she was also going crazy, which is just a trend for powerful humanoid women for Blizzard). Who got a special follow-up to offer a degree of closure from the BfA wounds? Night elves.
Fans of other races would love that amount of content. To outsiders, it does not look bad at all. Yet, somehow it’s more “night elf mistreatment”.
And this is amidst years of expansion the backstory of the night elves. Legion showed us Suramar, gave us Val’sharah and the Emerald Nightmare (which yes, are both “druid stuff”, but “druid stuff” is heavily night elf themed), gave us Azsuna.
Cata gave us too much to begin listing, including Malfurion’s ultimate return.
There’s even small bits for night elves in Wrath and MoP.
And somehow, all of that frequently gets dismissed by a subset of a subset of night elf fans in favor of claiming it’s all been always bad. Even the good stuff gets nitpicked until it’s bad.
Hell. Most night elf fans look at Amirdrassil as a good thing, including some of the most vocal doom’n’gloomers around. And yet somehow, there’s still this subset looking at it and saying “but it’s not on Kalimdor tho, and Blizzard called it a new home, so OBVIOUSLY that means they will stop living anywhere else and all only be in this one place and they totally gave up on Kalimdor” even though nothing anyone said even implies that.
I don’t mean this to target you. I’m not trying to put you into the same category of those people who are never satisfied and insist on twisting every positive into a negative. Again, I’m not saying nor implying you’re doing this.
And maybe you do agree with some of their points, but have a more rational reason behind your logic. Maybe you agree with some and not all, or none at all but sympathize with their anguish. Or maybe you’ve got nothing in common with them at all.
And don’t get me wrong, there are absolutely groups of sub-sets of sub-sets of fans for other races who are displaying this same level of monofixation and narrative twisting to maketheir own favorites into the most oppressed of all times. The cult-like “Sylvanas did nothing wrong” fans, the “Garrosh did nothing wrong” fans, Male Human Paladins who don’t understand why Blizzard won’t just delete all forsaken characters and force forsaken players to race change just so they can get Lordaeron back and are personally IRL oppressed because it hasn’t happened yet, a worgen or two (there’s just not many worgen) with their worgen complaints, every race has some group of culty superfans who do this crap.
Except blood elves, because 99% of all blood elf mains are well-reasoning and intelligent, witty, charmers with very level-headed and based takes. Most void elf mains fit into this category, because they’re just blood elf mains who wanted to live in a real city you could fly in.
Ahem. Anyway.
So no, this isn’t a “both sides are equal” thing. Because one side is starting with a very flawed, monofocused position where everything positive is secretly negative and the whole world is against them.
And the other side is everyone who disagrees with them.
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I’m not replying wanting to pick a fight but I could argue just as some of us falls into your category of unsatisfied NE players, you in some way fall into that group of players who simply dismiss what we say without much of a thought and here’s why I say it:
Cataclysm: It was overall not a bad expansion. We fought back the Horde from our lands yes but sadly we never saw the fruits of our wins. Hyjal was a good zone full of Night Elf lore, we got our beloved Wild Gods back but at the same time we lost the to Neutrality. In the end a balanced and solid expansion.
MoP: There the real bad trend began. Night Elves got a “vision” to go to Pandaria because there was a way to regain immortality but it was a lie. Nothing really bad about it. Then in “A Little Patience” we witness our leader Tyrande kneel to Varian admiting he was best and knew better so he should lead her army. All this because Varian came up with a lousy plan to defeat Orcs without a bloodbath but nobody remembers he was gonna do the same as Tyrande but because of Anduin he learned about the Sha and the effects a fight in that area represented but still he failed to communicate that to Tyrande. It was all set up to prop him up as our “High King”. Blizz then said amazing things were on our way regarding Night Elves. NE got in charge of the defense of the Divine Bell and were utterly annihilated, got Darnassus infiltrated and the Bell was stolen under their noses. Finally in another post we were promised a Tyrande big moment and all she did was open the doors of Orgrimmar and leave. Amazing expansion.
Draenor: Meh?
Legion: I’d argue it should’ve been the time to show what Night Elves were really capable of as they by that point where somewhat expert at fighting the Legion but were relegated to the sideline. Emerald Nightmare raid was ok so I’m happy. Tomb of Sargeras, the place where Tyrande studied, where we face her mentor, the pinnacle of the Sisterhood of Elune and she wasnt even a part of that. I enjoyed it despite my complains.
BfA: We can all agree it was open season against Night Elves from every front you could think of. Teldrassil destroyed. Tyrande doing the Night Warrior ritual which was framed as the biggest and baddest of all powers, she was empowered by Elune herself and in the exact same scenario she and Malfurion proced to lose against Nathanos. We never hear from Tyrande again. Devs said she was busy doing NW stuff but somehow she had time to witness Anduin get a new ship. Azshara shows up, one of the core enemies of Night Elves and Tyrande, we get to go to Nazjatar and to our surprise that patch was stolen by Jaina. It was painful to quest there and see Jaine teach history lessons about Nazjatar to Shandris who was alive at that time and new the place. Yay Human Potential. Later it was framed she was being consumed by Vengance and all she wanted was to kill Sylvanas but for some reason now that everyone was gathered at the gates of Orgrimmar she refuses to attack because she was busy?
Shadowlands: You say wasn’t really that bad. Ardenweald was a retconed that came out of nowhere. Up untill Legion we SAW first hand how when ancients and Wild Gods die they went directly to the Emerald Dream to regenerate and reborn later. Same thing happened in Cata but now they have to go to this cycle and because of that we lost Ursoc. Years of build up the Night Warrior only to have Elune turn it off and let Sylvanas escape for reasons. Finally we get to see our Goddess and she was a made to look like a clueless being not knowing what happened to the souls of her so called favorite children and in response to learning about the Maw all Elune could say was “Opps I’m sad”. Awesome first appearance. Sylvanas was deus ex machina out of troubles whe she got a “missing piece” back and for that all souls have to wait untill she saves them.
Dragonflight: Yes, we are getting “nice things” but really there was no need to place a new city on another continent. We are told we have all our lands back so why then go that far?
So anyway I know there are good things for Night Elves but to simply deny there are no valid reasons for players to be upset about is wrong. Things always come with strings attached and no amount of content could make up for the bad taste we are left with. Remember that not all content is good content. That’s why many just want Blizzard to forget about NE because everytime they write a story we know bad things are coming.
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They still do this.
They just go to Ardenweald first before moving on to the Emerald Dream.
Also, bruh…
No other race gets this kind of focus in the game.
The fact that you can list what Nelves have done in every expansion past Cata shows just how much Nelves are focused on in every expac lol.
Like, you realize the bad things that happen to Nelves within the narrative is content for the story and not some kind of attack on people who click ‘Night Elf’ upon character creation, yeah?
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Like I said, not because we are “filled with Content” means we get good content. We are being used for someone else’s story. I want the Gnome treatment and be forgotten by Blizzard.
But still the point was to also list bad things that people for some reason deny happened or worst, they say were good.
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They’re story points.
What you believe is ‘good’ content is entirely subjective.
When the Nelves were being killed in droves in BfA, it’s not as if this was an act against people who play Night Elves…
It was simply something Blizz wrote into the story.
I really don’t get this mindset.
You, you personally.
You, as one of the Night Elves are being ‘used’.
This is kinda what I mean…
I don’t understand this form of attachment wherein something ‘bad’ happening to a race is somehow an act of hostility against people who click on that race’s icon on character creation.
Night Elves and all that has happened to them throughout WoW is the story. They’re essential parts of the story.
Nelves are being ‘used’ for the story because they are active participants in the story.
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Meanwhile Worgen players are sitting on the sideline side eying those in the NE community who start babbling about blizzard hating them.
Worgens are returning to their OG city so I’m glad they got the chance to go back to their lands. Night Elves on the other hand got a new city someplace else.
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Worgen also have almost no presence in the game outside of a half finished starter zone, where you need to roll a forsaken to see how it actually ends and a couple other very minor, blink and you miss it cameos
It’s aggravating when some people talk about Blizzard hating the Night elves, when the worgen are RIGHT THERE, with nothing to show for it outside a few cameos as I said.
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NE players will get pissy with you for not likeing their 10 plus years of night elf content because they didn’t like how it didn’t glorify them every step of the way
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See? not having lots of story and content can be a good thing… they managed to lay low for a while and by doing so they are getting their city back and their story was not butchered in the process.
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‘Butchered’?
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Well, blizzard already butchered the worgen with the heritage questline. Which I am secretly hoping gets either walked back in a major way in game, or blizzard silently buries it and never mentions it ever again
And the Kaldorei story wasn’t butchered. The Emerald Dream patch is a giant love letter to the Kaldorei and their fans. Blizz loves including the kaldorei whenever they can
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I never say the zone is bad but even in this “love letter” Ysera swap places with Malfurion to achieve absolutley nothing. The tree was grown on another continent and so far the Aspects were the ones empowered not the Night Elves.
So again we get good things but attached but bad ones.
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I’ll give you the Ysera complaint, but other than that, there is nothing BAD in this patch. I don’t know what gave you the impression that Kaldorei were going to get empowered.
That was always strictly a Aspect thing with Nordassil and when Alex and Ysera cleansed Teldrassil
Here’s the thing.
I’m not dismissing valid criticism. Tyrande in MoP? Valid.
But then you’ll say something like
Like… No. No you didn’t “lose Hyjal to neutrality”. The Horde were there because some druids wanted them there to help the world not-die. That’s it. Did the blood elves “lose the Isdle of Quel’Dalas and the Sunwell to neutrality”? Did the Horde “lose the Northern Barrens to neutrality”?
We fought back the Horde, but didn’t get to see the wins? I mean, no. Nobody does. We defeated the Legion, but you’ll still see them all over the Broken Isles. I personally kicked the entire Alliance military out of Stonetalon, but somehow they’re still there. And no matter how many times I kill off the leadership of the Scarlet Crusade, they were still loitering around Tirisfal until it got nuked. It’s just not how zones work in 99% of the game. We win, but the world doesn’t reflect that because it’s an MMO, not an RTS. Somehow that’s not a big good thing?
It’s when people take points like this and twist them into somehow being a negative or at least remove it as a positive that it’s impossible not to dismiss your points.
Legion should have been the night elves’ time to shine? Like… No. No more than it should have been the orcs’ time. And both have substantially less experience fighting the Legion than the draenie. And at the end of the day, you still have a very heavy night elf presense fighting the Legion, so how is this even a point to begin with.
RE: Ardenweald is a retcon.
Friend. SHADOWLAND is a retcon, so obviously Ardenweald is a retcon. But what you’re seeing as some hard and fast asolute retcon is a soft one.
We never went into the ED and witnessed wildgods slumbering until their reawakening, and Ardenweald is deeply connected to the dream itself. It’s not a big stretch to suggest that a wildgod slumbering in the ED is no different from one slumbering in Ardenweald, and we know that not all do go to Ardenweald. Cenarius didn’t.
Years of build-up of the Night Warrior? It was one and a half. It was itself a retcon added in BfA, with no story behind it except that “nobody has ever survived it”. This was the payoff to it.
Elune didn’t know what was up in the Shadowlands? Like, nobody did. That was the entire point. Even the Eternal Ones who lived there were caught offguard. It’s literally what the leveling campaign is all about; we’re investigating WTF happened. Gods in WoW have never, not once, not even a little bit, been implied to be omniscient and you’re marking it as a personal slight against night elves that Elune is also not omniscient?
I can keep going, and I’m really trying hard to go at this with a very light hand, so hopefully you see where I’m going with this.
And here’s the crux of the issue. Nobody has been saying there’s no reason to be upset. The issue isn’t that you’re upset about stuff.
But like… A lot of this stuff some nelf fans are upset about has to be twisted and bent and mangled into something other than what it is, just to be upset about it.
From Cata to now, with the sole exception of WoD, you have a list of what night elves have done in every expansion. Even by your own words, some is good and some is bad.
Ask gnomes, goblins, tauren, trolls, and forsaken if they can say the same thing.
Ask trolls and orcs how it felt going an expansion or two without even knowing if their race had a leader.
Ask tauren and gnomes how it feels to only be sidekicks to the story when they even get to show up at all until BfA, where both had their leaders portrayed as weak in different ways.
Ask worgen how it felt that their biggest character development points since their introduction was when Genn became Anduin’s foster dad, and Genn’s daughter revealed that worgen can’t make worgen babies, oh and she thinks being a worgen sucks.
Ask orcs how their racial fantasy feels having gone from being the noble warriors upholding strength and honor, who only did that Big Evil during the 1st and 2nd war, only to learn in Cata that it just takes a leader giving them permission to commit some genocide, and WoD proving that’s the most accurate description of the race.
I was gonna add some more after here too, but again, I’m trying not to go heavy handed here.
And all that’s without having to twist actual good development into bad or neutral, just for the sake of it.
Night elves get more of a diversity of content centered around them than nearly anyone. Some of that is bad, no argument. Some of that is actually positive and you should maybe stop twisting it into a negative for the sake of it. It’d make discussing the actual negative stuff much easier, and probably get a lot less pushback.
Amirdrassil isn’t on Kalimdor. That should be fine. Teldrassil was on it’s own island too, and that place was clearly well-loved by the fans. You’ll be getting a nice modern city, while keeping holdings all across Kalimdor that, if we ever get a whole world revamp, will look nice and beautiful and lovely until the zone’s questchain messes everything up.
And hey, we’ve got an entire patch, the final major one, dedicated to your new home. Maybe don’t force that into being a negative.
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Reminder: just because others have it worse, doesn’t mean it can’t be bad.
Relativity doesn’t make bad story good. But the bar is so low for Blizzard at the moment, because of its treatment of several races over the past years, that even bad, inconsistent, thematically flawed story can be seen as good (don’t mistake this for a judgement of Amirdrassil).
At the end of the day, Blizzard still needs better writers for the overall plot.
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