With how much they changed during the PTR phase of Darkshore, I believe that they must’ve left the undead nelves relatively unchanged from the beginning, despite almost universal disapproval, for a specific reason. My assumption is that they must’ve left them because there is a future plan that makes them essential.
What I would be interested in discussing here is what you think that future plan for the undead nelves may be.
Personally, I can think of two major ideas.
1)They intend to give the undead nelves to the alliance as an allied race in the future, while giving the horde the dark rangers as an allied race.
2)They plan to have characters like Sira and Delaryn possibly be killed again, and have them be a notable presence in future shadowlands content.
What are your thoughts on those theories, and your ideas overall as to the point of the undead nelves going forward?
I honestly gave up trying to make predictions when it comes to WoW lore and the stories run within it, simply because Blizzard doesn’t follow the traditional, or typical conventions of story telling; the rule of cool determines all.
I can’t see dark rangers as an allied race, but I can certainly see them as a hunter specialization, or further customization options for Forsaken.
Sira and Delaryn have had too much voice work and time put into them to be hacked off and left behind, so I think it’s a safe bet to assume they have a part still to play, and that most definitely will tie into any shadowlands content.
I’ll say what I’ve been hoping for a while. The Warbringers Sylvanas trailer clearly draws comparisons between the Burning of Teldrassil and the Fall of Quel’thelas, to the point that both events were shown in the trailer. They are actually rather similar; an undead warlord invades an elven nation, which is defended by a female elven ranger. The undead warlord is victorious, and kills the ranger, who dies watching her homeland be destroyed. The warlord then raises the ranger as an undead servant.
I think it is pretty clear that Blizzard drew intentional parallels between Sylvanas and Arthas, as both have now committed very similar atrocities. Likewise, Delaryn is very similar to Ranger-General Sylvanas, and is now serving Sylvanas just as Sylvanas once served Arthas. Therefore, if Blizzard follows through on these connections, the next logical step will be for Delaryn to turn against Sylvanas, just as Sylvanas turned against Arthas. I dearly hope that this happens, as it could go a long ways towards justifying undead Night Elves even being a thing. It would be a fantastic demonstration that Forsaken do in fact have free will, and would save Delaryn from being as pathetic and spiteful as she seemed to be in Darkshore.
I will say, Delaryn’s behavior during the Darkshore scenario is not exactly encouraging to me. And I have no idea how Sira would fit into this. Still, I hope something like this happens, and I think there are narrative clues that it will happen.
Kill them all, wipe them out, and forget they ever happened.
As far as I’m concerned, they need to be gone and done with by 8.2. They don’t work for the story now, and they aren’t going to work for the story then.
They’re forced and rushed and their reasoning can’t even be bothered to be explained, leaving Alliance players conceived it’s mind control, and Horde players upset that they’re raising dead Alliance characters to give screen time to rather than existing Horde Characters (i.e, Commander Belmont).
Nothing should come of them. No Big twist, no Allied Race. Lets kill them off and be done. Wouldn’t be the first time Blizzard abandoned a plot line, and this one would honestly be for the better.
For the record, I’m not saying that I like either of those ideas. They just seemed like possible reasons that they didn’t want to remove the undead nelves to me, especially when you consider that the story is subservient to any decision made by gameplay and feature Devs.