But within Blizzard, “that was a really hard sell. The world accepted Night Elves better than most members of the team did. Because people were used to the Legolas types, the elves that are your typical elves – blondish, brownish hair, while we were going blues and greens and purple. That’s radically different, but it really took was a picture to help sell that.”
They underestimated how cool and popular the concept of a 7 foot tall purple elf woman stomping on people would be. I personally still think they’re one of the best takes on “elves” there is, but that’s subjective.
Anyways It seems like a lot of the current lore direction is in direct contradiction to the old lore directions. So it made me think, was the Burning of Teldrassil perhaps a symbolic end of an era of WoW lore, with Blizzard having never liked Night Elves to begin with, so choosing them as the ones to sacrifice at the altar of their new lore universe they’re creating with Shadowlands?
I guess we’ll see what they do with Tyrande and the Night Warrior story, and Elune and stuff. I hope they prove all the naysayers wrong, and we get some of the classic 7 foot tall Amazons kicking butts and taking names back.
(This post goes out to one of my favorite level 10 posters.)
I actually don’t believe they hate the night elves. In fact I think they love them.
Which is why they are constantly getting kicked in the teeth.
Look at how they treat the Horde. They seem to love writing stories for the Horde. In all it’s terrible “Look how much they are suffering but they’ll get back up because they are the Horde!” writing as of late.
Look how in just about every expansion that dealt with Azeroth in some way, there was a night elf themed zone going into detail about the once grand empire they had and how through tragedy it was lost but they persevered because man they are so awesome!
Moral of the story: Pray you aren’t liked by Blizzard. Because they will beat you with a crowbar and call it a Rocky story.
It says in the article that this was in the design phase and after they got the art and took it from a random concept of “wood elves, but dark” to the night elves we know today, the team was sold.
It’s really pitiful on how some Night Elf “fans” walk around with this perpetual song of persecution about them. Blizzard isn’t hating on the Night Elves. They’re just simply in a dramatic position to take it on the chin because of their location butting right up against Ogrimmar’s side and rear doors.
If Darkshore, Ashenvale, and Teldrassil were gnome inhabited instead, we’d be going on about how Blizzard hates gnomes because those areas were going to be front and center of the Horde invasion.
A good deal of Blizzard’s major cinematics are centered around Elven characters, Night Elves in particular. A whole section of the Afterlife was pretty much tailor made for them.
Cataclysm had the entire underwater region that was built on Night Elf history as well as much of the Broken Shore. The entire Night Elf Wild Gods Pantheon got resurrected during Cataclysm.
But of course… Blizzard just HATES doing Night Elf material… they hate it so much they keep cranking it out more in an obvious exercise off self-flagellation. Their is hardly any Alliance race that gets more attention.
So really, step back a bit and take a look at the whole picture and you might see something different.
I don’t think every single writer and dev hates them. I’m sure a couple don’t like them, and that occassionally shines through, much like it would if, say, I was to be part of a collaborative effort to write the Horde story.
I think it mostly just comes down to them not knowing what to do with the Night Elves. Immortal (formerly), powerful beings are a bit of a challenge to write realistically, hence why they’re so… tame, compared to WCIII. All they really seem comfortable doing is worfing them against the BBEG of the week, be it the Legion, the Horde, the Nightmare, etc.
I think they don’t entirely like them as of the MMO iteration, to be honest.
I had a pet theory for YEARS - coming on 17 now - that someone on the Blizz dev team dated a girl who came up with the idea for the nelves for WC3, and they ran with it, but then they broke up and it was messy.
Why?
Because in WC3 the night elves are a heady fantasy for a girl, trust me. Matriarchal badass women combatants who don’t bother to negotiate, just shoot from the shadows, take no guff from anyone, refuse to even obey the most powerful male of their species, worship a mother Goddess… I mean, they tie into a LOT of the themes that I saw in the 1990s as a late teens, early twenties woman. Just give them some Enya and Tori Amos and 90% of the girls in my arts high school would have wanted to be one.
And they were awesome, without a doubt.
And then in 2004 we got the MMO version.
Vacuous stares, inane faces to choose from, and that bounce idle. UGH gods the bounce idle.
"I am a Sentinel of Elune, I will protect these " - pause, bounce breasts, resume stern expression - “lands!”
The cheer.
The wave.
The emotes that were chosen for the female night elves in particular were about as insulting as I could consider for the race given how they had been presented in WC3. When the belf girls came along, their idles were significantly more plausible from combatants.
It was as if SOMEONE high up wanted to rip out all the really scary feminist bits from the night elves and make them acceptable eyecandy.
It annoyed me for years.
Not to poke a bee-hive but I always sort of wondered why Cata and Legion were received so negatively? The representation wasn’t the best, but I’ve seen worse.
Like, yeah I get that Auberdine was hit hard in the Cataclysm, but its far from the only place. Org had to be rebuilt by rampaging fire elemental. Loch Modan was shattered to pieces. Menethil Harbor flooded. Westfall definitely had some unusual issues going on. Even SW took a few major hits. And while yeah Firelands was rough on Hyjal, there was a story reason for Ragnaros to settup shop there; due to the mad ravings of Staghelm. And, considering Plant and Wind masters were up against living Fire … they did pretty good. Better than most races would’ve by far.
As for Legion, as much as these NEs didn’t play much of a story role, its hard to ignore that NEs were essentially solo-holding lines on multiple fronts. Especially in Aszuna. Maiev and the remaining Wardens had a small, but potent role. And once you remember the “Where are you Tyrande” was just Xavius being goofy, and when you find the real Malf he’s just sitting there being the snarkiest I’ve ever seen him … its not the worst portrayal. Plus, the NEs dealt a pretty substantial blow to their Kryptonite the Nightmare, which they should have trouble with.
BfA was monstrous, but before that? I feel like I’m missing something?
I mean, that’s what they are, though. And the Horde Trolls get to have dissenting opinions, and push back against their faction. Vol’jin did it with Garrosh, and Talanji recently did so, as well. Even if they can’t actually leave, 'cus MMO. Like, the only reason Tyrande gets to try and buck the system now, is because of the extenuating circumstances of the influence of a dark power she’ll eventually give up, and her daughter waiting in the wings to put to blue and gold yoke back around her neck.
I don’t think so. You can’t Damsel In Distress (My awesome cool tvtropes link goes here to show how smart I am) Gnomes. Also gnomes are a joke race. It’s just a really silly excuse. “They’re on Kalimdor therefor all their zones have to be set on fire”. Hmm. No.
Yeah but like none of it comes close to the thing “fans” of the Night Elves fell in love with WC3 and to a lesser extent Classic WoW. It’s more and more gee golly hehe druid kitty rawr! Not Seven Foot Tall Ball Busters.
I mean, I want that. Badly.
Again. Almost none of the lore given to Night Elves has been about the 7 foot tall Amazon killers. It’s all been hehe were magical and purple kitties rawr!!! Here is our goofy past about being Azsharas subejcts for the zillionith time!!!
I somewhat disagree with this. Belfs are like really mean girl mall girl looking. And the people who use them as their avis on the forum have a fetish for acting as such.
I can’t remember a single enjoyable or inspiring moment in the Cata-MoP night elven experience.
You basically show up to a zone, find that it’s on fire and the people are having the stuffing kicked out of them, semi-resolve the issues (but never conclusively), then move onto the next zone. All the while the druidic parts of night elven culture turn a blind eye at best and at worst preach about the need for neutrality. Then you go to Pandaria and Tyrande gets lectured by Varian about war and the player gets lectured by pandaren about war. It was very unsatisfying and also quite clear that Blizzard didn’t care and wasn’t going to take any steps to rectify the situation.
Conversely I thought BfA was pretty good. The night elves are played as competant, they’re basically back to full strength with Malfurion, the Ancients, druids, chimaera, etc. all back in the elven army, Tyrande stands up to Anduin and they still win in spite of the Alliance offering them no aid.
It’s not the losses so much as how the factions react to them. In Cata-MoP Blizzard didn’t care about the reaction, but in BfA they made an effort.
ETA: there was also that stupid Wolfheart novel that poisoned the well going into Cata: opening with the night elves being ambushed by goblin shredders in their own forest and ending with them learning about how to win forest battles from Varian.
I somewhat disagree with this. Belfs are like really mean girl mall girl looking. And the people who use them as their avis on the forum have a fetish for acting as such.
I mean, you’re not wrong.
But I take them marginally more seriously than the inane smile and breast-bounce, or the insane air clap.
I still found it funny that the night elves could’ve been gnomes-- can’t get my mind off of gnomish Illidain or Grom’s forces overrun by small beings.
The gnomes were originally planned to be their own faction in Warcraft III , but were later rolled into the Alliance[48] (though no actual gnomes appear in the game).
Well, I didn’t mention MoP for a reason. It was kind of nonsense to have Varian lecturing the Queen of the NEs, and then having them retake Ashenvale offscreen. That being said, the entire Firelands zone was you going down the mountain and bringing back quite a few of the lost Wild Gods to bring the fight to Rag’s doorsteps. Is the expectation there really that the NEs shouldn’t struggle against Fire Incarnate? Like this was the friggen Firelands being fed critical strategic information by a once Archdruid. One would assume that would be a tough as nails fight right?
Well, I didn’t mention MoP for a reason. It was kind of nonsense to have Varian lecturing the Queen of the NEs, and then having them retake Ashenvale offscreen. That being said, the entire Firelands zone was you going down the mountain and bringing back quite a few of the lost Wild Gods to bring the fight to Rag’s doorsteps. Is the expectation there really that the NEs shouldn’t struggle against Fire Incarnate? Like this was the friggen Firelands being fed critical strategic information by a once Archdruid. One would assume that would be a tough as nails fight for the NEs right?
Speaking as a longtime nelf fan, what galled in Cata was that after you revive the Wild Gods, who have these longstanding, direct connections to nelfs, you watch them offer Horde players the same quests.
Cenarius, who died to orc axes, is like “Hey we chill bros.” It was fairly annoying. I get that they had to have faction-blind questgivers. But it was, like the Cenarion Circle shrugging at Ashenvale’s devastation and the fallen trees there around the orc incursion spot, yet another case of pre-existing night elf stuff not supporting night elf anything.
The CC loving on the Horde even as they’re clearcutting is not okay. The Wild Gods loving on the Horde despite everything and without even a snarled threat or six is… honestly not okay.
Because nothing the Horde did in Cata was a risk to the world, and it really just boiled down to a resource war between two political powers? The Wild Gods have never really gotten involved in that sort of thing before, nor do they seem inclined to. Let mortals do their mortal thing. Plus, when the literal Primal Fire Elemental DemiGod is invading full force into the Material World … one would assume that telling the Faction with an over-saturation of Shamans at the time to piss off isn’t the wisest idea. Elemental crap is their bread and butter.