How Can We Redeem/Rebuild The Horde (Actual Horde Edition)

You want to run that by me again?

Yes but we also have to recognize forcing Magni to be the universal neutral character, instead of making Baine/etc his Horde parallel (easily could’ve also given him magical visions of the Earthmother!Azeroth same as Magni), robbed Alliance-side Dwarves of meaningful narrative opportunities and Horde-side races of any narrative opportunities with regard to the whole Heart of Azeroth business.

Likewise forcing Bolvar to be the universal neutral character has resulted in all Horde connections to death being irrelevant and us being forced to endure Jaina’s magical intervention yet again and also Taelia’s angsty melodrama, while Thrall does nothing, Baine does nothing, and Calia just serves as Taelia’s supporting character with zero Horde-side progression or effort.

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Zandalar was not part of the War of Thornes. :slight_smile: That was the burning of Teldrassil and the quest surrounding it at the start of the expansion.
Zandalar leveling was good, for the most part (Rastkhans dead was weird).

You wanted neutral organizations to be less prominent. It’s been ages since they were prominent or even relevant in any way–Azerothian organizations, anyway.


Baalsamael:

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but that’s still a separate point.

I guess I’m reacting to the overall feel of the comment… but I suppose you’re right, I was a bit off target.

One of the things that I did actually appreciate is that it put a bullet in the head of the Cenarion Circle. Unfortunately, Shadowlands has backslid into an entire afterlife that is hijacking Night Elf aesthetic elements in much the same vein that the CC did - something that I have seen a lot of Horde players complain about on the basis that the troll content feels bolted-on.

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Yup, even came up with a whole concept

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It was rather amusing to see people go “trees are nelf lol / I don’t see any night elves, do you? / it’s not nelf content just because Tyrande is there / Ysera isn’t related to them” while simultaneously watching other night elf players (granted, not the same people) go gaga over Ardenweald and how much they love it and they’re going to put their characters in it right away because it fits them so well.

And then we end up sticking a bunch of night elf ghosts in the main hub anyway.

Edit: Speaking of, do those ghosts have yellow or green names for alliance players in the covenant?

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I think Ardenweald has a lot of fun content that hits at a lot of our themes, but like most Night Elf neutral content, it feels alienating to me because I feel like the thing that I was invested in is having its best parts cannibalized while the race itself is left with constant, unending humiliation.

Again, however, that’s getting out of the scope of this conversation.

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Not sure what you mean by this. The CC still exists; it just hasn’t had any story relevance for several years now.

It exists in name, but I think it’s notable to point out that before BFA, Malfurion was the sort of character who Blizzard treated so tepidly regarding the Horde that they wouldn’t even code him into Tyrande’s leader raid, leading to this situation where Malfurion would just callously stand there and watch while his wife and anyone who was coming in to defend her would fight alone against a Horde attack. That just personifies the distance that the CC had from the Night Elves as a playable race, which feels particularly bad because the Night Elves as a race pretty much established themselves as existing to defend the wilds at the behest of the druids - who now looked like they didn’t care if the Night Elves lived or died.

Maybe that’s not something that a lot of Horde players connect to, but personally? Having defended against a lot of those raids - that REALLY builds resentment for that character, and for the institution. I was relieved to see that sort of thing die in BFA, all things of course considered.

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Which organization was it now again that stormed the maw, and has set up base in Oribos?

Sigh … as a slight offshoot on the topic at hand, it is very unsurprising to me that Blizz seems to be putting more work (far more work) into setting up an “out” or “redemption” for Sylvie here than they will with the Horde. If they couldn’t even be bothered to give the Horde motives for being the aggressors in BfA, and had to write Teld nearly completely out of the story to keep the Horde from being inconvenient for Sylvie setting up SLs, it really is not shocking that “The Nothing Horde” is “Nothing”. Just a plot-device.

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I mean, I’d say it’s in limbo right now. We don’t really know what the consequences of Malfurion’s new factionalism will be for the CC. You may turn out to be right, but without knowing for sure, I think it’s a little early to talk about bullets.

I don’t think that’s the kind of prominence Kyalin was talking about. They’re only active for a quest chain during the intro, and even that turns into the Jaina-Baine-and-Thrall show pretty quickly. There’s no rep grind, no organizational outposts in the questing zones, etc. The “base in Oribos” is ignorable.

The highlighted elements are not the points upon which my frustration hinges.

Yup, they even tried to flag my thread because i dared to say that Ardenweald was way more night elf than troll…https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/so-ardenweald-story-is-as-much-troll-as-night-elf/743112

Just look at nearly every night elf comment…

And now a attack on Ardenweald is somehow blizzard hating on the night elf.

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To be fair, I think only one person was ever actually saying that when the quest was being datamined.

Well, then you be the judge. What Morghel is talking about is that a bunch of Knights of the Ebon Blade accompany the PC into the Maw. You go through a short quest chain where they’re seen fighting other Maw denizens in the background. The only member you talk to is Mograine, the commander, who gives you a few quests. Once you’ve fought your way to the bottom of the first large hill, he realizes that Jaina is nearby, and you find her, along with Thrall. Then she gets your whole party to a safe cave.

Jaina gives you some backstory and then Mograine gives you missions to interrogate some souls and find a way out. You hear of an ancient waystone that might be able to teleport you. Then you go out with Jaina and Thrall (and you later find Baine and Anduin as well). You don’t really see Mograine or the EB after that. The rest of your intro quest chain is about getting to the waystone and escaping the maw.

When you arrive in Oribos, Bolvar shows up, but he’s there as the former lich king, not as a neutral organization leader. Nothing has been said about the Ebon Blade in any of the questlines since that intro sequence, and I don’t even know where this base in Oribos that Morghel mentioned is.

I don’t know if you’d call that prominence for a neutral organization. I don’t.

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Don’t know. Her thread became quite popular on both forum ( because she did one in SF and one in GD forum) and had a lot of people backing it… In fact most of the same people who was in my thread saying that thinking that Ardenweald was more night elf was stupid.

Does it really surprise you after the past ten years that we’ve been conditioned to expect the worst?

There’s only so much “wait and see” that you can take before you end up concluding that when things initially look bad, that’s how they’re going to be.

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I don’t know what your point have to do with what we were talking about. I know that you love to whine about many thing that have to do with night elf but at least try to follow the discussion.