What happened to your hair? 
The Night elves have not been dismantled though. Thatâs the main disconnect I have with the rest of the Night Elf fans ( I am one too ). The War of Thorns, the tree burning, it actually brought me back to WoW and I played the hell out of my Kaldorei Druid âŚflagged too. Much PvP was had let me tell you. I never had as much fun before or since.
I understand other perspectives exist though and that what was a game disconnecting disaster to you was the spark to my NEâs resurgence. The Nelves connection to nature was what attracted me to them back in WC3 and that has not been altered in any way. Getting beat up ( and logically so ) by the combined might of all the Horde races that one time does not diminish their allure, only their pride.
Discussion for another thread thoughâŚ
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A playable faction should never have been placed in a situation where anyone could say this.
I will never forgive the writers for making this post possible.
It was bad in the sense that it was a retcon and downgrade from his previous origin.
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I mean his origin was unspecified previously, and to be clear Bwonsamdi wasnât confirmed to have been a troll, just a mortal.
And this origin lines up with how Baron Samedi is worshipped in IRL voodoo (oldest male grave in each cemetery is âhisâ)
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True, but itâs like so many other things in that once the mysterious is explained, itâs a lot less cool. (See the âElune is a First Oneâ thread for more examples of people saying similar things.)
However, I will say this: having him downgraded is better than having him villain-batted, as they originally planned. So I guess Iâll take the win there.
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Oh, I agree; Iâm definitely more for whatâs known as âsoft world-buildingâ vs. âhard.â We got a lot more of the former back in the old Warcraft games: it was simple, and we didnât really know more than we needed to.
Even in Reign of Chaos, which gave us a lot more of the lore for both orcs and humanityâlargely because weâd also previously gotten supplemental novels like The Last Guardian, Lord of the Clans, and Day of the Dragon to help fill in the blanksâwe were still given the bare minimum of information, just enough to keep us invested and let our imaginations fill in the rest:
- The Tauren revere the Earth Mother
- The Night Elves revere Elune and nature
- The Orcs have a shaman-warrior culture of living off the land/conflict
- The Trolls have a similar culture but with voodoo magic and rituals
- The Humans revere the Holy Light and have a medieval, Camelot-style setting
- The High Elves cherish magic
- The Dwarves/Gnomes are mechanical/steampunk
Like, that was it. That was all we needed to know, and frankly, it was enough to last us all the way through most of World of Warcraft. We were given the building blocks, and then we got to see what the various peoples of Azeroth did with those cultures. We didnât need to know every last cosmological detail ala the charts at the beginning of the Chronicle books, because the emphasis was more on actions rather than information.
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Perhaps this is a discussion for another thread - but Iâll be eager to have that discussion at some point anyway.
I do realize that there are some Night Elf fans who really did enjoy this, but in my experience, Iâve been able to sort most of those people into three camps.
Camp 1: People who have Night Elf alts, but arenât invested otherwise - and such people can be said to be framing their interest through the lens of their main. Said individuals will claim that theyâre a Night Elf fan because they picked up an alt for a couple of patches to play things out as an interesting scenario, but theyâre still looking at the situation like an outside observer would. If things go bad, they might say that sucks, but itâs an expendable part of their experience.
Camp 2: The âWait and Seeâ crowd - This is where we find our Katieras of the world - people who assume that Teldrassil necessarily means that weâre going to get better content in the future. Sure, things are bad now, but things always have to get bad before theyâll get better. Surely theyâre not going to axe Tyrande! Come on, itâs ridiculous to worry! Iâm sure theyâll make it up to us, weâre just going through the narrative motions right now. I disagree with those people because I went through Cataclysm and MOP. I know full well that Blizzard will just trash us and move on to something else. They donât feel that they have to make it up to anyone.
Camp 3: âIâm a checked out neutral guyâ guy - I havenât seen or heard a lot from this crowd, but people in this camp frame their investment outside of the playable race, explicitly. They donât feel like they lost because they donât feel like theyâre playing.
Most of the time, I can sort people into one of these three camps - Iâm not sure if that will be the case with you - but if itâs not, expect a lot of questions from me. Iâm eager to understand the opinions of Night Elf fans who, by my observation, are against the mainstream.
KyalinâŚ
You shouldnât need a demon hunter to lecture you on summoning creatures you know will be entirely out of your control! 
Pray your unholy invocation has not yet reached the pointed ears of its owner, before itâs too late!
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Not to worry! We activated the Goblin noise dampeners in time.
If they explode⌠Well, Loa help us all.
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I had to deal with Katiera on my discord server for about a year.
Iâm more than prepared.
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2/4/2021:
Kyalin-Cenarion-Circle has earned the achievement âYou Are Now Prepared!â
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Youâre correct, and yet they did. And until things are settled, the mood will remain like this, both here and elsewhere.
Neither will I.
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As a point in addition to this, one of the problems with how the lore has developed since Reign of Chaos is that a lot of blanks have been filled in, but in such a haphazard way, or in such a contradictory way that it has made certain things harder to imagine / believe to be true.
Not to mention that at a certain point, the passage of time (or the lack there of in other cases) strains the credibility of the narrative in a way that makes the thin spreading of lore feel more and more cracked in places. Orgrimmar being a harsh land made a lot of sense in the beginning, but then having the Horde base multiple wars on it being too harsh of a land to survive raises a lot of questions, and none the ones that âinspire imaginationâ.
The Horde having a very âfirst foothold in a new landâ is exciting, and when the game was younger, really excited me over what possibilities existed. The Horde of Vanilla felt to me like so much of it was a blank slate. You had races who had never set foot on a continent before, and a people who had never made any proper settlements. Entire regions were new to both factions, and with so many threats at home and abroad it made sense, to me, why so many places like the Crossroads and Razor Hill were such small settlements. However, the illusion somewhat broke, and has been worn down in Cataclysm and further expansions delving into the Horde. As the years pass, the explanation of âsmall frontier townâ starts to make less and less narrative sense, and the complete lack of local progress becomes a source of frustration, not inspiration for what could be.
Likewise, the Alliance suffers in another direction. Unlike the Horde, for which all their lands are fresh, the Alliance is well established, old kingdoms that currently suffer from being mired in disarray. The narrative promised grand kingdoms and powerful forces if only they could sort out all their corruption, deception, and internal issues. However, like the Horde, as the narrative moved on they got their internal issues solved but⌠the grand reveal of the promised armies never came, or at least not in the shining Lord of the Rings-esque moment one was hoping for.
Then, as we move on, the narrative constantly seems to make choices that would undermine oneâs ability to imagine more. In Wrath we had a Draenei delegation being sent away by one (secret) traitor, and then we never saw them again. In WoT evidently the Night Elves only have âoneâ army to deploy so when they sent that out, thatâs it. They were out of troops. Evidently a giant tree that is supposed to bigger than a mountain can burn in seconds.
Blizzard may not have needed a heavy coating of lore in the beginning, but as time has worn on, their lack of depth has caused us to begin to see the holes as they add ever more canvas on which to paint.
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Sorry, I meant my last two paragraphs as (hopefully) dissuading folks from the concept of putting in ridiculous courts where we just watch Horde folks getting executed/excommunicated/ex-whatevered. Itâs a silly solution that is woefully one-sided and solves nothing. And Iâm not defending the actions of the folks mentioned (though to be honest, I donât know all of them off the top of my head).
I donât see any way that it can be in the narrative and be helpful. Stating they are guilty of atrocities serves no purpose: Jaina tried to wipe out the entire city of Orgrimmar and Thrallâs magic was the only thing holding her tidal wave at bay. So then she tried murdering him. Will she also be brought up on charges?
The point Iâm making is that this type of narrative does nothing but punish the Horde more when they were already decimated in BfA. It demoralizes and vilifies the Horde - yet again - and basically reinforces the story of âGoodâ vs âEvil.â
EDIT: I think your idea of playing off the idea of âexpedienceâ vs âmorally justifiedâ is probably the only way - perhaps something akin to âinternment camps for all ⌠pick a categoryâ or individualized punishments one by one. The problem I have with it is not just the dark narrative, but itâs also retreading backwards to WC2/3 and really not ⌠fun.
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And this is honestly why the end of Mists of Pandaria, along with War Crimes, while well-intentioned, was complete nonsense to begin with. Oh sure, we heard a lot of nice, thought-out arguments about whether or not Garrosh truly deserves death after everything he did, it was an impartial court where all sides were heard, etc.
Ok, but at the end of the day, an outside force (Kairoz and the Dragonmaw) bursting in to free Garrosh and set up Warlords of Draenor was inevitable.
Why?
Because for all of Taran Zhuâs, the Pandarensâ, and the August Celestialsâ talk of âtaking the high roadâ and being fair-minded, literally none of Garrosh Hellscreamâs trial mattered in the end. All of it got derailed with:
But Garrosh, it seemed, had already begun. He lifted his shackled arms and bellowed, "Yes! Yes! I would destroy a thousand Theramores, if it would bring the Alliance to its knees! I would hunt down every night elf whelp that bleats on the face of this world and silence their mewling forever! I would banish every troll, every tauren, every simpering blood elf and greedy goblin and shambling walking corpse if it were within my powerâand it almost was!"
World of Warcraft: War Crimes, by: Christie Golden, page 346
Once you villain-bat a faction leader to this extent, there is literally no scenario that doesnât end in an executionâitâs inevitable. Especially in a world in which, as many have pointed out, the player character is literally told to go kill something on a daily basis.
Having Varian, Thrall, and Taran Zhu simultaneously three-man execute Garrosh at the end of Siege wouldâve been a more believable solution than what we got.
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I wanted to comment on this, but I needed to organize my thoughts on it a bit more because itâs a bit of a jumbly mess in my head.
I understand not wanting to see Elune âexplainedâ and I agree. The only purpose (I hate you Oribos for making me loathe using that word) I wanted to achieve via this was to - in essence - see that CDEV statement retconned/redefined in some way. I felt like this path might show Velen may have had experiences showing the power of the Naaru, but Elune is not one of them [and stronger if she can do something to smack them around]. Conceptually, I donât like them even leaving open the possibility that Elune is akin to a floating chandelier person who tried to force Lord Illidan into some predetermined destiny, then was turned into a pile of ash.
I honestly can reiterate sentiments shared by you (and others) around the forums that I feel like the larger problem is weâve overstepped where we should be going as characters at the moment. I donât mind the cosmological chart as showing the forces/powers of the universe (and I donât think Elune should be put in one of those buckets). I would like to see other true deities shown/referenced more (I donât like a monotheistic universe in WoW) but I donât need to know very much about them.[1]
But like you (and others) I truly dislike that right now the scrappy band of heroes of Azeroth are basically going into the realm of Death and trying to (and succeeding at) beating up powers that should be way above our weight class. I donât particularly enjoy the fact that weâre now breaking down the Shadowlands into a subset of realms that empower the Shadowlands and somehow they need us to help fix things.
Itâs one thing to fight the Old Gods. They are minions of the Void Lords who are sent in because the Void Lords canât manifest their true power in our universe. It would be another thing entirely if we somehow ventured into the Void and killed them all. Right now, thatâs the path we are following. I hate to invoke the âslippery slopeâ but itâs a path that leads to constantly one-upping the narrative until weâve killed off everything in the Universe except ourselves.
[1] - To be honest, Iâd love for Eluneâs âreal nameâ to be some set of wingdings characters that Night Elves interpreted into Elune. This is partly because (to me) it would add a layer of mystery and power to Elune. Night Elves refer to her as Elune, but on other planets she might be called Belune (Iâm not very good at naming things). Sheâs beyond comprehension and therefore weâre basically just trying to interpret her through the lens of our own small speck in the universe.
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I wonât lie - the imagery associated with this is ⌠disturbing. No matter how you take it.
Would it be something akin to drawn and⌠thirded?
All three hacking in at once?
Would they argue over who gets to remove the section with the head vs the heart vs whatever?
It feels like the logistics and coordination of this would be troubling and ⌠gruesome ⌠and honestly, a little bit funny.
Edit: Iâve decided I like it and it would make me laugh. Maybe thereâs a Chromie set of scenarios where we get to try to change all the evils in the past and see the butterfly effects (ultimately not deciding to change the timeline) and this is one scenario. We can cut away right before the actual execution when Chromie tells us âwhoops, that one ends really badly and the planet is destroyed for some reason or anotherâ
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Pretty much this.
To use another example, letâs look at the Burning Legion. In both the War of the Ancients trilogy as well as Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, itâs pretty clearly-established that the main commanders of the Legion are unstoppable, with Sargeras himself being even more so.
- Itâs why Mannorothâs death was such a big deal, and even that ended in Gromâs death, as well
- Itâs why it took such a big deus ex machina from Malfurion to kill Archimonde
- Itâs why the fact that all Broxigar succeeded in doing was scraping Sargerasâ knee, and yet even that is considered remarkable by Korialstrasz.
Prior to the ridiculousness that was the Mannoroth and Archimonde boss fights in Warlords, it was very clearly-established that all Azerothâs heroes could really do was push back the worst of the Legionâs commanders, which is actually what happens with KilâJaeden at the Sunwell, by the way. For all their might and magic, even the heroes of Azeroth werenât enough to actually vanquish the Legionâs commanders, at least, not without some serious firepower.
That is one thing that I think Legion got right; even if it brought an end to the Legion and Sargeras, itâs pretty clearly-established that we never would have gotten to Argus without Illidanâs aid via the Sargerite Keystone.
And while other players may go around complaining about Illidan being âDa Chosen Oneâ and the player characters be underpowered vs. lore characters like him, I would just argue that does go back to the gameâs power levelsâand subsequently, player expectationsâhaving been set to ridiculous, Dragonball-level proportions, far beyond the realm of believability.
Another great example is what happened vs. Arthas back in Wrath of the Lich King. He was literally toying with the player characters the whole time, and it actually did take a deus ex machina to take him down.
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Exactly. And while we can (justifiably) argue about whether a hero character driven narrative is the right path, that path was how Warcraft was developed.
I mean honestly if you look at the comparison from Vanilla to now, itâs a pretty stark contrast. In Vanilla we beat up Onyxia (the daughter of a dragon aspect); Ragnaros (an elemental lord - you know, the elemental lords that the Pantheon basically swept under the rug when they visited Azeroth); Nefarian (the son of a dragon aspect); and an Old God (though Iâm not entirely sure about how Old Gods die).
Now weâre taking on the foundational elements of the realm of Death. Maybe Iâm not wrong in invoking the slippery slope.
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I think you could certainly argue the storytelling was better.
To put it another way:
If this game is always going to be a âHero Characterâ-based narrative, rather than turning full-on, choice-based, Player Character-centric narrative, then the priority should at least be on making those Heroes (Warcraft term) people worth following onto the battlefield.
They should be people that players genuinely want to be loyal to.
Oh, youâre absolutely correct on this: the contrast is pretty stark.
In the early games, sure: the monsters were giant (Elemental Lords, Dragons, Demons, Old Gods), but they were still within the realm of believability. You could reasonably believe that a group of 25 heroes, who were essentially a mix of varying types of wizards and combat/weapons specialists, and who had proven themselves as the very best fighters in those fields, was capable of fending off an assault by someone like Nefarian or Onyxia, or a being like Ragnaros or CâThun. Even Illidan Stormrage fell to superior numbers, though his boss encounter was deliberately-designed to demonstrate what a being of sheer power he was.
And re: death, letâs look again to Arthas. What, weâre expected to believe that the player character was instantly killed by the frigginâ Lich Kingâat the time one of the most powerful entities on Azerothâbut is somehow able to take on, say, Sire Denathrius, the guy who literally created the dreadlords? Or that weâll actually be able to even hurt someone like the Jailer, let alone destroy him? It really has gotten to the point of cartoonishânot anime, mind you, but cartoonishâridiculousness.
And while I can only speak for myself, I like to think a lot of players would agree with me on the following statement:
I donât want to play a god. Gods are boring. I want to play as a mortalâor at the very least, a semi-mortalâwho, yes, has powers, but is most certainly not omnipotent or omniscient, and who necessarily has to rely on what (comparatively) little power he has, along with what allies and/or luck and/or wits he can scrape together along the way, in order to beat what really are overwhelming odds.
Thatâs what makes a fantasy adventure interesting.
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