I think N’Zoth could fit the bill, but I do think Saurfang could come back from an Alliance based threat if he finally realizes how many good soldiers are dying for his crusade against Sylvanas. If either accomplishes the recognition for reconciliation I’ll be happy.
First I want to clarify the Alliance would not lose Stormwind, think about it like a SoO kind of thing. The Horde offensive does not succeed in completely conquering the city before the Alliance manages to pull itself together and shove them out.
Back to you’re idea. I would not mind Genn going down, but he’s not an A-lister. He’s a B maybe. The Alliance God-tier characters need to be reduced/depowered.
Turalyon and Alleria are viable picks. Malfurion is a possibility, but it comes down to the same problem as Tyrande for you. I find it worse honestly as he JUST fully committed to the Alliance. There’s something to explore there. Jaina and Anduin are not going anywhere and I will never delude myself that they will. I picked Tyrande because I felt she would be the most logical to play the part as well as offer up the most emotional encounter.
One thing is for sure though: Losing beloved WC3 characters sucks and honestly should be avoided at this point in the story’s life.
Eh, the dude owned Saurfang in a cinematic, and can hold his own against Sylvanas. I would consider him an A-lister. if not in power, at least in emotional connection to the Alliance, which is what this is really about, not just raw strength.
It just would seem like Blizzard taking a steamy dump on my chest for killing any Kaldorei character in BfA.
This makes my head spin. In WC3 you could clearly see that the BL caused cataclysmic damage to the NE society. They were their main goal and target so they were hit the hardest. The first mission in WC3: TFT has Maiev hunting Illidan through NE lands in the aftermath. Their lands were corrupted and decimated, and naga were invading. This was even shown in WoW classic with Felwood, Wintergrasp being neutral, Ashenvale having a demonic incursion, Azshara lost to Naga, etc. I am repeatedly told I am wrong over and over … even though they were in the game when you played, I just don’t get it. Another classic case of show and tell being two separate things I guess?
Makes the Horde look super pathetic when we barely beaten the Night Elf citizens. HOW DID WE LAST THIS LONG?! SERIOUSLY!?
ANYWAY BACK ON TOPIC!
only way I can see it is to do some massive retcons and fixes.
Sylvanas has to go, either by death, redemption, ascension to godhood to become the true Dark Lady and is out of everyone’s hair. I see the ascension probably the best one, even from someone wanting her head on a pike. Forsaken players don’t lose her, and can worship her for real. She becomes controller of the afterlife perhaps even making it more like the Underworld instead of Hell. She is also out of everyone’s hair and out of sight, out of mind sort of thing. Yes she doesn’t die but I’ll take it to make most of everyone(?) Happy.
Horde well… I don’t know honestly with Teldrassil, only way I can see us comming back is if Baine pulls a miracle out of his bull behind. I am a Baine fan, but many are not for justified reasons. Baine is the only person I can see getting both sides out of the war. However again damage is done, a lot of alliance players want the Horde done, Horde players be damned.
Another thing that should be done, we need to put emphasis on how much army and physically stronger Horde is. A Tauren should be able to take on 5 footmen easily. I could keep going on but need to address other point.
Night Elf players, this is where the retcon comes in. I might be the only one, but the thing that broke the straw on the camel’s back for me was the Troll Retcon. Don’t make NEs Troll descendants, have them born at the same time, NEs controlled the Well of Eternity, Trolls controlled everything else, and fell like Rome. Other than that I actually think the Night Warrior is a good addition and should stay and become the NE’s main focus and central plot. Don’t neuter it, or water it down, etc. Keep it and have it the main power point.
I just think that focusing on night elves when they’re winning occasionally might be fun. Darkshore could very well be that. Maybe. And leaving aside the Horde’s death camps and Nathanos’s dues ex machina (So I guess the Valkyr power people up now and it’s a real thing, huh?), it’s a good start. …Ignoring whatever is going on with Sira and Delaryn and assuming that it’s going to be part of a “The Kaldorei come home and what is this” storyline.
Which may be undue optimism.
I feel like night elves are pretty good at the butt kicking. On paper. Heck, we’re TOLD they’re absolutely terrifying and the entire Horde can barely match them. That the Legion was a wee bit scared of them.
But we SEE them when giant war machines are somehow ambushing them, when minor lake elementals are egged into murdering them and kill everyone, and when Hyjal is on fire. And so on.
And you know, I get it. The night elves are the big bruiser left standing, so they get Worf’d whenever we need to prove how scary the threat is (nightmare, Ragnaros, so on) or for the Horde to feel like real tough guys. Because YEAH! They can step up to the big guy and maybe even land a few punches!
Saurfang isn’t A class either. (Only in our memes) Besides he was actively not trying to kill Anduin, so I don’t really count that against either character.
A class is the Gods: Jaina, Sylvanas, Tyrande, Malfurion, Alleria, Turalyon, a case can be made for God-King Anduin.
Losing Sylvanas isn’t just losing a emotional character for us. It’s losing our only character who can stand up to the big shot Alliance characters. Baine/Saurfang/Rokhan/Lorth will never be able to go toe to toe with Tyrande, nor Malfurion, nor Jaina, etc etc.
And if there are no Horde characters who can…it dooms the Horde to always following those Alliance heroes when the world ending threats roll around.
That’s just how I feel on the matter.
Out of curiosity I want to ask how you want Tyrande and the Night Warrior to go after the war is over?
So okay, this is a good question.
i am someone who thinks that neither sylvanas or the horde can be redeemed at all (and i am not saying that they should either), but for the purpose of the thread i will do my best to answer this in this hypothetical scenario.
What do I want from the horde to be “redemeed”?
Well, we can start with actual GOOD FAITH, that is something that the alliance always show in my eyes.
Baine delivering derek is a good start, and it was also when he warned about theramore to jaina (indirectly saving her life)
problem is,that is only baine… because i am pretty sure that that kind of good faith is not even normal, normal soldiers just want to “muh, smash, furdihurd” if there is someone who is forgiven or “redeemed” that is only baine.
Voljin also was kinda like that, he do showed good faith aaaand… he is dead.
so even if i see with “good eyes” some or their leaders, is not enough.
They need to do something heroic.
Let’s say, azshara/n’zoth/black empire is destroying us.
But a horde leader, lets say thrall who is all about “peace” is trying to make amends with jaina because he feels guilty or something like that saves us.
So even when i said many times that “as long as they don’t make us unite for greater good” that is the closest thing that i can find to be “acceptable”.
Now i am sure that i am asking too much or not even sure if that is even possible, i just tried to answer the question.
i didn’t even talked about sylvanas,well, the only thing that i can think of is if she turns back in time and never burned the tree as she smiled while the people burned.
OR that is later revealed that it wasn’t her who give the order and it was a doppelganger or something like that.
There is no scenario where she can be redeemed if it was truly her the one who did it.
like, teldrassil has to be the biggest lore mistake in the history in the franchise.
and i am sorry for all her fans,i know that losing a wc3 character is a truly low blow, if blizzard kills her.
(i am still salty about kaelthas).
and lastly, what i TRULY want to happen is that all these battles between horde and alliance become MINOR in comparassión.
Lordaeron?gilneas?theramore? dazarlazor? all worthless if the world ends up DESTROYED or conquered by the black empire.
If they TRULY want to end faction war, is the only way to make us “forget” about these past events that means little, they need to show us how meaningless these battles are when the fate of the universe is at risk, and not some dumb alliance vs horde stuff.
THAT is acceptable, for me.
I’m not sure exactly how the NE move foward. A start would be to retake their lands obviously. But do much damage to their story has been done. I miss the old days when I was able to connect to their story do easily.
I’ll admit. A lot of night elf fans have really made me lose a lot of sympathy for the state of the race in the story. A lot of blame has gone towards the alliance in this regard and it almost makes me want to count every human npc in kalimdor night elven lands throughout questing to show the alliance has done plenty for the night elves albeit not this xpac.
But I understand this is all due to anger and the whatnot. Personally I think of the night elves as a staple race of the alliance despite peoples qualms with the lack of info on why they joined in the first place. Still keep my silver wing sentinals tabard in my bag for this reason.
Personally and I know a lot of people will not like this but I’m gonna say it anyways. If blizzard continues to go through with this one continent per faction business, I think the alliance should gift the ruins of lordaeron to the night elves qnd with the use of druidic magic grow a world tree out of it. I think this would be poetic in that the alliance is willing to give one of its main kingdoms and place of history to the night elves. To show that the alliance truely values them and knows them as “one of us”. And of course push back against the claim that the alliance only wanted to retake lordaeron because “lol human paladinz”.
But eh its blizzard so you know itll probably never get resolved.
Akiyass, the hard part about finding a remedy to the situation with the story is being able to balance the needs and interests involved. As a result I’m not sure if we can give a satisfactory remedy to the current story. That being said, I’ve always been a stubborn person who doesn’t like to give up, so I’ll see what I can do.
/cracks knuckles
I was going to say lets deal with the bomb in the room and start with Sylvanas. But the reality is that there are three bombs with this story that need to be defused for the situation to truly be remedied and they all need to be dealt with at the same time. In no particular order they are the aforementioned Banshee, the Night Elves current situation, and the Horde feeling (for lack of a better description) hollowed out of it core narrative. There are additional story issues as well but these three are the primary challenges with the story for not only Night Elf fans but fans of Warcraft in general.
So, how can they be remedied?
If one is focused on at a time the others will either feel left out or be set aside never to be addressed again. So it is necessary to attempt to resolve all three of them at the same time. So, the question is then can this be remedied?
/deep breath
Yes, it can be remedied.
But, it will not be an easy fix to pull off for Blizzard from a writing or creative design choice. In effort to give some useful feedback to both the OP and to Blizzard I will offer what suggestions I can.
In short, all three problems need to be resolved at the same time, in the same patch, in the same play through or the entire narrative will not function and fail to satisfy anyone.
As an example of what that narrative could look like.
Maiev convinces Tyrande and Malfurion to launch a major offensive to reclaim all of Ashenvale from the Horde. The rest of the Alliance offers support but the Night Elves decline instead suggesting that they focus on other fronts while the Night Elves reclaim their ancient homeland. During the course of the offensive Sylvanas is badly damaged/wounded and forced to retreat along with the bulk of her forces ceding the territory to the Night Elves without further contestation.
Either as this is happening or shortly there after the Alliance launches another offensive; this time against the remaining Forsaken forces in Lordaeron. The force commanders the Alliance commits (could be new or old characters) give their subordinates clear instructions to terminate any and all Forsaken aligned forces within Lordaeron on sight with no exceptions. The bulk of the remaining Forsaken troops rally to Alterac (preferably lead by a new character) who prepares for a last stand. As the Alliance forces are about to strike Saurfang arrives with a large number of veteran Horde troops he had been gathering. He not only breaks the siege but allows the Forsaken hold outs to launch a counter attack that secures the Alterac Mountains and leaves the Forsaken in a better position.
Both of these events would tie together with the Night Elves forcing a stalemate with the Horde on Kalimdor and the Forsaken forcing a stalemate in the Eastern Kingdoms. Thus forcing any further conflict between the Alliance and the Horde to be settled at sea. Further more, Saurfang could present either an affirmation of loyalty to the Horde and/or an admonition and challenge to Sylvanas by stating that if she refuses to fight in an honorable fashion again he will leave the Horde forever and will welcome any Horde member who wishes to join him.
I believe something like this could go a long way to remedying the current story of WoW. What do you think?
I’ve seen this idea used a couple of times. It’s not a bad idea in and of itself but I disagree with it. To me the Night Elves are too closely tied with Kalimdor in their story to resettle somewhere else on a large scale.
There are a lot of moving parts in this topic OP, and I guess I already focused on the issue of the Horde. As for the Night Elves … I’m not 100 percent opposed to the idea of them ending up in Northern EK (with a lot of asterisks), but I’m definitely more on the side of them staying on Kalimdor. There are a lot of negatives to the idea that they’d have to migrate to EK, but there are a few advantages (largely due to who their neighbors would be up there. They’d have a lot in common).
The only thing I can say for certain is that regardless of where they settle next, I would prefer that they get a new World Tree (and yes they should have one) be particularly potent in meaning. Teldrassil and Nordrassil are amazing symbols of nature, but … they are also in many ways symbols of NE arrogance. Nordrassil is a lock, that only exists because of Illidan’s controversial choice to make a second WoE on Hyjal. Teldrassil was created by Staghelm in an amazing display of hubris as he attempted to reclaim NE immortality. TBH, the lives lost at Teldrassil are far FAR more important than the loss of the tree itself.
As such … I want the next tree to be a genuine symbol of rebirth and healing (not a vain attempt to reclaim immortality); and I can’t think of a better method of achieving that then by having Aviana’s work since Cata actually pay off … and the NEs get the first, genuine seed bore by a restored G’hanir. If you wanted to sweeten that pot, the Bronze Dragonflight has access to two remaining vials of the original WoE; but regardless of anything else (vials or location) … a seed from the rebirth and healing of the Mother Tree should manifest a new World Tree (and home for the Kaldorei people).
Re: Sylvanas and the Horde’s “Redemption”, what would go a long, long way with me is the characters showing an iota of self-awareness.
Slyvanas going, “Oh, gee whiz, I have gotten awfully close to Arthas. Maybe I need to actually tone it down a notch” and following through… Or at least indicating she’s noticed that there’s some parallels (and not in a snide one-liner that may or may not indicate any internal examination) and that maybe she’s not completely okay with that…
Or heck, she’s completely okay with it, let’s stop hand wringing over moral greyness and motive and ride this Snidely Whiplash train into the ground.
But heck, give me some commitment, woman.
For the Horde (FOR THE HORDE), I’d like to, again, see people actually thinking about what happened. See the ramifications. See the orcs and taurens actually have an emotion about their glorious victory being accomplished only because they were literally picking on civilians and the city guard, instead of fighting actual sentinels. Just, in general, the Horde reacting to where this has led them and what they’ve done and maybe trying to move on… I’d like that.
Because right now the Horde is equal parts angsty teenager yelling NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME, stupid (Crommush yelling about Alliance cowards attacking from an airship while riding around in an airship), and Snidely Whiplash with the goblins and forsaken in Darkshore.
It’s not quite all that bleak for the Night Elves.
The Night Elves are the big heroes in the Gilnean story, they help stablilise the Worgen curse and they do the big perilous rescue of the Gilneans from their blighted land, an act which is a tremendous part of changing the character of Genn Greymane. They also brought back the pantheon of Wild Gods that were slain during the War of the Ancients as well as Cenarius himself. That’s vindication in a major way.
After finding out she was installed as Warchief at the whims of a duplicitous third party intending to use her to cause strife between the factions, she should die seeking revenge on that entity.
Nathanos. I know some people hate him, but nobody else fits the role of Forsaken leader.
Hmmm, personally I think it’s gone too far to really remedy now, both sides have individuals who would oppose any peace attempts between each other at this point.
However, I still personally think the Horde should be punished as a whole and not just it’s leaders as it’s military is complicit as well in stuff they have been up to, something similar to the Treaty of Versailles needs to be smacked on them, limit their military size, ban military vessels, no air force and maybe even post some Alliance troops throughout horde territory to enforce the treaty.
This time there can be no armistice or surrender without concessions from the Horde, it would disservice all the Night Elves and other Alliance Soldiers and Civies killed.
I won’t answer for the Alliance, although I have played every Alliance race I don’t really personally identify with the Alliance so I’ll answer as a Hordie (particularly as a player that most identifies with the Forsaken).
Where does the Horde go from here? I want to see some Horde Pride before this expac is through (that preferably isn’t based in genocide). I want to see the Honor Horde learn to appreciate Forsaken lives and stop treating them like cannon fodder or like jokes. I want to see characters like Baine, Thrall, and Saurfang take the needs and interests of the Forsaken into account, not just Tauren, Orcs and Trolls . I want to see Sylvanas come to the realization that the Horde is important and her role as Warchief is important (I thought the BfA opening cinematic was hinting at all of this but I suppose not).
What do I want for the Alliance? I want interesting story-lines for the Alliance. I want Blizzard to stop Anduin-izing the Alliance. I want the Alliance to go too far for once. I want the Alliance to have some internal conflict and turmoil for once. I want the individual races of the Alliance to be highlighted more and to stop the Human-ification of the Alliance as well. I think we are seeing the beginnings of this with Tyrande and the Night Elves…but my god the Anduin fetishizing has gone waaaay overboard in the writers’ room.
I can accept Sylvanas dying on two conditions: firstly she must go down fighting tooth, nail, and claw fighting to the absolutely bitter, bitter end. And secondly the Alliance has to lose an equally significant leader: I nominate Jaina Proudmoore, but I am willing to accept an Anduin/Genn combo.
Above all I want to see the factions and races expounded upon and celebrated, I do not want to see the factions merged, especially not under the leadership of Anduin. Snooze-city is what that is.
Well, the likelyhood that both factions are just going to get blown the heck up to some degree is a very real possibility; however, there does remain a rather … huge issue with this route. There is a difference between the Horde Faction and the Horde Playerbase, but you cannot punish the first without punishing the other (and the playerbase had no control over their faction being forced to play the aggressor in a War we are constantly told we could NEVER win).
Whatever solution Blizz decides to go with, they do have to take that reality into consideration. This is especially prevalent with how they handle “punishment” for our Leadership, because we cannot afford to lose too many more characters before the Horde is rendered completely irrelevant to any future stories (with absolutely no chance for recovery). Legion was already frustrating enough if you were Horde (we were just along for the ride), but more expansions like that … we might as well quit.
The Horde cannot be made even more of a footnote in the Heroes (Alliances) story than we already are … it would be disastrous for the Faction. Plus, unless your goal is WW2 … the “Treaty of Versailles” was an absolute disaster (and the Horde isn’t even strong enough to do what Blizz wanted us to with THIS expansion … I can’t imagine what horrific crap they’d do to us for the next WW).