How the Night Elf Story could have progressed without malicious writing

9.1 PTR Spoilers included

I made a comment in another thread bringing up a few suggestion on how the Night Elf Story could have progressed after Teldrassil without affecting other races negatively. I thought I’d create a new thread about it.
Please be aware that this is supposed to be only about Night Elves, I’m well aware that other races need development too and I’m not stating otherwise, I’m also not saying that the Night Elves should get the sole focus of the story.
Many of the things I’ll suggest will not include the Horde player either, they won’t be forced to watch or lose as Night Elf players get a victory against them for example.
My goal is to provide suggestions on how to change details of the story while leaving core parts the same to make it better for Night Elves, and to give the race a chance to be part of the story going forward and have a future as a race

As we all know, the resolution for the Night Elves after the Burning of Teldrassil has been so terrible and insulting that it’s no secret anymore that it was written with the sole purpose of being cruel towards Night Elf Players. I just wanted to briefly bring up a few suggestions about how I would’ve written the Burning of Teldrassil and its resolution as someone who actually likes the race.
This post consists of a short overview of what happened to the Night Elves officially, and a short version of how I would’ve written it. The goal of this post is to provide a Night Elf storyline or suggestions for a Night Elf storyline that leaves the big things as they were in the original story, but changes details to make it significantly better for Night Elves.

The Burning of Teldrassil

Now about the Burning itself, it’s a basic rule of my post that we’re giving the writers the benefit of the doubt and say that they were ordered to write the event from upper departments, so it would still happen.
The difference though would be that the Night Elves aren’t close to extinction after the event, but instead that they, while suffering huge losses, would still have the majority of their population alive and in Azeroth after the event. It could still be a genocide, Saurfang can still become sad, the Horde shamans could still fan the flames to kill more civilians if they really need to etc…
Just let the majority of the Night Elf population or atleast a good chunk of it still be alive after it.

The Zones

Night Elves lost 3 Zones during BfA: Ashenvale, Darkshore and Teldrassil. Despite the Night Warrior’s power they were, in canon lore, still not able to reclaim Ashenvale. They did end up getting Darkshore in the end, but the zone is only accessible for 50% of the time for Night Elf players. During the other half, the Horde has it.
The Horde ended up keeping Ashenvale in the lore and it was never also mentioned again.

Now the way I would’ve written it: The Night Elves get onscreen victories against the Horde in Darkshore and in Ashenvale. Teldrassil is obviously gone, but giving a race onscreen victories and giving them the feeling of a victory in their own zones is certainly better than letting the Horde keep Ashenvale, abandoning the plot and answering the Darkshore question through a coincidence in a Blizzcon interview.
Especially with the Night Warrior, they should’ve been able to pull off those victories in their own forests. This would give them back the zones they canonically held before BfA minus Teldrassil.
The victory in Darkshore could also be reflected ingame by just using the Alliance phasing in Darkshore, instead of sending Night Elf players to a blighted wasteland half of the times they use the Darkshore portal.
When you dare to transfer your character to a Night Elf, Blizzard also puts your character in front your burned home and sometimes into a blighted Darkshore, this is obviously also not a good look.
Lastly, with Teldrassil gone, they should get a new home for their (in my version “existing”) remaining population in Hyjal.
They could’ve also shown the Night Elves rebuilding their destroyed towns, or building a new capital city in Hyjal, perhaps even with a heritage armor that never arrived.

The Night Elves as people and their souls

After close to all remaining Night Elves of Azeroth were wiped out in Ashenvale, Darkshore and Teldrassil, the remaining few refugees are now stuck on the streets of Stormwind forever.
The souls of the dead were sent to the maw, tortured and obliterated. We saved a few in the Ardenweald campaign, yet those numbers didn’t even come close to 10% of those that died.
In the 9.1 PTR, Tyrande arrives in Ardenweald and we don’t free any more souls, therefore it’s safe to assume that those souls that weren’t saved in the campaign before are gone forever.

How I would’ve written this instead is that the (in my version still existing) remaining population could’ve moved into Hyjal, Ashenvale and Darkshore.
With the souls it gets more interesting. Instead of most of them being obliterated after an eternity of torture, we’ll save all or atleast close to all of the Night Elf souls. Tyrande then normally arrives in Ardenweald in 9.1 and pushes Sylvanas back instead of being defeated (I’ll come to that later), gets put to sleep by Ysera because of her powers threatening to tear her apart and we later find a way to share her power between her and the souls of her people instead of former Night Warriors. This will play an important role in my next point.

The Justice for Teldrassil

The justice plot for Teldrassil, well to make it short, it never happened. It was just scrapped in the official lore, they might have had a concept with it with Night Warrior Tyrande, but she ended up not really getting any justice done against the Horde or Sylvanas.
It ends in 9.1 when Tyrande arrives in Ardenweald, gets defeated by Sylvanas after a very long “build up” (or call it “wait” rather since Tyrande was mostly forgotten about in BfA) and then sleeps for the rest of the patch so that she won’t intervene in Sylvanas’ redemption.

Now how I would’ve written it is, apart from the onscreen victories for Night Elf players in their own zones (Darkshore and Ashenvale), is that I would’ve involved the Night Elf souls in it.
They were the first hand victims of genocide, of being burned alive, of torture. Instead of being obliterated, they’d be saved in my version.
Tyrande, after actually defeating Sylvanas in Ardenweald instead of losing (defeating doesn’t automatically mean killing, but perhaps injuring and pushing her back), then gets put to sleep by Ysera and we find a way to siphon part of the Night Warrior powers out of her and distribute them between the souls of her people, either bringing them back to life as fighters or enabling them to fight for Ardenweald.
Now, later on in Shadowlands, this is where my speculation starts, we’ll eventually fight the jailer. The Night Elf souls would be part of our final crusade against the jailer, and they’d get justice against those that tortured them. They’d get to defeat the very mawsworn that tortured them for so long, and they’d get their justice by killing them and imprisoning the jailer for all eternity.
Sylvanas doesn’t have to die, but she needs punishments for her actions and no glorification. Since in my version of the story, the Night Elves haven’t lost absolutely everything and they’d still get some sort of justice, Sylvanas is also less of a factor when it comes to a conclusion.

Bonus: Cinematics

I think it goes without saying that the cinematics were distributed unequally between different characters in BfA. Mostly Saurfang took all the spotlight away, and Tyrande’s Night Warrior transformation was thrown together in a coffee break. We could’ve used one or two night elf cinematics to show them deal with their losses, and show their positive moments (that happened only in my version) after the Burning of Teldrassil.

Conclusion

It was a long read, but I hope atleast some will take the time reading it. I just wanted to bring across a few points that wouldn’t have changed the story on a large scale, but changed a few details to include the Night Elves in a way that doesn’t include only losses and tragedy, but also positive moments, and a happy ending for the souls that have definitely endured enough.

Since most likely not everyone wants to read my wall of text, I’ll leave a very short TLDR here:

  • Instead of being nearly wiped out after Teldrassil, they’d still have the majority of their population
  • Instead of permanently losing Ashenvale, they’d actually get onscreen victories in their own zones with the Night Warrior, and players would be able to visit Darkshore again without having to wait for the right phasing
  • Instead of the souls being obliterated, they’d get saved and infused with power by Tyrande
  • The living Night Elf people would move back to Hyjal, Ashenvale and Darkshore where rebuilding efforts are made
  • The justice for Teldrassil will be the infused Night Elf souls and the Night Warrior taking the fight to the jailer and defeating those that tortured them

The summary is very short though, so please read the entire post to get a better picture of it. Let me know what you think! And if I made some mistakes, let me know too.

PS: I’m not demanding all of those, it’s just my version of a story that’s written with a passion for Night Elves that leaves the core parts of the story the same without changing it. If some of those were included in the official story, that would already significantly change the tone of the story.
If you want to criticize it, please criticize my suggestions

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That’s untrue.

Can’t you not only wind it back, isn’t it still accessable when it is Horde questing?

Nothing else is worth quibbling over. After read the entire post, I think these minor changes are all fine. Seem positive overall. For the some player’s enjoyment of the story.

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Cool, cool, I would just be completely against giving Nelfs more God powers. They have been blessed by stuff enough. They can just be saved, they can do without the Night warrior powers.

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They wouldn’t be getting god powers, the souls would just be “buffed” in some way to be able to help us fight the jailer and the mawsworn. I think this is far more compelling than finding former Night Warriors that we’ve never heard of before (and aren’t even from Azeroth) and splitting the power among them.

As far as I know, the Night Elf souls currently aren’t able to fight, maybe if buffed by the Night Warrior powers, they could.

Mmmh, nah, I prefer other night warriors.

Having the souls fight is putting them in danger of being permanently…killed. there is no second chance once a soul dies in the shadowlands.

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This is just a “could have been” scenario, since most of the souls are already permanently obliterated.
If we actually got to free them before that happened, this could’ve been a good plot point in my view if the night elf souls were enabled to fight by our side and get justice since they were the first hand victims.

How to progress the night elf story:

By giving them more story progressing than every race together except human even if the night elf already had more story than every other race except human.

Yeah nothing new here but night elf player asking to be favoured more like they were in WC3.

The story forum was so much better when she pretended to leave the forum after her ‘‘so sad’’ good bye thread that she made…

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Not sure if you’re serious about this, because the only story progression they’re getting is losing zones, their people, suffering tragedies and their quest for justice failing miserably.

No other race in the game is only getting negative story development just because some Blizzard employee abusing their power hates it, and slowly removing everything Night Elf related from the game and story.

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They got a power boost and they get to regain a zone which nearly no other race had the privilege to do.

Gnome? Worgen? Forsaken? Darkspear troll? May i remember you that the reason those race can’t lose as much as the night elf is because they STILL don’t even as much as night elf…

And before you say that Darkspear retrieve their small island, because i know that you are out of touch enough to consider this as a bid story improvement, the night elf regain darkshore which is a full zone compare to the super duper small island that troll get.

Which is why we still have night elf stuff every 2 patch…

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Btw the OP already made this thread in the GD forum a few hour ago so this one is nothing more than spaming.

So feel free to flag this thread as spaming which it is.

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They had the privilege to regain one of their 3 zones that they lost, but Night Elf players are only allowed there 50% of the time.

None of those have been nearly wiped out, their souls destroyed, the one that did it glorified, their leader after 3 years of “build up” aka ignoring the character lose to the one who commited those crimes against them etc…

The Trolls have an entire new continent that they can use now? The trolls’ souls were saved by Bwonsamdi, now compare that to what happened to the Night Elf souls.

Every 2 patches, they somehow lose, have something tragic happen to them or are forced to watch as those that commited those crimes against them are somehow proven right and glorified.

Night Elves have half a zone left now as a playable race, and a few refugees in the streets of Stormwind. And they never got justice, instead they are getting a defeat against Sylvanas now in Ardenweald despite the Night Warrior powers.

This one came first :woman_shrugging:

But the fact that you’re trying to mass flag a thread that doesn’t affect you in any way tells a lot about you

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Well, to an NE poster who clearly ONLY cares about the NEs. Gnome = JokeRace. They don’t count. Worgen = Accessory Race. They owe the NEs cuz reasons, so they’re the NEs sidekicks now. Darkspear Troll = Not interested in them. So them being the literal most brutalized PC race in Warcraft doesn’t count. Especially now that their only character is being “maybe” made a Loa after the most insulting death imaginable. But it is very unclear as to whether we’ll get any form of resolution to that in SLs.

Also, the NEs “have no territories” … outside of like a full 3rd of a continent, with Ashenvale only “probably” back in their control (since they control both Hyjal and Darkshore). The NEs are “near extinct” … placing them right alongside … literally every other PC race but Dwarves and some ARs in the last 35 years of events alone. And the idea that within like the 15 years since Telds creation the timeless NEs filled it with population percentages that could rival the mortality rates of events like Quel’thalas to the Scourge, the destruction of Kezan/Undermine to Deathwing, or the betrayal of Gnomergon … just makes the NEs look really stupid.

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You have no clue what you are talking about right???

You mean Zandalari right? Because jungle troll are as Zandalari as night elf are blood elf/night born.

So guess that night elf still have suramar and silvermoon along with that slotting rock in the space while you are at it.

When in the lifespan of wow has either of those races been nearly wiped out by the opposite faction, or in general? And then got tortured in the maw and got zero resolution?

You seem to be forgetting the faction difference

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Exactly. On the other night elf whining thread, i’ve been told by that gnome that worgen,gnome,panda, darkspear and forsaken all had more city/zone/leader…

Even if all of those race have no city, no zone and barely have one leader…

And do not mention how the ‘‘extinct’’ race still manage to kick two horde race out of Darkshore…

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Sing … Cry!
And what is the percentage of population loss among the worgen?

Gilnean population was destroy by feral worgen and deathwing. Most of the survivor manage to live on Teldrassil. The reason that nearly all of them manage to escape the burning is literally because how few they were.

Gnome population got hit like a rock with the gnomeran accident.

Darkspear were nearly wipe out by god dam murlock. The other jungle troll, well, we kill nearly all for them in the raid.

Forsaken cannot reproduce and now have lost their way to recreate other forsaken. Might as well mention how they were use as canon folder for both Undercity battle and the darkshore battle.

But yeah go on with you complete lack of knowledge on every other race that aren’t night elf and with you own assumption that every other race must have it better just because night elf HAVE to be the ultimate victim…

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So what is the percentage of losses?

Come on like this. How many times did each race appear to be a victim?

Oh yes. My favorite cup. Repairs are denied to everyone until the oldest crack is repaired?

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People need to chill. I understand people are upset about what happened, but it is true Kaldorei are not nearly the only race that bad things have happened to, and they won’t be the last.

Honestly the story spotlight id say is good. We are getting so much story and lore behind them compared to any other race, which is cool despite Teldrassil.

And ingame, you can’t expect it to reflect lore all the time. Suramar is a safe horde city but we can’t go there without demons…so yes. The kaldorei are living in Hyjal and control Darkshore, it doesn’t matter if you can only 'own it ingame 50% of the time. Its a game mechanic stuck in time.

Honestly at least the Kaldorei are continuing to have resolutions to their plots in the current narrative, with the presence of the night warriors involved heavily in Ardenweald.

In short, I understand being upset at what happened but they’re not the only race to be so and are even one of the races continuing to get central stories in the plot.

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