No, Genn acted outside the will of Anduin and the Alliance. Genn helped the Night Elves because they helped his people in their time of need. He criticized Anduin for his unwillingness to help his allies.
Fair point. But this isn’t really a matter of “What I would like from this story”. If it were up to me, BFA in it’s entirety would be different.
It is a matter of what we see, and what we see is the High King of the Alliance prioritizing human interests before Kaldorei interests.
Considering they had that power in WC3, when they were introduced to the lore, and now we are supposed to believe these races that were little more than small bands of refuges have risen to meet them in the short period of 5 years (Between Hyjal and Vanilla WOW), I think that is a perfectly reasonable criticism, from a worldbuilding perspective.
As consumers of Blizzards content, we have every right to vocalize when we are unsatisfied with the content we’ve paid for.
Again I agree that Anduin was wrong and I hate that he has the Authority to tell other kings what to do with their forces. Its why Anduin and the high king role is a stain on the story.
However the fact stands that the Night elves got support from the rest of the Alliance.
In Warcraft 3 The Night elves lands were all invaded by the scourge/demons and pushed all the way back to their capital and even then they had to abandon that because it was mostly destroyed. Teldrassil was built up as the capital afterwards the same time as orgrimmar and Theramore. They are in the same position as the rest of the races in the world who were recovering.
So basically you want a power fantasy where your more powerful than all other races and will keep complaining about it until you get that. Not surprising people don’t take your complaints seriously.
No, this is the point where I feel you shouldn’t be taken seriously. If you’re going to use dumb straw-man attack lines like this one, there are only so many directions this conversation is going to go. Most of them involving us clarifying and you doubling down on the lie for 200 posts. I’ve seen this movie before - not interested.
@ Akiyass
Best not to take this bait. There was nothing wrong with there being four regional powers who played off each other for conflict on an inter and intrafaction basis. Badmaa is trying to get you into a position where he can claim that you’re saying “Night Elves uber alles” so that he can attack his straw man. Don’t let him.
Thing is, he has the authority to tell them what to do. That doesn’t mean they have to listen. This has been commented on several times in the past by the devs. And it has been proven with Tyrande and Genn.
If Anduin makes a call anyone dislikes, they’re free to withdraw their forces as they please.
It is a situation where people think holding eight to one in manpower isn’t good enough. Which I don’t really see being the bar for other groups.
The surface objection isn’t the one being claimed. I know that this is an easy figure to raise and attack, but it misses this and other issues that underlie discontent with this event in favor of an extremely distorted view of the argument.
Nowhere was the performance of the Night Elf military discussed. You’re not going to find a claim in there that holds that the skeletal defense force should have held off the Horde. You are going to find claims though that Tyrande shouldn’t have sent the military away to chase objectives in service of the Alliance, and that if they were going to be sent away that Stormwind should have sent military assistance through those portals rather than trying to take the “safe option” of evacuation to Stormwind.
We could also talk about some of the pants-on-head intelligence failures, but that’s more of an operational consideration rather than a strategic one. Otherwise though, when you bring up eight to one in that fashion, I’m going to object because it looks like you’re trying to speak to an argument that isn’t being made.
What, in your specific post? No. I didn’t have that in mind (given I hadn’t seen it) when I replied to Badmaa. It wasn’t what I was responding to.
I was responding to Badmaa responding to Akiyass.
If you don’t think the Night Elves should win eight to one, fine.
If Akiyass doesn’t think the Night Elves should win eight to one, fine.
Though my comment was, again, responding to Badmaa with what I’ve seen come up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Akiyass believed that, honestly. But it wasn’t aimed at you then.
I mean, Badmaa was replying to me first. The specific way in which he chose to do that was this:
Which isn’t even eight to one. It’s Detroit vs. Everybody. Which, okay - Detroit vs. Everybody might be fun to think about, but it’s not being advocated for - it’s not even close to anything anyone is advocating for. The problem is that this is a default stock line that’s used to evade conversation on the actual points.
Which you might note isn’t the quote or post I was replying to.
There are people who think Night Elves should be a super power in their own right. Which in and of itself isn’t necessarily even unreasonable in some respects. I don’t think anyone is saying they should be able to take on both factions by themselves. I ignored that comment since I didn’t think it quite applied.
Eh, getting closer to the topic - I think they should form up the anchor of a regional power, just as I think the Orcs, Humans, and Forsaken should do in their respective areas. The game was good when we had those different power bases for the Horde and the Alliance. Although, I think you could also make a strong case for saying that Zandalar and Kul’tiras also should be regional powers at this point.
So was everyone else. The major difference is the Night Elves didn’t have their homes destroyed like everyone else. Darkspears had their island sink into the sea. Orcs had a civil war before they could even settle anywhere. Tauren had been hunted to near extinction. Humanity had nearly all of their Kingdoms fall. Silvermoon is a pile of rubble. The fact that the Night Elves got invaded and are still standing means they came out better than everyone else.
So if the devs said, ‘we’re retconning it so the Night Elves were always as weak as other races to line up with the current portrayal’, that’d be fine?
I reject the framing of this question. Night Elves were never gods - the idea that they needed to have been “taken down a peg” from their Vanilla-Wrath presentation especially is little more than ex-post facto justification, especially when we go to consider the heaping on of incomprehensible powers beginning in the Cata era via books, that didn’t really make it into the game.
The Night Warrior being the big exception, and even that is unbelievable and ridiculous. (i.e. I’ll believe that Tyrande can now take down an old god when I see it)
I have to correct myself somewhat. There was one example of a Night Elf character who got a sickening power boost where that was represented in game in the post-cata era that I’m forgetting:
Shandris Feathermoon in Grommash Hold - 2011, Colorised
Again, not at you and Akiyass didn’t, so.
Never said they were Gods. The comment was ‘stronger than other races’ which they also didn’t contest. I’d say that itself is a strawman when they’re already not protesting that idea.
And I didn’t say they needed anything specific, but I am doubting that simple lore consistency is what matters.
But not consistent with the messaging that you gave to people who were invested in the concept. Sure, you can ramrod past elements into conformity with your new vision, but you still misled your playerbase.
This would further be inconsistent with Blizzard’s flailing attempts to mitigate matters by heaping on power-ups that ultimately don’t mean anything. They still seem to be interested in saying “wait! It’s not that bad! Come back! Look! Here are some black eyes! Tyrande can take down an old god now! Come back! Please!?”
