Amadis was talking about the reactions of Horde players, not Nelf players.
2 Likes
Was mostly replying to this.
Taken in context of Amadis’ post, where he points out the victories the Night Elves are already achieving.
2 Likes
Indeed. So I’m not seeing where Moosecannon is getting this idea that Night Elves aren’t up on a pedestal above most other races any more.
2 Likes
I feel like three different things were being argued simultaneously.
3 Likes
By the time he realised what was happening, it was pretty much too late.
Also, once the war is committed, what is the priority for the survival of the Horde? To take out it’s Warchief when the Alliance is going to come for you no matter what?
If a story of a video game makes you this emotional maybe its time to step away from the game, I noticed going on here and mmo champion makes me cynical, I try to avoid these fourms as much as possible now.
In game the horde just easily stomp through Ashenvale and Darkshore, the blood elf rogue even laughs about how easy it is to take out the town in Ashenvale with just the player and him. The only thing that slows the horde down in game is Malfurion’s wisp wall.
In the books it’s different and the night elves put up a fight, but still lose everything. Even with the army returning Darkshore becomes easily secured and this is after the battle at Undercity and the expedition to Zandalari and Kul Tiras was well underway with horde forces all over the world.
Also remember the “loses” they took in the book also never effected them and also was never mentioned in game, unlike the alliance loses at Undercity that was demonstrated with tons of coffins on the docks and anduin talking about how they are going to have to call up farmers next before releasing Saurfang.
Then in 8.1 the intro quest for the horde:
` https://www.wowhead.com/quest=54042/trouble-in-darkshore
They mostly didn’t even expect a night elf resistance at that time because the night elves were a non issue even with some of the night elf army having returned with Shandis towards the end of the WoT and the rest following after.
If you think the night elves were so powerful, why did Tyrande need the night warrior “power”, why was darkshore so secure for the horde they were almost confused there was a resistance afterwards. You even have the orc commander in the cutscene laughing about a night elf being able to kill like 4 people.
The horde basically had a pick up team while they were fighting all over the world, and even just recruited undead night elves to help them fight against pretty much most of the remaining night elfs AND Tyrande NEEDED some power up just to be able to fight them. They weren’t fighting at all against the full power of “five races of the Horde”, not by a long shot. They didn’t at the time even have time to really reinforce Darkshore they were saying was “a secure stronghold for the Horde” because the night elves were such a non threat.
Then we just get “oh the alliance won both warfronts” answer at blizzcon instead of anything in game.
Your whole thing is “oh night elves knew the land better in the books and killed more horde soldiers than horde killed night elf soldiers but still ended up losing way more life and most of their population and land, therefore night elves are insanely strong”, which makes zero sense.
4 Likes
In-game the Night Elves already had sent their armies down to Silithus before the Horde turned into Ashenvale, same as in the books:
- The kaldorei forces already set sail for Silithus–must be halfway there by now.
Only a few of the Night Elf ships were able to turn around at all, and that was because the last few ships had been slowed down by a storm long enough for Malfurion’s messenger to catch up to those said few ships. The rest of the army had already been sent down to Feralas in staggered waves, and Feralas never ended up involved with the Fourth War after, as far as we know, leaving the Night Elf army for the most part entirely intact.
The losses sustained at Teldrassil have no connection with how powerful the Night Elves are in comparison to any other race. It was simply a poorly thought out scripted scene comprised of Blizzard deciding Teldrassil could just burn by catapults that didn’t even logically have the range to hit the tree at all.
Terran Gregory even described in detail how the Orc commander in “Terror of Darkshore” basically only had experience fighting Night Elf civilians her entire military career at the Barren’s front, meaning the Horde had been held off by Night Elf civilians not only during the War of the Thorns, but basically ever since the beginning of WoW, all the way back to Classic.
Ultimately, Tyrande didn’t need the Night Warrior power. That has been a main complaint from a lot of Night Elf fans. Tyrande already had the power to decimate armies before getting the Night Warrior power. Even in the very novels detailing the War of the Thorns it was described that if Tyrande had come back to the battlefield that the Horde would have needed to increase its army size by entire additional half just to handle her.
Even in the new novel, Tyrande is threatening the existence of the Horde with the children that were evacuated on time. For whatever backtracking people want to call Blizzard on, the power of the Night Elves is not in question.
So your complaints are basically just about presentation and pointless choices made by Blizzard, not about the strength of the Night Elves.
4 Likes
Oh I know what he said, and I pointed this out when that interview came out. The big issue was that interview came out after the tons of complaining about how bad the 8.1 night warrior scenario was, so he was obviously trying to do damage control saying she only ever attacked civilians. Nathanos though saying “I know one who can” meaning Malfurion would have been the only one he knew who could take out 4 horde soldiers.
However he tries to twist it, the implication here is that the night elves are a laughing stock and not seen as a threat. This comes across in horde questing as well. I did enjoy the Malfurion part, but that was about it for 8.1.
I would have thought she could have destroyed Nathanos before this night warrior power up, but she needed Malfurion’s help AND the night warrior power up. Regardless of how this is spun this is extremely badly done, at some point since cata you have to start realizing this is not accidental on their part.
Then you have Tyrande against Saurfang in the novel verse in the game. In the novel she came across as powerful, in game Saurfang was the one in a position of power giving her the ultimatum when she just flew in our of nowhere. Whoever is doing the in game stuff must not like Tyrande at all.
If night elves are constantly being portrayed as weak and useless most of the time and constantly in need of saving, yes people will start assuming they are weak and useless. This is about the story, you can say Tyrande “didn’t need” the power up, but she got it and it has been pretty pointless and she needed Malfurion’s help against Nathanos.
Will Blizzard ever give us a demonstration of how powerful this is? I can’t see that being the case at this point before she has to get rid of it, because the power to kill one valk that the player kills during low level questing with a couple farmers, is too much for Tyrande to handle.
She is pretty much only making a threat, there is nothing indicating the night elves have the power to actually go through with anything. She uses the amazing power of the night warrior to dim the lights and then gets winded and needs to sit down.
You can dismiss all the times the night elves are made to look weak and pointless, while horde questing literally never sees them as a serious threat, just a minor annoyance.
But when will the night elves get a well thought out scene? Something where they aren’t just victims, punching bags or in need of some power so they can fight? Nothing in BfA or really any time since Cata for sure and yes that includes the poorly thought out 8.1 scenario.
6 Likes
The only people who think the portrayal of the Night Elves is of them being weak are the people who only see whatever fragment of the story they personal play through and have not seen the rest of the story, so are simply uniformed. Or people obsessed with presentation above the simple letter of the lore.
Even in the new novel, the Horde’s shamans are struggling to talk with the elements, who are being affected by Tyrande being the Night Warrior. Horde fans are already complaining that this is just even more to show how much ahead of the Horde the Alliance is in term of powers, especially considering that Shamanism is one of the Horde’s most prominent strengths.
Will the Night Elves get a satisfying scene? In Shadowlands? Maybe Tyrande will get one. I doubt we’ll get one that will show the Night Elves as a whole achieve something to contrast their losses that were shown. And we can fairly complain about that all throughout Shadowlands and into the next expansion until such a scene does happen that we would find satisfactory.
But, once again, this has nothing to do with the strengths of the Night Elves.
There is no “letter of the lore” that is even saying or demonstrating the night elves are powerful now, maybe if you are still living in WC3 but definitely not now. Nothing is even stating they are powerful at this point not in game or in quest text, I don’t know the whole new book but is it even saying they are powerful or stronger than any race there like you are really trying to say here? I doubt it.
The useless night warrior power is also killing Tyrande, while she has nothing to show for it. I don’t even know if it’s actually effecting the elements though I didn’t see that page, it seemed like Thrall was just trying to smooth things over with her with words.
The night elves most likely won’t get a scene in SL (I think Ion said they won’t really address anything like that in SL) it will only be Tyrande getting rid of the night warrior power or dying. It would really just be in the expansion after SL, but my question was more general.
5 Likes
If people are only basing their knowledge of the lore on what is in-game or in-quests then they are uniformed about the lore as a whole. They wouldn’t even know that the Night Elves officially won Darkshore back. That is the “letter of the lore.” Whatever their perceptions are from missing out on the scattered lore pieces from Blizzard from all other forms of media is unfortunately player misinformation. Which is Blizzard’s fault. But still all it is. Misinformation and poor presentation. Not the letter of the lore. Which exists including things outside the game.
But I am not an optimistic person. Given things like the Park being made into Lion’s Rest, I would not expect a satisfying enough scene for the Night Elves even after Shadowlands, to be perfectly honest. Still, again, has nothing to do with the strength of the Night Elves.
We don’t even know when or how the night elves won Darkshore back. It could have been after Sylvanas was calling her forces to Org, but then why would Tyrande not be at Org to try to kill Sylvanas? Was there still fighting happening in Darkshore and it only ended because of the treaty?
The only reason we even know who won darkshore is because of a random question asked at Blizzcon, not because of anything in game, a book or a comic. What is the letter of the lore saying night elves are powerful, because all the in game and other written materials shows them as weak. Is there some secret tweet saying they are more powerful than another race? Also why can’t they tweet out the state of Ashenvale?
Oh I have no doubt they won’t give the night elves anything satisfying in the expansion after SL, my guess would be the night elves get some off screen victory (as per usual) so the horde gets to take it back.
3 Likes
Everything indicated that the Night Elves won Darkshore back after their first turn at the Warfront proper itself. Any cycle afterwards can just be seen as gameplay, same as Mythic+ dungeons. There is nothing to say that there was still fighting happening at Darkshore even before the armistice. Hell, not even the victory cinematic was ever made accessible, so people can’t even cling onto that notion that said scene somehow would have played out during the Visions of N’Zoth time period.
And hell if I know why they won’t tweet out something about Ashenvale. Hell, early reviewers of the new novel even say that Ashenvale isn’t addressed in it, either.
In that sense, how do we know that the reason Tyrande wasn’t at Orgrimmar was because she was fighting in Ashenvale? We don’t know. And we won’t know until Blizzard decides to stop refusing to give us answers. Which, being Blizzard, no one should try holding their breath for, if anything just for their own health.
I’m not saying we know if she is fighting in Darkshore or Ashenvale still, but with her singular focus now on fighting Sylvanas why didn’t she show up at Org? What would be the point of her not wanting to kill Sylvanas then? It makes no sense, other than Blizzard didn’t have any plans for night elf content after the dev said “Tyrande got revenge for Teldrassil” in 8.1 and then they just added a piece of dialogue later. That or she was STILL fighting in Darkshore or Ashenvale.
The cutscene being in game would have at least given us a time frame for when the night elves won darkshore, but not putting it in game means it can literally be any time before or after the treaty. The heroic version wasn’t even implemented until after the treaty, there is nothing indicating the night elves won the WF after the first turn. But I feel this could have been not implemented because they realized it was firstly a really bad cutscene, and secondly they realized the genocide of the night elves was a bigger deal than they initially thought when they decided to destroy Teldrassil with the night elf civilian population after the 8.1 backlash.
It would be nice to know this, but as you say it’s better to not hold your breath on things like this (especially when it pertains to the night elves). But they are constantly leaving out information literally any commoner NPC would know about the world which is becoming more and more tiring because you CANNOT discuss anything other than how things are presented or what is directly said.
5 Likes
Most things indicate that the Alliance won the Darkshore Warfront. Nathanos is no longer at Darkshore (having headed back to Zandalar before the Battle of Dazar’alor, and then we see him for Nazjatar before he goes back to Orgrimmar, and he doesn’t show up in the Alliance version of the Darkshore Warfront, either). The Horde’s version of the warfront is set right after the Alliance intro questing since the Horde has to save Belmont, and since that’s always the case and generals don’t change like at Arathi it would seem this is a gameplay mechanic like repeating dungeons rather than battlegrounds (Belmont also doesn’t show up in the Alliance version of the Darkshore Warfront, so it’s not like the Alliance players recapture him every time, either).
And even outside the Darkshore Warfront we have support that the Alliance won:
And then Nathanos says the Alliance is winning on all fronts after Dazar’alor, which would have included Darkshore.
The Heroic Darkshore Warfront didn’t even change anything mechanically like the Heroic Arathi Warfront did. The Heroic versions of the warfronts are purely gameplay, no more lore than running Heroic Dungeons again after running then in Normal mode first.
2 Likes
the NE went up against the entire horde without:
A. their military
B. Tyrande
C. any of their other major characters save malfurion
D. Cenarius
E. the Wild gods
F. any of their allies
and nearly WON while being the victim of a surprise attack and the horde managing to smuggle an entire army through a mountain… No other race in wow could hope to match such an achievement (save for maybe humans).
To give you a metric to which to measure how powerful horde races are. The darkspear are constantly kicked off their island by a ghost, not even a powerful one at that.
2 Likes
Obviously we know now they won the Warfront but that was ONLY because of the question asked at Blizzcon, not because of anything in game. The horde WF takes place first and then the alliance version against Sira, but that doesn’t indicate the WF was over then in 8.1 or anywhere before 8.3 because Tyrande or the army of the blackmoon were not present for the attack against Sylvanas. Why would they not be there for revenge that the whole night warrior thing is based around?
The only thing that stopped the horde was the wisp wall, not the night elves, this is with the night elves supposedly being adept at combat in the forest on their home turf, they only delayed the horde a little. Once they got past the mountain they destroyed the rest of the night elves there the night elves lost everything. The horde in game easily roll over the night elves and then get stopped by the wisp wall, in the book it’s harder as bringing a large army through a giant forest would be.
The night elves didn’t “almost beat them” they were just trying to slowed them down before their army could get back and the alliance could send reinforcements. Without the wisp wall the night elves would have been crushed much sooner and this is with fighting on a terrain they are suppose to be very adept and familiar with.
Nothing indicates they are strong now and other than Malfurion summoning a wisp wall, nothing indicates they were strong then and only really had defenders advantage (such as needing less people to hold off a large force when attakcing a castle).
2 Likes
The Horde getting access to the warfront first was also just gameplay. And I specifically noted what indicated in-game that the cycles after the Alliance’s version were just gameplay. As you did not address anything I pointed out as in-game evidence, you are not a case of a person being misinformed, you are just a person willfully ignoring lore.
Amusingly, it seems that there were members of the Army of the Black Moon at Orgrimmar. Night Warrior affected Night Elves in Boralus have flavor broadcast text, including one that says they were at Orgrimmar and had been close enough to Sylvanas that she would have been within bow range before she abandoned the Horde and flew away. So, horribly, even what we see in-game ourselves is not the full picture, because we did not see any Night Warrior affected Night Elves at Orgrimmar, but lore wise, there were at least some.
As for Malfurion and the Wisp wall, the great thing about that is Malfurion is still with the Night Elves, while Sylvanas is not, and as far as we’ve seen Thrall isn’t even using his Shaman powers any more. The Wisp wall was enough that Saurfang indeed noted that the Horde had pretty much lost at that point and would have needed a miracle, which obviously they did get in the pass through Felwood.