You have my permission to say ruined here. It did.
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Male human paladins?
Grandblade excepted.
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Of all the groups done disservice by this plot, I have to actually admit that the Night Elves in general are the least ruined. This isn’t the first genocide the Night Elves have gone through, and they’ve actually bounced back remarkably well. Delaryn, Sira, and the Undead Night Elves that join the Forsaken specifically are certainly ruined in their current states, yes. But for the living Night Elves, though the loss of Teldrassil is sad, are still themselves, and took the fight back to the Horde. Do I want more Night Elf successes after the loss of the War of the Thorns, such as Battlefield: Ashenvale and beyond? Yes. But, asides from potentially being unfairly ignored, Alliance Night Elves and their allies at least have gotten to stay true to themselves, unlike the Horde.
I love Teldrassil. It is still my preferred place to log my characters out at and where to set my hearthstones to. But, the simplest retcon I would go for would simply to have had all of Teldrassil have been evacuated before the burning.
They can even keep the catapults so we have something to laugh at still.
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I’ll never be able to properly express in words how violated it makes me feel to take part in a story that has framed the undead night elf plot the way it has. The fact that Blizzard’s heads are on record saying they used it to show the Kaldorei are not a monolith is so beyond abhorrent. The story and its writers insisting that they’re “willing”, after death is forced on them, to propagate that same evil to others. That this is a case of them being won over by ideology and nothing else. They’re willing. Some of them? They secretly wanted it. This was a gift that freed them despite all their begging, struggling, crying.
And that no sort of impactful narrative counter is presented? No revenge? No recompense? No relief or catharsis? They are utterly ruined for me. The narrative is clear. The Forsaken and their genocide is a fair point. Not one that galvanizes and utterly unites. It persuades. Some people will surely come around to see it as a good thing. After all, no race is a monolith who can all agree being murdered is a bad thing!
This story is a ruinous trash heap and night elves are the centerpiece of it all. I am beyond demoralized to learn there are human beings who actually think what they have committed to perpetuity here was in any way not completely and utterly vile. It wasn’t enough to have bad things happen. They took it further, opened their septic mouths, and felt brazen enough to say genocide is something some victims could find agreeable.
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I don’t think the burning ruined the Night elves, so much as delusional developers’ recent statement about how killing a single val’kyr, some no-named forsaken grunts, and fighting an endless stalemate is the complete fulfillment of the Night Elves vengeance.
THATS what “ruined” the Night elves.
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Not totally true. You could (and still can with a bit of bronze dragon help) fly via air taxi from Teldrassil straight to the Exodar. Just like how you can fly from the plaguelands to Silvermoon City.
Sadly, for all of the seeing that this was MoP 2.0, I already expected this. Night Elves didn’t get vengeance in MoP or after, either. Instead we got Battlefield: Barrens, and a token appearance in Siege of Orgrimmar.
If anything, I am honestly surprised we got “Terror of Darkshore” and most things indicating that we won the Darkshore Warfront. I honestly expected the Night Elves to be completely ignored for the rest of BfA after the pre-expansion event.
Now, if we extend desired retcons passed the Burning of Teldrassil, I would completely retcon the Undead Night Elves. Tyrande as the Night Warrior should have saved the souls of the fallen Night Elves before they could be raised and instead they should have been presented as stars in the sky Ysera style. But that’s beyond the burning of Teldrassil itself.
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Fair.
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But what about Gran…
Oh.
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I would retcon the entire War Campaign. As I said in a previous thread, this expansion should have been a Cold War story.
Basically, the expansion would have started with Magni gathering the Alliance and Horde leaders and explaining the Azerite situation. All parties would agree that letting the planet bleed to death would be detrimental to them so set out to try and fix the problem.
After sealing the fissures in Silithus, they notice that the Azerite is still there. It turns out that, like with any other creature, they can stop the bleeding but they can’t put the blood that’s already been lost back in. So it’s just going sit there. Both sides quickly realize that this is an extremely valuable resource that’s ripe for harvest. This leads to a race between the two factions to secure fissures, leading to a rise in tensions between them. Magni finds this distasteful but is wiling to put up with it, reasoning that it’s added motivation to find the planet’s wounds.
Magni then reveals that there is some darkness, most likely related to the Old Gods, that is trying to prevent the planet from healing. Both sides begin mobilizing their armies to deal with this new threat, further raising tensions. They both decide that they need new allies for the coming war against the Old Gods, and possibly each other. This prompts the Alliance and Horde to court the Kul Tirans and the Zandalari respectively to secure naval power.
While this was all going on, we would see efforts on both sides to try and ease tensions. This would take the forms of npcs from both sides meeting for diplomatic discussions and quest lines where players engage in what are essentially good will missions. We would also see agents of N’Zoth try to destabilize the situation and drive the Alliance and Horde towards war. This would lead to players eliminating said agents and trying to deescalate the situation.
This would go on until the end of the expansion which would end in N’Zoth being defeated. However, a stray shot would be fired, someone would panic, and the Alliance and Horde would suddenly be fighting. This would lead into the actual war expansion. A legitimately moral-grey story where neither side wanted a war but now that it’s started, they don’t know how to stop it.
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You’re right… but the flightpaths are ‘special’ in that you get chucked through a ‘Loading Screen’ the same way you would riding a zeppelin or boat.
IIRC, the reason is because the server/map-data for those zones is actually part of the “Outland” continent, not Kalimdor/E.K. despite appearances.
Literally the first words that popped in my head when I read the title of this thread.
It would be better if it happened during battle in the city by accident.
That is correct. I once swam up the eastern coast of the Eastern Kingdoms and explored the stub zone of Quel’thelas that was attached to the EK server. Can’t do that any more though. I swam all away around both continents back in the day.
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Yes, I probably would retcon it, but really only how it happened and not that it happened at all.
I always liked the idea of Genn refusing to let another Alliance kingdom fall into Sylvanas’s hands and just torching the place to deny her (after evacuating the population of course. Fairs fair, if Undercity gets to be evacuated then so should have been Teldrassil.)
It would set up some interesting drama Alliance side and take some of the sting out of the loss. It would also be a legitimate Horde victory, and Sylvanas could have started her path to saturday morning cartoon villainy with moves made out of desperation trying to defend undercity instead of turning everyone against her before BFA even launched.
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What I’m learning from this thread is that most players who post here would strongly prefer a scenario in which war breaks out as a result of misunderstandings, competing objectives, and biases. Kinda like…actual real world conflicts.
It’s almost like Alliance players don’t need to be pandered to as lily-white heroes 24/7, and Horde players don’t crave playing as ravening psychopaths.
It’s almost as if players on both factions can handle complexity.
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I’d have had Nathanos die in the initial conflict before the burning. That way Sylvanas would have had a more legit reason to put Teldrassil to the torch than “this dying elf smack-talked me”.
Nah other than giving the horde a option to defy sylvanas and making the lead up quest match the books nope.
I think there is some competition and biases, but nowhere enough to justify a full-frontal assault on Teldrassil. The competition for Azerite and the bias that Sylvanas thinks a peace with the alliance won’t last. That it will eventually be broken and thus the Horde should go to war, cripple the alliance and then end it for good, to allow peace.
Now, I don’t buy her logic - there’s enough inner turmoil in the horde to suggest “peace” will be a struggle internally as well as externally. But the first thing I’d want retconned is a better reason for war. I wish there was more rebuttal from Varok in “A good war,” especially given his hyper-honor. It’s shortsighted to assume one can overcome their most hated enemy, and not make others in the process. Sylvanas’ premise for the war should have been much simpler and more achievable: “securing access to Azerite in Silithus and denying Alliance the access to Azerite.”
As for the burning? Not sure. An occupation would be awkward - and why would you want to occupy something that has no strategic value to you? Now, if they were storming/sieging Ironforge? I could see that having strategic value: its a staging point between UC and Stormwind, and an incredibly defensible position.
Why would you want to bargain with the alliance when you want their complete and utter destruction? In other words, why retain it as a bargaining chip? Sylvanas explained she wanted to decimate the alliance, not control or command them (such would be the case with taking teldrassil “hostage”. One doesn’t ransom something unless the owner has something you want. In this case, Sylvanas is more deadset on annihilation than domination, if that makes sense).
If the order to burn teldrassil was a rogue contingency, that could be interesting. But then you’d have a really complex internal issue in the Horde: Sylvanas, Saurfang and then the rogue contingency. It would stand to make Sylvanas look moderate, and I don’t think the writers want that. And then you wouldn’t have the saurfang “split”. He would be frustrated with the contingency - and perhaps not Sylvanas.
The Burning of Teldrassil wasn’t dumb in and of itself. The entire concept of war and a war of annihilation, that is dumb (technically speaking, of course). Anything that springs from that idea was going to be reeeaally dicey. It’s a situation from which you go all-in and there’s no turning back.
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OK, time to get in a writing mood…
Even as a fan of night elves, the burning of Teldrassil wasn’t so bad. It’s what came afterwards that upsets me. It just feels like Blizzard didn’t give the night elves a decent chance to avenge themselves. That, and the Battle for the Undercity feels like a complete letdown.
I would’ve liked to have seen more internal turmoil in the Horde at the start. Perhaps some disagreements about Sylvanas’ plan from the other leaders other than Saurfang. Perhaps outright refusal of the Nightborne to participate in campaigning against one of the races that helped them in Suramar. (Giving some much needed context to just how exactly the Nightborne thought of all of this)
Eventually, Sylvanas reminds everyone that it’s not their choice to make and that they owe their lives in servitude to the Horde, so they begrudgingly go along with it (Showing the first signs of discontent and sowing seeds for rebellion.)
On the Alliance side, Anduin is being proactive for once and raising an army to take the fight to Sylvanas! But Sylvanas ends up making the first move against Teldrassil. So Anduin in haste, attempts to divert forces to Kalimdor to help defend, but they end up arriving too late.
The resulting burning of Teldrassil shocks and angers some of the Horde leaders. I think it’d be interesting to see the PC report to their respective faction leaders personally.
Saurfang would be in a quiet fury, admitting to the PC that the invasion of Teldrassil was his idea, but he never intended on burning Teldrassil to a stump.
Baine would simply be in horror of what just happened, hoping that the Earthmother would forgive the Horde for Sylvanas’ actions.
Rokhan, seeing as he’s numero uno in the Darkspear now would mention that they’re all for waging war for the greater good of the Horde, but doubts that the spirits would look kindly on what happened today. He’d also mention some off-hand comment about Vol’jin, hinting at his future involvement in the story.
Lor’themar would be sort of neutral on the whole thing, admitting that the night elves are one of their greatest adversaries and that they had dealt a huge blow to them this day, but that it came at the cost of many lives. Too many. He would then caution the player that this is only the beginning, and that the night elves will have their vengeance- one way or another. So he’d implore him or her to be vigilant.
Gallywix would make a comment along the likes of, “Wow, that was a great fire show huh?” But lament in the fact that he wouldn’t be able to make profit out of enslaving the night elven population now.
Ji, would just be entirely in disbelief. This was not what he signed up for, and he’d mention that his primary goal for now would be ensuring the safety of his people, noting that he smells change in the air and that he’s been down this road before.
Mayla would note that regardless which side she is on in this fight, what happened today was a terrible tragedy. She’d mention that she was only barely able to keep Baine restrained in his emotions and worries that his temper may get the best of him soon. Going forward, she would hope that the Alliance’s reprisal is something that the Horde can weather.
Thalyssra would be notified of what happened at Teldrassil and… her only reaction would be her face turning pale, her taking a moment to process what she was just told and then her thanking the PC calmly, telling them that she needed some time alone.
And lastly, Sylvanas… she would be melancholy after the whole affair and tell the PC that she originally had no intentions to burn down the tree city, but that she ended up demanding it be destroyed because she realized the true scope and threat of the Alliance… and now she knows what she must destroy to bring them to their knees.
For the Alliance, the whole racial thing would be prompted when Anduin formally requests that the Alliance invade Undercity, and the PC would report to their respective racial leader. But since this is about the Burning itself, I won’t be getting into that one.
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