Hey folks, how about those elves?
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I don’t think the Nightborne’s critics claim they should have rejoined the Kaldorei or that Tyrande should have loved them. They would have belonged to completely different castes at the time; modern Kaldorei are ‘lowborn’ while the Shaldorei were highborne. They naturally have more in common with the Sin’dorei than the Kaldorei anyways.
The criticisms come from the fact that the Alliance via its envoys who saved Thallysra and Suramar itself, fought for and earned the Shaldorei’s loyalty in blood. And they essentially just threw that gesture away, like I saved your collective lives and now you’re going to try to kill me? It makes literally no sense and it makes the Nightborne look like ungrateful children.
They should have been neutral like the Pandaren at least. I don’t expect them to be buddies with the Night Elves but they 100% shouldn’t be hostile to the Alliance after what its members did for them.
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By that logic, then, the Lightforged Draenei should have also been made neutral. The “champion” for both the Alliance and Horde were instrumental to their defeating the Legion forces on Argus, therefore they should clearly support both sides, right?
Thalyssra: Not long ago, Alliance and Horde fought together to liberate Suramar from the Legion.
Thalyssra even acknowledges the contribution of the Alliance in patch 8.2. The liberation of Suramar was undeniably a collaborative effort, but the Horde ultimately succeeded in acting as diplomats after the battle where the Alliance failed.
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The general issue with the Nightborne was never that they joined the Horde, it was always when they joined and who they joined under I’m afraid. The shared cultural interests and norms between the BEs and Nightborne; the BEs genuine intention to open up diplomatic ties the NBs; and the NEs relation with the Highborne civilization (which the NB’s are a living relic of) are plenty reasons enough to justify why the NBs joined their cousins the BEs in the Horde.
The problem is that they joined under Windrunner, and that the Horde was subsequently turned into a plot device and vehicle for her to settup SLs. If they had been allowed to join under someone like Vol’jin, there are very few arguments one could make beyond “I want to play them” for them to be Alliance.
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Even that, the timing when they joined. It was clear that Sylvanas was ramping up for a military campaign. The Nightborne could have just waited it out and joined when the Vulpera did. It’s not like their society was going to collapse if they didn’t join the Horde or Alliance immediately.
They could have just been like, “We are going to join you, just give a few… how long is your war going to take? Give us a few of those to get our stuff in order.”
But games are games.
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Sigh … it is what it is. Sad to say, the very issues with the Horde ARs is the same issues that plague the entire Horde BfA Story. The Faction’s and Race’s story needs were not placed above the needs of Sylvie’s personal narrative; as it was her narrative that would settup Shadowlands. Even those amazing cinematics were little more than lip-service towards what the Horde is supposed to represent, when you realized they were never allowed to have an impact on the story until it was convenient they do so. This factor extended everywhere in Horde BfA.
That being said, it wasn’t only the Horde that was escalating post Legion. Anduin flooded Org with so many spies that you could literally trip over them as a deliberate intimidation tactic towards Sylvie after the Gathering. Not that it would matter, Blizzard really doesn’t seem comfortable tarnishing the Alliance’s rep enough to actually count something like that. Which is why there is always a convenient “Peace Treaty” that appears just before the Horde needs to break it. Its hard to have any nuance in an interfaction conflict story when one of them is off limits for anything “grey”.
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To be more accurate they joined under Lady Liadrin after being spurned by Tyrande.
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Yep, which just contradicts everything they tell us. “Horde and Alliance conflict is the heart of Warcraft.” Sure okay, but not when it’s used a device for your contrived narrative. When the heart is used like a pawn, you are doing things wrong.
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The Horde helped as well. After everything the Nightborne went through, including giving up their own source of power, Tyrande ignored them. The blood elves didn’t.
I get the feeling that if there wasn’t a faction war, one involving genocide no less, players wouldn’t care as much.
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WoW actually does smaller stories pretty good. Like in BfA: all the leveling stuff was cool! Mechagon was a lot of fun. Even a lot of the individual war campaign quests where you worked against the other faction were enjoyable.
People also don’t seem to generally hate being out in the world and skirmishing with the enemy faction. Or having the occasional invasion that gets repelled. Well okay, sometimes you get frustrated at being camped, but like overall, that can be exciting. Having the two factions fighting to try and woo a new potential ally over to their side while also trying to undermine the other is also a nice bit of rivalry that doesn’t have to be particularly violent, but would still be an important part of any conflict.
But wiping entire cities of the map and forcing us to watch the people burn to death, losing access to entire zones, elevating faction leaders to the level of Archvillain, and framing the faction war -not as two super powers battling for influence- but a literal battle for the heart and soul of the world and you’re either on the side of good or the side of evil?
That’s too much, man.
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Maybe, but I think there’s still the unavoidable issue of a race that purely consists of living night elven backstory suddenly jumping ship and joining the other side. I imagine the fact that playable character model options swapped faction lines at all caught a lot of people off-guard.
The Nightborne wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for us, ie, they’d be literally extinct. The Lightforged had already and would have continued their fight against the Legion with or without us. The Draenei and the Lightforged are also much closer culturally than the Kaldorei and the Shaldorei. You can even find Lightforged Draenei in the Exodar. Their leader, Turalyon, is an established Alliance figure.
Thalyssra was not an established Horde character.
Out of the gate, the Lightforged had far stronger connections with the Alliance than the Nightborne had with the Horde. The Nightborne were neutral from the beginning, aided equally by both sides until later patches. Meanwhile the Horde was practically absent from the campaign on Argus, as Argus was the homeworld of an Alliance race.
The two aren’t even remotely comparable.
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I’m not saying the Horde didn’t earn the Nightborne’s loyalty. Of course they did, they were deliberately written into the Horde. It’s just a slap in the face because they started out truly neutral and had among of the longest and most narratively complex quest chains in all of Legion, only to later alienate half the players who enjoyed it.
Tyrande also doesn’t represent the entirety of the Alliance. There have been plenty of interracial squabbles between the members of the Horde.
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Questionable. Ultimately the factions didn’t do a lot, the player did. The armies were essentially immediately disabled by Elisandre. The raid is what actually toppled the situation. And it isn’t canon if said character was Horde or Alliance. Though one could argue that the recognition in the recruitment quest is that the Horde player did help her.
I’m primarily an Alliance player and it didn’t alienate me.
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Regardless of the situational differences in the scenario, the Horde player character extended aid to a race that ultimately went Alliance, and is now hostile to that Horde character. You would be hard-pressed to find a Horde player upset that the Lightforged Draenei went Alliance; it was a natural conclusion, just as the Nightborne accepting the Blood Elves’ proposal to join the Horde was.
It’s just a slap in the face because they started out truly neutral and had among of the longest and most narratively complex quest chains in all of Legion, only to later alienate half the players who enjoyed it.
You can still enjoy the Nightborne, albeit on the Horde. I just don’t understand all the indignation when it was very clear as of Patch 7.1 (Insurrection) who was more sympathetic to the Nightborne.
Tyrande also doesn’t represent the entirety of the Alliance.
Who would the Alliance have consulted when considering the Nightborne as potential allies? Tyrande. Even after Tyrande witnessing first-hand Thalyssra destroying the Nightwell, I guarantee you she’d still have less than glowing praise for the new Nightborne.
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I did the suramar campaign a while ago during the rep buff, and did it twice almost, so memory of it is kinda fresh.
When the nightborne decided to join the horde, there was no war, sure, there was some tension between the alliance and horde, but no war. Thalyssra joining the Horde wasn’t an act of aggression towards the Alliance, but a partnership with the Horde.
There was no development on how Thalyssra felt about Teldrassil, or even the tactics Sylvanas used in Lordaeron, it seems the High Mountain Tribe and Nightborne were left out of both events, but clearly included in the missions to save Zul and Talanji.
It would make sense to keep nightborne neutral, yes, but the same can be said for the high mountain tauren, the lightforged draenei and recently, the mechagnomes, but all those races were included outside war periods.
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True, there was never any direct mentioning of the Burning of Teldrassil or Lordaeron, but it would be out of character for the Nightborne to be in support of those actions.
In the few instances Nightborne characters were relevant in the story, they were only ever at odds with Sylvanas’ actions.
On Derek Proudmoore’s raising into undeath:
Arcanist Valtrois: The nightborne suffered greatly under the Legion. The atrocities I witnessed… it is distressing how much I am reminded of them now. I will leave it at that.
On Baine’s Imprisonment:
Thalyssra: Our rebellion against Elisande was just, and it earned me a blade in the back. I pray Baine does not meet a similar fate.
Thalyssra: The nightborne are still new to the Horde. Perhaps I should seek Lor’themar’s council. He understands what my people have endured, and I have learned much through our conversations
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I think that on a purely gameplay level, what irritates me primarily about the Nightborne is that if I want to unlock my class order sets, I HAVE to grind to exalted Nightborne rep. That means I have to engage with the Nightborne no matter what, as an Alliance player.
Clearly Blizzard were really proud of that storyline - and it’s a good one, don’t get me wrong - but I’d rather not feel quite so railroaded into it. Once is enough thanks.
So I wouldn’t say I feel alienated per se… but I do find it awkward that such a well crafted race wasn’t presented similarly to the Pandaren. I feel like they were honestly begun that way - I mean, they’re being cured by a Kal’dorei druid and arcane magic. They’re helped by the Kal’dorei and the Sin’dorei. It really feels as if the whole scenario was being built toward neutrality with a plausible either/or toward the nature or the arcane.
I mean, you only get told in the first Allied Race Nightborne quests that Tyrande evidently chose against the Nightborne, and it’s sort of regretfully stated. Which means that prior to that narrative point, it was being held up as either/or.
And fine, okay, I do get it. I think it would have been far cooler, frankly, to not have Void Elves, and instead have the Alliance Nightborne and the Horde Nightborne, but that’s primarily because of that mechanic where during Legion you are SO heavily being railroaded into engaging with that complex narrative.
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I think something being missed is the threat the Nighborne posed to the Night Elf society that Tyrande and Malf built to replace the Mageocracy of the Highborne. Sure, it was possible to integrate a remnant population of Shen 'Dralar from the city of Eldre’Thanas. A small change is fine, especially after 10,000 years. The Nightborne, however, represent the old way of life Tyrande replaced with an Elunite theocracy with Druidism/Warrior culture mixed in. There was no way the Nightborne were joining the Alliance if they remained as they were, the embodiment of everything the Night Elves rejected.
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That’s not really a Nightborne and Highmountain problem, and more of an every Horde character problem. No one other than Thrall and Saurfang were allowed to talk about Teldrassil; and both of them are largely removed from the War itself. Not even Baine was allowed to comment on it.
The topic of Teldrassil was something nearly completely absent from the Horde side of events. Largely because should characters act on it in a way that was true to their characters … it would be very difficult to ensure Sylvie could use the Horde the way she needed to, for as long as she needed to, to get done what she needed done to settup SL. Blizz could not have the Horde rebelling against her too soon … because it would be inconvenient for her narrative if they did.
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