The closest thing to this I’ve come across is Anduin claiming that the event was genocide, which is his opinion on what he was currently witnessing. Almost zero info or referance to how much of the population was there.
The only refernce we get where we can try to surmise how many survived is from Elegy
“The cathedral could hold no more refugees, not even in the darkest corners of its extensive catacombs. The inns had ten to fifteen in each room. Even certain areas of the keep were filled with silent, stoic kaldorei. The flood spread to seemingly every surface of the city, continued down through the Valley of Heroes, and spilled out most of the way to Goldshire.”
We know that the in game representation is woefully in accurate to how large stormwind and Goldshire are as well as the distance between the two. With the above descriptiont it is no stretch to believe tens of thousands could have been evacuated.
This wasnt stated by a character but was a description by the writer. Making this statement factual in lore. There is definitely a massive lack of clarity surrounding much of BfA with conflicting information thrown in. Anduin is also dramatic af at times. At best we know “a lot” of night elves were there, but it’s not at all likly that “the absolute majority” were there.
This is the only part that matters. Elegy and A Good War spin a far better, albeit still utter garbage, story than the pre-patch event did. But the novellas and literature in general are barely read by the people who play the game. The in-game presentation has more power in shaping the way people view the Night Elves at large. And you can see that effect in these very forums even among people who have read Elegy and A Good War.
So what the Novellas state means very little if anything.
With the in-game events no longer in the game, soon enough we’ll have people who won’t even know that the burning happened at all or have any perception of how many died on Teldrassil.
And then what we can direct them to is the novels, since those are still available on the World of Warcraft website.
That’s neat for the newbies assuming they have any desire to read a story that the Devs aren’t even invested in beyond using Anduin as a mouthpiece for their political ideals.
The rest of us experienced just how much the Devs value the Night Elves first hand. We aren’t going to forget.
Sure, but that doesn’t actually have anything to do with population numbers, which even the most stubborn of novel-denialists perceive as not actually mattering, as there will always be more Night Elves in-game.
While I’m well aware that “there will always be enough” is a thing with these hacks who can’t be bothered I refuse to accept it as a counter argument to anything.
If you refuse the lore as it is written, and you refuse to acknowledge the way Blizzard writes, all you’re talking about is your own headcanon, which isn’t actually the point of these forums.
That’s not at all what I’m saying, Amadis. But I should know better by now. Talking to you is like talking to a more polite Katiera.
I don’t refuse the lore as it’s written. I challenge you to quote where I said I do. I challenge the idea that the Novella’s excuse the garbage presentation we get in game. There’s always resources available for them to placard the Kaldorei losing horribly and dying en-masse but never any resources available to show off our victories.
I don’t refuse to acknowledge the way Blizzard writes. If I did then I wouldn’t even be aware of their “There will always be enough” style of writing. I refuse to let people who advocate for the status quo presentation of Night Elves to use that as a means of dismissing me pushing for better presentation.
Well, I’m typically hostile of political viewpoints where they’re not needed, I’d like to think if someone was pushing America as a great country (something I believe it to actually be) I would likely tell them to stop cheerleading themselves…But I never see that on the internet.
Nonetheless, you’re right though, I should have apologized first.
I agree that the in game representation is most important. No arguements there.
This does not negate the other sources. The other sources wether experienced by some, a few, or a majority of the player base are still true until newer information superseed it. As it stands the novellas are most of the avaliable information on those events and mean a great deal on the topics.
I know I’m butting in here but I found this to be an interesting question.
Personally, I dont think that the multimedia approach is working for blizzard. It doesnt excuse the poor presentation in game, and the outside game story telling is being used more as a crutch imo.
As an example, I really hope they put in that victory scenario for darkshore, it is canon, and needs to be represented in game. Even if they dont fallow through with that, canonically darkshore was a victory for the nightelves.
If the following is only about your headcanon on Night Elves then it is a misleading statement that has nothing to do with the lore population accuracy Smig was bringing up, and Smig’s point still stands, and in that context, no, the in game representation is not all that matters.
Because once again, what I am accusing you is discussing your headcanon, your “view,” not the lore Smig brought up.
The only part I agree with you on is the following:
But this isn’t a Night Elf only problem. This is the case for all situations where there’s no gameplay Blizzard is looking to push with post-victory content.
While questing through ardenweald we will work with Tyrande and from my understanding much of this arc will be about coming to terms with the burning of Teldrassil. We even run into that lump of night elf souls and we will start working to free them from the maw.
Although no one will experience the war of thorns event again. New players will play through the ramifications of Teldrassil. New players will have to know why sylvanas is the bad guy.
Do we know if darkshore will automatically phase over to the warfront version with the Teldrassil skybox even if you dont play bfa?
These are the goofy problems that come about from Blizz being too lazy and not actually caring enough about the world part of world of warcraft to finally revamp the original continents. (Reminder we have been in Cataclysm longer than we were in Vanilla)
When I say “This is the only part that matters” I’m making that statement because when it comes to the vast majority of players that’s how they’re fed the story of the game. Lore Nerds who really dig into all the other sources that Blizzard put out are few and far between. We’re drowning in people who only know what is shown to them and can’t be bothered to listen to was is told in the texts.
Show don’t tell is an extremely huge issue with Blizzard. And the show is that Night Elves are weak, incompetent, impotent, and at best damsels best left in the fridge.
The Novellas spin a marginally better view of the Kaldorei than that. Marginally. They make a better telling of the the Kaldorei’s resistance against the Horde and I’m not in any way denying that the Novellas are canon. But what’s in the Novella’s isn’t what’s shown. And what’s shown is what gets consumed the most.