If the night elves should’ve learned something over the years, it’s to never trust the horde even when they do them a favor.
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Yeah, more or less, as for Azerite? I feel like that storyline got completely forgotten? Like, what even is it? Was there going to be a payoff from it? Are we going to deal with that sword? Man, BfA was just a cluster of weird, disjointed stories without a cohesive vision.
NEs and Forsaken get smashed? Neither of them are the focus of this expansion. Instead that attention is given to Saurfang and Jaina. Big ol’ Sword stuck in the World Soul? Its just kind of sitting there, with Magni acting weird. Azshara and Naz’jatar? Weren’t actually the focus of Naz’jatar, and instead that focus went to two repgrind races we’ll likely never see again. At least Azshara survived that mess. N’Zoth? I … don’t even know what to say about how he was used or treated.
On top of this we had all the split focus devoted to ARs. We had two clearly different writing teams handling the Alliance and Horde War Campaigns, making them feel super disjointed. We have no apparent conclusion to Vol’jin’s side story; or the Forsaken NEs? What … was … this … expansion?
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The Might Elves have alrwady made this very same deal twice with the Horde and both times it backfired. Once to supply them with wood themselves via Ashenvale. The other to hand over Azshara in exchange for pulling out of Ashenvale.
Be a genocidal monster and invade my lands once. Shame on you. Do it twice? Now you deserve no quarter.
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More like:
Be a genocidal monster and invade my lands once. Get rewarded for it. Do it twice? Get even more rewarded for it.
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Cool. Then they should suffer the consequences of that. If BfA did one thing right, it showed that while the Horde is weaker than the whole Alliance in a straight up fight; the Kaldorei alone are no longer a clear match for the Entire Horde anymore. The only way they’ll accomplish what you’re suggesting is if they drag the entire Alliance into that conflict with them; and if the EK Alliance races decide that they’re sort of sick of spilling their people’s blood over a continent they have no investment in beyond the Kaldorei … well the Kaldorei are sort of screwed.
The biggest thing saving the Horde by the end of BfA is that they are powerful enough to make it deeply costly for what’s left of the Alliance to take us down. The Alliance likely could win and wipe out the Horde, but there would be a catastrophic cost with how things currently sit. The Horde is also under no requirements to just let the NEs wail on them … so they don’t have to.
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And BfA showed that Nathanos is stronger than Tyrande with the powers of Elune, are you going to use that as a reference too just because Nathanos is one of the writers self insert?
I mean now there aren’t any night elves left anyway to do anything about it, might aswell update ashenvale and darkshore to be under full horde control, maybe even add Hyjal to it because who will stop them from it?
But then don’t make the horde look honorable when they are clearly writing the horde to lack even the slightest sense of morality or remorse.
Stopped here. The Kaldorei can’t take on the Horde, in their own lands, because that doesn’t suit the Horde Power Fantasy and doesn’t provide the Humans with damsels to save. It’s not factual it’s just writer bias.
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Here’s something fun. Why do the Horde even need to go through Ashenvale and Darkshore if we wanted to attack Teldrassil at this point? Do the Kaldorei have a single counter for Submarines, which the Horde has had access to since Cata? Hell, the Horde Naval Tech as a whole was absurd by WoD. Do they have anything to really serve as a hard counter for Airships? Outside of Malf creating tornadoes? Not really… Both by Air and Sea we have immense freedom.
See … that’s the problem. The NEs weren’t the only ones nerfed into the ground in the War of Thornes. The Horde reflected in that War, reflected very early Cata tech and tactics at best … at worst it reflected BC Era Horde. And since Blizz refuses to give us reps that can serve as a counter for the Alliance’s, we are more reliant on the tech and tactics we’ve developed in the last 15 years; and thus are far more negatively impacted when Blizz relies on the artificial maintenance of the traditional WC3 Fantasy.
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A boo hoo I didn’t get to genocide hard enough. Woe is me my Power Fantasy didn’t stroke me off as much as I wanted it to. A boo hoo
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When were they shown otherwise? However they did show that while the horde had 8.1 odds that lost significantly more soilders, even if they were going to win. So in any case BfA finally showed that the Kaldorei are a force to be reckoned with. Especially in their own territory.
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You’re assuming most people took the time to read elegy or A Good War. Most didn’t and that presentation doesn’t exist in game
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Of course it did. They’re not weak by any means. They just shouldn’t be portrayed as stronger than an entire Faction at this point; for increasingly arbitrary reasons. Which, admittedly, a Good War sort of does … because it implies that had both Malf and Tyrande been on the field at the same time … the Horde could never have hoped to win the War of Thornes.
A force comprised of largely civilian police forces held their own against 8 to 1 odds; after having their defenses weakened with a preemptive attack. Even a NE baker was portrayed as being insanely capable in combat within Elegy. It is nuts. I hate this war, and hate this Faction conflict more than anything, but that … is just the tiniest bit insulting tbh…
The Horde could develop into the modern era, and the NEs could just sit on their hands for another century; and they’d still likely be portrayed as being capable of just invalidating everything the Horde has accomplished, because they are what they are. The NEs are a race where time is a currency with very little value; so time cannot be a currency of much value for other races either. Because if it is … then time becomes the currency with the most value for those races, and they attempt to make the best of it. They cannot waist it, NEs can … but really shouldn’t.
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I think one problem is that the night elves have never had a major battle outside their own territory.
If the night elves had, at some point, pushed into the Barrens and the Horde got to heroically trounce them and drive them back to their forests? I don’t think there’d be major complaints.
But most night elf players went into this game thinking ‘oh, I get to defend my homeland that this species is specifically adapted for, has millennia of experience traversing, and has a fighting style developed specifically for.’ …and then gets to watch that group get repeatedly trounced in that terrain.
I don’t think the night elves should be able to stand toe-to-toe with the entire Horde. I think the whole Horde marshalling their biggest force and blitzing through night elf land would have been a good story - but coming after the depiction of every other night elf loss, it felt tasteless. (I’d have preferred the civilians to have just disappeared into regions of the forest that this army wasn’t currently marching through - show off the elves’ connection to the forest and avoid the unnecessary genocide angle.)
Basically, each time the night elves are shown to fight, they lose, but in consolation they get told they’re strong and are given more lore powers. So they’re absolutely ridiculous in terms of what they could be, but never get to use it, so fans keep shouting to get more strength -to actually win this time-, while non-fans get annoyed at how stupidly strong the night elves are said to be and at their fans clamoring for even more.
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problem is that they had rogues single handedly take out entire cities in the war of thorns.
and now that doesn’t matter because they’re all either dead or ash and the race is utterly destroyed without recovery.
Both Alliance and Horde got phasing that showed the Horde victory of Andorhal and the bombing of Thal’darah Grove.
In general response to Falothorin, though, yes, Night Elf victories weren’t really shown - and people have been arguing this for nine years now. But as this is the story forums, I will still happily note that in the lore the Night Elves won, regardless of Blizzard showing it.
Wolfheart starts off with the Horde quarantined to the east:
- Haldrissa had just prior to the Cataclysm been promoted to overseeing night elf forces in Ashenvale. Although far from Teldrassil and Darnassus, Ashenvale, located in the northern half of the continent of Kalimdor and stretching across much of its width, was not only sacred to her people but of significance to the preservation of their civilization. The night elves and their allies carefully harvested only select areas of the vast forests, making certain not to disturb nature any more than necessary.
There had been no sign of nearby activity by the Horde, but Haldrissa knew better than to trust the orcs and their allies to stay in the eastern side. Bad enough that they had a foothold in Ashenvale at all.
And then the Night Elves get Darkshore back again. All that’s left is a canon announcement that the Night Elves got Ashenvale back, too. Then by your logic, everything the Horde did was worthless again.
I didn’t even think of Azsuna as a Darnassian Night Elf zone, but, sure, if you think it is, I’ll happily include that as well.
Cherry picking much? Maybe we should ask Realm Pop to scale up by ilevel to see who’s actually playing those 120 Allied Race characters and who just hit max level for the Heritage Armor and never touched them again.
Isn’t that what Silithus, Tirisfal Glades, Arathi, and Darkshore were?
You can have Desolace. That place sucks. You can have it even if you make it green and pretty. I don’t ever want to go back there again.
You are completely wrong about Feralas, though. It is covered from Feathermoon Stronghold in the west to New Thalanaar in the east in Night Elf lore. This is especially the case for involvement with the Green Dragonflight, as by your logic the Night Elves have been closely partnered with them for ten-thousand years and the Tauren Druids had been around for seven years at best. Hell, even a series of Horde quests that parallel Alliance quests in Feralas are all about all the Night Elf ally forces of nature that live and large swaths of Feralas (Hippogryphs, Treants, Faerie Dragons, Mountain Giants).
Tyrande and Malfurion’s leader short story takes place in Feralas:
So, no, your premise that Feralas has little Night Elf lore is completely off the mark.
What the? Indeed you should head down to Un’Goro if you want lumber. Stay out of Feralas for it. Or get it from Suramar. Oculeth can happily set up telemancy networks for lumber trade.
You know what should be brought up to Gazlowe, though? That the Horde broke contract with the Night Elves of getting to use Azshara’s lumber for staying out of Ashenvale. Sounds like the Bilgewater owe us one Azshara for their involvement in the War of the Thorns and Darkshore.
I do not agree with this logic. And neither does Chronicle: Volume I:
- Azshara's views on Hyjal were well known to Cenarius. With growing unease, he had watched the night elf empire expand. Year by year, he became increasingly frustrated with the hubris and thoughtless actions of the sorcerous Highborne. The majority of night elf society continued honoring the old ways of revering the wilds. The fact that these folk still lived in harmony wit the land warmed Cenarius's heart, but he knew that they had no influence over Azshara and her arrogant followers.
Though by your logic the entire Horde does share responsibility for the burning of Teldrassil as their Warchief, whether they like it or not. Do you really want to claim that?
Your statements aren’t about whether you personally are on Sylvanas’ side. It is what your logic would claim the Horde is responsible for Sylvanas’ actions purely and entirely because she was their Warchief.
Come on Droité. How much more of this double standardness am I going to have to read through before I catch up with all these posts?
And there you go hyping yourself up again for something Blizzard would never touch on. This is again what we talked about earlier about setting yourself up for disheartening.
Oh man. Few. Finally caught up with all those posts. This is why I don’t join Discords. I can’t keep up with this kind of message pace.
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But here’s the thing. Outside of the Horde, what are the major forces they’ve faced?
The Legion? They did better than most against them, even if they didn’t get much focus there. The NEs alone held several fronts during Legion by all indications. The Nightmare? The literal cancerous mass of the Emerald Dream, life perverted and turned on itself. This should theoretically be kryptonite for the NEs shouldn’t it? Finally, the Firelands … Fire Given Will. Partially led by a crazed High Druid who knows when and were to hit the NEs where it will hurt. They held off a force that any would struggle with, using tools that should be extremely weak against those forces.
In short. The NEs normal issue is that they’re often faced with opponents that are of their caliber or higher. High magic, High fantasy, entities that move the very world around them through their very existence. Enemies that any other race would be overwhelmed by, they handle despite being at huge disadvantages; although they do struggle. Enemies … like the NEs themselves.
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“Night Elves can only be strong when it’s the Night Elves that were ripped out of the playable race to be a neutral faction so Horde can be their champion too.”
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Another reason I wish the Earthen Ring or other neutral organizations had more Horde themes/explicit participation, so they could be clearly part of these events too.
If anything, this situation makes the whole night elf presentation feel worse: we can have all these awesome characters… but as soon as the Horde arrives, these characters either shrug and leave us to die or become suddenly impotent. Neither case is particularly inspiring.
All I want is for the Ashenvale conflict to have an equal representation of victories and losses. I’m fine losing some battles to the Horde, but I want to win some -and see the victory as much as I see the losses- too.
The appeal is Malfurion dying a heroes’ death to save his people, like Varian at the Broken Shore or Saurfang -spit- at Orgrimmar’s gate, instead of living on as the leader who failed to save Teldrassil and his people.
And this has nothing to do with your avatar’s faction. You could be posting on a Night Elf Priestess or a Draenei Paladin for all I care.
And now that varians dead humans are down a great character his story is over