Blech, just did the quest to see the seed given to Tyrande last night. Awful, terrible, no good, very bad stuff. It’s all just so unnecessary… Seeing the Night Elf souls who were wrongfully sent to the Maw give up existence to empower the seed was just painful.
It felt like salt in the wound. And a stark reminder that Shadowlands was a mistake.
Souls should NEVER cease in existence that we know of, and the afterlife should have remained a mystery. What a travesty this was.
Edit: In other words, I’m not going to feel good about any ‘renewal’ they bring forth in DF. They’d have to go heavy in the good stuff department and blatantly ignore the entirety of the events of Shadowlands to even come close to mollifying me.
So I honestly have some issues with your objections here…
To be blunt, the Warcraft universe isn’t set in the modern day where there are drones that can observe troop movements from great distances. The spies the Alliance had in Orgrimmar reported to Alliance command that they had received intelligence through their sources within the city, that the Horde was making a move on Silithus.
The Alliance knew that, as Silithus was a major source of Azerite, that Sylvanas was likely to claim it for herself and given how important the resource was, the Alliance did not want that to happen. So the Kaldorei Fleet (not their entire army) was sent to deter the Horde campaign. This was done over time, one ship every few weeks as to not rouse suspicion until the Night Elf fleet was in Feralas.
However it was a ruse. Sylvanas knew that the Alliance had spies in Orgrimmar, so she deliberately baited them with a false trail, making them think that the Horde army was marching for Silithus. The actual Horde army that was marching thought they were going there too. Only a few Horde commanders actually knew that the army was going to divert north in the barrens and march on Ashenvale.
The Alliance literally did send reinforcements, immediately, to help hold back the Horde advance. Anduin, Genn and the other Alliance leaders did not abandon the Night Elves during the War of Thorns as stated in the book Elegy:
He swallowed and took a deep breath, asking the Light to help him clear his head and focus.
“Stormwind will send reinforcements immediately,” he said.
Tyrande nodded. She knew, as they all knew, that one could not move armies through portals as one did handfuls of individuals. He could send all the reinforcements in Azeroth, and like the army the Alliance had so smugly assembled for just this purpose, they would arrive too late to do much good.
So yeah that addresses that. Portals can’t be used to transport armies en-masse and it would have taken a lot of time, more time than they had, to send airships and fleets from the Eastern Kingdoms, seeing as the airships would need to be loaded with supplies, the soldiers would need to be summoned, equipped etc.
She was in Stormwind to attend a head-of-state visit, along with Velen. Nothing unusual about that. Keep in mind at this time none of the Alliance leaders knew of the real threat to Ashenvale, Darkshore and Darnassus at this time. They all thought the Horde was moving to Silithus, and Tyrande had done what she could to stymie them, so that was really all that needed to be done from their point of view.
If Tyrande had any inkling of an idea that the Horde was going to divert north to Ashenvale and make a push for Darnassus, she never would have left, nor would she have sent the Kaldorei fleet to Feralas.
Horde Shamans literally invoked the spirits of air to help with that, fuelling the flames to burn hotter and faster.
Thats not much of a stake, in the datamining they already mention the seed.
Problem is what is this “renewal” and does it do anything to fix a decade worth of problems.
Or better yet what are they giving that they need to kill Malfurion to balance it out
It doesn’t materialize in WoW. That’s my point. The Night Elves from the RTS aren’t the same Night Elves as in WoW. The WoW Night Elves get crapped on, just like everyone else. You can argue whether it’s worse than any other race in particular, whatever.
But if you look at these events with the RTS Night Elves as the starting point, it’s very different than if you look at them as being on par with every other race.
That’s okay. I like discussing things. I’m more than happy to be wrong.
My point is more that they committed forces to the other end of the continent as opposed to moving them into an advanced position, where they could have had time to react to forces actually leaving Orgrimmar. Heading to Astranaar (as an example) would have given a useful forward position to counter troops leaving Orgrimmar without leaving your capital undefended.
I’m not a military expert, and I’m 100% fine with being wrong, but from my point of view Teldrassil was the main Alliance stronghold left on Kalimdor (the center of the Horde’s military power) and they dramatically overcommitted - to the other end of a large continent - while leaving Teldrassil un(der)defended. The Alliance tricked the Horde into overcommitting to Nazmir and it led to Zuldazar being sacked. The Night Elves committed considerably further.
Apologies, my intended point was that as the Night Elves were moving forces to Silithus, the Alliance goal should have been to either move forces to Teldrassil (reinforcing the defenses that had left) or at the very least moving forces to relieve the Night Elves so they could return forces to Teldrassil. This was intended as a reference to the build up before the actual battle. It wasn’t meant to convey they could just portal the army from Silithus to Teldrassil once the Horde was spotted. Just that this whole process didn’t occur in one day and there was time to reinforce Teldrassil.
I mean I’d say with there being “trouble brewing in Kalimdor” it would make a bit more sense for a head-of-state visit to take place in Kalimdor, but I could also say that if you want your heads of state to be safely away from battle, then you wouldn’t. Meh.
Okay? I guess? It’s a giant tree and it seemed (to me) to go up in flames awfully easily, but ultimately we’re in Azeroth, so it’s a magic tree and there’s fire magic and air magic and … magic magic. So yeah, sure I guess.
I’m sure the OP meant “Will the Night Elves get anything that fixes their current homeless status?” And I think the seed is going to be the solution to that. Whether players like it will be another question.
As per the intelligence reports that they were getting, the Horde were moving forces to Silithus. Now here’s the key, at that moment when the Alliance got that intelligence, the factions were not at war, not directly, no official declarations of war had been made, nor were there any attacks on the Alliance or Horde’s sovereign territory. So the Alliance had no reason to suspect that an attack on any Alliance territory was coming at that moment.
Which means there really wasn’t a reason to put a large force on the border of Ashenvale. But, sure, let’s say the Night Elves are super-paranoid and decide to do that anyway. They could have marshalled a military force on the border of Ashenvale to ‘intercept’ the Horde army as it left Orgrimmar, but that would have been a declaration of war from the Alliance to the Horde. The reason for this is simple. In order to intercept that force, they would have had to invade the Northern Barrens, which the Horde considered its territory. Silithus on the other hand is neutral ground, owned by neither faction, and the territory around it is also neutral ground, so any skirmishes there would likely not be considered an act of war (as previous skirmishes had not been, such as the ones on the Broken Isles during the events of Legion and the assaults on both the Horde and Alliance forces in Silithus prior to the events of Elegy/A Good War).
I mean, have you ever seen a fire get fed oxygen, like say, in a bushfire? Bushfires, especially those spread by wind, can burn as hot as 2,012℉ (or 1,100℃).
Here’s a great example of what fire can do, especially when it hits a canopy. This was filmed in my country 3 years ago:
10,000 years of standing army is lore. Yes. Malfurion being the most powerful … whatever … on Azeroth is lore.
But my point is, everything since WoW started HAS to treat Night Elves as being “on par” with other races for the purposes of an MMORPG. If they are allowed to function as having 10,000 years of martial strength and therefore the greatest military prowess, stronger, faster, smarter, more magically inclined, etc, relative to every other race, let alone to the entirety of the Horde and all of the rest of the Alliance, then it’s not possible to function in a two-faction MMORPG.
Call it a retcon, call it whatever, but Night Elves functionally, within an MMORPG, have to be (basically) the same as every other race in terms of overall power. That is why players need to recalibrate how they view their expectations for Night Elves.
Your lack of basic logic and stubbornly trying to defend a position you were literally proven wrong within 5 posts of your comments reminded me that you promised you’d stop responding to me.
Since you’ve broken that now I have to put you on ignore.
Age has NEVER be all and end all indictor of how powerful a nation/army is. Those 10,000 were spent in relative peace with only two know wars actually breaking out.
I’d also point out the tech/knowhow of the night elves sort of plateau while both Alliance/Horde were forced to learn and adapt to the horrors of constant war.
Blizzard made the lore.
Players followed that lore and that formed their expectations.
Actually not true at all no other race has anything on the endless tragedy vehicle that is the Night Elf story. There is no parity here, its so bad its a meme at this point that every expansion Blizzard has to find something to stick it to the NEs.
Nobody has said this.
Nobody believes this.
Nobody is clutching their pearls that the NEs are perfect in everything.
That’s just you man, you are fabricating an issue and then criticizing players for a view that they don’t hold.
Again a pure fabrication on your end to make the players the problem rather than Blizzard and their constant tragedyporn that they think is interesting.
You are fabricating nonsense my man… and oh that was you? I didn’t remember.
Its fine that you are putting me on ignore, I was getting tired of trying to point out unsubstantiated nonsense. After posting your post like 5 different posters pointed out your fallacies.
Seems like the first issue is the Horde and the Night Elf relationship with them.
Which is definitely an issue because for the past 10ish years starting from Cataclysm it has been the Horde that has been nearly systematically attacking and wiping out their neighbors.
The second bit is this seed will need to be in Kalimdor… a Night Elf re-establishment on Kalimdor rather than Dragon Isles.
So far from the Datamining it appears that neither seems to be the case and Malfurion dying does not help the current deficit.
Crash landed on a planet losing a number of their remaining population.
Lost their main temple, capital city and burial grounds in a genocidal conquest by the Orcs.
Had to deal with many of their race devolving into lesser beings thanks to the effects of fel magic.
Managed to flee Outland with a portion of survivors only to crash on Azeroth due to sabotage.
Assaulted by Blood Elves after losing a portion of their remaining population in the crash.
And those are just the events that they had to deal with leading up to TBC.
Sure the Night Elves have gotten beaten with the tragedy bat, but let’s not pretend that they’re on a pedestal above other races when it comes to suffering. The Draenei have suffered for far longer than the Night Elves ever had.
Hell, the Night Elves got thousands of years of peace to expand and foster their civilization, while the Draenei were getting constantly tormented by Kil’jaeden’s thugs as they were forced to flee planet after planet.
All Wow races have their own tragedies. Thats pretty much their starting point.
Like the Blood Elves getting their kingdom destroyed, most of them killed and their magic well destroyed so they were doomed to extinction.
The only difference between Night Elves and other races are in almost every expansion Blizzard brings up a new thing that the Night Elves have to suffer through.
Some Alliance races have a similar problem like Humans (Theramore/Southshore) or Gilneas but they seem to be one offs.
They aren’t on a losing streak which is one of the main problems with Night Elves because it just seems to never end.
This is why I took issue with Zarrin because he seems to think the problem is my expectations rather than literally what is happening. If Night Elves were like everyone else, after cataclysm Blizzard should have forgotten they existed in the lore.
But Blizzard keeps using them in the story and that means a new thing we should be sad about.
I am literally quoting the OP. How am I moving anything?
You are the one that was theorizing what the OP could have possibly meant by saying “Anything” and I just read the following paragraph that specified what they might have meant.
I don’t recall the Night Elves dealing with tragedies in vanilla WoW or Burning Crusade. Their first big hit happened during Cataclysm when Garrosh pushed the Horde deep into their territory in his war for conquest.
Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor also had no Night Elf suffering present.
Legion and BFA hit the Night Elves though, BFA far worse than Legion, although the Legion hits still hurt. And Shadowlands didn’t have much in the way of ‘Night Elf suffering’ compared to the previous two expansions and ended on a high note, with Tyrande able to pass judgement on Sylvanas and getting aid to create a new home on Azeroth.
Supposedly Dragonflight will have a little Night Elf suffering again with the loss of Malfurion, but Ysera will be returning, which counteracts that somewhat.
It really started in Cataclysm which is why I emphasize that the problem has been for the past decade.
Cataclysm, MoP (slightly, that was mainly reserved for Jaina), Legion obviously and now BFA and obviously shadowlands. It just won’t end haha.
Shadowlands was supposed to be basically be about vengence. Thats what all Tyrande could talk about.
You are forgetting the duel that Tyrande lost, elune being an idiot on her first ever reveal. The tortured souls that apparently we didn’t save all.
I played through BFA in the hopes that finally… anything… would come out of this and Shadowlands was so bad I now almost have a physical reaction to it
You could say in BFA I still had hope but Shadowlands killed it.
I vigorously disagree with this statement and I doubt us debating each other would ever convince the other to think differently.
See above.
And as I said, the suffering… just doesn’t stop! Even when Night Elves get something, it is always counteracted with something negative. I think Night Elves have suffered enough to deserve to get a happy ending and for then be forgotten by Blizzard.
