No, I’m talking about absolute extinction. The night elves will die out - all the way, a bunch of collateral “cultural heirs” of their previous version, a couple of victims of curses (the Worgen harvest witches and, it seems, someone else was), which the night elves were carriers, and the tauren druids will save something … In general, the night elves have inherited notably. Inherit. Trample. Many footprints.
What will remain after the Forsaken?
While it’s true that other races have been ‘nearly wiped out’ and are just fine, the key difference with those races is that… it was done by an NPC threat that can be defeated eventually, or killed. Blood Elves were nearly wiped out by one of the most iconic villains of the franchise, and we killed him. Draenei were nearly wiped out due to the machinations of Kil’jaeden, and we killed him.
Contrast with Night Elves, who were nearly wiped out by Lulz the Peon operating an intercontinental ballistic catapult, at the behest of Grandpa Orc and Hot Topic Banshee. You can have tragedy happen to a race, but Night Elves have consistently had it happen to them due to a player faction, which means that any true payback is impossible.
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Ok so as long as Sylvanas died at some point then it isn’t that bad? The blood elf and the forsaken were killed by undead soldier that they didn’t even get to kill and by Arthas who was killed by a human years later. The draenei had to wait so many years before Kil’Jaeden get killed.Darkspear and tauren never get to kill the race that nearly kill them out.
So you are telling me that if Sylvanas get kill by a third party years ago from now it will all of sudden be less terrible for the NE? No it will not because seeing the enemy that genocide you getting kill years later doesn’t make it better. You are just trying to find a other excuse as to why YOUR race is more of a victim that other race…
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I don’t know how to tell you this but I’m not actually a Night Elf in real life. Now, if you really read what I said, you would be able to note that I did, in fact, specify that the issue is that the vast majority of the Night Elves’ suffering since WoW launched has been at the hands of a player faction, making it impossible for any true reprisal to happen.
I did not specify Sylvanas alone, if you re-read you will note I mentioned three beings, including a peon with a comedic name meant to represent the Horde as a whole. Tragedy in a story is fine, but to use it properly it needs to amount to something, you can’t just keep kicking the same group over and over and never allowing for any strides to be made.
The point, to make it simple, is that the vast majority of all the ‘nearly wiped out’ races all had such done to them by groups or entities that we, as players, go up against and can eventually defeat. This is not the case for the Night Elves, because there is no way to ‘defeat’ the Horde, nor should there be, because it’s a player faction. There is no ‘wait and see’ in the case of Night Elves getting payback because it will never happen due to the nature of their attackers.
If the Burning had been orchestrated by Azshara, and we hadn’t killed her yet? Fine, all good, because she is an NPC villain and not associated with the factions and we will eventually get to defeat her. But she wasn’t, so we won’t.
That’s the issue with it, a structural one, a narrative one, nothing to do with ‘my race’. I’m not a Night Elf poster or an Alliance poster, I’m just a poster.
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Cause you didn’t? The alliance player had nearly a whole expansion about killing the horde. From undercity to Dazar’alor, 2 warfront plus a whole campaign.
You didn’t name Sylvanas but did name Arthas which is isn’t fair because while you didn’t defeat the horde, the scourge was also not defeat, which is the point of the Shadwland pr-patch. Arthas was the one defeated.
So if you want to go by ‘‘killing the leader is what is important’’ than as i said both the blood elf and forsaken didn’t get to kill Arthas and this one died many years later. Sylvanas could still die in many years.
But if you want to use the ‘‘npc enemy race’’ killing argument, the alliance player get to kill horde npc in bfa nearly as much as the horde were able to kill the scourge in Wotlk.
If you want to claim that ‘‘defeating’’ the enemy is what important, the blood elf and the forsaken also didn’t really did it as the scourge was still out there waiting to raid both continent again.
You are using many concept/argument and keep switching from on to a other just to make it seem like both case are different when its just not.
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The difference is that unlike Azshara, or Kil’jaeden, or Arthas, or any other PvE villain, the narrative goes out of its way to avoid casting the Horde as bad guys who have caused similar levels of destruction as other PvE factions have.
I know that Horde players overwhelmingly feel like bad guys on account of all the bad things the Horde has done over time, and that’s good because it means that Horde players are functional human beings with a conscience. But the narrative doesn’t. It goes out of its way to qualify the Horde’s villainous actions with “not all Horde” or “there are Horde who are rebelling” or “there was a malicious third party involved that tricked the Horde.”
It’s good that the narrative does this because the Horde is a playable faction and thus by definition cannot be treated the same way as a non-playable faction, but the downside of that is that every character and event that involves them will warp around the Horde in ways that are increasingly implausible and frustrating because the Horde is the only entity on Azeroth that does PvE villain things yet never gets treated like a PvE villain for it.
Even during her own raid encounter in the stronghold of Literal Satan whom she has allied with in order to steal the souls of the innocent in order to use their pain and suffering to fuel the destruction of reality, all the NPC’s we’re with are STILL trying to reason with Sylvanas and appeal to the better angels of her nature that haven’t existed since she died. If this was not a character with a history attached to a playable faction there is not a chance that she would be getting even one one millionth of this sympathy. We’d have unceremoniously busted a cap in her and started distributing loot, same as any other encounter.
That’s the difference between having your enemy be the Horde and having your enemy be literally anyone else. Not the gravity of the villainous actions that are taken, but rather the inherently limited way that those villainous actions can be responded to.
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You’re a 1000% correct. That’s what makes it super frustrating, alliance players are never allowed full closure on anything, because the narrative DEMANDS the horde ultimately be held not accountable for their actions so we can team up to beat the big bad.
Until the narrative needs the horde to start another world war that is. 
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The blood elf got destroy by a endless army of undead lead by a human lich king.
The scourge after Wotlk: A endless army led by a human lich king…
Yeah such a great resolution for the blood elf. Oh yeah right, only the NE can even be the victim…
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I also wish that Blizzard wouldn’t treat us like morons when it comes to the Horde. Of course we know that not literally every single individual in the Horde is responsible for all its actions. Of course we know that ample consideration needs to be given to ensuring that responses are proportional. Of course we know that calling for genocide in response to genocide is bad.
They don’t need to keep on telling us this and shoving that fact down our throats in order to justify not doing anything about the Horde, and having NPC’s like Anduin and Calia lecture us about how no not literally every single Horde member is evil and treating them as though they’re the second coming of Mary and Joseph for that deep philosophical take is incredibly condescending.
You don’t need to tell us not to go on indiscriminate murderous rampages. The reason we play Alliance is because we don’t like the idea of doing that in the first place. But there is a middle ground between “indiscriminate murderous rampage” and “Well the Moustache Man was nice to his secretary so we should feel conflicted”
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In fact, the parallel between the blood elf vs scourge and the NE vs horde.
Wotlk: the BE player get to kill many scourge npc. A human kill the Lich king and a other human take his place. The scourge is still existing and still is a threat but with a other ‘‘good’’ Lich King at his lead.
Bfa: The NE player get to kill many horde npc. A horde leader make the horde warchief leave and other horde leader take the place. The horde is still existing and is still a threat but with other ‘‘good’’ horde leader at his lead…
To claim that one had a better resolution than the other is just being blind and biased at this point. Bfa NE vs horde is nothing more than scourge vs blood elf with the exact same outcome.
Notorious ally of humanity, “the Undead Scourge”
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Are you implying that the horde is a ally of humanity? Because it certainly did not feel like it when alliance hero does 100% of the job against the legion and the Jailor while the horde keep siting back at the most important moment just to try to hype most of the azeroth population at random moment.
Blizzard might keep trying to whitewash the horde by claiming it and having alliance npc saying it but they are clearly not good at showing it with their story.
Agreed, I’m not a fan of how black and white the narrative became just because it whitwashes how nuanced it used to and always should be. Even if the themes are still there, if nobody sees them, then what’s the point? We need to be shown, not told. Hell, technically Varian declared war after Wrathgate but who remembers that after how villainous Garrosh became? alliance got to win a war they started, then they won again in a war they didn’t start.
Southern barrens is the perfect example of what the narrative should be. Both sides seemingly having ample justification, but neither side is right.
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I’d just like to know if anyone has numbers on how many night elf players are active now as compared to, say, anything before Battle for Azeroth. I’m honestly too tired to get into the whys and wherefores of how come I’m letting my sub run out, but I am curious to know how many other nelf players have thrown up their hands and said “enough.”
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It goes both ways. The Alliance is never held accountable for the actions of their Prince.
The Night Elves were never held accountable for nearly destroying the world in The Sundering. Or for Illidan’s actions when he nearly shook the world apart again in his assault on The Frozen Throne.
But wait, you say, these were individuals, not of their factions.
In which case you have to use the same arguments for Sylvannas
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Only one forum poster harps on this. Your new alt doesn’t fool us.
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You can hold us accountable for it when you concede that the Alliance is the legitimate successor to the Kingdom of Lordaeron.
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When will the Forsaken be held accountable for their prince’s actions?
To whom were the night elves to be held accountable? They drove the trolls from the drowned lands in advance by a belligerent way. The Titans made no claims. Before the Aspects? In front of?
Illidan … Illidan. Captured for the new Well, banished for the skull, conditionally banished for the destruction of Northrend … For what reason was he released? To save Tyrande?
…
Daemon. So that Sylvanas does not save and does not try any love interests of the rest of the “main characters”.
Also Arthas was a prince of one member nation of the Grand Alliance of Lordaeron. The current Alliance is not the same group, nor should it be construed as such. Not to mention, even if it were the same, none of the current member states were associated with Arthas. The only people associated with him would be the people of Lordaeron… aka the Forsaken.
The members of the Alliance are all independent nations, even if Blizzard is allergic to showing that often. And Lordaeron is not one of the current independent nations included in said Alliance, it’s instead split between either Forsaken, or Argents, who are neutral. And it was the founder of the Argent Crusade who eventually did old Arty in, so they’re in the clear there.
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