With the events proceeding Legion do you think the Nightborne should have joined/stayed in the Horde?
I would have imagined that the burning of Teldrassil should have been the catalyst of them choosing a side and choosing to save Night Elf refugees and offering refuge in Suramar.
I think the biggest problem is that the people who decided which side the Nightborne would join should have had information of what the horde was about to do.
The Horde in general was not clued in to the fact that it was led into a war designed to cause as much death as possible on all sides, so their souls can feed a fallen member of the Pantheon of death. That was not necessarily up for an informed vote.
That aside - Thalyssra actually spoke with Tyrande first. Tyrande was not welcoming. Thalyssra could sit and wait for “Elune’s wisdom,” or ask the Horde.
I mean, she did approach Tyrande first.
The problem is that every argument for which side they should have picked is presupposed on the faulty premise that they had to pick a side at all. They just came out of a devastating conflict in which much of their ruling class was slaughtered while the Legion had been murdering boatloads of their civilians to fuel its soul engines. It was patently idiotic that the inhabitants of the Broken Isles would be in any hurry whatsoever to become entangled in either faction when the de facto state of both is to always be engaged in some level of violent hostilities with the other.
Whether it be Alliance or Horde, signing up with either is signing up to throw away the lives of your people in lands far away from your own whether you can afford to or not. The Nightborne and Highmountain should have both been averse to committing to that sort of obligation so soon after the events of Legion.
They’re hardly alone. The entire non-Forsaken Horde should have been out, or rather put Sylvanas out, after she altered the “divide and conquer” plan she sold Saurfang on (itself idiotic) to a pointless genocide. The writers neglecting to give the nightborne an opinion on this Faustian bargain their bid for allies turned into was just one of many narrative failings the disaster of BfA stained the game’s lore with.
Pretty much this, yeah. Tyrande’s forces were never at all concerned with the Nightborne as a people, Tyrande herself stated that she held no sympathy for any of them, and they were far more focused on the demons. They might as well have been cannon fodder.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Blood Elves were greatly concerned about the Nightborne and Liadrin made it a point to attempt to offer hope for the Nightborne trapped within the city, making freeing them from Elisande and the Legion’s oppression one of her major priorities.
The Nightborne chose the Night Elves and were rejected. It was made clear in the Nightborne Allied quest.
They had sealed themselves off for thousands of years and were sudden thrust into the world. They turned first to the Night Elves and were rejected. Then the turned to their “cousins” the Blood Elves. Seems reasonable to me.
Right…it’s entirely reasonable after suffering terrible losses in a war to immediately throw your lot in with one of two groups who are constantly at war with each other? Pandaria was cut off for just as long, and they weren’t forced to decide which faction they’d commit to dying for in large numbers. There’s no reason whatsoever that any race should by default be forced to pick a side between the Alliance and Horde. It’s a completely false dichotomy, because both factions have proven entirely willing to help out peoples who remain neutral.
If you’re in the position of a non-villainous third party, the only thing choosing a faction does is stop the other one from being an ally, when remaining neutral means they both act like your allies. It’d be one thing if the Alliance and Horde routinely attacked and slaughtered peaceful third parties who don’t join them, but they don’t. There’s outright no benefit to joining the Alliance and Horde because they’re both completely fine with being friendly to and supportive of non-aggressive neutral parties. However there are a bunch of glaring detriments to joining either faction because doing so immediately makes an enemy of the other one, with the expectation that you’ll spend lives and material fighting it if one of the other races on the side you’ve joined starts another faction war.
I get what you are saying but this is the story that Blizzard wanted to tell.
Now we know that Thalyssra wanted the Nightborne to rejoin the wider world. So I personally theorize that she thought joining one of the world powers was the best way to go about it, since it would ensure that they have secure allies and have a more stronger position by having a firm seat at one of the tables. She approached Tyrande who rejected her and then turned to Liadrin, who accepted her and thus Nightborne joined the Horde.
The only one that kinda made sense was the Hightmountain Tauren. And only to try and reconnect to their central Kalimdor cousins.
The Lightforged Draenei could’ve just stayed behind and cleaned up what was left of the Legion after their defeat. Void Elves came out of nowhere simply because Blizzard refused to make already existing Alliance High Elves playable (which they did anyway via customizations).
I think there is every reason to expect that you are going to get caught up in faction conflict. From the Bilge Water Goblins to the Glineas, it has happened. And since one side has made it clear they will have nothing to do with you…
The Horde and Alliance worked as factions when they were just Orcs + Trolls + Tauren vs Human + Dwarves + Elves.
In wow they added Undead and Night Elves which was kind of a stretch but acceptable in the circumstances. Now the factions are so bloated with so many different races that at this point factions should just dissolve to just another NPC faction with its own reputation faction.
The Bilgewater Goblins and Gilneans were left homeless when they joined the factions. They had nowhere else to go and needed someone to take them in. The Nightborne still have that huge city of theirs, on a bunch of islands that nobody’s had any strategic interest in unless they’re being used as a Legion foothold.
They just wanted shiny Allied Race toys for BfA (because literally every new race that ever appears in the game leads to players shrilly demanding that it become playable), so a bunch of shallow contrivances were slapped together to justify the people we helped in Legion suddenly trying to murder half of us on sight and acting like we’d always been their enemies.
“Tyrande was kind of rude, so we have no choice but to contractually bind ourselves to spill our own blood trying to exterminate half of the people who saved us from the Burning Legion if the current Warchief demands it.”
I will always remember when Blizzard showed the Vulpera at Blizz con - the crowd went wild at just the image. I was enthralled, myself, and I love my Vulpera Alts.
It is kind of funny. But I guess it says something about Blizzard’s world building, that people do fall in love with the races we meet. I wanted Wolvar in Wotlk. I guess worgen in cata were something.
Just look at the demand for playable High Elves (as in Alliance, blue eyed ones) and Ogres. We got the former by twisting Blizzards arm over and over again following the introduction of Void Elves. Just have to wait on the former, but that would require Blizzard to finally make a female Ogre model.
Personally, I just don’t find many of the races that engaging that I want one of my characters to be one.
Absolutely.
The Alliance appointed Tyrande as the envoy to lead their efforts against Elisande and the Burning Legion there, and she didn’t disguise her disgust towards the Nightborne (even the ones we were working with), and she certainly didn’t care whether they lived or died, seeing them as little more than cannon fodder so she wouldn’t have to risk her own soldiers in the fighting.
Meanwhile the Blood Elves saw them as allies, gave them equal treatment and didn’t put their own forces above the Nightborne, instead they were more than willing to work with them to secure their city and see it liberated without passing judgement.
It’s really a night and day difference between how they were treated, and obviously the Nightborne allied with the faction that valued them and didn’t see them as expendable meat for the grinder that were worth less than dog refuse on the bottom of a shoe.
The idea that they, or any of the other allied races, had to join a side at all is absurd. It was like they knew they were in a video game with factions and the only way to be playable was to pick one. But realistically there is no reason they couldn’t have just stayed to themselves like so many other races in the game do. Pandaria Pandaren, non-Bilgewater goblins, ogres, vrykul, tol’vir, etc manage fine without joining the Alliance and Horde.
Had to? No.
Chose to? More understandable.
The Lightforged Draenei didn’t have to side with the Alliance, they chose to because their kin were already a part of that faction. Likewise for the Highmountain Tauren joining the Horde. They didn’t have to, but both the Tauren and Taunka were already part of the Horde, so they chose to join as well.
In fact, every Allied Race has a moment where their choice to join the factions is justified.
Honestly not sure why didn’t let these races just be neutral and let the player choose which side of the faction divide they fall to.
Its less time consuming to just pick one side over allowing both. They didnt have to create a Horde and Alliance faction for each allied race, either pick or create a character to be the leader of these factions, and find somewhere to put them.
Starting neutral only really works for the pandaren because they start out on a giant turtle and never interacted with either faction until the very end.
All of the other AR races fought by our side and pretty much knew what each side represented before joining them. That’s how I view it anyway