This also applies to Horde players. Not that I know what the “straw” argument is, or how it manifests itself. But “it is necessary” to get in.
So, did you see Tyrandle or Malfurion as the events went to Orgrimmar?
Were used more than ones as a narrative tool to kick them and then they are supposed to forgive.
So, there is a specifically night elf problem, true. But there is way more than 1 way to address it. The problem highlighted in the threads boils down to a simple thing:
- because the devs decided that they needed to justify alteration of the horde concept, they needed to demonize what was there
- once the change got a justification in the story, the devs won’t allow to criticize the horde, because it’s now “new and better” than ever before.
Hence a dead end. Argumentation can be different:
- ignoring the tree story throughout most on the story
- ignoring what makes a good deconstruction story
- placing events in convenient moments without consideration of how it clashes with the rest of the story
- bringing into the fantasy game discussion of irl morality while applying it only for selected few characters and situations when narratively convenient
and list goes on and on about how many things had to be placed aside / ignored / pushed to a border of out of character, to make it all work. With the caveat that with such measures it does not work.
It’s not a probles as much as making a clear stand in the narrative about the role of Stormwind in enabling the situation, as well as not doing sensible things, such as: night elves go to Silithus (although the whole story has its share of absurdity), while the alliance sends a limited amount of help to cover weakened territory.
I mean, then the story that unfolded would not work, but if the scene requires so much twisting of the story, it’s easy to argue that it did not work anyway.
It was mentioned before on more than 1 occasion. If the goal was to sell this story, it needed to be way slower and with clear build up.
Sylvanas and her motivation should’ve been consistent.
Night elves could’ve been shown to have consistent involvement across the Legion specifically to highlight that this battle, while crucial for Azeroth, hammered them hard, and most of their old allies like stone giants, wild gods, etc., are defeated or cannot participate in anything for a while.
And on such premise with a proper build up that would work in telling a story of War of Thorns. But it would require build up, attention, and effort.
Depends on the execution. It might sound like a big surprize, but the story could show how in all of the world-ending events night elves payed a toll and no longer as they used to be, all while the horde could have some build up and character development, to make things closer.
Although the factions should not be the same / completely equal at everything (regardless of which side gets an upper hand), but representing strong and weak sides of it’s participants.
Somehow untill Cata it did work.
Depends on the execution.
Not sure about the other team, but there is a certain bias to show how everything goes in a way to show very specific ideas as correct, regardless of how much destruction is done on the way there.
Up until certain point we can talk about how the devs trying to cheap on the development, and pushing 1 story to both factions led to questionable decisions.
Plus, some people always say things like that as some flame wars could be their way to get some sense of belonging, etc. Even if the “bad” motivations are ignored, there are some reasons why people might take weak arguments and push them like that.
Current line of discussion IMO is more about the plot of BfA with both its sides (deconstructing the horde story, and using night elves as a PvP narrative tool for like 3rd time) highlighting problems of the story. They are not unique to 1 area. They are equally troublesome.
In a grand scheme of things both sides should have high and low points, and this spectrum of events could create an interesting story.
Instead we have mediocrity, a bunch of weak plot elements, desire to alter the old themes into what never was there just because the devs apparently felt like it.
gl hf
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Little info from the sideline . The Night Elves are the only race in the entire game…that was once a faction, capable of defeating Alliance and Horde at the same time. Sure, they lost a lot of power, sure, I agree wholeheartedly…but, that doesn’t change the fact that for a faction in a DEFENSE WAR (much easier for the defender than for the attacker), it’s still perfectly sufficient.
Especially because the circle this time did not make on “We are neutral” but was fully on board. The circle was one of the reasons why they were a separate faction in wc3 in the first place, since all the druids were not just in the circle, but firmly integrated into the night elves.
This time the druids of the Circle (night elven and worgish ) were fully on board against the horde.
Yeah sure no one… Just needed to wait 4 post to see one…
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A information is no demanding, you know?
I only gave a loreinformation, nothing else. It seems again you don’t get the point.
You could make a similar argument about a bunch. The final boss for the scourge campaign in TFT was the blood elves almost entirely on their own and it was still canonically a narrow fight, yet beating it down the line took the two factions in wow.
As much as it pains me using 3’s storylines at this point doesn’t really work.
I hate the way the night elves are handled but “the night elves can solo the world” is very much not how things go down either in Realm of Chaos or how they should go down in a multiplayer game, at least not if you want to do something as stupid as keep the factions around as a narrative tool.
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Qt was according to the lore, before arthas make its move, the most powerfull kingdom in the entire eks.
And i never said anything about “solo the world”. He said they sould not be a rival to an entire faction. I only said…they are indeed a playerrace with the background of an entire faction on their own. This is an unique aspect in wow that only the nightelfs are. A faction powerfull enough to handle both faction. Now they are of course weakened, i even said so, they lost a huge amount of power but are still a rival in a case where they are the deffender because; deffending is much easier as conquering
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The bloodelves are not the equivalent to the night elfs, narrative wise, the forsaken are. And the forsaken did indeed this, they beat multiple Times the entire Alliancarmys in Cata and conquered a bunch of territorys, its exist even a time, were they conquered arathi. The Bloodelves are the equivalent to the Draenei. They´ll need time to recover from their struggle, maybe 100-200-1000 Years, but someday the bloodelves will be back and it will change the entire balance of the EK´s. like i said, according to the lore, qt was pre wc3 the most powerfull single kingdom in the entire Ek´s.
The same will be happen if the Draenei will be really back on the Table. IF they are able to reignite their culture on Azeroth, they will change the entire balance of the factions.
The stalemate was not against the gilnean alone, the Gilnean get A lop of help, even the night elves and the entire 7. legion of the alliance helped them out.
in the end, sylvanas fought not alone against the gilnean people, she and her forsaken fought in
western plaguelands
southshoore
arathi
hinterlands
tirisfall
silverpine
at the same time and win in 5/6 cases clearyl, only in gilneas they struggle a bit.
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Technically yes but things are already well into a process of collapsing internally by the end of Gilneas storylines when the alliance shows up
You know that the 7th legion was there very early and also the night elves showed up very early?
not technically, that happened in cata. They won in 5/6 cases very very clearly against the EK dominated Alliance.
I ´ll compare this once to the night elves in cata
They fought in Stonetalon
Feralas
Desolace
Ashenvale
Azshara
AND ONLY in one of this cases, they barely win, ashenvale. IN the rest they got their back beaten. even with help of the Draenei and the alliance.
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The problem here is you just listed every zone in the northern EKs other than Quel’thalas and Gilneas and just vaguely implied those were all forsaken wins.
The forsaken have always been virtually absent in Arathi and Hinterlands, the faction conflict there is driven by the Wildhammer v Revantusk feud and Strom’s destruction had nothing to do with either scourge or forsaken.
Tirisfal is comparable to Cata Darnassus-Darkshore, no group other than the Worgen and the Goblins fully lose their homefront until the devs decided it would be cool to implement this stupid idea in BfA. Silverpine is still largely home turf and still largely showed as a stalemate. Only WPL and Southshore feel anomalous there.
They forsaken were in the hinterlands. They even plagued the capital of the wildhammer
They conquered arathi, you know??
suprise…it was a lose 
Because you are twisting the times.
Cata the Forsaken won, but then in Legion we learned that the Traitor Prince (undead) turned against Sylvanas and was killed by the ebon Blade (Legion DK Classhall) and his troops so Arathi was niemandsland for a while.
BFA then came the warfront and there the alliance won.
wow, i can’t believe i actually decided to read the entirety of this thread.
not for lack of entertainment, i guess.
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I’m referring to the description of the zone in Cata, not in Legion, saying the forsaken were repelled after the wildhammers rejoined the council, since apparently questing isn’t a reliable source of info for which resolution is canon thanks to our genius writing team
They don´t get repelled, play it yourself, they won in arathi for 100% (The ebon blade in legion retake the lands later)and you see even the wildhammer capitol plagued in the questline, maybe they can´t conquered it, but it ends not in a “lose” of the zone for them.
It may be that the Wildhammer have regained their grip in the Hinterlands, according to the lore, but Cata questline did not end in defeat for the Forsaken there. in the rest, they clearly won.
In Arathi even 100% , and in the Hinterlands it was a …strange ending, it wasn’t really an ending, there was no clear winner, but no real loser either…except the trolls there maybe
I have read all 4,303 of the posts currently in Baalsamael’s thread, and I do not recall anyone making that argument. The closest I can remember was Shernish bringing up that the Horde would have had a harder time if both Malfurion and Tyrande had been there.
But perhaps my memory isn’t that good. I welcome you to quote these many examples you speak of, if they aren’t just stuffing for a scarecrow.