Questing through Ashenvale is pretty depressing

Lore Story Forum
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So I unlocked Light Forged and decided maybe to finally get the heritage armor out of the way.
I make the character, go to the board as requested by the the quest and I pick Stonetalon out of the other three (Duskwood and Wetlands did not seem that interesting).

Well since it was on my way I decided to start off from Ashenvale and see how the war leads up to Stonetalon. Oh boy was it a depressing experience.

As soon as you step into the forest there are Horde soldiers everywhere that have killed an Ancient. You burn him and kill a few Horde. Then you go to Maestra’s post where you are required to kill some Furbolgs and kill some Horde and their Siege Engines.
Then you are required to gather some items of fallen NPCs and run back to the house that is still being bombarded.
And… thats pretty much it here. The quest does not require you to stop the Horde any further nor does it phase them out so you could imagine that you stopped the attack. They don’t even give you a “Yeah we can handle it from here go to Astranaar”

Speaking of Aastrnaar. The place is on fire when you first arrive. The Night Elves ask you to put out the fires and shoot down the Horde windriders. Literally 10 minutes is all it took and the town was saved. Only Stardust Spire gave a few quests where you were allowed to do anything to change the outcome of the zone. And even then, in one quest you find out there is this giant bomb that the goblins have that we must deal with at all costs otherwise “this land is doomed” I quote… but this bomb is never brought up again. Instead we are shuffled off to Stonetalon. It is all very… anticlimactic…
Why bother making the phasing technology if you are not going to use it where it matters?

The rest of the quests I could find were all about the Satyr and elements. It was very disappointing seeing all the war and conquest around Ashenvale. Especially on a Battle for Azeroth mindset and see how little there was about retaliation and pushing the war effort in Ashenvale which seems so full of war.

I am going to keep questing but I just wanted to point out how lackluster the Alliance side of the questing was in this zone. I might revisit the zone with a Horde AR later on and do a comparison. But overall this has been a very disappointing experience.

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it is the result of the game being 15 years old, and 8 expansions in. If you really want to experience the glory days of ashenvale, classic isn’t too far away.

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Cataclysm Alliance questing is bad, who knew.

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Thats what happens when you mismanage your development time.

The only saving grace for alliance Kalindor questing is the lack of crappy meme zones.

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Stone talon mountains is a continuation of that plot line :slight_smile:

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Welcome to Cata era Alliance questing. At least Ashenvale is better than the twin abominations of Westfall and Redridge.

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Ashenvale in Vanilla was so much fun. Too bad I wasn’t using a good computer back then so I couldn’t get the graphics past 1 lol. Anyway I loved questing there. It wasn’t the war zone it is now.

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Can confirm that it really doesn’t get any less depressing though, FYI.

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This for me is pretty annoying. Blizzard for Alliance seem to be quite reliant on meme characters to the point they’re just as active as actual serious lore characters. I personally don’t consider this really “clever”, maybe funny the first time I saw it. But considering how prominent some of them become, to me it shows laziness and lack of passion from the writers.

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Yes and I am enjoying my time in Stonetalon much more than I am Ashenvale.
It just kind of sucks that I abandoned an enchanted elven forest under so much threat from the Horde for some far away contested mountain range.

Night Elves really need an Ashenvale reconquest scenario and revamp the whole place. It seems to be dearly needed especially after BFA.

And gawd dang is the Horde vilified in these quests.
Numerous times I see them committing comic book level villainy and savagery. These alliance quests go out of their way to make sure the Horde is presented as terrible as possible.

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Westfall was a particular abomination.

The region was one of the first ones done for many players. The Deadmines the first dungeon for the same. Not killing some fantasy monsters or taking down a necromancer, no- a plot of betrayal, crime, rebellion and revenge set in the farmlands of Stormwind, with the kingdom not seeming willing to protect its territory right outside its gates.

Gyran Stoutmantle, another zone later on, or introduced today, would be another random questgiver with a funny name. But we remember him for Westfall, and then leading the Westfall brigade in Northrend. Serious, lore friendly experiences.

So what happens with the revamp? First thing in the zone, a damn CSI meme. Granted, the story itself wasn’t terrible, and I’m glad we got to see Vanessa VanCleef in Legion, but the presentation was just painful. I’m all for some lighthearted fun. I really like the Fargo Flintlocke interactions. But the Westfall revamp was just horrid.

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legends says that the place is still burning ala stratoholme!

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One of the reasons I did not want to quest in duskwood was because it seemed to be completely unchanged since vanilla. I wish they would have put all the Gilnean stuff over there. It would have been really cool.

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The quest does at least give a “we can handle it from here” statement:

    Thank you, <name>. With what you've accomplished the tide is turned. I've no doubt now that we'll route them by the end of the day!

As does the quest that does give you a free ride to Astranaar:

    You have been of great assistance to us, <name>. Without you, we would have been wiped out by now.

    It would be my pleasure to offer you one of my nightsabers anytime to ride to Astranaar up and to the southeast.


There were turning points in the Night Elves’ favor, too, though. The questing does say we run the Legion out of Ashenvale, which we manage to do even while the Horde is attacking:

    Never again will the Burning Legion threaten Ashenvale! You have delivered us from a fight we very likely would have lost, <class>.

    You've saved us all, <name>! I have the power to finish off these final few.

    No longer will the forest have to fear the Burning Legion!



And we purify the Forest’s Heart after the Horde tried to corrupt it, with the quest NPC saying this after you turn in the quest:

    Gnarl says: There, the Forest Heart is now purified. Its power will replenish Ashenvale once more. We are forever in your debt, young one.

And we start a Furbolg uprising against the Horde that will let us take Silverwind Refuge back:

    So, you used the skull of the furbolg king to modify the power of Dartol's Rod? You then used that power to convince the captured furbolg to rise up and attack the Horde at Silverwind Refuge?

    I am more than pleased and impressed with your abilities, <name>. The Sentinels cannot thank you enough. It should be a simple matter for us to sweep away the orcs and retake the refuge now!

    Teronis would be proud. You have my deepest respect.


And we do save that one child we are trying to throughout the zone, but I’m pretty sure we saved her back in Classic, too.

Over all, depending on the way you play and read the zone, it’s actually all about it the Night Elves and allies undoing all the damage done to Ashenvale and getting it back.

This I all agree with, though, yes. That was the major problem a lot of Night Elf fans had with the revamp of Kalimdor: though we were told we had a lot or victories, they were never actually shown in game with proper phasing.

And then the War of the Thorns reversed all those victories in ways that were phased and presented to the players, which was even more upsetting in the context that Night Elf fans wanted their own victories shown.

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Not enough in my opinion. Certainly not like Stonetalon, at least I didn’t get that impression.
For example there is a Horde post right above Astranaar but it is completely ignored. Very disappointing experience, I keep getting shuffled off somewhere else because I did one or two things… nothing really substantial.

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I like Stonetalon, too… but have you gotten to the end of it with the bomb? (Or the tangent questing with camp near the border of the Southern Barrens?)

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That’s the thing, they do use phasing when it implements destructive changes like Redridge Mountains and those changes open up new quests. But since no new quests are opened up, they don’t put in the effort of coding that phasing.

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