We need to fix all the identities, not just the kaldorei one. Yes, even Stormwind’s. All of the races we have started out with more nuanced and complex themes, more cultural distinction, and certainly more unique aspects when it came to their equivalents in fantasy. And the few that make it through unscathed are barely given any screentime at all.
As I’ve said in other threads, the Night Elves are just more noticeable because it started for them first, back in Vanilla, but every race has been dealt that same impact to some extent, with the ball really rolling in Cata. Since then it’s just been a weathering away of those original themes, with some flashes of more fleshed out or unique traits every so often.
In fairness, that focus hasn’t really gotten the Night Elves… anything. In RP circles it’s a bit of a running joke that people are afraid of modern Blizzard turning their tender attentions to their favorite races, purely because of what that’s done to the ones that have gained attention and aren’t Humans.
Humans haven’t faired much better in that regard. I mean outside Jaina and Anduin the Humans in the story don’t have much going for them. Although having Turaylon back is nice although I get the sense he won’t be around for long.
Stormwind was literally on fire and half destroyed for 4 expansions and only recently got repaired and They also recently lost Darkshire and Nethergarde keep.
Humans in the story have less flavor the most of their other races as everything that made them unique (the light and arcane) has been stripped out and given to other races.
That’s my point, you can actually trace back the points where each race started to have their identities sanded away to leave very little of the original. Only including the Vanilla and TBC races, since the Cata onward races started out more one note, sadly.
Night Elves: Vanilla, obviously, right down to their emotes. It stayed relatively stable until Cata.
Blood Elves: End of TBC.
Draenei: WoD.
Orcs: 100% started in Cata.
Dwarves: Cata.
Gnomes: Also Cata.
Humans: Wrath, when Varian came back, easily.
Forsaken: Started in Wrath, but then really accelerated in Cata.
Trolls and Tauren have actually stayed relatively stable in their themes, honestly, they’ve just been respectively beaten up a lot, or ignored. So it’s really not lack of attention Night Elf fans are ‘crying’ about, it’s that they’re only ever paid attention to in order to get sucker punched. The Night Elves haven’t had an actual victory of their own merit that wasn’t some sort of pyrrhic one or co-opted by another race since the game launched.
Blizz really can do better, I think. Or I’d like to think, anyway…
And yet, somehow, me and my Gobs got spoiled rotten in BfA. I … just don’t understand it.
Great Wix content. He’s still alive to be amazing, but is not our arbitrarily antagonist leader anymore. All wins. Mechagon and its intro questline had more variety in Goblin personalities than we’ve had since our Cata intro; and most of them Bilgewater Gobs no-less. Then Gazlowe (Travis Willingham), the single most historied Goblin with the Horde becomes our racial leader … and the Heritage questline is largely about our remaining Reps cutting ties with Wix. That doesn’t even get into the GobSquad content … which was so good.
It wasn’t alot, but what we did get was all very good. And it feels weird to say that despite my miserable time as a Horde player, as a Gob player I feel pretty content. I have no idea what intern they had writing the Gob stories, but I hope Blizz gives them a bigger writing role. They know how to make positive changes while also staying true to a Racial Fantasy. That’s rare.
I put Goblins in their own category for a reason, in that they’ve slowly gained more nuance in spite of starting out more one note. Worgen sadly exist in this weird limbo, they never really did explore much more about the underlying divisions with the Northgate rebellion after Cata.
Goblins just keep gaining more characters and themes, which is great to see, and I really wish Blizzard would do so for other races to a greater degree.
Strangely though, it was almost the opposite in the Bilgewater prior to BfA.
There was a ton of growing nuance in other Goblin factions and their characters, but Wix proved to be such an oppresive personality he kinda rendered the one Goblin PC faction little more than Greed Filled Lemmings meant to die by he hundreds for his crap. Its the primary reason I came to love him as a character, but dislike him so much as our Racial Lead. He allowed no breathing room for other themes or characters to exist; almost by design.
But yeah, its interesting to see how they’ve sort of become the exception to the rule for PC Racial Fantasies over the years. They don’t get much, but what they do get continues to add flesh to what were very bare bones in the beginning.
I’m just going to pass along some thoughts from Kyalin, and add my own at the end.
The broad elements that I can identify that made the Night Elves great before 2010 and the ensuing lost decade are as follows.
Naturalism (although there is a tint of aggressiveness to this. Night Elves do not simply revere nature, they have a relationship with it that allows them to weaponize and capitalize on it in a manner that has been sorely underutilized)
Savagery (This concept is a bit complex, but it may be understood as the Night Elves not being per-se civilized in the same sense that Humans are. There are lines that they are absolutely willing to cross if they feel the need is great enough which reveal a no-holds-barred style of dealing with their problems. Night Elf fans advocated for fangs for this reason. Wardens are endlessly popular because they’re secret policewomen who take a punisher ethos to their prey. There’s a metal album cover crying out for release here.)
Independence (The Night Elves were previously isolationist, and tolerated no incursions into their lands. They were stubborn ideologically, and not in the mood to apologize for that.)
Competence (This is the difference, in regard to the last two, between Scrappy Doo - who no one respects - and a competent portrayal)
Naturalism has been rewritten to mean “they’re hippies”, “savagery” is skin deep, “independence” was killed for a unified Alliance concept, and “competence” was sacrificed to the Horde. Fixing the Night Elves requires the restoration (and in the cases where a faction took them, a retaking explicitly from that faction) of those elements.
Also tell Drahliana with respect to post 27 that she needs to stop applying the “the other side pays for the game too” argument in one direction. I didn’t see her or the red background posters sticking true to that principle on our behalf during the War of the Thorns, and it seems odd to see it now as a defense to tame suggestions like “the Night Elves should retake Ashenvale from the Horde onscreen to make up for that one time that the Horde tore through two of their zones and destroyed a third onscreen, plus the previous eight years of not-as-bad, but similar faction war content”
And now, my thoughts:
I think personally, it’s less “recovering,” and more “stabilizing” following the events of the WoT and 8.1. Shadows Rising , with its brief glimpse at the current situation of the Night Elves, showed that most, if not all, the remaining Night Elves are back in Hyjal, particularly Nordrassil, and Tyrande’s current thoughts on the Horde, including her refusal to sign the treaty. The NE souls in Ardenweald feel more like an apology for Ion running his mouth without considering the players than anything substantial, there’s still no word on whether or not the Nelves were able to retake Ashenvale and the rest of their pre-WoT territory, and no real confirmation as to if Tyrande killing Nathanos in prepatch will even make it to live.
That said, nothing would save the Night Elf identity if Sylvanas is Kerrigan’d. It would be like gathering Teldrassil’s ashes, and the bodies of the Night Elves who died in the WoT, and having Sylvanas, Ion, and Danuser just **** on them. It would tell the players that we are worth less than Danuser’s waifu, and we’re idiots for liking one of the classic WC3 races.
The good thing about Gallywix as well is that he is a good villain that blizzard can use again in future that specifically ties into the goblins in the Horde.
In relation to the night elves I think the largest mistep in the handling of them was back in MOP during 5.3. While the horde got cool scenarios of pushing the Garrosh’s forces off the troll island and then attacking Grommash hold(or whatever its called) the Alliance got its stupid robo kitty quest which was clearly an after thought.
What we should have got is a quest where the Alliance defends Astranaar from Garrosh’s forces and then pushes out and attacks the logging camp or Splintertree Post and drive the Horde out of ashenvale alongside the Night elves. Then have the Alliance delivering supplies to them.
This give the Nightelves the victory they were wanting over the horde without affecting the actual horde player base. The night elves would have got to fight alongside Malfurion and Tyrande to retake Ashenvale.
Night Elf players actually came off pretty well in the War of Thorns, those of us who participated in the limited events got a cool mount, we have the better looking armor sets from the Warfronts, and we got to be the ones doing the hero’s side of the Battle of the Alamo, so you can go pass that back.
Horde players got the enviable role of being the BBEG’s catspaws. For them the most “heroic” character in the expac is a turncoat to the Alliance.
To be fair though, the Horde mount is delightfully gothic.
laughs Oh, wait, you’re serious. Let me laugh harder. laughs harder.
You really think a “Cool mount” and “Better looking armor” makes up for having Night Elf lands invaded YET AGAIN, and ultimately costing the Night Elves their capital?
NOBODY came off well in the WoT. It was a bad idea full of even more bad ideas.
Oh and blizzard really need to stop with night elves always seeming to get ambushed in their own territory. It really undermines the premises that they are masters of the forest when goblins in shredders or undead can keep ambushing them there.
You’re fixated on what happened to the NPC’s and the background race.
Again, the game is about the play. Go down to Texas some time. They worship the Battle of the Alamo the same way the Catholics do the Stations of the Cross. and this is despite the fact that the Alamo was taken and the survivors executed.
I played the scenario from both sides, it was not nearly as fulfilling Horde side, because you are locked into a villain’s role without any meaningful choice.
It’s been years so I might be misremembering, but they didn’t really explore much about what it means to be a werewolf either, did they? Like, I vaguely remember the second half of the starting zone with you becoming sapient again and then you just go straight into fighting forsaken. Unless it was covered in books later or something.
Edit: Maybe the heritage questline bit counts but from what I heard, it sounded like a massive dud.
Mounts do not interest me.
Armor sets do not interest me.
A nominal “you’re a good person” award does not interest me.
Having the Horde experience suck does not interest me. (This is why I break from people calling for more than Ashenvale)
Shiny keys don’t interest me either.
What does interest me is the ability to feel motivated to participate in the faction rivalry without the game coming in from on high, and through its visual and interactive language telling me that no matter what I do, my faction rival will always be superior. I will not pay for a game that wants to put me through a series of depressing, no-win scenarios, and then has the gall to ask me to pay for the experience.
I’m also not alone, many others already have left as well. If Blizzard wants to bring us back, then it needs to do far better than “your entire racial fantasy is: getting brutalized by the evil Horde so that the good humans can have their motivation to go after Lordaeron.”
Night elf players needs to stop blaming the people who play humans for their story. (Or horde players for that matter).
Players who play human characters didn’t like the story anymore than you did. You demanded Night Elfs get more of a spotlight in the story you just didn’t like they story you got. BFA was a poorly written story all around.
So if you want to blame someone for how Night elves are portrayed, Blame the writers not other players.
I remember when it was a certain Draenei player demanding All the attention be focused on the Draenei. As soon as we got WOD she complained about the Human garrison. then after all that focus in WOD and Legion she quit the game. So even if Blizzard even gives you what you want your still gonna quit when its done and focus goes elsewhere. Cause players who are only focused on one singular aspect of the story are not worth catering to.
Damn right it’ll never happen, you’d have to take down every player that decided to help her out because the honor road was stupid, and people were sick of going against warchiefs.
But for real I think it’s unhealthy and should break off from focusing on Sylvanas and the Horde despite what was done and focus on themselves.
Mainly due to the fact that you’ll never be happy because of the way blizzard operates and forces characters to tunnel vision a lot, focusing solely on one thing and more or less ignoring everything else.
I mean look at Greymane he’s really only known now a days as an angry wolf who is pissed Sylvanas won’t give him his stick after it landed near her.
When these two characters are ever in the same room that’s all he focuses on while she could care less, don’t make more characters like that who become stupidly obsessive, it’s annoying to watch as a player.
“Hero you go deal with the bigger more pressing issue! While I…I’ll chase after Sylvanas!”
Hero:…he’s such a…stupid mutt I swear.
Another example is Maiev I like her, I just hate when she tunnel vision and focuses solely and only on illidan the moment he appears and chases after him constantly.
I’d rather tyrande and the night elf’s NOT go down that road.
