I don’t think it’s a coincidence that seemingly most of the night elf posting population simultaneously went gaga over Ardenweald either but I also don’t think the zone is some sort of apology like you do. It’s just something I think that resonated with them a whole lot more since their racial thing has often been about being guardians of nature.
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Are people still saying Highmountain and Suramar are not Horde stories?
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This. I also love the Botani, and would, in fact, like to one day see the refugees from AU Draenor one day team up with the Night Elves to some capacity. I guess I just spaced out during all the table-flipping over Gorgrond being a Night Elf zone. 
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Baine: Cut from Content
Tyrande: Not.
Tyrande spits on the Horde player.
(Nevermind that they weren’t Horde to begin with.)
If I were to say what vibes I get from other zones:
Bastion: Humans.
Blue humans. Reminiscent of val’kyr, who are another branch of the human family. There’s crystal tech, but the stonework gives me vibes of Stormwind (the most prominent stone architecture in the game), which is probably fitting giving the Kyrian architecture is Greek and the significant hellenistic influences on Christianity over the millennia. The closest zone to Bastion’s nature is not Mulgore, imo, but pre-Cata Westfall. In general they have close ties to Light. The reason no one complains about this is that the Kyrian faith is so ascetic and unique and the Stewards so unlike anything prior associated with the Light or humans that the vibe is overpowered completely. (I am so glad they gave us something fun in the Stewards, it’s nice not to have the Light be totally stodgy for once).
Maldraxxus: Thoroughly scourge. Not Forsaken. I am absolutely 100% not a fan of Forsaken, I get zero Forsaken vibes and frankly Draka sticks out like a sore thumb to me. The whole zone feels like incoherent ideas put together because they’re cool. Which is … kind of WoW Horde I guess???
Revendreth: It’s gloomy, wry, and moody and very distinctly some flavor of English. Sure, I could call Lordaeron, but I could also call Gilneas. The heavy emphasis on reds and desaturated purples keeps it away from the vivid greens and purples I usually associate with Forsaken, though, while the reds are too vivid for Gilnean themes. The emphasis on both atonement and hypocrisy are things out of their usual wheelhouses.
I don’t think everything has to boil down to factionalism. I’m Alliance primary now, and I see what the Horde posters here are saying. The comparisons to Nelf zones in Ardenweald were infrequent but not rare in my (Alliance primary) friends group. I have yet to see similar comparisons for the others.
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Thats nice. But are they not Highmountain tauren and nightborne stories, therefore Horde stories?
Just trying to find this line. Ardenweald is night elf because Ysera, which makes it night elf lore, so does that mean it’s not Alliance lore then and the whinging is just because it’s a night elf zone and not an Alliance zone?
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Beyond the obvious “It’s on Draenor” thing, while I could obviously see botani and night elves teaming up, I actually never got night elf vibes from them. It’s kinda the same way that I don’t think of nelves when I look at, say, the Hinterlands. The zone obviously has forests and all, but it’s all just kinda…there. And 9/10ths of the botani very much aren’t about balance at all. They’re more like a nature-themed scourge than anything else.
Although I suppose that could be its own separate issue, since I don’t think “wild” or “feral” when it comes to night elves, even though they apparently should be.
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There was quite a lot of unhappiness when the Nightborne went to the Horde – I know i was disappointed. But now that they are, yes, it is a Horde story.
Highmountain is even more Horde-flavored than Ardenweald is nelf-flavored, sure. But it’s at that weird tipping point where it also feels like it was holding back for no reason. The Highmountain tribe probably feel the least different from their base race to me and also like, it was kinda wasted? If you compare to every other allied race, they’re up there with Void Elves for adding little to the lore but up there with Lightforged Draenei for being visually indistinct and they’re uniquely culturally indistinct too. That’s… not a great combo. I loved the zone during Legion as a breather zone but I think they could have done more with it in hindsight.
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Ardenweald is beautiful zone, why can’t we simply ENJOY something for what it is instead of arguing semantics?
It has a very small night elf feel to it, but you all know that’s not a bad thing.
Are you people seriously THAT miserable?
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Ysera isn’t “owned” by the Night Elves, nor does she pay any special regard to them. The only Dragonflight that has a factional bias at all are the Reds who still remember their Second War enslavement by the Horde, yet she favors a Blood Elf form as do most of the other Flights. Ysera is the only one who favors a night elf form and at the most, she’s worked with druids who took watch in the Emerald Dream. But she hasn’t acted specifically for Night Elves despite this.
If it the covenant has a bit more Night Elf flavor, I’m glad that for a change giving Night Elf attention doesn’t involve taking yet something else away from them.
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In the end, Ardenweald is amazing and is a great zone to hang out in, so chill.
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Blaine Bloodhoof.
Heeeey, in my defense, the reason why I dislike him is because he exists to get punched in the face.
Well, he did free himself from the jailer and was fighting… And got captured again.
Maybe that is his training saga
We have purposely trained him wrong. As a joke.
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True enough it seems. Its just super bizarre this mountain they’ve chosen to die on.
Like, we revisit the Val’Sharah Ysera death scene and actually play it in the Ardenweald story. A storyline in an NE zone; following NE characters; battling against an NE legacy villain; weilding the power of an NE mistake. The villain of NE whom uses the NE characters as bait, and corrupts her with that NE mistake. We then proceed to battle alongside an exclusively NE cast to slay Ysera, and have a breathtaking cutscene were that exclusively NE cast watches her death and soul being dragged into the sky by a very favorites playing NE “One True God”.
I mean … who exactly were those scenes meant to elicit an emotional response from? Which group was Ysera strongly supposed to be associated with there? Hell if I know apparently?
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Tauren were introduced the the Emerald Dream by the NEs and all their druidic aesthetics come from the NEs. How often have you seen a druid encampment using Tauren props? The BEs and the HEs had practically nothing to do with the Aspects in the War of the Ancients. The BE’s ancestors only joined the rebellion openly late in the conflict and never really interacted with the Aspects. Suramar on the other hand literally never joined the rebellion, let alone deal with any Aspects.
Tauren worship the Earth Mother and believe Mu’sha is one of her eyes, which is pretty clearly wrong since it is safe to assume Elune isn’t one of the Earth Mother’s eyes. At best their connection to Elune is to say they completely are wrong about her.
Ysera has always been closely connected to the NEs. She often interacted with their druids, had strong connections to the Ancients who the NEs revered and blessed their tree. Name one time Ysera has been shown to have any direct relationship with the Tauren?
Well apparently there is a Naaru in Revendreth so that kind of shots that argument down doesn’t it cause there isn’t one damn dreanei anywhere to be found there.
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She was kidnapped I THINK? Not sure if she was sent there normally in the first place.
Ardenweald does have some Night Elf vibes. More so than Trees and Fae. Eternal Night, the Stars in the trees. It is very Elune-Esq. And now there is some theory crafting about the Winter Queen’s sister being Elune or Eonar. I am not sure people would be speculating Elune if there wasn’t some kind of Night Elf tie-in.
With that being said, I don’t think that makes it a “Nelf zone”. Even if there is a kinship between The Winter Queen and Elune, it is clear the Winter Queen is, at least mildly, not fond of her sister.
I look at it this way. Ardenweald is probably a sacred place to night elves. It is probably the most common Afterlife for Night Elves (We see many Night Elf spirits there, in fact, I think the only non-animal shape spirits we see are Night Elves). However, the story itself really had nothing to do with Night Elves.
In fact, one of my favorite things about Shadowlands is the fact that no one really has any claim to anything. Unlike BFA where everyone felt like they were owed something (rightfully so).
Edit: Just to drive home the idea that Ardenweald is the most common Aferlife for Nelves. When the Burning of Teldrassil was mentioned, many fae were surprised they had not seen a large group of souls arrive in Ardenweald. Implying they would have thought everyone living on Teldressil would have been bound to Ardenweald as an afterlife.
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Kind of beside the point.
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