https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0WKnDcvSzE&t=5m49s
- Ion Hazzikostas: We also have a new Warfront. As I mentioned, the Alliance suffered some heavy blows in the initial events of Battle for Azeroth, but now it's time for them to strike back. As so this is actually going to be the Night Elven force and the Alliance as a whole looking to retake Darkshore. Looking to reestablish a foothold in Kalimdor within striking distance of Orgrimmar. Looking to reclaim their ancestral homelands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBN_sRPAH_Y&t=2m28s
- Ion Hazzikostas: I think we're seeing a chance for the first time to really delve into both the Night Elf culture but also their champions. As you saw in the "Terror of Darkshore" cinematic, they are feared by the Horde for a reason. And, yes, while they're in touch with nature, don't get between them and nature, certainly don't harm their homes, certainly don't harm their people.
And this makes a great introduction to an interview about the "Terror of Darkshore" cinematic with Terran Gregory that is an hour long, where Terran Gregory shows so much love to the Night Elves that I wanted to present it here to people who would rather read a wall of text at their own pace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEHc8le_Qpk
I'm going to present this roughly in the timeline of the narrative creation of "Terror of Darkshore" and I'll put timestamps of where in the actual interview he made the statements. This interview really helped me feel better about the Darkshore Warfront. Though the changes on the PTR to improve the quest content for it has been great, with Lor'danel being plagued and being left plagued, and with the inherent nature of Darkshore being retaken by each side back and forth over and over, I had found myself ultimately siding more towards disappointment with Darkshore. However, something that had me coming back to the testing going on in the PTR was all the Night Elf characters and allies that show up in the Alliance's warfront scenario proper, and even with the destruction of land and life, seeing characters like Thisalee Crow, Jarod Shadowsong, Mordent Evershade, Shandris Feathermoon, Celestine of the Harvest, Lorna Crowley, Tess Greymane, Genn Greymane, and even Maiev Shadowsong - who I strongly disliked before but we now see making amends for her passed crimes - filled me with more elation than Teldrassil's ever present husk could diminish. But this interview with Terran Gregory blew even that out of the water.
Terran Gregory at 1:21:
- I’m Project Director for Creative Development, Story and Franchise Development for Blizzard.
Terran Gregory at 41:41:
- It’s interesting ‘cause going back to when we were pitching this, we were pitching this long before Battle for Azeroth had come out, we were pitching before Sylvanas: Warbringers went live, before “Old Soldier,” before any of it, right? So the audience had not even yet had the reaction to the burning of Teldrassil. But, as we’ve discussed in similar medium that the burning of Teldrassil was very much supposed to do what it did. And that’s ignite a war. And it had to be big. It had to not be something that some people could objectively say “You know that, it wasn’t that bad, I don’t want to go to war,” right? It had to be something so absolutely war inspiring. And because of that, we knew, right? We knew that it was going to hurt, in a narrative sense, right? And we immediately were thinking about the next chapter. The Night Elf’s part specifically we were going to feel like you took us off guard, we were unprepared for the assault Sylvanas brang, it was devastating all the way down to our core, and where are you going to feel in the next chapter point? As so I came in, Alex [Afrasiabi] had asked us to investigate what this teaser for this patch would be, and he want it to be the Night Elves coming to Darkshore. But that was like it. That was the container by which we were going to develop this firm. And that’s when I started seeing that, like, I feel like the Night Elves are going to be coming back with for vengeance. With profound vengeance. Terrifying. They were terrifying. And when they were in their element, right?- barbaric is not the right word, right? Because they were elegant, but the ferocity of which they personified. When you’re in their territory, and the lights go out, you should afraid. And that’s definitely how we approached this film.
Terran Gregory at 26:52:
- It’s more about the message. It’s more about, like, what’s going on in Darkshore. We enter here, clearly the Horde has taken Darkshore, right? They’re occupying Darkshore. When you occupy territory, you have to have supply lines, and when you have supply lines they’re vulnerable to attack, right? And so before there’s any major onslaught, the whole idea is that this is the first first-strike that’s made, right? So they don’t know what’s coming, they just doing their job. Right? And yes, it’s not meant to be “Oh! Okay! Look!” No. It’s the message of: They’re coming for you. And the whole, owl arrives, of course, Tyrande uses her owl for battle visibility, and so the moment that’s there they’ve been found.
Terran Gregory at 31:32:
- I think we refer to her as the healer. Because the healer always gets taken out first. It’s like “Why did he go after the Blood Elf first?” Dude, it’s PvP, you have to go after the healer first. Before she can bubble. Just like BAM! Crit for a million.
Terran Gregory at 39:06 on the shapeshifting effect for Druids:
- So the great thing about this effect, and I’m glad we get to talk about it, this effect specifically, a lot of times if something was, say, established first in the high-fidelity CGI pipeline, then when we go in-game we want it to match a more of an in-game style, right? We want the in-game to feel like an in-game effects, versus like if it transformed in pre-render you would imagine it would be some sort of crazy werewolf transformation, would be incredibly hyper-realistic. Actually: We went back to the first World of Warcraft cinematic and the Night Elf that’s running through the woods. So when you’re cutting this together later you can grab the video and lay it over: She’s running, she’s running, she’s running, she’s running, and she jumps, and there’s this light that goes over the body and she just immediately becomes the cat and then lands, and we used that, we used that and said, you know what, there’s an establishment in the CGI pipeline that we can easily achieve in the in-game effect and now they’re unified, right? Both her and Malfurion look just like they did, they just shapeshift into the new form. So that’s where we got the inspiration for doing that. It goes from the eyes, rolls over the face, reveals his head was where his head was, revealing the raising Malfurion.
Terran Gregory at 44:45:
- Perhaps they’ve been pacifist for this long, right? And again, they got taken off guard. But the whole meta going on here is, you know, you poked the bear. You literally poked the bear. And for the first time, as we’ve said, since Warcraft III, their true face, the one we haven’t seen since the Night Elf armies with Sentinels of the Warcraft III encounter, they show that again, and we want it to be terrifying, and the whole setting of Darkshore, the whole setting of just like the terr- In fact, the name, “Terror of Darkshore,” was the name of the pitch. Because Malfurion is the Terror of Darkshore now, right? Everyone in the Horde army is probably talking like “Dude, you better not go out there by yourself, ‘cause this thing, this thing is going to just tear you limb from limb.”
Terran Gregory at 47:59:
- The Druids, they’re here to win it, right? They’re not necessarily all about the rules of engagement right here. They’re about “We’re here to win.”
Terran Gregory at 50:06:
- We definitely never wanted this troll to feel like he just flimsy or weak. Even at the beginning, right? We didn’t have him that class shell-shocked soldier. He was more so centering himself. Like this a battle-hardened individual who’s seen stuff, but had never seen anything quite like this.
Terran Gregory at 51:04:
- And the sound designers had a field day with this. Between adding the growls, and really doing amazing sound design on his vocal performance to give it more gravity, to give it more, you know, oomph. He’s always felt much more like a wizened elder. “I’m giving the elder advice.” That’s definitely Malfurion. But to see that same voice *hiss.* It’s a great shift, right? Boom. We’re going into this here now.
Terran Gregory at 54:33:
- And then, the wisps. …Oh… and there she is [Tyrande]. [Teldrassil] Extinguished, right? And yet, and yet, this composition is designed that even if it’s this burnt out husk, it’s what we’re fighting for. Right? We’re taking it. Even if you burn it. We’re here to fight over this. This is ours. This is our homeland.
Terran Gregory at 55:22:
- Elune has the power to do this. We’ve established that she does. And here it is again. She calls upon it. The unnatural dark falls upon Darkshore. And it gives the Night Elves battle, you know, enhancement. Right? Flip back to Tyrande. One really cool thing about this, was, right, again, when these things are pitched everyone’s in the early phases of any given development, so we were talking about this scene, and I remember nudging Alex [Afrasiabi] and being like, “Dude, you know, what would you think about giving an armor refresh for Tyrande?” And it was so early that they hadn’t even started, like, the Night Warrior. Because the cinematics start a long back, right? And so they hadn’t really established the visual aesthetic of the Night Warrior. But we were like, “Do you think we could get something to make sure at the end here when we see her, when we finally see her that there’s like enhancement, right?” And Alex [Afrasiabi] was mere like, “Oh yeah, let me just talk to the guys,” right? And then within, you know, however long it took, sent it over, and I saw this, and I was like *gasp!* And suddenly this moment, this reveal, was that much more profound, as far as like, “I’m here.” And this is of course a call back to that classic Warcraft III image. Where the male Night Elf, female Night Elf are just standing right side by side, the Druid here, the female in front, female in front because that’s the Night Elf culture from Warcraft III, right? The Sentinels. The matriarchal society. And so she’s at that forefront, Malfurion, who we just saw how powerful Malfurion is in this whole film, but he is clearly in a position of being “second in command” here. So if he was that wicked, what is that by power of transference mean about how powerful she could be.
Terran Gregory at 58:07:
- It’s very much Sentinel and Warden inspired. Right? And Wardens are, as we know, the keepers of vengeance. And while they were crated very specifically they’re still, you know, at their core a Night Elf institution. The concept of wielding vengeance as a weapon. And I felt that actually factored into this. This was just my feeling in putting this story together. If they are capable of being empowered by vengeance, then that means they’re more powerful after they lost Teldrassil than they were during the fight of Teldrassil.
Terran Gregory at 1[hour]:07:04:
- Red versus blue. Red versus blue. [The red] It’s shrinking, right? [The smoke from Teldrassil] *Fwoosh* [at the Horde] It’s all “I’m coming for you like a wave.”
February 3rd Update: Transcript of the recent Story and Lore Developer Live Stream, during which Terran Gregory and Steve Danuser talked about the "Terror of Darkshore" cinematic, the Darkshore Warfront, and the quests and character customization connected to it.
Terran Gregory and Steve Danuser https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhpGvgXyi-U&t=36m40s :
- Terran Gregory: Kind of more recently at Blizzcon we revealed the "Terror of Darkshore" cinematic which was really exciting revisiting the Night Elves. You know, in all these years I'd never gotten to put Malfurion in a cinematic, right? And so, there was a lot of build up, a lot of expectation. I feel like the audience was definite after the events of Teldrassil feeling like the Night Elves needed to bear their fangs again. And that was principally the goal going into that cinematic, right? Is that we wanted to go back, we wanted to revisit those classic Warcraft III Night Elves. Reminded of their ferocity, that in the dark of the forest we should really be afraid of them. And that scene was a lot of fun to take, to bring through its paces.
Steve Danuser: Yeah, that was a great moment that really set the stage, again, for kind of setting up that new warfront that's in Tides of Vengeance of the fight over Darkshore, and it really got to help us introduce not only, you know, some gravel on Malfurion there, but, as you play through stuff, a new side for Tyrande, as well. And- to really- you know, it's- When you consider all that the Night Elves went through, as characters, seeing their home, not just taken from them, but burned to cinders, it was tough, and so we wanted to show how they were reacting to that. So we brought in, if you play through the Darkshore Warfront and the quests leading up to that, you see this murderers row* of great Night Elf characters coming back and seeing their different perspectives on how they're reacting to things. Seeing some of that payoff between Tyrande and Maiev after all these years and all this stuff in their background to see them kind of acknowledge that. But it was a great opportunity to, like you say, put some teeth back on the Night Elves, show their reactions to things. And, we thought, well, you know, that's a great moment. We have this transformation of Tyrande, that energy that she's calling upon, this dark side of Elune, how that infuses the other Night Elves in the warfront, hey, why not give that, as an option, to players. Allow them to tap into that power as well.
Terran Gregory: Character customization, yes.
Steve Danuser: Character customization.
Terran Gregory: And a lot of people were interested online in how exactly the players came to have the black eyes.
Steve Danuser: It is.
Terran Gregory: The darkened eyes.
Steve Danuser: Yes, the darkened eyes. And I think that speaks to the power of that ritual. This ancient ritual that Tyrande taps into - again, sorry, spoilers, but - Tyrande taps into that ritual, that calling upon- it's not even calling upon, she's demanding, she's like, "Give me this power. You turned your back on us, as those 'so-and-so's' took our home from us. Now you owe us. Give me this power." And that so infused her that it could change those Elves. So we wanted to give players that opportunity, to say, "You know what, I'm part of that, too. I stand with Tyrande," and show that off in their characters.
Terran Gregory: And if you'll notice at the warfront, all the NPCs that are Night Elves actually have the darkened eyes. So there's definitely a sense that, in proximity, fighting on behalf of the darkened element of Elune under the darkened moon, that's what happens. And whether or not the player has customized themselves, that of course is player choice, but I think in the story sense that any Night Elf that's fighting on behalf of Elune in that confrontation their eyes would be darkening.
*I was unfamiliar with the phrase “murderers row,” and looking it up it turns out to be the nickname given to the battling line up of the 1927 New York Yankees that were considered at the time to be one of the best line ups in history, and now the phrase is used for any particularly successful or powerful groups of people.