Ah, thank you.
Thalyssra doesn’t really actively address it but Lor’themar does, so we have two NPCs (and Nathanos who mocked Tyrande for it even though while he enacted Sylvanas’ order he didn’t exactly seem to like the order himself in the novella)
Still insulting nonetheless
Watching the mental gymnastics other Horde RPers used ICly to justify Teldrassil was…cringeworthy.
Not a single one of those comments shows anything even remotely close to what I would call remorseful of what happened.
Its like they are talking about their failure of not taking car insurance after wrecking it.
And this is why I finally have empirical proof that the Horde are nothing but psychopath amoral monsters undeserving of human empathy.
Aviala, I’m starting to wonder if we should be besties. I think we might have to be. We see eye-to-eye on way too many things here.
The big problem I have with the Horde calling Teldrassil a win is the same why I have a problem with the Alliance calling BfD’A a win; What did you win?
What did the Horde accomplish by burning the tree? The original plan was to conquer it and take the land. That’s a win; more land, more resources. Destroying it? You killed more elves, sure, but you just ensured there’s gonna be a war… which, duh, was Sylvanas’s plan all along, but not a Horde win. Because the Horde doesn’t gain. It just makes more enemies. Some argue the Horde’s win is securing Kalimdor, but they never did. Hyjal and Moonglade are druid-controlled, Winterspring is neutral, and as far as anyone knows, the Southern Barrens are still a hotspot of Alliance and Horde battle, and the further south you go, the less “Horde controlled” it becomes. At best, part of northern Kalimdor was mostly secured, and the burning of Teldrassil actually weakened that victory.
BfD’A is called a win, but the same question remains; what was won? A king died, but his successor was still alive and ready to take over. A fleet was sunk, which at the time was… A thing? But calling even the fleet a victory is weak because we hadn’t seen to that point a reason why having a fleet of war ships would even matter. And in the end, it never did matter. But sure, a bunch of trolls and a troll king died. And the Zandalari stopped fence-sitting over the discussion about Horde membership. A superfluous monarch and a McGuffin fleet were lost.
But people point at these things and say “your side won harder, won bigger than mine did!”
And then this.
It upsets me. It upsets me more than it should. Because those loyalists being rounded up in chains? I only found out about that as a player because I’d gone back to Orgrimmar to put some auctions up. I’m not told by the game it’s happening, I’m not given a reason to see it, I’m only aware of it because I happened to visit the city while those NPCs happen to be patrolling in my eyesight.
So if I don’t go to use the Orgrimmar AH, if I don’t have a reason to go back to Orgrimmar (I usually don’t, because everything other than the AH can be done from Dazar’alor), all I know is Saurfang died, the war ended, Anduin portalled home, and we’re all fine now. It’s fine.
Untold numbers of soldiers on both sides died, the night elves and forsaken have lost their homes, both factions brought their conflict to new lands once again, but it’s fine now.
And yeah, it’s a bag of suck that the Alliance-side doesn’t even get to know that loyal followers of Sylvanas are being taken away. Because without information you’re getting from other forum posters or catching a glimpse of those NPCs in some Horde player’s YouTube video, then all you know is Sylvanas left. And only her. Her soldiers? Must be hugging with the rebels, because surely the quest text from Anduin would at least tell you Baine was taking care of that problem.
Blizzard ramped tensions up. They kept poking that sore spot. They kept pushing things to a boil. And then they saw a shiny new N’zoth raid and said “ok, done now, have fun with that mess! Maybe we’ll address it in Shadowlands, but also Shadowlands won’t have faction stuff. BYEEEEE!!”
Stop, you’re making more angry at Blizzard.
The fact that Danuser says he is PROUD of the storytelling of BFA sickens me even more.
To his credit, this does seem like the kind of story Nathanos would enjoy.
(Commentary): I think the issue is that there was too much story that was being told in BFA. It really felt crammed in. I also feel that priority was given to the wrong stories. It feels like they intend to spread out the Night Elves’ story across several expansions after what happened to Teldrassil. The truth is, that a playable race should NOT be left in that kind of limbo for so long. N’Zoth could’ve waited. If 8.3 had been more focused on Night Elves and a raid where we hunt down Sylvanas and her loyalists such as the Undercity, and we took out Nathanos there, while both sides could’ve gone to an older zone and build up a new Night Elf city and we could observe how their culture and society changed as a result, that would’ve been infinitely better.
Yeah, but that caters to the players who enjoy story and RP, Blizzard likes to pretend we don’t exist in its decisions and GD seems to give them good reason to do so.
WoW’s playerbase seems to completely dismiss the notion of there being a proven large market for storytelling in videogames.
Shadowlands could have waited.
Revamp Azeroth with Nzoth as the central baddie.
They could have easily gotten rid of some old zones if it was too much to develop for.
Cataclysm zones could have lingered on as some sort of time travel thing.
(Commentary): I think it depends on how, ‘Metal,’ the story is. Let’s take the premise of 8.3 having been focused on rebuilding the Night Elves, and establishing a new home for them. Picture for a moment that a potential development of their culture could be a schism between the Army of the Black Moon, and survivors of Teldrassil. Perhaps Druids of the Black Moon use their powers to create some very metal-looking Treants, as an example. Treants with thorns that drop a substance that is highly poisonous to people. Perhaps Highborne of the Black Moon work on creating a new prison barrow den with the Wardens, with special portal spells (created by working with Void Elves) to drop new prisoners into it? Imagine the Wardens expanding their duties to not just include safeguarding prisoners, but torturing them as well. Meanwhile you have normal Druids worried that these new treants are a, ‘perversion of nature.’ You have normal Highborne Mages looking at this new blend of void and arcane magic as a potential source of corruption as bad as Azshara’s own. You have Wardens who see this new duty of torture to be going beyond what their duty is supposed to be, that they are supposed to be jailers, not inquisitors.
Personally, I’m fine with these big plots taking a long time…
…they just need a small chapter of lore or story involvement each patch to show that the story still going and hasn’t been forgotten about.
I feel that’s where most of the panic and complaining comes from - the “this is it?” feeling when there doesn’t seem to be a continuation on the horizon.
The comment on natural regrowth made me realise something : Teldrassil was grown on an island that likely had its own natural flora and fauna. This island is suspected to have been called Kalidar. This is most likely because the outline of the island makes it seem like there was more to it rather than the tree itself being grown in the ocean.
However, the flora and fauna could have either lifted into the sky with the tree or they were transplanted into it.
People argue that there are no ores, but this could be due to a simple fact- the growing tree required nutrition, and the ores could have served as a rich mineral source, the tree consuming from the very land itself.
What this also means to me is that Teldrassil had an island ecosystem and many of these creatures are likely unique and now extinct as they wouldn’t have been found on the mainland. The only obvious argument against this is that some herbs found on Teldrassil are common on the mainland too, but that does not deter unique island species from also being present.
(Commentary): That’s fair, but I’d say we also need some visual representation pretty badly as well. It could be as simple as, say, a new Night Elf settlement in Elwynn Forest north of Stone Cairne Lake. There’s just Gnolls up there, no quests even. Or the grove in Duskwood. Ravenhill could’ve been updated into a proper Worgen settlement without losing much either.
Keep in mind, he’s the same one who tweeted, regarding the “burning” episode of Game of Thrones, “Well, I thought it was brilliant.”
https://twitter.com/stevedanuser/status/1127781070701678592?lang=en
(Man, has it already been almost a year since then?)
It’s fairly simple. If the NPC in question is not seen in either Stormwind, nor the Warfront, the basic assumption is that they died on the Tree.
ALL of the NPC’s in Shadowglen and Dolanaar were lost.
This is unfortunately not how a lot of the MMO works. Would you argue that Thrall is dead because he wasn’t seen for years? How about Jaina?
Regarding impact on the Night Elf military, the actual fighters were not in the city (which is why it was so helpless). But presumably it was important to supplying the army. The rest of the Alliance could have picked the slack, and left NE army operational. Andiun didn’t want Tyrande to retake Darkshore right away, prioritizing stopping Sylvanas, but that isn’t the same thing as saying he would have cut off all aid. Since the NE went in are retook it, that army couldn’t have been trivial.
Going forward, NE army would probably have to lean to live off the land (or forest, as it were), or be dependent on outside supply.
That’s why a key element of the Forsaken strategy was to Blight the Warfront. In the Alliance version the players take down Blight Wagons… In the Horde version, they kill Ancients and turn them into Blight Wagons.
I mean… If Thrall or Jaina were stuck on a boat that just exploded and I was told there were no survivors? And then I didn’t see them again? Yeah, maybe.
But the difference is Thrall and Jaina have warforged, titanforged plot armor. Shanda the priest trainer doesn’t. She’s still wearing her [Battered Robe] with no stats and +2 armor. If she’s on the boat that exploded without survivors, I don’t need a tweet to tell me she died.
The people for whom lore is the biggest thing are certainly in the minority. But, as Bellular say, people get attached to their characters and how they see them is important. Otherwise, why would people care about transmogs, and the mounts they ride, and such. Lore has big effect on this. The more mechanics are the only thing carrying you, the more of a grind they become.
After all, if people just want to do combats, they would play a flighting game.
I disagree. Blizzard could always bring up an NPC in the future saying they survived the burning. An example of this is Sentinel Briarbough who showed up in Darkshore in 8.1 but we never see in SW in 8.0.
Blizzard can retroactively establish survival, and this is specifically why night elf NPCs are in limbo and Blizzard should rather establish who survived and who didn’t.
Edit: not Stillbough, I meant Cordressa