I obviously can’t speak for them, but these are the perspectives I think they’ve been trying to share:
That in these perspectives, the Long Vigil was the Night Elves’ rewards for fighting against the flaws and crimes of the people that were supposed to represent the best of the Night Elves: The Highborne, and all of the Night Elves’ most beloved Queen Azshara, who turned out to be the distillation of everything that was wrong with their society, which you actually pointed out, but that existed actually before the Long Vigil:
Flaws that lead to the Highborne’s supremacist mentalities and enacting of ethnic cleansing.
And the surviving Night Elves fought against these flaws and the literal demons that those flaws brought, and then potentially tried to change themselves to learn from these flaws and distances themselves from them, and if they did that, they deserved their reward of the Long Vigil of peace and prosperity for all the time they were able to maintain it.
on a more serious note than the post I made which I deleted, I think this is why I like the story of the night elves in game so much actually. They’re one of the only races which had what is tantamount to a totally societal changing revolution, with entire classes of people being overturned. The night borne rebellion doesn’t even come close, I mean, for the most part they keep their society unchanged by the looks of it aside from a leader change… which is why I completely sympathize with Tyrandes questioning of Thalyssra… a question she obviously even asked herself so many years ago… “how are you sure you won’t be the next azshara?”… the Long Vigil represents to me all the decisions and work the night elves had to take to make sure that (Azshara) doesn’t happen again.
Find me another Dwarven Grpyhon rider in any major fantasy franchise. If there was one, they were never turned into the same iconic status as Warcraft. Speaking of the dwarves(and the EK races), their whole “curse of flesh” origins is probably as unique as I can think off. Hell, humans being the sons of Norse Giants isnt exactly a common trope, if at all. Hell, find me another fantasy franchise that turned their dwarven people into Archaeologist as oppose to just the regular miner archetype.
So basically a hodgepodge of ideas with nothing that is totally unique? Gotcha.
What goalpost? that the night elves as not as unique as you like to think? or that maybe your looking at the other Alliance with such condescending view that you fail to realize that as Warcraft has evolved so too has all the EK races to the point they are not as generic as you think. Heck, even lesser enemies like Kobolds have their own distinct flavor with their whole candle obsession(which has been explained to be due to Old God influence/trying to avoid old gods)
Funny, people keep saying it is the Horde that act like idiots in order to make the Alliance look like the “good guys”. shock pikachu face could it be both factions are used as foils for another and that maybe the whole one faction being some dev. favorite is based on the players on bias?
As for not using idea to their potentially that is a load of bull. Using the whole Dwarven Archeologist thing, if anything Blizzard sometimes run an idea to the ground, especially when it is unique. Hell, worgens are constantly describe by Blizzard’s as a race that may look monsterous but are actually “good guys”(especially when compared to the Horde’s actions)
I get understand that. I hope I presented my point of view on that matter to help you understand why I liked it. I will say that I wish we had more to go on during the time period. I’m sure the were inner conflicts with the higher ups ie. the decision to use the pack form against Malfurion’s wishes or Frandal’s obvious power hunger nature which I doubt started in WoW or the Shiffting Sands.
Does it actually say that somewhere? The Seals don’t have the usual Titan vibe in their appearance. They look like they were made by the same folks who built the cities… which also don’t have a Titan look to them but have very much the Troll aesthetic we’ve seen in Northrend. and to a lesser form, Zul’Gurub.
True but those seals were put in place long before the trolls to lock at the old gods. Maybe the trolls just added their own aesthetic to them and built a capital around them.
Bringinf up heritage armor when it has no bearing the conversation.
Night elves used to be more unique until Blizzard started axing and retconning them into purple high elf replacements in order to make them fit in better with a Lawful Good alliance.
The horde story in all its facets drive the story. The Alliance exists in stasis until prodded to do something by the Horde. The Alliance being good guys is Blizzards was of esuring that the Alliance fights with its hands tied back so they don’t wipe out the Horde, and lets the children play hero by not compromising the factions moral high ground.
The night elves and Worgen were supposed to be vengeful savages that represent a darker aspect of the alliance. Now they are token good guys. I expect the Dark Iron to get beaten with the good guy bat in the future.
Yes, but at the cost of nearly destroying the entire world. The flaws of the Kaldorei race is existent in the Highborne. A vain and dominating culture that other, younger races mimic in their nievity. Love it or hate it, it only makes sense that the race to suffer most from their own mistakes, and witnessing multiple sundering of the world, would be critical of other races not because of racism but because they see their own failures persisting within them.
Gryphon riding is nothing new to fantasy, it is something Warhammer has had for years (EK Warcraft’s biggest inspiration). All Warcraft did was make them Dwarf instead of human, that’s not terribly unique.
As far as humans go… All the lore about their Vrykul ancestry didn’t come to light until WotLK, lore additions that were made in the attempt to take the most generic race in fantasy and make them somewhat more interesting. It really doesn’t do anything for them, it doesn’t change their super generic culture. In fact, the Norse inspirations do a cliff dive somewhere between Vrykul and human, thus making the origin completely irrelevant.
A collection of influences that come together to for something completely rich and unique, with cultural and religious concepts that are not otherwise seen in any other fantasy genre.
What type of conflict do people want during the Vigil? We had the War of the Shifting Sands, which soured Staghelm’s relationship with the dragons, and the War of the Satyr, which turned a portion of the Night Elf people into Worgen.
I think most Nelf fans just want that 10,000 year period fleshed out a bit. Its an issue that plagues Nelves and Draenei where there is just a stupid long period of time where there is literally no information at all. Unlike most every other race who have entire eras defined by wars and other major events to populate their history.
And there are hinted that things did happen, but perhaps they are too minimal to really mention. Kind of like Maiev claiming to have wiped out entire races. It probably did happen to some degree, exaggerated or not. But there is no record of anything like that.
I’d like a few flavor details of what else the night elves did during that time, even if they’re not detailed. It doesn’t have to be conflict - In fact, I’d prefer if it wasn’t.
As has been seen in this thread, plenty of people point to this ridiculous amount of time with little change and say that it shows how the developers meant that the night elves stagnated. So I’d like to see that clarified one way or the other; whether they just wanted their own brand of long-lived elves and picked a big number, or whether the night elves were supposed to be in cultural stasis and spent their non-war years collectively navel-gazing.
It could be just a note here and there about different technology or new use of magic that was invented/discovered during the Vigil, or a reference to new settlements that were founded, or records of how some pre-Sundering ruins were deconstructed and Highborne magic safely drained away - something to show that they were doing -something- that wasn’t just reactionary.
And it would be nice to see a reference or two to how the night elves viewed the tauren during this time. Ignorance of their plight with the centaur, cold indifference, mild pity, or paralysis between empathy for them them versus unwillingness to hurt Cenarius’ grandchildren? A mix of all of them?
ppl think theres no gay characters in this game lol ya cause all the female elves just waited for the males and never did nething for centuries
p.s. i wish they still did the gender separation with nelves society, removing it in WoW took away from their culture but I guess we can’t h ave that in 2019
The point of bringing up the heritage armor is proof that Blizzard inevitable gives everyone their dues. Hell, no one probably expected the gnomes to get more screentime and yet here we are, about to go to a newly discovered gnome city.
As for the night elves, Malfurion was pretty high on the “good guy” scale. And even Tyrande mellowed abit in Frozen Throne to the point she wanted to help the blood elves as a form of repayment.
Or you know, it has always been part of the core of what makes the Alliance, even in Warcraft 2, it didnt simply go on a killing spree after it won the War.
Your right the Alliance reacts and maybe it does need to be abit more assertive. But it doesnt need to do so by becoming more aggressive! Heck, as much as people may dislike Anduin, he at least keeps trying to make a better world for everyone and tries to heals the endless wounds both factions have inflicted on each other. And when push came to shove he was willing to charged straight though danger in the hope of trying to reach a solution that cost the least amount of blood.
I prefer the Worgens being the symbol that even if they look monstrous, they, unlike the Forsaken who follow Sylvanas, are not monsters. As for the night elves, we saw what happens to people consumed by Vengence, they end up being like Maiev. Even at their darkest the night elves always had a certain amount of nobility to them.
I would think that keeping the huge expanse of forest and land the kaldorei used to have before the Third War safe from various threats would have taken up a lot of time. The satyr would have been a continued threat, if one not as potent at they were in the initial War of the Satyr. There would be threats from demons as well, since we do know that they’d figure out ways to get back to Azeroth from time to time.
The Black Dragonflight would also have been around here and there, since Deathwing was active. Centaur trying to get into Ashenvale every so often as well can easily be considered a possible threat they’d deal with. The northern half of Kalimdor is absent of many races that have bastions in the south, or had bastions, like gnolls and quillboar, trolls, and centaur. There’s probably a reason for that.
Obviously there wasn’t constant battle, but if you have a skirmish every five years or so for seven thousand years, it adds up.
Malfurion is True Neutral to a T. Tyrande fluctuated between Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good depending on who wrote her. None of those are compatible with Lawful Good.
Half of the Alliance advocated for orcish genocide, and left because it didn’t happen. WC2 was not as black and white as Blizzard wants to think it was.
Oh yes. More smear tactics for anyone who doesn’t agree with the party line.
Which ironically gave them more in common with the Horde than the Alliance. But the Alliance is a bland, one-trick blob with the narrative depth of a puddle. Unlike the Forsaken, the Night elves have lost their independence and racial individuality to push this unity theme.
![:rofl:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/rofl.png?v=6" ":rofl:")