I was talking about the dragons…
2 Likes
The Blues… nearly hunted to extinction by the Black Flight. And that’s after Deathwing had litrally one shotted the majority of the Flight during the War of the Ancients. Mostly hiding or dying.
The Greens… hiding in the Emerald Dream, also that’s where their job is
The Reds… enslaved by the Horde through threat of their eggs. Used against the Alliance and taken heavy casualties as a result in the Second War. An entire clan is named for this practise.
The Bronzes… doing their Doctor Who thing. also not particularly numerous or physically powerful as a flight.
The Blacks… busy exterminating other Dragons and playing thier games with the Alliance. And they were no longer signing on to that Guardian buisness any more anyway.
2 Likes
I actually read through Elegy last night. I don’t know why I never got around to reading it in the past six years. I read Before the Storm and I read A Good War, but I sort of just unconsciously forgot about it.
Anyway I didn’t notice just how messed up things were during the the War of the Thorns. The Horde basically made a path through through Felwood, Ashenvale and Darkshore to get to Teldrassil. In the third page of the story, Anduin himself remarks that Kalimdor is lost.
Now while post BFA, Darkshore, Ashenvale have been reclaimed. Exploring Kalimdor says parts are under the Horde’s control. It’s more that the Kaldorei are still reeling from Saurfang’s very relentless attack within the Kaldorei lands. I still don’t like how they’re moving on to Bel’ameth in the Dragon Isles. I think it would have been better suited to replace Teldrassil in the very least. To revitalize it. Or in Val’sharah which is the Emerald Dream on Azeroth.
6 Likes
My only complaint now is that Amirdrassil isn’t on Kalimdor. Otherwise, Blizzard did fine.
9 Likes
With how much they’re talking about “renewal” I just don’t understand why they didn’t have Amirdrassil grow out of Teldrassil’s trunk for that renewal, life from the ashes type of imagery.
Ultimately it’s the standard Blizzard problem of none of the world mattering outside the Designated Expansion Island, but it feels particularly egregious this time because there really is no reason for it to be there. Its solely because the Dragon Isles are where this expansion is so it’s all Blizzard cares about until next expansion.
13 Likes
Teldrassil was a tree that still had vestiges of corruption even after being blessed, I dont think any wose druid would raise another tree close to it.
Also the tree was growing in the emerald dream, close to the emerald flight seat of power that was in azeroth’s equivalent of the dragon isles, It might be just a logistics in and out of universe.
Azeroth’s equivalent was Val’sharah, actually.
This is why there’s such longevity to complaints about the Burning and the night elves’ story. The War of Thorns was built up so much, had so many egregiously cruel details added to push it over the top, that any resolution that wasn’t equally extraordinary and groundbreaking was going to fall short. And it’s very apparent that they didn’t have such an equally extraordinary resolution planned when they kicked off the Burning, and since then have been scrambling trying to see if one thing or another will work.
The War of Thorns was designed to be as shocking and emotionally wrenching as possible. Like, Elegy’s description of the war and the Horde’s progression through the zones was designed to make the Burning even worse: it wasn’t just burning Teldrassil, it was herding all the fleeing night elf civilians from the preceding zones into the tree, THEN burning it with all of them inside. Because I guess killing one civilian population wasn’t grimdark and/or metal™ enough for Blizz’s vision of the expac kickoff event, so they decided to explicitly sign off the word “genocide” in their official products to describe it.
And worse, they decided to make this event - the one that impacts the old world more than any previous WoW villain had ever done, the first ever event where a playable capital is destroyed in-game, the event described as “genocide” in their own words - Blizz decided to make this event be perpetuated by the other playable faction. Either Elegy or A Good War, can’t remember which, even goes into detail about how Horde mages and shaman stoked the fire to make the Tree burn, really piling on the theme that this wasn’t solely Sylvanas’ doing, but the whole Horde’s, working together and of their own free will to make sure that civilians burned alive. Gee, isn’t that something that you want to plop on a player’s head, with no choice on their part?
This event was all kinds of messed up. I like that Blizzard was including the old world, I even like the concept of having capitals be in real danger of getting destroyed (and with graphical improvements later down the line, like how Amirdrassil is the winding tree city that OG baobab Teldrassil didn’t have the technology to be), but stoking this much hatred and guilt towards a playable faction, with no clear plan about how to resolve it?
At least if it was Azshara or the Legion or the Scourge responsible, we players could happily slaughter them in perpetuity with no guilt for a) being part of them, or b) not forgiving them for a measly little thing like willful genocide. But as it is?
I still think that the worst of the Burning should be retconned. Because it’s going to take a stupid amount of story to walk back the stupid amounts of evil that this plot piled up.
Sorry for the rant.
15 Likes
Val’sharah mirrors the dream in visuals, but the dream as we know it spam trough all of azeroth, the eye of Ysera and the fountain that fed Amirdrassil were in a specific part of the dream that seems to be located where in Azeroth is the dragon isles.
I really hate that they retconnned effectively what was said at the beginning of Val’sharah in Legion. Like it makes absolutely no sense, what so ever. Other than, “let’s figure out how to tie this to our shiny new expansion in stead of regrow one of the other dead trees?”
At least Return to Lordaeron at 9.2.5, dealt with a little of the Shadowlands but it dealt largely within Tirisfal Glades.
1 Like
Reading through it last night, I actually cried at the end. Like what happened was so much more and so much worse than what you would think playing through Battle for Azeroth only.
And that’s the other thing. The pain that Tyrande had felt seeing her people go through not only the War of the Ancients, but the War of the Satyr and the War of Shifting Sands. Seeing her people killed in the process, and then being rounded up into the tree and seeing them succumb…like it gives her more credence to seeking out the Night Warrior ritual. It made the impact of her choices seem to be more.
While yes it should have been retconned, however, we spent nearly six years with the Night Elves living in the streets of Stormwind, having them continuously repeat as if they had just escape the burning of Teldrassil.
I feel the same and understand the rant. For me it’s a different feeling because I started playing at the middle of BFA. Tides of Vengenance was starting and that was my introduction to WoW. I sort of blanked out on reading Elegy until recently.
3 Likes
Depends on the monk’s personality. You aren’t required to be David Cassidy’s Caine. You can be the coldly lethal Zaheer or a whole spectrum of choices.
I could see a Monk among one of those kill the Horde NPCs there. Or another just chilling with the butterflies,
Rant approved.
The War of Thorns is, in my opinion, one of the singular most damaging events to the story of WoW for all parties involved.
It gave Night Elves a revenge arc that could never come to pass. It obliterated an entire zone from the setting. The story that started with BfA’s opening only just now met an ending. That’s nearly 5 years of this.
It disintegrated any pretense the Horde had of being heroic and saddled nearly every Horde PC and character with the blood-stained weight of genocide that they will never be free of.
The ramifications of the War of Thorns are still being felt, and likely can never go away. At best, they can ignore it. And if they ignore it long enough, it’ll just fade into irrelevance.
It honestly borders on the hysterical, the idea that this pre-launch event had such a massive, lasting impact on the story. The content isn’t even available anymore!
It’s hilarious to me that nearly all the marketing and fancy cinematics revolved around Lordaeron. But Lordaeron’s invasion was a fart in the wind, over in a minute with barely a care offered to it.
Out of all the grand mysteries of the universe, the one I most desperately want to know is Blizz’s thought process behind BfA and what in the world happened to the story.
Anyway, that was my own rant.
19 Likes
Makes me wonder if Lanfen made it off of Teldrassil.
It’s hardly the worst thing to come out of the War of Thorns but another negative impact of it was removing the best looking capital city from the game. Even with it finally over now with this patch, Bel’ameth just does not look as nice as Darnassus man.
5 Likes
All my alts are parked in Darnassus right now. With the portal to Stormwind’s portal room at one of Rut’theran’s docks it’s never been more convenient to set one’s hearthstone to Darnassus.
Eh, I’ve always been more of an Ironforge man.
It just feels cozy.
But yea. I don’t know what compelled them to outright delete a capitol and an entire zone.
I’m convinced it was done partially because of Game of Thrones.
The writers went for pure spectacle and shock value without considering the actual consequences of what they were doing.
But I’m very close to ranting again, so I’ll try to contain myself.
4 Likes
I’ve heard plenty of rumors that the Burning was Afrasiabi’s (however his name was spelled) final call before he would be kicked out of Blizzard, so he literally and metaphorically tried to burn the setting down behind him.
And honestly, that feels like the most logical explanation for why this particular story ever got approved.
4 Likes
It’s a very popular theory. And I’m sure he played a fairly large role in BfA’s direction.
This is the guy who put Drek’thar in a wheelchair as a way to spite/prank Metzen.
But I’m also cautious. Because the other devs have certainly used him as a scapegoat to lay the majority of BfA and even Shlands upon. So I don’t wanna just say “Oh it was Afrasiabi.” and curse his name. (Though his name should 100% be cursed)
There’s ALOT of stuff floating around that implies BfA’s story was changed and altered.
Small things like interview statements, cut content, teased storybeats.
I fully believe BfA’s inception was as an entirely different story before it was skewed to be the “Sylvanas bad” expansion.
Even BfA’s main cinematic has the vibe of a completely different story than the one we got.
But all that theorizing is better left to another thread.
And probably another person.
I’m tired.
6 Likes
Afrabiasi is for Blizzard what Sylvanas is for the Horde. Everyone is dumping the blame on them.
3 Likes