So the Horde rampaging through two zones plaguing everything and burning down a world tree isn’t nature out of balance?
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I mean, the world was doing fine prior to Teldrassil being planted. In fact, I’d argue planting World Trees willy nilly is a net negative in terms of Azeroth’s benefit. How many of those trees got corrupted?
I want to say 1.5 because Teldrassil at least got cleansed. We’re talking about Vordrassil right?
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Legion shows us another World Tree as well in Val’sharah that got corrupted (can’t remember name off the top of my head). Not to mention the four “minor” world trees in Hinterlands/Duskwood/Ashenvale/Feralas that all spawned insane green dragons.
So really only Nordrassil exists as a “good” World Tree and go figure it was made that way purely due to dragons. I think this World Tree planting project the Night Elves are doing needs to stop.
Blizzard really hates druids no class fails like theirs and druids are highly night elf connected perhsps there is a deeper meaning here to making druids complete screw ups
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I’d think burning an entire zone’s worth of nature and a world tree that has a connection to nature itself in a deeper way, along with destroying nature spirits, nature-blessed beings, guardians of nature, and a people almost entirely dedicated to nature would count as the full balance of nature being at threat.
Who are you even kidding, did you read what you posted? Teldrassil/darkshore/Ashenvale had more than just the Night Elves. Dryads, wisps, those giant guardian trees of theirs, furbolg, moonkin, etc etc. Along with the deep connection to nature and the emerald dream of the world tree itself
Heck, attacking and nearly killing Malfurion could be counted as an attack on nature with how important he’s been.
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It’s cool. We cured all the trees and cleansed the Emerald Dream for good this time.
It’s not like the place is being invaded by direct void minions or anything. Checks your Heart of Azeroth level in your profile. Yep. Nothing to see here. Everything is a-okay.
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Not any more than anatural forest fire would be. Whatever the Horde may be, they’re not the Burning Legion.
Those are hardly comparable. Life regrows from a forest fire and, in some cases, trees are even flammable specifically because burning releases their seeds to grow more saplings. Nothing grows from perpetual destruction and plaguing.
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Bruh… plague and blight is not a natural forest fire it’s specifically brewed by the forsaken to make things uninhabitable and poisoned lmao
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Yeah that’s true, we’re the knock-off Scourge at the moment.
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Finally someone says it.
The worst part about the Burning of Teldrassil is all of the salty night elf fans it created.
I am personally at a weird crossroads on this matter. I deeply sympathize with Night Elves and Night Elf fans, Teldrassil was not only a loss but Blizzard doubled it down and made it an extra gruesome and horrifying one that entailed nothing but their military left standing in any living capacity. They have effectively lost their society and way of life, and it’s deeply tragic and saddening.
On the other hand, I could also argue that they’re not necessarily exclusive on races that get raw deal when it comes to their treatment in the story, and would in fact even say they’re treated a little better than other races. At least they are fighting and trying to attain some level of vengeance against their enemies right after losing their homeland. When it came to races like Worgen, Blizzard didn’t address any of their desire for vengeance until multiple expansions after they lost Gilneas and by then people started feeling like Worgen should just have gotten over the loss because it sure seemed like Blizzard didn’t care either. To say nothing that they became consumed by Night Elf culture and whatnot.
Be that as it may, my heart still does go out to the Night Elves, because I am a Worgen at heart and Night Elves helped them when no other race would. I like that they have a shared suffering going on in the story, but I do feel Blizzard is addressing the loss the Night Elves have faced much quicker than they’ve done with other races in the past, so I do admit that’s part of why I feel it should be reminded that I still think it could be so much worse, despite how I do understand the feeling.
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That’s exactly the concern, I believe. That Blizzard will sidestep the issue and keep trying to brush it under the rug until long enough time has passed that people start saying that everyone should just get over Teldrassil.
Of course, this being the Story Forum, we don’t even have to wait that long:
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Yes I definitely understand that, and am reminded of that troll thread. (Though, even to this day, I see a number of people go “wtf why does Genn hate Sylvanas is he a bigot or something???” like there’s a number of posters who have just never leveled in Gilneas or played a Worgen at all to know the story.)
Honestly though I would say Darkshore is a lot like the Silverpine story but handled better. Both have screentime devoted to the aggrieved races fighting back and finding vengeance, but Silverpine was a Horde-exclusive story, meaning Worgen were inevitably going to lose and lose badly whereas in Darkshore both factions are getting focus and it’s still left up in the air who will come out on top, so I do see where that worry comes from but I still prefer this as a follow-up to a tragedy happening than what happened with the Worgen.
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At the beginning of BfA, before the Tides of Vengeance reveal at Blizzcon, I did not expect there to be any follow up at all beyond the mission table achievement. The Darkshore Warfront and its associated content was definitely a lot more than I expected, and I appreciated it.
However, I also posted this on the Tides of Vengence PTR Forums and here on the Story Forum:
I do not think the amount of time the Gnomes or Gilneans have had to wait to get their homes back has been acceptable. But preferring the Darkshore Warfront over what the Gnomes or Gilneans or anyone else has gotten does not make Darkshore an acceptable stopping point for the story right now, either.
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Eh. Other races have had the luxury of having their worse tragedies off-screen. Teldrassil wasn’t, and the worst part about it was that it happened solely so a few non-nelves could feel sad about it on camera.
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No kind of tragedy is a luxury I would say, though I wouldn’t call Gilneas an off-screen one.
And the worse part is when it happens to races like Gnomes, Trolls, or Worgen that never get any entire zones dedicated to them outside of it either. (Though I guess one could say Mechagon is a zone for Gnome fans to enjoy, it’s something at least.)
At this point it goes beyond night elves, for me, and it should for all of us. It’s not night elf fans or tauren fans, it’s people who want to appreciate the story in general. The War of Thorns and the Burning showcases a very marked disconnect between the writers and the playerbase, and them treating major set pieces as disposable in this way is concerning, especially given what appears to be an actual disdain and disinterest for certain races, while also having an unhealthy focus on other races, but a version of those particular races at odds with their original concept.
Blizz is not the first company to destroy a major city in their game, and while I’m sure others did it long before this, the one that stands out to me is Guild Wars 2 and what happened to the original Lion’s Arch. The various enemy factions were built up for months, and while many didn’t like the villain herself, there was never any doubt as to the care that went into crafting the events. You had a ruined city, the ruins of something everyone had grown attached to, and covered in poison gas. As the gas subsided, you would run in, dozens of players, to save civilian NPCs until the gas overcame you. And then later on, run in to take the city back, once the next stage was released weeks later. It was all races, all factions, fighting to save this one hub, and you did get a win, eventually, but what happened reverberated for years later, and set the stage and focus for several content patches and an entire expansion.
BfA, at least the meta arch, is characterized by an inconsistency. It’s not just set pieces they treat as disposable, it seems, but character and race themes as well. The Horde War Campaign has one part that stands out to me the most, where a Kul Tiran that was just raised after being killed is struggling with her new state, literally going into shock and trauma, unable to reconcile. Lillian Voss is shown to be helping her, but it feels very wrong, to me, because it’s literally one of the people who subjected the person to this torment now being framed as the ‘good one’. Nathanos makes a comment that if the Kul Tiran can’t pull herself together, she needs to be killed, damning her to the hell he knows awaits all undead. And while one could argue that this is supposed to show how bad Nathanos is… I don’t think the writers meant that. I legitimately think that it was meant to make him look like a ‘morally grey’ cool badass, and the writing of late hasn’t exactly proven otherwise.
TL;DR: The writers have a bad case of Game of Thrones syndrome and night elves are just the most obvious and overt victims of this.
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imo essentially in blizzard’s “faction war” plotlines, you only get a substantial victory if you are the antagonist side of a scenario. The Protagonistic victories are always very subdued, probably due to blizzard not wanting to make it seem like it goes from justice to revenge, but that results in them not understanding how it feels for the audience.
For the record I am not defending any of this.
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