I thought it would be interesting to discuss opinions on the story of the Darkshore Warfront from the Horde perspective. I’d be interested in hearing how others felt, and general thoughts about my opinions and criticisms of it.
First off, I would say that Sira is pretty much a narrative black-hole. She makes no sense, and makes every conversation she is in worse because of it. Maiev tries her best when they interact, but you can only be so good when interacting with someone so stupidly written.
As a forsaken fan, I feel a little dissapointed in their representation in the warfront as well. I think it is possible that they didn’t have the resources to make everything new for the forsaken side, so they started to cut corners. I am not saying this is due to bias or anything, but they probably felt that it was more important to give the nelves something, due to the narrative. There is just as much goblin architecture in the warfront as forsaken, at least. Most of the forsaken themes didn’t seem that present to me, the only notable one being the blight. And boy was there a lot of blight. Based on this warfront, the Forsaken should just be renamed the “Evil Blight Boyz”.
Considering the hordeside of darkshore was most likely intended to be representation for the forsaken fans, it feels dissapointing. That is especially true due to the over-arching narrative, which paints the forsaken as this story’s Burning Legion. Even quite a few of the objectives given to the Horde PC sound evil, such as “Purge Auberdine” or Crush the Resistance".
Gameplay-wise, I thought it was better than Arathi. I didn’t really get bored doing the warfront, and the content felt quicker.
I know I am whining about this, but I just felt like sharing my thoughts and seeing what others thought. I am also very interested to hear what others think!
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This isn’t what you are looking for, but if you don’t mind; does Sira say anything interesting, Horde side? On the Alliance end, she was mostly just yelling about how we were all fools for continuing to have hope, how the forces of death are endless, and other generic villain things. Does the horde side give any insight into her character, at all?
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No. She just shouts that maiev wont show mercy despite maiev begging her to stop. The NE forsaken make 0 sense and have no explanation besides, we have our reasons.
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She says stuff about Maiev not helping her, the alliance/elune betrayed her, let her die (even though WE killed her and she’s on our side), etc,
it really is just…ugh lol
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Sira is just so bad. I honestly don’t get why blizz thought we would want to follow an angsty elf that’s mad she died defending her home.
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Sira doesn’t so much say things as growls them angrily, most at Maiev but even to the players. I’ll be honest, given the week or two between when I did the original scenario and stepping into the warfront, I entirely forgot about her and thought Sira was a non-undead warden. Even when she’s talking about things like new constructions or whatever, she seems really angry. Like she really hates bases or something.
Then when I realized she was on our side, I got really confused about why a recently risen warden who two weeks ago tried to kill me is now trusted to be my commanding officer in a battle for a strategic location.
But then I remembered it’s BfA and everything made sense again. We’re not on the Azeroth we remembered. We got transported to WoD’s AU Azeroth during a maintenance shutdown. I expect Blizzard will announce that in some upcoming patch notes or Q&A.
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I was pretty disappointed with our base, mostly. The goblin Altar of Storms looks like actual garbage, and the command center never seems to change from being the same measly tent, despite the upgrades. Sira and the night elves being forsaken never bothered me to be quite honest. It makes exactly as much sense as the formerly human forsaken we raised after killing. None. But this has been the status quo since cata, so I don’t see much of a difference here. Obligatory ‘The war pretty much just sucks, but I’m here and trying to make the best of it’.
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At least the humans hated the forsaken. Or at least considered them awful undead monsters. The NE seem to totally accept their undead counterparts.
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Night elf Forsaken make sense to me.
They feel abandoned by Elune, their home destroyed and being risen into in undeath brings your darkest emotions forward.
It really isn’t that hard to understand at all.
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Shouldn’t they want to kill the forsaken too then? Or the other horde races at least?
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Why should they be angry at them? They didn’t pray to the Horde races or promise them anything.
Elune abandoned the night elves in their time of need
“Oh god Elune didn’t help destroy us these horrible monsters who destroyed all the things I love, better join the horrible monsters who destroyed all I love.”
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Yeah Sira’s pretty terrible and almost certainly exists just so the final boss of the warfront can be basically the same for both factions. I suppose it could be interesting to explore the concept of an undead warden, but this isn’t really exploring it.
The presence of goblins probably makes the most sense as a secondary race since they’re traditionally so morally flexible and it helps provide a good military counterbalance to some of the bigger things at the disposal of the nigh elves.
Otherwise the story is just as fine as the rest of the war story to me. What bothers me most is that we just flat out blighting everything but somehow we’re still “morally gray”.
From a meta perspective, I’m pretty sure we’re not seeing any other bosses or mob types in future weeks and the whole thing feels watered down compared to Arathi. I assume the latter is thanks to people hating on Arathi, which is a shame since Darkshore is barely a step away from just being a zergfest.
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You guys also have to remember there’s no actual heaven in azeroth. Everyone that dies goes to the land of despair the shadow lands for eternal damnation.
Imagine praying to elune this entire time believing her then dying and going to this horrible place that you weren’t promised at all… so you’re raised and your options are too live as Forsaken or go back into the dirt
Except for:
Druids, who go to the emerald dream
Draenei on the AU who go to Auchendouin
All the myriads of Ghosts/Sanctified light spirits
etc.
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Okay you listed two examples.
Most people that die go to the shadowlands or a literal void of nothingness.
Bwonsamedi, the holy Light absorbing the holy dead, the Halls of Valor…
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Night elves who literally join Elune’s side.
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Sounds like fake news.
Jaina brother that got ressurected literally remembers nothing after he died. He ceased to exist… so these night elves probably hopefully for something of afterlife came into the realization wow after death there’s nothing.
This also added to fuel of being abandoned. Elune is clearly some enhanced wild god “loa” by the well of eternity. If she actually gives them a “paradise” in death is completely unknown and if she doesn’t give them anything a lot of people feel a little unsettled about the idea of simply not existing.
Aren’t wisps also the spirits of dead night elves?
Also, don’t shaman become one with the elements or some shenanigan? I might be making that up in my head, but I’d swear it was said somewhere.
Orc dead on draenor seem to linger around as ancestor spirits, so they also count.
I mean, this idea of the dead going to a place of eternal dark damnation doesn’t really hold much water when we see plenty of examples otherside.
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