10/18/2018 08:19 PMPosted by
Ilthen
10/18/2018 08:13 PMPosted by
Murdra
Have you considered posting this in GD OP? Because Blues rarely visit the Story Forums, if ever.
Forgive my ignorance, but, what exactly does GD mean?
General Discussion. It's the best hope you have that your thread get's noticed by Blizzard.
That or twitter but I don't have one so I don't know how effective that is.
Hell, post this everywhere. GD, twitter, print it out and send it in the mail to Blizzard HW, send it via email. Everything.
10/18/2018 08:31 PMPosted by
Akiyass
Hell, post this everywhere. GD, twitter, print it out and send it in the mail to Blizzard HW, send it via email. Everything.
[/quote]
your best bet is to ambush alex afrasabi in blizzcon and tell him in person.
Oh, the General Discussion forums. I don't know. I am frankly not very aware of the differences, other than just how they are meant to be tracked separately, if they are at all. I wouldn't know what the best timing to post on the General Forums would be, either, in order to try and catch a Community Dev for it because otherwise, General Discussion Forum for the hope of catching their attention might be a poor idea at this hour. I suspect.
GD will be the best bet, but you will be harassed by the cruel and vile. I think, though, that this is still worth it. Most players will always read the first post and largely ignore others that are after it unless it's of the same caliber as the original post.
10/18/2018 06:04 PMPosted by
Rhuna
I was really excited when I first went to Suramar.
Did not turn out well for the NE, I would say.
Who knew that helping the Nightborne grow a tree that would give them life and free them from addiction, would turn around and help burn our tree to the ground, and end most night elven life?
10/18/2018 03:13 PMPosted by
Ilthen
I’m not calling for revenge. It’s not about retribution. It’s not about making The Horde pay or suffer; I actually despise the idea of enjoyment in this story being based on a zero sum Schadenfreude game.
Eloquent and damning.
Zero sum Schadenfreude isn't a good business model either.
10/18/2018 03:13 PMPosted by
Ilthen
I am writing to connect with you as a long time player, and fan. I admit, I have always identified with Night Elves above all others, ever eager to learn more about their lore and see them represented in game. In the past expansions, however, I’ve begun to feel like I'm being punished for that love.
I definitely wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of Ilthen letter. Especially this part.
Night Elves have been routinely used to start storylines, and then almost always dropped out of the story completely after, and such has been the case for almost all Night Elf related lore since Cataclysm:
Garrosh efforts almost entirely directed towards the Night Elves --> Night Elves not involved in Battle Field Barrens or the end of Garrosh's invasion of their lands beyond a token appearance at the Gate of Orgrimmar.Deathwing destroys the "Night Elf District" of the Park in Stormwind --> Left as a carter for years until it's finally rebuilt as a memorial for Varian.Night Elves defending Pandaria and welcomed in to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms --> No part of the lore involving them in the defense of the Vale from Garrosh.All of Tyrande's and the Night Elves' presence in Legion and their history with it punctuated with the idea of seeing them at the Legion's final defeat --> Not even a token Night Elf on Argus.And of course now the entirety of BfA starting off with a war of devistation against the Night Elves --> Where previously all indication suggests there would be no follow up with the Night Elves' plight as BfA continued, the Darkshore Warfront narratively is even worse:As we get the empowering of the Night Warrior and the raising of Night Elves as Forsaken --> Probably leading to a dead end narratively as the Night Elves and Forsaken fight over Darkshore indefinitely with no conclusions if the story moves on to other focuses.
10/18/2018 08:38 PMPosted by
Ilthen
Oh, the General Discussion forums. I don't know. I am frankly not very aware of the differences, other than just how they are meant to be tracked separately, if they are at all. I wouldn't know what the best timing to post on the General Forums would be, either, in order to try and catch a Community Dev for it because otherwise, General Discussion Forum for the hope of catching their attention might be a poor idea at this hour. I suspect.
Try posting it during working hours, PST.
Also, make sure to point out this was originally posted here on the Story Forums.
10/18/2018 08:55 PMPosted by
Nemiria
GD will be the best bet, but you will be harassed by the cruel and vile. I think, though, that this is still worth it. Most players will always read the first post and largely ignore others that are after it unless it's of the same caliber as the original post.
10/19/2018 07:05 AMPosted by
Murdra
Try posting it during working hours, PST.
Also, make sure to point out this was originally posted here on the Story Forums.
Well, with this in mind, I will give it a try. I don't have anything to lose, after all, I think. And at the risk of sounding repetitive, I still want to thank everyone who's added their voice to this.
I understand that you might feel that the Night Elves only succeed when some big hero comes to intervene.
That's true of everyone. Being the big hero is the role of the PLAYER in this game. Whether it's Darnassus, or Lakeridge, or the Brill, no one gets anything done until the Player Hero intervenes.
The Night Elves aren't being picked on. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time in the Horde's consolidation of Kalimdor. I say this as someone who misses the Big Tree as much as the OP does.
S'a pretty accurate post. The problem is all of that was true even before they burned the tree.
I don't think there's any hope. Because I don't think the current writers are particularly interested in the race.
The whole "Night Warrior" development, excited as we all got for it, feels more like a formality at this point. It's not that they had this great idea for a story about Night Elves going forward - it's that they decided they needed to do something like this, since the Night Elves keep complaining.
So, they came up with this idea to give the elves a "power up". It's a completely arbitrary power-up that doesn't seem to have made the character any stronger than she should've been already. But it's something they can say they did.
And then, with the power-up gone and done, they decided to shift focus back to a story they ARE interested in telling: the one about Sylvanas and her people and how nasty she is and how much the Alliance needs to want to stop her.
They were definitely excited about Illidan in Legion. And they were excited about the Nightborne. They seem to be rather excited about Night Elf History, and the old Empire in general. But they really could care less about the Playable Night Elves group.
That's kind of fair. That group has gotten very boring over the course of WoW. They turned very generic-elf, when they were originally meant to be this weird new departure. But instead of trying to see how it could get not-boring, they seem determined to keep it away from all those parts they like, as if the icky forest-elves are going to get the elves they like all dirty.
The culture clash between Nightborne and Night Elf would've been all kinds of interesting. The Night Elves had over a decade now to get over their distrust of magic. They let the Highborne back in, and spent plenty of time hanging around human mages. How are things going to go between these disparate branches now that-
But, nope. Instead, they slammed down a huge wedge between them, declared that the Nightborne are just going to hang with the Blood Elves, and the Night Elves are perfectly happy doing whatever it is they do in their woods.
Which, the next expansion shows us, is apparently burning to death.
Nobody who's holding the reigns right now looks at this race and sees interesting, untold stories. They see some leftover thing they're stuck with, that's OCCASIONALLY useful when they need someone to act all tough but lose (thereby establishing just how high the stakes are).
I don't think they actively hate the race. I think they just don't like it, they have no good ideas for it, and they really aren't excited about watching them fight and win. And then you have a "badass fighter" character, but don't actually want to give the character heroic moments, you get The Worf Effect. You get someone it is convenient to beat on.
I understand that you might feel that the Night Elves only succeed when some big hero comes to intervene.
That's true of everyone. Being the big hero is the role of the PLAYER in this game. Whether it's Darnassus, or Lakeridge, or the Brill, no one gets anything done until the Player Hero intervenes.
The Night Elves aren't being picked on. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time in the Horde's consolidation of Kalimdor. I say this as someone who misses the Big Tree as much as the OP does.
No. It's not.
The only other race it's true for are the Tauren.
Now
those guys are also designated victims who barely get any properly positive beats. Center stage when it's time for tragedy (Cairne, Hamuul getting burned, Dezsco's baby armor), bit players when it's time for the heroic triumph.
I remember being a fourteen year old girl first experiencing WoW. I rolled a night elf hunter, and I vividly remember every detail of the night elf story that drew me into the game and made me hooked. The strong, warrior women, who defended their ancient forests while riding these big, beautiful cats. I remember feeling like finally, finally, I found a culture with unique heroines that I could connect with and look up to.
Then Cataclysm came... and Darkshore and Ashenvale were destroyed. Then there was Legion, which felt disconnected from the night elf story that I had fallen in love with. BfA was the last straw, and I race changed my main, Jezabel, from a night elf to a void elf, because I no longer felt any pride in being a night elf.
I love your post OP. It definitely speaks to the heart of what night elf fans feel. I hope you continue to share it, not just in the GD but also on Twitter and wow Reddit. It deserves to receive attention.
This is a great thread, OP, thank you for posting it. I won't derail your thread, but the writing decisions surrounding the game in BfA (and, really, a lot of stuff from Cata and beyond) have just really depressed me. You did a great job outlining what the writing has done to the night elves, but if I can offer a perspective from the "other side" - it made me feel sick that "our" plot was supposed to be advanced by committing an unforgivable atrocity, and in a way that completely obliterates any supposed character development for Horde races (outside the Forsaken, I guess) since WC3/Vanilla. The ENTIRE POINT of WC3/early WoW is that the Horde *isn't* the demon-blood genocide faction anymore. I decided to main an orc in this game because I loved the idea of interrogating and subverting the lazy fantasy tropes of "monster" races being "evil" - the idea of orcs, trolls, and minotaurs having their own distinct culture and values that went beyond "evil monsters for the white knights to kill" fascinated me. But I guess that's been thrown in the trash alongside everything that made the night elves unique and interesting. Now we're back to being one-dimensional evil monsters, and the night elves have become cookie cutter Tolkien "the world of elves is ending, the world of man is nigh" tragic figures. It f**king sucks. WoW has so much more storytelling and lore potential, but they are *choosing* to go with the most simplistic, bland, regressively boring "noble humans vs. evil orcs and zombies and everyone else is filler" setup possible. It's just completely demoralizing.
10/19/2018 08:07 AMPosted by
Ilthen
Well, with this in mind, I will give it a try. I don't have anything to lose, after all, I think. And at the risk of sounding repetitive, I still want to thank everyone who's added their voice to this.
God speed to you.
I honesty can't say much about Night Elves since they've never really captured me. But I do believe it's pretty damning when a Horde-leaning, Forsaken-loving player like myself can recognize how dirty Blizz has done Night Elves.
I'd say Dark Lady watch over you. But last time she did, your tree came down with a rapid case of flammability.
your tree came down with a rapid case of flammability
That was perhaps the most offensive thing about the build up to the burning of Teldrassil. We are all wondering who would burn it and why, but also how. And how ended up being with catapults from Darkshore. Catapults that they themselves gave us the maximum extent of their range:
A short distance away, behind the main lines, was another group of siege weapons. One of the unit’s officers, an orc with a sour expression and a false smile, sat near a pristine demolisher.
...
“How far back are we from the front lines?”
“Several hundred yards, my lord.”
Saurfang growled at the officer. “And what is the maximum range of these weapons?”
The officer wilted. “A couple hundred . . . ?”
And was it even Azerite? No, just regular, everyday arcane fire that any mage could cast.
Sylvanas had assigned magi to each siege crew. When the Horde fired back, they would do so with unstable, explosive, arcane‐touched payloads that could set an entire ship ablaze.
...
Men, women, children . . . the fire would not care. Fire had no honor, no reason, only the urge to consume until there was nothing left.
Everyone still in Darnassus would die.
How Teldrassil burned was a highlight of how unfairly the Night Elves have been treated by the writers.
I understand that you might feel that the Night Elves only succeed when some big hero comes to intervene.
That's true of everyone.
I feared this question would come eventually. Mostly because it raises a sketchy problem. Doing a comparative situation of one race to another is inevitable considering the points I am raising, but it is also a highly volatile subject that teeters on the brink of derailing the thread and deligitimizing it.
I do not want to minimize the discomfort other races' fans have: they are all valid and my intent is simply to expose mine; and please, understand that my position is not one borne out of malice or lack of recognition of posible blindsidedness: I've played the Horde side as well as the Alliance side, and I'm aware all races have issues in how they are depicted. It's why I stated at the beggining of my post that mine isn't intended to diminish your enjoyment or concern.
So yes, the comparisons can be drawn, and even must. But I do not think the comparisons invalidate the
feel of night elves' appearances in the stories. There is a very particular reason why, in what I wrote, I did my best to focus on how Night Elves in the story
feel, as opposed to how they are indubitably stated to be. Because I know people can digress with such broad statements as "The night elves are the most pooped on race", or "Malfurion was stated to be the most powerful druid!" but it is more likely people can empathize with my heartfelt sentiment of "in general, it
feels like Night Elves are pooped on more than one would ascribe to a motivation of general storytelling, it just feels vindictive at this point".
That said, Real Life is being very unkind to me right now with my time. I will come back to this post, and elaborate a bit more on the comparisons, I do have explicit examples, but I do need you and everyone to understand that it's important to understand these comparisons are drawn only by necesity: not as an attempt to deligitimize the expectations of people, their idealizations, their way of empathizing with the story, their passions. Because all I ever wanted was to speak of mine.
Addendum: I've posted in the GD, as the suggestion of people in this thread.
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20769617797#1
I think a great issue with the story is that they wrote Night Elves as too powerful and now they are trying to take everything from them so they don't need to explain anymore why they don't just get rid of every problem ever on their own.
Like, they where imortals before Warcraft 3's ending, you have night elves older than entire races like Tyrande, Illidan and Malfurion, with more than 10 mileniums of wisdom, experience and training behind them.
You have Tyrande being a high priestess of one of the feel true deities on Azeroth and Malfurion who is THE most powerful druid ever with literally demigods and the forces of nature doing as he commands.
The Night elves where on the first legion invasion, the war of the ancients and preetty much every big world shaking event that happened from the night elf empire's fall to warcraft 3, so their footsoldiers have more experience than all human / orc generals past, present and future combined.
The problem storywise is that they are too powerful, not even the draenei have this backstory.
Storywise the problem when you have a race composed by imortal badasses is that you have two choices. Either you have to explain why they aren't fixing the world single handedly or you nerf the everlasting hell out of them. Blizzard clearly chose the second one, the problem is that they did this in such a contrived, idiotic way that Night elves look like they magically lost their brains.