To Writers: From a Nelf fan

Lore Story Forum
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10/22/2018 11:28 AMPosted by Nemiria
I believe we have fallen off topic.

The last thing we need is to give Blizzard an excuse to ignore our concerns with current treatment of Night Elves by arguing over gender roles. None of which matters so long as Blizzard continues to butcher and write us as incompetent tree bunnies that simply serve as target practice, who thus far, the only way to see a victory and ‘fist-pump’ is if we blindly, no questions asked, no issues, are killed and made into Forsaken/Horde loyalist.

Don’t lose sight of the real enemy in this. It’s Blizzard and this atrocity that they call a story.


That's your opinion... given that it's story written for framing game play, I have no issues with it.
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10/22/2018 11:28 AMPosted by Nemiria
Don’t lose sight of the real enemy in this. It’s Blizzard and this atrocity that they call a story.
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Just posting to say that I agree 100% with OP. I leveled a druid (this guy I'm posting on) rather than a rogue, but I have the same memories of exploring Teldrassil for the first time, then Darkshore and Ashenvale. I never played the RTS games, so the Night Elves and their corner of Kalimdor formed the core of my love for the Warcraft universe. To see where the Night Elves are at now is dispiriting, to say the least.
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I've been checking the General Forums version of this thread from time to time to see how it's going, and it's still going well. I saw a post from a person there that hasn't ever posted on the Story Forums that I thought was worth sharing with everyone here:

10/22/2018 09:20 AMPosted by Wrathwind
Night elves were my role model.

When I was little, at least. I grew up playing Warcraft 3 after my brother was given it one day, I thought it was great, but when the Night Elves came along I became super interested. I spent a lot of time after school playing that game and practicing and when WoW finally came out I fell in love with the forests and culture. Over time I became more and more invested in their story. The strong matriarchal society, the amazonian women who are fierce defenders of their homeland. The people who allow men to take a backseat when it comes to warfare.

It was so inspiring for a young girl, it made me feel tough. It made me feel like I had something to aspire to be. Sure, I'm a nerd or stupid for trying to be like a fantasy character, but it's what I latched onto. I can't help it now. Seeing Tyrande, the first female power lead lose to Nathanos after being hypercharged hurts. Not just the full wrath of Elune was brought down on some undead ranger, but the full strength of nature. Massive divine strength combined with all the power of the lands wasn't enough to take down goatee man.

I was fine with the tree burning, because hey! That's how life works sometimes. You take a few lumps, but you keep fighting. Losing over and over sucks though. Especially this way. The writing is ruining my role model and making them look completely worthless.
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On a slightly related note ... the current NE story-arc does have a LOT of neat parallels with "the Fall of Quel'thalas"; mirroring the IMMENSE parallels that Sylvanas currently has with Arthas. Heck, Tyrande's formation of the the Night Warriors is almost beat-for-beat Liadrin's creation of the "Blood Knights" story.

Also, I do think that the stupid Nathanos issue (and goodness its dumb) could be alleviated a bit by having waves of Horde mooks swarming Tyrande, Malf, and the PC during that fight. Use them, and make it very apparent that despite his snark and forces, Nathanos is just barely managing to hold out till the rituals done.

I understand that he's not a normal Forsaken, he is a higher form of undead, but even with two Prime Val'kyr him holding out that long against super-charged Tyrande, Malf (who's probably still pretty injured, hence the Bear-form), and the PC is rediculous. Have Horde troops run just enough interference, and I'll buy it.

Beyond that, hey Azshara is liable to be one of the big-bads (if not THE big-bad) of "BfA", so if any race deserved its time in the sun in that conflict; it would be the NE's (with a distant second being the BE's). No race is more relevant in the battle against the crazy Queen of the fish-people than the Tree People.
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Here are some more posts from the General Forum thread:

Dreygur 120 Undead Warlock:
10/22/2018 04:00 PMPosted by Dreygur
On the book that came with the BfA Collector's Edition I didn't think the Night Elves were badly portraited. In fact it almost felt like they held the power of the entire horde with a skeleton crew (well, plus the half-god druid), since Anduin had been outmaneuvered by Saurfang and sent all his forces (including Tyrande etc.) to Silithus.

Don't get me wrong - I am in agreement that NE had been poorly written in some occasions, and despite playing a forsaken, I don't see how Nathanos would be able to survive an encounter with either Malfurion or Tyrande (much less both). The valkyries shouldn't be enough either. The fact he could flee, alive, was baffling. I almost feel like he fleeing was a (dumb, heavy-handed writing) miracle.


Caelîn 112 Human Warrior:
10/22/2018 04:33 PMPosted by Caelîn
In “Wolfheart”, the Night Elves are out-ambushed by orcs. At Night.


As a veteran of Warcraft 3, this brings me almost physical pain.
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My dudes, Ilthen asked me to let y'all know his sub ran out so he can't post anymore, but he's still v interested in seeing all of y'alls views on this and will keep an eye out on the thread.
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10/22/2018 09:27 PMPosted by Felfrank
My dudes, Ilthen asked me to let y'all know his sub ran out so he can't post anymore, but he's still v interested in seeing all of y'alls views on this and will keep an eye out on the thread.
Aw, damn... well, he made a very compelling post, and he'll be missed. Glad he'll still be reading up on all this.
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10/22/2018 09:27 PMPosted by Felfrank
My dudes, Ilthen asked me to let y'all know his sub ran out so he can't post anymore, but he's still v interested in seeing all of y'alls views on this and will keep an eye out on the thread.

Thank him for putting up the threads for us. They've been a great place to centralize how we are feeling.
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Its one of the unfortunate 'silencing' effects blizzard has with these forums. Oh not subbed? can't post.. keeps those that have unsubbed because of discontent quiet and blizz thinks all is well.
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10/22/2018 08:22 PMPosted by Droité
Also, I do think that the stupid Nathanos issue (and goodness its dumb) could be alleviated a bit by having waves of Horde mooks swarming Tyrande, Malf, and the PC during that fight. Use them, and make it very apparent that despite his snark and forces, Nathanos is just barely managing to hold out till the rituals done.

Way back earlier in the thread, when I joked about being made a writer for the Night Elven story, I toyed with the idea of a similar, if more elaborate, story.

The rough idea I had, was that, after the ritual was complete, Tyrande begins walking calmly up the road in Darkshore. Dark, Night Warrior magic crackles off of her, and arcs out, casually one-shotting random Horde mooks who try to bum rush her (think the Arthas encounter at the end of Halls of Reflection). Nathanos is forced to retreat to a more defensive position, and the Val'kyr manage to cover their retreat, and hold Tyrande off, at the expense of one of their lives.

Everything that still needs to happen, happens. The Horde has a fortified position from which to wage their side of the Warfront. One of the Val'kyr dies. And Nathanos survives (unfortunately). But with the added benefits of:
The Night Warrior ritual seems to actually be worth doing. And Tyrande comes across at least semi-competent.

Nathanos isn't able to somehow 1v1 what amounts to a demigoddess.

And the fact that the Val'kyr can drive her back shows (as opposed to just tells) they're Greater Val'kyr, and adds gravitas to one of them dying.

Edit: Whoops. I forgot to add one of the most important parts. The thing with Sira and Delaryn doesn't happen. No more totally-not-mind-control "free will". And Forsaken get to develop their own actual characters, instead of poaching ours.
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10/18/2018 10:07 PMPosted by Amadis
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.


In an interview, one of the devs who worked on vanilla considered the Night Elf district "useless", and was the person to destroy it for the Deathwing plot. He was happy to see the humans put the crater to good use.

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/9fb2bo/john_staats_ama_author_of_the_world_of_warcraft/e5vzmw9/?context=3
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What the Night Elfs have gone through lately reminds me of what was called "The Worf Effect" back in the days of Star Trek:Next Generation. He's this big badass Klingon warrior, so if the Alien of the Week was going to be portrayed as a tough guy, the way the writers would show it is by having it beat up and throw Worf around like a rag doll.
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In “Wolfheart”, the Night Elves are out-ambushed by orcs. At Night.
Funny how the Moonshadow Elves from that Netflix show with the exact same supposed powers as the night elves (invisibility in moonlight) seem to do well when fighting against humans.

Thinking emoji spam into the sun
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10/23/2018 10:51 AMPosted by Jerolan
In “Wolfheart”, the Night Elves are out-ambushed by orcs. At Night.
Funny how the Moonshadow Elves from that Netflix show with the exact same supposed powers as the night elves (invisibility in moonlight) seem to do well when fighting against humans.

Thinking emoji spam into the sun

I mean, that's not really a fair comparison. Elves in pretty much any other franchise are allowed to be competent. Even in Tolkien's work, where it all started, Elves at the absolute lowest ebb of their power and influence manage to take out Sauron's secondary fortress of Dol Guldur pretty much on their own.

It's literally just Blizzard that fails in their handling of Elvenkind in general. And their handling of Night Elves in particular is so sloppy, yet sadistic, I have no choice but to logically assume some amount of contempt on their end.
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10/23/2018 12:49 PMPosted by Galenorn
It's literally just Blizzard that fails in their handling of Elvenkind in general.
Literally every other elf seems to be doing well for themselves, or at least not much worse than the other races. The worst that's happened to the blood elves in recent memory is that they got chased out of Dalaran once. It's only the night elves that seem to get this treatment.
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10/23/2018 12:52 PMPosted by Jerolan
Literally every other elf seems to be doing well for themselves, or at least not much worse than the other races. The worst that's happened to the blood elves in recent memory is that they got chased out of Dalaran once. It's only the night elves that seem to get this treatment.

I feel much of the Blood Elves intellectual grandeur has been lost through their association with the Horde. That's probably why Liardrin forgot all her basic Azerothian History lessons from high school. To say nothing of the way Human Mages run circles around them.

High Elves are in limbo. They'll never be playable. But it also seems like they'll never be killed off, or converted to Void Elves. They just... exist.

Void Elves are an asspull. As much as I like them, there's no getting around how utterly contrived they are.

Nightborne are still new. But between Thalyssra and Liardrin, their recruitment scenario literally adds up to "Just how petty can these she-Elves be?"... And just wait until they go up against those Human Mages...

And, of course, the numerous Night Elven grievances listed throughout the entirety of this thread.
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10/23/2018 12:52 PMPosted by Jerolan
10/23/2018 12:49 PMPosted by Galenorn
It's literally just Blizzard that fails in their handling of Elvenkind in general.
Literally every other elf seems to be doing well for themselves, or at least not much worse than the other races. The worst that's happened to the blood elves in recent memory is that they got chased out of Dalaran once. It's only the night elves that seem to get this treatment.


Didn't Quel'thalas and the majority of the High Elf population only get decimated like ... less than 15 years ago? I'm not sure thats doing "well for themselves".

They were then forced to heavily adapt their civilization to survive, renaming themselves to the Blood Elves, and only really managing to attain some stability with the cleansing of the Sunwell 6 years later? Their entire royal line is gone, there is a reason that Lor'themar is the "High Reagent"; there are no more kings.

Lets see if this sounds familiar: After the Third War (War of Thorns) many elves of Quel'thalas (Teldrassil) came to view the Holy Light (Elune) with contempt. This led to a great number of Blood Elves (Night Elves) losing their faith ... coming to believe that the Light (Elune) had failed them in their homeland's hour of greatest need.

Once a High Priestess of the Light (Elune), Liadrin (Tyrande) became disillusioned with her faith after the Scourge (Horde) invasion of Quel'thalas (Teldrassil) and spent years honing her martial prowess against the undead (Horde). She then partook in a radical idea, the empowerment of Light (Elune) Wielding Warriors...
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Re: The Nightborne

Suramar felt like it should have been / was a Night Elf thread. I fully expected the Nightborne to be Alliance and essentially a subrace of Night Elves.

Thalyssra’s decision to join the Horde just blindsided me and I still can’t figure it out. Maybe the devs want Elf parity between the two factions hence the Nightborne/Void Elf situation? Maybe a decision maker really liked the race and agreed they should be made playable, but they play as Horde?

Whatever the case, it seems a big chunk taken out of Night Elf lore and given over to their enemies.
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10/21/2018 10:47 AMPosted by Resìleaf
10/21/2018 10:07 AMPosted by Drahliana
...

That's your opinion. I thought it was an excellent story that gave a solid connection to WOW lore and the lore of the RTS game. We finally got a good look at what the Night Elves were like before the Sundering, it gave us background to Ravencrest until now had only been a monument in Azshara. (Wonder if it's still there post Cataclysm.) And the Horde got a rocking new hero out of it.

It also completely invalidates Warcraft 3 and the first meeting between Orcs and Night elves.


How should it? Given 5 digits of years between the two encounters, it's quite logical that Tyrande would not make any connection between Broxigar and the Orcs. That's the thing with time travel, as long as you don't muck up history completely, the little wrinkles you put in, smooth out over time... And as one should remember,the Bronze Dragons aren't above tampering with memories in order to keep the timeline in trim. Which presumably the Big Bronze D in charge would have had done once the time snarl he was in was taken care of.