Treating a level 10 alt as a legitimate poster is a bit silly.
Both of you have been having a perfectly civil conversation with Kyalin are you really going to let such an obvious troll just wipe that all away?
No. I was just commenting how silly it is is all.
I thought 
Made it pretty obvious that I’m taking this NEFPA about as serious as any.
Some are really persistent on this fantasy, Danuser better donate his salary to some organization of mental health after the damage he has done
I suppose I just find it weird is all. Like, they have to know none of what they say will ever happen. So it’s like why bother, unless they’re doing it to provoke a negative response? Which they must know they’ll get.
So being toxic as a coping way? I can see that as many seem just bitter to the point to even attack other alliance players including worgen that suffered BY Sylvanas twice worse than them.
In another note I hope the nelf plot just move away once Hyjal is updated again with a nelf hub and I hope in that, worgen get a small place alongside Goldrin(which made me remind we don’t see worgens at the zone despite said deity was important in there)
I will point out that “raid boss” doesn’t automatically mean “turn evil and die.” Jaina Proudmoore, Garrosh Hellscream, Gelbin Mekkatorque, Hodir, Thorim, etc. were all raid bosses. They didn’t die. Well, Garrosh did, but not until the next expansion.
Personally I think Tyrande will be a “I know you’re in there somewhere” fight, or something like Sun King’s Salvation, or maybe something like Tsulong where she alternates between being hostile and friendly in different phases of the fight.
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I guess that’s what’s also been bothering me. For 10+ yrs I been silent about the mistreatment of the worgen, than the burning happened, the heritage armor quest line…I just get upset when these people honestly complain about being mistreated by blizzard, and I sit here and I’m like Really? We weren’t even relevant in our own damn starting zone! is what I want to scream at them. Had to play a damn horde toon to get the full story/picture.
It’s why I say constantly that there are races and fans of said races who been mistreated way worse and for far longer.
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I can understand your pain coming from a Troll fan, so far both of our races have been kicked to the ground many times and two of our iconic characters(Vol’jin and Genn) often speaks badly how our races should behave the other way or just being like humans…it’s disgusting
“Nelves pixels are the only that matters” the slogan of these extremist is sickening as you say and seems like being toxic is their immature way to tell the other players “you should only feel bad about us and we can’t be happy neither you can”
I can confirm and support your claim 100% and want to hear my honest opinion Micah?
Blizzard should start to give some good stuff to feel proud about picking our races rather than just let whenever hack they hire at the moment to put their self insert and shame us for not picking humans because “hUimAnity iz VeZt”
A bit off topic but I hope they give something to Worgens in the 9.1 or 9.2 chapters in Ardenweald, I’d be totally fine to get a break from the Elune Warrior filler arc
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For a while, that’s what my money was on.
I figured that at some point she’d be temporarily consumed by the wrath of the Night Warrior that she’d take up an “You’re either with me, or against me” stance, resulting in a scenario/raid encounter in which she momentarily fights the main characters. After getting her down to X health, we’d get a cutscene in which Shandris, Anduin or someone would risk their life and deliver some big speech to her about remembering who she is, how Elune needs her power back to be rebalanced. Take your pick. Whatever the reason, Tyrande’s eyes would return back to normal and she’d give up the Night Warrior.
But it seems Blizzard’s going with the option of having her redistribute the power throughout the entire Night Elf race. Which I’ll admit is a nice way of explaining why future Night Elf characters will have the option of selecting the black eyes customization. It’d be lame to have it taken away just because Tyrande’s no longer the Night Warrior.
I’m still wondering how they’re going to deal with the fact that an significant aspect of Elune and her power is still permanently trapped on Azeroth, though. Maybe they won’t. Or maybe it can lead to further story, as they’ve been teasing us with all this Winter Queen/First Ones/Eternals Ones stuff, which suggests Elune has a greater role in all this.
I think the Worgen Heritage Quest represents all of their problems, even at a conceptual level.
- Game development resource issues causing unwillingness to have Gilneas properly reclaimed
- Feeling too much like a Stormwind vassal
- Being Worgen of a single nation whose banner they all are meant to bear and the whole thing being a curse that people should not usually want putting the racial identity in a very odd place.
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Likely it is going to be forgotten or for some reason the power up of Tyrande will save Ardenweal somehow(either the heart of the forest feed on her power leaving her on a coma or something)
Basically that and the Niteborn dialogue represents a hidden message in how the writers see the other races on the Alliance, just side-kicks that the writers kicks often in hopes the players will go to play humans to write more easier stories.
Legion was their last Hurrah, seriously Genn and the worgen are so different in BFA that you barely can believe are the same from before.
Not to get too off track the main topic, but the issue with under representation and mistreatment hardly stops at just Worgen. (Though they are under represented, and mistreated, imo)
You have races like the Tauren, who much like the Worgen only have their racial leader in the story (and both usually in support of Anduin), and races like Gnomes who still can’t retake their own city either. Pandaren may as well not exist as a playable race for all the exposure they get of late, and if you exclude racial leaders, then most of the Horde and Alliance races are nearly forgotten in overall relevance.
Which is a massive shame, imo, because Blizzard has, almost seemingly inadvertently, created an extremely fascinating World, chock full of interesting races with their own histories, interactions, and future story threads that could all be interesting in their own right in ways that could be expanded into entire zones of content, or a books worth of story. The Vulpera and the Sethrak interacting in more detail, the Gnomes and Mechagnomes interacting, Gnome and Goblin Scientific Races / Competitions, the Reclamation of Gilneas and Gnomergon. The Council of Three Hammers, and Dwarven Politics, and the state of the Draenei now that then eons long struggle against the Legion is over. The Mainland Pandaren (and Hozen, Jinyu, and Yaungol) ending a period of Isolation equivalent to the Night Elves.
Like there are so many stories I could be happy hearing about or seeing developed, new characters and ways of thinking that should be emerging, and stories that could grip the imagination and excitement of the fandom. Instead, we’re left squabbling over which scraps of poorly written lore most insults the fanbase.
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I’ll take a crack at that.
I do perceive a sort of pattern that emerges with Night Elf posters generally. It’s somewhat analogous to five stages of grief - although there are some differences.
First comes shock - Blizzard just rolled out some horrific, shocking, or insulting event that took what you liked and mutilated it. For me, this happened in Cataclysm, where the Night Elves appeared to be getting trashed by the Horde, we had Malfurion back but he didn’t care about what was going on with the race, and they rolled out god-awful voice acting for Tyrande. You’re like “wait, they’re really doing this?” “this feels a bit biased” “I feel like I’m being attacked for liking something they don’t like” “David Kosak lobbied to get Shadowmeld stealth-nerfed”.
These points are generally not well-developed, because they are the immediate reaction to a feeling of pain or loss. You don’t know quite what the issue is - but what you do know is that things suck and it feels unfair and not fun.
This feeling runs straight into a wall called “other players”. Taking Cataclysm for example - I ran into counterarguments like “yeah, well I don’t want to follow a Nagrandian ape”, “at least you get lore, think of the gnomes!”, “you just want to win everything”, “duh, Malfurion’s in Hyjal, of course he isn’t concerned about Ashenvale”, “Cry moar - we’re going to turn Ashenvale into an amusement park”, or “Kyalin, that’s stupid. Dave Kosak did not march down to the racials department and conspire to get Shadowmeld nerfed. It was a bug.”
Now, some of these arguments, like the last one, are correct and on point. Others are terse, snippy, unfair, unreasonable, missing the point entirely, or are reliant on intentionally defective arguments. You’re not thinking in terms of a lot of these concerns coming out of other issues that Blizzard left in the lore (like Horde relatability). You’re thinking “gosh, these people are unreasonable biased jerks!”
That’s where we get into the anger phase, where it’s more important to hit back and get even than it is to step back and examine where your arguments needed work. Your fellow posters just hate Night Elves and don’t care about the people who play them, and they’re throwing up nonsense to smother discussion over the problem. Who do these people think they are saying that they have it worse? Clearly, we can and should spend a hundred posts in a thread trying to compare apples to oranges in order to determine whose subpar fruit is the least satisfying - and don’t get me STARTED on those banana people.
As you might imagine, people stay in this phase for a long, long time. People who have progressed past it will backslide into it. I’ve done it, and at times I still do it. It’s a weakness and it’s an easy mode to get to because it comes out of a frustration that may be best described as “it looks like these people want to benefit from my suffering”. It’s also easy to get into because a lot of other people are in that mode too - this doesn’t just happen to one group of people - and we see those fights play out on the forums all the time. It’s the result, ultimately, of people not trying to understand why people are upset, and instead trying to fight for supremacy in a kind of victim olympics that’s… pretty pointless. Multiple people can and do have multiple issues at the same time, they’re pretty hard to compare evenly, and even if you try, you’re just going to come off looking like you don’t care how the other person feels.
Somewhere in the middle of this comes hoping, and this normally coincides with the middle of an expansion cycle - and let me explain what that means. When Cataclysm released, we were all excited about the new phasing technology. People were sure as sure can be that this would mean that we would see progressive updates to the old world. I remember being told “don’t worry, Kya - Ashenvale might look bad now, but in future patches, they’re going to phase it to have things reflect the fact that the Alliance quests came after the Horde ones”. So I waited… and I waited… and I waited. We got into Pandaria - there were these cool things called scenarios where they could visually present events - and while Wolfheart was bad, it still demonstrated a win right? They have to depict that!
So I waited some more. The leader short stories came out. Maybe Tyrande will tear the Horde a new one in hers? Ech, no? Really? It’s this gunk about Naga all the way in Feralas? Hello? The war is over THERE!? Wait, we have scenarios in Kalimdor, there’s going to be questing in Kalimdor? Surely they have to show us fighting back in Ashenvale ri- it’s a robot cat quest? THAT Is what they’re giving us? And and - look, the Horde has one more scenario than us in this patch anyway - they seriously couldn’t just slot Ashenvale in there? They show our forces in the Dry Hills! You can only get there through the Mor’shan Rampart!
As Blizzard avoids opportunity after opportunity to make things right, and even finds ways to make things worse by either not addressing the issues in the first place or doubling down on them, you get doomerism. This is where we find Elesana, and frankly, this is where you often find me. Lucy has yanked that football away one too many times. You know by this point that Blizzard is never going to make it up to you. You’ve grown numb to “wait and see” - because you waited, and you saw already. Blizzard will set up a tragedy and tease you to no end about a resolution that will never come.
For me, this set in around WoD. I was running around these boards seeking out any topic suggesting anything for any reason having to do with Night Elves, and shooting it down.
Night Elf Paladins? “NO - No more Night Elf lore”.
Night Elf Warden content? “ABSOLUTELY NOT - No more Night Elf lore”.
Night Elf customizations? “Did I stutter? NO - NO MORE - Go wreck someone else’s favorite race”
I think I had a soft landing for this - but the final stage is giving up entirely - and this happened for me not long after the Legion announcement. Dave Kosak has always kind of been my white whale, and I still think he was one of the worst things to happen to the lore, and I’m still not entirely convinced that he didn’t simply have it out for Night Elves (something to chew on: if they really do plan expansions two years out - that means that Kosak was the lead narrative designer in charge of the WoT - think about it). Well, here I am saying “NO MORE NIGHT ELF LORE”, and they just announced a Night Elf lorefest directed by Dave Kosak.
Yeah, no. Hell no. Absolutely no. No way I’m sticking around for that guy’s take on what constitutes a “badass” Night Elf. I’ve been lied to by these people and that particular person before. I’m not sticking around. I’m done.
So I quit!
As an aside, I’m 99% sure that Elesana is at this stage, for those who still believe that she’s a secret mastermind who is sock puppeting every single Night Elf poster. She was in my discord server for a while, she was surprised that people were making this claim, and she’s drifted off. I think she has given up in the same way I did, and yeah… I don’t blame her.
As for me, sure, I still kept in contact with people - I had friends in the game who went through the exact cycle that I did. Some of us still talk. But for the most part, I did try - I did try to disengage. Most of my friends don’t even know that I’m that big of a gamer. It’s not something I really talk about outside of a setting like this. My friends and I talk about boring stuff, we do brunch, we go out on weekends. You’d figure it wouldn’t be hard to stay disengaged.
Well, you’d figure. It’s late 2017 and I’m trying to build a professional social media presence. The Journal of Accountancy told me that if I wanted to make partner by 30, that I needed to find a way to bring in those audit clients - who are tough to get for a local firm and tend to constitute spin-off work from tax clients (which I learned later). So I had my Linkedin where I was posting articles about how boring accounting stuff was really actually something that was important for you, small business owner, to consider. I went to a big accounting conference in Vegas and someone suggested to me that I get a Twitter account. So I did. So here I am, standing in my expansive, fantastic personal office with the window and the door that I miss now that I’ve whipsawed the other way and have decided to work for an incomprehensibly big corporation. Oh, but what’s this? It’s World of Warcraft - on my professional twitter feed - with an ad for their next expansion.
Looks interesting. I mean, that’s pretty cool that the Alliance looks like they’re making the first move this time. Nice shot there with the Night Elves firing off a volley at that orc. Hey, maybe things have changed. Maybe I could play this game. So what’s this other ad here?
15 minutes later
“Uh, hey, are you feeling alright?”
“No, I’m having a mental breakdown over the fate of fictional elves in a game that I haven’t played in two years.”
Okay, I didn’t actually say that - but I felt that. I felt physically ill, which is embarrassing for me to admit. I literally couldn’t concentrate on my work for long enough to get anything done that day. Some of the people I kept in contact with later admitted to me that they actually cried. That’s the impression that people were left with over something that you had invested yourself into - for years, going through everything that had happened from Cataclysm onward - being destroyed like that for some cheap shock value - and as I thought at the time, for the Horde to feel good about themselves. And they were laughing about it all over the internet. The memes set sail from that dumpster fire faster than Blizzard decanonified Chronicles.
I was back in the cycle. Shock had passed, now it was time for anger. What was the excuse going to be this time? I was ready for a fight. I went to Scrolls of Lore and found it - partially. I found the Story Forum discord and found it … again partially. There were certainly those people who I talked about earlier - the people who sit at the transition between shock and anger, but there were also a lot of other people - a lot of them Horde fans saying “yeah, I know. That sucks and I’m really sorry that’s happening to you. I don’t like it either - do you want to talk about it?”
… and I think that made me feel better about things. To know that instead of dismissing me, there were people on the other side who were willing to hear mine, if I would hear theirs. This shouldn’t surprise me honestly, being an auditor - because I know that the approach where you sit down and try to understand your client’s point of view, down to things like them being stressed out because they’re in the middle of a move, almost always works better than putting the hammer down and saying “no, I’m the auditor, you are to do as I say or else”. Empathy tends to work better than terseness and anger.
… and, I can say that I’m pleasantly surprised that I’ve been able to find it here - from people that I didn’t expect to find it from. I think overall - if this doesn’t sound too sappy - these boards probably need a lot more empathy, and a lot more of a focus on problem solving.
I get that such is harder than doing one’s best impression of an Alex Jones rant but… I think we have to do it.
Anyway - sorry for the long post. This kind of thing does feel personal to me.
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She is already that powerful, even before the Night Warrior.
Give the mouse a cookie…
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I see a dangerous path in that.
There isn’t really any citizenry ‘to’ kill. Via the Cataclysm (and even a quest in classic), something as simple as Lumberjacks are considered fair game and the only target that’d spark any uproar is the Tauren, given that they don’t really muster any military offenses of their own, only support the Horde where they can find it. Nobody has a good reason to attack Thunderbluff.
Anything else and it’s a standard M.O for the Horde: fight for survival, whereas for an Alliance story, it’s retribution. Nothing of importance hangs in the balance for the Horde that isn’t already there. The idea itself stands to upset more people than it would be to appease them.
Although BFA was extremely mishandled and ended with an anti-climatic war fatigue induced stalemate (though arguably the Alliance got more out of it, given that they’re up a territory and now have a foothold in another where they were previously kicked out), I think it would probably be for the best that it was the war to end all wars, and that the story is put to bed, never to be roused again. The team behind the wheel does not have the tools or vision to tell a story like this. To do so would be playing with fire- and BFA thoroughly doused the franchise in kerosene. It’s not just bad because it’d put WoW in danger of falling from the map all together, it’s especially bad because it’d threaten their money flow. Corporations crave the almighty dollar above all else. They pull the plug once they can’t wring any dollars out of it.
So that WoW actually has a future, and not sink it to the bottom of the sea like Age of Sigmar did to Warhammer, what would ideally work for everyone is just to let sleeping dogs lay. The Horde is stretched paper thin, the Alliance has expended all resources and by the end only had enough muster with Horde co-op to attempt one siege, win or lose, and they’ve now both just been annihilated by the return of the Scourge.
They’re both attempting to rebuild their realms, replenish their armies, resources and the like, local problems have festered into big, important problems due to a lack of skilled hands to actually deal with it, the returning of the war is but a distant dream for some and that is the last we hear of it.
Heck, I’d even favor a full on retcon of BFA, rather than a continuation of anything that is tainted by its image.
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So another discussion about who has it the worst, oh how I love that!!! …not.
To your other point, why wasn’t Teldrassil shown as a worgen tragedy this time? Well, to say the least, because instead of generally saying “women and children” first, the book said that the night elves evacuated all worgen - regardless of age or gender - first, and therefore no Gilneer perished in the fire, except perhaps Mia, who was then rescued by Genn.
And to the general argument about the impact of media or book sources.
Media will always leave more of an impression because it is visual. Of course, we can imagine it well in our imagination, but it is not as visual and therefore has less impact.
I’m not going to get into it with you, but this is part of the problem. We had a nice discussion about legit worgen issues and you just HAD TO come in with this comment and hand wave it away. Feels like you didn’t even read anything people wrote.
Micah, I’m being so offensive about it this time because your only _SINGLE _ argument in terms of content is about the core issue:
Worgen never have attention, Worgen are having a worse/the worst time.
and there I agree with you, they got not the attention they deserve, but to turn every discussion, every, no matter what topic in the direction is just like the night elves “Nightelves has it so bad” and just like droite everything is turned in the direction of “HORDE has it so bad”.
Or trolls crying about it “Trolls has it so bad” . Really, it’s all about who has it the worst. If that’s really all the discussion is about, and not the story as a whole anymore, geez, just stop dealing with it at all. But it changes zero, zero, if all here so hypocritically and think that they want to hide their arguments behind xthousand sentences all actually in the core only around the topic, who has it worst, who deserves most/First compensation.
Do you know that there are now more void elves than worgen played, imagine they would also flood the forum and say. “We don’t even have a real story, we have it so bad”.
Instead of working on a real common solution, expressing constructive criticism, the argument goes round in circles because Worgen, Night Elves, Forsaken, Horde, Trolls and what they are all called claim: “We have it worst”.There is no constructive argumentation, because everyone claims it for himself and everyone is looking for individual solutions that do not go hand in hand with the other problems or even worse, make them worse!
i could post this under sooo f****** many posts, i could this answer under every post the last two and a half days.
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By the Light. This right here is the Story Forums.