War of the Thorns killed the Warcraft franchise

[Amadis-draka (Amadis)]

@Aviala-wyrmrest-accord

I think that Blizz is too accustomed to using night elves to set up a story… but not finish it. The night elves are backstory, not the game.

Need a faction conflict? The Horde punches the night elves, and the story starts as the Alliance responds.
Need an ancient race? Add some night elves, with a problem that the player (of either faction) fixes for them in the story proper.

I agree with this. I even remember bringing this up as far back as 2018:

@Amadis-draka

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 Darnassian Night Elf on Argus.
• Illidan resurrected from the dead at the Nighthold → Never comes to talk to the other Night Elves, not even Malfurion or Tyrande in person despite their having been around at the start of the story but - as is my point - not on Argus or even the Tomb of Sargeras. Illidan never even came back to talk to the Illidari and the Demon Hunter player personally. His end cinematic of staying to take on Sargeras just served to remove him from the story in preparation for BfA so that it wouldn’t have to be explored how Illidan would react to the Horde attacking the rest of the Night Elves again and burning down their capital.