As far as I know, they apparently do plan to bring her back … Although, to what extent of her significance and the duration of such (Especially in comparison to Alliance heroes) is another manner altogether …
It’s annoying the Forsaken have lost such a narratively strong leader, function as a lame ‘council’ now (same as the Horde) and most of all, even the Forsaken-skin of Elves was given to the Alliance as well
The above was such a solid statement of Blizzard going: “HAHA F#%^ YOU HORDE PLAYERS!” — and could NOT have been expressed enough with that customisation decision and conscious choice made. Truly a tragic F you to Horde players, but even more-so the Forsaken.
Huh, yeah, I don’t spend that much time thinking about it, but you’re absolutely right. On all my Blood Elves, when I throw the undead skin on, I consider my character to be Forsaken.
When I do it on the Alliance, I think I’m just doing it because undead, edgy, or something.
Funnily enough, Alliance, too, have the monopoly on cute elves that can rock the undead skin.
Take that Horde. Even your monopoly on undead elves is somehow superior on the Alliance side. Because
Yeah, but having the undead on the Alliance sort of feels like “Well what’s the point of the Forsaken on the Horde using ‘undead’ as their races major theme?”
at least with the Blood Elves, you could at the minimum argue they were defenders of Quel’Thalas that fell to Arthas alongside Sylvanas during Arthas’ siege of their homeland — or fell in battle far later alongside their own people and the Forsaken at Icecrown Citadel & were risen, yet able to reclaim their freewill just like the Forsaken and Sylvanas had, so long ago.
The Alliance having the undead elves however, feels like them having the Forsaken or that very undead-theme & RP narrative that was exclusively limited to the Horde … I’d say it’s like a spit in the face to the Horde, but it’s more like a knife to the face.
There’s SO many subjects as to where the Horde have been grotesquely insulted. It’s overdone and shamefully offensive to their players.
I honestly think we need to have a kind of ‘low stakes’ expansion where the factions have completely distinct storylines, but without conflict with the opposing faction. Explore the themes and cultures of each faction, solve internal problems, establish new characters and revitalize old ones, where you barely see a member of the opposite faction. Give us something more than a little side quest with a major lore character - have the entire thing be focused exclusively around building (or re-building) what defines each faction’s identity.
We’ve had too many expansions now where the factional lines have been blurred to the point of being basically irrelevant. And while I will always champion tearing down what few borders remain around cross-faction gameplay, I don’t want to homogenize every race and faction into the same heroic blob.
I sympathize. I basically stopped playing for the story after BfA. Fortunately, the game is still fun if you don’t think about what’s going on. I mostly hang out here to be warned of the worst.
I honestly don’t think any of that stuff is canon anymore. They haven’t mentioned it in years.
Technically sure, but the story we are following now had it’s seeds planted as far back as Legion. So it could be likely that a comic from BFA era is still canon. They haven’t said it isn’t yet.
I go back and forth on this a lot—it is deliberate vs. they’re just out of their depth. I think I land on the latter more often than not, but boy it is becoming harder to ignore the former as a possibility when the community is constantly rubbing their noses in it (and not just vocal minority on a forum as the gaslighter brigade will probably insist, as this sentiment has become drowning/deafening in every corner of WoW’s online presence). Then we get remarks during TWW along the lines of “there’s not a lot of Horde content here, but don’t worry, you’ll get yours!”
There is some drastic shift in theme and fantasy going on as well. I suspect it is an over correction from Afrasiabi/Shadowlands. The Horde is supposed to be Chaotic Neutral Heavy Metal. That doesn’t exist anymore. Everything is boring, cozy, depressing Neutral Good. Everything. Even “Lawful Good Overdrive” Alliance is boring, cozy, depressing Neutral Good. Probably just another in a long line of losing a fanbase chasing an imaginary one. I dunno. It is worth mentioning, at any rate.
There’s still some glimpses of strong writing, but they are few and far between and even those usually smuggle in some wildly out of pocket developments that aggravate the ongoing problem with Horde writing. Undermine and Zul’Aman are at least near to homeruns, but both are deliberately isolated from The Horde in ways that make it really hard for me to think this is not on purpose. I suppose the most sobering/blunt I can put it is, if this is not being done on purpose, there is such an extreme case of ineptitude at play that the storyline is irrecoverable without a drastic overhaul of the creative team at the company.
I remember at the annoucment of the world soul saga being told “don’t worry midnight will be the horde expac” which was already kind of a bleak thing cause it was one of 3 expacs and even now its shaping up to be more about alleria and the void elves/high elves than anything.
We’ve got Bilgewater that aren’t Horde Bilgewater, Revantusk that aren’t Horde Revantusk, and Blood Elves playing supporting cast in an expansion about their own city. What more could you want?
With the Cult of Forgotten Shadow among the Forsaken and the Blood Knights and Sunwalkers among the Horde, there is potential IF the writers use it.
You’re right about the faction leaders. Most of the Horde’s are just warrios while the Alliance has major powerhouses. The only ones I know that are heavy-hitters outside of muscle are Thrall, Thalyssra and Talanji.
Thrall no longer is, Thalyssra has openly admitted she is no match for Jaina (while in the company of the champion, Talanji, and Zul) and Talanji will never be let out of the fridge because it would necessitate them addressing that the Alliance laid siege to Dazar’alor and murdered Rastakhan. All of which would be a lot of fun tension to play through, mind you.
I thought Thrall “got his groove back”. While Thalyssra isn’t Jaina level (which I found odd), I still think she could be a heavy-hitter.
As for Talanji, you’re right that she’s a huge case of wasted potential. Remember that cinematic where she moved the mists and sped the ship ahead of the Alliance fleet? And now she’s got Bwonsamdi and all his tricks to help her. Blizzard absolutely needs to bring Talanji out of the fridge.
Thrall got depowered again after Shadowlands. The closest he has come to shamaning is telling Aggra how good she is at shamaning. I’m getting a sinking feeling that he’s going to become World Shaman again briefly to do something big right before he dies off in TLT.
More specific: Iridikron has yet to show his face and there’s a lot of room for that to line up with Thrall somehow.
they want warcraft to be “more accessible” to everyone, so they see that they need to make a bland and generic story with a cast of bland and generic character(who are also DEI aproved) to push the narrative so the majority of the people will like.
Horde, like or not, are made of monsters from the RPGs, they dont know how to write them, they dont like how they look and they cant relate with different philosophies/cultures that isnt “white human/elf centric” enough to bother with them, even zul’aman is quite weak in that regard and tip-toe on crucial themes and basically throws everything as Zul’jin fault and handwave the issue of the colonizer elves stealing the natives land.
Whats happening to wow ever since shadowlands is what happened to Marvel, star wars and other ips ruined in the search of the mythic “modern audience” that doesnt exist, it will take A LONG TIME to be fixed, and it will require heads rolling and an entire different cast of devs to put it back on tracks… people who love WARCRAFT and not want to do their own thing in the IP, do they exist? maybe, maybe some are in the team and have their hands tied, i pity you dev who want to write a badass horde but the updevs told you have to write more Alleria crap
I myself already gave up, i just play for the pvp and transmog and doing old content, but if they do finish the factions, which seems like its their plan, im out for good.
That’s the point. You got Forsaken, with some of Sylvanas’s Dark Rangers - like the Quel’thalasian elves that died defending Quel’thalas with Sylv. I think it’d make sense they’d follow their Ranger General into the afterlife.
Then Night Elves/Void Elves that are undead, pulled completely out of one’s butt for nonsensical reasons. “War of Thorns, something, something, faction parity, Undead Night Elves, something.”
I mostly meant more-so towards them primarily holding the theme of undeath.
Whenever one argues that the Alliance are holding all the big cards in the cosmic forces and the Horde barely holding a candle to such — You’ll have these Alliance fanboys who rant that the Horde hold a greater dominion over death / undeath … But do we? Do we, reaaaaaaaaally?No. We do not – The Alliance hold that too.
Kul’tiran druids, who behold teachings & secrets of death in the cycle of nature.
and of cause, as mentioned — The undead elves … which canonically, tend to be at a greater form of undeath than the typical human-Forsaken are (Unless they look like Nathanos).
In Shadowlands, the Horde’s undead held little to no significant relevance there either … Nor did any of the “spiritual” classes (Shaman, priest, paladin or monks). It was merely death knights and majorly the Alliance characters.
Ultimately however,
Horde’s race of undead aren’t called “The Forsaken” they’re called ‘Undead’.
The fact the Alliance ALSO have undead outside of Death Knights, for not just one but two elf races, quite literally indicates that the Horde no longer have an exclusive people of such a theme anymore …
F#%^ YOU HORDE PLAYERS!” — and could NOT have been expressed enough with that customisation decision and conscious choice made. Truly a tragic F you to Horde players, but even more-so the Forsaken.
The Alliance having the undead elves however, feels like them having the Forsaken or that very undead-theme & RP narrative that was exclusively limited to the Horde … I’d say it’s like a spit in the face to the Horde, but it’s more like a knife to the face.