"Why are Night elf Fans so Angry"

Lore Story Forum
562

Jesus Christ.

Man and I thought the Sylvanas novel was bad for its handling of Forest Trolls. Especially because there was a really interesting theme there where Sylvanas had the shoe on the other foot. She finds herself being regarded as a thoughtless monster to be destroyed by her old allies and is now allying with Trolls.

But the books not interested in being that interesting so, we waltz right pass that so we can speed run to Sylvanas aligning with Satan because he correctly guessed how many jelly beans were in the jar or w/e.

And ya know fair enough that’s not what the book is trying to be about, and this is a pretty brutal world where we wipe thinking, feeling humanoids off the map because they’re being mildly annoying all the time.

But after Zandalar I kinda figured they’d figured that it was pretty screwed up to make the race styled after Afro-Carribean and Mesoamerican culture be a bunch of jibbering backwards savages we are obliged to constantly massacare. And course corrected by making the Zandalari the most opulent and imperial faction who while far from perfect are certainly not uncivilized or stupid. In fact they kinda seem to look down on us, which is easy to do from a golden pyramid being protected by the special effects from Jurassic Park.

It’s like watching someone relapse. “Anywho now the @ryan is going to teach this godless jungle idiot how to read”.

I suppose I should read it myself to judge it properly but I’m not buying a coffee table artbook. I’ve nowhere to put that and in the age of smartphones their purpose is kinda defunct.

Also seriously I can’t write the word for the Indo-Iranian culture a buncha looney tune freaks decided was there’s? Because ancient Germany was mostly dudes in wolf pelts killing eachother with stone tools and they were too embarrassed to admit that?

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563

Yeah.
You’d think they’d learned a thing or two by now but they are still utterly incapapable of anything that goes beyond empty virtue signaling.
I mean, they changed a picture of a scantily dressed woman to a bowl of fruit because this is obviously more offensive than repeatedly turning their only matriarchally led race into victims that need the help of the much stronger and much more sensible human male…

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564

That remains hilarious to me. Literal objectification.

And what amuses me is they know how to play ball. The Pandaren seemed to be pretty well received by Chinese audiences and I can see why.

I’m not an expert of Chinese culture so I can’t really judge offhand how accurate or respectful it is. But it is clearly trying to be respectful. There’s a real effort made.

And it’s 100% there to win over the CCP censors who would probably have banned the game if they took the same approach to their culture as they do to Trolls. And frankly I would actually agree with them for once because there’s genuinely no reason to be that disrespectful.

So they can make the effort. They just won’t.

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565

Initially during Cata after the quest Astranaar reset to being under attack. They changed it when the Alliance backlash over the questing experience started. It was one of the many things that rolled out unfinished.

If you did the quest initially during early Cata, got tuned off of the content and never went back you might not have noticed. I did that with Westfall. If I ever do Westfall anymore I stop before the end.

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566

One of the most recent interviews, the Live Twitter one I believe with Ion and Danuser, mentioned the Tirisfall stuff for 9.2.5 stuff upcoming would have people catching up with Calia. (Wowhead misspelled it Talia which caused confusion over Calia or Taelia, but it was Calia).

I guess she will be sticking around going forward.

567

We lost the entire zone and city in which we started out. We lost those who we formed a lot of memories with and for some their first memories of WoW were in Teldrassil.
My first character was a night elf. I had a ton of memories of experiences there.

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568

Still in game.
Tirisfal was also reaved in the story.
Both can still be visited.
Blizzard assured the Alliance trees can be regrown.
We’re not going to see Saurfang again.

569

Probably adding some quests. There is datamined stuff for it already.

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570

Your quest givers survived and can still be visited again. Ours didn’t.

571

A ton of yours did.
So many night elves survived that the largest city on the entire planet overflowed into the next zone.

And quest givers don’t mean anything. Main characters do. Racial leaders represent races and factions. Saurfang died.

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572

It honestly puts a lot in perspective, especially older content as well.
Remember the dwarf starting zone in both vanilla and revamped cata, both have you kill frostmane troll whelps to teach the frostmane a lesson. A lot of players claim it’s not actually children you’re killing, but the NPCs with whelp in their name that’s the quest objective are only half the size of the other regular trolls around the area, around the same height as a dwarf even.
It’s quite spectacular what’s been overlooked in the game.

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573

That is a really weird model in that it is just the standard adult model shrunk to half the size. I had assumed it was a glitch when I first encountered them.

There are children models in the game of other races that look like actual children not miniature versions of adult models. They even did actual troll children in Zanadalar.

It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of other players write that off as a glitch as well as opposed to what they meant the quest to be having you do.

574

Thing is that the quest is originally from vanilla (with only a text change in the later cata version) when we only had human and orc child models. So there was no one to use for trolls.
We only got any troll child model during BFA and it was the zandalari, we still don’t have one for tribal trolls.
That coupled with the naming and shrunken size clearly indicates that it’s not adult trolls you’re slaying.

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575

Again, I had just wrote it off as a glitch and odds are most players do. Even more likely with new players today that see all the children models that didn’t exist back then.

It is also the only place I am aware of where this happens in the entire game, even in other areas with Trolls.

I get what they were trying to do with that quest but the implementation and (very) limited implementation really leads to a misconception that someone made an error or a glitch went unfixed when a player just rolls through the quest and moves on to the next one.

You have to stop and think about it to realize the model size was intentional and what they were trying to portray with the quest. The quest would have more of an impact if they put an actual child model there but given the children aren’t pvp-enabled it makes me think it wouldn’t happen.

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576

Cities are generally full of people so a city getting overflooded by refugees is not that impressive.

I know logic is really hard for you to understand but don’t worry. You will get it next time!

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577

Misconceptions are only possible if you struggle with english.

Whelp

nounarchaic
noun: whelp; plural noun: whelps

1.
a puppy.
    a cub.
    "let the lioness suckle her whelps"
2.
a boy or young man (often as a disparaging form of address).
"too high and mighty to call her ‘Mam’—isn't that so, whelp?"

Definition of whelp

(Entry 1 of 2)

1 : any of the young of various carnivorous mammals and especially of the dog

2 : a young boy or girl
Definition of whelp (Entry 2 of 2)

transitive verb

: to give birth to —used of various carnivores and especially the dog

intransitive verb

: to bring forth young

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578

Here’s the thing, I don’t think any of that is inherently a problem.

It becomes a problem when there’s no moral ambiguity. That could be a dark but interesting quest. Both a green eared adventurer, much like a new player, might not know enough about Trolls to know those are at best adolescents.

So finding that out could be an amazing

Are we the baddies?

Moment. Is Ironforge the worst faction? No. Are they averse to butchering women and children to get their way? Also no. That would let you know hey this is a brutal world, and at best you’re just a lesser evil.

Where it becomes a problem is when the game never suggests any moral ambiguity. You are right to murder these people. They are unreasonable to the point of self sabotage and will kidnap your family as sacrifices for gruesome blood magic rituals to earn the favor of depraved gods. Quite literally get them before they get you.

And here’s the thing; this is a MMORPG. I’m not expecting every single Kill XYZ quest to be some Apocalypse: Now delve into the madness of war. Nor would I want it to be, frankly. Yeah these are humanoids with the capacity for reason who are probably deserving of empathy but the dude with an exclamation mark over his head said he’d give me 15 gold so let God sort 'em out.

Just don’t do that to the NPCs you’ve styled after IRL cultures who’ve been historic victims of a callous, genocidal mindset. Because it’s not fun. I’m all for being an anti hero but I’m not trying to be Leopold II here. Especially not if the game then says my actions were heroic.

Darkshore actually does this pretty well. Because the Shatterspear are jungle trolls from Stranglethorn who moved there. And the Nelves made a non aggression treaty with them. Which they violated so you wipe them out.

And yeah thats fine. Not like the Nelves conquered their sacred lands. The Trolls are quite literally colonists and the Nelves tried to let bygones be bygones.

And it actually goes an extra step here because the Shatterspear were goaded into war by Garrosh’s empty promises. And that’s set up because there’s multiple Nelves more baffled than angry. They’d gotten along perfectly well just agreeing to ignore eachother so what changed?

I really thoroughly enjoyed that quest. Because the Trolls aren’t witless savages with nothing but legitimate greviances who you nevertheless mow down by the dozen. They’re guests in Nelf lands, guests who were allowed to make a home here if they agreed to not get any ideas about expansion. Then they broke that agreement not because they’re kill crazy barbarians but because they got tricked by a madman.

It’s genuinely a good story and a fun questline with a properly climatic finale. My only problem with it is one of the earlier questlines in Darkshore and is so much better than everything else there that it really sets your expectations too high. If anything that should’ve been the zone finale.

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579

There was something….I dunno, simply AMAZING about riding on the top of a Ancient as you moonfire every troll in your way. It’s one of those quests that really shown how brutal the Kaldorei can be to those who cross them.

And that’s all NE fans want. To have their fangs back, shown why their enemies may have hated them, but also had a begrudging respect for them. :wolf:

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580

I get that because yeah it’s kickass to stomp around on Treebeard’s back, atomizing fools with Elune’s orbital satellite lasers.

“If a tree leaves no survivors, does it make a sound?”

I’ve also mentioned how I’m pretty partial to the Forsaken questlines but I really didn’t care for Darkshore. Because there’s no moral ambiguity there you’re objectively the bad guys and I’m getting really sick of Blizz finger wagging at me for ish it made me do.

In Silverpine the Forsaken are the invaders. But from their perspective you’re being strong armed into this idiotic war by a mad man who very clearly does not respect you and is not concerned if you’re wiped out.

Hence why removing that 'watch your mouth you clever female dog line was insane. Blizz it’s okay if the bad guys are misogynistic. They’re villains. They’re not meant to be aspirational. Yeah weirdos will think otherwise but we can’t idiot proof society.

It’s a good line because it shows you precisely how much Garrosh respects the Forsaken. Far as he’s concerned it’s a win win situation because either he gets a new port or is down some allies he clearly hates anyway.

And the Worgen are really making it clear they’re not interested in moral highground. They also turn people then march them into a killing field just for the distraction. Suicide bombs, ambush tactics, killing surrendering soldiers- they do it all. So, you’re

A. Forced into this was at gunpoint

B. Fighting an enemy that is so ruthless they give Meanie McGhostboobs pause.

So no I dont feel bad about the countless worgen I killed with psychic brain trauma because they demonstrated many, many times they’d do the same.

And the humans have been nothing but ********. Most of these mfers aren’t even Lordaeronian. It’s some *****from Stormwind who decided you don’t get to have a home because he thinks you’re not a person. Well if they want to treat me like a monster, I’ll show them one.

Darkshore though you’re invading for no discernable reason with just reckless, directionless hatred. You really don’t feel a reason to dislike the Nelves as a Forsaken. They’re not invading your territory. And yeah you’re being strong armed by a dictator again but there’s no indication this is involuntary. I’m pretty sure your average Forsaken soldier isn’t even sure where tf they are. It’s just baffling.

And it crosses into insulting because there could’ve been an actually compelling story there if the Forsaken were fighting in Arathi. Because in regards to humanity the Forsaken actually have a genuinely stellar point.

You’d probably crush a spider if you found one crawling along your hand as you read this. But if a butterfly were to land on it, it’d probably improve your mood, even though arachnids are vastly more beneficial than harmful to us. Only a handful are genuinely dangerous and most devour other insects like mosquitoes that actually manage a higher body count than humanity does.

But you’d still crush the spider. Or perhaps not you but most people would. Because we kill things without pretty wings.

At their best the Forsaken ask Who’s the real monster here?.

In BFA they turn into the most boring possible version of undead factions. Psychos who’ve elected to murder everything because they’ve a skull for a face.

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581

Silverpine will always remain the greatest show of what we worgen players wanted from the worgen from the beginning. Both sides throwing everything they had against the other to wipe them out. Even the forsaken reached that point of We might be monsters…but damn, these wolf men are really giving us a run for our money in the lack of morality department

I’ll forever be disappointed they gave us that little tidbit and than…did absolutely nothing with it afterwards. I could honestly see the hatred between the forsaken and worgen as being the catalyst that ignited a global war, because each side just kept upping the stakes.

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