No. The War of Thorns should be used by the night elves to go back to their Long Vigil “roots” and remain delocalised and available through Northern Kalimdor, constantly on guard for new attacks. They amp up their borders in Ashenvale but have mobile delocalised settlements (as their buildings actually allow them to do with the Ancients) and reinforcements from the Vindicaar and LF draenei in Ashenvale.
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Pretty much stopped reading after “Forsaken revere Sylvanas as a God”
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Can you elaborate on why you don’t think that’s a good idea?
Eh.
I’m on record as a big fan of PvP but the BGs being little asides of questionable canon is fine. The nature of competitive PvP demands maps that are static and offer a variety of game modes that wouldn’t add up storywise.
As for storied PvP - I honestly think us RPPvPers do a good enough job of that on our own. On ED at least we’ve run RPPVP campaigns with the factions havinv to take/defend a region to then move on to another (one went SoS -> Blasted Lands -> Hellfire -> Zangarmarsh -> Bladespire -> Netherstorm). With some fights taking place in some strange areas chosen for their comparable ghost run times. All in the pursuit of a McGuffin for the plot.
The unbalanced and chaotic nature of WPvP made these pretty fun, but was tempered by community agreement on some basic ground rules (no flyers, after wiping a group let them retreat, zero to minimal off realm aid, etc).
I could maybe see Blizz attempting something similar with a fort system similar to the ill-fated Warhammer Online. But seeing how disastrously the Assaults were handled in BFA I’m going to go out on a limb and say it won’t work well.
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Because as poorly as they handled Sylvanas, the reality is that she ran off and didn’t give a toss about them. The entire Forsaken race deciding to engage in a collective delusion about that fact is silly. They can (and should) reject Calia at every turn. She is not Forsaken, and will never understand what that name entails.
I don’t want to seem hyperbolic, but it just reeks of the abused running back to their abuser. This is a chance for them to break free of that.
This doesn’t mean they should reject the core tenets of what being Forsaken means, but to deludedly revere Sylvanas is just not a good idea. You can explore how the individualistic society of the Forsaken deals with these fractures, and I think that would be good - no Forsaken is like another, and they all need to come to terms with their longest and only leader having seen them as pawns, and an Alliance who seems quite adamant on pushing Calia and the light-infused undead upon them.
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Ah yes the kyalin cult. almost forgot about you guys.
Nothing against the idea but it gets tiresome with the crossposting.
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The goal behind Kyalin’s is kind of two fold. The first goal is to make Forsaken fans and Nelf fans feel validated in choosing to play those races and the second goal is for their questing experience in the mentioned zones to end with leading into the Battlegrounds. Not to give those battlegrounds a canon conclusion.
For whatever reason the WoW forums are the only Blizz forums that require you to pay to post. And since I’m currently enjoying Classic I offered to be her liaison again.
11/10 would play.
edit:
Forgot about that line because of the length of the post. The night elves don’t need Teldrassil back. We need a new capital, certainly, and I like your friend’s verticality angle, but it doesn’t have to be Teldrassil.
It’s probably a terrible idea that would forever cement the Forsaken as villainous people but also really interesting?
Don’t have to change the Forsaken flag. “Dark Lady watch over you” is still a thing. Racial leaders like Calia would still have to keep her legacy in mind so the race doesn’t change radically from its original intent. Gives the Forsaken a bit of unique substance in their faith. If Sylvanas is stopped and her fate is uncertain / she’s thrown into the Maw after achieving semi-godhood, I could see it.
I also like the idea of Anduin losing legitimacy upon his return, Stormwind finally industrializing, and the return of the orcish clans. Though I’m not sure “undo all consequences of BFA” is a good idea with a regrown Teldrassil and rebuilt Undercity.
The idea that Sylvanas is still revered as a Forsaken hero to me is totally fine. She is the one who lead the Forsaken into being what they are now. It’s the same deal with say, Grommash. A character who is flawed, and has done bad things, but is still honored in their faction.
I simply don’t like the verbiage of being revered as a god.
All good faction conflict stories need is conflict of interest.
Each side needs to believe their leadership and expansion is the best thing for Azeroth. Each side should be fighting for their own Pax Horda/ Pax Allianca. Each side should have redeeming values, where playerbases can say their faction has the higher moral highground. And both should be fighting over limited resources and unable to forgive or forget centuries of distrust and antagonism.
The faction conflict has failed in BFA and Cata/MoP, because the Horde quickly became the “bad guys.” Alliance players don’t like being told they have moral parity with a faction they clearly don’t, and Horde players don’t like having to participate in civil war to reclaim a shred of their faction’s founding identity.
(Also, faction losses tend to hurt far more than faction wins feel good. I.e. I don’t really care that Teldrassil was burned, but I care a lot about the Zandalari navy being destroyed. Perhaps the next faction conflict should limit injuries to both sides and focus more on gaining new allies/territory/powers/weapons/etc.)
I challenge it’s because Teldrassil was utterly worthless before it became a martyr for the alliance playerbase. No one cared about Teldrassil except for night elf roleplayers.
I would’ve fist pumped if we proved Ironforge wasn’t impregnable, though.
Holy crap do I want to successfully invade and defeat Ironforge without cheating or murdering civilians.
Treng continuing to prove that he’s only concerned with his own enjoyment of the game and no one else’s.
Cialis, continuing to prove that she does not read and that context doesn’t matter to her.
::He would gently hold your hand as he leads you upon the path to understanding::
If the premise of BFA is “both factions have to lose a capital city” then Ironforge is the only fair trade for Lordaeron City, which is the most important city in the setting. Ironforge has never been broken, never been successfully defeated. For us to lose the city that put the Warcraft setting on the map, this is the only acceptable trade.
Teldrassil is to Lordaeron City as ten cents are to one hundred thousand dollars.
You can be intelligent and reject this notion in it’s entirety or you can be selfish and whine that you didn’t get to destroy the experience of a different base of players on the other side of the fence.
Maybe to people who are fans of lawful stupid overdrive.
Yeah, it was totes Teldrassil – the city/zone that did not exist – and the Night Elves that made Warcraft 3 a smash hit. That was why the expansion pack – the Frozen Throne – was entirely, strictly, and only about the Night Elves.
Oh it’s one of those kyalin doesn’t understand basic themes times
What happened to blizzard wasn’t gonna recover from bfa mhmmm
Hey Yag, Kyalin wanted me to post this reply from her to you.
Hello Yagarr, I think you’re generally correct in what you’re saying there, but you are missing a critical element. I don’t blame you for missing this element because it generally is not within the Horde player’s experience, but it’s important to consider in relation to rebalancing the rivalry: The ability to be respected and feared by the other side. The Horde has this in spades. If you cross them, they will dismantle your whole military. The War of the Thorns tells us that they can do this, and most importantly, it does so in visual language. Visual language is far stronger than text will ever be, and I think lore nerds in general need to appreciate that most people don’t read books, most people don’t pay attention to dev interviews, and most people don’t even read quest text. When they do, that information doesn’t override what’s put in front of their face - this is why I shrug off claims that the Horde should feel worthless when Nathanos claims that they’re losing on all fronts. What’s that next to fully rendered cinematics of the Horde incinerating an entire country worth of their enemies? What’s that next to the Horde’s very aesthetic? Their usual appearance of dominance in cinematics, artwork, and environmental design? The Alliance largely doesn’t have this. You can riposte with “Jaina”, which partially is fair enough, but what consolation is that to me as a Night Elf player? What does Jaina tell a Dwarf player about their abilities? How about a Draenei player? The answer is “not much” because she just ends up outshining everyone around her - I can’t even claim that the typical Stormwind footman is anyone to be concerned about - not so with a grunt.
This imbalance needs to be corrected too, and in the biggest trouble spots (yes, Night Elves), that does mean we need a strong refutation of the notion that they’re the free kill in the faction war. I think the best analogy that the Horde have to reference to here is Zandalar - and Zandalari players got screwed. They were told that they were this powerful nation with a strong military. Then the Alliance bursts into their house and kills their king. Then they leave for reasons of mercy. This is shot-for-shot what the Night Elf experience felt like to me in the past 10 years - but especially in regards to the War of the Thorns - and it ends in the same gross way that suggestions that the Horde simply give Ashenvale back to the Night Elves appear to me: you didn’t take what was yours back because you could, you got it because your opponent felt bad for you - and that feeling sucks. I don’t want to dive too deep into that as a topic of its own, but I hope it gets you thinking about the impact of morale from our perspective as well. Soldiers do refuse to fight when they think their side is failing them - I don’t think it’s different for players. It’s certainly where I’m at.
Going forward, this is where I disagree with the one thing Treng contributed - his desire to conquer Ironforge. Again, it’s natural to want your side to completely trash the other - but victories that crushing destroy the ability to have the rivalry because of that demoralization. I’ve said this many times: no one cherishes their rivalry with the Cleveland Browns, because the Browns suck. For an MMO, this means that yes, you should not comprehensively humiliate a nation’s military and burn down their capitol. If you want to dominate your opponents, then grind out your PVP gear, work on your strategies, and get that feeling of victory from your own efforts, not from Blizzard handing you a win. Going forward, it also means that, while we yes, look for ways to boost the Horde’s reasons for being in a conflict, that we also look for ways to make the Alliance appear more threatening, and hence, more appealing for someone who wants to roll a powerful-feeling character so that they can indulge in the notion that they’re a powerful conqueror, or an indomitable protector, or whathaveyou based on the work they put in, and the play they engage in.
Alright - so I haven’t been able to respond to some of the feedback from this. Now I can.
No. The War of Thorns should be used by the night elves to go back to their Long Vigil “roots” and remain delocalised and available through Northern Kalimdor, constantly on guard for new attacks. They amp up their borders in Ashenvale but have mobile delocalised settlements (as their buildings actually allow them to do with the Ancients) and reinforcements from the Vindicaar and LF draenei in Ashenvale.
I don’t see why this has to be a choice. As for Teldrassil itself - I used to hold that position, but I increasingly see Teldrassil or some kind of a permanent settlement being the route to further development. My personal bias is definitely creeping in here, but I’d love the graft the “layered city” idea that the Deus Ex’s Hengsha island showcased - just a lot more spread out, using more levels, and accomplished via wisp construction and druidism. I think that Night Elves need to have some answer for things like trade, working with other nations, and industrialization. I’d like to see them put their own spin on it, and make it uniquely theirs, but even so.
Because as poorly as they handled Sylvanas, the reality is that she ran off and didn’t give a toss about them. The entire Forsaken race deciding to engage in a collective delusion about that fact is silly. They can (and should) reject Calia at every turn. She is not Forsaken, and will never understand what that name entails.
I don’t want to seem hyperbolic, but it just reeks of the abused running back to their abuser. This is a chance for them to break free of that.
This doesn’t mean they should reject the core tenets of what being Forsaken means, but to deludedly revere Sylvanas is just not a good idea. You can explore how the individualistic society of the Forsaken deals with these fractures, and I think that would be good - no Forsaken is like another, and they all need to come to terms with their longest and only leader having seen them as pawns, and an Alliance who seems quite adamant on pushing Calia and the light-infused undead upon them.
I think I could have been more careful with the “god” phrasing. This came from an idea that I and others kicked around with a Blood Elf fan, who is pretty adamant in his belief that Sylvanas is such a central tenet to forsaken identity that removing her entirely just isn’t feasible. This was an attempt to make her impact on the Forsaken identity lasting - because right now, without their central character, the Forsaken don’t have an independent identity - and the options for rebuilding that identity … well, I get the strong sense that they don’t appeal to forsaken players. I’m certainly open to other suggestions here of course. I’m not a Forsaken fan, so I can’t claim to know what they want as well as they do.
What happened to blizzard wasn’t gonna recover from bfa mhmmm
The next 10K should be pretty interesting as a comparative note. But, you’re mistaken if you believe that something of the size of WoW can go down all at once. I believe we are witnessing further decline. I’d like to see that decline reversed.