Well… so that was that.
I hope you enjoyed the revenge that the Night Warrior dealt out, because it seems Tyrande’s wrath was healed by magic, as expected. The actions of the Night Warrior weren’t really her actions. Tyrande can now make the same expected turn towards peace with the Horde that everyone else did.
Whew, that was close, there were almost some conflicting motivations within the Alliance! Good thing we dodged that bullet!
So, as everyone and their mother could see coming, the Night Warrior was a completely bullcrap plot device that barely gave any new powers to Tyrande apart from some edgy SFX, barely achieved anything other than finishing off an undead with a bow (and that was apparently all according to plan, somehow), barely did anything in SLs, and by leaving, Tyrande is cured from her “vengeance” because apparently being loyally pissed at those responsible for committing genocide on your people is wrong and an illness to be cured.
Bloody 11/10 message there Blizzard, good job.
Like, I am not even mad. At this point, I am along to see how deep the hole of the WC story can get, while praying to whatever pantheon we are dealing with this week that blizzard keeps forgetting that my beloved dwarves exist.
Yeah, nothing unexpected here. What I have the most trouble understanding is why they couldn’t throw in a nelf fanservice short story, where Tyrande’s activities after her ascension were hyped up. I mean, it would still be a cheap plot device, but at least they would have pretended to care. And how expensive can some 6-page fanfiction be?
It would cost us at least two raid tiers, of course. Have you seen prices on art commissions lately?
Well, I guess in California you have to compensate them for the stuff they do on the casting couch somehow…
I’d normally be more bothered about the fact that yet another Alliance character is bailed out of the consequences of going down a dark path, or taking on some shady power.
But Blizzard has made such an underwhelming presentation (*) of said power-up, that all i think of is that its only but a fair trade off.
You should probably go over the Ardenweald campaign.
And I’ll repeat, that this is a power-up that has historically KILLED every other user that tapped into it.
You can downplay what was achieved with it, but fact is, that she was also spared of the consequences that come with it.
(*) Bolding the word here because regardless of how poorly presented it was, it was still a boost that granted her enough powers to solo Maw forces that overwhelmed every other protagonist, and also helped her rescue the majority of the Night elf souls out of the maw, and waltz as if nothing, through a prison designed to contain the most dangerous souls in existence.
Dark path is killing the Horde members? Just some numbers, Horde is in Azeroth for ~30 years, and in this 30 years the Horde have started 4 World Wars with genocide e.t.c
Hating and fighting against the Horde members is not a Dark Path, its actually is a justice. Any person who will decide to fight against the Horde, will automatically can call self as hero by default…
P.S. Regarding the thread. No matter how bad the story goes, until my Tyrande lives, I will keep playing =)
No.
“Dark path” is accepting and being imbued by dark energies known to consume it’s bearer.
The war when Garrosh led the Horde was technically started by Varian after the wrathgate, and the Alliance attacked in Force with support of Theramore (breaking neutality unprovoked) before the Horde could recover from Deathwings Cataclysm.
Also they started with the warcrimes (torturing Prisoners of War in the Barrens wich was timeline-wise the first battle of the war)
Yes, we all know Garrosh was bad, but it’s not like the Alliance kept their hands clean. They gave him plenty of reason to fight a dirty war.
The person responsible in Wrathgates accident is - Sylvanas…
This Meta-Knowledge of a Retcon that was added 10 years later to fit with an as*pulled storyline doesn’t change the Fact that Varian declared War and his troops started it with Warcrimes.
Garrosh didn’t have a choice fighting a war that was forced upon him. And his desperation and character-traits made him fight the war with all he got.
Also just for the sh*ts and giggles: Theramore was a legitimate Target and not a Warcrime.
Actually no. I think it was a AskCDev, but Blizzard has already said that the Horde started that war by invading Ashenvale.
Two things.
Theramore is not, and never has been, neutral. It has always been a member nation of the Grand Alliance.
And the first battle of that war was the invasion of Ashenvale, not the Barrens.
Theramore invaded the Barrens to split the Horde’s military ensuring they could not bring the entire weight of their military into Ashenvale.
Uh, the torture, invasion, imprisonment and enslavement of gnomes and night elves in Ashenvale doesn’t count I guess.
Good to know.
How can the Horde start a War after the King of Stormwind declared War?
Or did they retcon this too?
During the Battle of Undercity after the Wrathgate Varian declared war…
Also while Theramore was part of the Alliance as a whole it also was used and treated as a neutral city for negotiations.
And the Attack in Ashenvale that broke the ceasefire (there was no peace after Varian declared war) was comitted by the Twilight Hammer.
Like I said: Garrosh definitely escalated, but the Alliance started the War.
And if some guy in an interview said something else a few years after, he simply forgot the story they told in game and novels.
ps. The declaration of War by Varian after the Wrathgate seems to still be canon, since it was the reason there were so many PvP-dailies in Ice-crown.
But tbh. who knows at this point. Even Blizzard lost track of their own stories and change it with every whim.
By that logic, the Horde started the war because of either the Wrathgate, the attack on Southshore, the continued invasion of Ashenvale or the attack on the Alliance forces heading into Icecrown (which got attacked by the Horde in the back).
Well, seeing as this thread looks like it’s going into another Bash-The-Horde-A-Thon or another cavalcade of crying about Teldrassil, I’ll just add this here and stop:
Disappointing. Incredibly disappointing.
I have fallen favour with Tyrande and the Night Elves a lot and i’m not going to hide that the constant meta-crying about it rather than making a good story has a part to play in that, but I honestly had expected much better.
The Night Warrior was a true gamble. But apart from the Ardenweald quest, we are only told of how much of a gamble it is. We don’t see it, nor do we experience it enough. Once again, I am left personally feeling that there is no impact, no substance to what they’re trying to do or deal with.
Would it have been so bad to capitalize on this gamble? Are evil-doers, motivated by reasoning or not, the only capable individual with a brain realistic enough to play with a risk and actually see its consequences in full?
At this rate, apparently so.
At least it wasn’t by the magic of Anduin’s -wise beyond his years- words 
But yeah, no surprise here at all. All together now: Vengeance is baaaaaaaaad!
No one cares if she lives, it seems. Sad 
The mana bomb was the war crime.
Yes they did, just so that Garrosh could be the one to start the war.
Also, lets not forget that the King of Stormwind couldn’t unilaterally declare war for the entire Grand Alliance back then, he wasn’t the Supreme Allied Commander yet.
That’s why Jaina Proudmoore went “lol, nope” and teleported the entire army present away.
I honestly think that people are wilfully focusing on how underwhelming the whole display was, and downplaying (consciously or not) the fact that Blizzard just made Tyrande weasel out of a sure death sentence.
Aparently, the Night Warrior “curse” spells doom for any being across the galaxy…except if that being in particular is called Tyrande.
It’s conclusion makes me wonder about why bother with it at all.
Just make Tyrande go through the same stuff as Jaina or Thrall.
If you are going to bail out of having it bear any relevant consequence and fail to showcase its perks with sufficient gravitas, then leave out this whole debacle.
PS:
And i will probably will get a lot of hate for saying this, but i honestly do not understand the point of Blizzard focusing so much on Night elf issues.
Did they face a huge loss in the previous war? Sure they did.
But didn’t pretty much every race face the same?
Weren’t entire armies killed and sent to the Maw as well? Why aren’t they getting this Get Out of Jail plot card?
The difference is that the night elves lost their capital city and the majority of their population (don’t forget refugees fled to Teldrassil during the War of Thorns and the mages couldn’t get them out fast enough), the Horde marched through their entire nation and captured or destroyed every city, town or base they encountered and the night elves weren’t supported by other races while this was all happening.
Now compare that to Lordaeron, where the Alliance marched through Brill, sieged Undercity, then lost at Undercity while nearly the entire Forsaken population was able to evacuate and they were backed by orcs, tauren, trolls and blood elves.
Basicly, the night elves lost their entire nation until the end of BfA where they recaptured one zone. The Forsaken lost two cities and kept all their other zones, towns, bases and villages. Heck, I’d dare say that Tirisfal Glades is still mostly a Forsaken zone since they still have 2 military bases, a town and a few homesteads/villas there, while Teldrassil is a burned out husk visible for everyone.
I’m not comparing it with Lordaeron alone.
I’m talking about the fact that taking the population numbers of Night elves, discounting those part of the army sent to Silithus, the ones that still battled in Ashenvale and Darkshore, those that managed to get evacuated from the tree, and those that lived elsewhere, and take into account all that’s left as victims of the burning of Teldrassil, and compare said number with all those that had been dying since Legion to this day (all of which were apparently being sent to the Maw), the number is indeed pitiful.
And yet, they are the only collective that is targeted as relevant enough in the narrative, to have some plot device handle them a Get out of Jail/Maw card.
While also being specifically addressed as a relevant point of a full fourth of the endgame content.
EDIT: For full disclosure, I’m not against it being tackled in some way. I just don’t get this whole fixation on it, to the point its a relevant issue to be expanded across every faction/collective. It’s like having Horde/Alliance characters suddenly growing some overnight concern over the dudes they’ve been hating and killing during all the previous year ( Horde saving Jaina, Alliance saving Thrall).