The new Harronir race and the roots of Elun’Ahir sugest that we will have quite drudic content in the future. It would be strange if they forgot to include the first druid of Azeroth in the story of the first world tree. This is also the perfect opportunity to fix the terrible Malfurion lore from recent years.
Stormrage may not have got the worst writing in recent expansions, but it was definitely the most pathetic. Terrible dialogue in Val’sharah and being ignored for the rest of the Legion. Hilariously stupid one shot in the back and then being forgotten for the rest of the BFA. Zero Malfurion presence in Afterlife of druids and what’s worse in Emerald Dream. He’s Metzen favorite character (he said it himself, although it’s harder and harder to believe in it) So I think Malfurion should have some big role in his most ambitious project yet.
Malfurion should show his best side. And I’m taking about Malfurion from books. Baine got great quests in Dragonflight which slightly healed his reputation. Malfurion bad writing takes much longer, some might say even from vanilla.
His return already makes a lot of sense. The Black Blood that Orwenya and us examined is just Emerald nightmare 2.0 who is better suited to fight this corruption than a druid who has repeatedly been at the forefront of the fight against a similar void disease.
To do what? I mean, I generally agree that it’s shoddy world-building not to account for the powerful characters that are invested in the stories themes that you have lying around, but I still have to ask what you would like to see the devs do with him. I haven’t read much of the stuff that included him, but he seems to be absurdly powerful, and wih his ancient wisdom and deep communion with nature pretty much a fully-grown character that has no direction in which to develop and improve, or even to be really challenged as a person. I’m not surprised that the devs have no idea what to do with him. I wouldn’t either. He seems like a guy that should mentor some newer, more flawed character, and then get the traditional old, wise mentor treatment of dying to motivate his pupil. But I guess that wouldn’t be what you’d have in mind?
To help save the roots of Elun’ahir? If Gazlowe is a running 11.1 character, Malfurion may have this role in 11.2 or other root content. Orwenya clearly has a problem with black blood that merge with roots and sends you to the realm of nightmares. sounds similar? Malfurion has dealt with a similar plague since Wrath, so he has experience, with that kind of situations, which is just a repeat of Vordrassil.
Malfurion has quite a lot of room for development. The entire conflict with the Horde from vanilla to the burning of Teldrassil may have made him teach that complete neutrality wasn’t the best idea. His passive approach to conflict and his sole focus on the good of Dream only harmed his people and family. Maybe some time with Harranir would help him become more savage and a little more selfish (in a good way). Just as Thrall was torn apart between being world shaman and leader of the Horde, Malfurion would have had to choose the duties of Archdruid or safety his family.
Velen is even older and he got quit brilliant character development during Legion
So… the same thing that would happen with or without him? I mean, yeah, you can do that, I just don’t see a point in specifically asking for him to be there, if that’s what it is. I’m not really asking, if you could find something or him to do, I am rather asking, why having him do it would make the story more interesting or enjoyable. I’m not looking for the best man to save a world tree. I am looking for the characters that are most entertaining to watch doing it.
Yeah, that’s a non-starter in this post-faction game.
…okay, if that’s your standard for brilliant, I guess they could find something that you’d like.
Is it weird that I want a druid character in druid content? Malfurion will be much more logical and interesting to watch than a mage or a death knight trying to repair tree. Any character can be interesting to watch if they get good writing. The difference between him and the other characters,is that he’s fits thematically
I’m not saying he should immediately start crushing the Horde with roots. Although his cameo in Terror of Darkshore was great. Just let him learn to balance his job as head druid with the well-being of his people.I gave you just one of the ideas of what development Malfurion could get
He should’ve shown up more in Dragonflight, especially with the Emerald Dream playing a large part in that expansion. Very strange that he did not, really.
Don’t we have the Harronir themselves for that? I’d think they’d be just as expert with their own surroundings as any druid from above. Of course you could find something for a druid to do, but he wouldn’t really be filling a niche that wasn’t already covered. He wouldn’t have to, of course, but personally I don’t really think that he’d add much, if anything, if there is no narrative reason for him specifically to be there.
Apart from that… the mage or DK would probably the player character doing their quests. That’s content. So yeah, it would make more sense to leave that to them, than to fly in an NPC that doesn’t have to be there to take over, with us standing around and watching.
And to be honest, I have no clue how that idea would look like in practice. I could imagine a “stay a while and listen”, where he tells us that, or some content in a novel/novella where he reflects upon that, but I can’t really imagine a story about it. Teldrassil already happened, and the lesson would either have been learned by now or not. A bit late to make him realize that he might want to do something 9 years (going by the warcraft wiki timeline) after it happened.
And of course it’s just one example you came up with… but well, it’s not a persuasive one for me. I’m not trying to convince you of anything here, but I was curious about what you were thinking of in presenting us with this thread.
Orweyna cannot deal with the black blood on her own, she can stop it from growing for a while, but it is clearly emphasized in the Quest that she has no solution to this problem, someone clearly needs to help her with it. who is better suited for this than a night elf of Elune’s chosen race, a student of Cenarius, and a person who has repeatedly fought against the Void’s corruption of the World Trees
I mean NPCs. Warlocks and Death Knights players helping to save nature and the Na’ru. it’s a game mechanic. it wouldn’t make sense if one of these classes NPC started worrying about this tree
I’m not just talking about Teldrassil, although this event should make him more protective over Kaldorei. Let him face a situation where he would have to choose between stay to the rules he has followed for thousands of years and the ,better" choice that is not consistent with his moral code. As I said, Velen seemed like a character that couldn’t be developed, but they did it brilliantly in Legion. Maybe Malfurion should also follow a similar path. Let saving the roots require something that is completely inconsistent and even heretical in the eyes of the Cenarion Circle. Maybe in a life and death situation, let him use the magic of Emelrad Nightmare that would move him away from Cenarius teaching. Or let his stay in Ardnewald open the way for him to become a death druid, which most druids would find disgusting. Any character, if exists, has a chance to develop, I don’t know why you remove Malfurion from this list
There are many things they did terribly. However, Blizzard’s biggest sin, for me, is not allowing any Night Elves characters join the main plot. We finally meeting Azshara? Tyrande and Malfurion’s old archenemy? Let’s send Genn and Jaina to Nazjatar! We’re literally fighting Death in the Shadowlands. You know… the opposite of Life. Why we should bother add Malfurion to the story of Ardenweald or Tyrande to fight Jaliler. Like if Zoval is responsible for the suffering of the Kaldorei souls and Burning of Teldrassil or something? Jezz… I’m sure it’s a good time to give her a nap and wake her up after everything. But Jaina, Uther and Thrall must show up in the final fight. What? Do we have expansions about dragons with which the Kaldorei have an extremely close relationship? And then we get to THE Emerald dream where I fight for the future of the night elves. Let’s give Tyrande two quests where she kills more Night Elves, (for no reason) and Malfurion… Who again?
(And why Tyrande wasn’t there in the fight against Fyrakk? She was next to Alextrasza and Merithra the entire raid. she could also stand behind arena and support us, she didn’t have to receive Amidrassil’s blessing like the aspects, let be her just useful for a moment.)
I don’t want another 5 cinematics that don’t change anything or make everything worse. Give me some quests where Malf actually helps save the soul of Azeroth and fights next to us against the final bosses
Malfurion renders every story he appears in as useless simply because his power level is too damm high. That is the reason they set him to sleep back in Dragonflight since he would curbstump most enemies.
You really pointed to some of the most egregious lore missed opportunities. I would also add Legion, where Illidan literally revives with Tyrande right there next to him and they don’t interact or even have a single line of dialogue. It took the writing team about a year to come up with silly crystal messages to Malfurion and Tyrande after the forum outrage…
I used to be very vocal and active on the forums (like many lore/novel lovers); sadly it has been made apparent that the company does not care about lore. It’s a mere afterthought.
It’s shocking how incompetent the writing team has been over the years, and how they kept their jobs for so long. It’s evident that most of them have never read the novels or cared about Night Elves at all.
I am happy that some individual was sacked from the writing team, but the damage is done.
Malfurion level is too high - is one of the most senseless arguments that can be given. We fought against the fallen titan, the entire Old God and even the boss of the entire Afterlife. How big a threat do we have to fight for him to join us?
Yeah, I forgot about it. That was terrible.
I think writers simply prefer to focus on their personal favorites instead of characters who make sense in the story.
Look at the end of Amirdrassil raid. I expected an epic cinematic in which a tree going to grows on the Dragon Ilses shores or a Tyrande dealing the final blow to Fyrakk. Instead, we have lame and unexplained, blessing of the Aspects. We were in Dream after all, how did Azeroth manage to get there, combine its power with the heart of the tree and give her powers to the dragons? Aspects must have to look cool and important. That’s it. And Azeroth could bless them later through the Oathstone, it didn’t have to be the most boring ending of the expansion.
No, he can’t beat them solo. He could cause them problems, but I can’t imagine him beating all of them 1v1. However, his mere presence nearby would demonstrate the high level of threat we faced. Fighting mortals? Malfurion has more important things to do, but when the enemy is at the level of a demi-god or higher, having an ally of similar strength next to us, would better explain, how we managed to defeat the superhuman enemy than a random power of friendship.
Besides, even as a demigod he was kidnapped by a Satyr or surprised by an old orc’s axe. So even with his powers he’s not invincible and has weaknesses that the enemy can use against him.
I do not get where you guys get the whole " Malfurion is so strong he is on another level" .
As far as I can remember every time my character met him , he was either useless or lost . He only got a win in Hyjal .
Vanilla trough WOTLK >>> Sleeping
Cataclysm > Fixed Theldrassil and stopped Ragnaros ( with lots of help) . Of course , after that he did absolutely nothing to help save the world from the real threat Deathwing .
Pandaria and WOD > No where to be found
Legion > Got slapped by Xavius , lost Yesera and Cenarion and stood channeling a portal the whole raid , because he was too afraid to get corrupted . Did 0 to help his Brother Illidan save the world and was not present in any of the events after the Xavius thing .
BFA > Was so useful and OP , that he Let the horde burn Teldrasil with everyone in it . Lost Drakshore and allowed his wife to turn into a crazed moon monster to chase the horde off .
Shadowlands > Basically was MIA
Dragonflight > best part Went to sleep the whole expansion to take useless Yesera out of the Shadowlands , after which she did absolutely nothing , got tired and decided that its more fun to do Nothing in The shadowlands . He woke up , hugged his wife and finally threw the towel saying he is tired . For all we know he is probably sleeping (YET AGAIN) under some bench around Amirdrassil . Honestly I pity Tyrande .
In warcraft 3 Archimonde considered Malfurion the only noteworthy opponent on the planet. Which speaks for itself. But most of this stuff comes from books like War of the Ancients, Stormrage, and Elegy. There, he was not presented as a total loser but great and powerfull character which is why, so many people stick to the book version of Malfurion. Unfortunately the game/wow POV is the most important, so probably 90% of players only know him from the terrible dialogue in the game.
Despite this, the game’s lore shows him as a huge threat to the horde under Teldrassil or his importance in the cycle of life and death when he was the only one who could replace Ysere in the Shadowland. So sometimes he looks strong.
From vanilla to WOD his absence is not a big problem. Other characters can fill roles that Stormrage could have been given. However, since Legion he should be one of the main characters and there is no explanation for his absence other than laziness and terrible decisions of the writers
hey! This is one of the best and somehow logical directions Tyrande could have gone. The Night Warrior storyline in BFA was great. but, definitely too short
I personally saw the Night warrior storyline being too self righteous, they should have added more spins to it cause for me it felt like Tyrande just going into full blown rage mode and then ignoring everything else around which is dangerous path to go for
They should add ANYTHING to this story. The strange lack of Night warrior in the rest of BFA and Shadolands shows that no one really cared about developing this part of the lore. What annoys me more is the obvious favorism of other characters. Everyone is worried about Anduin and sends us to find him all the time. When only Shandris seems to care about Tyrande in one of the side zones.
Tyrande’s rage is another point of discussion. Jaina, Anduin, Sylvanas even Uther, had plenty of time to talk about and try overcome their traumas. For some reason someone was always there to support them. No one even tried to understand Tyrande at all and the writers used the laziest way out of this mess. They just use Elune to calm Wisperwind down. It’s such a huge lack of respect for your own character which is even more annoying when you see characters around her treated much better at the same time.
To me the Night warrior looked like she was going straight Illidan Mode . Hell I remember thinking " And she was bashing Illidan for being a bad boy , when they are practically the same" . I was expecting her to rip her shirt and yell " I AM MY SCARS" (wouldn’t that have been a good show )She even used glaives and had glowing tattoos , just changed fel , for … I don’t know … ?shadow? … ?Void? .
Btw do we know what kind of Magic that was ? Elune magic doesn’t cut it , considering we have the whole Chronicles magic chart now . It did not look like light magic to me . It looked more shadow/void/arcane .
Also On the trauma thing . Thank the writes they did not do this . If anything all those traumacraft stories need to be deleted from the game . Grown man , warriors at that , crying me a river over their feel-feels is just a big NO . For Tyrande even more so , considering she is 10000 years old , a Leader of a nation , A warrior Priest and has a Husband who should be there for her in these moments . It is definitely not something the player should get involved in , at all . They did her a service by not writing traumacraft for her .
)She even used glaives and had glowing tattoos , just changed fel , for … I don’t know … ?shadow? … ?Void? .