Remember that on this forums there were many holy wars about the fact that the Night Elves race was almost fully wiped out during the War of the Ancient?
And many Horde players were trying to prove that its a lie, that nothing bad have happened to Night Elves, and other races have it worse?
Well after 3 years, we finally got confirmation that Night Elves actually were almost wiped out of:
“I would say those two figures have a lot to – I don’t know if ‘resolve’ is the right word, because can you ever resolve something that happens on the scale of an entire civilization nearly being wiped out? There is going to be some very heavy interaction between those characters, and that is pivotal to the final conclusion of how ‘Eternity’s End’ and the Shadowlands saga wraps up.”
Hmmm…I still don’t think the Burning of Teldrassil is really worse than the Scourge invasion of Quel’thalas…as you can see the Blood Elves in time rebuilt Silvermoon and everything and now there’s still quite a lot of them around (to the point a few of them can even create a new race, Void Elves) even if they lost 90% of the population. I don’t think it’s possible the Night Elves lost even more than 90% in the burning, even if it was a disaster for their civilization indeed.
Of course the Night Elves will still need a lot of time to repopulate and rebuild everything, so maybe if a timeskip happens after Shadowlands, that time could help them to rebuild eventually.
Assuming the Orcs leave them alone and don’t attack them anymore in the future…maybe the Night Elves should just leave Kalimdor for their own good (just kidding, but staying in Kalimdor alone far from the rest of the Alliance was always a bad decision for them)
Numbers mean nothing in WoW. They never did. The orcs came to Kalimdor with a few ships they stole from Southshore. The Helves lost 90% of their number and still managed to split off multble groups. The gnomes lost 80% of their number in gnomeregan. Stormwind was destroyed, Lordaereon plagued, and the humans took the brunt of military losses in all of the wars. The Darkspears were one little tribe that got kickedout of Stranglethorn and was almost wiped out by Murlocs. The Tauren struggled holding ground against the centaur. In classic Stormwind didn’t have troops to protect cities like Lakeshire from local threats like gnolls and orc stragglers. or Westfall, where most of their food came from, from bandits.
But with each new catastrophe… the factions didn’t get weaker, they only got stronger. Why? Because Blizz said so. Your little genocide means nothing at all. It’s just a sobstory and its only consequence is the loss of the Teldrassil zone.
Why do Kal’dorei always worry about going extinct ? We Trolls can just settle down near a Well of Eternity for a couple years and make some more of you guys. It’s okay just let it go!!!
Well the Human ships are big and probably it wasn’t the full Horde either, a lot of Orcs were still scattered and couldn’t join Thrall immediately, probably reaching Kalimdor later.
These two genocides actually I saw them explained by some people in a curious way, but if true, their situation might not be as worse as we originally thought.
Basically, for the High Elves, it’s actually NOT 90% of their ENTIRE population, but only 90% of the High Elves living inside the Kingdom of Quel’thalas when Arthas and the Scourge attacked.
But, there were still a lot of High Elves living around the Eastern Kingdoms, of course…most of the other population was in Dalaran but also living in other Alliance cities as well. After the genocide, but before Kael’thas went to help Garithos, Kael’thas brought to Quel’thalas most of the High Elves living in Dalaran with him, and tried to rally all the other High Elf (now Blood Elf) survivors spread all across Lordaeron too, so that they could rejoin their kin in Silvermoon and help them there, despite some of them did not answer his call and sticked with the Alliance. So basically, if it’s explained in this way, the genocide of the High Elves is not as bad as we thought.
Same concept for the one of the Gnomes. It was only 80% of the Gnomes living in Gnomeregan, but there were still quite a lot of them living in Ironforge or other Alliance cities. So even in this case the genocide would not be that bad.
(Also there was a quest, I think it was in Uldum, where you can literally kill 1000 gnomes at once, and those were just the Gnomes of an expedition force. So that wouldn’t really be possible if the Gnomes were so few, lol)
Sure, you can make your headcanon and just multiply the realistic numbers however you like. But you can do that for the Night Elves just as well. Indeed, considering their grand tree was only 2 decades old, and they held large parts of Kalimdor’s lands beside, it’s kinda laughable to assume that the destruction of Teldrassil would hit the nelves as much as the destruction of gnomeregan would hit a highly centralized people like the gnomes. But the point is… it doesn’t matter. Blizzard doesn’t care. Your explanations are yours, not theirs. And no one will ever feel bound by them, neither the devs nor I.
It is, if numbers don’t matter. So… yeah, thanks for giving another example. The death of 1000 gnomes for a silly mini quest isn’t even worth mentioning outside of the zone, ever. Because numbers don’t matter.
About High Elves, well Arthas the one who did this was thrown into the Maw, where he will suffer for his sins for eternity.
While Sylvanas the one who did this to Night Elves is ok, already got redemption, will become Uthers student, and will fight on heroes side in next patch.
P.S. At least Blood Elves got their Silvermoon, while Night Elves still live on the streets of Stormwind growing pumpkins.
“Then, little one, I shall name you Finel. ‘The last.’ For you are the last kaldorei to escape
with your life.”
“The World Tree was more than a city. It was an entire land, home to countless innocents.”
“How many night elves were elsewhere in Azeroth? Far too few. Now, they were all who remained of their people.”
“Sylvanas Windrunner had committed genocide.”
It was genocide much like how Scourge Invasion was to Quel’thalas. Hell Horde even gave the Alliance of the Scourge feeling by blighting their lands, and raising their own against them x’D
Yes but the Scourge one will always be worse, no matter what Blizzard says…for the Blood Elves we know a percentage for their losses, for the Night Elves we don’t (“almost wiped out” could just mean more than 50%, but still not c90%).
Also the Scourge left a huge scar through their lands, killed their King (the Night Elves didn’t lose Malfurion or Tyrande) and destroyed their most sacred place and source of magical power. This alone makes it worse than the burning of Teldrassil, and I’m not even taking into consideration all of the later consequences like the corruption of Kael’thas and the civil war in BC also the Night Elves still have allies that can help them in Stormwind, Blood Elves had to rebuild Silvermoon and everything while being alone for at least a few years before they joined the Horde
Ackshually, Stormwind did have enough troops, but because of the influence of Onyxia they were kept in (or near) the city of Stormwind and not send to protect the rest of the kingdom.
After Varian’s return troops were deployed in Westfall and Lakeshire.
Unlike the high elves this is not canon. The sole reason you saw no gnomes in Warcraft III (as explained by Blizzard) is because all gnomes were in Gnomeregan fighting for their city. They literally lost 80% of all Alliance gnomes when Gnomeregan fell and then an unknown % was leperised.
Gameplay.
Gameplay =/= Lore.
Unless you really think Azeroth is so small you can travel from south Kalimdor to north in less then 30 mins? Or travel between the continents on boat the same day?
It’s not headcanon, it’s literally what happened. When Kael’thas heart what be fell his homeland he gathered what high elves he could and returned to Silvermoon.
You’re saying having a Dead Scar in your still intact homeland is worse then losing your people’s homeland?
The Horde was thinking about it, the Burning Legion actually attacked and drained the Second Well of Eternity in Legion.
Those same allies that are at peace with the Horde, while the night elves are still at war? Also, kind of hard to rebuild when the Horde burned your homeland, blighted large swathes of your shoreline, burned, plundered and murdered any elf in your core territory/forest of Ashenvale.
Don’t forget that in Elegy it was said that the elves that were left in Ashenvale fought to the dead to slow the Horde’s advance. Literally only Malfurion has been confirmed to have survived between Orgrimmar and Teldrassil. The rest? Dead.
Blood elves rebuild Silvermoon and everything with the help of magic taught to them by Lord Illidan, leader of the Illidari and Fel Horde*
Teldrassil is quite important in their culture also magic wise it is enchanted x) Blood elves still had a part of their city left intact. Teldrassil wasn’t just a tree it was an entire zone, imagine if ALL of the Eversong turned in to deadscar? That would be a good comperission. Not only that but Darkshore too was blighted actually.
It says almost extinct so that is around 50% isn’t really valid either x)
If anything text literally suggests "Now, they were all who remained of their people.” for peopel who made it out of Teldrassil, ie the refugees we see in Stormwind.
If I am not mistaken high elves were allied with the humans back then though yeah, allies wise kaldorei are steps ahead, I wouldn’t call Garithos a reliable ally, or an ally.
Though as Shadowtwili said, said allies are both in peace with the Horde and also don’t have enough resources to really aid with their homeland.
Oh and…What kael’thas did is on him, blaming a race’s leaders own lack of judgement and insecurities on an attack isn’t really that valid.
Well you have to remember that the Dead Scar can sprout undead at any time and it’s impossible to heal, so I could indeed argue that it’s worse than total destruction, because it’s basically a permanent undead generator.
Also even outside of it, Quel’thalas was mostly ruined overall. Even in Eversong almost everything you can see now was rebuilt by the Blood Elves.
Cold war though, because regardless of the Night Elves not signing the armistice, the Horde won’t attack anymore (for now ). The Blood Elves were still in “hot war” even for a long time after the genocide, as they had to keep fighting the Scourge not only in Quel’thalas, but all over Lordaeron and Northrend too for a while with the expedition of Kael’thas.
Yes but before Rommath could return to Quel’thalas, I think at least one year or two had passed, so on Azeroth they were completely alone during that period, among ruins and undead.
Deadscar doesn’t pop out undead on it’s own. It -draws- the undead around to it as it is explained on wowpedia. So it is not a permenant undead generator really.
Plus while Teldrassil burnt Darkshore itself was blighted, filled with forsaken, undead, blight, and even ghosts of the passed away. So quite similar.
Armistice is a truce, they left on pretty good terms, there are no real signs of any cold war rn xD?
I don’t know how many years it took rommah actually but we know that kaelthas took his peopel to outland only those who whished to remained behind to defend their homeland remained. Which was their own choice. BUT there is actually only ONE YEAR between the fall of Quel’thalas, and the books sunwell trilogy, where blood elves find Anveena ie the sunwell.
Were they? Really, I wouldn’t know where to look that up. On the contrary, what I know is that after that the war with the Scourge went hotter, 50 thousand supposedly died at the Wrathgate, and the Westfall Brigarde was deployed in the Grizzly Hills. When we look at Westfall again in Cata, the Defias are still a problem, it’s just that some murder hobos killed their boss, and in Lakeshire things didn’t change very much, either. So… I’d be interested in your Source on that one.
That’s not gameplay. That’s the Lore. Look up how the Orcs got to Kalimdor. It’s even more ridiculous actually. They took what ships they could steal in one night, in a grab&run action that was done without a real fight. That’s what supposedly took all of Thrall’s followers to Kalimdor. Most recently described in Chronicles. If you have any more recent sources… well, I’ll certainly be surprised.
…and the High elves he had with him were the army he had taken to Dalaran. And when he left Silvermoon again soon after, he took those who were healthy enough with him to Outland. Where most became trash mobs for us to farm.
Almost any claim we can make about numbers is headcanon, since Blizzard very seldom chose to provide canon on that.
Oh…I thought they could be auto-summoned there because of the animations of the Undead raising directly from the ground
regardless, it’s still a big problem because it draws undead and there are a lot of them, even from the Plaguelands for example. And the Scourge has necromancers so they can always create more. Nothing like the Dead Scar is in Darkshore and the Forsaken are gone now. So it still cannot be compared in my opinion, especially when the Night Elves have Druids that can heal the land and forests in time, while the corruption in the Ghostlands and the Dead Scar are permanent, therefore it’s worse than that.
Not to mention the Blood Elves even renamed themselves in honor to the victims, almost the whole race had to change name… that should make you understand that their losses and situation was far worse because of that event… I didn’t see Tyrande renaming the Kaldorei in “Blood Night Elves” instead
Night elves literally invoked a god’s wrath due to the fallen x’D but that’s quite subjective, same for them renaming themselves blood elves. High elves also lost 90% of their kinsman but they kept calling themselves high elves.
And we do not know how much scourge activity there is there. Yes we know undead still occupy the region of Ghostlands, but as far as I can remember apart from the deadscar Eversong is all clean.
And in Ghostlands we did dismantle most of the scourge leading figures and freed the neighbouring towns from the scourge. While undeads still have numbers, we do not know if there are any necromancers or high end leading figures still raising any more undead.
I would compare Ghostlands to Felwood, both are tainted, still has enemies inside but we do not know how severe it is. Apparently it is not severe enough though given blood elves are able to deploy their units out in wars while keeping Eversong safe
I would not worry too much. Pretty much every single race in Warcraft that had lost the majority of its numbers managed to recover from the brink of extinction, whether by circumstances or by the power of plot. I have no doubt that it will be the same with the night elves.
Yet Stormwind was able to send a Marshal Gryan Stoutmantle + the resources for construction of a fort around Sentinel Hill.
And they constructed a watchtower + guards near Lakeshire to aid in their defense and battle against gnolls and orcs.
Thrall, having no better alternatives, captured some human ships and set sail for the new land, taking all of his orcs out of Lordaeron.
Is all wowpedia says about it. That said the Netherlands was able to steal the Royal Navy’s flagship and sink a large part of their navy in like… a couple of days IRL. So it’s not unrealistic for the orcs to do something better since they are a (I loath this word) superior race to humanity.
Yes, but this was in response to the elves losing what… 90% of the high elves… or 90% of the elves living in Quel’thalas.
With the latter bieng the lore, also it was retconned that quite alot of healthy elves remained behind to assist in the defense of Quel’thalas and not joined their King. Else Lor’themar and Liadrin wouldn’t be in Silvermoon at.
Oke, you make a valid argument!
Instead they formed a Army of the Black Moon, took on the vengeful aspect and eyes of their warrior goddess which demanded a sacrifice of orc blood.
Then WoWpedia doesn’t depict the full information Chronicles 3 give us. And thus you aren’t fully informed. WoWpedia isn’t a lore source, it’s just an aggregator. The Chronicles are the relevant source, if you don’t have a more current one. And this is what it says:
Now, you can try to move the goalpost, but what you said was that my claim that the Orcs traveled to Kalimdor in a few ships they stole from Southshore was wrong and build on nothing more than some faulty ingame-depiction. It wasn’t.
If you are saying that it doesn’t make sense that there can’t have been enough fighting men left, considering the events that came after, I certainly agree. But remember that my position isn’t that there are no belves left, my position is that numbers obviously don’t matter to Blizzard. You can call it retcons, but if they aren’t explicit, the only thing we have is a break in continuity, and the only retroactive continuity is the one you insert there yourself. Even in Chronicles 3 the devs restated that Kael’thas took his healthiest soldiers.
Really, I don’t see why this is such a hard pill to swallow. It’s been done for all of WoW’s history. There is a reason they never gave numbers, or even a real scale for the world - except in works they decanonized. They aren’t willing to be bound by it. In the context of the thread topic that just means that when the Tyrande arc is done, and the Nelves have settled somewhere, their power will essentially as big or small as it was before, even if the devs stated that they were almost wiped out. They will be weak, when the narrative needs them to be weak, and strong, when the narrative needs them to be strong. Numbers don’t mean anything here. Because the devs haven’t decided to have them mean something.
(just kidding, but staying in Kalimdor alone far from the rest of the Alliance was always a bad decision for them)