At this point I half-expect the New Moon cinematic at the end of 10.2 (whose name was leaked) to feature Elune appearing in humanoid form with a recolored Winter Queen model, just to squash any remaining hopes of night elf players.
So that would be par the course.
my reaction to that information
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWB0pdFg88E
There is an encrypted cinematic featuring Elune in 10.2 if I recall from datamining.
You should be afraid.
You should be very afraid.
Edit: My 2 hours of sleep is really showing, you literally said its the end 10.2 cinematic. C’est la vie.
Eh, I’ll take it.
Though we arguably just had it with Dragonflight, it’s a safe theme and will generate interest among RPers. If the lore is bad, the RP community will ignore it and write its own. I’ll take a Titan-themed expansion on Azeroth over a cosmic lore expansion any day.
Pass us some of that, heh
My opinion’s pretty irrelevant as someone who is ambivalent about night elves but I’ll be happy with anything, just as long as we can finally move on from that race’s trials and tribulations after 10.2.
Some people might say that Titans count as cosmic lore, especially since anything Titanic might be reduced to “Order magic.” But even if they say Order magic a million times, I’ll take more Titanic stuff over more First One stuff.
I think it´s extremely underwhelming and could frankly lead to further drop in the playerbase, both RPers and non-RPers. The main problem of Dragonflight is that, while being apparently great at player retention, not many former players are willing to return because it just doesn´t seem that exciting. New expansion being just more of the same does not make me hopeful for the future.
However, something came to my mind as I was reading linked “leak” connected to this one (with zero proof or screenshots, so not really based on anything): Who is saying that this is the only new area?
After all, we´ve had an expansion before which brought us not only two continents, but also reworks of two old zones: BfA. While this is bit of a hopium, even if the leak is real, it´s possible we´re only seeing one portion of the next expansion.
Even Cataclysm, which revamped the old world, brought with it five new zones. The precedent for getting new stuff alongside rework of the old is there.
I mean, that’s probably what we’ll see from like, the actual expansion reveals right? All we have right now are leaks and we don’t even know if Avaloren is a real thing. The only problem with Avaloren is that it barely exists (afaik just as some sort of off hand mention on an item description), so the writers would have to build everything up from scratch. Other expansions at least had something to build on.
Considering Warlords of Draenor followed Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords was very strongly Red-focused, who knows. But I wouldn’t say Night Elves have been at the forefront or an expansion strongly Blue-focused lmao.
They’ve just been a B-plot, much like Trolls were in the Vanilla to BfA with a mandatory Troll patch. And since Legion, they’ve been steadily phased out with a mandatory Nelf patch I guess.
And considering how IMO Dragonflight feels like sort of a reset to Vanilla and MoP, the cycle probably repeats again soon.
Honestly, if the Night Elven B-plot comes to a close in 10.2, I’m very worried because we’re going to be left in a limbo. You’d need follow-up stories. That’s true for, well… everyone, sure, but hey - the writers decided to nuke Teldrassil, so they should also give Night Elves a satisfactory ending.
MMO-Champion has been the doomer page since at least Cataclysm (which is when I started following it). And they’re also a horrible mess of bigotry.
They’re Internet tough guys with a 4chan feel to their post style. I used to read their front page for datamining posts, but these days Wowhead also reports on datamining anyway.
Honestly its telling enough that Blizzard is no longer so bombastic about their performance and their sub numbers, instead we get a very meek and shallow “yeah… i guess… we’re doing okay at retaining our current players but we can’t deny we’ve seen a large drop…”
a far cry from Blizzard’s older “WE’RE THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL, BIGGEST MMO, BIGGEST PLAYERS, WE HAVE IT ALL” mentality.
They’re basically what would happen if you took General Discussions and put them in an airtight container and it’d marinate on itself for 6 months.
Though ironically when I do randomly decide to see what MMO-Champion is up to, their moderation has been better than General Discussions’s lately. MMO-Champion’s mods do take a very centrist route to political discussions, but at least the worst offenders get moderated to some capacity.
What limbo? What issues will be left unresolved? Like it or not, the vengeance issue has been resolved with Tyrande leaving Sylvanas to toil in the Maw for evermore and the homeland issue will be resolved with the creation of a new home that will no longer be under threat once 10.2 is resolved.
I’m not asking you to be happy about the outcome, but I am wondering what you think is left unresolved about the night elves, that will be left in limbo if they close that plot after 10.2.
I think randomly throwing all the Elves over to the Dragon Isles and establishing a whole new way of life and city there is a pretty big limbo honestly. What happens to Kalimdor? What happens to the other Nelf settlements? What do most Nelves think about all this? What do other Night Elf leaders think about it? Will this split the Nelves into 2 factions? Will they all move?
Meronspell laid out great points, I’d also say new Night Elf starting zone, or the entire Kalimdor questing experience leaving things open. If the Night Elves make a move to completely relocate to Dragon Isles, that’s an entire plot thread to tell about how the change goes, what happens to the zones afterwards, and worst of all…
Blizzard will forget everything about what happened in one expac once the expac is over. Night Elves, their new capitol, potential stories etc. will just be forgotten as they’re now bound to Dragonflight expansion. All you have left are just named NPCs here and there popping up if even that. The entire race will effectively have no zones under their control afterwards.
Fixed.
NElves have been major players in every expac since-and-including Legion, with multiple cinematics, patches, and questlines focused exclusively on them and their major characters.
Often to their detriment since they had to contrive stupid reasons for them to e cool with the Horde player doing the quest for no reason.
Literally no other faction has had as much consistent focus in the last decade. The only one that comes close is Sylvanas, individually, but I think it’s really easy for people to forget that she dipped out of basically all of Legion, a huge chunk of BfA, and despite the expac ostensibly being about her she barely actually appeared for the first 75% of Shadowlands.
Be happy about how they’ve been treated or not, idc, but their content is everywhere.
I still maintain the new tree should’ve come in place of Teldrassil after the latter’s burnt trunk is brought down or fully evaporated with reverence, after which the new tree will bloom in it’s stead, during which the night elves can heal and recover and enter a new golden age.
As it happens, Tyrande delivers a speech on how the night elves have endured many trials and suffered immeasurable losses, yet through one last, great sacrifice of their fallen kin, those who remain have a chance to start anew.
Planting it in the place of Teldrassil would also be a symbolic union of the old and the new, as a reminder of the past, but also as a symbol of embracing the future.
That’s how I would direct the planting of Amirdrassil after Fyrakk’s defeat.
Well if Blizzard did not burn down the Tree for cheap shock reasons 80% of those storylines wouldn’t have been needed. They just ***** up so badly with Teldrassil they had to address it.
MMO Champion has been saying that WoW is dead since they leaked Wrath of the Lich King. I’m not even joking, it’s one of the first three comments on that thread from 2007.
?
They’re one of the few WoW races thus far that haven’t had an actual fully rendered cinematic yet lol. If anything, it’s Horde who’ve gotten way too many thanks to the weird BfA’s Saurfang cinematics for… low-key no reason (like really, why were they made lol).
Using same logic Night Elves also dip out of expansions… Legion: they had one-two zones, minor stuff in Suramar, minor stuff in Broken Isles. Saying it was exclusively on Night Elves is kinda dishonest.
BfA - nuked with Teldrassil, they get one major patch that’s actually for once been centered around them. They haven’t actually gotten a major patch that’s been about Night Elves since ever, and the major patch was… a minor patch. You got a new half-baked Darkshore warfront. Black eyes.
Shadowlands - B-plot again, not a focus. The focus has always been on Sylvanas. Just as much, Night Elves/Tyrande did not actually appear for 75% of Shadowlands. Or first 75% of Shadowlands, as Ardenweald was usually the last zone you’d complete.
Your logic regarding Night Elves can be used against Humans and Orcs just as much (and Trolls, kinda-sorta). But Night Elves actually haven’t had an entire expansion dedicated to them. So I’m not really going to accept the platitudes of ‘oh woe night elves have been such a consistent focus’.
I’d rather just make them plop it in Nordrassil and have the seed instead transform the zone into a post-Cataclysm version that revitalizes the land / creates the new city around the roots. It’d also circumvent the entire problem of being bound to Dragon Isles, and keep them in Kalimdor for any future story beats as antagonists for the inevitable Horde Focus storylines yet again.