PTR Spoiler/Discussion Thread (Part 2)

Argent Dawn
5247

Based on the fact that most of the named NPCs we’ve seen operating Amirdrassil are Darnassus and Teldrassil refugees, I don’t think it’s going to be “all the elves,” just the ones displaced by the Burning. Seems like a reasonable assumption to make.

They will probably keep on existing. Why wouldn’t they?

I imagine that most of them are probably happy that their displaced people have a new home that is blessed by the Dragonflights.
Do you think that there would be so many nuanced and divergent opinions that we require this plot line to continue with focus being given to night elf internal politics and how each significant named night elf feels about the new tree?

Why would they? Has Stormwind split into multiple factions or all moved whenever a new settlement or colony has been established on another continent?

I think that’s asking for an absurd amount of developer time and attention to be given to a single race. Also, if story developments are justification for changes to the Cataclysm levelling experience, then almost every other race needs a new questing experience just as urgently.

Why would they? Did the entire night elf population live on Teldrassil, was the entire night elf population left as refugees in Stormwind City? This seems like a strange assumption to make, in my opinion.

So, night elves will be treated like basically every other race until they next get their moment in the spotlight.

Where are you getting the idea that night elves will abandon literally every settlement outside of the Dragon Isles to live on Amirdrassil, or that literally every night elf settlement has been destroyed? What causes you to think that they will relinquish their presence in Ashenvale, Stonetalon, Feralas and Winterspring, not even counting all of the Cenarion settlements which have a significant night elf population?

Like I said, “like it or not.” I’m not asking people to approve of what was written, I’d just appreciate it if they let Blizzard move on instead of asking for Blizzard to continue with the night elf plot line and continue the cycle of being outraged at every new development that the night elves receive.

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5248

(sits smiling serenely, listening silently to the arguments)

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5249

This is a pretty reasonable conversation, all things considered.

5250

I didn’t say fully rendered cinematic though, I just said ‘cinematic’.

You’re not wrong, but that doesn’t change the situation that I am extremely tired of NElves everywhere, constantly, every expansion.

I didn’t say exclusively, but they got more attention than other playable races, that’s the point.

What other playable race got as much focus in 7.0? The closest was Tauren, but they were Highmountain, not Mulgore. The tauren also dropped off immediately, whereas NElves stuck around for Suramar, Broken Isles, and on Argus. (including a special Illidan-quest where you go to tell Tyrande and she says he sucks).

It’s not lost on me that Aszuna with Farondis is pretty NElf-coded because…I mean they’re NElf-ghosts.

BfA didn’t just get Teldrassil (which wasn’t just a one-and-done nuke, it had the entire pre-expac event of content leading up to it) and the battle for darkshore: Azshara is a NElf villain more than any other playable race’s. 8.2 was absolutely NElf content. Handled well? Handled poorly? Not really relevant.

Ardenweald was practically tailor-made for NElf aesthetics just as much as Maldraxxus was for Forsaken aesthetics, except in Ardenweald’s case they also had a bunch of focus on their major characters (and, fyi, it wasn’t done last - you had to do the zones in order, Revendreth was last, Ardenweald was 3rd. Bast->Mald->Ard->Rev). The entire core of the Ardenweald main story quest was helping Ysera, the NElf-dragon.

And now with Dragonflight we’ve had multiple cinematics and 10.2 looks to be entirely all about them and their stuff.

What other faction since Legion that has consistently shown up this much every single expac?
It ain’t orcs, they had zilch in Legion, Thrall did basically nothing in Shadowlands, and they’ve had nothing in DF.
It ain’t trolls, they lost Vol’jin in Legion and that was it, they were a C-Plot to the NElf’s purported B-plot in Shadowlands, and they’ve had nothing in DF.
Is it humans? Eh, maybe. They at least got more in the expansions, though whether I’d conflate “humans” and “Anduin” in the same way “Tyrande” and “NElves” are is questionable - Tyrande’s stuff is directly related to their racial storyline as a whole. Anduin’s stuff in Shadowlands is definitely more personal to him individually than Stormwind. They’ve also basically had nothing in DF, certainly nothing approaching the level of 10.2.

You’ll note I skipped over BfA in the above; yeah, orcs, trolls, and humans got a bunch there, but as I noted so did NElves. NElves getting “only” a mini-patch, a pre-expansion event, and dealing with their most infamous villain in BfA is still a hell of a lot.

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5251

I will reach for Normal Expansion of Going To Unknown Island with Desert, Mountains, Plains and [Magic Sauce] zones like a dying man in a desert reaching for a drop of water after Shadowlands and Dragonflight.

I dont know why this was replied to the gentleman orc, but the point stands.

5252

As punishment for pinging the gentleman orc, you must list the ingredients of the magic sauce.

5253

Order Magic and Mint.

5254

I give you Shadowlands, but why Dragonflight? It’s the closest to a low-key exploration-focused expansion that WoW has had since MoP, and already people are crying that the stakes are too low and they want their WARcraft back.

5255

Dracthyr and the primalists, the latter mainly in how they were handled. A promising start with a nice no-holds bar villain with a clear (and understandable) motive.

We now have Missing Void Man, Platonic Friendship Sylvanas Kerrigan Vyranoth and Druids of the Flame Fire man cleaving holes into the Emerald Amirdrassil Dream with an axe.

But really, mainly the Dracthyr. Jesus Christ, I can not to this day believe they are real.

5256

That’s how it always goes with lower-stakes expansions though. Mists of Pandaria was the same, it started off with exploring a strange new land that harboured dangerous threats but nothing cataclysmic, then the Thunder King came along and then Garrosh found a stash of delicious Old God steroids and the stakes were high again.

5257

Dragonflight never was low stakes though, it was clear quite immediately that the primalists want to destroy the world as we know it.

5258

I don’t think people are claiming the stakes are too low - or if they are, they might not be pinning down exactly what their problem is.

It’s that the solutions tend towards the sterilised and the saccharine. Vyranoth heel-turning after essentially one conversation (idk, maybe the novel will explain it better but uhhhh don’t release the novel after that happens, also don’t rely on the novel to convey characterisation for a major plot point in game), the resolution to the drakonid rebels, and Nozdormu/Murozond’s resolution feel very ‘childish’ and surface level.

It just feels like it lacks a bit of a bite. Everyone just…gets along, and when they do bicker or disagree with each other, it’s wildly out of character and then also blamed on The Whispers (Sabellian and Wrathion).

MoP was an exploration expansion but it still felt like the stories and quests had an edge to them that, imo, just feels a bit sanded down here.

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5259

That’s a fair point, but consider that Dragonflight came straight after Shadowlands and the Jailer. I’m pretty sure that even Cataclysm or Legion would feel like a low stakes expansion in comparison to that.

5260

So… things are left in a limbo! The point was that if there’s a world revamp coming, you’ll… need Night Elves present in Kalimdor.

If I’m not mistaken, it was a point during War of Thorns that most of Night Elven population evacuated to Teldrassil, and then it got nuked. Who knows how many escaped and those who did were left in Stormwind. You see a handful of Night Elves left and as you said, they’d be happy there’s a new home now. So yes… they completely relocate to Dragon Isles? Or will they not, we don’t really know since we’re in a limbo.

Yes, except every other race hasn’t had a Teldrassil moment.

Because they’re making a move to Dragon Isles. It has been a problem in RP where before Dragonflight all we had left was knowing that 'okay, so the Night Elven military fleet is wiped out, we were superjuiced on Black Stuff and managed to retake Darkshore (but haha it’s all unusable anyway sucks to suck lol!), and there’s supposedly a new home base in Hyjal.

Every race has had plethora of cinematics then, singling out Night Elves feels really dumb. If anything, your logic dictates that Night Elves actually haven’t been in the focus at all because they haven’t had a single fully rendered cinematic yet, while every race has had several normal cinematics thus far.

Same logic says they weren’t Night Elves, but… Val’sharan Night Elves, I guess? That’s who you mean, right? You’re definitely not thinking of Nightborne, right? Right?

Okay, so… 8.1 with that logic is just as much NElf content as it was Forsaken content, 8.2 same because you had the lingering fart of Nathanos everywhere, Legion had a lot of focus because Nathanos was inserted everywhere. With this logic, the answer to

is… Orcs. Because hey, Gul’dan is an Orc. Gul’dan is an Orc villain more than any other playable race’s and he was absolutely the focus in Legion. Following right after an Orc only expansion.

Why do you take Legion as a breakoff point? Vanilla to Legion was Orc content only with your logic.

Sorry, you made the rules - Legion is Orc content, because Gul’dan was the first big bad villain. Therefore yes, it is orcs at least just as much as Night Elves were.

Honestly, I’m kind of annoyed with the lingering presence of Orcs and Humans, I think we should get an expansion only focused on Night Elves (like Warlords of Draenor!), it’d be high time considering how much of a focus Orcs got since Vanilla! It’d actually exactly mirror the trajectory Orcs have gotten. :nerd:

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5261

Don’t forget the Horde has settled and occupied their old locations in both Darkshore and Ashenvale while we do not know if the night elves were even able to rebuild Astranaar in the meantime since the Horde slaughtered every night elf (civilian) they encountered during their invasion of Ashenvale.

Horde locations:
Splintertree Post,
Warsong Lumber Camp,
Zoram’gar Outpost,
Shatterspear Vale.

Night elf locations:
??? uuh, they patrol Darkshore, lol.

5262

Who knows, we’re in a limbo!

Which was the original point. If the story ends with just ‘okay we’re on Dragon Isles now, hooray Amirdrassil’ and nothing else is ‘resolved’, RPers will just be in a limbo.

You know, if they had done Exploring Kalimdor (and EK) after Dragonflight launched and it’d be the writer actually deciding on new developments and not just flying over Cataclysm-era of zone status, we’d actually have better answers. (And updates on what actually happened since 3 year break. Right now we only have one comic, right?)

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5263

I’m scared of Elenthas’ reply… he’s been typing a while now.

(also, just wanna say I agree with that you can’t say Highmountain =/= mulgore tauren lore, but then say Aszune Imperial night elves = Darnassian night elf lore, that was abit weird.

5264

Nathanos showed up in Legion for like seven quests in Stormheim and then vanished, never to be seen again for the rest of the expac. He was also Horde exclusive. I think if you played Alliance he appeared once on the airship when Genn fought him and then didn’t show up again for the rest of the expac.

Yes, Nathanos was a fairly large player in the Horde war campaign of BfA, and he did (briefly) show up in Legion, but for the Alliance? Not so much. Dude was barely a blip. You weren’t forced to traipse after him tracking down Sylvanas, like you were with Tyrande and Malfurion in Val’sharah. That was Horde-exclusive.

I want to try to convey how frustrating it is as a Horde player to be consistently thrust into the NElf storyline and be forced to help them.

And it crops up again, in DF, where we’re once again being dragged into the NElf stuff. It’s really tiresome.

Personally because that’s when I view a turning point in the WoW era that has continued to date. Personal vibes? Vanilla->Wrath, Cata->WoD, Legion->DF.

You could argue Legion->Slands since that encapsulates Sylvanas’ idiot-bat time, I suppose, but then you’re just like…oh new era? NElf focus. Cool!.

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5265

I do agree with this. It feels like overcorrection. Players complained about too much despair and destruction and forced conflict, so now we have an expansion where there’s no lasting conflict with anyone but the most unrepentant bad guys and everything is water under the bridge. And it comes off as forced, too.

I also feel like they were winging it with the Primal Incarnates. If you subscribe to the tinfoil theory that 10.2 is the last raid tier, it could imply that Iridikron was planned to feature in 10.3, but when 10.3 was canceled, they had to hastily rewrite the plot to make Fyrakk the final boss of the expansion instead. Vyranoth’s arc could have been more believable if it was given another patch to develop, assuming she was originally meant to turn at all.

Instead, Iridikron is barely seen in a minor patch before exiting the stage. Introducing an ensemble of four villains and then barely using the one foreshadowed as the most dangerous of them in the expansion he was introduced in is certainly… one of the decisions the writers ever made.

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5266

That information comes from Exploring Azeroth: Kalimdor and if you’re using Exploring Azeroth: Kalimdor as a source, then you also have to accept that the night elves still have a significant presence throughout all of Northern Kalimdor, including Darkshore.

I just disagree with your approach of treating the night elves like they’re a monolith who are all moving to Amirdrassil together, when I can’t find any particular source for that, nor any reason to believe that all of the night elves present on Kalimdor as of Exploring Azeroth: Kalimdor would abandon their territory there to live in Amirdrassil.

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