PTR Spoiler/Discussion Thread (Part 2)

Argent Dawn
6350

It’s particularly weird because Darnassus was supposed to have been built after the Third War, yet some of the buildings there use Kaldorei Empire architecture.

That said, at this point there’s no pleasing everyone.

Some night elf players were content with what they got. Some want the story to acknowledge that the Horde has absolutely definitely withdrawn from all night elf territories they had occupied. Some want Orgrimmar to burn (which won’t happen for gameplay reasons). Some want a new Darnassus-sized capital city back in Kalimdor. Some want the night elves to regain their immortality and establish a New Kaldorei Empire. And some would be satisfied with nothing short of Blizzard delivering an apology to night elf players and resetting lore to the end of Legion, or Wrath, or WC3, depending on the point after which that particular player believes the night elf story was ruined forever.

Personally, I’ll take it. After years of appalling lore developments, Blizzard has finally thrown us a meaty bone that can result in interesting RP. If you expect too much from Blizzard, you’ll inevitably be disappointed, and if you ask for more lore developments, you risk invoking the monkey’s paw. I think it’s best to accept that this is probably the best we’re getting, and the best Blizzard can do given all the complex circumstances.

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6351

Don’t you dare bring Sandra into this!

Best way to go. Keep asking for more, you won’t get it or end up with something out of left field. Either way you won’t get what you want.

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6352

Re-used assets. It’s really not that deep. I beg people ._.

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6353

She knows what she did!

6354

I think those assets are distinct from the others. While the general shape is the same, there was some work put into them (and I believe the gate nearby is completely unique). All the other night elf stone structures are ruins, with the exception of a pavillon in eastern Feralas, while the ones in Darnassus are intact and have colors other than gray.

6355

Privileged Human Male Paladins…

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6356

Blizzard could literally bin this non-issue by saying “yeah, they haven’t had enough time to construct anything with stone yet”.

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6357

But that’s literally what they said. Amirdrassil is unironically a WIP both In-game and IC/OOC. I’m not gonna go on Twitter to find the tweet exactly stating this but it exists.

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6358

Inventing reasons to act like man children then if that’s the case.

6359

All this talk of darnassus being a grand city when in reality it had two stock stone structures and a bunch of crafting stations set up in buildings with two walls each.

No, actually, this new stuff is quite nice and whatever imperial grandeur the kaldorei had was long abandoned in WC3 in favour of quaint hunting lodges nestled inbetween great sentient trees.

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6360

Hello, this is resident PHMP, how can I help you?

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6361

And honestly, it’d be quite silly if they went for an imperial look considering they’re the ones that fought against said empire in the first place, right in front of the Dragonflights that actively helped them destroy said empire no less.

Not just that, but I don’t get people saying that they want night elves to go back to their roots from Warcraft 3, then begin to complain how they’re not megastructure city-dwellers and need the help of both factions to defend their home, when that’s literally what their state of affairs was back in Warcraft 3.

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6362

Yeah, as a big Night Elf fan I really don’t get the “retvrn to Empire” posting at all, and it is rather weirdly common, because it’s like, nothing to do with the overall ‘fantasy’ of the race presented in any of the material.

I’d like them to be more like in WC3 but I think what i see as ‘wc3 night elf’ is very different from how some other people see it!

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6363

I admit that I love both Empire Night Elves and the current, proper, Night Elves.

For the first, I have my Nightborne’s.
For the second one I have my Night Elves.
For the inbetween, because that can be interesting as heck to, I play Highborne Night Elves from Eldre’thalas!

3 Likes
6364

Yup. Though I think it was the other way round: the Darnassus assets were probably designed first and then reused for Feralas.

Vanilla was way too ambitious for the resources they had, and as a result, they outstretched themselves and had to copy-paste buildings and other assets like crazy.

There’s another factor here. The night elf starting zone was originally supposed to be an island named Kalidar, where the night elves grew a new World Tree, Teldrassil. Late in WoW’s development, all mentions of Kalidar were replaced with Teldrassil. My charitable interpretation would be that Darnassus was originally supposed to be an ancient city and designed as such, but when they established that the entire island was one humongous tree grown after WC3, they wrote themselves into a corner.

If anything, Amirdrassil Island and Bel’ameth are closer to that original conception.

(Seriously, why doesn’t the island have its own name? Amirdrassil is the tree, but in-game it’s also, confusingly, the name of the island that emerged from the Emerald Dream. It’s confusing.)

In my opinion, Bel’ameth is fine for something that’s supposed to be a work in progress in-universe. It’s a bit too sparse right now, but it makes sense story-wise: it’s not like they’re supposed to build an entire city overnight. It’s a mix of existing Legion and BfA assets and brand new ones, including an HD recreation of the two-story building from vanilla. Maybe we’ll see it further expanded in the future (though knowing Blizzard, probably not).

7 Likes
6365

Unfortunately, fantasy in general has an issue with not coming up with names and just copy-pasting them to refer to multiple things. And it´s the case with the island, which is likely to remain unnamed, or just use the name of the tree which grew on it, just like Teldrassil did.

Blizzard could really use having more worldbuilders in it, since I feel like it´s one of the major issues of modern WoW lore. We get the story but the world itself remains very shallow.

3 Likes
6366

Do you? I’m not criticising night elf fans who like only the forest aethetics, my isuse is with blizzard for not giving or showing the best of the other parts, which many of us also want to see.

There is no reason why night elves can’t have beautiful forests and beautiful cities, nature maestros, arcane maestros, priest maestros or fel using demon hunter maestros- this is all in their lore.

Are we being criticised by you for asking for what we already have to be shown more in game, like it was in wc3, war of the ancients trilogy, Stormrage, , Illidan, Wolfheart? - night elves were incredible cool then, and had lots of varying aspects to them,… blimey, fans want to see this and are disappointed when they don’t’… and express their desire…

Come on, you should know better about fans, we’re always gonna want some.

To me it isn’t - if that’s all there is for night elves. And that’s an IF … i like the zone, but I also love night elf cities and I love the Arden weald - night forest too, i loved how epic the night elves felt in war of the Ancients and in the lore - I remember epic Moonguard, Demon hunters, Highborne, , Feral druids and Wardens in moments in Legion, I want this the norm when we encounter them, not the freak rare one off.

I am neither asking for the pre-sundering arcane civilization or the Long Vigil nature one, just the best of both worlds to be available and shown in the night elves in -game like they have

6367

Can we get some Gnomeposters instead of Nelf posters who feel entitled to papa Blizzard’s attention.

Gnomeregan getting a modern re-do would be cool af.

5 Likes
6368

Your wording further on still sounds like only your grouping matters.

I am a night elf fan. I RP a night elven druid.
The aesthetic that is chosen is perfectly fitting with who they have been since they abandoned the Highborne way of life and begun intertwining themselves with nature.
They use the wisps to create what they have so they may live in harmony with things and anything large they wish to construct shouldn’t spawn in the space of a few months. Stone structures can come later.

And I will continue to criticise people who act like they are due XYZ because it’s what they want.
Many fans are happy with what they have and can be content with it.

I’d like that.
And a few more tents around TB.
Telgorus could use solid buildings magically drawn from stone.
And the Darkspear could use the connection to the Zanadalari to upgrade what little they have into something more weather withstanding.

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6369

I´d say what you´re asking also happens to be something many night elf fans (me included) would hate to happen. Back in Cata when Shen´dralar got reintegrated into night elf society and the race got mages, many really disliked the change because it went against what the night elves were about. They did not dream about their glorious history full of Arcane magic and Highborne, they actively renounced it. While I like the Shen´dralar, the night elves lost a part of their identity when they brought them back.

The elves who embraced that heritage (and did not destroy their society in the millenia that followed) became high elves and later blood elves. If you want to look at true heirs of that ancient Kaldorei empire, you have to look at the pink bois on the red team.
Or, thanks to Legion, you can have blue bois on the red team too, who are even closer to the old Kaldorei on account of never renouncing the whole night theme.

Because no, a society where over 99% of the population was against Arcane magic until about 20 years ago and the 1% (and I´m being generous here) that practiced it are remnants of a destroyed city that rejoined the society 12 years ago isn´t some thematic continuation of Azshara´s empire. The guys who decided to make their own amazing Arcane well(s) with blackjack and hookers are.

3 Likes