They did say that after Bfa, we wouldn’t be having another red vs blue expansion, which I think we can all agree, is a good thing. You can’t defeat either faction from the game as it’s core is based on the Horde and Alliance.
Look - they’ve done class-pride, they’ve done faction-pride (twice), maybe the focus should be on the races of each faction? So, you play a Human Paladin - you are made to think that “yes, I am playing a powerful Knight of Stormwind and of the Holy Light.” Look at this very thread - it’s hardly about the alliance and more about the night elves.
Likewise, my main is a Blood Elf Mage, so I’m made to feel that “Yes, I am playing a powerful Magistrix of Quel’Thalas.”
i’m not a human player though i’m a space goat i’m just playing human for the 10 % rep until i max out my 100 reps again after which ill switch back to space goat and rename my self back to my previous name
Right, but whichever - the point still stands that maybe we need to look at the races that people play, not the factions.
Blood Elves are Horde and Draenei are Alliance. That won’t change, but the playerbases of both talk more about those races and loving those races than they do about the Alliance or Horde. That’s secondary.
i actually wish racials was free choose i have no real feelings about the humans of the alliance but 10 % rep is to good to pass up if i could get 10 % rep on my space goat i’d never play human
but i guess we have derailed his thread enough now heh
I agree with this, it has always been the case. Especially with elves, dwarves, draenei etc…
People have been more drawn to the races, their fantasy etc than they have the factions as a whole. But blizzard don’t notice this - if they did, they’d hae been race primary, faction secondary.
It is the individuality and uniqueness of the races that is attractive - each is it’s own nation, but also has it’s own attributes. Elves are not humans - elves are magical, lovers of nature and beauty - across their factions they have various variations of this. The main elven group are the night elves, butsmaller sub groups like the Thalassians and later the nightborne and void elves have thier own nich stories.
it’s exactly the same with the trolls. The Zandalari are the origin group, so have a lot, with the other troll tribes being their own separate society with some niche features and their own story.
Whatever faction of troll or elf you like, there is something appealing of the race.
Humans, Elves, Orcs, Trolls, Draenei, Dwarves, Pandas, Goblins and Gnomes - These are the 9 races of warcraft, well add Vulpera now, 10 playable races.
Humans have 4 playable factions
Elves have 4 playable factions
Trolls have 2
Dwarves have 2
Pandas have 2
Goblins 1
Gnomes 2
but This makes sense too, Elves are split into two major racial groups, Dark elves and Thalassian elves. so in effect it’s
Dark elves have 2
Thalassian elves have 2.
the most popular and well received racial fantasies in the game are:
Humans
Night elves
High elves.
Niche fantasies loved, and averagely popular
Orcs
Undead
Draenei
Troll
Vulpera are loved because they’re cute furries, their fantasy doesn’t have much to it. The power of aesthetics huh.
Fun (not fun really) thing about Brennadam is that it was originally supposed to the Quillboar that attacked, in keeping with the surrounding zone, but they changed it to Horde at the last minute, as if to remind the Alliance player that the Horde were bad guys! Really? I think that ship had already sailed with the burning of Teldrassil, which was kinda a big deal! It also makes no sense for there being Horde troops walking around the Quillboar area, because of all the races of Azeroth, the one that hates them the most are the Tauren, who are Horde (Because nearly being genocided by Quillboar and Centaur will do that to a people!).
If you play both factions, like I do (Because lets face it, the mounts you get for completing 'Two sides to every story are cool as heck, and for once on Alliance it isn’t another damned Horse!) then there is a weird disconnect. Alliance players play through Brennadam and go “Ohh those dastardly Horde” (Justifiably) Whereas on Horde side, if you only played Horde, and didn’t check the internet, you wouldn’t even know what went down at Brennadam because it is never mentioned at all, Horde side.
Blizz have done this before though, Stonetalon Garrosh being a prime example, people going, “See, he had honour!” No, no he didn’t, it was, as he later publicly admitted, Alex Afriasabi going ‘Off message’. Garrosh a) wouldn’t have cared, and b) wasn’t even originally supposed to turn up in that zone.
Camp Taurajo wasn’t a war crime, or rather it was but wasn’t. It -was- a legitimate target, even Baine recognises that. There -were- soldiers there, but also a lot of civilians. General Hawthorne’s plan was to attack the military bits and leave the Civilians to escape. (Again, you learn this on Alliance side, but not on Horde side) There were War Crimes, but that is on the head of the Alliance troops he sent there, which were Penal Troops from The Stockades. Unfortunately any time you use Penal Troops, you are going to get atrocities (Certainly true when they have been used in our real world, sadly)
So Alliance leadership, even the General on the spot, did not want any War Crimes, however the Penal Troops were all murderers, violent thugs and worse pressed into service. It was inevitable to a degree, so while there were War Crimes committed, that was those Criminals, who are, well, Criminals.
Taurajo was a legit target basically, just the execution of it was not great.
What I don’t understand is people who ignore or refuse the very simple and true logic to push racials as the heart of the problem
Make the alliance more attractive both too look at and to experience as well as to play, and you will draw people to it… it’s that simple. MAKE THE ALLIANCE ATTRACTIVE - and people will play it. give them many good reasons to pick it. gameplay breaking racials isn’t the way. Besides you can only very slightly favour them without breaking the gameplay. And if you do, it won’t be enough. horde had better racials in classic, and were still a vast minority even after competitive gameplay started. Top guilds have almost always been horde even when the alliance was vastly more popular.
Want more people playing alliance - make night elves more attractive, void elves, Draenei, Dwarves, Worgen - people love these races. Why? Obviously the human focus isn’t enough, and is so overwhelming, while there is so much wonder and mystery in the others and their lore just like there. There is very clearly more interest in the other alliance races - especially if you want to attract horde players over.
Most attractive thing about night Elves:
Dark Elf fantasy - barely seen, so they can do much more here, their history is full of it, advanced civilization, breath taking magical wonder - show this. Legendary Moonguard in battle, Highborne and what made them so astonishing (the good side ofc, we know about the addiction to death)
Forest elf fantasy - seen lots of this, but it’s been weak, showing only the soft side and the cute cuddly side, show the power of nature rising up from druids, walking trees wisdom and knowledge, night elves calling animals to aid them in the forest - this is cool… Let druids be fierce in and savage in animal forms, deadly and powerful when hurling the power of the moon and stars and the storms of nature, powerful and formidable
Mystical celestial goddess - the stars and the moon in high civilization and in the forest, a female dominated and led powerful priest order - calling on the goddess and the moon and stars. So little shown here too. Provide a role for the males too, maybe they’re more star focused or night focused - or their emphasis is greater in the arcane and druidism.
The amazonian female warrior and ranger/archer/huntress - this is a well loved fantasy aspect too.
These are what is attractive about the night elves.
Most attractive things about the Void Elves:
The dark star, void aesthetic and theme
Noble elves, facing and mastering dark powers to defend their world and friends - like the Witchers do - but a more caster focus than a melee one.
The high elf fantasy - the aspect of the blood elves that was part of the alliance and friends with the humans is probably one of the most attractive things the void elves have going for - alliance are apecrazy in love over this LotR combo that Wc2 and the alliance was founded on. Push the high elf fantasy side of the void elves too.
The dracula’esque dark beauty vibe, forbidden powers but with a twist. Expand on this. It doesn’t just have to be high elves that are attractive right. Make void elves interesting and intriguing, emerging powerful contributors, a depth of lore that explores, give them a cool new city etc, build them up, make them attractive all round too.
Most Attractive things about the Draenei Fantasy.
Space age advanced level of technology and capability
Demons that are actually holy, in fact they originally were
The Naaru and the light - has a cosmic view point here that attracts people
Evolution fantasy is embodied in the draenei - especially their tails
Crystal technology - the atamal crystal lore, hardly developed
Draenei arcane lore - the Eredar were also incredible casters, this hasn’t been expounded on, their combination of magic and technology at an advanced level
Most attractive things about the Worgen
Their savage ferocity - okay, this has been brought out well, but a warning to all who think this should be the only thing about night elves - whiles it’s an asset, it isn’t as popular as you might thing, and this is the main fantasy of the worgen. not the main one of the night elves.
The supernatural werewolf vibe, this is also niche, but it has such flavour and character to it
The human civilization dwelling half between Stormwind and the night elves - is such an interesting split like half in the night elf forest elf side of the NElves, and half in the human politics and alliance
Gilneas and Gilneas city and the old alliance of WC2, the knowledge the lore
The Werewolf vs vampire undead fantasy popular culture . It doesn’t pull in as much as the beauty of the elves do or the generally likeability of medieval humans in castles with wizards, but it has a passionate niche following.
Agreed. IF they ever rebuild night elf stuff. Based on the new models of things from Legion onwards ofc, here is what I propose.
New stronghold bases - these should look like Black Rook Hold similarly to human and orc strongholds in new areas they are expanding…think Fort Triumph or Warsong Hold. This is the night elf versio - model already in game.
Mobile war bases - look like Feathermoon stronghold - these are easily built (and dismantled bases) for mobile war campaigns - far more effective than tents, and they are living houses as they are Ancients taking roots to provide a base. Using legion models
Villages - use the Astranar/Lor’danel type of buildings/architecture, there are a few more exmaples like the village in Val’sharah - these are what you will use in forest settings. use 8.1 Bashal’aran base models
Towns and Small Cities: Towns would be repaired versions of places like Meredil, Tel’anor and Ambervale in Suramar zone.
Small city would be pristine version of Nar’thalas
Capital cities : would be versions of Suramar and Zin’Azshari.
Off with elves, I really believe that Orcs and Trolls deserve it much more.
Let’s see for instance dark spear trolls never really had a city - city since the very beginning. Whatnot? NOOO WAY. I dare you, go check it out, you will be shocked.
Falling for fire is such a cheap shot - I mean, in the lore Nordarssil was certainly warded against all kinds of magic, through the blesssings, , you can imagine that Teldrassil was as well, to think it could be arcane bombed so easily - to a group that are masters both at using magic and at warding/guarding against it - when you consider who they are - with both pre-sundering and long vigil expertise…
I expected that blizzard would remember that, and this is what Sylvanas would use Azerite for, because it would take that much to blast through the enchantments and wards -but no.
It’s sad, when they wanna trash night elves, they can be so …careless. It isn’t always the case, but that was also very disappointing to see.
Dragon blessings should have made that impossible, even with arcane fire
Druids (many former mage highborne/moonguard from the highest magical civilization - would know how to ward against it)
Highborne mages, I mean, hello, what about using magic to douse it with water, druids can also whip up tidal waves - I mean it’s literally a spell
Anyway, new city should be magical, gorgeous marble, not wood. wood buildings for druidic loving race, that has such architectural and arcane expertise should be a no go because
Using wood to make a city for so many would be wasteful and very anti-druidic who prefer trees and nature to be minimally disrupted
The druidic side would prefer night elves to use marble, and would welcome a city for larger populations because that means less disturbed forest.
They would help with the city construction, this is how the great cities were built, with arcane magic and nature together
Their mark on the city would not be in wood buildings, but in parks, and gardens, and the animals and treants you see walking around. I can imagine they’d have an oracle tree in the middle of the garden or one tree base for a city and that’s it
Non druids actually love living in cities. Civilians, mages and Priests in particular, love buildings, temples and they love doing beautiful things.
Some think night elves don’t love beautiful marble buildings - tbh I’ve only ever heard this from horde elf fans (surprse) but it makes no sense, these gugys love doig eerything they do beautifully, especially their temples (priests) and their buildings (highborne) - it doens’t matter if it’s wood or marble. Druids don’t care about buildings because they are druids, the beauty is in nature, and buildings can’t compete, nor do they try, instead they make nature as beautiful and natural as it can be- that’s their beauty… but night elves while nature lovers aren’t all druids.
You can love nature and love the arcane or love Elune. You can love nature and love cities too, the love has never been mutually exclusive. Night elves aren’t anti-civilziation, and like every race, some would like a city more than the forest and vice versa. What you won’t get is someone hating nature amongst the night elves. you would get some not that concerned or drawn to it - but still like to have pretty flowers and gardens, but not hate.
Elves do not hate magic, nor nature, nor beauty.
Even if you think all night elves want to live in a forest and can’t understand that you can love a forest without wanting to literally live in it (which is a druid thing and not all night elves are druids) you will have some who like to live in a city and temples instead… you would find that a nation would need a capital , trade, embassies with allies, a centre to operate things.
Night elves aren’t primitives, they know civilization and have done it well. Don’t misunderstand their isolation and long vigil mandate which made such things un-necessary because of the greater task of the watch, to mean that now, post long vigil, such isn’t necessary for “living” and “developing” again.
During the long vigil, life wasn’t about improving things, building families, restoring what was lost, it was about hunting demons, guarding the well, guarding the world… it was a watch - hence vigil. and Long because of how long it lasted - all the usual things of life were sacrificed for this.
With the vigil over, , guess what, time to start living again, re build, grow families, trade, international relations, like before the first invasion, - this means for the first time in 10,000 years, building cities, - another change is using arcane magic. It was banned to prevent the legion returning, and is why when the legion return in WC3, night elves are using starfall and arcane wrought spells in their druids and priests… they don’t have mages because you know it has been banned to prevent what was happening, but if they did, they would use them… and is why they don’t fight the alliance or stop them from using mages, and why you don’t see them have any issues with the humans having mages or the Draenei.
People obviously don’t care enough about night elves to think or challenge their presumptions.
We have a lot of people who don’t play night elves, and don’t care, dictating what should happen to them . Usually it is elf fans on the other faction, suggesting things for them they’d never like or never be drawn too. Which often to me seems like stopping their rivals from improving or getting really cool things.
A lot of it is mis-understanding. But then, night elves are supposed to be enigmatic, you’re supposed to delve into them to fully understand them, they are suppposed to be confusing at a glance and only understood if you actually think and look deeper.
Darkspear Trolls yes, Orcs…err what? They have pretty much the de facto ‘Capital’ of the Horde in Orgrimmar. Where did Vol’jin rule from as Warchief? The Echo Isles? Nah, Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar. Where did Sylvanas rule from as Warchief? Undercity? Nah, Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar. Where does Lor’themar Theron, the only member of the founding Triumvirate of the Horde Council still on Azeroth rule from? Sunfury Spire in Silvermoon? Nah, Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar.
Like, the Orcs already have a pretty sweet city. Darkspear Trolls need better though, but everything bar Stormwind, Ironforge, Thunder Bluff and Orgrimmar needs better. Bringing Exodar and Silvermoon onto the Azeroth map and updating them would be nice, after 16 years…
Wait, Nordrassil? That was Self Sacrifice, Malfurion blew the Horn of Cenarius and sacrificed the Dragon Aspects blessings upon it, to defeat Archimonde. The second time was Ragnaros, so not exactly just any old firechucker. That happened just before Mordent Evershade and co were allowed back, so in fact there wouldn’t have been Arcane wards against it at that point.
Teldrassil is a different matter.
Ehhh, Enchantments aren’t the Night Elf Highborne strong point, it was a type of magic the Exiles nicked from the Amani trolls. The Night Elf Highborne are hardly likely to have learned from the Blood Elves, so their knowledge of Enchanting and Enchantments was likely rudimentary. Wards is a bit different. You are still however looking at one small andup until recently marginalised element of one race, up against the entire magical prowess of the Kalimdor Horde…
That isn’t even taking into effect that both sides have Druids, again the Horde more than the Alliance, and only the Horde forces there had Shamans. Everything the Night Elves on Teldrassil had, the Horde also had, and in greater numbers. It sounds pretty plausible to be fair.
Neither Ysera, nor Alexstrasza’s blessing made Teldrassil immune to fire.
Careful, you’re veering into Night Elves are the best at magic territory there, and we’ve already discussed why this just ain’t the case. As for Druids. Cool. The Horde have twice as many Druids
What they gonna do, Conjure Water and throw wineskins at it? Or summon Water Elementals to do it?. You’d need Water Elementals similar to what Jaina bound to service in Tides of War, to try and send a Tsunami at Orgrimmar. Difference is, she held the Focussing Iris at that time. Nobody holds the Focussing Iris currently, it is (thankfully) locked away securely.
Should be a mix. Having it -only- just marble would be to forget the time when they relied on nature and nature magic as their sole province of magical power (and Elune of course, though I assume a new Temple would be built to reflect that.)
Actually they wouldn’t. As long as it is put to good use, and not mass deforestation, Druids in WoW, would actually be OK with that.
I can’t imagine the treants wanting much to do with a city of marble alone, that would be counter to their natural environment, as for the animals, you’d only really get those that could adapt to an urban environment, or else you end up with a zoo. Especially as given the size of WoW Cities, there’d be like One park…
You do seem to have a fixation upon using that as a ‘go-to’ response to wave off anything people say. It would be as true as me saying “Night Elf only Fans want the Kaldorei to be the best at -Everything!”- Just because a few elements of it’s fanbase actually do.
Lets be fair, that is largely down to Blizzard’s inability to present these things in a believable fashion, you could say the same of any race in WoW.
Ah, yes, I didn’t complete the sentence, I have corrected it now, I also spotted it straight away in the re-read.
Maybe, maybe not, we could argue, but seriously, I don’t think ayone expected Teldrassil to burn so easily. I think that was a mistake in the writing.
Azerite would have made perfect sense. Surely a tree wont be that vulnerable.
You forgetone of teh strong points of the long vigil kaldorei was how advanced their anti-magic abilities were, which made sense given who they were and what their task was.
I mean the long vigil was spent guarding against spell usage to prevent the Legion’s return, and remember those night elves were great arcane users, that lore developoment made sense that they would be very good at guarding against magic with thier knowledge and the task they had.
I think it was an omission.
Erm, I think you should read how Nordrassil’s protection was described. It would be immune to spell attack, greatly so, it would take immense power to break through.
You would imagine that Teldrassil would be so similarly warded… and if not, it would be menetioned in the story to explain why it is so easily burned.
It was too easy. This is why it seems so cheap
They simply were, their magical expertise at the time of the sundering was phenomenal, and remember the night elves who fight the legion and survive are all arcane magic users and priests. Moonguard, Highborne, Priests etc - and the level they are at is higher than what society is 10,000 years later.
That’s what the lore says. THe night elves who survive to teach the humans magic, first of all have gone 3,000 years without any practice (Sunstriders) - at this point they’re well rusty in using arcane magic - 3,000 years is a long time, your focus in that time is guarding and protecting aginst magical use, not actually using magic itself.
when the Sunstrider group get exiled, they kinda have only the knowledge of their small group, no libraries, 3,000 years out of practice, no city and thousands of yoears of practice (like the Shen’dralar or Nightborne have in comparsion), They and the rest of the kaldorei are stale. 10,000 years after the sundering, the kaldorei who return to the arcane are quite stale - Azshara zone quests show you this… despite only being a few weeks at returning to magic it shows.
The point is, their focus was totally switched for a very long time, they’d be very good at warding and being anti-magic. Now that aspect wasn’t picked up or emphasized much in WoW, but it is mentioned in Wc3 back stories and is a huge factor in the now non-canon warcraft RPG
The logic follows. I feel the ease of the burning is an oversight.
I know, there is little anyone could have done, most of their forces aren’t there, and if there they would have been engaged, at this oint they are beaten back, besides the highborne had a much more urgent task of evacuation .
If you waeigh up trying to stop the burning versus evacuating, and what it would take to successfully do either, it is likely the tree would have burned before they could overcome the horde at the base and then douse.
You are right, but still, you know.
You have lots of wood homes in villages and forest settings, you don’t need that in a city to reflect the time you’ve just come out of, and I don’t think it’s an appropriate way to show your nature loving side - both because of the lroe of the druids and after your last one was so easily burned
You also forget that their great marble cities are built with a combination of nature and arcane magic, nature is in everything, you don’t need wooden buildings, that waste wood to show this, especially when you have magical means to use other materials.
And they would prefer it more if you didn’t at all, when you had the means to use other materials. Darnassus was managed without the arcane, and built on the tree exceptions could be made, but now with teh arcane returned, and with buildign a civilizaiton in mind, this wouldn’t make sense.
I want to emphasise this point and what a lot of people who don’t think about this properly would miss. You don’t ened to waste wood to reflect natuure magic advancements in a city that doesn’t need to have it. Nature magic advnacemnts are shown in things like the creation of Teldrassil, guiding the evolution of the world in the emerald dream, they are shown in the imrovement to nature, not in the co-opting of it to build a city.
Druids will help build a city because they’d like the idea of the population being contained to a minimum amount of space that doesn’t disrupt the forest , knowing a city is a necessaity and would assit in building like was done in the pre-sundering era. THe assist comes in building those great cities, not in wooden buildings. And the touch of nature in it would be Parks and green spaces, gardens in homes, animals in the green spaces, walking treatns that tend the groves and aid.
Erm, the city buildings are all marble, but no one said buidings would be the only thing in a city, there would be lakes, and parks, and gardens, those aren’t marble, those are nature. Not to mention there is a forest outside, so they’d be free to wander in and out.
Have you forgottent hat wotA mentiones that Ancients walked the cities freely, do you not see Eldre’thalas has Treants and ancients in it? They are are keen about various aspects of nature and the arcane in the city.
it is the night elf way. Suramar when we visit it in Legion is missing the treants, but it is’ also missing the preisthood, it’s specific history explains this, they would have left for war with Tyrande and Malfurion etc. Remember a lot of the resistance that fights Azshara comes from Suramar, and the Nightborne are the group that stay behind.
With CEanrius marching forward, the Ancients would have left Suramar for the fight, as would the preisthood. But even then, see how many Grove tender Nightborne and nature wilelding magic users they are keeping up the gardens too.
Suramar has a hell of lot more than Silvermoon, and it reflects the nature duality in the night elves.
You don’t put rural buildings ina city. Certianly not to reflect nature.
Because the resistance has most often come from horde elf fans, and I don’t understand it, I may like night elves, but I don’t go talking down blood elves and suggesting worse for them.
My advocacy for night elves is what’s in the lore, the reason is because I expected to see the night elves portrayed in game as they were in the lore, and was heavily disappointed to see them at a fraction of that.
Even after release, we got far more lore in books like Wolfheart, Stormrage, Illidan than we did in game for the night elves. Who are suddenly far fuller in the novels than in game.
it wasn’t until Legion arrived, showing the kaldorei properly - by having all their aspects, druids & nature, The order of Elune (priests, sentinels, wardens as well the Temples (Cathedral, Temple of the Moon, Temple of a Thousand Lights, Temple of Falanaar), the arcane and civilization (the ruins and the pristine Suramar as well as Highborne, Moonguard, Nightborne), their fortresses showing their military might (the warden vault, the Black Rook Hold, the Moonguard Stronghold). The demon hunters and how good they really are with Illidan showing up, Tyrande, Malfurion, Farondis, Azshara, Elisande, Lothrius - the major players are all involved even though they slack on the preisthood when their biggest development on the Suramarand Broken shore campaigned was heavily nerfed to be replaced by more Legion demons adn class order hall involvement.
This is the night elves presented properly with the full scope of the race - shame about the cuts, the priesthood suffered the most for them, but still you have the full scope there.
But yes, it is not every horde fan, never said itw as, and it isn’t even every blood elf fans, or even those blood elf fans all the time. I’m sorry, I may be bringing up years old quibbles when people have moved on or changed from that.
Yet the bulk of the calls for savage and primitive night elves, and jungle home night elves comes from horde fans who don’t play the race and hwo don’t like that sort of thing, they tell me this reflects night elves, I tell them and show them that what blizzard has written and shown refelcts night elves, not what they want night elves to be.
Blizzard’s vision and scope of night elves is really good, I want to see it in game for the playable faction - not just lying in the novels or only with the horde night elves.
Oh without a doubt. I wouldn’t say it is inability, as it is unwillingness. Night elves have an incredible and very unique fantasy, but without development, and spending most of your time making blood elves beautiful and other races, your love will shift.
It is that they aren’t willing, or weren’t for a long time. They would rather have given the night elven sub race and it’s best assets to the horde than to the alliance, is an indication of how strong their affection is for the red. This is because constant development shifted their focus.
Knowing full well Zuldazar was coming, a would they ever think of giving Highmountain or Zandalari… no? it’s because they loved the horde and couldn’t help such good work not going to their favourite faction.
But why is this? This is not because the developers have some innate bias to the horde, no it isn’t, despite what alliance fans think, it’s because the developers spent so much time developing the horde, they are use to it, almost alike an automatic reaction - the coolest things go red, and red focused.
They switched their focus to improve the horde as way back as mid-classic. It was a development drive, horde was not appealing to players, let’s develop the horde, think horde.
When you don’t develop a group, people aren’t going to like it much, and nor will you. think about it, if you were unbaised, but spent so much time labouring for one side, you would do good work and you would love it more. so even when you start putting really cool stuff into the other, you’re gonna have an instinctual reaction to shift it to the one you’ve been focusing on.
It explains the haphazard night elf development, the redirection of it’s stuff tot he horde, and the better red development. It’s like institutional racism, it’s not an actual fully conscious racism, but it’s an habitually generated one.
Click here to see deeper dive into my thoughts on this
Look at the Draenei, the dwarves and especially the night elves, there is so much to them that can be really cool. We saw how cool dwarves can be in the Hobbit movies, the visualisation has such a world of warcraft Iron forge feel, but on a much better scale, and the way the dwarves are portrayed is so cool - who wouldn’t love it if alliance dwarves had that sort of mettle and that sort of grandeur?
Night elves are their most unique elven adaptation: What other fantasy has good dark elves? With a high civilization and a contrasting deep wild forest purity like the night elves? Then add a celestial focus of the moon and stars, a goddess and relgiion that touches both the highest civilization and the most remote forest life.
It’s actually quite refreshing, beautiful not hideous, purple, silver glowing eyes full of magic an incredible history. That gives you just the right amount of hope to see the night elves destoryed by the legiononce, able to finally pick themselves up and re-emerge to the level they lost… it makes a player invested in the group, you are excited to see the night elves regrow their forests and rebuild their civilization after the burning legion returns and the vigil ended.
The star magic is so otherworldly and spacey, you want to see how a great civilization utilised that and what it means - it’s elves in a light and level we’ve never seen before.
And why not? When you have civilizations like the Eredar - yet most of this is just left undeveloped, with short little bursts. WE should have had Suramar grade repolishing for Eldre’thalas in Cataclysm, but no, the horde was still primary focus, so guess what the best stories were red developed, and the focus was not on any alliance race for sure. Despite the kaldorei dominance of Vash’jir and Hyjal, it seemed to be turned to show how incredible and vital Thrall was.
So if you don’t develop something, you’re not going to like it as much, if you put all your effort into blodo elves and the red side, you will do better improvementsfor them, and tyou will like them more, you’d be reluctant out of habit and self conditioning to throw anything blue side, saving your best developments or turning your best developments red. Andt he blue side would suffer… the allinace was already a dwingidling minoority by Wod, , and they buffed teh raciasl, to no change in effect. Suramar was a night elf dream, but somehow felt it would better go horde, depriving night elves of seroius advancemnt. And when they threw the void elves in, they gave no elven city, no elven infrastructure, they were just a rag tag group.
If the exchange was fairly planned then, wouldn’t the night elves have gotten the city and a large group of nightborne transformed back into night elves via the arcan’dor, and the exiled void elves would have been welcomed there. The horde would have gotten Nightborne, but as exiles, same as the void elves are exiles, and the Nightborne, who remain nightborne becasue they are deined the fruit as punishment for aiding the legion, are privded shelter and sustenance by the blood elves and the sunwell, this is how they retain their appearance.
They could have done that, the night elves would have developed well. Suramar could have gone blue, while Highmountain went red. Zuldazar’s Dazar’alor would have been the grand horde city coming round the corner while Darnassus burnt. Lordaeron survived instead of being levelled, the forsaken survived instead of burned, could make the inevitable return with Calia. This was balanced and the alliance would have had a much needed upper hand to boost it’s numbers and attract.
imagine:
Alliance: Suramar, Horde: Highmountain (grander on the alliance)
Alliance: Void elves, Horde: Nightborne - both exiles
Alliance: Boralus, Horde Dazar’alor (grander on the horde)
Alliance; Darnassus destroyed completley, Horde: Lordaeron temporarily poisoned
Night elves can’t return to Darnasuss - but that’s okay, they have Suramar now, Horde can return to Lordaeron, this is what the Calia arc is all bout.
THis is also perfectly balanced in this picture blue and red are ven, but blue has kick vik up via Suramar… compare this to how it turned out, and see how unfair it is to the alliance.
Now why is that ? because they are still horde heavy minded at this point. Still, they can’t help themselves, even when doing great things for an alliance race, it goes horde.
That is the past now.
Solution for Present?
Please improve the alliance, give and do a great city for night elves, do another for void elves. Develop the night elves and void elves more, make them super appealing, develop the dwarves and draenei more… let them be groups people want to play more.
You have to make the alliance races attractive. Doing it via humans isn’t working, because it’ humans that have always had the best improvements and it hasn’t drawn anyone to the alliance… why would it… the best elven civilizations are on the horde the best arcane magic portrayals there too, all things that are cores to the lalinace and alliance players love are better on the horde, so many alliance plaeyrs moved horde.
If you start makin teh ones on the alliance more attractive, you would tempt some of them back.
Can they bring themselves to give the alliance really cool stuff… or will they repeat what happened to suramar… see it, go…oh this is soo cool, we have to give it to the horde
Did you read the hidden section? Please bear in mind those are my thoughts on the issue and how/why it has developed that way. At the end of the day, warcraft is developed so players don’t really lose out, but because of the way they have divided the player base and set their game to require two factions, you have this problem of an uneven balance.
And it is developer generated, therefore only developers can fix it.
Do things well, you will get players attention, both to your game and to the alliance… don’t do it well, they’ll go where it is done well, whether that is the horde or it is Final fantasy 14
Wood buildings during the long vigil were not a “new style” they were the rural style used in the pre-sundering times for remote locations or forest habitations - Winterspring proves this
In hte long vigil wood is used because the means for extracting marble stone happens via arcane magic mainly, and this is banned.
Also the night elves operate very differently in this era, they are consntatly on the move (females) in hunting parties with ancients, so temporaryhomes, living in ancients is the norm - this makes sense for military / hunting intruder/atyr campaigns.
Druids re usually in the forest/barrow dens… it is reported Moonglade village of night haven is the only permanent habitation, and it’s small, they don’t even build a temple in this era.
So that style is not a reflection of the kaldorei suited for a city nor an indication of their nature love. The forest side is represented by a forest - such habitations are for habitation. Now when rebuilding their lives, returing from th elong vigil, arcane returned, they will build proper temples, proper cities like they use to, and they have the highborne, arcane magic, ancients, nature magic and priesthood - all the elements of the pre-sundering era with 10,000 years of improved and increased knowledge to both repeat the same level of excellence and surpass it.
incoming: City + temple + academies etc as great as before
City can have parks and groves showing nature love, also gardens on rooftops like you saw in zin’azsnarhi, treants and critters, animals freelyroaming through the city - this shows nature.
Here are some images from the Catehdral of Eternal night that shows you waht night elf internals look like using the new models
The collunns have star constellsations, , moon symbols on the doors, and art scroll work… notice that these patterns are noticeable on the ruins, just very scarred and broken down, this is what the pristine version looks like.
Stars, moon symbol, intricate patterns,
In spite of the fel corruption seeping int he temple, Aegwyn’s wards down, the goddess’ power from the spells cast by the priest still power and resist the corruption inside, after 10,000 years.
We do know Elune really does and can maintain things. Priest arcane enchantments, objects, things dedicated to her, whether arcane moonwells etc… they’re powered by the goddess really last even amidst destruction and devastation. Here is an example from Ashenvale.
Here are some walk through videos going through the night elven architecture shown in both the Cathedral and Suramar - this is what night elf buildings and cities/temples would look like in pristine condition using the new model.
after which ill switch back to space goat and rename my self back to my previous name 
