Welcome to Warcraft lore.
Where the philosophy is that continuity is a leash upon a writer’s hands, and therefor they prefer just not having any continuity at all and just leave it all up to “in the spur of the moment” thoughts.
“Oh, this would be cool!”
“It directly contradicts what we just wrote for our players 5 minutes ago.”
“Yeah… but it is cool!”
Blizzard needs better writers.
If it didn’t mean I would have to delete my own Night Elves, I almost wish they had made the Night Elves extinct, it would save us the constant whine threads. Fortunately, Blizzard have actually taken the Night Elves back to their roots and made them these unpredictable, savage sylvan guerrilla fighters again, instead of purple humans.
Extinct they are not…
Oh yeah, totally. That’s what I said, its the loss of life and a city that would be the horrible thing, not a tree. The reason I specified the tree is because someone mentioned Druids being annoyed about it. Druids probably know the most about it out of everyone, so whilst lamenting the loss of life, and the city, would not be so cut up about the tree itself…
Yeah. You also seen the range of guns and bows in WoW? I mean I am not a thousand year old elven Ranger, but In real life can loose an arrow about five or six times the distance that a Sentinel or Farstrider can.
Let us remember that the Novels, whilst describing canon events, are sometimes very sketchy on details, and forget things, especially when the author’s play favourites.
Let us not forget the dialogue between Lorash Sunbeam and Malfurion, Where Christie Golden basically overwrote an entire race’s starting zones, reason for a horde race being Horde, and therefore the entire Horde demographic…
Yeah, she pretty quickly had to apologise for that one and admit she had forgotten the lore.
(For those wondering, as Malfurion is killing Lorash, Lorash taunts him about how the Kaldorei are effectively as bad as the Blood Elves, recounting his own life as a seven thousand year old Sin’dorei (Which interestingly gives us a better idea of elven lifespans) who was of the first generation born on Eastern Kingdoms after the Exile, born before they even founded Quel’thalas). Malfurion gets incensed and says “The Kaldorei never interfered with the Blood Elves, we would never do such a thing!”
It was then pointed out to Golden that the Kaldorei would, and indeed had done such a thing, and that Malfy boy would be aware of that. She then went “Uhh, I forgot that”
Not surprising when your head is so far stuck up Alliance backside that you’re effectively wearing it as a hat…
So whilst broader scale events are well detailed and canon, the smaller things tend to be hand waved away as artistic license, and sometimes contradict lore. That being one example. I mean, lest we forget, once upon a time Med’an was canon lore…
Because Trebuchet’s have a minimum and maximum range, a few hundred yards is within those parameters, but it is not the maximum…
Michael Stackpole did a good job with ‘Shadows of the Horde’, You really got a feel for Vol’jin, and also the Pandaren. I liked the addition of Tyrathan Khort, and loved the fact he was actually put in game to interact with, watching Vol’jin’s funeral pyre from afar.
William King did what I thought was impossible. His Novel ‘Illidan’ was not told through the point of view of that insufferable narcissist, but a relatively new Demon Hunter, a Kaldorei named Vandel. It describes how absolutely horrific the process of becoming a Demon Hunter is, and you really understand why so few survive. He describes how even though the Demon Hunters were Illidans own kind, they still felt separate from normal people. There is a scene full of pathos, where Vandel is hiding in a bush, and stealing sips of wine from half drank wine glasses of Kael’thas’ blood elves, who are having a party.
He’s a demon Hunter, he could just go “Give me a drink, Now!” but he feels so separate that he is hiding and sneaking drinks, like an underage child at a house party!
He did the impossible. He wrote a Demon Hunter who you could actually understand and empathise with…
Christie Golden has a certain talent. then she shoots herself in the foot.
War Crimes was a brilliant story, it was ‘A Few Good Men’: The Azeroth version. Then, like a student who has to finish their dissertation by tomorrow morning, the last few chapters were a jumbled mess. She cannot write combat scenes. The start and middle were brilliant, the last bit was just…bizarre, as if it was a different author. She also did the cardinal sin of throwing in two of her player characters, one of whom saves Varian Wrynn (The Warlock), who strangely get a lot more description than the other Alliance soldiery…
Knaak however. Cannot write. He just lacks the spark to interest the reader, and this is probably not helped by the fact that his work is derivative, and has no ideas or unique twist of his own. I mean for goodness sake, it was bad enough Blizzard shackling Alleria to Turalyon, because an Elven chick obviously wants to date something with the life expectancy of a hamster in comparison, and it is such a ground breaking and new idea…I am sure no fantasy franchise had ever explored that idea…/Sarcasm.
But hey, Alleria has a sister, wouldn’t it be interesting and cool if this young elf also fell in love with a human male, an insert character for Knaak. Because that’s how Bestiality works (Humans and Elves…Two different Species, y’all, not races), it is a family trait! sighs Alleria and Turalyon have a son…how can Knaak top that? Oh! They have -two Sons!-
I mean given their respective ages, this is actually really, really creepy. Rhonin is described as young for an Archmage, if he was still alive he’d be probably Jaina kind of age by now (She’s early 30’s I think?). Vereesa however, by elven standards (Not years, a year is the same for everyone, same as there are no ‘Dog Years’ or ‘Cat Years’) is very young. By very young, I mean ridiculously young. She was too young to have fought during the major wars, You’re basically looking at their equivalent of a 16 year old. Adult, but only just…, and certainly very young (but adult) by Elven standards (We know that a 20 year old Sylvanas was already a Farstrider at that age, so it seems reasonable to assume their age of adulthood is similar to humans)
(I’m using UK ages there, I am aware other countries have different ages of ‘majority’, and in fairness, 16 is a weird one, you’re technically adult, but have restrictions until you are 18, at which point you are entirely your own person legally.)
I mean…that kind of relationship would raise eyebrows. The relative age and life experience is a bit jarring, Now that is by our modern standards, for sure, and in medieval history, very old men were married to very young women, and vice versa, to keep royal dynasties going, But that’s not the case, Neither Rhonin nor Vereesa are actually noble (The Windrunners are not actually a noble family, they -were- the hereditary keepers of the title of Ranger-General however)
It was done because Knaak wanted his Aragorn and Arwen fix, even though Alleria and Turalyon had beaten him to it.
Surely the third Windrunner sister, Undead, bitter and vengeful, is free of the family Bestiality kink for banging another species? Surely!
Nope. Nathanos got the job because he was banging the boss. An Elven chick who somehow finds something with the life expectancy of a hamster to be attractive…
See where I am going with that?
The Novels are great.
But sometimes they get things very, very wrong. Giving Catapults like demolishers a range of only a few hundred yards, is very, very wrong…
For 1 patch, and them returned them to being useless in that same patch, like only 5 minutes later even?
near extinct then, give it time
Fair point, yes.
I suppose it is an overall lack of communication, and to an extend a lack of interest in other parts of the story that the writers themselves have not been involved with.
That and the general philosophy of: “Is it cool, then put it in.”
I guess it may be unfair to put the blame on many of the writers of the novels. Just the lore dev team, really.
Elves and the undead overall should not have been playable.
Wait. The 8.3 patch. Everyone is listening to Anduin, all the racial leaders are there, Shandris is standing in for Tyrande. Anduin goes “We have peace” (Which is optimistic, it was an Armistice, not actual Peace) and suddenly “Blammo!” The room goes dark,and scary, and Tyrande -appears- from nowhere in the throne room, with two guards.
“There is no peace until it is signed in the Banshee’s Blood!” Tyrande snarls and walks off.
Let me just reiterate that. She teleports into the Royal throneroom of the High King of the Alliance, like it was nothing. Stomps down an ultimatum, and walks out.
She -teleports- She’s a Joint Priestess/Hunter.
Umm. They can’t do that. The entire room goes dark as she arrives.
Umm…no one can do that.
I watched that cinematic and I got from it “Tyrande is completely Bada$$ and the Kaldorei are going to go all Vietcong on the Horde, this will be awesome, its like WC3 Kaldorei all over again!”
I don’t know where the idea of them being weak comes from?
There are two Species, one playable, that are ‘functionally Extinct’ That is Void Elves, who in lore are a small cult, too small for a viable population, and High Elves, who will suffer the law of diminishing returns, they are functionally extinct, but will not be factually extinct for a couple of generations, so like, ten thousand years or so 
Because Nathanos is stronger than her even with her new powers, replay the 8.1 scenario and you’ll see that Nathanos was about to strike her down single handedly before Malfurion arrived.
considering that most night elves died in Teldrassil, several more in the war campaign and in 8.1, I’d definitely say that they’re close to extinction since they also have no place to rebuild/repopulate since the Horde has taken everything.
Does Nathanos have power over life and death? No. Does Tyrande? No. Does she destroy one of four entities with that power? Yes.
Remember, as much as I hate him (and I do) Nathanos is a unique one of a kind. He is just as special as Tyrande. The way he was created has never been done before, same as what Tyrande did had never been done before. That conflict was an Alliance win. They destroyed by 25% the Forsaken ability to raise new troops. I mean that is…pretty major…Imagine a real world nation conquering another and going “One quarter of your population are now impotent and Barren” That would be world shattering news! That’s what the Night Elves, -ON Their OWN!- just did to the Forsaken. I mean that is massive…
No they didn’t. They just did not. Bomb London, and you don’t kill most of the population of the UK… The kaldorei army was not in Darnassus. around 30% of their population or so were in there, the rest are scattered through other areas. A lot of people died. They are emphatically not however close to extinction.
WHy is it that Night Elf Fans are so determined to run their species into the ground? Is it some masochistic kink? Everyone else is like “Dayumn, they got a slap, now is an interesting time to play Night Elf!”
Sylvanas still has 4 Val’kyr left though and she can recreate them, therefore it was no loss.
But Teldrassil was not a city, it was like a whole country if you want to compare it to the real world. Darnassus was a city, and the majority of the Night Elves were in Teldrassil.
It was definitely far above 50%, otherwise it wouldn’t have been stated that there are far too few night elves left.
Because Blizzard keeps rubbing it into our faces, other races have ups and downs while Night Elves only have downs and get punched while they’re on the ground.
Teldrassil is a little smaller than most other starter zones in WoW, hardly a country, even in in game metrics.
Not a country.
A country would be the entirety of the Kingdom of Stormwind, aka, Duskwood, Westfall, Redridge and Elwynn Forest.
Or Quel’thalas, Eversong Woods and Ghostlands.
Teldrassil was a speck, even compratively to all of the zones that Night Elves generally occupy, Ashenvale, Darkshore, Felwood, Feralas, Mount Hyjal.
Sure, many elves also died on Teldrassil.
But I think they’ll be okay.
First of all we had a quest to rescue civilians, left in the city. While doing that quest, Horde catapults shots were falling down from the sky.
To rescue civilians we had to stop the fire. To stop the fire we used ordinary baskets with water!!!
In other words, it was ordinary fire, and some strong rain could stop it. Especially knowing, that this tree stands in the sea, which means that there is pretty wet air. Druids could summon sea monsoon…
But most funniest thing is, that Darnassus stands in far west side of the Teldrassil. Which means that Horde catapults shots were flying not only across the sea, but also across the Teldrassil. Across all those lakes, rivers, villages and mountains… 
Close. She had 4. As the player,you and Tyrande kill the fourth one, she now has 3, which is how many she needs to ‘cheat’ death. She’s on her last chance saloon. If she is ‘killed’ again, that’s it. Game over for her.
Nah it wasn’t, and no they weren’t. Darnassus by no means was the capital of a whole country that existed on top of a tree (I would never be able to take Night Elves seriously if that were the case…) It was the Capital of a fairly wide group of lands that really recently had its city relocated to a new tree.
No it wasn’t. Where is that stated? I mean the -reason- the Horde had such success is because the majority of the Night Elven armies were elsewhere at the time. Where is that stated?
About time the Night Elves got the Blizzard Treatment the way other races have, or does it only count as horrible when it is an Alliance race?
Come on… What has happened to the Kaldorei has already happened to the Gnomes, the Gilneans, the Forsaken (Twice) the Blood Elves, the Trolls, the Tauren, the humans (twice) the Draenai. In fact most of Wow is a story of upheavals and population transferral due to calamity of natural means, or enemy action.
What makes Night Elves so special that they suddenly deserve preferential treatment?
I remember that quest. It didn’t work so well, did it? A lot of things went unanswered, just like they do when Blizzard do any scenario like that. How did the Druids not use air to blow away the Blight Gas at Undercity? How does Jaina nullify the Blight by using a level 3 Mage spell, that pretty much every mage at the Wrathgate would have mastered, not the least the fact that the environment itself was icy and cold, which is all it takes to do Blight-B-Gone if you are Jaina. No idea what everyone was complaining about. The Blight can literally be nullified by making it a bit chilly.
Thing is, you can’t throw actual fire. You can throw things -on fire- or that will explode into fire, but not actual fire. There has to be an accelerant.
You also can’t carry water in baskets… I mean quite famously so… Buckets, yes, metal cannisters, yes baskets, no, absolutely not.
you mention Druids, but pretty much most of the Druids and Shaman were down south trying to fix that hossing great sword that Sargeras had just stabbed the planet with!
Darnassus being in the west doesn’t really matter. Once you factor the ‘its a magic world!’ principle into things, most things are possible. I mean Anduin heals a whole battlefront, Jaina levitates a ship and fires magic cannonballs, before just nullifying the Blight, Sylvanas does whatever sylvanas does to make her look like a goth heroine (and I say this as a goth in the 90’s…she’d have been embarrassing even then!) Lor’themar drops snark at Jaina that somehow calms her down, everyone does something special to propel the story. In that case it was fire barrels of liquid fire at a just offshore target. You have to remember how big Teldrassil is… It holds a -CITY- in its branches, and the surrounding environs. That’s…pretty darned massive, and certainly visible from where it is, to Kalimdor…
The Worgen are the only other race that lost their starting zone after they evacuated. All others have proper capitals or make-do-arrangements like the gnomes, the Draenei or the Darkspear. (I am deliberately leaving out “allied races”).
Strangely enough (i.e. in a rather perverse fashion) Blizzard chose exactly that capital that hosted 2 races!
The Worgen lost their home twice now and the Night Elves once. But, no reminiscence after level 110, for the Night Elves. Teldrassil is no longer accessible at that point, unlike Gilneas. One can still visit its ruins.
I just wanted to add that not all nelves turn to whisps.
Some turn to banshees, some turn to normal ghosts as we saw on Broken Shore and Nazjatar.
Can the undead visit Undercity after 110?
Can u please decide if u want to Post with this Character or Elaria? Its so confusing sometimes ;-))))
It doesn’t matter how many she has, she can recreate them at any time.
In Elegy it’s stated that there are far too few night elves left. That was before more of them died in Darkshore, Nazmir etc.
That they have only been getting negative attention for 15 years now, they have only lost and never gained a single positive moment, all has been taken away from them and their story never goes uphill. Shadowlands makes it even worse by having all the dead night elves suffer in the maw forever (as mentioned on blizzcon). They are kicking the race while it’s down.
Because god forbid there’s more than 1 night elf fan in the forums
Do you mean that faction that initiated the war and blighted their own territory?
The answer is: you can fly into the throne room and walk toward the elevators. Physically speaking. But there’s Inconsistency here as well.
The Forsaken had devised gas masks (if you remember… the course of the battle) to enable Horde players to walk among the poisonous mist. Well, if you now fly towards the elevators without one you die.
Why aren’t Horde players allowed gas masks? Why are they not allowed - as opposed to the Alliance - to enter the place still? It would make sense if they did (due to that special device). Dying at the doorstep does not!
At least, and that is my point, you can fly over (and should be able to walk there due to BLizzards’ own logic) whereas after the portal transports you to Darkshore at level 110+, there is no getting near Teldrassil as there seems to be an invisible barrier across the Veiled Sea. Completely off-limits.
Why? Flyers should still be able to circle the tree and walk amidst the ruins as well.
Yeah, that a fair point, though I would argue that Gnomes and Trolls don’t really get their homelands back, Echo isles are not exactly a ‘Capital’ and despite having reclaimed it in Lore, the Gnomes do not have Gnomeregan back in Game. Silvermoon started off in TBC as half ruined, and if you do the Blood Elf Heritage armour quest you do play through the fall of Silvermoon as a ‘flashback’, which is not perhaps as visceral as the loss of Kalimdor and Undercity happening recently, but is still a whole quest chain about an utter defeat (and if you look down when flying from Ghostlands to the city you see the true scale of the massacre, corpses everywhere!)
I think that is kind of the point, the Worgen get utterly shafted, they are a state without a home, though if you look at their parallel, the Goblins, they also lose their homeland in their starting quests, the difference being that you cannot visit Kezan, the whole place went boom. Yes, they have Bilgewater Harbour, but then the Worgen have multiple smaller townships.
You can visit Gilneas, but sadly (because I still maintain it is one of the most beautifully designed cities) it is utterly abandoned, both in game and in lore. You can still visit Darnassus via the Bronze Dragonflight, but yeah, its gone in lore, the same being true of Undercity. Personally I think Thunder Bluff would have been a better location to ‘nuke’ not because I don’t like it, I do, very much, but I think it would be a closer equivalent to Darnassus with the same kind of ‘destruction of nature’ vibe to it,but obviously that would have unbalanced the location of capitals on the continents, and lacked the kick in the teeth to the Forsaken, who were (unwittingly at first) the architects of the destruction of Darnassus.
That is also valid. We don’t know -why- that happens, but it is true. Don’t start me on Beansidhe’s, Blizzard can’t make up their mind on those (grumbles about Blizzard making male Dark Rangers and by extension Male Beansidhe’s despite the whole word meaning a -Female Elf-)
Yes. Any Horde race can. They gave it the Theramore treatment. I mean Lorewise, no, absolutely not, it is deadly to everyone. (Unless this has changed in game, I went there after its destruction, but have not tried/needed to for months now)
Well, it does matter, because they are her resurrection card, and she has burned through them at a rate of knots, as she has went more and more batguano insane. She also cannot ‘recreate’ them. She doesn’t have that power. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Greater Val’kyr can create lesser Val’kyr, but lesser Val’kyr cannot bring Sylvanas back to life. If Sylvanas could create them, don’t you think she would have by now?
That is an emotive statement. “There are far too few” as in “Too many died” Many races of Azeroth could say the same, heck, if you use Real life terms, what is it Shakespeare says “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”. The English Warhost is small, in comparison to the French, it doesn’t mean that as a nation they are all that is left. Too Few Darnassians survived the atrocity, which is a standard reaction to a widespread destruction of a people. ‘Too few’ people survived the destruction of Poland in the 1940’s, yet it still rather famously exists to this day.
That’s their story. That is the story of the Kaldorei, a once great nation that is dwindling and seeing the twilight of their power. I mean that’s a thing. I’m a Brit, trust me, being a global powerhouse and losing it all is completely a thing. Does it bother me? No, not really. Do I find it bizarre that we once had such power? Yes. The last century and a quarter has been a catalogue of Britain losing. Nations (Rightfully) retaking their sovereignty or being granted it, That’s real life. I don’t feel like my country is dying (Don’t get me started on Brexit growls) but we did take an absolute kicking. For around 150 years, the story of Great Britain has been that of an empire in absolute decline and loss. somehow Kaldorei getting the same treatment in 15 years is unrealistic, or symptomatic of Blizzard hating them?
Given the constant whine threads, you would be forgiven for making that assumption, to be honest…
Ermm. What?
I distinctly remember the battle scenario. The Horde do -not- get gasmasks (Which is stupid, but it is what it is). I mean you do not. You can easily die during that scenario as a Horde character by being in the Blight area… (To my shame, I did, because I wasn’t paying attention!)
It makes no sense, both the Alliance not having gasmasks, and the Horde not having them, given that both know what the Blight does, but then, the Blight was originally depicted as being a flesh contact vector, not inhaled. WoW doesn’t have Hazmat suits, so it would still be deadly even with a gasmask, and it -still- effects Forsaken, who do not breathe, so Gasmasks would be beggar all use…
Has that been changed then? You used to be able to ‘unlock’ it via the Bronze Dragon. I mean I’ve not done that in a while, so it may well have changed?
Sorry, but you do indeed have the choice of a gas mask. The other option is shooting the Alliance who is already suffocating. I remember that very distinctly, because I chose the gas mask option 
I would not know, since I never used the BD “unlocking”. Sorry.
That is why I added make-do-arrangements (when I mentioned capitals) ^^