Faction taking a backseat, and it becoming more of individual races doing stuff and telling a story or plot that explores the races fleshing them out more.
Discuss! Would you prefer this? I’m really tired of an Alliance nation and a horde kingdom driving everything… to me it feels races dont’ really have an identity of their own outside the niche role they are given in a faction.
I’m frankly fed up with it. I want the races to feel like strong independent peoples of their own, full of nuances and complexities, that aren’t governed by the “must fit the horde” or “must fit the alliance , theme”
It’s okay to have races have their own identity, and not necessarily that of the alliance or horde. I’m fine with humans having the alliance identity, and orcs having the horde one, but not fine about night elves humanised, or blood elves either. Nor draenei, or trolls, - they have some pretty unique races and themes in wow, and while it was once cool to be part of a club. The club now dominates and defines eveyrone in just one of 2 ways is suffocating and bleeding the diversity and richness away. I don’t like it. I want a break away from it.
Basically, they should be a war that makes all unite like in Legion. Every race had its identity or the focus was more on the enemy and major npc for that expansion.
But in BfA, its a faction war. Which doesn’t work nowadays because its hilarious for us to fight each other over a piece of rock. When we overcame alot of ordeals in Legion.
So, if we get a third faction that is pure evil then we may get race identity like alliance- boring good faction ( by default), horde ( morally grey ( by default) and Legion - pure evil. ( cause chaos to azeroth)
In this many races will act based on it…
Draenei would question the naaru, Night elfs will know what elune is… Orc will be tested again on their corruption, undead will know where they belong…
Works fine.
If Blizzard actually wanted to tell that story.
If we had a simple resource war like the Island Expeditions the bg near Feralas.
Or you know most of BFA after the WoT and SoL.
But because of the WoT being told poorly made to simply try and place a Target mark on Sylvanas.
and the SoL only further pushing this.
Which makes it seem ridiculous.
But if you removed the burning of Teldrassil and the SoL.
a faction war story would be more than likely and believable.
But since this -Horde internal fighting drama-
Has to have the focus rather than the War?
It does not work.
We do you anytime,you never do us not even in dream.
Your race was too old to learn and adapt and unwilling to do so on top of compleacet ,shame really.
They did somehow humanise a few kaldorei, aren’t they wearing human cloth now ?
See and take not for once when in Stormwind and the heart of the Humans nations, around humans live like them when in Rome do as the Romans.
Why should we take a risk every elves we heped betrayed us multiple time no to mention our king is actually right our troops are too stretched and thin to take the bait, never trust an elf we learned the lesson !
OH come on little lion isn’t all that bad, he’s a really nice guy… not the sort of thing demon hunters go for, but he did give the Illidari a chance, and opened up to the void elves too.
But i wasn’t thinking you should leave them for the alliance necessarily.
The character of Minairia has done her little bit to help in the war, when she saved the stranded Kaldorei on Darkshore and portalled them to, just outside the Nar’thalas Academy.
Now the Kirin Tor Blood Elf must maintain her neutral stance
I agree with your points.
But before I start I need to clarify something.
Don’t let my avatar foul you.
My first character was Troll Hunter, which I still consider my main, since she has 120 days played time between Oct 2005 to June 2007.
My alt during that time was a Orc warrior.
My second main was a Forsaken Priest in TBC, stopped playing her in June 2007.
It’s just for you to know where I am coming from.
Factions should by no means determine, what races should or shouldn’t do.
I was thinking today, during all the events that led to the Burning of Teldrassil if:
Lor’themar Theron: couldn’t he had been the strategist, behind all the war campaign planning, since his kin is colder regarding, emotions and planning ?
Lady Liadrin could had been the voice of opposition, when Silvana’s ordered the catapults to fire, since she defends the light.
Saurfang could had been left as a backup in Ogrimar, that would have kept his Honor “clean” of what happened, making his stance, seems less hipocrite.
This could had been a story about Silvana’s, how she changed and how the Sin’dorei and her sisters will have to deal with it.
Leaving the more tribalistic Horde, to be more vocal about the unhappiness of her leadership.
Because from what I read in “A Good War” it’s Silvana’s & Saurfang planning.
The other races and characters, are basically there to be the “background”.
As already been discussed before, everyone says “yes” and bow down.
Only recently we saw Baine contesting Sylvanas.
When the Blood Elfs joined the Horde, in TBC my hopes were, that a race that once stood side by side with the Alliance, would bring more shades of white, on to the grey Horde.
Maybe this people could rehabilitate Sylvanas and remember what she once stood for.
I was wrong …
When the Nightborne joined the Horde, I thought: another elf race, maybe now after Legion, will have a more Elven Horde, more lawful, neutral, since things didn’t turn out so good with a Orcish Horde led by Garrosh.
As for Vol’Jin I couldn’t even taste properly his leadership since he got replaced after one expansion for Sylvanas.
Again I was wrong …
My sad conclusion is this:
The writers write what ever they want.
If they want to write a chaotic, Horde nothing will stop them, even if it means bulldozing, everything on it’s way …
It’s a lot easier to write about Sylvanas, Anduin and Jaina than consider all the implications, one event can have in the whole World of Warcraft universe.
I believe the same situation can be found, on the Night Elfs and other Alliance races, as well.
But I am mainly a Horde player, so I will just talk about, what I understand.
It’s a good opinion, and something they could make more use of blood elves and nightborne in the horde…but their refusal to just further confirms these races joining the horde have nothing to do with crafting a different identity for the horde or because of good story progression, they were just popular alliance related groups the horde is given to boost its popularity.
Wanna bet if Suramar hadn’t been so nice, the nightborne would be on the alliance right now. And wanna bet if the horde hadn’t needed it so badly, i don’t even think the blood elves would look as good as they do now, they’d have used the night elf skeleton high/blood elves used in classic before the redesign.
One of my biggest criticsm of the lore team atm, is that they could do a better job of the changes forced on them by the other development and senior team.
If the blood elves have to go horde, then let them be the whiter side of their grey like you said, and make it good use of it, showing a good struggle between descending into despair and recklessness like the palace highborne under Queen Azshara they descend from did, or the nobler group they became under Darth’remar after the exile. Now they have done this to an extent, but the impact on the horde after showing this in TBC, is almost non-existent as you point out.
If the nightborne are going horde, then cut a chunk of them away to be with the night elves even if it means turning that defecting back to their original kaldorei forms (to fit the unique silhouette model rule), but doing this so the importance and significance their return brings to the Kaldorei race isn’t completely lost just because they wanted really fancy night elves prettying up the horde further, that way the horde can have its nightborne and the night elvs can have a story and group that further enhances their restoration arc without breaking anyone. But none of this is explored (or maybe it is coming and we just haven’t seen it yet) - but this is what I mean.
You could easily have the nobility of the shal’dorei present in both the horde and the allaince - on the alliance with the night elves, showing how those from their arcane pre-sundering civilziation can break free from addiction, arrogance and recklessness and fit the pure noble and balanced standard the druids and priests walk, but as mages - and showing a side of the night elf history previously not told, the nobility and balance of the highborne (farondis exemplifies this, but the night elf story has to grow the race naturally as the momentous events Wc3 legion return and 7.0 Legion’s defeat must demand significant changes in view points, operations interaltions reconciling both eras of their past and presenting an opportunity for them coming together.), being the visible in game group that shows this where the shen’dralar for example who’s turn wasn’t shown, but described in the lore books can relate.
Meanwhile those on the horde, while we could have had the more Elisande minded, aggressive conquer the world types, could have had an element that were more Thalyssra minded, aggressive yet noble, having a mixture, that needed work on, sort of like the blood elves were in TBC, having to find their nobility again, and we could have had the role of the blood elves being a sort of moral compass and guide to the more Elisande minded nightborne who’d joined them, and both growing and providing that edge ot the horde. Or the converse occuring, the nobility of the shal’dorei re-awokened during the conflict against the legion plays out, but in a way that makes sense why some Shal’dorei would side with the horde, because given teh importance and way that story went, not all should have done, and if some were going horde, some would have sided with the night elves. This way you protect the integrity of your story while achieving the same result. The result of the senior dev team that the nightborne go horde, but the story made for the night elves not lost, because nightborne also went alliance but they regained their kaldorei appearance,
Providing the senior devs with what they want, but also protecting your story and its integrity.
i mean, maximising the story, makig more of it etc.
However i feel as long as the faction dominates eveyrthing, we aren’t going to see these degrees of nuances… the race has to be prominent first, so it’s perspective is made available, only then would the obvious great nuances and intrigues be seen and brought out.
All of them who were part of the rebellion are what we’ve got now.
And if their is anything to add, I’d say that the Night Elves viewed the Nightborne as the “Zin-Azshari Highborne” who later became Naga, whereas Blood Elves viewed them as distant cousins.
You see, and that’s the thing that differs those races of Highborne descent and the common Night Elves.
The Highborne, barring the Shen’dralar, descendants like Naga and Blood Elves in W3 and with Blood Elves and Nightborne in Legion, do grow better relations than the Night Elves.
And what would they get? The Night Elf treatment of Humans and friends.
And stop the lark of “to be with the night elves.” No it isn’t to be with the night elves, anymore. It’s to be with the Alliance. That includes Humans, Draenei, Dwarves, Void Elves - all of which have been written far better than the Alliance Darnassian Elves.
And putting the Nightborne on the Alliance, for future lore, isn’t a good path.
If Blizzard want to expand on Highborne lore within the Alliance, they have the Shen’dralar to do that. They have a basis for that. I’d rather Nightborne progress than regress.
Yes I know, I’m giving an example of what they could have done, or rather should have done, but they didn’t do that now did they.
I wouldn’t say that at all, this is one of the things groups like the Shen’dralar, and nightborne and Farondis show… they show pointedly not all the highborne were like the ones in the palace.
Until these groups are fleshed out, we thought the highborne were universally night elves corrupted in the plaace summoning the legion. These groups show there were many who did not support Queen Azshara, and in fact, it was highborne night elves who first rebelled against the Queen in Farondale, Azsuna, led by the Prince. Her strong and swift response explains why the other groups were much slower to respond.
But that’s an example of fleshing out a story we had very little depth of information on. So no… I wouldn’t say at all the night elves viewed the Nightborne as Zin-Azshari highborne, cos it’s clear from their story, they rebelled against the Queen too and they fought together.
When the Shen’dralar approach the night elves for an alliance, the anger levied at them is not for the actions of hte palace highborne, its for taking so long to join the war effort and doing nothing to oppose the Queen when they knew what she was doing. only acting when they were threatened.
It provides nuance, and ofc, the FArondis, they acted straight away.
Using logic will quickjly help you reslise this doesn’t have to be the case, nor necesssarily so. The blood elves didn’t have to have any contact with any other night elven group. While I liked that they did and wanted more of it, I have tostop you there and point out this certainly doesn’t have to be the case.
They could also reconcile. The story tells you of enough highborne who stayed with the long vigil group, returning to their highborne roots when the shen’dralar are invited in and the ban i lifted… this is after a 10,000 year break btw.
The Farondis also show oyu another example, as do the shen’dralar, and the nightborne too who were getting on FAMOUSLY with night elves in 7.0, with no blood elf in sight.
These examplses do show a different side to what you’re saying. And shows you that night elves as race can come together, whether some are highborne or not. They are not by default going to choose the blood elves, unless blizzard force them too. Look at the organic flow of the nightborne and Farondis story, it has nothing with the blood elves in it until 7.1 . And if what you said was actually the truth, wouldn’t you see nightborne/shen’dralar/Farondis and high elf/void elf relations too? Yet you do not. Which means the bridge to the blood elves is forged specifically so the nightborne can be on the horde, and not for story reasons… but because blood elf fans really wanted it, and some senior devs did, it was popular and it could happen, so it did.
Honey, you don’t need to get triggered by this everytime, especially when i have specifcally said in the text that this is waht they could/should have done, not saying that this is what they have done. Well aware that they haven’t done this.
However saying that, what you mention is another short coming of the lore team, but i guess they can only show so much, and want to focus more on humans. Something i , like you am a bit disappointed with.
They also have the Farondis they can tie in for that as well.
however I wouldn’t view development that ties closer relations between the night elves and nightborne as regression.
I have always been of the opinion that faction shoudl be a secondary factor to elves, because they are far older than it, for it to be a regression it means that we must only view nightborne in the light of being horde members and no more. Their existence entirely defined by that.
i hate that, it’s so binary… and i always felt elves should have a different line. If we can’t have an elven faction, then the human and orcs’ faction should not be so high a priority with them.
Even the blood elf /night elf emnity was greatly exaggerrated to put and place them firmly on opposite sides, which is side position that is dominated by the huamn/orc conflict narrative, not the elven one.
As such, nightborne relating to their night elf kin, whom they have much in common with, is not a regression at all but a progression and advancement of their lore. Whether it ends with some nightborne splitting and joining the opposite faction as i mentioned above, or they don’t, but both still work together finding and honouring that they have a bond that transcends who their friends are and how they hate each other, is an approach i feel would be good for the elves…rather than this consant, you’re on the horde therefore you must be constantly opposed to those on the alliance.