I think its because you are preaching knaak’s scribbles as defining elf lore.
Mentally sane people don’t read knaak, they also probably argue in game lore and not every third party thing that released for the last 20 years
What? 
“Kaldorei: You disgrace a glorious past, hiding in trees and cloaking yourselves in false piety. You have grown as savage as the trolls that skulk about your forests.” - Grand Magistrix Elisande.
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Baine is a traitor to the Horde and should have been executed for this all the way back in Cataclysm.
Alternatively, you can also scroll to the top of the page, click on Game Info, then click on Races. Blizzard already did what you just did.
Don’t understand this. Look, the war of the ancients isn’t knaak’s scribbles, it’s part of the night elf package and a very important part of the lore… we have more lore on that event for night elves than we do for all of WC3.
Knaak just fleshed it out, and his fleshed out version is what is used to design Suramar, going through the city in 7.0 felt like it was lifted off the book account then expanded.
People blame Knaak for spoiling the WotA, because night elves were a bit lame in that compared to the original lore summary. Originally, the WotA takes place over 250 years, and the night elves gave more than they got, … but Knaak’s story irritated many of us, why? Because all of a sudden night elves needed a human, and an orc to do it?
What took 250 years takes 1-2 years, and Rhonin and Brox come off super powerful in a time travel event that was WTF - so un-necessary. Why do we need a human and an orc in the story? Like we can’t understand night elves or wont’ feel it’s night elves?
But, Knaak is the messenger boy, the details of how the story is told were his, but the premise, that isn’t necessarily, for all we know it could have been and probably was Metzen that decided Knaak should tell that story like that.
It was irritating at the time.
Btw… FYi, it was also Metzen that decided to switch the night elves came from trolls AFTER both WC3 and WotA were written, but before WoW was released. He changed the lore during wow’s development - this is when trolls were changed to resemble night elves more.
Chris did a lot of nice stuff, i liked the vast majority of the stuff about night elves, but definitely not all of it.
You can also log on to the game, and click on race descriptions, that were changed during Shadowlands, or log in to classic to see the original files on the night elves.
You could go to wowpedia, and read their summaries, they’re a lot more detailed, a bigger raid, but they are a good summary, the downside is you would have to click on a number of links with even more summarised info.
You could purchase chronicles volume 1-3 and read a summarised detail of what you read in the novels and play in the games.
Or you could go play all the games and read the novels, short stories, comics etc and get the full picture.
The point of this is a fairly short summary, based on what your impressions of the races are based on how much knowledge you have… as a long time wow players who’s done a lot of mileage, those were some of my conclusions.
What the developers have conveyed about the race, may not be what the fans actually think, and then they change things about groups too… . skew them in ever changing directions, sometimes it’s drastic, although they’ve stopped that - the last race to undergo drastic changes were the Draenei in TBC and the blood elves. Before that were the night elves in wow - that changed from oldest race that was a female priesthood led to a druidic race from trolls, and before that were Orcs who went from the main antagonists to freedom fighters throwing off the shackles of unjust white human oppressors.
Elisande isn’t judge on the magic of the race, especially given she is one of them, it wasn’t her brightest moment, she is kaldorei, and 3 factions of kaldorei don’t “skulk” around in forests as she puts it. Clearly it was war tactics, not truth.
War propaganda, Elisande considered herself true kaldorei - she did send her agents to disguise as blood elves and to try and goad Tyrande’s faction into fighting the blood elves in an attempt to disrupt the enemy - she used her limited collected knowledge about her kin, and felt that goading them about being savage would be effective.
It would not be effective if those night elves didn’t find such a statement incredibly insulting. It was meant to provoke your enemy. Not as a lore fact about your kin
You are 100% incorrect.
Humans suffered under Orcs and many orphans bear the hatred against the Orcs and the Horde as the biggest threat to the human race.
So once again. Racial tensions is healthy.
Pruning the Horde population, Taking joy in taking out your enemies.
Take the Horde quest introduction to Twilight Highlands. Their disdain towards Dwarves is normal as Dwarves are known to collect Horde heads.
So it is natural that the survivors do not like Dwarves.
Greenskins is actually a slur against the Orcs of the original timeline. Even among the Orcs there are racial tensions among the clans. Rhexxar was a half-breed between Orc and Ogre and face the same thing.
People like you will be triggered by just about anything. But in a fantasy setting there is nothing wrong with it. Elder Scrolls franchise has racial tensions between the Humans and Elves who have fought many wars against each other. Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K the Elves and Eldar races are known as “Knife Ears”,
You do have the Woke activists that push their politics and ideology into everything. Their mantra is “everything is political” they wage war against franchises. Such as Dungeons and Dragons where they likened the Orcs to real world Black people.
Dark Iron Dwarves are used to scrapping with the Bronzebeards and Wildhammers. We were 1 v 2 them for some time until the council of 3 hammers became a thing. But now Dark Irons have to babysit the Bronzebeards and Wildhammers.
The challenge here is to detach oneself from the real world and enjoy the ESCAPISM that is the unique selling point of this 20 year franchise. The WORLD of Warcraft.
High Elves and Blood Elves have racial tensions. They scrap against each other whenever they can, The Blood Elves can’t be described as genetically similar to the High Elves anymore. Not with the embracing of the Fel to the point where a lot of them became Fel Elves.
The Draenai were brutalized and genocided by the Orcs. Even if you take the complaints of the Maghar Orcs seriously. When the Orcs of alternate Draenor were strong with the Iron Horde they butchered them - sacrificed their souls - the Orcish Warlocks gorged themselves on their dead, wiping out how many ancestors of the Draenai people in Auchindoun.
So yes, making sure that the Orcs can never do this again. One can not blame High Exarch Yrel for “pacifying” the Orc menace. Coexistence can be found among those who embrace the Light.
The Mogu enslaved many races in their prime so others like the Pandaren have every reason to dislike them. Trolls are the biggest has-been species of Azeroth with so many of them fallen to the point of constant nuisance to the other races.
Each race is known for something as they carve out their own place in Azeroth. The Nightborne were hiding in Surumar for so long that they are yet to do something now they are no longer in their bubble.
Actual good story tellers fleshed out the World of Warcraft.
How many Murlocs have been purged by Alliance and Horde? They have a right to hate everybody should there ever be a Murloc uprising.
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Baine Bloodhoof is the last shred of “Honour” that the Horde has left.
Only Baine Bloodhoof spoke out and challenged the Horde as they were becoming ever closer to the very thing that they once fought against in Northrend.
ALL other Horde leaders were silent. Even as the Horde was about to execute Baine Bloodhoof for it. Then I think stopping the Tauren of Thunderbluff from rescuing him.
It took the former Warchief Thrall, the old Orc Saurfang and Alliance help to rescue him. The Horde will never have served Arthas Menethil in Northrend. But so willingly served Sylvannas Windrunner.
That’s a nice summary of the rivalry they created between races. I say rivalry but much of it was hatred based.
Not as dark as warhammer’s tales are thankfully.
I like your enthusiasm, I was once like this, but aging, depression and Blizzard killed the part of my soul that could ecstasize for this can of thing, vs the modern min-maxing nonsense.
Unfotunately current Blizzard devs are working day and night to retcon the hell out of the factions to serve their agenda, so these things will be a sad memory only, in the not so distant future 
Take for example the Swamp of Sorrows.
Joanna Blueheart of the Marshtide Watch has a hatred of the Horde as she is an orphan. The real world try to police others with hate speech / hate crime policies.
But there are actually valid reasons.
You think the Kul Tirans will not dislike the Horde? Take the people of Brennadam village that suffered that unprovoked attack by the Horde, Children crying as their parent was speared against the wall. Mere sport by the Horde against defenceless civilians.
Orcs of Oggrimmar should have developed counter measures. They KNOW that Jaina Proudmoore could have drowned Orgrimmar but was talked out of it. Making sure someone is Unable to drown your city is better than hoping they are unwilling.
But there is no aftermaths of Wars anymore.
Night Elves are becoming has-beens of the Elvish races. Nightborne and Blood Elves took part in the burning of Teldrassil. So once Night Elves recover what will they do about it?
Night Elves were once blood thirsty savage that fought the War of the Saytr. During the “Terror of Darkshore” cinematic. We saw the dying screams of the Orc as the Night Elves took the fight to the Forsaken. So you think: Yes the return of the Night Elf Savages, Interesting.
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But now you just him tending his garden with the Mrs that he technically gave his life for and is about as fierce as a new born furlbog.
Moira is still a Bronzebeard. The blood of Emperor Dagran Thaurissan has been diluted. The Dark Irons are just supposed to accept Bronzebeard rule?
Some Horde players dislike the half elves and mock the Windrunner sisters for having children with Humans. Garonna Halforcen how she was conceived is probably too “dark” for current year WoW.
Vulpera…well they are picked on by Horde players as well. So proving their worth to the Horde could take time.
In order to see what each race does the WoW writing team will have to flesh out the WORLD but the quality of the writing has decreased.
Yes unfortunately. Dragonflight has been the most Woke expansion.
Even without a Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer.
The direction that it is taking seems to lead to the death of escapism. Pushing one sided real world views and politics instead of just enjoying the game.
Yeh, I feel like that is the case. Having been around on the forums then and now, things have changed so much.
The people that post , and the quality and detail of the posting is so different. It is greatly greatly diminished.
People were far more lore savvy back then, and into the fantasy, especially of the races.
These days, it hardly matters, all people talk about are the very limited depth of whatever current story lines there are.
Only the blood elf race tends to have any real discussion and much of that has bene fuelled over the great desire for playable high elves, and the pocked blood elf fan base who have opposed it vehemently to the point they oppose any alliance elf development or progression that they regard infringing on blood elf territory.
e.g. night elves are not allowed to have powerful arcane magic, cities or civilization, because this is what they know blood elves for, and because blood elves have these, night elves cannot - for night elves doing so would be stealing the blood elf mojo - none of this is based on lore off course, but long gone is there awareness of the great kaldorei civilizations, the night cities, the advanced arcane magic…
No, they never argue against night elven forests, because they’d rather have night elves exclusive to some ancient forest, but not ancient advanced civilization, so the return of Suramar and the introduction of the void elves really put a spanner on that for them, but they got the Nightborne as playable and so adapted.
However the awareness of the lore of the races like the night elves, the information in the novels that was widely known and regarded as more pre-eminent than what you experienced in the game, because it had a lot more in it, is mostly not known by the current playing population.
in fact, it is the case for the vast majority of playable races, fans are not that into them anywhere near as much, all except the blood elf fanbase. It’s almost as if all the hardcore players became blood elves.
What is more likely is that most quit long time ago, unfulfilled and unsatisfied, having grown up, very few hung on,. While some became blood elves, it is likely the blood elves attracted the lionshare of the newer players, and also the most hardcore fanatics. The blood elves have also gottne the most consistent and impressive in game display. they alsmot ALWAYS shown very well, and excellent, competent and powerful, - no other raec has the same level of frequency and level of excellence on display. While they haven’t occpuied an expansion focus, they’ve had not insubstantial role in every single expansion.
it is clear, from TBC onwards, blood elves became the clear developer favourites, takin gover fro previous favourites night elves, humans and even orcs eventually.
imo, the excellent model design and the perfect female fantasy stole the hearts of the nerdy developers, and their hearts fell in love with the race. Blood elves came at a time when blizzard was hiring many new people and expanding them, so in addition to that, many fell in love with blood elves too. Not all, but the bigger majority.
Blood elves have been treated extremely well by the story, far beyond that of any race, in contrast, in -game, night elves have been trampled on the most, the in-lore, in-game enemies of the blood elves from TBC onwards (for before that, the enemies of the blood elves were the trolls and orcs) have been the butt end of humiliations, lame showings and just goofy buffoonry in the series
And my point is that if you do what I said, you get a summary about the same length as yours. 
But I do think you have every right to write what you did regardles.
That’s very true, and it can in some cases be a bit upsetting to see your favourite race being retconned to kingdom come.
Indeed, while I do understand that times change and story progression demands that changes will occur to races from the state we first meet them - i accept this and even welcome them - sometimes they just wholesale change too much… and sometimes they outright retcon - like the night elves and draenei origins were outright retcons from what was originally stated. one I thought was a good one, if un-necessary, hte other i thought was not a good one and utterly pointless , done only for shock factor and an attempt to be original for a series that wasn’t valued for being original, .
i woudl have understood it if the retcon was a very good change the fans could be proud of for a race they liked, that was also original, but it wasn’t at all, it seemed done for the sake of it, and it was disappointing.
I do however love that blizzard does sub races of races, new factions… sadly, the creative team didn’t have the wits to see how this could be used to show some of htier more drastic changes. Take the dwarves, shifting from mining to arcahaoleogy - not a bad change fine, but hey, at least lets get a sizeable portion of htem that are still into mining that visibly play a part. The Dark irons coudl have continued the traditional mining trope, just because it’s a dwarf trope doens’t mean you should elimiante it altogehter or forget about it - simply use the dark irons for that, and you can use the bronzebeardsf or your archaoelogy/exploration new thing and the wildhamers can be used for something unique like stormhammer gryphon fliesr… which is what they did.
but differnece is, you hardly hear or see the wildhammers or the dark irons. Was the same with ngiht elves - after that trilogy saga and the lore entries on the arcane civilziation and highborne, hten the show casing of the moon priestesses, and a lot of lore on Illidan and the demon hunters, wow opens up and suddenly the vast majority of times you see night elves are druids - okay wtf ? fine, then use different factions fort he different things. which they did. cenarions were for druids, Illidari for demon hunters (we meet again in TBC), shen’drlaar (and later Ngihtbonre)/Moonguard/Farondis) were for Highborne… and Darnassians were for the priesthood… guess the problem? we barely saw any of the others, except guess what…druids? night elves as druids is what most people see the vast majority of the times because.
- when priests were doing stuff, they almost never showed night elves - draenei and humans mostly.
- When mages were doing stuff it was always from the human perspective, with some forsaken and blood elf - you never saw the Highborne or Moonguard…till Legion, and then only in Legion mostly - apart from the occasional showing of Nightborne.
- Illidari too are almost only seen in Legion and parts of TBc - just no activity outside those areas.
I liked the more balanced approach of the first ones, and while I don’t mind new things for races, I hate that you never see some of the cool original stuff or some of the cool stuff from the novels. What happened to blood elf rangers? and priests? all we see are paladins and magisters. Those were huge parts of the blood elves. then off course the warlocks too? Not that I am opposed to the blood knights, I think they’re good, but what about the others?
So if you liked the moon priestesses, the warden or the amazonian female sentinel/ or the Illidari demon hunter or the Highborne mage -? your in game experience of night elves most of the time is druidic… so it’s under utilisation.
If you say so…
THE HORDE.
not orcs in particular, and not because they hate them as species, there were also trolls, goblins and demons in that faction, but because they were enslaving and warmongering, and through this actions comes an image of Brutish greenskin savages with red eyes that only know how to murder and destroy, but this image isn’t born from xenophobical and racist tendencies, it can’t possibly be so because we know that humans even before first war had alliances and treaties with other humanoid races that differ from them, its not a Warhammer situation that really brings up racism and xenophobia where we have things like war of the beard that started because both sides are actively hateful and racist towards each other.
I know more racial slurs than you assumingly read books in your entire life.
Oh, so you bring up elder scrolls where racism has even much more presence (and is more funny) than Warhammer, and in your head its comparable to WoW?
Well you have examples of conflict born from racism in Warcraft - as you already mentioned rexxar’s clan.
[quote=“Moltensage, post:48, topic:506295, username:Moltensage-turalyon”]
You do have the Woke
and [/quote]
I’m not incel to argue what is woke and what isn’t
It’s because dark iron dwarves loved to worship elements and to use dark magic. I guess from your perspective its because they are black have some genetic inclinations to do it and not at all because of the region they inhabit.
Or why would you bring them up as example to prove your point?
Sure, Warcraft is apolitical, zero parallels to real world
THEY ARE SAME RACE
Legion, literally entire draenei genocide is for cosmological reasons, and orcs were incentivized to do it cause gul’dan convinced clans that draenei secretly planning to conquer them.
Oh no they included imperialism in my escapist wholesome Warcraft mmo!
Also yes it also is a form of racism, pandaren were class of slaves in mogu empire that never got proper citizenship. But honestly its much more of a parallel to the class struggle in ancient China.
No, it can’t be, how there can be any real life parallel in my wholesome game about war (purely apolitical pastime)
Which was described through knaak’s writing, which absolutely invalidates it in my eyes.
There are things to be ignored: pacific rim 2, Matt ward’s ultramarines characterization, c.s goto dawn of war books, end times, meetra surik and kreia in old republic books, entire SW sequel trilogy, new star trek series, and everything that came from the knaak’s typewriting, especially “pearls” like broxigar.
Until we have properly written war of the ancients book I don’t care what it contained, especially when it has conflicts with in-game characterization (which supposed to be true lore bible, not whatever crap you like to read)
Honestly it’s such a surreal state of lore nerds, people used to crap on Knaak and invalidate his books like 8 years ago when I was very active in lore community, and now there are people like you who use his books as lore dumps, for elune’s sake people used to have taste…
I share some of your scruples… did you read the rest of my reply - it pointed out aspects of the story I was most dissatisifed and positively annoyed about - namely the “the lore changes to the original facts of the war” - but I suspect were MEtzen’s ideas, although I don’t know - sure the trio were Knaak’s characters which i suspect he was all to happy to use in that case… but the whole time travel thing? That smacks of Metzen
He did it again in game for Warlords of Draenor, the diea that you can’t go back and actually tell the original account, it has to be linked to the present - okay, let’s bite, time altering dragons were one thing and could have been exciting, but more annoying is how RHonin, Brox and Krasus are the stars of a story they shouldn’t even be featured in. Then how relatively lame the night elves became, … but I digress. It’s still a sore point to this day.
We’d have to wait until someone who had the original vision as it was originally intended to write it. Metzen had the night elves a bit more like the original high elves of Tolkien’s universe, grand and epic, great champions coming up against a terrible and powerful foe that slowly over time had much of their civilization wiped out but ultimately defeat this superior foe and force of which the repeat encounter in Wc3, is a far less intense version of that original invasion.
It’s the epic quality that altered, and knaak is not to blame, Metzen is… Metzen at that time got ridiculed by peers for not being original enough, it wen to his head and he started making many changes, one of the first ones was to make elves originate from trolls whose massive kingdom was originally set after the war of the ancients, not before, and their already created models for wow was altered to look closer to elves… even the ears were changed to be similar to night elves’
It’s been down hill form there - I don’t really understand… blood elves were a nice alteration to in game high elves, a departure of the trope some people love, I Liked it too, before they changed them back to high elves, and I admired that they elf thigh elves around to…
Because people like some of the classic tropes, warcraft was never liked for its originality, it has very little of it, it’s just how it it puts things together and the details it expands on have been very welcomed, reasonable twists, like Orcs being intelligent, cunning and honourable young race, not yet developed. or Night elves, being a dark elf race that isn’t evil, but could and epic focused on stars and the moon lights of the night sky rather than some creepy underground evil dark spider goddess or similar.
Bringing the zombie world and the supernatural werewolf world into a world of Tolkien fantasy of elves/dwarves/orcs with other things like early industrial type changes from other fantasies and periods of history etc.
Then the variations on those that come with sub-races of a race and multiple factions in new geographical regions, and an ever evolving story, you would have hoped would have stuck to the original roots.
You puzzle me, the references to the war of the ancients I make are all the ones in the original legitimate lore, sure, i use some of the details Knaak expounded on for a more accurate in depth relation of the events, but I never harp upon his adjustments … Metzen is a huge fan of Knaak’s books, and knaaks books formed a large part of some of his inspirations for warcraft… much of the Dragon lore in warcraft is from knaak… not the night elf lore.
Night elves, the burning legion, the pre-sundering civilization, the arcane mastery of the race, none of that is Knaak, that’s all blizzard, and those facts pre-date the release of Knaak’s book - he didn’t do the plot or the lore events, he just wrote how the event went down.
You should tell me what parts you think I have drawn specifically from Knaak for the night elves that isn’t really the true night elves. .
Currently most in game people think the night elves are a forest elf race bunch of druids, because they have no exposure to the War of the ancients trilogy or the vast majority of the warcraft lore on night elves…and they don’t care… most of them are blood elf fans, that play horde characters that go around mostly horde zones, and don’t meet night elves in places like Outland, Northrend etc except where they meet the druid class.
So night elves as female Amazonian sentinels of Warcraft 3, or Moon Priestesses of WC3 or WotA trilogy , or night elves as demon hunters - are either unknown or some insignificant minority that barely relates, the same goes for night elves as Highborne or great sorcerer magic users… despite the lore on Queen Azshara, Illidan and many others… and it wasn’t until Legion they saw or more lore accurate version of it, because what we saw in Dire Maul in classic was just magical in name, but hardly any magic seen… we fight ghosts mostly, and we don’t even fight the Shen’dralar tackling the loose Immol’thar… then we don’t fight them but take on the prince who uses no magical abilities… the city is obviously a ruin, but isn’t graphically matching the lore description of that age… hard to know since it is in ruins after all.
We have to wait until legion when they actually design a night elf specific set to see something closer to the vision they intended for the race.
The same was with WoD… when they have time to hone in ona specific race, they make vast improvements… we saw the architecture of the Draenei vastly improve form the ruined cities of Outland to what we see on Draenor - it’s a massive architectural upgrade for both Orcs and Dranei - because it’s new models, and it’s whole focus. The original TBC had a lot of graphical energy put into the blood elves, Silvermoon and making them incredible, and then the futuristic design of Tempest keep, Exodar etc… as you can tell, the ruined dranei cities, including Shattrath, were not much to look at.
Legion afforded them a chance to focus down on night elf architecture and express the vision they wanted for the race, they did their homework… Suramar, Blackrook Hold, Val’Sharah are all out of War of the Ancients, and the night elves feel magical, feel druidic and the presence of Wardens and Demon hunters playing large roles makes it feel like they are a lot more than just druids. Druids occupy about 1/4 to 1/3 of the night elf portrayal, which is how it was iin WotA trilogy, Wolfheart and Illidan novels. even Stormrage where Malfurion while druidic was Emerald dream focused.
These are highlighted to people , like the blood elf crowd, who detest night elves shown as anything else than druids and feral. Pointing out showing night elven Moon Priestess casters, demon hunters, Highborne and Moonguard, Wardens and to a lesser extent Sentinels as having the lion share of the night elven identity is lost on them because they don’t want it. Some of them either go so far as to deny the Nightborne as anything night elven in the fear that acknowledging the obvious would give alliance fans claims to Suramar which is absolute nonsense. Suramar and the Nightborne are entirely a night elven thing, playability on the horde is basically playing pre-sundering night elves as a playable faction, but on the one opposite to the rest of the race… they and void elves being the only sub-races of a playable race to instead be available on the opposite faction to their playable race.
It’s weird, for thier most prized assets, well, racial assets, the elves are hte most messed up and poorly handled group in the game.
THey generate the biggest conflict and “hard” feelings amongst fans, andthe alliance ones are the source of the biggest concern and dissatisfaction.
Night elves and high elves/void lves are highly desired but have the highest disasstisfaction over… yet two things blizzard just seem to refuse to do for night elves is
-
Show them off well - it’s such a hard thing to show night elves consistently as dangerous, and powerful in away that fits their lore. Esepcailly when up against horde counterparts. Never seen it, until Tyrande nearly took down Sylvanas and never since -
-
Show their various groups well. Stop trying to make them all druids. even those of us who love druids don’t want the entire night elf race as druids… we like that night elves have a demon hunter faction, the main faction (which is supposed to be a Moon Priestess cultural based one - not a druidic one), a Highborne/civilization faction and a druid faction. What is so hard about this? Why do people struggle horribly to see night elves as Priestesses, or mages or demon hunters, but easy to see them as druids and hunters?
Sheesh, the major races all have multiple nations and factions, why must the night elves only be one thing when the lore has them being at least 4 or 5 things? and made those things cool enough to want to see more of.