It would be a production challenge on an order of magnitudes.
I mean, it easy to envision story development within a story context. But WoW story doesn’t really exist within a story context – it exists within a game context. And what you’ve just ordered is an entire expansion-sized undertaking, solely focused around the development of the Night Elves.
That’s not something Blizzard can just create in-between everything else they’re also doing.
At the end of the day you should probably reflect on why you play the game if you think it’s crap and you think the people who develop it aren’t aiming to make it better. I mean, if that’s your perspective, then there’s nothing here for you.
But they have. Blizzard’s WoW team is 300+ people and as we learned in the recent Investor Calls, then they’re increasing the size of their development teams – also for WoW.
This is WoW at its highest production point.
More wants more, but some requests are less realistic than others.
Already cancelled the six-month sub renewal (no Dreadwakes will entice me this time!), but until the sub runs out I’m still involved in discussions here. Just because I stopped playing, doesn’t mean I should not call out poor practice.
They also let go 11% (800 people!) of their total staff before the hires, listed as non-essentials. This included CMs, one particularly very active and notable in the form of Ythisens who could have gone a long way towards reducing community discontent. Seeing 1/10th of your friends and colleagues go because management says so - that kills worker morale. And if morale suffers, so will the game.
yes the playable races are the bare minimum, but is it really impossible for them to keep up if they actually make a proper concerted effort?
Racial campaigns is a way of organising. You have 13 races, just like 13 classes, the allied race shares campaigns with their core race. And you don’t have to tell everything or build everything immediately, this can have little bits added every patch over time, in about 3-4 expansions you’d have made some serious progress with some of the races, especially as some expansions would give some races an acceleration and it would keep alternating.
But given it is what many of us a most fixated on, they should make some effort at least to start with in game. Like I said to Haiete, "you don’t have to tell everything or build everything immediately, this can have little bits added every patch over time, in about 3-4 expansions you’d have made some serious progress with some of the races, especially as some expansions would give some races an acceleration and it would keep alternating. "
Furhtermore you have comics and books that you can promote to fill in extra detail… Where is the story that told of the after efefcts of the meaningful legion final invasion and defeat? it’s reveleations that have destiny altering implications for night elves s well as filling in the gaps of a lot of things that shoudl have happened that they didn’t have time to tell…;
You can have a book for this, one of the quests on the campaign can lend flashback to some of this and then point to the book in an in-game volume that gives more detail.
Yeah, Bobby Kotick is a massive turd. But that still doesn’t detract from the fact that the people who work on WoW obviously try to do the best they can.
It’s not in our interest or their interest that WoW should be a bad game with a terrible storyline. We’re all aligned in wanting the game and the story to be the best it can be (good enjoyment for us, good money for them). But obviously people will have different opinions on how to achieve that, and Blizzard also faces the challenge of having to turn wishes into reality is a successful manner. Azerite Armor is a good example of a feature with all the right intentions, but where the execution was less than perfect. But that’s the way it goes. Blizzard won’t get everything right all the time. It’s going to be amazing sometimes and less amazing at other times.
But aren’t they?
Maybe it’s a matter of expectation again, but I would say that they do actually move the various races’ storylines forward. It may just not go as fast as some would like (and I would certainly love if I could get more content faster as well).
If you take the Night Elves, then they’ve had several novels that have had some focus on them. Legion had plenty of Night Elf oriented areas and story bits and lore information. And Battle for Azeroth obviously has its share of Night Elf content as well.
It’s there.
I get that more wants more, and sometimes what you really want is a big thing that’s very tangible and which moves the story forward in a significant and satisfying manner. But again, it’s probably also a matter of managing your own expectations and considering what’s actually realistic. Look at patch 8.2. That’s a huge patch, and a lot of work has gone into it. It doesn’t seem as if Blizzard have a lot of resources available to just flesh out a bunch of story development for the Night Elves – regardless of however much they would want to.
I’m sure the main body of the devs try their best, I really do. But the team leaders (Hello Ion) do not do their skills and passions justice. And that direction is what’s killing this game.
No one reasonable expects perfect results, me least of all having grown up in an environment expecting perfectionism. But they made WoD look good. WoD. And I defended WoD against many of its detractors, admittedly after the fact, in Legion. Hell, I’ve even used the WoD trailer jokingly as a horror story. I love Yrel as a character, AU Frostwolves and their desperate struggle against a tide of Iron, and pity the cut content. But they dropped the ball so hard this time that I must question everything. Especially when they openly lie and say that this xpac won’t be MoP 2.0.
I think (almost) everyone would have been fine with just two (or even one) Saurfang cinematic(s). Not a day goes by where I don’t hear a complaint about how the Horde is being bashed over the head about how ‘naughty they are’.
I don’t know. From a story perspective I consider Battle for Azeroth to be amazing so far. The themes are great, the characters compelling, and the lore depth makes it interesting to speculate about even for the nerds on the forums.
But to each his own of course.
Well it’s not a lie until we know. And right now we don’t know. With WotLK I knew I would defeat the Lich King and that would be the end. With Cataclysm I knew we would defeat Deathwing and that would be the end. Very abrupt endings with little in terms of aftermath.
With Battle for Azeroth I don’t know how it will end, and I don’t know what the aftermath will be either. Pretending to know that it will be MoP 2.0 is a bit arrogant I think, because the only ones who truly know are Blizzard.
We had a thread on the forum some weeks ago about how people thought the expansion would end. There were quite a lot of different takes on that. It doesn’t seem as if everyone is thinking it’ll be MoP 2.0. And at least personally, that’s not how I think it will end either.
As far as the cinematics go, I think that’s just the narrative Blizzard have chosen for their cinematics. That’s really not too different from how the Legion cinematics centered around Illidan.
There’s probably also a production aspect to it. It’s easier to make several cinematics using the same Saurfang model over and over, than having to create new ones for each cinematic. The reason why we get this many cinematics in the first place is probably because Blizzard can re-use a lot of existing assets (Saurfang, Zappy Boi, Anduin, Genn – they’re all models used in the opening cinematic).
As far as the Horde goes, then I think that’s the core of their story. I’m not sure why some people dislike that narrative, to me it’s the appealing part about the Horde.
It’s about identity.
The Horde has always been in a state of identity crisis.
There was the Outland Horde with the different Orc tribes.
There was Gul’dan and Blackhand and the Warmongering Horde.
There was Orgrim’s more honorable Horde.
Thrall’s redeemed Horde.
Garrosh’ authoritarian Horde.
Vol’jin’s reformed horde.
And there’s Sylvannas’ Horde.
The Horde’s identity has always reflected its leadership. And it has always had changing leadership. That’s the story of the Horde. This constant journey of self-discovery, self-reflection and identity. It’s about exploring the truth of the ideals and morals that the Horde embodies – Honor, Strength, Sacrifice, Victory, and so on. And different Warchiefs have interpreted them in different ways.
I think it’s a good storyline. But of course, different people appreciate different things.
And Kalibas yes, DS are in slightly better spot than Vanilla, but let’s split it for key factors ok?
You’re saying that they gained “new lands” while in fact what they actually got over 14 years of development is reclamation of Islands that were meant to be theirs to begin with, so Echo Isles, and in Cataclysm their gaine whole one new village in STV (Bambala), and STV is their motherland.
In WoD they had tiny outpost outside of Garrison (Darkspear Edge) which was more like a station inbetween other key points where they deliver supplies and not a proper hub.
Making such a comparision is as if I’d say that Nelves have it better because they regained Astraanar and got whole new Bashal’Aran that counts for “new lands”.
In MoP their Island was put under Martial Law and right in front of Orgrimmar orcs were aiming at their heads.
Well yea but we can only witness it now in BfA where they put NPCs that are showing significant power - like that Windseeker Durja during Lordaeron scenario, or Invasion in Drustvar where troll magic proves to be strong enough to deal with Light forged.
But I could say the same with nelves- they got power up via Night Warrior, no?
You mean WoD - where the main character was Thrall and Durotan. Vol’Jin had one short cinematic once you build level 3 Garrison, and 2 quests to build a shipyard. Yes there were shadow hunters appearing, but they were far less significant addition than entire questchain about blood elf assistance to Draenei where they were also shown to use Blood Golems - so a progress from MoP story.
You mean Siame Quashi? That appeard in 4.2 had close to zero additional description and never appeared again?
And yes, Darkspears defied Zandalari in Cataclysm, and in the very same expansion Night elves where fighting off Elemental Lord, and had whole zone about restoration of Hyjal Ancients and standing up against Twilights Hammer.
Devil lies in Details Kalibas.
But I don’t want to turn to another “but Drakspears!” post as I realize that not only they were shafted hard.
So I’ll post what I originally wanted to write, and what I think contributed to such a state of the Lore. I described this issue back in 2016 :
Let’s start with diagnosis why your writing is so bad :
“Rule of cool”
planning the story for expansion and not for whole WoW Universe
having obvious bias toward some characters/races ending up in treating others like bastard children.
Those three symptoms that caused a huge disbalance in the story when it comes to attention distribution. Some characters/races get a massive spotlight and in depth development while others are ignored for years and are “just there”.
And now came the fouth symptom, the most treacherous one - you don’t follow your own lore!
While I know that you can’t write in each expansion story for 13 races to have a constant spotlight, they should’ve have people to work on at least “tiny lore updates” to make us aware that our faction didn’t stand idle and actually was doing something in the background, it could’ve been great foreshadowing for the future.
That is a subject river and truth to be told I think I gave up wholly on WoW story, but I’m still there for universe itself and community. It’s great to exchange ideas with fellow fans and and have some small mini projects ourselves.
It does, which shows how weakt he details are, i’m not saying that darkspears had amazing development, just syaing that they at least got some and were in a better of place than we met htem.
Their development is full of holes and neglects, i mean for the period Vol’jin was warchief, we could have had so much more stuff on darksepars, but we got more troll lore with the Zandalari… still if you are a troll fan you are likely not satisfied with a lot. and the cons out weigh the pros.
Take the night elves, yes the ngiht warrior was a positive developments, so was Darnassus, Teldrassil, the Shen’dralar, Demon hunters, Moonguard, Suramar, Nightborne, Farondis, Val’sharah, even Black rook hold - they all brought famous night elven places in lore to life, showed a measure of progress and recovery despite the losses…
however what hits is how small the improvements are versus the losses, the ngihte lves certainly are not in a better of place than they were before the legion arrived or their Queen started getting all addicted, same with the draenei and the trolls - the night elves had to not use their power source well, not rebuild their civilziation all to stop the legion comign, then it came anyway, and they lost their immortality as well as their nature connection to the emerald dream. You’d think with the legion gone the obvious for the race would happen… but no… because blizzard aren’t interested in developing or boosting alliance races outside humans, so things that should have fallen into place for night elves after legion, for dwarves after cata, for gnomes in gnomeragan etc, and Draenei too are just glossed over and forgotten in the name of can’t develop enough.
And while classic kicked off with them building a new capital and world tree, and i was expecting the arcane and demon hunters to fully return… while they entered the game - look at how it happened - despite all the conflicts and moral issues plaguing the night elves with their understanding of the legion and their reason for being here that stopped the use of arcane, and despite that being reesolved, and the demon hunters shown to actually not have been the traitors they thought they were, they are still not separated,scattered and weak.
There is no reason for them no to use the Well of Etenrity, shaldarssil still stands and has been saved, yet their is no re-connection to the emerald dream either. The Illidari haven’t rejoined the night elves despite now the truth vindicating them, the nightborne have gone horde, the shend’ralar and farondis are left in the same state they finished in. And worse of all the night elves got whooped again, same as in cataclysm, and through most of wow, and looked abad at it, again and again and again… and as a fan, you’re like “You mean we will never see the night elves at least come together and get restored… they’d just be fished out for another slaughter rather than shown to finally come togehter, and combine their nature, arcane (forest and dark elf elements) alongside their priesthood and fel elements which really has each of their orders at the pinnacle of their fields”? For such an elite group they are terrible, it just doesn’t match, it’s liket hey are reluctant to show them strongly.
While Elegy/Good war was a better showing, it was still terrible AND THEY lost, the darkfront warfront showed night elves with a bit more mettle, but no victory, instead we get the dark warden fiasco, which seems really annoying to us BECAUSE the night elves have no ray of sunshine in all this, nothing amazing happening, or hope for recovery, and 8.2 info hits and they’re not even involved in the only other key lore feature that involves them.
You were very on point there, what you said is spot on … spot on.
Oh they can, if they had a mind to, if they realised how important and desired it was, and if they were passionate enough about the story.
We got 13 class campaigns in Legion right, why can’t we have 13 race campaigns (tie the allied races into the core races campaigns), and use the campaigns to develop the races, progress improve them, show incredible highs, and some lows for those who’ve had little or none, but progressing htem incrementally… It’s quite possible for campaigns to intersect each other, ify ou manage it intelligently, you can get everyone having lore updates, and meaningful ones, and in about 3-5 expansions you could have had the races make significant progress and recovery, have them built up in not just one, but several of the earlier and local zones phased after the zones questing phase.
they could even have capitals that slowly grow, adding more parts to them with time as you build resources, they could do things like have your character next expansion find boosts for your race like the Well of Eternity and Shaladarassil for the night elves (Arcan’dor and Well of eternity for nightborne - all 3 for both, with Elune’s Moon dial in ToS as the 4th) Each race having their own - Draenei having the essence of Argus, The Atamal crystals and the Nertherlight Crucible - and these give an artifact path like the legion weapons did, except this one is doesn’t change weapon with each spec,… each spec has its own path like the legion artifacts did, it’s just in the smae energy source. e.g. The Atama’l crystals will have a diffeerent path for each class, next patch it would be the Netherlight Crucible and in another patch it’s argus - each new empowerment offering somethg new, just like legion offered something new in the Broken shore with the extra trait point and the 5 new traits, and 7.3 offered again something new alongside legendaries giving you a personalised depth that BFA doesn’t even have.
if I at such short notice can think of several powering up things each race can have, blizzard can think of good ones for all.
Example
Blood elves:
The Blood Gem Animgus
Empower the Sunwell Arcane path
Empower the Sunwell Light Path
Draenei:
The netherlight Crucible
The Atama’l Crystlas
The Essence of Argus
Night Elves
The Well of Eternity
Shaladrassil and the Emerald Dream
The Moon Dial of Elune
Darkspears:
The path of the Shadow Hunters
The path of Bwonsamdi
The path of the Loa
Dwarves:
The essence of Khazgoroth
The essence of Golganneth
The Essence of
Gnomes:
The Forge of re-origination
The essence of Norgannon
The heart of Mechagon
Goblins
Kaja’mite
The Philosophers Stone
The essence of Norgannon
Orcs:
The power of the ancesotrs
The Throne of the Elements
The essence of Aggrammar
Humans:
The essence of Aman’thul
The essence of Norganon
The essence of Golganeth
I’m sure blizzard can make these into an exciting object or power thing that can empower each race either via an item or a location. You can probably think of great ones for each race.
And how cool would it be if unlike artifacts and Azerite, these path also boosted racials and gave new ones as active abilities - you get one new spec abaility and 2 new racial abilities and the path will boost various things of both your spec and your racials.
like 90% of the stuff that you meantioned was one big WTF to me.
what are those essences,
What is that supposed to mean?
When I talk about racial lore I mean exploration of their culture. Like for Tauren, what is their seer capability score, additonal Lore about nature of An’she and Mu’sha. Exploration of other tauren tribes such as Ragetotems, return of their warrior culture.
For Darkspears I wanted for them to gain more footholds and secure other troll outposts, and craftmanship of their own fancy artifacts with the knowledge they gained all over the campaigns such as venturing to elemental planes. Exploration of the RPG Loas that made it to canon so Dambala and Lokou. To learn about their bond with Shaterspear tribe and perhaps change of attitude toward other tribes after bonding with Zandalari? And return and exploration of Siame Quashi (it’s a joke they didn’t appear again to this day).
For Humans - I really loved the Araphant’s Idea for return of the House of the nobles, more of the political struggles, the return of Westfall issue and some other damaged human settlements.
etc etc.
This is what I understand for racial lore, not some ridiculous power ups for the sake of it. Ridiculous power ups is one of the obstacles to create good and ground-leveled and therefore engaging story.
If anything I’m up for depowering almost everyone so actual tactics and strategy actually would matter. I don’t want another Jaina-like Deus Ex appearing and making entire armies obsolete.
Then they might as well all be a bunch of humans. What makes them interesting and distinct is that there is magic, wonder, mystery, extraordinary ability.
The problem you are having with that is how blizzard writes them. Not being able to balance having powers and still having to employ strategy and cunning. it’s not impossible, many other franchises do it very well.
Every race is different, not only has different abilities but features, combinations, each to its own, and you can write compelling stories to make them work.
It was a place holder for ways the trolls could improve… but then, to be honest, this largely makes sense for night elves and blood elves when they lost their powers, you would naturally want them to recover them.
When the night elves lost the Well of Eternity (or couldn’t use their arcane power from their Well because of the legion), then lost their nature connection to the emerald draeam along with their immortality when Nordrassil power was expended, it’s akin tot he trolls losing thier connection to the loa.
When the blood elves lost the sunwell, i badly wanted them to get it back, so naturally loved it when they did, just waiting for the night elves to get their stuff back.
I guess not ever races needs to power up, having certain or particular powers is not a feature of every race, only some (it is a feature of every class though). however my example was just for the event if we had a scenario where they did all power up, they could have something for every race -that’s all that was. Truth is for night elves, Well of Eternity and Emerald dream are just returning what they lost, the Night Warrior ritual however is an empowerment, though not every night elf can get it.
Personally I don’t think every race needs to be the same or on the same level , it’s not about who’s stronger or most powerful, it’s about how they all interact and they survive great struggles - each race would have different things to go to meet different challenges - when the legion arrives, you use night elves and draenei cos of hte history and lore and they’ve got powers that were in tandem with that enemy. differnet obstacles require different groups to varying degrees. aNd because many races have several types of groups, sometimes you can use those groups in other circumstances where htey wouldn’t normally be used (like night elf hunters in a human mission, or human mages against the Legion alongside elven ones.)
You misunderstod me, I meant that I’m against stuff that you proposed. Titan -kind of powers where you wipe out stuff on whim. That is not fun. No magic should be this overwhelimgly strong to the point where armies aren’t needed.
And I didn’t. In fact I am of opinion that Sunwell patch was one of the most ridiculous plots that was delivered. If Arthas destroyed Sunwell by bringing Kel’Thuzad back to life, and that was the reason why Belves migrated to Outland to begin with you don’t revert it back on a whim!
Well of Eternity is gone and for a good reason!
But not of titan levels or Well of Eternity levels. That is ridiculous.
That wasn’t what I was actually thinking… for a game system appication, these things work exactly like the Azerite and artifact weapons, they are an end game expansion levelling mechanism that empowers the players with a unique talent/trait path for each spec like Legion’s artifact weapons.
Just instead of artifact weapons, each race would have a series of something that provides that empowerment. For night elves it would be the Well of Eternity in the first patch, then Shaladarssil World tree connection to the emerald dream in the secon patch then the great Font of Elune in the Cathedral of Eternal Night (where we fought the sisters). Each race has something race appropriate providing a boost, I was merely trying to think of somethign that would be appropriate to darkspear trolls.
In the lore, these things will boost the races in some way, your character would experience them as new class and racial abilities, the race in your race campaign woudl have other ways of experiencing this, by the mission table units being more effective in the story etc. It could vary immensely per race, for gnomes it could be a super weapon rather than eveyr gnome haivng some sort of boost for one of them a weapon who’s core can be adapted to a device gnomes get, for another on gnomes in lore the effect it has is reconstitute slime gnomes back saving them and generating leper gnomes, however it boost gnome adventurers providing their Tier 2 upgrade to specs.
Every race gets some sort of improvement, and it can vary immensely, and it ties into the gameplay system. For some races it will simply mean more - Draenei having the esesne of argus, atamal crystls and nertherlight crucible.
It’s a mechanism for both gameplay and lore. In lore, the elves, draenei, trolls are all races that have special empowerments. The trolls get it from the Loa (not every troll utilises)… the draenei get theirs from the Atamal crystals and the Naaru, the night elves from the Well of Eternity, Elune and emerald dream connection their world trees provide. blood elves from the Sunwell and the Light, not every race has this. Goblins get from kaja’mite. and that is fine, it could be every race gets something for the unique challenges of the new expansion, that shows in the player character class and certain npcs (afterall, not every night elf benefits from the night warrior or Elune though she has been a part of them from the start, not all were able to utislie the WEll of Eternity even though all were linked and they have their characterisitics because of it)
I disagree, something great getting lost is a plot tool to evoke emotion and create drama that engages us, and when something very valuable and core to the idneitty of a group is lost, it makes the story of it returning an even greater high… and as a writer youw ant to use these.
You don’t want it always about losing stuff and dying and things being destroyed, you also want things that return and groups that players are invested in to reach an even better state than before. I personally find this far more gratifying than constantly witnessing cool things taken away.
If the blood leves and night elves suffer great losses and hardship, i am far more pumped when they get stuff back, start improving and recovering than just leaving htem there in a a fallen state. i don’t need them to have a world spanning empire or anythign like that, something change, however a story is far more invaluable when after the great losses, great agins occur.
In a story that keeps flowing, you don’t want to just show and give misery and loss, of cool things because you have some sadist penchant for grief and loss… while tohse emotions are powerful, they actually serve to make their counters even more effective and powerful. Sio if you fail to provide the counters, your shooting yourself in the foot.
You may be one of htose people that just love the misery and darkness, there are some people liekt hat, but i can asusre you I and a lot of people I know, want to see their lives, their people, the thing they follow turn out well and the best they can do.
You want humanity to succeed after a great dsturction and defeat, definitely survive, but learn and grow stronger than before… not just survive now in a reduced state, and stay there./
Why not? What is a titan level? There is so much “nuance” and wiggle room in that. The night elves are still linked to the WEll of eternity, they just don’t use its power to build stuff. the Sunwell is up and runnign and the blood elves use its power - how has that worked out in the story?
you don’t see the blood elves super saiyaning around do you, becuase those things don’t cause them to do that, nor do you see the night elves, whose eyes still glow with the power htey linked too vanquish all their foes.
So the eseence of a titan might empower a race in a small way, the writers woudl have to definewhat that way is. does it come in the form of an object like the Well /tree or nethelright crucible, is it a flat out boost htat allows htem to use an ability they can tap into for that duration, but then it causes certani people amognst htem to have new powers – and what is wrong with that in a world where arcane power for mages comes from the elven wells, power for priests comes fromt he light or goddess…
powers already exist for all sorts of peopls, some are distributed via class, what is so ridiculous about some of it distributed via race especially since you already have several race where that is a core part of them [elves, draenie, trolls, goblins]
It won’t be as over lated as you think cos it already exists, you’re just now sharing it via the races so players get excited about their race… a gnome will not get excited about arcane power from the well of eternity, or Font of Elune, but they will by the techno machinery of Mechagon and enhanced technology skill - that’s whaty ou give them and you define how it helps the gnomes recover, and strengthens them - whether through afew people that make a huge difference or everyone… or just certain classes. without a doubt using the Well of eternity would benefit the night elven arcane using highborne and moonguard, while the world tree boost would be most effective to druids, and the Font of Elune to priests, doens’t mean some benefits can be enjoyed - every night elf gets increased vigor, immunity to natural elements and natural dissease (not magical ones) - what does that mean game wise? NOTHING - but lore wise it’s nice, how do you show immunity to natural elements like the ice of othe north pole - you can’t, maybe see night elves in skimpy outfits in northrend is what it translates too, the well of eternities enhanecd strength, intellect and vigor is already a part of them, it never left, it’s sitll there, so that has no change, however utlising the well would have their moonguard and highborne in-game being more powerful when written in combat and give us the explanation how they are able to rebuild their ancient cities , and speed up the restoration of their forests, because arcane energy and power also boosts nature.
The Zandalari we play are alreayd enhanecd by the loa, they are lready empowered, so organising thi sin a format that the player gets empowerment is just an exciting development from a systems point of view, and emphasising this in the troll race campaign actually gives them a chance to show troll fans how special and powerful this ability can be to them and helping htem restore all of Zuldazar and some of hte other troll tribes and sub-races around the world.
@Zakkaru, @Elyssarain @Araphant
A Note to Zakkaru, Elyssarain and Araphant
The heart of what I am basically saying is that while a story is meaningful when you take away great stuff and destroy stuff, it is even better when good people or groups that survive recover to beome even better than they are. And this is what they have failed to do for most alliance races, in particular night elves, and don’t really do well at all for any race.
We all want to not only survive life, but hope the human speices becomes better than it is, especially after a world disaster or calamity. This is why Star trek, star wars are so popular, they offer a vision of the future (or distant past) where we do much better, and when stuff gets bombed, it’s far better to see the people you support triumph and eventually get better than they were.
In an mmo, unlike a book or film that tells a finite story, you can actually see what happens after the night elves win agianst the legion invaison, or Azeroth survives the wound of Sargeras or the darkspears get on AFTER they survived the naga witch attack - its far better for a fan to see the darkspears recover to a state better than they were before rather than just stay there. Same with the night elves… you want ot see them recover to a state better than the what they were before the legion invasion - especially with their story that sends them into a 10k year stretch of demon and magic hunting and well guarding to keep the legion from returning only to have to face them again and lose more - witht he legion finally defeated youw ant htem now to develop to be in a better state than they were in their lore - adn this doesn’t mean hhave a global empire, it just means reach a state of advancement and progress that is elevated beyond.
Every race wnats that… youd on’t want hte gnomes to keep being refugees without a home, broken and shattered, you want htem to go beyond the pre-destruction gnomeragan days, connect with their titan heritage andd mecha gnomes, mimiron and become even more than they were before… it doesn’t have to mean gnoems should rule the world, buty ou want an improvmeent. Same with the draenei, it doesn’t mean draenei should completley restore argus or all their civilziation, but you want htem written to develop beyond where they first were.
but in wow, we keep getting the destruction, but not the building…or only a few races get a building up, and mosto f those get ditched. they showed the blood elves get their stuff back, but we haven’t actually seen the fruit of it… but they at least are in a better state than the night elves who got nothing back, and now got a second genocide, with so many things they can write returning, that are just left blank.
Same for a lot of races. This is what I am on about. And I just tend to additionally offer solutions which i’m not saying are amazing, but the bottom line is they provided amazing things for the races at the start, they need to keep doing that , especially after they tear them down.
because that thing was created by a small vial. A drop of power well of eternity had. Nelves easily defeated troll empires with it and trolls aren’t pushovers themselves.
If we want nice level grounded stories uber powers will ruin it.
Blood elves got a small vial and made a powerful well, hiumans had nothing, it’s okay for nelves to have a well more powerful than the blood elves, they always have anyway… Races have different things, some more powerful than others, it doesn’t stop them from being destroyed nor does it mean they’ll win every battle - the evidence of the night elves proves my point on this.
The night elves using their power could rule the world back then, doens’t mean the same would happen now
Important Point Below it’s not your power level that determines this in these stories, it never has been, it is the plot that always does - things like power levels, abilities, features these are there for rule of cool, variety, and interesting things - this is why you have to have them, spuds like me were attracted to the night elves because of things like immortality, the STARS, arcane Well of Eternity with their purple silver themes combined with their nature thing and world tree, talking trees, high silver/night magical society and that type of fantasy -
You were probably drawn to trolls because of their mysticism, loa fantasy, prime savage power that combined intelligence and agility with a jungle tribal vibe - they are spiced up by the features given them, their racial characteristics, their lore and story, their architecture and artwork - some people are attracted to some of these, a few, some to all, each race has several things tot hem that draw people.
e.g. I may like all of the features of the night elves, some people only like the forest nature bit, others the female warrior bit, some the dark elf arcane fantasy - me liking all may make night elves my fave race, but hey someone might like humans and night elves because they like humans and they like the female warrior aspect of night elves only - you make your world by design interesting and varied, you races have unique themes that have depth and variation - night elves common theme is the NIGHT and benevolent morality - within that you have the variation of the arcane fantasy, the nature fantasy and the female warrior priest fantasy -
They are not the only race with an arcane fantasy nor a nature fantasy, or strong female characters, but their version of it is unique to them as is the draenei’s as is the humans - this is what makes warcraft so engaging, and for a role playing setting it is this you need and this you want to foster and grow in meaningful ways cos you have millions of players playing and you want them to keep being interested, like new things and be able eto have their own favourite expression , … but would you read any of this? If you don’t, you likely won’t get me, even though I’m desperately trying to explain and taking considerable time to do so.
Back to Main Point
Now take the pre-sundering era, we don’t know entirely know what caused the empire to expand, but according to Chronicles Vol 1 and the Night Warrior ritual - i would guess that the night elves (described as peace loving, benevolent and curious) were often attacked by trolls (described as aggressive, conquest minded and brutal) or responded to stopping a lot of damage/corruption. Elune was very much behind the night warriors (and we know she isn’t evil or supports evil causes) and the well of eternity power employed by the Moonguard and likes of night elves like Spellblade Aluriel - when they were noble and didn’t stand for coruption were used by these people to win the wars that allowed them more territory. That was back then, as the plot determined it.
They fell when they got arrogant and the legion came… leaving night elves 10,000 years on whether highborne or moonguard, or druid or priest having a level of humility and nobility -(evidence seen when you look at Prince Farondis, look at the druids, look at the now un-corrupted shen’dralar, look at the priestesses -) this is a not a group that would make the mistake of allowing hubirs and addiction to of any power to they wield to harm their world - this is the lesson they’ve learned.
Now with humans, draenei, and current trolls, orcs, dwarves all now having reached a level of knowledge and power close to or similar to the elves, they will never do what they did the first time round -t here isn’t a need.
The current races have degree of nobility and desire to save the owrld just like the elves, they aren’t going to be dominating them. and the character of the night elves as a group that is highly intelligent and WISE itself is an indication that they, like the draenei, don’t wiled their power for world dominance or destruction.
A story usually has races, or groups like that, extremely powerful but use their power for good, and their character means they aren’t going to be conquering he world - it’s similar to the high elves of middle earth, very powerful if you count their attributes, but they weren’t using their power to conquer the world…
As a creative writer you choose how the powers are employed, if you give night elves great powers or restore their powers, you put them in a position to levy those powers against foes they are needed for, you don’t put them on a world rampaging dominating conquest campaign unless you want to wipe them out. You ensure their issues against the horde (i.e. revenge and gaining their home) are resolved and their character lends to peace and utilise their power when an appropriate level baddie comes. You don’t use them to go fight goblins or orcs - you use gnomes and humans for that. And write a little drama… night elves are powerful, humans want their help to crush orcs, night elves refuse because they have bigger issues to do and that is not hte point of having power - instead try to help the humans negotiate a peace or reach peaceful conclusions, similar to dragons but in a lesser sense, they won’t employ their power unless the world is seriously in danger. … isn’t this exactly what happened in WC3, though the orcs killed Cenarius, did we see the night elves wake up the forest, employ the well of etenrity or Nordrassil’s power to wipe the orcs out? No, we saw them join up with them to defeat the bigger enemy and levy the greater power at their disposal like their wisps, giants, nature, the stars, the moon everything they had the ability to use to destroy them.
Did the draenei with their Atam’l crystals and superior technolgoy wipe out the orcs? No, they got slaughtered then fled, Velen saying no, this is not what we do, and spotting the Legion’s influence, despite that. Sure in smaller skirmishes draenei fought orcs… but they weren’t employing their greater power agianst htem, the draneie soldier on the ground is more evenly matcehd with the orc soldier despite the superior defences that are used for other targets, which the orcs, enabled by other Eredar, are able to disable, allowing the result you want to happen, to happen despite the varying power levels.
Every race being equal and the same is a lot less interesting, and having varying powers doesn’t mean a plot can’t be interesting or have strategy, you just have to write it well .
So you screw a race up and then…tell them to wait in a pile of crap for a couple of years in hopes they -might- get something?
That’s a good way to lose fans, sorry. The night warrior ritual is a joke and if Blizzard considers this “Tyrande got her revenge for Teldrassil” then that’s just pathetic.
