I don’t see how the Night Elves are screwed up. From a story perspective they’re a lot more interesting now than they have been in the past many years. They actually have a storyline that’s moving forward now, rather than just being stale and stuck in the same place as always.
Then we can always wish for Blizzard to progress the story and the game faster, but at least it’s going somewhere.
It’s not moving on now. It’s locked in a warfront and we have no idea how long it will be until night elves get even a shred of relevancy, if ever. Blizzard said that they consider Tyrande getting the night warrior enough of a story for her. So there could be several patches until we get any sort of update on this.
However, they need to look at the bigger context and what repeated world imminent threats actually looks like… possibly space them further apart or vary them.
Going to Draenor gave Azeroth a break, cos physically ify ou’re wolrd and all its armies are constnatly used for world ending scenarios like Legion and Cataclysm. then it’s too much. They should also use time jumps too.
What they can do is properly show the massive changes and effects such monumental events and victories have on relevant groups and peoples. Seeing how utterly affected by the legion, the kaldorei and their last 10,000 years has been, the defeat and revelations from the last expansion are destiny altering and identity restoring to that group - it is fundamental, and if you want to engage players in your lore you need to tell about htis - if not in game, in a novel.
Sure if Legion doesn’t end in festitivities becasue of the sombre nature, I can understand, however the meaning oft hat victory shoudl serve as a springboard to the most effected races i.e. Night elves and Draenei and if not festitivies then provide the launch pad in the book that maps the aftermath of the significant changes and path to recovery they can make.
i.e. the good that came from it and how it can empower them furhter.
Then they should say something. Given how annoyed fans are, especially with night elves ommitted out of 8.2, andseeing how the overwhelming feeling based on how they’ve written them to date in wow makes fans feel that they are just stomping on the night elves and darkshore when you look at it seemed an inconsequential result, if fans are reaching htis coonclusion and htey’re been discouraged and upset with the story , and hating it… you should assure them.
This is what they should do, let them know if they have big plans or not, because currently to a lot of fans, one of hte favourtie races is consntantly being trounced with no end in sight and has been marginialised and largely ignored since wow began, only to have some major attention at thes tart of legion which fizzled out and ended in disaster, which keeps getting perpetuated - till this day night elves haven’t recovered from the 1st invasion of the legion, and have NO SIGNS OF THIS HAPPENING, even though Legion expansion ended the legion…
Fans don’t know the plan, they don’t know if blizzard is going to do anything positive… and if all they’ve seen is blizzard trashing their fave race, nothing short of blizzard coming out and saying there is more good stuff coming would satiate. this is simply becuase fans have only seen the negative. Blizzard have to tell them more is coming if it is indeed coming.
But they don’t.
But what did you expect?
I mean, The Burning of Teldrassil and the Siege of Lordaeron were story plots to create a foundation for the expansion.
Blizzard added some story through the Darkshore Warfront to place the Night Elves in particular in a story vacuum. Why? Because what’s most important is of course to further the main story of BfA: That of the World Soul, N’zoth, Azshara, Sylvannas, Jaina, and so on.
If Blizzard could do churn out story and gameplay for both the Night Elves, Forsaken, and continue with the main story of BfA all at the same time, then I’m sure they would do so. But they obviously can’t, so they park some of the storylines until they have time to continue them. In the case of the Night Elves, then that will probably be around the time of the next expansion.
That’s just the nature of WoW. The story progresses at a snail pace, because it mostly has to be reflected in the game.
That doesn’t mean the story is bad, it just means it would be friggin’ awesome if it moved faster. Sucks that it doesn’t, but that’s the way it is.
Honestly, I think WoD got a lot of criticism because of it’s alternative universe timeline angle.
It made most of your actions feel irrelevant, because they’re either without meaning as far as your own timeline is concerned, or it all gives a sense of being a filler. No one likes fillers.
Again, this is where it’s easier to write something in a book than it is to show it in a game.
Before the Storm covered a bit of the aftermath of Legion. I think that’s the compromise Blizzard aimed for. Yeah, they could show it all in the game on a grand scale, but when players complained that they didn’t spend enough time working on BfA before they released it, then it’s not development resources they have a lot available of. It just isn’t feasible making all these things in-game on top of all the mandatory content like raids and dungeons and such. It’s obvious that Blizzard can’t just double up the WoW production just to accommodate the wishes of the lore community. That’s not realistic.
In all honesty, when I read these forums and the US forums, it’s mostly a few loud voices who just keep going on and on and on.
I don’t think that reflects the community at large, no offense.
No they should not, because that spoils the story events that are to come.
As far as any story development is concerned, Blizzard should aim to keep quiet as much as possible, because that maintains the intrigue and wonder of actually seeing it unfold through the game and not through twitter updates or Q&As or press statements.
Story should be told, not spoiled.
While I agree with you in acctuality and there is evidence to show that there are passionate people, there is laso the counter, too which i can see where Rosehlem is coming from, the smae level of care is not upheld by the company throughout the team for the story as it may be for some individuals like Christie and ohters on the lore team.
For e.g. if the lore team intended the nightborne to be part of the great recovery for the night elves and weave into the bigge rplot, but the senior deves wanted the horde to get another pretty elven race and they were copted - the result shoudl have been in a compromise that allowed both to happen by creatively splitting the nightborne, and causing the rebels who took the Arcan’dor fruit and won their city to actually have the nightwell effects cured restoring htem to kaldorei - this would have allowed Suramar and a portion of the nightborne to be on the alliance as night elves and aid the night elf recovery… meanwhile some of the elites and loyalists who though joining the right side in the end after Elisande’s echoes helped the heores defeat Gul’dan, instead are denied the Arcan’dor fruit because of their earlier actions. Their repentance allows a stay of execution but they instead are exiled, now this story sounds VERY FAMILIAR to the blood elves, who led by compassionate Liadrin offers the exiles hope by linking them to the Sunwell, the eiltes had lots of arcwine stores that they are able to use till the blood elves offer comes, this allows them to keep their nightborne form allowing for the horde to have Nightborne while alliance still has part of their heritage in their oriignal night elven form. Both alliance and horde who both helped the city of Surmaar both get some piece from the people they helped.
Horde get nightborne, night elves get another piece of their heritage restored so the story can continue building ont hat later - instead they just butcher Thalyssra, adn the whole process not trying to find expressive and creative ways to satsify both ends - which is what someone who had passion would do. So while the epoeple who designed the night elven pre-sundering city of Suramar and hte geography of the broken ilses, as well as worte the story fo the nightborne and Farondis I agree arepassionate, yet this doesn’t carry all the way through because they then make changes and senior development does not permoit the story or passionate people to make their changes in a require d way.
Another example is when the Tyrande and Priestess chain on the Broken shore was axed to show more legion involvement in the starting campaign and invovle the Class Order halls instead… there was nothing stopping the m from causing hte Order of Elune to help the Order Halls as a new reputaiton, or nigh telves wihtin each order take point so they carry over the consistency… instead they were completley chopped. tyrande’s story coudl have come out in a book or short story or comic for that area that went alongside, she could have taken khadgar’s place or been alongside him and Illidan … but it wasn’t utilised.
Showing someitmes a complete disregard for former lore and really not giving the fans very anticipated reunions like Illidan and Tyrnade … or Malfuiron and Illidan after the revelations that proved Illidan was NEVER a traitor, and he resotred the Well to give his people a means to defat the legion not invite his masters back. CAn you imagine that conversation… Malfurion just being rescued from nature being corrupted … oh the irony because of how stern he was against arcane corruption when it was discovered the arcane was fallible, now nature is shown to be quite fallible too, and it has nearly cost him the entire druidic order - and then he meets his brother - what an amazing opprotunnity with Tyrnade, Thalyssra, Malfurion and Illdian for the Elune, Arcane, nature and fel aspects of the night elves to finally overcome their differences in an understanding that they were all in the same position - no one was exempt from corruption and only togehter standing using all their knowledge do they have the power to fight the evil of hte legion and overcome and cleanse all that corrupts - a beautiful synergy - cos arcane can boost nature and empoer to destroy nightmare corurption it can’t do itself, meanwhile nature is exactly what is needed to prevent arcane addiction and clenase it, whereas the priesthood provides the discipline and morality to prevent the demonic fel from corrupting the soul of thedemon hunter, and is the key to consecrating arcane powers to further enhance all.
I mean, that wasn’t hard, to do and show, but lacking hte commitment to follow through, shows you don’t care for your lore even if you do.
The onus is on them now to show they do care and write these missing parts. When you go back and read through the whole lore of warcraft you’d be like …wtf… so the night elves simply weren’t affected by the legion’s defeat an sat it out? or didn’t tak eon Azshara? it makes no sense, and i’m just iginvg the night elf exmaple, there are a lots of other ones for various things too. That need more explanation, more exploring … before launching into the next phase.
if you actually do value your story and care about it, you should have plans for hte misisng bits… and even if you cna’t show them yet, reflect them later. Because of legion, i expect night elven druids and priests to fully respect arcnae users, espeically after the cure and interacting with Prince Farondis, the first rebel and one who certainly was not an buser of power, i expect hte Illidari to be considered a valued if dangerous element of hte ngihth elves no longer hunted, not necessariyl fully trusted, but knowing now these are guys they can work with… i expec tht enight elves to have connected Shlaladrassil and hte emerald dream, and started acutally using the Well of Eternity for spells again given they definitley need the power and now there is no reason not to … every conceivable reason in the story for them not to has been solved and this cna be a great advancement too. if htey showed it happening in a future patch, i woudln’t be surpirsed because it woudl be a reflection of the results of legioneven though they weren’t explicityly spelled out.
however the best erestult would be acutlaly showing this.
Perhaps, but in cases like this, it depends on how valid the criticism is, and in this paritcular case for hte lore it is valid. the lionshare of users would never come on to hte forums and say natyhing, if it’s crap it would just diminish their deisre to lpay, but whether htey play more ore less they won’t share, they’re not that passionate, but htey do enjoy, they would liek somethings, fele perhpas BFA was more empty than Legion, but like it enought to play a bit, probably lose interest and quit for a while and you’d hear nothing.
sometimes the forums do reflect the reality of the situation and can be important in finding out how poeple feel or what htey like and dislike, a meausre of interest too.
That people care about night elves is obivous given the forum response, but does this match the player numbers/ When you look at night lves they are nearly as large a group as humans… without factoring those who pick humans for the superior racials that may like night elves more, and the new ones who do because being new all the other races feel and look somewhat strange until they get more familiar.
In cases like this you’re the loudest voice. If I remove your voice from all these Night Elf discussions, then it doesn’t appear to be such a hot potato. Hence, it’s a vocal minority who just go on and on and on.
Passion is fine, but let’s not pretend that the entire community is in a riot and Blizzard are just giving everyone the finger.
You’re super passionate about Night Elves, that much is clear, but your investment is way above and beyond the norm.
And it’s the same on the US forums. There’s also a few people there who’s life mission is to seemingly make everyone aware about how terrible Blizzard treat the Night Elves.
Yea orcs are waiting 3rd expansion in a row for racial leader. Darkspears second but DS still didn’t get any fancy reward for consolidation.
I’ve stepped back many a times… recently, i have sometimes gone weeks without popping on here, the night elf topics and anger continues. I can’t post on the US forums, but you see it there too, go on Reddit and mmo champion - you see the same thing, on twitter… i’m just one voice on one region, and i don’t even vlog at the moment yet the anger is across the board.
In some cases certain things are a vocal minority, but this isn’t one of them. The fans of the race are showing their discontent, and maybe it’s just the night elf portion of the playerbase… if you think about it that is a slice out of 13 races, to have that slice have such a loud voice over so particular a topic is not just down to vocal minority… the quality is telling and the emotonal anger is actually shared.
when it is good, I’m the same voice that touts many praise posts about the night elves - but because it is praise does that mean it is more valid to the developer? I like all those who share, share their thoughts and feelings. If i were to never post from this day hence forth, others will.
And if no one posts, then they should be most worried, because passion has died completely, it has been dying slowly, many a night elf fan have move on or stopped caring from a long time ago, the franchise unable to hold their interest because of some of the crap they pull, in some cases they’ve done a good job in trying to improve things, but no where near enough it would seem at the company wide level art or music or systems seems to be supported.
This may not be the writers’ fault particular, but it definitely is blizzards doing. They’ve prioritised it so.
People criticise or praise because they are passionate, the fact is many of us are still here, so we either have some amount of hope left or enjoy things enough to stay on for a bit longer, however, if the things we mention keep getting ignored or we get no turn around, we tend to get to angry to continue or quit in protest, such can easily be avoided by more communication if it is indeed intended to change or if not, it explains the silence.
At the end of the days it is a community, it talks to itself, it shares its thoughts amongst its members, and thus sentiments grow, when you look at what is being complained about, and you see legitimate concern, then removing one loud voice isn’t going to change it, someone else would stand up. in some cases, the loud voice is merely articulating what others feel, and as such once said,other don’t need to repeat the same thing, they’d just respond in agreement or share the thoughts. when i don’t post, others do, and express their opinion.
Indeed, and non of that is good either.
Giving back to the night elves what they should be and being in Classic, a world power, is not asking too much.
Single races should not be world powers. Blizzard did the right thing with wow launch.
That really depends on what it is you ‘actually’ want, doesn’t it.
One problem:
People bought books.
The books tells them fascinating tales about Night Elves.
There is a game called World of Warcraft.
Night Elves are a playable race.
What happens when the lore in game isn’t consistent with what has been written on the book ?
People feel naturally, scammed.
I never bought Warcraft books and after reading all this lore inconsistencies reported by players like Kalibas, I am glad I never did.
Just my opinion.
Cheers.
The ongoing unwillingness to accept change makes wonders when someone sets up their expectations regarding any story.
The books that describe the kind of power fantasy some keep on drooling about, set up the Night elf race in the scenario they had 10.000 years ago.
Times change.
The most recent novels, and by recent I mean contemporary to the events that transpire in game, portray a very different picture.
Night elves ceased to be ‘World Powers’ long ago.
And people clinging to the fantasy of them remaining the same as they were back at their peak (and using as measuring bar the WotA trilogy), are simply deluding themselves.
I’d sooner accept orc player outrage over why are they now but one of the Horde playable races, when their race almost singlehandedly matches the combined forces of all three core Alliance ones back in the First and Second war novels.
Because at least these events happened less then 30 ingame years ago.
If you “balance” events of the lore, e.g. Horde gets this so Alliance gets this, it actually becomes predictable and thus boring.
Cause simply the moment something is lost, the player will expect something in return.
Surprisingly, it is this very way of thinking from the fanbase that “dissappoints” . However, that is not where immersion is.
You need to let creators complete a story arc before you rate it, or is like judging a book when you’ve read one third of it.
Secondly, the focus should be on the factions. Races, are merely part of a bigger organisation, factions. And just like the concept of globalisation, nation/races are eclipsed in the face of a Faction. Not only that, but combining racial elements, would improve the faction, as is seen in theWar campaigns where u Have a Human rogue, a void elf portalmaker a Dwarf with Gryphons. Etc.
No single race is a match for a combination of the above, a “Faction” war group.
So is like we’re trying to make the United States better and you people are like “We need much more attention down here in Alabama” its just… the bigger picture is always more important. And more interesting, because every race by definition has stereotypes and are one-dimensional in such a way.
Nelfs= tree elfs
Belfs= arrogant prcks
Orcs= me smash
The list goes on…
So you cant make a race multi-dimensional, cause then you’d have to make all of the races, and then it would be boring again.
But a faction comprised of many races can be multi-dimensional, and it should in my opinion
To have willingness to accept change there must be
We get that Zarao, but where is the change shown?
Wrong! Most fans fell in love with Kaldorei with WC3 and their culture. Being powerful nation that fiercely defended their homeland against Orcs, Humans and later Demons - not being tricked in tactics by mindless forsaken and orcs.
Warriors so fine that even Grom was surprised by their skill - not being killed by a single rogue.
A race with such strong devotion to their goddess that they collapsed bridges and take down thousands of Undead with them - not being raised and blame the tragedy on the goddess that looked after them for millennia.
The magical creatures that aided and fought for the same things Night Elves stood for and not be treated as “irrelevant” to the story/They are not part of Night Elven army. Would suck to see Zandalari getting same treatment eh?
So when you state things like that my man, make sure you know where you coming from because your headcannon of explaining Night Elven power nerf is not convincing!
Are we to assume that those that read the WotA simply skipped the ending? The Sundering, the implications it had for the Night elf society, the posterior exile of the Highborne, the isolationism several provinces had,…
Those changes were very well described and documented.
And regarding ‘not contradicting’, usually a radical change causes a reaction that will most certainly change completely the situation. Yes, even to the point it might show the opposite situation they had prior.
They remained a powerful race that defended their homeland.
If the argument has shifted to ‘…and they must always be shown better than their enemies’, I’ll simply add that people should drop said mindset ASAP.
Not a single race is flawless and invulnerable to defeat.
And both Orcs and Forsaken do have some rather proficient generals and warmongers too.
Regarding the rest, yeah, yeah,…
Everyone has some amazing feats under their belt.
They did. That’s the whole point of BfAs questing experience.
And the overarching plot of the Shadows of the Horde novel.
Zandalari can no longer stand alone living in the remembrance of former glory days.
A whole series of events happened in order to humble them down to the point they acknowledged they are no longer the lone worlds superpower.
They accept they are still strong as a race, but no longer dominant in the greater scheme of things.
And here is where I read Night elf players failing.
Because regardless of the power fantasy of days past, Blizzard has consistently written elements to deflate Night elves down to the level of the other playable races.
And before some butthurt player jumps the gun and screams for “Blizzard hates Night elves!”, I’ll refer to them to the fact that they did exactly the same to Zandalari, Orcs, Forsaken, Draenei,…
With a time gap and a series of events that aren’t half as plausible as the ones Night elves had.
Again, why are Orcs, the dominant species of an entire planet that was dumped into Azeroth, not their own playable superpower? Less than 30 years ago they stood toe to toe with the combined armies of Gnomes, 7 Human kingdoms, Dwarves, High elves,…