Kelibas dear - are you quitting the lore because I no longer keep your posts alive with my "Highborne as a whole" lore knowledge to keep you invested?
I'm sure our dear Sylvianna would love to see the stuff you've posted on the General forums these past 2 months, regarding Nightborne and Night Elves and how Nightborne and Blood Elves shouldn't be true allies and how Night Elves should be better at arcane magic than Blood Elves and that Azshara (the zone) was blood elves mocking night elf apprentices, when we already see Lorekeeper Amberwind, a Highborne, in charge of said apps.
EDIT: Also because I've put my account on hold as well, so after December, I wouldn't be able to keep your posts alive.
Absolutely, the darnassians should have the best of all the various aspects of the night elves throughout their history. They should be the banner carriers for the race because they are the main player group. It sucks to see better night elves neutral or in the horde - whether at the arcane, nature or the priesthood.
I don't like it one bit, and it is part of the crap alliance night elf treatment many of us.
As for nightborne, as you well know my feelings on this, it felt like night elf alliance fans were spat on by that move, especially considering the lore value Suramar has particularly to the darnassian group and the desire amongst night elf fans like myself to see a night elf civilization city pristinely restored, and the desire to see night elves at the level of power and expertise the lore boasts of on their side. While they are still night elves but on the horde, the fact that they aren't with the kaldorei but with their enemies feels like a huge a slap in the face of "i don't really care about you guys - you're just there to provide cool things for my favourite horde faction and I am turning all the cool things about you over to everyone else but you - Legion make it only draenei thing, night elf arcana - horde thing now cut the kaldorei out of it, demon hunting - only good if they're blood elves in it, lets make the priest identity in the alliance mainly relevant draenei thing instead (rather than be okay about developing both, they just forgot about the night elven priest aspect and only showed and developed draenei priesthood, leaving night elf priesthood to be only about sentinels and huntresses, only feral (and crap feral at that) cutting out the magical and religious portions) then went - lets experiment with Elune as a naaru (draenei thing) or a loa (troll thing), lets recast night elves to come from trolls, originally the first to both learn and master magic - lets remove that also, give it to the trolls, immortality - draenei and forsaken, objects of power - let the dranei and blood elves have that too (just forget night elves were all about the Well of Eternity and World tree, but ignored, its okay for blood elves to have Sunwell and the light, or Draenei Atamal crystals and the naaru/light) - what can a bunch of females do anyway?", they know how they've written the story and had the darnassian group lose everything, sacrifice of nature and arcane through the 2 legion invasions and the long vigil - the hope of getting some cool things across the board for their group seemed dashed by that move.
And you know I feel it was completely un-necessary for the horde to get all the nightborne and the city or broken isles - should have been an exiled group just like the blood elves were exiled with the infrastructure, city, lands , forests and isles all going to the playable night elf group.
As it stands, it is probably safe to assume that broken isles is on the side of the horde, as the Thalyssra had befriended both the val'sharah refugees and Moonguard, and although not seen, would have been working wtih the Azsuna ghost.
The alliance night elves should get the best the night elven race has to offer on nature, on the arcane, on their priesthood, it should not be with neutrals or hordies. I don't mind horde night elves being on par in some areas, that is fine, like void elves are on par with blood elves in the areas they both match, but blood elves having the wider range because they are the banner holders.
It is done. I think it was unfair of blizzard and was another highlighting of their willingness to throw night elves under the bus - give the best display of their arcane mastery to the horde (i said display) - because in theory, the shen'dralar should be on par with the nightborne. And no, you don't judge the value of the shen'dralar based on the novices you humiliate in Azshara zone - even with Lorekeeper Amberwind who we don't know is shen'dralar, and is the first to be executed before the novices and their operations ah co-opted.
Cataclysm was the worse portrayal of night elves in all of warcraft history - it wasn't just arcane novices, but sentinels, huntresses were made to look weak, night elves were bombed, decimated, their magics hijacked by blood elves easily, they looked like idiots across the board. Remember the horde on a kodo that 1 shots 5 night elf ambushers, they are made to fall over like fodder in their own forests.
The actual shen'dralar we see not partake in any action, 2 are discussing things in stonealon windshear crag, send you to some ruins to get some artifacts from a re-surfaced ruined town, but never join the fighting. There are some mage npcs in the battle in stonetalon mountain, but it is undeteremined if they a highborne, you can't really fight them, you don't interact with them, they are randomly placed units, you don't interact with that conflict save to grab a vehicle.
In Hyjal, the druids you meet are all driven away by Firelands (no surprise their partly) but again they don't seem particularly strong, but that is not all night elven there, there are tauren tehre too. Still we know the wild gods are a night elf thing, they get returned to life and are absoltuely useless, - i mean nothing like how we see the Loa in action in 8.0 , only Goldrinn seems to do something meaningful, but they might not as well exists.
In darkshore, we don't see the priestesess of the moon do anything incredible, none of that Elune star and moon magic calling we witness in WC3, the sentinels do take on the shatterspear - but yay, the night elves are able to beat a bunch of villagers with an army of 10k year old seasoned veterans - feels like such an achievement. But when the big bad horde army comes into Ashenvale, the sentinels are damsels in distress being picked off by the mean bad horde, waiting for the hero to come save them and give them respite.
ACross the booard, the Darnassians look awful in that, and if you are taking that as a representation of how night elves are in lore - whether arcane, nature or divine, sentinel or huntress - then you don't understand night elf lore.
I have been waiting for them to pull night elves together after they gave them a 15k year history two significant eras, and a new dawn in wow, that i was hoping to see the best of all their eras coalesce and occur - because you now have night elves across several disciplines around that have the best of the knowledge of their race in all the areas they are wrtiten to be great in - in the arcane (via the highborne/moonguard and nightborne) in nature (via the 3 druid orders), in the divine incl martial (via the Order of Elune also encompassing its Sentinels, huntresses and wardens) and in the fel.
And yet what do blizzard do? either neglect them, ignore them, leave them neutral, or take them over to the horde.
yeah thanks blizzard. Seems like as long as we are not horde, we don't seem to get the good stuff.. that is until 8.1
Now 8.1 is looking remarkably different, a lot of firsts. First time the Darnassian, and i repeat DARNASSIAN group look freaking dangerous, first time Tyrande looks freaking powerful and first tieme she actually does something - and as a high priestess rather than a sentinel.
not convinced? May i remind Tyrande is Awol in the whole of wow up till MoP - she has 2 cameo apperances, does nothign but make a fool of herself, that Varian has to step in and show her how its done.. I mean cheers blizz - (i don't have to remind you of Tyrande's lore like i did the shen'dralar do I?), then next time she actually has proper screen time is in legion - but players still don't know what is specail about this chick, because she just rides her saber, prays to Elune and calls out to her beloved - only those who have read her in the novels and know at least in the books and previous game she isn't useless (or isn't supposed to be) perhaps came away from that not thinking she was a rubbish leader. Meanwhile how overpowered have Sylvanas and Jaina been shown in game? Next is in 7.1 - where really it shoudl have been Vereesa doing what Tyrande was doing for alliance WQ and posting notices the alliance is here. I mean the alliance>? Your are high priestess of the Goddess of all night elf kind, back in your home city with your most holy temple across the span, your kin are suffering under oppression, and you have an enemy you hate in the streets as well as people needing to be saved, and you just do nothing. And when the armies go forrrward, Tyrande is using her fists.. her freaking FISTS
AFter i wrote several messages to blizz about that, in the ptr, and it went live, it was corrected in an update to have at least a bow.. a freaking bow?
Wanna go on to the broken shore 7.2? Where no night elf is seen. No ngiht elf/nightborne - all gone from the area, all the other night elven groups have got a good showing in 7.0 - except the preisthood of Elune - where 7.1 shoudl have had her own unique quest, and 7.2 continued that story because this is where the main temple is.. she is ABSENT agian.
WE find out they did write the entire zone around her, but they felt it wasn't scary enough and didn't have enough of the legion, so scrapped her role compeltely, felt class halls should be what its about - talk about lore in consistencies - knowing how much the area and zone, temple meant to the Order of Elune - why not have done both? why not woven the Order or a branch of the order, like a special crusade of the Order to work with the Class order halls, lead them.
Yet all we see is MAiev chasing Illidan in CoEN, and Illidan commenting in ToS - despite all the night elf lore and art, and encounters there.
And you think i am completely unbalanced and wrong for being upset and unhappy about this treatment and how they've handled night elves ? Even in legion where had a good start, but half way through, night elves were cut out, back to blood elves, humans (Turalayon and Alleria ), it must have felt nice that Turalyon instead of an actual Dranei was the main focus of the Army of the Light for Draenei fans. (i was being sarcastic), Don't get me wrong, i like that there were class order action in 7.2 and Turalyon showed up again - but coudln't they have had another significant draenei alongside him on Argus, apart from Velen? Couldn't we have had the sister hood of Elune throughout the broken shore and the tomb?
It's a big detail to forget.
And when the legion was defeated? NOthing about the night elves - absolutely nothing, the defeat of the legion adn the curing of arcane addiction, if you read night elf lore are the 2 biggest issues affecting the night elves. 10,000 years of isolation , whether in the Long vigil forest living without civilziaiton or in the pre-sudnering cities of Eldre'thalas and Suramar happen this way because of them. tHe long vigil group does not rrebuild civilziation, refuses to use its arcane magic just to prevent this foe from coming back. Sacfiricing both arcane and nature magic with the loss of the power expended willingly to stop archimonde in round 2 invasion - their lives entirely centred around guarding their well, suppressing the use of the magic they were most talented at and borne from all because of the legion. the reason the night elves don't rebuild in 10k years is because of the legion, it's not life as normal. Long vigil night elven life that you seem to think defines the night elves, doesnt'. The long vigil is alert state, all because of the legion.
And arcane addiction, the one thing that compromised the impeccable nobility, was actually cured and understood that arcane wielding needs nature to balance it out, arcane boosts nature too, they finally prove in the story that arcane and nature hand in hand is what does it for the night elves. An all arcane focused society is prone to error, without an order of nature users counterbalancing and balance practiced, and a nature only society too is not strong enough and prone to corruption from factors like the emerald nightmare, and fel corruption, without the arcane energies of the well boosting the land, many of the nature restoration and proliferation /enhacnement would not be possible, imagine now what is achieveable with the arcane useable for spells and not going crazy like it did beofre.
The end of the legion and its effects on teh night elves are totally ignored. As if it didn't really affect them. Like it isn't the destiny altering thing for them. Destiny, what was the night elves' mandate before the legion? ever thought about that? Ever thought why they call themselves Children of the Stars and not children of theh tree, leaf or forest ? Or what their purpose was before the legion? No, because you know their purpose when the legion was around was to stop it from coming back to Azeroth (hence the ban on arcane magic and only nature magic use) but once they returned the purpose was to destroy it (hence lifting of the ban) - the entire long vigil was because of the legion. What now that it is destroyed? their originaly star ward looking, life enhancing, world building, world enhancing mandate should kick in, especially now the hubris and arrogance has been cured by a good dose of humble pie (the legion's destructive invasion, the withering, driven out of dire maul, Azshara's curse - are the activities that gave the humble pie)
We shoudl be seen the best era the night elves have had, where arcane user, nature use, divine worshiper, all of them are on board, all on the same page as far as humility, balance, responsible use of any form of power, wisdom, expertise and knowledge, the only ones to have lived through it all and seen the world a far better place than it is.. surely that would be their new mandate -
Do blizzard visit any of this?> No its as if the leigon is no longer a night elf thing, - its just a dranei thing, because the draenei are Eredar, therefore all the night elf lore means nothing to night elves - I'm not even going to talk about orcs, yes, i am fully aware they didn't visit that either, but i'd leave that for orc fans to bring up (if they care). FOr night elves the legion has been central, at least orcs weren't aware it was the legion pulling hteir strings till Wc3, and have largely been about fighting the alliance.
This is why as much as i am wanting the night elves to actually be written good against the horde for WoT event, I am more concerned with the after. Azshara is the reason this happened, wittingly or unwittingly, she is the reason the legion is invited in, whether it was her addiction or hubris , the Queen let this happen, and even after her defeat, the naga are written through most of wow to be attacking night elf lands and night elf settlements. Understandbly too, if the night elves are again cut out of dealing with her like they were out of the end of the Legion, I don't care how amazing 8.1 is, again, it would be a massive let down and break in continuity - especailly if they make Zandalari and Kul'tirans, dark irons and mag'har orcs - Sylvanas, Jaina, Anduin and Saurfang the stars of that show - it would reinforce that 8.1 was a token and not the new norm for night elves.
So yeah, i'm pissed, and whatever you may think I think, well, I've written it all out AGAIN for you.
I hope this time you read all of it, rather than skim it and then pick on the bits you don't like.