Page 6 of 7 FirstFirst ...
4
5
6
7
LastLast
  1. #101
    Quote Originally Posted by Amonra View Post
    As Lana Kane would say, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE

    Tolkien's elves are so boring because they have that "Mary Sue" intent. I don't say that that's inherently bad (it serves a defined purpose in Tokien's narrative), but they are supposed to be "better" than the lesser races. I don't fancy that, I like a more egalitarian approach.

    Night Elven Lore problem lies not on the Tolkien connection (mostly avoided) but in a lack of cohesive idisincracies. Kaldorei where so much interesting in War III, all primal and giving no fucks to save the forest, a bit arrogant too. But they where watered down so much in WoW, that I'm not sure what they are supposed to be.

    I put the blame in trying to make them fit the more "civilized" alliance.
    NE's society has always been civilized since WotA. They are not primal in the same sense as Troll.

  2. #102
    Herald of the Titans Mechazod's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Dimension 324325
    Posts
    2,506
    I would have liked Blizz to show a bit more of the Amazonian style tribe vibe that we first got in WC3, wouldn't even have to be all aspects of them just like a special organization of defenders like the Sentinels. I am glad though that for the most part NEs are not much like elves from a lot of other fantasy works, to me that niche is filled more by the High Elves, even if they are so few in the actual game.

  3. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by Asmalya View Post
    I agree. Its simply a shame.
    The Nightelf in Warcraft 3 and the Nightelfs in current WoW are like totally different people.
    Esp since the Nightelfs in WoW seem to have forgotten how to fight at all.
    At least for their own people...
    And Tyrande...i still want to smash something when think about how bad she got shit on with WoW / Knaak.
    Yeah, i understand that the night elves needed some toning down (They were equal to the alliance or horde in Warcraft 3, hard to have them join the alliance if they can fight the horde solo :P ), but they were watered down so immensely, by now it's so bad that when an orc burps ten night elves keel over dead, because that's all night elves are good for: dying to show how ZOMGpowerful the orcs are, or acting stupid to make a dumb-but-suddenly-totally-zen human king look good...

  4. #104
    Quote Originally Posted by Mace View Post
    agreed. They are one of the main reasons most of us view wow lore and storytelling as fucked up. We look at the night elves now and then, and none of the changes make sense, seem good or are likeable.

    They are preposterous. Bullocks I would say. Why another would ask?? Some elf lore hates, having a grudge against tolkein-esque like elves likely because they lack the ability to interpret correctly what they read or just can't read properly, probably whispered in Chyris' ears they were too much like tolkein's elves, then probably accused his story of lacking originality. So he went on to create even more intricate twists.

    In tolkkein, the Orcs are disastrous twisted creations from the elves by Morgoth, therefore in wow, Elves are the wondrous enhancement of trolls. But to make that change, he basically invalidated a lot of what he had originally put up as Elf lore. HE then goes on to change almost everything about them, they turn from great warriors, wise rulers and beings of wisdom, grace and power the pinnacle of humanoid achievement to bumbling buffoons who are wrong about everything.
    No... I disagree. Night Elves should have many faults. Honestly; you cannot, should not, want a species that grants great warriors and beings of wisdom. You do not want the 'pinnacle of humanoid achievement' as a playable race. EVER. Unless, of course, you're a fanboy.
    Here's the reason: Why would anyone ever play anything other than the pinnacle of humanoid achievement?
    Also: Fierce warrior + being of great wisdom = contradiction. One is savage, the other cultured. With a species ruled by the latter, the former is unnecessary.

    why? in the name of twists? it could be that Chris got overly carried away with making plot twists, and that was the soul motive. I would state that the twist and change to the night elves is quite un-necessary.. it doesn't enahnce them, we don't like it. Warcraft 3 still remains the pinnacle of wow story telling.. whatever made them devolve back to human v orc warcraft when a human/orc/night elf/umdead 4 major players theme was quite interesting, i just don't know and may ask him when I meet him next.
    See; that's what I meant. Fanboyism. You ask whatever made them devolve back to the level of human vs. orcs. Here's a hint: They're not better than anyone else. If they were, we wouldn't be playing World of Warcraft. We'd be playing World of Night Elves.

    Night elves right now are terrible, and they weren't always so, everything that is written about them since the cataclysm is disappointing and does not paint them in a favourable light at all. They are always written to be eithe rwrong, easily overpowered, often outsmarted in the most humiliating was too, lookat how easy they are over run in ashenvale and Azshara, they go from the perfect warriors the orcs relish, to idiots they sweep aside effortlessly.
    none of it matches what they were set up to be. .
    I agree; there's some things that are terrible about the Night Elves. I'm sorry, but I do think that Night Elf women especially are portrayed as weak. Mainly Tyrande. In the xenophobic, fierce and nearly savage (but very developed) society I would expect from Night Elves, I'd picture a strong, self-assured leader. Not very wise, maybe, but clever, and a great tactician. Someone patient, as well, biding her time. Nature is fickle and cruel, but the stalking predator is patient, and awaits the perfect moment to leap. That's how I envision Night Elves and Night Elven tactics.

    Is there a way back? yeah, ofc, you can no longer say Elves don't come from trolls now that Cenarius has said it in the warcraft magazine, but you could fill in the blanks, and could make it that trolls came from elves, and what became night elves were trolls who were reverted back = or give them a predecessor, a race that largely first morphed to trolls, but in some continued a metamoorphosis to elves.
    Why are people so caught up on this? Why is it such a bad thing that Elves are really another species of Trolls? Elves didn't evolve from Darkpear, or Jungle Trolls, or Zandalari... They evolved from the same ancestral trolls as those other trolls did. What's so bad about trolls?

    you also need to fill in the journey of the leves prior to the sundering, . One thing is for sure it would be hard to make the elves quite the awe inspiring Eldar type figures you have in the Tolkein universe, ofr in his universe God made two races directly himself, Elves and humans. the rest were the work of the Valar, whom he also created. That does give Elves and Humans quite a lofty perch they will not have in warcraft. But then, no one knows about the origin of the trolls, which is why he could make it the Elves yet again, so he's given himself a way to repair.
    Gah; it's incredibly easy to make characters as 'awe inspiring' as the ones Tolkien pulled out of his bleeps. It really doesn't take any imagination to come up with Captain AwesomeSauce. You really shouldn't wish for that kind of character, if you ask me.

    Sure with all the bumbling decisions, night elves currently make they can be written once again into a position that better reflects the original characterisation in warcraft 3 when they were first introdcued. So all is not lost. Elune looks to be heading to be a Naaru, cos Chris is secular occultic in his religious framework, so don't expect Elune to be this mysterious a lot more to her, Elves were right sort of being at all. REmember the high elves stopped believing in her totally, when they switched to being diurnal, and they first adapted the religion of the holy light which they passed to humans.
    The Naaru were a mistake to begin with. Please don't make that mistake any bigger by turning Elune into one and, making it even worse, having any other species be the ones to introduce the Holy Light to humans. Everyone has their place, their identity. Humans have the Holy Light; everything else was bestowed upon them by... Well; Elves, really. -_-

    It's all messed up tbh, how can the elves be the wise immortals when they are obviously so wrong about beings like Elune, and their origin and so many things?? the only way to fix it is to make the night elves actually right about all of it. Destroying them just makes the whole thing a huge dispapointment. Players will feel, well if they can do it to that race, they can do it to all, don't trust anything you read, because on a whim MEtzen will change his mind and then write a whole load of crap.
    They shouldn't be wise immortals to begin with. Wise immortals are boring, uninspired, unimaginative and just plain old idiotic.
    now it's not the first time he has changed his mind, but we like all the other chnges, the twists that introduced the legion, the undeath plague etc.. so why hate this one, ?? cos for the first time a race many loved, a good race has been rubbished.
    Well; the Forsaken aren't in a great spot either... What with the whole Wrath Gate thing, and Sylvanas having gone bonkers... Stupid Evil isn't a very interesting thing to play, you know, and it's not really fun for most of us.
    Orcs haven't been feeling very well because, according to the lore, most Orcs actually support Garrosh Hellscream as Warchief, painting all orcs to be murderous bastards. Humans had it hard in Wrath of the Lich King, mainly due to Varian being an arse and everyone hating his behind; it kind of rubbed off on all Stormwind Humans. The Dwarves have a problem waiting to happen, with Princess Eviljeebs now being on the council, and raising the next king with support of the Dwarves (kind of). Night Elves aren't the only ones with this problem.

    I still partly think that he has over listened to the vocal horde crowds at blizzcon, and felt that his world wde fan base were far more pro horde than they actually are.

    not realizing,that by changing the lore to so favor the horde races, he has created and converted a lot of night elf and other fans. it's a bit of both i conclude. You write the night elves down, people lose interest in them, and you write the horde up people will gain interest in them.. however was there a need to write the night elves down? no

    cos what this has caused now is some people becoming disillusioned with the whole franchise and realizing it's a whole pile of crap, and leaving it alltogteher. No they are not going to ever love the green orcs no matter how super saiyan Thrall becomes, and no they won't like the Tauren or the blood elves either. They'll just see the whole thing as a pile of crap and quit, easily finding more flaws than merits.
    Yes, yes... The whole Horde bias. Call me again when Horde has better lore quests than Alliance.

    Truth is: My secondary character is a Night Elf, and I'm enjoying the Night Elves more an more... Partly because they're xenophobic and fierce, but also clever and even loyal. They're not superduperheroes, they're not better than other species. They're great because they, at least, have an identity. With many extremes, true, but that doesn't make them bad.
    The best thing about their identity is, however, that Night Elves are really far from perfect.

  5. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by mysticx View Post
    Yeah, i understand that the night elves needed some toning down (They were equal to the alliance or horde in Warcraft 3, hard to have them join the alliance if they can fight the horde solo :P ), but they were watered down so immensely, by now it's so bad that when an orc burps ten night elves keel over dead, because that's all night elves are good for: dying to show how ZOMGpowerful the orcs are, or acting stupid to make a dumb-but-suddenly-totally-zen human king look good...
    It's not so different than making Cenarius looked stupid just to show how powerful Grom was. Mannoroth himself said that Cenarius was strong and wanna try fighting him. That mean that they were on the same level. Grom with just Mannoroth's blood kill the demigod. WTF?! That didn't even make sense. So much for WC3's story was good for NE. I was pissed at that part more than any shits you guys complain about NE in WoW.

  6. #106
    Quote Originally Posted by Wildmoon View Post
    It's not so different than making Cenarius looked stupid just to show how powerful Grom was. Mannoroth himself said that Cenarius was strong and wanna try fighting him. That mean that they were on the same level. Grom with just Mannoroth's blood kill the demigod. WTF?! That didn't even make sense. So much for WC3's story was good for NE. I was pissed at that part more than any shits you guys complain about NE in WoW.
    Poor story-telling, indeed. It wouldn't have been such a problem if Cenarius wasn't so powerful to begin with.
    The problem with having overly powerful characters (like Thrall and Jaina, at the moment) is simple: The rest of the world becomes redundant.

  7. #107
    Herald of the Titans Lemons's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    2,664
    I don't care about different universes being different. I love that Warcraft has its own take on fantasy, but the OP has a point. The way Night Elves act, and are written in the lore, they seem no cleverer than any other race despite having lived thousands of years longer.

    They're also a hell of a lot less threatening. I mean in Warcraft 3 you knew they meant business. They were not used to outsiders and their policy was basically "you stray into our forest, we kill you." That was pretty badass.

    I liked the description of elves in Tides of War. That book describes them as being extremely fast, silent, and stealthy, at least in a forest environment. They could kill you and you wouldn't even see, or hear it coming.

    I realize that this is extremely close to the way Tolkien portrays elves, but at least it gives them a unique fighting style. As of now I feel like elves are nothing more than slightly talller, purple-skinned humans, but on the other hand I think it's almost intentional. For gameplay reasons you can't really have these extremely wise, strong, fast, stealthy, deadly people as a playable race, it just doesn't make sense that any other race could even stand a chance. So I think Warcraft is intentially moving away from that Tolkien-esque descriptions of elves like we saw in those earlier books. Still I think it wouldn't hurt to get back to that just a little.
    Last edited by Lemons; 2013-02-21 at 10:38 AM.

  8. #108
    The Lightbringer Uennie's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Ner'zhul
    Posts
    3,814
    Night Elves are not Tolkien characters. In fact they're technically more like the Drow, being that they are a female-run race that is highly xenophobic and thinks very little of any other races. However, they are drastically different from the Drow, but that's just the closest elfin race you could compare them to.

    Not everything has to be based off of Tolkien, there are many fantasy universes. Elves for one existed in legend well before Tolkien wrote his books ... so ... yeah.

    Unrealistic expectations.

  9. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by Lemons View Post
    I don't care about different universes being different. I love that Warcraft has its own take on fantasy, but the OP has a point. The way Night Elves act, and are written in the lore, they seem no cleverer than any other race despite having lived thousands of years longer.

    They're also a hell of a lot less threatening. I mean in Warcraft 3 you knew they meant business. They were not used to outsiders and their policy was basically "you stray into our forest, we kill you." That was pretty badass.

    I liked the description of elves in Tides of War. That book describes them as being extremely fast, silent, and stealthy, at least in a forest environment. They could kill you and you wouldn't even see, or hear it coming.

    I realize that this is extremely close to the way Tolkien portrays elves, but at least it gives them a unique fighting style. As of now I feel like elves are nothing more than slightly talller, purple-skinned humans, but on the other hand I think it's almost intentional. For gameplay reasons you can't really have these extremely wise, strong, fast, stealthy, deadly people as a playable race, it just doesn't make sense that any other race could even stand a chance. So I think Warcraft is intentially moving away from that Tolkien-esque descriptions of elves like we saw in those earlier books. Still I think it wouldn't hurt to get back to that just a little.
    They're not cleverer, despite their long lives, because they take much longer to learn (because of their long lives). It really kind of makes sense.
    I agree with you on the Tides of War front. That's what I think Night Elves should be.

    Personally, I think it may be a good idea to liken Night Elves to lynxes: Fast, deadly, stealthy. They're not good at learning (but that's not much of a set-back if you live that long; puts you on even footing regardless), and they might not be very wise... But in their own niche, they are the best.
    Humans would be more like wolves: They learn, they cooperate, they are intelligent and open to new ideas, but they're nowhere as deadly or stealthy as a lynx.
    Both are apex predators, however. One isn't better than the other.

  10. #110
    Quote Originally Posted by Stir View Post
    No... I disagree. Night Elves should have many faults. Honestly; you cannot, should not, want a species that grants great warriors and beings of wisdom. You do not want the 'pinnacle of humanoid achievement' as a playable race. EVER. Unless, of course, you're a fanboy.
    Here's the reason: Why would anyone ever play anything other than the pinnacle of humanoid achievement?
    Also: Fierce warrior + being of great wisdom = contradiction. One is savage, the other cultured. With a species ruled by the latter, the former is unnecessary.


    See; that's what I meant. Fanboyism. You ask whatever made them devolve back to the level of human vs. orcs. Here's a hint: They're not better than anyone else. If they were, we wouldn't be playing World of Warcraft. We'd be playing World of Night Elves.


    I agree; there's some things that are terrible about the Night Elves. I'm sorry, but I do think that Night Elf women especially are portrayed as weak. Mainly Tyrande. In the xenophobic, fierce and nearly savage (but very developed) society I would expect from Night Elves, I'd picture a strong, self-assured leader. Not very wise, maybe, but clever, and a great tactician. Someone patient, as well, biding her time. Nature is fickle and cruel, but the stalking predator is patient, and awaits the perfect moment to leap. That's how I envision Night Elves and Night Elven tactics.


    Why are people so caught up on this? Why is it such a bad thing that Elves are really another species of Trolls? Elves didn't evolve from Darkpear, or Jungle Trolls, or Zandalari... They evolved from the same ancestral trolls as those other trolls did. What's so bad about trolls?


    Gah; it's incredibly easy to make characters as 'awe inspiring' as the ones Tolkien pulled out of his bleeps. It really doesn't take any imagination to come up with Captain AwesomeSauce. You really shouldn't wish for that kind of character, if you ask me.


    The Naaru were a mistake to begin with. Please don't make that mistake any bigger by turning Elune into one and, making it even worse, having any other species be the ones to introduce the Holy Light to humans. Everyone has their place, their identity. Humans have the Holy Light; everything else was bestowed upon them by... Well; Elves, really. -_-


    They shouldn't be wise immortals to begin with. Wise immortals are boring, uninspired, unimaginative and just plain old idiotic.

    Well; the Forsaken aren't in a great spot either... What with the whole Wrath Gate thing, and Sylvanas having gone bonkers... Stupid Evil isn't a very interesting thing to play, you know, and it's not really fun for most of us.
    Orcs haven't been feeling very well because, according to the lore, most Orcs actually support Garrosh Hellscream as Warchief, painting all orcs to be murderous bastards. Humans had it hard in Wrath of the Lich King, mainly due to Varian being an arse and everyone hating his behind; it kind of rubbed off on all Stormwind Humans. The Dwarves have a problem waiting to happen, with Princess Eviljeebs now being on the council, and raising the next king with support of the Dwarves (kind of). Night Elves aren't the only ones with this problem.


    Yes, yes... The whole Horde bias. Call me again when Horde has better lore quests than Alliance.

    Truth is: My secondary character is a Night Elf, and I'm enjoying the Night Elves more an more... Partly because they're xenophobic and fierce, but also clever and even loyal. They're not superduperheroes, they're not better than other species. They're great because they, at least, have an identity. With many extremes, true, but that doesn't make them bad.
    The best thing about their identity is, however, that Night Elves are really far from perfect.
    you and i like very different things. this is clear. that's fine though. you like the current night elves and feel the old ones don't fit

    i like the old night elves, feel they had their place in the fantasy world, and that the the new night elves i don't like and worse make the story more ridicuolous because of the change and the degree of it.

    i don't like it, and it's bad. it isn''t justified. Fortunately wow is not the walking dead, the whole word doesn't have to be dark, creepy, in it's dying throes.

    i get it, some of you like that sort of things, there are those who would call you srsly fucked up, you may agree, or get offended for that, you hate anything good, hopefully, full of light, it has to fit a certain image, and you don't like those who fitt hat bill, yet you crave and desire that purity and new ness for yourslef. you have an outlet in fantasy genres, their dark worslds fit and feed your mindset. it's what you like about it. Warcraft is a dark place generally speaking

    but .. i liked that not all of it was dark, at least in the old night elves, you had exceptions. I don'tthink every race has to be a crabon copy of humans..we are all weak, we are all clueless , we are all unloved, and we are all full of hate andrevenge. i like that for once a race stood for, cherished and represented positive and good virtues. They certainly have a place in this fictional universe, blizzardd gave them a place, now they're removing it.

    you may like thatbut i don't. not that i've over purified the night elves, but in your argument the problem seems to be the dislike for what they are. in a game with many many different sentient races, i for one thought it was good to have at least one, that strongly stood and characterised good virtues, yes, you can be both strong and wise. both fierce in battle, a cunning warrior and extremely cultured, civilized. yes it's okay to have at least one race that is pretty much up there, as much as you may hate people like that.

    some of you find it boring, I don't. I liked everything about the night elves pre-cataclysm. They were extremely powerful, wise, and good. Their virtue flawless. /they weren't infallible, they weren't perfect, but they were damn close to it. I liked that, they eren't totally unreltable too either. yes some people can actually be both wise, intelligent, and strong too. both very agile, quick and very powerful, and be smart. add to that vast knowledge, immortality, i think it is good to have a race too good to be true but for a change actually true.

    night elves were fierce but only in battle, this is how you must be to win, i loved the contrast, when warranted you measure up, outsdie the battlefield, you know where you are, calm, serenity, having a conscience etc etc. i like that recent events can shake the seemingly unshakeable, yet not all of them. i like that there are exceptions but as long as the majority of the race remain intact. i thought it was fitting that in classic wow, not one night elf was seen to be a cultist. i was disppoitned when this changed enormously in cataclysm witht he cult of the damned, again the one race i expect to see through that crap started having members who did not. you don't have to have every playable race have cultists, it was fine to have one race that had the wisdom and sense to see through it. Besides they were given enough on their plate to amke up for it. Fandral gone rogue, he is a bit redeemed in that the reason for him going all old gods aws becasue he had been slowly been worked on for so long, and finally snapped as they exerted their influence on the world, showing that night elves too can crack, i liked that they were night elves like him, i did not like that they had to become super evil. i think you can have that annoying officious arrogant demeanour without necessarily being that, but again unlike the majority of you i don't feel that was a typical night elven characteristic.

    Thisalee crow is a lot more in the vein of a wc3 night elf than all the ones that get so easily slaughtered by horde adventuurers in azshara and ashenvale.

    exuse the typos, i will edit them out a bit later, gotta dash

  11. #111
    Quote Originally Posted by Stir View Post
    They're not cleverer, despite their long lives, because they take much longer to learn (because of their long lives). It really kind of makes sense.
    I agree with you on the Tides of War front. That's what I think Night Elves should be.

    Personally, I think it may be a good idea to liken Night Elves to lynxes: Fast, deadly, stealthy. They're not good at learning (but that's not much of a set-back if you live that long; puts you on even footing regardless), and they might not be very wise... But in their own niche, they are the best.
    Humans would be more like wolves: They learn, they cooperate, they are intelligent and open to new ideas, but they're nowhere as deadly or stealthy as a lynx.
    Both are apex predators, however. One isn't better than the other.
    Fellow, looks like you have a very different view of night elves than the majority of us do. You may want them to be like feral lynxes because that's how they came off to you when you started playing wow. Oh look, trees, high agility, not high enough intelligence. Yet their feral grace, acuity and skill was just one of the many outstanding aspects about them described in the earlier works (and by earlier, largely pre-cataclysm). If you are comparing the races to members of the animal kindgom, then the only fitting species for night elves in your list would be man

    Very strong, very wise, very old, very beautiful, very great - are all attributes consistently referred to as core to the night elves, including feral grace, agility and skill - i think some of you are confusing wow gamebalance stats emphasis to draw a profile of an entire race (for gameplay balance, all races had to have the same starting stats they decided, justlike all classes have to be equal, they chose to go with agility for night elves, but if they'd chosen intellect or strength, we who played warcraft 3 would not have thought it unusual), they are the model humanoid race - the zenith. Height of goodness and excellence amongst humanoid races. Not perfect no, but the next thing to it. Making them just feral I think is very one dimensional and very boring. Just amazon warriors is very boring, amazon warriors, virtuous priesthood, magical sorcerous druids, wise, cultured and long lived - that is very good to me. Which is part of the problem now, we only see the magical sorcerous druidic side to them - and though they aren't, they've been perceived as treehugging hippies for it because we don't see the feral warrior aspect to them when we encounter them in conflict, with their goofy animations and frame, we don't see the wisdom and experience that was attributed to them and demonstrated in their past victories, cos we see them making classic schoolboy, trainee errors in recent works. Prity and faith, well darkshore does show them still to have that great humility and virtue which was nicely balanced with the side that can efficintly and masterfully execute and dispatch enemies when warranted, you just don't see that anywhere else. They seem servile and docile, rather than meek and humble. You know what great meekness and great humility are? They are nto docility and impotency.

    I don't expect night elves generally speaking to get involved in most political conflicts, tbh, I thought it was a very bad move to make them part of the alliance. I feel justified in believing that given how terrible they've turned out as players whine for not only balance in the gameplay, but balance in the plot lines. Yet they coudl have remained the night elves and still be part of the alliance.

    Still it is rather stupid the whole thing, if you didn't make gameplay dictate your actions, Chris woudl have written a far superior story regarding the interaction of the races than the ones we get in wow. It's his job to make all the changes believable, and of high quality. We thought them good when we were lead through them in warcraft 3. But mos tof hte ones in wow, and not just about the night elves have been pretty bad. Some huge and out of character things happen without any or very little explanation. For example, why would the night elves join the alliance? It doesn't fit their MO at all?

    I'm not saying it's not possible, but for a race like that, after the sort of introduction, racial profile, background story given in warcraft 3, you need a book that will tell that story. Then there is the strength of the alliance pact. How involved did they get, is it "swearing fealty, we are all your liege servants my human lords" kind of friendship where all of a sudden we're all best friends and we share all our knowledge our secrets and throw pyjama parties together. Or is it a, well we fought together, we don't hate you and it seems that we share some similar goals and has been mutually beneficial to team up from time to time to achieve such goals, so we could be classed as allies, but we are very much our own people and you are very much your own.

    Warcraft may have given us some good moments, but the way plots, politics, factions, stroylines have been handled and portrayed in wow, hs been atrocious.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-21 at 02:03 PM ----------

    anyway, in both the Tolkein-universe, and teh warcraft universe, i have viewed the Tolkein elves and the night elves basically as A-game humans. What would humans be like, if we all nearly all of us, maximised our potential rather than just a handful of us? did not sin, seldom yielding, or never yielding to temptation? developing wisdom to see things for what htey are?

    there are people like that you know, they are just so few and far between and almost never properly portrayed in films or series, and inhistoory, these days, we're more interested in their dirty laundry or past misdemanours than the extraordinary people they have become. Now what if everyone was like that, and never died? what would we be like after 1000 years? or 2,---, what about 4,000? how would we live our lives? Eat?

    I'm still not sure if both Tolkein elves and night elves' phsycial beauty stamina and sensory acuity over humans is due to magic or just good living habits. EAting the right foods, right exercise etc etc. What happened if we thought and considered carfeully all our actions and all our words? would we not be making much better decisions? sure we may still get some wrong, but it would be far more rare.

    Take our brains, you don't have to be a savant from birth to be able to have a good memory. You can train your mind to do some extraoridnary things - the more you watch and abosrb crap, speak untruths, idle about and smoke weed all these things screw you up. don't train your mind you're hardly going to remmeber much. Certain things we do decrease ourcapacity to stay focused. And we are discovering, traits physcial traits once developed in us can be passed down to our children. And we also know it does not doom them to forever be victims of that, they can teach or train themselves out of characteristics picked up either through nature (genes) or nurture (environment & culture)

    This is why in Tolkein's universe and wow's universe, you do have humans that rise to the heights of any of the greatest of elves, but where this is common amongst the elven folk, it is not amongst humans. At least that is a somewhat crude description of how I view them.
    Last edited by ravenmoon; 2013-02-21 at 01:51 PM.

  12. #112
    Scarab Lord Frontenac's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Québec, Québec
    Posts
    4,154
    Night Elves can be highly civilized with wise rulers and still have fierce warriors. In fact, most of the greatest empires need both to exist: Macedonians, Persians, Romans, Byzantine, Chinese, Frankish (Charlemagne) up to the British Empire. When they stopped having both, they started declining.

    Again, Night Elves can be wise and clever but they cannot be very well learned about the rest of the world since they lived in seclusion for the most part of the last 10 thousand years.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-21 at 09:24 AM ----------

    @ Ravenmoon (Because I won't quote that wall of text) : I believe Night Elves are part of the Alliance as equals and are even in a position of leadership. It's not Varian himself that took the title of High King of the Alliance. In fact he was reluctant. It is both Tyrande and Malfurion that have initiated a summit in Darnassus to study the necessity of a unified leadership for the Alliance and it is they who deemed Varian to be the best choice. They are also the ones who vouched for the integration of both Draenei and Gilneans in the Alliance. You want leadership, wisdom and humility: there they are.
    "Je vous répondrai par la bouche de mes canons!"

  13. #113
    Quote Originally Posted by ravenmoon View Post
    *SNIP*
    Well; to be fair, I meant 'great wisdom' as in: Unrivaled wisdom. By 'not very wise' I meant 'not elevated above any others.'
    In my opinion, Night Elves are only 'stupid' because they learn so slowly when compared to others. However, if you'd calculate that, to a Night Elf, a hundred years or so is about the same as one human year, then Night Elves and humans would learn at a respectively similar rate. The human would learn much more than the elf in the span of a single century, but the elf would have a hundred centuries to learn the same things.
    To a human, elves might be slow and dimwitted. To an elf, humans might seem to be on crack. Their ceiling for potential should be the same, however. The reason for this is competition. If elves were so incredibly superior, nobody else would have gotten a civilization to begin with.
    As for making them 'just feral:' I didn't mean that night elves would only have a feral side. But I certainly would like to see their feral side being (more) emphasized. It is, or rather, was, the face they showed the world (of Azeroth) before. Feral doesn't equal 'stupid,' however.
    I feel that this whole 'magickal faerie goodness better-than-thou-in-every-way-imaginable' is very unbecoming of a species like the Night Elves.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mace View Post
    *SNIP*
    Yes, you and I do like different things.
    Me, I like consistency. I see you're mistaking my wish for consistency to be... A dark and morbid fantasy; that I hate anything 'good,' but that's absolutely not the case. I love paladins, for instance. I love the whole 'righteous' thing. I love it when characters face all sorts of problematic things. I love it when 'good' prevails, so to speak.

    I just don't like it when 'good' is so incredibly great that it has no chance of ever losing. (Also because that sort of begs the question of what it means to be 'good' in the first place. 'Good' in my eyes is to protect those weaker than you in the face of overwhelming odds. If you're going to win anyway because you're so incredibly great, you're dangerously close to being an oppressive force.)
    I don't like that same factor in 'evil' either, by the way.

    But, truth be told, I really love it when 'good' is wrong and causes suffering while convinced they are doing the right thing. This reflects the tragedy of so many things happening in the real world, as well as the human mind itself. It is the great tragedy of humanity. People generally do want to do the right thing, you see.

    Dragons. The problem here is dragons. No; not in the literal sense, of course. But dragons in fantasy are usually these incredibly intelligent, wise, magical and, above all, powerful entities... The size of a village.
    The problem? If there's an apex predator like that, then humans, dwarves... Well; anything else, really, wouldn't be able to compete with them. At all. The effect wouldn't exterminate humanoids entirely, but it would make sure that humanoids wouldn't get beyond the point of civilization that chimpanzees and wolves are right now. Humanoids would be small in number, and... Well; humanoids would even be seen as prey.

    If Night Elves were so close to perfection as you'd want them to be, we'd be playing World of Night Elves. All other playable species would be so dramatically outcompeted that there would not be a place for them in the story. Night Elves would have simply settled all of Azeroth, would have easily kept the Legion at bay by themselves, would have formed the world to a kind of Emerald Dream with animals in, and that would be that.

    The problem is: 'Fantasy' isn't just making shit up on the spot. Fantasy is about making stuff work. Fantasy is about making us believe that, given the circumstances, it could be real. That, if magic were to exist, this stuff could happen. It's about immersion. And nothing is worse for immersion than coolness factor.
    Last edited by Stir; 2013-02-21 at 03:37 PM.

  14. #114
    Scarab Lord Frontenac's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Québec, Québec
    Posts
    4,154
    Quote Originally Posted by Stir View Post
    Well; to be fair, I meant 'great wisdom' as in: Unrivaled wisdom. By 'not very wise' I meant 'not elevated above any others.'
    In my opinion, Night Elves are only 'stupid' because they learn so slowly when compared to others. However, if you'd calculate that, to a Night Elf, a hundred years or so is about the same as one human year, then Night Elves and humans would learn at a respectively similar rate. The human would learn much more than the elf in the span of a single century, but the elf would have a hundred centuries to learn the same things.
    To a human, elves might be slow and dimwitted. To an elf, humans might seem to be on crack. Their ceiling for potential should be the same, however. The reason for this is competition. If elves were so incredibly superior, nobody else would have gotten a civilization to begin with.
    As for making them 'just feral:' I didn't mean that night elves would only have a feral side. But I certainly would like to see their feral side being (more) emphasized. It is, or rather, was, the face they showed the world (of Azeroth) before. Feral doesn't equal 'stupid,' however.
    I feel that this whole 'magickal faerie goodness better-than-thou-in-every-way-imaginable' is very unbecoming of a species like the Night Elves.
    I don't think Night Elves are much slower learners than Humans. They are very intelligent beings. However, they can take their time to really delve in their knowledge or to experience different fields. Humans are short lived, so they have the drive to learn as quick as possible, to do everything as quick as possible. But they don't have the time to do everything, to excel both in science and combat. Night Elves can do both, train to be good warriors and learn and research if they want. They have (had) all the time in the world. But because of their seclusion, they were also limited in their knowledge of the world. Maybe they got a little complacent and self-conceited during the Long Vigil.

    Take the Vulcans in Star Trek. Tuvok had the leisure to be a botanist, an archery teacher, an instructor in Star Fleet Academy and a senior Tactical Officer on the bridge of a starship. Of course, Vulcans are not dim-witted.

    You say that Night Elves would rule the world if they were superior. Well, it happens they did rule the world once and have decided out of wisdom and the bad expreience they just had (War of the Ancient) not to do so anymore. They chose to seclude themselves and protect the second Well of Eternity and by extension the world instead of ruling over it. Now time has passed. Other races got stronger and they could not rule it that easily (if they wanted).
    Last edited by Frontenac; 2013-02-21 at 04:08 PM.
    "Je vous répondrai par la bouche de mes canons!"

  15. #115
    Quote Originally Posted by Asmalya View Post
    I blame Blizzards abnormal focus on Orcs vs Humans that basically shits on all the other races constantly.
    A strong, fierce Nightelf race like it was in WC3 wouldnt really work with their current story.
    Esp with Varian.

    So yes i think other races suffer because Orcs and Humans have to be the dominant driving force in Horde / Alliance.
    i've never understood why they've had to be since warcraft 3. WC3 seemed a fitting and reallyg ood evolution of e previous orc v human thing, and I really enjoyed it. Just makes little senses abandoning this and devolving back to humans v orcs. Warcraft could have been an evolution of wc3 where it was now every race for himself

    or you cu would have alliance and horde, but you would have Forsaken, Night elves, Blood elves or high elves, Goblins, Panderan, and these would all be individual races/facions.

    This would completely be authentic and doable in a world of warcraft setting. You would choose a night elf, and they'd be their own faction, see a lot more of chimera, treants and Cenarians than you do, Battlegrounds would be per theme, as a night elf player, you would obviously be with the nght elves agianst the orcs for WSG, , but say Panderan or Goblin could choose to join the night elves or the orcs when they joined the battleground.

    so yeah, you'd have your humans/dwarves/gnomes as alliance, your Orcs/tauren /trolls as horde - Draenei entering would pair up with the night elves, Goblins would be indepenednat, not a faction like the night elves, but free to choose whoever they wished to join as individuals. Same with Panderan. Worgen on coming out woul d be joining the night elves too.

    Blood elves would likely have been independent, same as forsaken, they may pair up occasionally, but remain suspicious, they'd have hteir wn conflict with the high elves whiles trying to rebuild thmselves, so manyt hings you could do their. Or they could have added the DRaenei to the blood elves instead of the night elves. remember the whole draenei blood elf conflict is engineerd because blood elves were placed in the horde, and prior to that they were actually under the same team.

    So although blood elves joining the horde may have been a twist, it's killed by the fact, it's either horde or alliance, and the profile of a race easily suggests horde. but then you engineer the profile to fit what you want.

    Weak alliance? you have to re-engineer night elves to fit that, they must be made weak. No way alliance could get all those defeats with a night elf race still after the wc3 mould.

  16. #116
    Warchief TheDangerZone's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Burt Reynolds' stache
    Posts
    2,198
    Quote Originally Posted by Wildmoon View Post
    NE's society has always been civilized since WotA. They are not primal in the same sense as Troll.
    I meant primal as in primeval; as in ancient, old, first age. You are talking of primitive or savage-like. Kaldorei are highly civilized as a people, but uniquely so, as it was due to their own cultural evolution devoid of external stimuli. On the contrary, the alliance is "civilized" in a more hegemonic way spearheaded by human values, which is total hogwash cause it totally lacks cultural syncretism with the other alliance races. The only exception is Dalaran with the mix of human and queldorei culture.

    Kaldorei were a civilized people in War III, but much different for what we call civilized in human terms. My point is that they have been watered down to fit on human standards of civilization.

  17. #117
    nah.. wehn i read LoTr, then look at wow, blizzrd really have done the Night Elves an injustice. I can't belive some people a trying to argue about night elves not being wise. You can't look at game starting stats as the main basis for such things. theyonly bear a token resemblance to the scope that the lore gives to the races.

    but then the lore changes. Wehn they were introduced, night elves were wisest and smartest of all humanoid beings. Which makes sense if there are many or some amongst you that are over 10,000 years, it is not unreasonable to expect great wisdom. ntelligence was without question, you dn't buld that sort of pre-sundering empire without a high level of it, nor discover magic, and after that sort of evnet, go on to do the things you are reported to have done till the present time without having bucket loads of that too.

    yet these writers seem incapable of portraying how exactly such beings with so illustrious a history should appear. Wanna know? go look at how tolkein goes about describing and writing the words and actions of the exotically beautiful, immortal, wise and learned elves. Fierce and powerful in battle, yet graceful, generous, gentle and fair in speech to their friends. Full of deadly skill and vigour, amazing stamina -- Legolas doesn't need to sleep for a few days, and can operate in a trance whilest moving to regenerate.

    Yet, he nor they are super saiyan at all, you get an awe and majesty about them, but not an invulnerability. Legolas is not young by men's standards, but h'es not that old, and even the powerful Gandalf and compay you see suffer from dread, teror, fright, restlessness, misses, and you getthe impression tehy can very well be killed, though they survive. No super arcane blast to destroy all your enemies at once, that's not how he writes his encounters. So the way i have described Legolas you may feel he is too overpowered, but wehn you read whow he writes Aragorn and Gimli the dwarf too, the elf despite all those wneat elvish things is very much amongst equals, if not betters at least as far as Aragorn is concerned. Aragorn is a man.

    So why does it come off so poorly now? It's the writer off course. Look at Tyrande.. all the excitement about her savage feral skills in fighting from warcraft 3, yet you forget she is high priestess of a very ancient and sacred order..A beacon of virtue and justice. Full of light (well moonlight), and wise, she really ought to be written like a Galadrial when you meet her in Teldrassil in her lands, and like a wawrrior maiden when she goes out to battle.

    That's how you should be writing them. ELves are few now, but their age, their knoweldge, their wisdom and their power which have been attributed to them by the very same writers should make them quite the awe inspiring lot to come up against, and it should take truly incredible actions or numbers to inflict a defeat on them. Yet it is possible. Again, in LotR, you get awe and majesty, not OP#d Elves can certainly die, but you can't fell those folk easily.

  18. #118
    warcraft has room for tolkein elves, and tolkein like dwarves.. and in fact would benefit immenslely if night elves were made much closer tot hem. different stories yes, differnet histories, but character. there is much to be admired about how Tolkein portrays his races and characters and teh skill of his pen stroke.


    yet wracraft has 4 distinct groups of elves, and 5 distinct groups of dwarves - it is desperately in need of some real quality in its story telling, esp in it's books and lore atm, and since in all of warcraft, night elves are very similar in profile to tolkein elves (hpysically only skin colour is different and off course history) and ironforge dwarves are very much like the tolkein dwarves.

    funnily enough people don't complain about warcraft dwarves been very much like tolkein dwarves, but mutter when the same comparison is given to elves..

  19. #119
    Scarab Lord Auxis's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Western Australia
    Posts
    4,881
    Quote Originally Posted by Justignoreme View Post
    That won't happen.
    We can play draenei that have lived for 25,000 years, I don't see the problem. Immortality =/= Invincibility.
    By Blizzard Entertainment:
    Part of the reason is that Battlegrounds are like ducks.
    My Nintendo FC is 2208-5726-4303.

  20. #120
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Mechazod View Post
    I would have liked Blizz to show a bit more of the Amazonian style tribe vibe that we first got in WC3, wouldn't even have to be all aspects of them just like a special organization of defenders like the Sentinels. I am glad though that for the most part NEs are not much like elves from a lot of other fantasy works, to me that niche is filled more by the High Elves, even if they are so few in the actual game.
    Yeah, the Amazonian thing is what Blizzard were aiming for. The druids had some wisdom, and all Night Elves have experience of the past, but their behaviour in the Warcraft III and Frozen Throne Campaigns is definetely incosistent - frequently driven by rash impulses. From the descriptions of the OP (I haven't read the books), the Tolkien Elves sound too wise and honourable to fit the original idea of the Night Elves. And I don't think the High Elves reached that sort of idealisation either - from what I can tell High Elves have a reputation for pig-headed isolationism, reluctance to honour treaties and agreements and lack of trade with Humans or Dwarves.

    I agree that the current portrayal of the Night Elves does not match the original though. Malfurion has become quite hippyish now.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •