So Alliance lost the Nightborne beacuse Tyrande was a dick?

[sillag]

And if they'd been Neutral they'd have proved the same thing, Ajidehak. "We saved you from the Legion and you repay us by doing NOTHING while we fight and die?!" would've been the refain from the Night Elves AND Blood Elves if the Shal'dorei had remained neutral. Similarly, if they joined the Alliance they'd be in the same "Traitors!" position that you see them in, now, but it would be Hordies who feel betrayed.

Fucked if they do, fucked if they don't. They wanted to join the Alliance but it was cold, unkind, and closed off. So they joined the Horde.

yea i dont know if you have played this game called wow before but its actually really normal for factions to just sit around being neutral and no one minds. even when it would make sense for them to do stuff like tirion fighting sylvanas. or the druids trying to stop the horde cutting down all the trees.

[Steampunkette]

yea i dont know if you have played this game called wow before but its actually really normal for factions to just sit around being neutral and no one minds. even when it would make sense for them to do stuff like tirion fighting sylvanas. or the druids trying to stop the horde cutting down all the trees.

Oh, sure! But if it were an expansion where the Highmountain joined hte Horde, and the Army of the Light and the Void Elves joined the Alliance, there'd need to be a fourth group to join the Horde, and since Nightborn have been viewed as the core candidate for a new player race since the topic of Subraces even came -up-... well...

I think there'd be enough salt to push things hard since the Allied Races conceit is on the table. People aren't going to reach back to previous expansions to complain, but from this point forward I think neutrality isn't going to be an option.

What even -would- be the Fourth Race in that event? Couldn't be the Vrykul or the Nelves of Val'sharah. The Ghosts of Faronaar, maybe? That would've been pretty damned left field...

[rda]

yea i dont know if you have played this game called wow before but its actually really normal for factions to just sit around being neutral and no one minds. even when it would make sense for them to do stuff like tirion fighting sylvanas. or the druids trying to stop the horde cutting down all the trees.

Here is how the allied factions could be forced to make the choice:

The Alliance and the Horde are at each other's throats (we need reasons for them to be that way *before* 7.3.5 so Teldrassil burning perhaps cannot count). Both sides want blood. They go to mobilize whoever they can. Since they really want to kill each other, they really want to mobilize everyone they can reach and so they are really stressing and pushing it. Think things like "we came to your help when you needed it, will you now turn your back on us?" to "that other side are monsters and we would very much like to protect you but you have to participate" and similar things. All of this would be believable. All of this is also on point with the Blizzcon message so far. We just need a big believable reason for the Alliance and the Horde to want to kill each other *before* they approach the allied races in the quest lines.

And that would explain why some of the choices of the allied factions look stupid. They are stupid, because the faction is forced to select one of the two stupid choices.

That'd be a good way to make the plot sane.

[Pendraeg]

Nice wording there. Over-reliant. Addicted you mean. Lots of them were. Even though Tyrande wasn't. It was a reason why they turned away from the arcane addiction.

Actually, if you really look at the lore, it was the nobility and those in close proximity to the Well of Eternity who were really the ones with the access and therefore reliance on magic, almost all of those are either now A.) Naga (Highborne dropped into the Maelstrom in Zin-Azshara), B.) Blood Elves ne High elves (Highborne who survived the Maelstrom) and survive via the Sunwell (arcane), C.) Nightborne, who were the "townies" of Suramar city, who survived via the Nightwell (arcane). The existing Night Elves had outlawed arcane magic for 10,000 on pain of death. The only arcane magic the Night Elves use, presumably, were the Moonwells, which (speculation here) use a combination of Arcane and Light magic, the Light preventing the corruption that the Sunwell and Nightwell caused leading to addiction.
My assumption in all of this is that in each of those, you're getting too much of a single "element" (closer to alignment, which I'll get to here shortly) causing the "corruption" and the "addiction" is the loss of the ability to survive the other "elements" without being bolstered by your own.
In the lore, there are 6 "elements" that combine to form all the others. Arcane (order/law), Fel (chaos/disorder), Life (good/Holy), Death (evil/Unholy), Life (Nature) and the Void (Shadow). Fire, for example, is the combination of Fel/Holy, while water is Nature/Arcane.
Arguably, MOST of the denizens of Azeroth are "corrupted" and "addicted" to Life (Nature) (Curse of Flesh, perhaps?), but that's an argument for another time.
To bring it full circle, the Nightborne and the Blood Elves have the exact same addiction, so it's quite natural for them to bond while Tyrande is espousing the same prejudice she and Malfurion (and all the druids) have had since the War of the Ancients against the Highborne, which is what drove the High Elves to the Eastern Kingdoms to found Quel'Thalas 10,000 years ago. No arcane magic.
Remember, this isn't handed down from ancestors, Tyrande and Malfurion were actually THERE. The prejudice is the equivalent, I suppose, as the enmity between the USA and the USSR just after WWII.

[Steampunkette]

Here is how the allied factions could be forced to make the choice:

The Alliance and the Horde are at each other's throats (we need reasons for them to be that way *before* 7.3.5 so Teldrassil burning perhaps cannot count). Both sides want blood. They go to mobilize whoever they can. Since they really want to kill each other, they really want to mobilize everyone they can reach and so they are really stressing it that pushing it. Think things like "we came to your help when you needed it, will you now turn your back on us?" to "that other side are monsters and we would very much like to protect you but you have to participate" and similar things. All of this would be believable. All of this is also on point with the Blizzcon message so far. We just need a big believable reason for the Alliance and the Horde to want to kill each other *before* they approach the allied races in the quest lines.

That'd be a good way to make the plot sane.

With Genn's attack on Sylvanas in Stormheim the Casus Belli already stands for the war to be reignited. He tried to assassinate the Head of State of an enemy nation. As soon as the Legion is dealt with, that's enough to go to war. The Azerite existing as a powerful potential weapon with both sides scrambling to collect it just makes it worse.

[Darkeon]

Tailoring a proper story is difficult enough - let alone one in which has to adapt to a fair experience for both sides of a MMORPG.

Plus, we are talking about Blizzard - gods of amazing storytelling. erm... yeah..

[sillag]

Oh, sure! But if it were an expansion where the Highmountain joined hte Horde, and the Army of the Light and the Void Elves joined the Alliance, there'd need to be a fourth group to join the Horde, and since Nightborn have been viewed as the core candidate for a new player race since the topic of Subraces even came -up-... well...

I think there'd be enough salt to push things hard since the Allied Races conceit is on the table. People aren't going to reach back to previous expansions to complain, but from this point forward I think neutrality isn't going to be an option.

What even -would- be the Fourth Race in that event? Couldn't be the Vrykul or the Nelves of Val'sharah. The Ghosts of Faronaar, maybe? That would've been pretty damned left field...

i could see vrykul really. odyn could be like "well clearly the HORDE were the ones who cared more about honor and strength and fighting!!!! my valajar will join them" it makes at least as much sense as the lightforged or nightborne picking a side. in fact more because we already expect odyn to be kind of unhinged

[Steampunkette]

i could see vrykul really. odyn could be like "well clearly the HORDE were the ones who cared more about honor and strength and fighting!!!! my valajar will join them" it makes at least as much sense as the lightforged or nightborne picking a side. in fact more because we already expect odyn to be kind of unhinged

After Eyir's attempted imprisonment in Skold-Ashil? Not a chance in hell! I get unhinged, he's supposed to be Odin after all, but that would be flat out ridiculous.

[rda]

With Genn's attack on Sylvanas in Stormheim the Casus Belli already stands for the war to be reignited. He tried to assassinate the Head of State of an enemy nation. As soon as the Legion is dealt with, that's enough to go to war. The Azerite existing as a powerful potential weapon with both sides scrambling to collect it just makes it worse.

Maybe. In this case it'd be best for Sylvanas / maybe others on the Horde to articulate this with something like "OK, Legion is done, now it is time for you *%^*ers to answer for what you tried to do, because we remember". Maybe that's going to be articulated in that novel of which we saw a couple of initial pages.

[sillag]

After Eyir's attempted imprisonment in Skold-Ashil? Not a chance in hell! I get unhinged, he's supposed to be Odin after all, but that would be flat out ridiculous.

nah he would go for it. he let the horde be his champions to fight helya and didnt care. he even gave em the magic shield. odyns pretty dumb.

[Steampunkette]

Maybe. In this case it'd be best for Sylvanas / maybe others on the Horde to articulate this with something like "OK, Legion is done, now it is time for you *%^*ers to answer for what you tried to do, because we remember". Maybe that's going to be articulated in that novel of which we saw a couple of initial pages.

I kind of anticipated the march on Stormwind in the novel to be a show of force rather than an actual -attack-, with Sylvanas demanding Greymane be handed over for trial because of his attempted assassination. A way to weaken Anduin's position and show just how manipulative Sylvanas can be by playing on the Alliance's sense of honor.

Which could be bolstered by the Azerite argument, with Sylvanas trying to leverage Azerite out of the deal since there's no way Anduin would hand Genn over to be summarily executed, then Tyrande is filled with umbrage over the Nightborn being a part of the delegation which leads to an attack on Suramar by the Nelves and triggers the invasion of Night Elf Territory under Sylvanas with the full support of the other Horde Leaders since it's a retaliatory attack, the burning happens, and the Alliance goes off and destroys Lordaeron.

... it'd be a pretty neat bow to tie everything up with.

[rda]

There are so many, many neutral groups that received help from both sides and still all of them are neutral.

The theory is that there never have been such a big, all-encompassing, all-mobilizing war like in BFA. All-mobilizing.

[sillag]

The theory is that there never have been such a big, all-encompassing, all-mobilizing war like in BFA. All-mobilizing.

yea dude i'll believe it when i see the cenarion circle taking a side

[Pendraeg]

Maybe. In this case it'd be best for Sylvanas / maybe others on the Horde to articulate this with something like "OK, Legion is done, now it is time for you *%^*ers to answer for what you tried to do, because we remember". Maybe that's going to be articulated in that novel of which we saw a couple of initial pages.

I suppose you could look at it that way, could you not also look at the actual death of Varian Wrynn due to Horde apparent duplicity on the Broken Shore as sufficient cause to war, not to mention Sylvanas was actively working against our allies (and our, meaning both Horde and Alliance), that is Odyn and the Valkyr, and with our enemies, Helya, it could be argued that her actions were in fact treasonous.

[rda]

yea dude i'll believe it when i see the cenarion circle taking a side

OK, let me change what I said a bit: the theory is that the war in BFA is very big and very mobilizing. It might not mobilize everyone, but it will mobilize plenty of neutrals.

[Steampunkette]

That doesn't make a sense a bit. There are so many, many neutral groups that received help from both sides and still all of them are neutral.

And besides, Khadgar announced that the Nightborne need help and Night Elves and Blood Elves volunteered. They weren't forced in any manner. If any faction demands help from the Nightborne and threaten them for it, that would make that faction evil and pushed them to the other one.

Don't try to show that the Nightborne's choice was pure out of being forced and they had no other options. They clearly were happy and very eager to join the Horde and you can see that in the datamined conversations.

And you can see, very clearly, in the datamined conversations that Thalyssra originally intended to join the Alliance but later decided against it.

And neither side HAS to be aggressive in the "Join us since we helped you!" sense since the Nightborn plan to leave their home and go out into the world. Unlike the Taunka, or Sporeggar or Broken or Mag'har, or whatever other previous race is sitting around in their homeland twiddling their thumbs while the world is on the brink of annihilation. And, again, there's the mechanics involved in adding new races that didn't -exist- in previous expansions and the Developer question of "What do we give the Horde for their second race?"

Look, dude, neither of us like that the Nightborn have joined the Horde in as flimsy a manner as they have. But hemming and hawwing over how they could've been Neutral is pointless, and headcanoning them as newly-faceless-evil so your Alliance characters can just cut them down is fine and dandy, but trying to present that headcanon as bonafide fact is just a waste of everyone's time.

It's exhausting trying to argue with you about this, and I'm done with it.

[rda]

I suppose you could look at it that way, could you not also look at the actual death of Varian Wrynn due to Horde apparent duplicity on the Broken Shore as sufficient cause to war, not to mention Sylvanas was actively working against our allies (and our, meaning both Horde and Alliance), that is Odyn and the Valkyr, and with our enemies, Helya, it could be argued that her actions were in fact treasonous.

Yes, absolutely. That's the idea - both sides having overwhelming (to them) reasons to want the other side dead and so they both turn on each other immediately and without hesitation after Legion is down (screaming "oh, finally I have time to kill you, bitch!!!").

[Steampunkette]

I suppose you could look at it that way, could you not also look at the actual death of Varian Wrynn due to Horde apparent duplicity on the Broken Shore as sufficient cause to war, not to mention Sylvanas was actively working against our allies (and our, meaning both Horde and Alliance), that is Odyn and the Valkyr, and with our enemies, Helya, it could be argued that her actions were in fact treasonous.

You could argue that she was working against POTENTIAL allies, but the Titan Watchers have always been a neutral to neutral-evil faction that doesn't get involved in mortal wars. Case in point, even after being freed from the Halls of Valor Odyn's whole contribution to everything was to pop over to Helya's corpse and gloat.

He doesn't appear on the Vindicaar or hang out on Argus, the Valajar aren't being dispatched to the Tomb of Sargeras and he certainly didn't punch Argus the Unmaker at the end of Antorus. He allows one of his Valajar (The Player Character) to do their Warlordy business with the Halls of Valor as a base of operations, but that's about it.

The real Contribution of Odyn was the Aegis of Aggramar. And he handed that over because we beat the challenges to get it and would've given it to the Felskorn if we'd been just a -little- bit slower in the doing of it.

[Steampunkette]

She is referring to when she met Tyrande at Suramar gates. She shows her conversation with her afterward and later lecture her and said Elune's wisdom guided her away from the bonds we once shared. But Nightborne hiding in the shield and abandoning the people who were fighting to save the world doesn't break the bond.

And i am not headcanoning anything. Nightborne betrayed the Night Elves in WotA is in chronicles and Nightborne joining the Horde because Tyrande was mean is in the datamined conversation. Night Elves helped them and they turned to their enemy, it is not a headcanon at all to see what kind of race they really are.

Headcanon is claiming that they are forced to choose either Alliance or Horde.

Headcanon is declaring they're Conquerors who want to take over the world and that's why they joined the Horde, Ajidahek. I haven't argued with you about whether datamined lines exist, I've argued about your interpretation of their motivations.

[Rhlor]

Night elves? More like country elves! They live in trees, sleep in dens... sometimes even grow antlers. They're not cut out for life in a REAL city.[/I]

(from the new datamined voicelines)

even if it's a joke there's a truth in this, the shaldorei and sindorei have more things in common and share a similar culture