Did Tyrande and Thalyssra know each other? Does Suramar remember her and Malfurion?

[Rhlor]

It makes sense from a purely gameplay perspective.

Alliance wanted playable high elves, and if Alliance got the Horde elves then it follows that the Horde should get an Alliance race, and since the only other realistic option would be a human model for the Forsaken as an Allied Race they instead got the Nightborne which are the Night Elf model but superficially like Blood Elves enough that they could make them Horde without too much fuss.

Fomr a lore perspective it is a total mess though. For one while it is never explicitly stated, the Horde now controls most of the Broken Isles, why would the Alliance care that much about the imaginary border between Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms when the Broken Shore is right there within spitting distance.
Secondly, with the burning of Teldrassil it paints the Nightborne as unbelievably cold hearted. From the interractions we can only assume they don't immediately secede because of the attack on their kinsmen solely because Tyrande didnt immediately trust Thalyssra.
And of course as was mentioned, Nelf lore was kinda lacking in Legion, there were pieces scattered around of plot points that could have been better fleshed out, what the Kaldorei think about an entire city from the past still being active and its inhabitants alive, must be at least a few familymembers that are now reuinited.

In short the Nightborne storyline makes sense when you look at it from the perspective of the developers working backwards from wanting to give the Horde an Alliance elf race, not so much if you look at it from the perspective of a greater Night Elf/Nightborne storyline.

I personally supported that the nightborne were an allied race of the alliance (at that time we called it sub race). what I'm denying is ravemoon's claim that the nightborne were added to the horde because of blizzard's favoritism to the horde. When it is the opposite, blizzard gave the alliance players what they asked to exchange the most played race of the horde for the nightborne. Almost no player in the horde asked for this exchange, only the alliance players asked for it.

[LuminaL]

I tend to feel bad for night elf fans. Even when they get something cool like Tyrande going full vengeance mode they fuck it up.

Clearly Val'sharah exhausted them in terms of connecting the Major Night Elf characters to the Broken Isles after they scrambled to make them more than unimpressive landmasses around the Sunken Tomb of Sargeras.

meanwhile they made an expansion entirely revolving around orcs, just after a major patch about orcs. they made a pack for humans and trolls, they made raids for blood elf story line development, but naaaah, we just cant have a pack with major night elf lore, one of the most played alliance races.

- - - Updated - - -

I personally supported that the nightborne were an allied race of the alliance (at that time we called it sub race). what I'm denying is ravemoon's claim that the nightborne were added to the horde because of blizzard's favoritism to the horde. When it is the opposite, blizzard gave the alliance players what they asked to exchange the most played race of the horde for the nightborne. Almost no player in the horde asked for this exchange, only the alliance players asked for it.

they should have made them natural, it was the most logical solution as both horde and the alliance helped them to get back their city, not to mention it was a night elf druid who helped cure their addiction. they could be natural like pandas and a players choice to go alliance or the horde.

[Rhlor]

meanwhile they made an expansion entirely revolving around orcs, just after a major patch about orcs. they made a pack for humans and trolls, they made raids for blood elf story line development, but naaaah, we just cant have a pack with major night elf lore, one of the most played alliance races.

- - - Updated - - -



they should have made them natural, it was the most logical solution as both horde and the alliance helped them to get back their city, not to mention it was a night elf druid who helped cure their addiction. they could be natural like pandas and a players choice to go alliance or the horde.

That suggestion was also made, but I repeat I answered ravenmoon because he said that blizzard pleased the horde by giving nightborne when in reality the exchange of races was a request of the players of the alliance.

[Manariel]

Currently rampaging through Thorgast, wrecking anything in her path while looking for Sylvanas.

Considering how he loses it as soon as I kill one of his named in the Maw, I wonder what he feel about Tyrande fucking up his armies in Thorgast.

- - - Updated - - -

I personally supported that the nightborne were an allied race of the alliance (at that time we called it sub race). what I'm denying is ravemoon's claim that the nightborne were added to the horde because of blizzard's favoritism to the horde. When it is the opposite, blizzard gave the alliance players what they asked to exchange the most played race of the horde for the nightborne. Almost no player in the horde asked for this exchange, only the alliance players asked for it.

Not exactly. Most Alliance players wanted High Elves/Silver Covenant elves and we got Void Elves. it took all of BFA with the call for High Elves to be playable for Blizzard to cave in, because their bet that VE would be enough failed miserably, becasue they hand't understood the demand, which wasn't just about the model (or the skin color) but also the story.

I like VE now, don't get me wrong, I even realized that my huntress looked better voided than pure thalassian. But objectively speaking, they were a mistake and they won't help faction balance in story when the Light vs Void expansion will happen, since the Light as always been mostly an Alliance thing and now the Void is too..

[ravenmoon]

I glad to you make it clear that the ultimate goal of alliance players is to steal content from the horde and their player base

You just dont see that alliance players view blood elf and nightborne as alliance high elf and night elf assets that have been shoved into the horde along with much of high elf and night elf assets - to boost a horde at their expense.

You failing to recognise that it is only the elves that the alliance has issue with on the horde, and all this started when blood elves were glorified on the horde, stealing a core alliance race and its assets, and soon to follow were the kaldorei civilization elves in the Nightborne for no reason but horde favouritism, but you honestly expect neglected and constantly disfavoured and snubbed alliance fans to keep enjoying this?

They are fully aware their faction has been second rate in wow development and story, thrown tokens, largely on humans only, where most of the groups they actually care just as much about and more now, like the night elves and high elves, continue to be elevated on a horde faction they still don't fit and now clearly don't need. At least dont need in such a visible way.

Blizzard must either be blind or seriously horde prejudiced not to see how this is affecting their balance and how much more it means to the alliance. They got myriad of players asking for kaldorei and Thalassian stuff on alliance and a tiny handful of vocal horde elf fans constantly hounding the forums to suppress it both on reddit and the official.

The demand and desire is very clearly far more important to many more alliance players which is good chunk of their player base, while only so for a small well organised group of horde elf fans who aren't really liked by the rest of the horde core fanbase community who arent that vocal.

Also, most of these horde elf fans were alliance fans who switched over when the blood elves were introduced, and some when the nightborne went horde. It doesn't take rocket science to realise that if those switched back to the alliance cos elves were glorified on the faction it would fix the both the horde imbalance and the thematic wilderness the elevation of the horde elves created

- - - Updated - - -

Effectively healing much of the game from a faction theme point of view and going some ways to even the faction numbers that greatly favour the horde to noticeable levels.

I just wonder how long it will take blizzard to realise the problem and solution lies with the elves. Focus and build up the elves mainly on the alliance, greatly improve them, watch alliance numbers grow, watch faction theme imbalances correct themselves and overall much more contentment in both factions, with only the small tiny hardcore horde ELF fanbase upset, and what would they be upset about? Actually nothing reasonable, it's just jealousy elves are better on the alliance once more, and even they would admit, it fits the theme better.

They know they would never lose blood elves and nightborne, but they are aware they could lose the lore assets like Silvermoon/Quel'thalas and Suramar, which are pretty much the bragging rights. They want to hold on to these not because they care about what's best for the game, best for evening out player numbers or fixing the distortion in the faction themes that elf glorification on the horde clearly caused, nope, they want to hold on to these to brag and feel superior to the alliance on the basis of elves which are at their core an alliance race.

The sooner blizz see this, the better, hopefully they'll hire people with a bit more perception who'd do what's good for the game and ALL the fanbase instead of pushing their favourites or pandering to the vocal minority who have selfish motivations in keeping the alliance down and second rate which has never been good for the game. May have been necessary for a season when alliance outnumbered the horde greatly, but surely now the reverse is true, the situation demands alliance attention, especially with the races the alliance cares the most about, which are their high elves and night elves.

It's so clear to see.

[Jackstraw]

It's so clear to see.

Yeah, no.

We already went over this, but for the sake of repetition: Blood Elves have literally no ties to the Alliance after W3. The only speck of argument can be made about Velen's intervention during the sacrifice of M'uru at the end of the Sunwell Plateau campaign. But aside from that?
Nightborne have no ties with neither the Alliance or the leader of the Kaldorei, which actively threatens Thalissra. Not to mention the entirety of the Sundering implications.

Silvermoon being a token of what anyway. This perceived Horde elven fanbase, I'll be honest, I don't think it exists at all.

[Saltysquidoon]

They know they would never lose blood elves and nightborne, but they are aware they could lose the lore assets like Silvermoon/Quel'thalas and Suramar, which are pretty much the bragging rights. They want to hold on to these not because they care about what's best for the game, best for evening out player numbers or fixing the distortion in the faction themes that elf glorification on the horde clearly caused, nope, they want to hold on to these to brag and feel superior to the alliance on the basis of elves which are at their core an alliance race.e.

Mate (and this is speaking as someone who is far more deeply invested in the lore than he should be).

You are absolutely nutterbutters if you think soccer mum carol, aunty jenny the pet collector or stan the chippy care or even know what Suramar or Quel'thalas is. They leveled up playing through it and never thought about it again. The vast, vast majority of people either pick human (because they're normies) or some variety of elf because they're hot and look human.

[Alanar]

Tyrande knew Thalyssra, she says as much during their interaction in front of suramar and it is rather apparent that there is no love lost between them, as far as Tyrande is concerned the people in suramar are dead to her.

Yea there interaction made it super clear they have no love for eachother. Tyrande being the douche as always made a sneer to them even tho it was also already clear they werent in leage with the grand magister elisande.

It was an obvious that they have more in common with the blood elves who continued their arcane studies just like them.

[Talrath]

Yeah, no.

We already went over this, but for the sake of repetition: Blood Elves have literally no ties to the Alliance after W3. The only speck of argument can be made about Velen's intervention during the sacrifice of M'uru at the end of the Sunwell Plateau campaign. But aside from that?
Nightborne have no ties with neither the Alliance or the leader of the Kaldorei, which actively threatens Thalissra. Not to mention the entirety of the Sundering implications.

Silvermoon being a token of what anyway. This perceived Horde elven fanbase, I'll be honest, I don't think it exists at all.

Well the only reason the bloodelfs are in the horde is because they didn't have any support when silvermoon got destroyed. There were iron forge and stormwind but too far away. So they chose the closest potential ally not because they liked them but they needed the forsaken to help with the scourge aftermath. In MoP it was easy for lorthemar to change sides since he never cared about the horde. Him going alliance would make sylvanis attack him and that's what he is afraid of. But in MoP sending armies across the globe had become a lot easier than the past and that's why he wanted to change sides.

Bloodelfs, nightborne should have been alliance there is no reason for them to be in the horde now. Look at the high elves, they hate the horde.

[Alanar]

I could see them making her a bad guy. Like her vengeance is to high now so she's attacking everyone in her way.

She is lost anyway.. this is her last resort chance to be cool or what ever... sadly it only made her stupid and pethatic. Malfurion destroyed hes chance in Legion.

Hush tyrande! Just kill them both pls.

[thesmall001]

You aren't the only one surprised. I was surprised, then disappointed, then appalled that they didn't. It is clear they knew of each other though. You only need read wotA, and pay attention to what Tyrande says to Thalyssra, what the Moonguard, and other Nightborne say in places like Tel'anor - they are very much kaldorei aware.

However they did change a lot of content involving the Darnassian night elf group later on. The entire broken shore questline and story was changed, it was centred around Tyrande and the priesthood, but ion mentioned they felt there wasn't enough legion effects and presence, then later wanted the Class order halls to have more of a presence and role, so the night elves were sacrificed, the Tyrande storyline scrapped.

Initially in 7.1, Elisande would goad Tyrande about their mutual acquaintance, i.e. Malfurion - establishing blizzard fully aware.

Suramar in game is built exactly according to the Suramar in the War of the Ancients trilogy too, if you read that book you'd see the entire night elven section of the broken isle, from Suramar through to Val'sharah is lifted from that book, with additions like Azsuna added. The night elf section was all about the origins and history of the kaldorei who were the ones who first encountered and defeated the Legion. Highmountain and Stormheim were made Tauren and Vrykul because they felt having 5 elven zones would be too boring.

finally even the last zone, Thal'dranath was too much night elven to deal with, and unlike the Sunwell plateau that really finished the blood elf story in that expansion, we instead went to Argus and finished the Legion, which may have been more exciting for everyone but night elf fans - the expansion ended with poor or bad resolutions and a lot of changes.

They started with a grand night elf vision and continuously chipped away.

The biggest one in my opinion was the Nightborne becoming playable, then becoming a horde race. I don't believe that was the original goal, I feel the Nightborne were meant to be healed by the Arcan'dor back to night elves and be a Highborne group facilitating the civilization wing of the kaldorei - it would serve as the new capital after the destruction of Teldrassil, while the druids would have a new home and purely druidic world tree in Shaladrassil, the sentinels would have a new base bastion in Black rook hold, , while the Highborne would have their own country in Azsuna. The demon hunters would stick to the fel affected areas while Suramar would be the capital for all groups. The priests would have their main cathedral restored as the HQ, and have temples in both Val'sharah and Azsuna serving both druidic and Highborne communities.


But the love for the Nightborne was so high, that they made the entire group of Suramar remain Nightborne, whereas i feel we would have had a remnant group of exiled enemies, who may have joined the horde later. The decision for the Nightborne to go horde i think was horde bias, they couldn't resist giving the horde all of it, and making excuses to why it would be so, it helped that the blood elf community badly wanted them - but it was easy to see their interest was purely superficial and the Nightborne on the horde contributed nothing of real relevance, while on the alliance with the night elves would be a significant lore development and race development.

In the end passion and desire won over the good of the game, imo, all this is my opinion of things, i think they made an impulsive choice that frankly ruined the integrity of everything that transpired in 7.0 - that the Nightborne joined the horde that were set to destroy Teldrassil in a genocide flew in the face of everything the victors were written to be. I don't think it was the initial plan at all, it was decided after 7.0 was released, and while 7.1 was being implemented. 7.1 was altered in several ways to facilitate this decision.

So, I see where you're coming from, and I do agree with your assessment of the original intent, but I disagree that the shift towards Horde was made in error. I think, as the Nightfall campaign was developed and finished, it probably became quite organic that the band of rebels would trend more towards Sin'dorei than Kaldorei. The parallels in their story are evident. The Shal'dorei would be eager to retain and return to their ways after Elisande attacked and subverted them. There was no "Nature over Arcane" awakening for them in their story. Even the Arcan'dor conclusion represents the balance BETWEEN the two rather than a purely natural-based remedy. It's also quite clear that the Shal'dorei retained far less piety towards Elune in their time in the dark. And then somebody started writing dialogue between Thalyssra and Liadrin, Tyrande and (probably started thinking about) Lor'themar and it all just lined up. Thalyssra herself was a very well written and compelling rebel leader. I think sometimes characters take on a will of their own and lead the writers in an unexpected direction. I think that's the sign of good writing, actually, when you allow those choices to make you reevaluate what you had planned.

And this leads directly into BfA where, you have to remember, the Horde are told that the Alliance are coming for us and will seek to control our way of life. Sylvanas and -perhaps more importantly, for traditionalists- Saurfang agree that securing Teldrassil with a naval barricade is key to controlling Kalimdor and the Azerite supply. It is framed as a "good" war to minimise loses in the long term. And then Sylvanas pulls the old switcheroo at the last second. And Thalyssra is one of the first to recognise that and share reservations. This is then reinforced by Valtrois in her conversation with Rexxar in the War Campaign. They were very deliberate about drawing parallels between Elisande and Sylvanas.

So, I think probably quite early in the Nightfall Insurrection, the natural choice became more clear to be Horde both in the immediate future and the longer term future. And I'm still interested in seeing where that leads us in a few years as the story hopefully returns to occasional Azerothian politics and developments. What does a long-term sovereign coupling between the Sin'dorei and Shal'dorei look like? And then I think the Alleria story started to take shape and they decide to steer into breadcrumbs for the Light/Void storylines and that's how we ended up with Void Elves. I also still think they were laying groundwork to dissolve the factions after BfA and they just ended up deciding not to do so.

[Alanar]

Well the only reason the bloodelfs are in the horde is because they didn't have any support when silvermoon got destroyed. There were iron forge and stormwind but too far away. So they chose the closest potential ally not because they liked them but they needed the forsaken to help with the scourge aftermath. In MoP it was easy for lorthemar to change sides since he never cared about the horde. Him going alliance would make sylvanis attack him and that's what he is afraid of. But in MoP sending armies across the globe had become a lot easier than the past and that's why he wanted to change sides.

Bloodelfs, nightborne should have been alliance there is no reason for them to be in the horde now. Look at the high elves, they hate the horde.

Nope, the forsaken were an obbvious pick cus of Sylvanas duh. Lorthe mar literally said it in the quests.

Those 2 races combined dont match with the alliance at all anymore..political wise there is no reason to go to their counterparts who they kinda hate..

[Ardenaso]

nononono the Alliance has been getting way too many Horde stuff, we need to balance it out by getting more Alliance content to the Hode

[Alanar]

Considering how he loses it as soon as I kill one of his named in the Maw, I wonder what he feel about Tyrande fucking up his armies in Thorgast.

- - - Updated - - -



Not exactly. Most Alliance players wanted High Elves/Silver Covenant elves and we got Void Elves. it took all of BFA with the call for High Elves to be playable for Blizzard to cave in, because their bet that VE would be enough failed miserably, becasue they hand't understood the demand, which wasn't just about the model (or the skin color) but also the story.

I like VE now, don't get me wrong, I even realized that my huntress looked better voided than pure thalassian. But objectively speaking, they were a mistake and they won't help faction balance in story when the Light vs Void expansion will happen, since the Light as always been mostly an Alliance thing and now the Void is too..

Asking for high elves still amaze me to this day.. the race has been playable since 2007. I think those fans should realy be happy tbh, because in the end you are asking for the same race to playable on the other side. It always was a stupid request no matter the arguments.

Its more that those fans never accepted how the story was played out that way altho it was pretty natural why they went horde.

Most argument came from warcraft 2 or silver covensnt wich were always outdated. It was just a matter of never accepting the story honestly.

Dont want to be that guy, but lets just be realistic here. I dont care for personal opinion based arguments, in general this is how it is realy.

I mean I have seen tons of threads over the years and I feel more sad for the people who wanted to have broken from legion or ogres. Those would have been real NEW options.

- - - Updated - - -

nononono the Alliance has been getting way too many Horde stuff, we need to balance it out by getting more Alliance content to the Hode

Its funny that more and more people start to realise it.

[Ardenaso]

Asking for high elves still amaze me to this day.. the race has been playable since 2007. I think those fans should realy be happy tbh, because in the end you are asking for the same race to playable on the other side. It always was a stupid request no matter the arguments.

Its more that those fans never accepted how the story was played out that way altho it was pretty natural why they went horde.

Most argument came from warcraft 2 or silver covensnt wich were always outdated. It was just a matter of never accepting the story honestly.

Dont want to be that guy, but lets just be realistic here. I dont care for personal opinion based arguments, in general this is how it is realy.

I mean I have seen tons of threads over the years and I feel more sad for the people who wanted to have broken from legion or ogres. Those would have been real NEW options.

- - - Updated - - -



Its funny that more and more people start to realise it.

the Alliance finally got the Horde's most popular race High Elves in form of fair skinned Void Elves; the Horde should get the Alliance's most popular race! Alteraci Humans for the Horde!

- - - Updated - - -

OT: I still can't get over the retcon of Suramar and the Nightborne but that's just me

[Alanar]

the Alliance finally got the Horde's most popular race High Elves in form of fair skinned Void Elves; the Horde should get the Alliance's most popular race! Alteraci Humans for the Horde!

- - - Updated - - -

OT: I still can't get over the retcon of Suramar and the Nightborne but that's just me

What recton?

[ravenmoon]

That suggestion was also made, but I repeat I answered ravenmoon because he said that blizzard pleased the horde by giving nightborne when in reality the exchange of races was a request of the players of the alliance.

I'm pretty certain alliance got void elves because blizzard badly wanted to give the horde Nightborne, a d felt that would be the only exchange worthy enough - at least in the minds of fans.

I believe they genuinely wanted to give high elves, but felt void elves offered something better/different. I also think some in blizzard did not want alliance to get high elves because of horde bias/favouritism, but I dont think they are why void elves happened, although they may have influenced..

Alliance fans wanted Nightborne, which is logical as horde fans wanting highmountian. Nightborne are the night elf sub race.

They did not want an exchange, just because some forum poster suggests an exchange doesn't make it legitimately the case nor the desire of all alliance fans. Dint kid yourself @Rhlor

Nightborne are a night elf sub race, alliance fans would no more expect Highmountsin to go alliance as they would Nightborne to go horde.

Horde elf fans wanted nightborne because Suramar was fancy and Nightborne were presented as badass spellcasters. If Suramar looked like Moonguard stronghold or Dire Maul they'd have had no interest.

They were never interested in it because of any love for the Kaldorei or kaldorei culture of the pre-sundering era it showed, they coveted a beautiful elven city and laid claim to what was clearly a night elf city and night elf lore, this was evidenced by how quickly flipped from distancing blood elves themselves from Highborne and any kaldorei connection to considering and viewing themselves as such. This shift happens during Legion amongst the horde elf fan community - yes I've been around that long and remember the days when horde elf fans would dissociate the high elves from their highborne heritage, claiming high elf is something developed from those origins, rather than still, an active part of it.

Furthermore, you see almost zero interest in discussing the Nightborne race, what they are about, their very kaldorei culture and progression. Almost zero I terest, the only time horde elf fans talk about nightborne is to challenge alliance fans demanding blizzard return them to the night elves. Outside that scope, the interest is non existence or very very lore, showing they have little to no interest in the race, they just want the city and bragging rights, outside that it's basically playing a drow like or EQ dark elf model lookalike - all the interest is superficial, they dont really care or love. I've seen far more genuine interest in the nightborne from alliance night elf fans than horde ones

To think alliance fans wanted an exchange is silly.

Alliance fans have always wanted playable high elves because high elves are alliance.

They wanted nightborne because Nightborne are night elf sub race, they don't owe the horde any exchange, these are alliance based races, it would be like the alliance demanding they get Zandalari in exchange for the horde getting Highmountain Tauren or Mag'har orcs.

It's a superfluous fake deal, because both Zandalari and Mag'har are horde based races, the alliance has no right to demand.

Just like both Nightborne and void/high elves are alliance based races. The alliance doesnt need an exchange for high elves, high elves are already alliance and have always been, they dont need to lose the night elf sub race for that.

This is entirely fan wrought construct of a false exchange.

Yet horde fans do not understand why alliance fans clamour over blood elves - an alliance faction originally - yet make no demands ds or interest on orcs, trolls, forsaken, goblins, etc, even Vuloera, a cutesy race have alliance demand far lower than it is for blood/high elves, because that race was never associated with the alliance. Once it became horde, requests for it on alliance dropped dramatically and far less anger over it (compared to Nightborme or blood elves back in TBC), and demands are very rare, certainly not faction widespread like the demand for high/blood elves on alliance.

And why is that? Because they're an alliance race originally.

The fact that blizzard would do so just shows their bias, or rather I should say that you think this is what blizzard did would indicate and validate bias claims.

Blizzard created all this angst by glorifying the most desired and one of the core alliance races on the horde, and then doing it again to the other elf group really it's the heart of these problems and I'm telling g you that glorifying the elves on the alliance a d keeping g the alliance as the main home and front of the elves will solve the problem

Alliance elves should show the best and greatest aspects of the elves and be the defacto home for elf players. While they cant remove blood elves and nightborne entirely from the horde, they should be less there than on the alliance. This will fix a lot of things ,

[Ardenaso]

What recton?

I mean in Warcraft 3 Suramar is ruins with no people around. The tileset is literally called Sunken Ruins

[Lane]

But that's not exactly how it played out, because you're omitting the fact that the Night Elves - Tyrande especially - basically regard the Nightborne as cowards who fled and left them fighting against Azshara and the Legion. Tyrande could have welcomed them back as kin, finally free from isolation and addiction; instead, she basically held on to a 10,000-year grudge and gave them snark and scorn.

It was implied it was also a rejection from Elune in the Nightborne race cinematic. Plus, there were various story elements throughout Suramar that suggested the Nightborne had completely abandoned Elune after they sequestered themselves in the city and became dependent upon the Nightwell.

[ravenmoon]

So, I see where you're coming from, and I do agree with your assessment of the original intent, but I disagree that the shift towards Horde was made in error. I think, as the Nightfall campaign was developed and finished, it probably became quite organic that the band of rebels would trend more towards Sin'dorei than Kaldorei. The parallels in their story are evident. The Shal'dorei would be eager to retain and return to their ways after Elisande attacked and subverted them. There was no "Nature over Arcane" awakening for them in their story. Even the Arcan'dor conclusion represents the balance BETWEEN the two rather than a purely natural-based remedy. It's also quite clear that the Shal'dorei retained far less piety towards Elune in their time in the dark. And then somebody started writing dialogue between Thalyssra and Liadrin, Tyrande and (probably started thinking about) Lor'themar and it all just lined up. Thalyssra herself was a very well written and compelling rebel leader. I think sometimes characters take on a will of their own and lead the writers in an unexpected direction. I think that's the sign of good writing, actually, when you allow those choices to make you reevaluate what you had planned.

And this leads directly into BfA where, you have to remember, the Horde are told that the Alliance are coming for us and will seek to control our way of life. Sylvanas and -perhaps more importantly, for traditionalists- Saurfang agree that securing Teldrassil with a naval barricade is key to controlling Kalimdor and the Azerite supply. It is framed as a "good" war to minimise loses in the long term. And then Sylvanas pulls the old switcheroo at the last second. And Thalyssra is one of the first to recognise that and share reservations. This is then reinforced by Valtrois in her conversation with Rexxar in the War Campaign. They were very deliberate about drawing parallels between Elisande and Sylvanas.

So, I think probably quite early in the Nightfall Insurrection, the natural choice became more clear to be Horde both in the immediate future and the longer term future. And I'm still interested in seeing where that leads us in a few years as the story hopefully returns to occasional Azerothian politics and developments. What does a long-term sovereign coupling between the Sin'dorei and Shal'dorei look like? And then I think the Alleria story started to take shape and they decide to steer into breadcrumbs for the Light/Void storylines and that's how we ended up with Void Elves. I also still think they were laying groundwork to dissolve the factions after BfA and they just ended up deciding not to do so.

Tbh, they didnt need to change much to skew the Nightborne towards the horde. Players came up with enough excuses to make it seem natural and more sense for the horde to have nightborne, even though it wasn't. For crying out loud it would be like alliance asking for HighmountainTauren because of the night elven druidic connections with Cenarius and the Tauren and then trying to prove that it works equally as well, and even better on the alliance because of the night elf and nature connection with Tauren - yet failing to explain why it wouldnt be just as fine on the horde - why having stronger druidic connection on the horde was somehow unacceptable and it had to be in the alliance because of night elves. All this being despite Highmountian being clearly a Tauren sub race, which is a horde race, just because there is a night of connection doesn't make the argument for better suitability on the opposing faction more valid.

That's exactly what they did, no good reason why night elf arcane magic and civilization couldn't improve in the night ekves with the nightborne, and claiming it had to be horde because the blood elves already had this connection there. Also ignoring the argument, that surely this meant it was not needed on the horde because of said blood elves already bringing that and more valuable in the alliance with the night elves as further advancing the story of their race with their own sub race.


Yet they said it so many times, ignoring the highborne and kaldorei history of the night elves, harping on the fact that Darnassians abandoned that culture, despite the lore showing that both civilization like Darnassus and arcane magic in the highborne and starfall/starfire casting priests and druids had returned to the kaldorei since the start of wow.

They convinced themselves of weak excuses, and used their persistent hardcore network of horde elf fans to repeat the same skewed bias point of view everywhere, people started believing them purely on the basis of how frequently they said it and enough of them saying it than the actual validity of their claims.

They had no compelling and good reason for why a night elf sub race would go horde or why what was clearly a kaldorei culture or kaldorei city, shouldn't be a part of the kaldorei - their reasoning? Kaldorei abandoned cities and the arcane - 12 years after Darnassus, clearly a city and over a decade after clearly seeing the arcane and highborne amongst said Darnassians. When challenged, coming up with grasping at straw arguments, like they are shunned or not welcome, which impossible to prove except in isolated occurrences, actually doesnt mean anything, as if views cant change or the clash they are so keen on highlighting actually would serve to make the inclusion a worthy and interesting addition. But no they wouldn't see it that way, because it wasn't based on logic or the better interest of the game, but on vanity, pride and bragging rights over their fellow players.

Bullshit arguments, nothing but an excuse and front to justify what had no justification outside coveting what the opposite faction's core race had because it was fancy, desirable both in it's incredible beauty and magical power fantasy - for a change on the night elves. And they could not let it happen, not to their rivals, not when they had hope to claim it. They wanted this so badly, they were finally willing to embrace sin'dorei kaldorei heritage, where prior to Legion the very same fans had argued in favour of distancing. Such hypocrisy.

They couldnt bear the thought the alliance elves might have a city nicer than Silvermoon and a group of elves visibly more powerful with the arcane ( the part of the blood elves they were most proud of and desired in them). Despite the lore clearly showing night elf arcane users clearly more experienced and powerful, it was never visible in game till Suramar and theNightborne showed it. This is exactly why elders warn of covetousness and it is childish mentality and behaviour

They wanted it, and kicked up a fuss, horde biased senior devs instead of seeing the bigger picture and long term effects yet more alliance elf stuff on the horde would be damaging both to their alliance fans and the integrity and essence of the horde, went ahead anyway because they are quite accustomed to playing favourites rather than doing what is best for their game, especially when they want to, they convince themselves it's not such a big deal, rather than think objectively.

They use to do the exact same thing with classes prior to WotLk, if you had played back then, the devs had clear favourites for classes, and it was so divisive, that nonsense ended when Greg Street, I,e, Ghostcrawler took the reigns and promoted the equality philosophy. Back then the same mentality in the community it argues to promote its unjustifiable and unequal position , clearly playing favourites where it shouldnt creating false pretexts like "pures would become useless if hybrids supposedly were as good." Rubbish arguments, but ofc fully supported by the players of those classes not wanting to loss their unfair and unjustifiable advantage from the devs.

Biased devs, wanting to retain their biased favouritism, were all to willing to agree, if not the source of such b/s themselves.

And ofc it was b/s, when specs and classes became equal, that argument died, and the false predictions if pure becoming useless was clearly seen as people did not stop playing warriors, hunters, rogues, warlocks, mages and priests just cos druids and palas, shaman etc could dps, tank or heal just as good when in the right spec.

It was all fake argument because players wanted their class to be the best, not by playing well, but by the devs making them more powerful

It's exactly the same thing going on with the elves and the b/s arguments why high elves and night elves need to not only be in the horde, but have the best of both the high elf and nighf elf civilization on a horde faction that elves don't belong or fit in, and which should instead be having core horde races like troll cities, and orc cities far more glorious and elevated on their faction than elven ones.

Once when the horde needed more players, such a move made sense, but now, it doesn't, even less so when it is the alliance that is suffering from low turn out and haemorrhaging players.

But ask this lot to be honest and fair about it. Moreso, they would sell their souls committing to a lie and promoting it just to keep their imaginary advantage and bragging points, all this over a game no less. Can you imagine what they'll do in their jobs to keep their advantage? And they think they are good people because they arent law criminals, but all too willing to fight against truth and ignore it to keep even meaningless advantages.

And they think they are decent.

- - - Updated - - -

While I agree that the Horde did get the better set of allied races, they definitely were not given them PURELY due to bias.

It's because Alliance had been crying out for the Blood Elf model for ages so they could play High Elves, and Blizzard found a way to give the Alliance the Blood Elf model without rewriting some half-assed High Elf fanfiction AND without going back on their previous lore that had killed off most significant settlements of High Elves already - But in return, they needed to give the Horde something from the Alliance. This is called an equivalent exchange, not bias - And in fact, is more Alliance bias, since it's at least attempting (even if not directly so) to listen to the Alliance players who wanted a change.

Nobody on the Horde asked to be given the Night Elf model. (Especially after WoD's updates made the male Nelf model hideous.) But if the Alliance were getting the Horde's elves, of course the Horde has to be given the Alliance elves. (Not to mention, two playable sets of Night Elves for one faction seems... Pretty crappy. It already is crappy with Mag'har Orcs which could easily have been customizations for regular Orcs, and Lightforged Draenei are the BIGGEST problem of them all. They basically aren't even different from Draenei.)

Read my response to Rhlor, that is a false argument that the nightborne are given to the horde in order to give the alliance high elves.

It has no logic to it, and doesn't contextually make sense when you think about it.

It's a fan presented argument, that has no proof for it, it is false, and I explain why in quite some detail in that discourse., I urge you to read all of it. I make the analogy to the alliance demanding Highmountain and getting them, and claiming horde getting Mag'har orcs or Zandalari trolls was the compensation brought about by such demands.

It is stupid because traditionally, both Tauren and trolls, or tauren and orcs are hirde rsces that really shiuldnt be in the alliance nor do they fit.., it's like saying we'll give you Zandalari trolls, because we are getting Highmountain and calling the exchange fair and the main reason why Highmountain are on the Alliance. Please read