Speaking as a big Night elf fan, this might not be so very terrible, Blizz have been at a loss as to what to do with Malfurion for years now, he's too powerful to fit well in the story (For instance, the way they shoved him aside in BfA reeks of "He's too powerful to leave around"), so using this to sideline him with a heroic sacrifice and shore up the much-lamented power-imbalance between faction leaders kind of makes sense...
That seed thing we got in the recent cutscene better have a big payoff though, Night elves have been the sad sack losers of the story for far too long...
I put my thoughts on Ysera's resurrection just last page, but that's not what's being argued. It's whether there's a meaningful SL change as regards character resurrection, especially those like Ysera, and the answer is that it plainly doesn't. Resurrections before have been done in that exact same context and significantly worse in execution. Ysera's story isn't bad because they diverted from a successful way of resurrection or that they resurrected when they didn't before, it's shit because she's an underwritten character who got far too much screentime in SL and will get far too much screentime in DF.
On the latter point, it's both. As in cases like Ysera, the cosmological changes'd have no difference in a resurrection-happy storyline and SL's plot points at large have basically no role in the story save for obvious niche follow-ups like the seed. Otherwise, I'm entirely on board some SL points (Arthas, the Dreadlord retcon) and apathetic to others conceptually (racial faiths being wrong), but the majority of them will never come up going forward.
Last edited by Super Dickmann; 2022-08-10 at 04:59 PM.
Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.
Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.
I say this with complete sympathy.
It is not going to get any better. There will be no positive developments. There will be no payoffs. There will be no triumphs in the wake of tragedy.
It will only be one humiliation after another. It's best to accept you're not wanted as a customer and move on.
Why no, people don't just like Sylvie for T&A: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ery-Cinematic/
Honestly, that's the best outcome. The night elves planting yet another tree only continues a pointless narrative rut that misses the entire issue with Teldrassil. Next to no one cared about the tree until the execution of it was shown off, which is that it's full of civvies and that the night elves are toothless afterwards. Planting a new tree does nothing about the Night Elves being spineless and being denied any real pay-off. Malf meanwhile has had two (2) good post-WC3 appearance in A Good War and the 8.1 cinematic and while his power level is retarded enough that I fully sympathize with the Blizz writers offing him, he can be used well. If they're set on Ysera coming back, kill the seed and the dumb tree plotline, keep Malf.
None of them will solve the main issue anyway which is the lack of conflict-based catharsis, as the Blizz writers are unable and unwilling to follow up on it.
Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.
Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.
As an exception, not the rule.. i mean you are constantly revelling in vile and evil characters and races, but you continue to decimate the ones you portray as good and incredibly noble - to me seems a bit warped (like you actually are twisted and don't understand how to work things well - at least ofr the majority of people who you rely on and want to buy your product), I mean if you did it the once, then it would at least feel novel, but if it's constant - why constantly knocked down, now killing off good characters or doing horrible things to them, but evil characters like Sylvie get saved and Saurfang celebrated.
Look, I'm all for saving and redeeming, that's also good, and I'm all for showing that even some of the worse monsters can have honour to them and that should be celebrated, but always is unrealistic and warped, and you then go and kick on the good guys constantly to bring this stuff. Sure it's part of being good to sacrifice, but there should be a point where the good actually get great things coming their way other than destruction.
Last edited by Mace; 2022-08-10 at 05:13 PM.
Blizzard: "We dont think we have taken enough from Night elves just quite yet"
After everything night elves lost and all the crap NE fans had to go through these past few years, they really thinking about sacrificing one of their leaders, one of the few remaining iconic WC3 characters left in the game, just to bring back a dragon that most people only like cause she looked like a night elf in a metal thong? Really?
It was confirmed that those lines are actually in the games files so I hope this gets changed cause...maaaaan
As a NE fan as well, I understand the whole issue of him being too powerful to really use much in the story, it's similar to the issue of the Vindicaar having a massive space laser that just never gets used during BfA for reasons. I think more my issue here is in the "how" rather than the "what" has to happen. His loss feels a bit more of a cop-out rather than actually selling a threat.
Varian & Tirion were both strong threats that seemed nearly unbeatable at times, especially Tirion. Yet their deaths sold how strong & horrifying the Legion was this time. Ysera's corruption & death sold how strong Xavius could actually be to audiences that didn't know how powerful he could actually be. Saurfang died to a crazy new power Sylvanas unleashed that the world hadn't seen before, showing that she had gone well beyond where we thought she had been. All of these losses both furthered the story as well as sold how powerful oncoming threats could be.
This one with Malfurion does none of that. It's just merely a "Get Out of Ardenweald Free" card for Ysera to play whenever. We don't have any sense of power from the new villains or further depth for how this can change a character outside of a vague sense that Tyrande doesn't have Malfurion around anymore...not really a massive change given how often he's been absent and away from her since WoW began.
If he has to die because they don't know what to do, so be it...but at least give us something that really sparks something further in the story outside of just a random trade for Ysera that retcons lore that isn't even that old atm.
Last edited by AngerFork; 2022-08-10 at 05:12 PM.
Well tha't swhat they seem to be doing, how point less was the war of thorns, nothing changes if night elves go back to Teldrassil and forsaken to Lordaeron and it just continues as is slightly modified - rather than a total shake up.
If a terrible tragedy happens to good people, I want it to end up with something far better eventually coming.
As player races, they should actually constnatly be working to make them better. This doesn't mean theydon't experience knocks, kncosk should be part of it, but those knocks the spring board for improvemnts and increases.
These are the races you have your playerbase invested in and are the draw - every race should have a good story that sees them always ending up better than before - it's the down sing then the upswing that makes it feel all worth it - but without an upswing it's just fucking depresing.
For Lordaeron it checks out. Losing Lordaeron to a plot that had fuck all to do with any of its legacy was always dumb and unlike Teldrassil, it is core to the Forsaken. Switching from the undercity to the upper one is also on paper an interesting choice. Having never liked the Undercity too much, visually the new Lordaeron and Brill look solid. But the Night Elves should get something equivalent and getting a new tree isn't it. They already have a tree, the tree people actually care about - Nordrassil. What they need is victorious narrative pay-off, fighting their enemy and claiming territory. An actual on-screen reclamation of Darkshore or even just visually showing restoring Hyjal and turning it to a proper WC3 style woodland terrain instead of being 60% burned are all steps in that direction. As are getting the Ancients, mountain giants and other allies back.
The Night Elf-dragon connection is there, but it's no one's first appeal with the setting, relegated almost exclusively to books and is nowhere strong enough to justify killing an A-lister over especially as a substitute to actually giving them a plot.
Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.
Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.
There are no Major or minor genoside. For reference - genoside is mass murdering with intent to erase groups from world and history. Like jews in Second WW or ukrainians now.
We do genoside every day btw.
All that gnolls, pigfaces, centaurs, harpies, satyrs and many more "lesser races" being genosided for like all WoW timeline. Pirates in Tanaris I think suffer most, but I cant count that genoside bc there are no children in there.
Other than that? Hmm, Garrosh specially killed many Darkspear, put them in camps and murders.
Yrel genosided most of Mag'Hars, only plenty was saved by me.
Amany I think suffers that from HE.
Ofc, there was Brenadam.
See, not only NE get rekted in current WoW lore.
But all in all - that Malf move is stupid. I hope it will be changed. And if they want to move Malf out - make him do something really badass and take fatal wound. Then he use all that power in him to put Ysera out, replacing him.
Last edited by Dancaris; 2022-08-10 at 05:22 PM.
Damn, each time I think the writers of WOW can't sink any lower in their terrible writing and abuse of the Night Elves, they manage to surpass themselves.
I hope that's not the case because sacrificing a marquee NPC for the return of another unaffiliated NPC is bad enough as-is. Although from a narrative standpoint this could get interesting if the sacrifice of Malfurion causes the Green Dragonflight to more fully and formally ally with the Night Elves, bringing them into the Alliance as a standing force.
"We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.
Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.