The point of having dozens of playable races shouldn't be having them all be reasonable, democratic or ethical. The appeal of the World of Warcraft is having the tribalistic conquerors, the creepy undead, the ambitious elves, the zealots, the spirituals, technocrats and imperialists living in the same world and the INEVITABLE CONFLICT that rises from these contrasting interests.
THIS dude. These devs will endorse diversity until the cows come home, but they'll never be able to write ACTUAL diversity like this where peoples are ACTUALLY different. It's like some kind of weird neoimperialism where they imagine that deep down everyone on earth is a nice milquetoast fella from Sacramento. Everyone in dragonflight acts like a child Stephen Universe character.
i dont even know what the difference between horde and alliance is nowadays, everyone is some stupid council, that just agrees with each other constantly, no defined leader, eveybody is kinda useless, im goona say it im sorry but every leader just became some b1tch ass p*ssy im sorry
The way all strategic games were made, culture, social conflicts, tyrants, back stabbing, selfish races etc., drama like arthas changing to dk, also visiting to the king
@@OrchinX I actually like Steven Universe. Although it has those values, the show actually tried to be entertaining and did so with original material. Sadly, most of these progressive pushers are not like Rebecca Sugar, showing the redeeming virtue of their worldview inside their own sandbox, but vandals that crayon over already popular media.
Man, an 18 year old flawless prodigy showing up the 10,000 year old expert who's a beloved hero is exactly the kind of tired trope of modern media storytelling that drives me up the wall.
I agree 100% it’s so stupid. He would basically still be considered a new born by their standards. It’s the male equivalent of a Mary sue and it’s just as infuriating. Lazy idiotic story writing at its best.
@@trevorfloyd7313 Exactly. It's like an 8 year old turning up to a post-graduate lecture and correcting the professor on everything, who happens literally the world's leading expert on the subject, then the university faculty decide to completely re-write their classes to fit the corrections.
@@jameschristophercirujano6650 Also regardless of how capable Lysander is, Maev is one of the most stubborn characters in the lore. The fact that they're having Maev accept being shown up by such a young, inexperienced character is absurd
@Hawkknight Gilneas and Kul'tiras are both just faux-British with horror themes (werewolves and other Victorian British horror for Gilneas, Lovecraft and witches for Kul'tiras with both having undeath). And Stormwind itself is just Californian Murica transported into a high fantasy setting.
@@Zhohan- This, warcraft humans were stoic, hardened and unapologetic badasses who had seen near endless war and battle and knew the many dangers of the world. They were nothing like modern humans.
They don't want to. They very clearly despise everything that their predecessors made. They could just find something else to ruin, but unfortunately they're doing it to a game I once loved.
That's why I feel that even if Metzen is back in the picture he can't realistically make enough impact to stop the degradation. They don't understand it and they don't want to, they want to change it and make it tumblr friendly.
It's boring because this kind of story is all we have been getting for a few years now. This generation of writers just want to retell their own power fantasy over and over and over... If you want something with depth you need someone with more life experience and the ability to detach their own ego from the story.
I think this Phenomenon is called "Millennial writing" . Their Writing is often influenced by what they read from main stream Media or what's trending, which doesn't work for Fantasy world. But a good writer often build a world base on History and Mythology rather than Modern Social Value. We don't need any of that, we want to dive into what was it like to play in a world like Ancient Greece or Feudal Japan, not a Modernized world.
@@galten7361 These labels are more states of mind than anything else. Most of us talking here are millenials or zoomers. Meanwhile the most "millenial" people in the stereotype sense are past 40.
Thank you! I'm honestly sick of this kind of writing that feels like they take the cliffnotes verison of lore, go "that's stupid! Let me fix it!" And add in horrible Mary Sues that miss the themes and conflict old lore used to have as they keep trying to be "mysterious" with halfassed and lazy plotlines that go NOWHERE!
As a predominant Night Elf player since vanilla, I can honestly say I have not been pleased with the direction Blizzard has gone for the Night Elf race. You're NOT wrong in what you're saying, Bellular. They've made the Night Elves an afterthought rather than one of the main races in Warcraft lore as they are and always have been. It's frustrating to say the least.
I mean this as an honest question. What about the race appealed to you initially? Because while it may not have been the best quest as far as a 'heritage' one goes. The night elves have been nothing but abject failures their entire lore for WoW. It was always their allies, and even the Horde at times bailing them out time after time. So, what pride have you felt prior to all this? Ironically an xpac many seem to hate (BFA) gave you the one possibility of a storyline where the nelfs say 'enough' and actually do something.
The best part of recent Nelf lore, was when Malfurion dragged someone underground to his death and Nathanos hears of this and goes outside and Malfurion and Tyrande are standing there like insane badasses while nightsong play. It has so much vengeance, strength, power, unity behind it. So good
Seriously. I want savage glorious night elves, like, zealous protectors of nature who will tear you into pieces if you cross their boundaries... What they turned the kaldorei into is humiliating.
@@sirjame5591 you maybe not know this but all the malfurion crying in legion is all illusions did by xavius. You can see how well malfurion is in Darkheart Thicket.
It didn't need to change. It's the new generation of devs that worry more about the message than anything. The game's story feels the same way, which is one of the reasons I'm not enjoying DF. It's for a new generation of player who cares about the underlying message, lore be damned.
@Daniel92CZ Blizzard doesn't actually write meaningful change that isn't just Marvel movie change. The factions are the same, the Alliance relevant plot still focuses on the Wrynn dynasty, Genn and his furry kingdom, Jaina, Thrall, Sylvanas sooner or later, with many other rulers established since TBC. Shadowlands pretty much ended with the players keeping the afterlife working as it was when they got there and in Dragon Land you get "well the rebels have a point but they're going too far" writing.
@@galten7361 I don't think you understand the problem here. The problems are weak characters, weak plot, weak cutscenes, weak cinematic it all feel like writing of a fifteen year old girl.
You are right about the homogeneity of characters. They all look different, but behave essentially the same. Even the line between Alliance and Horde is blurred now. Diversity should not revolve mainly around appearance. It is diversity of thought that makes the most difference -- drawing from the strengths of those who are different from us. Azeroth now comes in more variety of shapes, sizes and colors than ever before on the outside, but the inside has become very smooth and gray.
my problem with this questline is that the whole burning of Teldrassil wasn't even addressed and was just barely mentioned in passing. Also we should be dealing with resettlement of Night Elves probably, finding them a new home instead of going to Fellwood on some random escort quest that in a grand scheme of things doesn't mean that much. So males are allowed to wear tattoo's now, so what? There are far more important issues with Night Elves that need to be resolved ASAP. Sure they will get some good fan service in 10.2 finally and some much needed resolutions in terms of the new World Tree and an eventual village or maybe even a city that will be created beneath it and that is great, Night Elves need at least that much, but compared to what Forsaken got, Night Elves got seriously shafted once again with this heritage questline, everyone can see it and that's just sad
14:17 This is something I've really felt since BFA. We're shown these Alliance and Horde characters being all buddy buddy, jerking each other off about how peaceful they are now, simultaneously as Sylvanas burns down Teldrassil. Realistically, the night elves should hate the Forsaken. And yet, the night elves are painted as bad guys for just that... like... bruh. It's the same situation with the Worgen. Genn has been painted as a bad guy for years when his primary reason for hating the Forsaken is perfectly justifiable. I'm so sick of this shit where all of the characters have to hold hands and give each other back rubs. The most interesting characters in WC3 were literally the opposite of that, the key figures imo being Sylvanas and Varimathras. Even Jaina had her own goals and motivations and she wasn't afraid to back that shit up with action, yet she's also been painted as a bad guy for it for the longest time now. One of the only interesting characters that came in BFA was the leader of the Mag'har. They actually showed her having a spine and standing her ground in supporting Sylvanas, something that was perfectly justifiable for her to do since Sylvanas had really only helped them at that point. And yet she was painted as bad for having done it, and they've done LITERALLY nothing with her since. It's so lame.
It def feels like Blizzard is trying to tie up old "Faction/racial hatreds" because they can't keep making a story where we have to team up to fight the big bad. It really does show just how incompetent they are when it comes to creating a story.
Yeah they basically scrubbed everything violent out of the game its insane. There shouldn't ever be peace in the game only short lived truces. Most of the races of the horde and alliance should hate each other for what they've done because its fantasy world for entertainment where we want war.
17:18 "We don't need an 18 year old prodigy showing up with a better understanding of the fel than the 10,000+ year old warden" ... "this just reeks of insecurity..." That was the best line in the video. I really LOL'd.
I fucking hate when writters try to teach me real life lessons in a fantasy setting when the interesting thing in there are the restrictions to feel the races different or unique. They end up making the World feeling void and boring in the process.
I don't really understand why they don't have a race lead for each major race, like they do with classes. Sure they can still overlook parts of the lore but to have someone guiding the direction the lore of a people go (and have been) seems a lot better than just making shit up and hoping people don't care. Genuinely, why isn't there more about gnomes and expanding on them outside of only reaching for them when they need a hahaheehoo moment.
They did have race leads, at least for most of em. And then Blizz started killing them all and replacing them with new npcs nobody gives a flying f about. Ex: Voljiin dies and we get Talanji and zappy boi 🙄🙄🙄
When every Cosmic power can more or less accomplish what any other one can do, it's no wonder it trickled down to the playable races. Been saying this on forums for a while, the uniqueness of the races, whether good, bad, dubious have been stripped away. Sure you're incarnating something different with different origins and pathways but their modern interpretation, rather than doubling down on what was great about them, they went the other direction making much of the factions into a strange greyslop.
The entire concept of the different "forces" in WoW all behaving exactly the same IE having a "pantheon" and having a home realm of "shadow, light, fel, order, death" etc is exactly the kind of lame concept that becomes entirely predictable in its unpredictability. Who could have foreseen that Zo'Val was doing it for the greater good, just like Sargeras! Man, what a great piece of writing that was. And that there were creators of the creators! Turtles all the way down!
@@sangallo9574 If I was to take the most cynical of stance as well, I could argue that we really are just picking a color in this cosmic battle... Blizzard could even go as far as reframing nature changes such as Druids who spend much time in the dream adopt animal traits like Malfurion to be a form of corruption like void or fel does to a body. Nature and Light had always been beneficent forces but now they've been tarred with the same brush of moral relativism.
@Negatigger It's just the devs venting their rage at their parents (for being a pussy who didn't hold them to real standards or being genuinely abusive), boss and teachers. And also wish to be a god (aka no rules apply to you and I can do whatever with no compromising). Beating up/overthrowing a god/s as a metaphor for a being with no obligations or expectations with no one who can threaten you.
@sangallo9574 It's just MCU style writing where the villain is a ridiculous supervillain but he's supposed to have a point either to lecture the audience on how the ends don't warrant the means or that the author agrees with the villain secretly but is too scared to say it publically.
I think it's good if sentinels are mostly women and druids are mostly men with some exceptions. It allows there to be cultural distinctness without cultural absolutism. The game has lost it's culturally distinct races with everyone gradually dissolving into Blanduin The Good who gets on well with everyone else. I'm here for Warcraft and cultural friction which evidently the devs hate.
@@117haseo3 I think you'll find no starker example of this than Rexxar's small talk dialogue in BFA. Now, generally speaking, the devs are all-Horde all-the-time, so you'd expect them to get a character whose literal title is "Champion of the Horde" right, but when you ask him why he joined up with the invasion forces, he says something about being _afraid of what Jaina will do to the blood Elves._ My Dude. Rexxar. You were part of the old Horde. You literally ate their babies. What the actual fuck.
What's weird is that watchers weren't originally gender-divided. Heck, they're not even night-elf only. Watchers can be of any race and any gender, they just need to be native to Ashenvale. Wardens are probably all female night elves, but I wouldn't be upset if they decided that anyone has always been able to be a warden with sufficient training. I really don't like it when sentinels and watchers are painted with the same cultural brush; they formed under very different conditions.
To be honest I thought the N.Elf Heritage armor should of revolved around the goddess Elune or what separate them during the fall of Ashara. Not a journey through the Felwood to cleanse a moon pool....
Its the 'Let the past die kill it if you have too' mentality that seems to pervade modern writers they think that things 'NEED' to change for the sake of it instead of appreciating the world for what it is.
I love how people always point to this line as if it's some kind of hidden, malicious philosophy of modern writers when that line was literally written to be delivered by the villain of said film it's derived from. Also, most of WoW's writing has been shit and dictated by the fact that the mechanics of a video game will always take precedent. The fact that the Foresaken are STILL in the Horde after all these years is evidence of it.
@gharnsnatch4088 So why is the other truth constantly ignored? Because it debases the other? If you take issue with both, bravo, I applaud the intellectual consistency. But strangely people seem to only speak out of one side of their mouth on this subject.
@mattmac5506 the difference with that line in the last jedi was because that movie was so divisive and it seemingly was intent on destroying the legacy of the original trilogy, which is what the entire sequel trilogy did.
@@mattmac5506 The truth is constantly "ignored' because it doesn't matter. One isn't dependent on one one another and this kind of writing isn't new or contained only within Warcraft. You can have the best writing in the world but fall victim to the malicious burning of the past to prop up your own future, and you can have the worst writing and still remain consistent to its world. So it doesn't matter if WoW's writing has been dictated by mechanics, what does matter is that the current writing team is content (and almost happy) to rewrite and ignore the past so they can create their new story.
The problem is that the modern writers look at their predecessors work the history that has been built as something that needs to be corrected. And if it needs to be corrected that means that they're going to look at it as lesser work so they won't respect or bother to learn about it.
on Point. sick of the victim mentality of twitter generation getting into our game lore.. The team who have ultimataely inherited the game need to familiarise themselves with the god damn game... so tired of this
This reminds me of SC2 LotV where Artanis just dismantles the protoss caste system with a flick of the wrist and there's basically no negative consequences to speak of
I was playing dragon flight as a shadow priest but kinda dropped out for this exact reason - there’s no teeth to WARcraft anymore. I mentioned the shadow priest because if you read over the spell tooltips, the spells and abilities are sinister, evil, using a dark force to lay the smack down on baddies. Awesome, and in its own way feels very Warcraft. But while the gameplay of DF is fantastic, the writing and world is Hello Kitty.
I want to see big, muscular, sweaty orcs razing cities, killing, and pillaging. I want to see hot Night Elf women doing cool stuff. I want to see undead being evil conniving assholes. I don't care about dragon's feelings, either they should be friendly blowing stuff up for us, or hostile and being killed for loot. Is that so much to ask?
The races are too nice. So tolerant and PEACEFUL. They couldn't make it more boring if they tried! Give me terrifying Trolls whose beasts of war are just as likely to eat their riders as the enemy, Forsaken who do not give two shits about playing fair, Nightborne bent on restoring their empire and crushing anyone in their way, Worgen who are actually portrayed as the horrors that inspired them, the ruthlessness of the Kaldorei who will not hesitate bringing the fury of the ancients down on anyone who dares encroach upon their forests. What if the Kul Tirans didn't really like an alledged kinslayer becoming their new Lord Admiral? What if there's still resentment towards the Gilneans who barred their gates and let thousands perish outside their borders only to come begging for sanctuary when their walls crumbled? What about the new Horde council having to somehow organise a bunch of disparate races and cultures who have very little in common while trying to ensure their realms don't face ruination from the constant wars and trying to prevent its member factions from tearing each other apart in a vicious competetion for aid and resources? There are so many possible venues for intriguing, impactful plotlines to manifest and they haven't tugged at a single string. It's INFURIATING!
Better yet, why do the Kul Tirans give a single shit about peace? What stops them from literally funding Privateers to casually raid the Orcish coasts? They're supposed to be turn of the century Britain, maybe they should do turn of the Century british things?
19 year old night elf saves the day... 19 Years? WTF.... Old night elfs didn't reach adulthood before 300 years... with every patch we further strive away from the... RIP
I have another complaint about WoW that drives me nuts but isn’t mentioned by anyone. Everything is giant sized compared to characters. Every main or minor story quest I do has the npcs giga and it’s fucking distracting. Tauren are supposed to be giants, why does my Tauren look up at characters like Sylvanas. I know it’s to help major characters stand out but just stop it
This quest looks like it was written by the writers of Disney's Flop Stranger World or Disney's StarWars and Indiana Jones. always a Millennial or Zoomer solving all the world's problems while everyone watches gratefully and agrees with everything. the final "everything new is better" and "and let the past die, even if you had to kill it"
I remember reading about so people say that is an a problem with "Millennial writers". You are at the age where your life is very boring. You don't have the life experience or understanding of History to write like GRR Martin, neither can you connect with the Gen Z to know what is "Cool" or "Trending" or "Funny" for younger audience. Their writing is also very influenced by what's reported on TV by Main Stream media, or what's trending in Social Media. They simply forgot they are writing a FANTASY world which should draw from Mythology and History of our civilization, not a news piece for CNN.
My thoughts exactly. They are pandering to the wrong audience. Who is the major demographic of wow? 20-45 year old males. Now it is all about feelings and boring bs. This does it for me, focusing on the warhammer IP more now. Californian writers should just stay on strike.
My main character was a night elf druid since Burning Crusade (stopped playing in Shadowlands after we beat Denathreus) and I can't say that how NEs has been treated in the game the last few years has been making me want to come back.
The only thing the heritage quest represents, at least to me, is that the night elves are back to taking matters into their own hands. Bring back the savage night elves!
@@quizkill because again they were afraid of the wisps. If they were still under control by the Demon Fire pumping through them, that would have been shut off. It’s no wonder that after Mannoroth’s death that the orcs began suffering from trauma and were only able to overcome the screams and torments by Varok who himself had to push him to the brink to not give in to the despair.
@@needsanameedit4982 is it going to grow out of the Emerald Dream into Azeroth? Or we just going to have a convenient portal to the new night elf city. 😆
@@Dracounguis I doubt if the tree will survive into 11.0, the writers seem to hate almost everything the lore has set up until now. Maybe the tree explodes taking the dream with it and that's how we get the world revamp.
I'm convinced the modern story writers hate what old Warcraft was. And this storyline communicated that clearly to me right from the start - one of the key NPCs is a night elf with a human friend wielding a human sword. Not exactly what you want out of a Night Elf heritage questline.
Well, the character in question was created back in Vanilla WoW and her current state now is a result of the story that occurred then. She is the kind of person that should be kind of riding the fence, but Maiev should be the one that sticks to the NE values and traditions harder than others.
The point I think I was trying to make was that she shouldn't have been in a quest about Night Elf heritage at all. She is an example of a "not very night elfy" night elf.@@frostmagemarii
I think that case in particular was appropriate to remove considering uhhh... Afrasiabi's favorite special boy dropping a gendered insult on the female character he villain-batted out of spite aged really poorly considering IRL circumstances
@@ekscalybur When that "someone IRL" is literally the person writing that character... yeah? Like you don't have to agree but you don't have to get vitriolic about it either
Worst heritage questline by far. Coming back of an NPC from Classic WoW after all these years was very cool, but that's about it. It's crazy when you compare that to heritage quests of Orcs or Humans, which actually focused on... You know, the heritage of a race.
Being kind of a hippy at heart, my favorite races have always been Night Elves and Tauren. And every time this game just lets me down. I suppose at least the Tauren Heritage armor was OK.
They went overboard from when the staff got busted for being scummy. They were supposed to fkx themselves but somewhere along they way they thought Warcraft had to change with them.
The glaives dont even show when you sheath them. They are hidden for some reason. It's the thing I hate the most about back items is that is hides the weapon or whatever you have on your back. Whereas before you could have a cool looking cloak a shield or weapon, now its like you have a back item, no cloak and no weapon. The BFA Wrathion backpack used to show weapons sheaved on the back like staves etc but recently they've changed it so it doesn't show the staff. Doesn't it make sense that you can slot it through the arms of the rucksack? Why do they make the game look worse?
When you create a committee to define your characters, you get a mix of that committee's sensibilities with minor differences for each character. Seen it happen a hundred times. The best teams of writers work separately then come together to refine and edit... If it's even necessary.
There was feedback, but Metzen wrote the main story and the level designers had total control of their own levels. We could add lines and give feedback, but it was up to Metzen if he wanted to change the main story or not. Thankfully he was open to feedback. @@FlinnGaidin
One of the marks of a subpar writer is being unable to resist forcing their own morality and ethics onto fictional characters that they write. I'm reminded of the Blizzard quest writer who tweeted that it "physically pained" her to write loving straight couples.
And she's the one who's behind the scenario here Tyrande and Malfurion were seperated to bring Ysera back, the odds of something happening to prevent his return are getting higher.
@@staceyvermeulen5138 If I had to guess, it's because Ysera's death was one of the more memorable moments for people from Legion, so her return during Shadowlands was Blizzard trying to play to that crowd sentiment in order to salvage some interest from a terrible expansion.
I think the problem the Night Elves have that the Forsaken don't is that they're Alliance. And Alliance characters (and ones Alliance writers have claimed like Baine) keep getting shoved into milquetoast human-shaped molds and becoming props for human stories. So, we constantly get lore like Night Elves having to change whereas-- while being in the Horde comes with other problems for their narratives (villain bats and missing leaders for expansions at a time namely) --the Forsaken and Orcs get to be themselves.
Remember when Anduin failed to help the Night Elves when their home was destroyed, and yet their rage at him not keeping the promises made to them as part of the Alliance was still somehow painted as a moral failing of theirs? Like, they should've just sat down and been more patient about their capital falling under siege.
@@JamailvanWestering the last jedi being great is debatable at the very least, It had some glaring flaws that may or may not matter depending on the person watching?
@@xelinco3005 or or? Those glaring flaws think the prequels are somehow classics and the OT is God..because they didn’t like that their theories didn’t come true in the movie
@@JamailvanWesteringnah it was dogshit. Blue hair “they/thems love Mary sues because they don’t have to do any of the work and face the accountability of actions. They are perfect and are just better.
i'm so glad you took the time to eract and analyze this quest, cause i myself was very unimpressed and felt that again my beloved night elves got another screw off from the devs.
Your words are right. Dragonflight has felt like one big therapy session. I'm so tired of overly-emotional characters and moments that I simply don't care anymore. You know you've messed up bad when players grow apathetic towards the game.
@@CarterArts Garrosh worked through his trauma by acting, not by sitting around in a therapy session. While he acted out in a negative way, at least this is more interesting than the Dragonflight method of sitting in an office with the AC set to 65F, a prescription for Celexa, and a clipboard.
....You're talking like therapy is a bad thing, bud. The playerbase *does* need therapy after the Blizz scandals, patch delays, shortcuts, cut content, etc.
@@MorganRhysGibbons Let's have a therapy session about how Blizzard took my money for the Shadowlands expansion and then didn't make any new content for a year. They scammed most of their player base back then without any apology - then wonder why people don't give them any slack now.
They should just work in race storylines into the main one to save time and still make it feel awesome. Maybe do a spinoff quest that only your race gets during the main storyline or something
I absolutely agree! Unfortunately, it's everywhere, not just Night Elves... Races, Classes, World of Warcraft losing identity and starting to feel more and more generic... Everything is the same and everybody does the same... Yes, making that so everybody can do everything brings more playability, however, at a cost of originality and character... We can see how popular are the classic servers and players still wanna come back and play 20 years old game, because it feels different... The game had tons of character at the time, but pretty low playability... Nevertheless, you were able to feel for the story and the character you're playing, now it doesn't matter... At the time, you played night elves because you wanted to be a defender of the forests not becasue you have shadowmelt so you can leave a combat...
I really felt bad for those who play on the Alliance side. That mage felt like some whimpering soy boy around his sister and Maiev. We know Maiev has always been rough, so that's nothing new, but making the sister of the mage also a try-hard Maiev wannabe was a bit too much. The Forsaken heritage quest wasn't that impressive either, but at least it wasn't as painful to do.
I'm not even against certain things that are not very Warcraft, but it has to be really good to make up for it not being very warcraft, if it can't do that then it has no reason to not be very Warcraft
When we finally go to Emerald Dream, writers came up with the great idea of removing Malfurion from there. The most Emerald Dream guy in lore absent in the patch about this place. Imagine when we finally have an expansion focused on Light Velen, Liadrin and Anduin suddenly disappears somewhere.
Night Elves need a Garrosh; someone who will rally the elves and take back the forests without mercy. Someone who will actually make the Forsaken pay for the Burning of Teldrassil. You know, Warcraft.
I don't know how hard it is to write characters who are thousands of years old even for an experienced writer, but it seems to me that WoW's writers don't know how to. At a most 19 years old mage can do things that a 10,000+ years old Warden has no idea about? That seems really off, especially with how a major part of being a wizard is learning for all of your life. 19 years is very young, most people are still just larger children at that age :D Like, even if he was learning the Arcane since childhood, he would have to be a top level mage to be able to stop a thousands of years old Nathrezim from doing his evil rituals. He is very young, so he can't possibly match the experience and knowledge. The core of mage fantasy doesn't align with young characters that much, so it would be important to explain this part.
Everything must be politically correct, everything is "coded" nowadays, god forbid theres any edge or else twitter's feelings will be hurt and you know you'll hear of it. Everything is soft and sensitive because that's the community they cultivated over the years and any diversion from that will cause drama.
A male night elf should never be the focus in a night elf heritage quest. Night elves are the only matriarchal race we have and they should stay that way.
i was hoping we were going to at the very least be slaying demons and pushing orcs out of ashenvale, (perhaps out of a reaction to the orcs heritage quest and bring this world of warcraft as a world that reacts to things) maybe (this is asking WAY too much) but a maybe a role quest that changes depending on your night elves class where a warrior say, does sentinel army things, a druid is doing whatever druids do, rogues gather intel, priests reinforcing sentinel armies, hunters doing something, you know? encapsulating the breadth of night elf society and give a reason to do the quest again on an alt class. Not worth reinstalling for which kills me. The lore and story ive joked is why i kept my sub up during darker times in game but lacking that, there is always the other game
That’s the perfect analogy for everything that’s been happening. The young upstart Night Elf tells the legendary character “I know better and we’re changing things”. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head that all of the races just feel the same now.
Great video, gave me a lot to think about. Do you think Metzen coming back could help steer these narratives in a better direction? And do you have faith in the current dev team to make a WoW 2.0 or a Classic+ without "insecurities"?
Not without a shakeup that'll probably end up being bad for the short term. An old timer being showed up by a young newb who thinks they know things (not in reality, but in the head of the young newb) with a message that it's time to move on from the old days? Seems very on the nose from devs who don't like that Metzen is trying to change the game's direction back to something playable, as the rumors from alleged insiders suggest. /tinfoilhat
Metzen already is back. He has probably okay'd a lot of the storylines we're currently seeing in DF. Metzen is not without his faults either, don't deify him as the solution to all of WoW's narrative woes. It isn't as if WoW did not have narrative troubles before his departure.
WOW is being neutered ("having the rough edges removed") and it is by design, not an accident. That's why a lot of the old players are leaving or moving to the classic versions.
The real problem is, everyone going into game design and any of those adjacent jobs, are really just bad at their jobs and have no real creativity because they are loser humans who have never had to struggle in life.
Excellent analysis of the state of the Night Elf story. Agree 100%, I finally abandoned the game when Night Elves were left in the Horde. I still get sad when I think of the fun I used to have.
Imagine what they managed to do to Blizzard Entertainment’s biggest rockstar, the Lich King. Thanks to Steve Danuser, Warcraft is now full of these things. As long as Danuser is there, no amount of Metzen being there will fix this.
So they are slowly morphing all the races to becoming like the blonde hair and blue eyed human. Didn't someone already try to do that irl? I seem to be drawing a blank on the name. But a funny little mustache comes to mind.
This is the kind of quest chain they should be adding into the game on a fairly frequent basis. Not once a year as an emergency "please don't unsub" button.
Im hoping that the herritage quest was just a like a prelude to a bigger quest arc to give a brief character intro. Theres the silver/ blue herritage set still. I wonder if the bulk and love for a herritage quest will go into unlocking that one? Maybe like a founding of Amirdrassil quest once the events of 10.2 conclude. I think it would be fun to have to do a quest where you go to different locations to help tether the new world tree to the physical plane or something with lots of lore stuff at each area and some cool battles.
Lmao, you think Blizzard would do that for Night Elf players despite the dwindling playerbase? They cannot bring themselves to be decent to night elves under any circumstance. Everything they give comes with salt, for the Alliance in general too. The apology bee for giving three placeholder gryphons and horses? A bee, but of course obtained in the most pain in the ass way possible. The shit writing makes perfect sense, written by a bunch of narcissistic, zug zug edgelord idiots. Next up, blood elf druids with ten times better shapeshifts and probably some npc being better and making a mockery of night elf druids despite the night elves being the oldest and greatest druids in the world, and BEs having ZERO connection to the dream.
Eh probs not but i like thinking of theoretical story lines that could be a possibility in games. Its a fun talking point with friends. At the end of the day i just want that recolour herrirage armour. That was a devils pitch fork to the you know where after waiting with the hype for it only to not be available. As much as id like a cool quest line to get it, im not holding my breath.
The problem is at its core the WoW night elf story is about them being colonized and systematically eradicated by the Orcs and Undead. If Blizzard ever actually confronted that it would draw stunningly uncomfortable parallels to real US history that would make a great many Orc players feel very defensive. So Blizzard tries to be 'edgy' without upsetting the edgelords and never makes their characters take moral responsibility for their actions. Everyone's morally grey, nobody's a villain, and they leave their players to bicker in the forums about the rest. It's the kind of writing that has come to disgust me as I've grown older and honestly is a key factor in why I don't play the game anymore. If you're going to write a character to act like Hitler, make them take responsibility for BEING Hitler, don't make fucked up excuses for them because some fanboys might feel bad about their porn collection afterward. If you can't clear that basic storytelling bar then GTFO and stop wasting my time with your tepid backwash.
Honestly, the Night Elf Questline should have been about the Night Elves claiming Ashenvale, but also resolving the tension with the Orcs. You can have an initial misunderstanding.. Orcs and Night Elves fighting each other, until say Cenarius shows up with a bunch of druids, who meet with the Orc Shaman who discuss WHY the Orcs are even in Ashenvale for the need for Lumber.Queue Cenarius offering a path of wisdom and the druids teach the Shaman how to make wood grow faster, so the Orcs can leave Ashenvale in peace. Moral of the Story is defend your land, but wisdom can solve conflicts for longer tec etc.
Yep. When they write a story about Horde committing disgusting, abhorrent things they shouldnt give them an "out". Or at least not an easy out of the "it was all the warchief" sort.
Blizzard: Why does WoW have to be about war and evil and violence? Players: It's literally in the name. It's been that way for well over 20 years of PC gaming. Blizzard: Oh. Well, times change! WHEEEEEE!
I think the new writers don't understand that night elves are not tree loving hippies and are actually savage monsters who will kill anything that even approaches their forests
The devs couldn’t have stated “fuck you” (to every player that has said they don’t like the way night elves are portrayed in wow) more clearly than if they’d just given night elf players computers a virus by accepting this quest. I think it’s fair to say at this point that the devs just genuinely don’t know/don’t like night elves and have no idea how to use them in this world they’re steadily destroying. Their only way to use their culture in a story is as a punching bag. Their only purpose is as an example of how NOT to be.
Игры
The point of having dozens of playable races shouldn't be having them all be reasonable, democratic or ethical. The appeal of the World of Warcraft is having the tribalistic conquerors, the creepy undead, the ambitious elves, the zealots, the spirituals, technocrats and imperialists living in the same world and the INEVITABLE CONFLICT that rises from these contrasting interests.
THIS dude. These devs will endorse diversity until the cows come home, but they'll never be able to write ACTUAL diversity like this where peoples are ACTUALLY different.
It's like some kind of weird neoimperialism where they imagine that deep down everyone on earth is a nice milquetoast fella from Sacramento. Everyone in dragonflight acts like a child Stephen Universe character.
i dont even know what the difference between horde and alliance is nowadays, everyone is some stupid council, that just agrees with each other constantly, no defined leader, eveybody is kinda useless, im goona say it im sorry but every leader just became some b1tch ass p*ssy im sorry
The way all strategic games were made, culture, social conflicts, tyrants, back stabbing, selfish races etc., drama like arthas changing to dk, also visiting to the king
they look different, but all with a single (and correct) world view. don't you love the diversity.
@@OrchinX I actually like Steven Universe. Although it has those values, the show actually tried to be entertaining and did so with original material. Sadly, most of these progressive pushers are not like Rebecca Sugar, showing the redeeming virtue of their worldview inside their own sandbox, but vandals that crayon over already popular media.
Man, an 18 year old flawless prodigy showing up the 10,000 year old expert who's a beloved hero is exactly the kind of tired trope of modern media storytelling that drives me up the wall.
I agree 100% it’s so stupid. He would basically still be considered a new born by their standards. It’s the male equivalent of a Mary sue and it’s just as infuriating. Lazy idiotic story writing at its best.
@@trevorfloyd7313 Exactly. It's like an 8 year old turning up to a post-graduate lecture and correcting the professor on everything, who happens literally the world's leading expert on the subject, then the university faculty decide to completely re-write their classes to fit the corrections.
@@zigedelic3909As if those people don't exist. Mages are kinda smart asses, especially if he learned from the Highborne.
Republicans voted for a congresswoman who gave a handjob in public. Decision-making skills aren't common@@jrr4388
@@jameschristophercirujano6650 Also regardless of how capable Lysander is, Maev is one of the most stubborn characters in the lore. The fact that they're having Maev accept being shown up by such a young, inexperienced character is absurd
"No one gives a fuck about Ardenweald."
That summed up SL's and its "lore" perfectly.
I'm not sure why anyone should give a fuck about anything out of Shadowlands
I love Ardenweald but I hate his role in Shadowlands. They really should make it just another part of the Emerald Dream😭
It's a shame the night elves have been declawed and defanged. Blizzard can only write for humans these days. Elves are humans+, dragons are humans++.
Warcraft humans aren’t even the humans they’re writing now.
That's because Blizzard writers are declawed and defanged. Variety has left the building
@Hawkknight Gilneas and Kul'tiras are both just faux-British with horror themes (werewolves and other Victorian British horror for Gilneas, Lovecraft and witches for Kul'tiras with both having undeath). And Stormwind itself is just Californian Murica transported into a high fantasy setting.
@@Zhohan- This, warcraft humans were stoic, hardened and unapologetic badasses who had seen near endless war and battle and knew the many dangers of the world.
They were nothing like modern humans.
The current devs clearly dont understand warcraft overall
That's obvious, look what they're doing to the Titan Lore.
They don't want to. They very clearly despise everything that their predecessors made.
They could just find something else to ruin, but unfortunately they're doing it to a game I once loved.
@@protojockel2736 It's what they do.
Take known IP's and run them into the ground.
That's why I feel that even if Metzen is back in the picture he can't realistically make enough impact to stop the degradation. They don't understand it and they don't want to, they want to change it and make it tumblr friendly.
@@mogalixir Warcraft is fucked.
The Night Elf Heritage quest very much felt like "Forget your history and just move on."
Funnily enough for the Forsaken that message is perfect, just goes to show how different themes and tones work for different races.
Or to put it another way: “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
@thenerdbeast7375 The Forsaken are just supervillains to quirky zombies without their Lordaeron ties.
@@Taranchule *Firing on Teldrassil* More! MORE!
I think what they were going for was “Remeber your past but don’t be bound by it.”
Steve Danuser liked Game of Thrones ending. Let that sink in.
I liked it too
@@TeodorStanojevic96Oof.
that explains A LOT
I liked the idea, but felt it needed to have been presented much better. I saw what they were going for, but they flubbed the execution.
It's boring because this kind of story is all we have been getting for a few years now. This generation of writers just want to retell their own power fantasy over and over and over... If you want something with depth you need someone with more life experience and the ability to detach their own ego from the story.
Pretty much sums it up.
I think this Phenomenon is called "Millennial writing" . Their Writing is often influenced by what they read from main stream Media or what's trending, which doesn't work for Fantasy world.
But a good writer often build a world base on History and Mythology rather than Modern Social Value.
We don't need any of that, we want to dive into what was it like to play in a world like Ancient Greece or Feudal Japan, not a Modernized world.
@user-xw3iw7nn9l You realize that Golden is easily past 40.
@@galten7361 These labels are more states of mind than anything else. Most of us talking here are millenials or zoomers. Meanwhile the most "millenial" people in the stereotype sense are past 40.
Thank you! I'm honestly sick of this kind of writing that feels like they take the cliffnotes verison of lore, go "that's stupid! Let me fix it!" And add in horrible Mary Sues that miss the themes and conflict old lore used to have as they keep trying to be "mysterious" with halfassed and lazy plotlines that go NOWHERE!
As a predominant Night Elf player since vanilla, I can honestly say I have not been pleased with the direction Blizzard has gone for the Night Elf race. You're NOT wrong in what you're saying, Bellular. They've made the Night Elves an afterthought rather than one of the main races in Warcraft lore as they are and always have been. It's frustrating to say the least.
Been playing nelf since early wotlk and they are doing us DIRTY 😭
Been a nelf since BC and I hate them taking the cheesy edginess out of them
I mean this as an honest question. What about the race appealed to you initially? Because while it may not have been the best quest as far as a 'heritage' one goes. The night elves have been nothing but abject failures their entire lore for WoW. It was always their allies, and even the Horde at times bailing them out time after time. So, what pride have you felt prior to all this? Ironically an xpac many seem to hate (BFA) gave you the one possibility of a storyline where the nelfs say 'enough' and actually do something.
@mattmac5506 The Night Elves went downhill at Vanilla since they were shoehorned into the Alliance. That said, WC Humans are shoddy especially Anduin.
ever since they blew up darn...
The best part of recent Nelf lore, was when Malfurion dragged someone underground to his death and Nathanos hears of this and goes outside and Malfurion and Tyrande are standing there like insane badasses while nightsong play. It has so much vengeance, strength, power, unity behind it. So good
I really did not like that part unfortunately, but I also strongly dislike night elves so it's probably on me. Wish your race luck!
Seriously. I want savage glorious night elves, like, zealous protectors of nature who will tear you into pieces if you cross their boundaries... What they turned the kaldorei into is humiliating.
Anything usefully malfurion does is overshadowed by legions malfurions crying for tyrande for me
@@sirjame5591 you maybe not know this but all the malfurion crying in legion is all illusions did by xavius. You can see how well malfurion is in Darkheart Thicket.
For the queen!!!!
It didn't need to change. It's the new generation of devs that worry more about the message than anything. The game's story feels the same way, which is one of the reasons I'm not enjoying DF. It's for a new generation of player who cares about the underlying message, lore be damned.
Can be, but the new young people didn't come. :D
The funny thing is, that only the writers care most players don't. I mean it is the same problem Star Wars, Marvel, Disney etc have...
They don't even care about a message, they just want the game to have a message they approve of.
@Daniel92CZ Blizzard doesn't actually write meaningful change that isn't just Marvel movie change. The factions are the same, the Alliance relevant plot still focuses on the Wrynn dynasty, Genn and his furry kingdom, Jaina, Thrall, Sylvanas sooner or later, with many other rulers established since TBC. Shadowlands pretty much ended with the players keeping the afterlife working as it was when they got there and in Dragon Land you get "well the rebels have a point but they're going too far" writing.
@@galten7361 I don't think you understand the problem here. The problems are weak characters, weak plot, weak cutscenes, weak cinematic it all feel like writing of a fifteen year old girl.
You are right about the homogeneity of characters. They all look different, but behave essentially the same. Even the line between Alliance and Horde is blurred now. Diversity should not revolve mainly around appearance. It is diversity of thought that makes the most difference -- drawing from the strengths of those who are different from us. Azeroth now comes in more variety of shapes, sizes and colors than ever before on the outside, but the inside has become very smooth and gray.
my problem with this questline is that the whole burning of Teldrassil wasn't even addressed and was just barely mentioned in passing. Also we should be dealing with resettlement of Night Elves probably, finding them a new home instead of going to Fellwood on some random escort quest that in a grand scheme of things doesn't mean that much. So males are allowed to wear tattoo's now, so what? There are far more important issues with Night Elves that need to be resolved ASAP. Sure they will get some good fan service in 10.2 finally and some much needed resolutions in terms of the new World Tree and an eventual village or maybe even a city that will be created beneath it and that is great, Night Elves need at least that much, but compared to what Forsaken got, Night Elves got seriously shafted once again with this heritage questline, everyone can see it and that's just sad
14:17 This is something I've really felt since BFA. We're shown these Alliance and Horde characters being all buddy buddy, jerking each other off about how peaceful they are now, simultaneously as Sylvanas burns down Teldrassil. Realistically, the night elves should hate the Forsaken. And yet, the night elves are painted as bad guys for just that... like... bruh. It's the same situation with the Worgen. Genn has been painted as a bad guy for years when his primary reason for hating the Forsaken is perfectly justifiable.
I'm so sick of this shit where all of the characters have to hold hands and give each other back rubs. The most interesting characters in WC3 were literally the opposite of that, the key figures imo being Sylvanas and Varimathras. Even Jaina had her own goals and motivations and she wasn't afraid to back that shit up with action, yet she's also been painted as a bad guy for it for the longest time now. One of the only interesting characters that came in BFA was the leader of the Mag'har. They actually showed her having a spine and standing her ground in supporting Sylvanas, something that was perfectly justifiable for her to do since Sylvanas had really only helped them at that point. And yet she was painted as bad for having done it, and they've done LITERALLY nothing with her since. It's so lame.
It def feels like Blizzard is trying to tie up old "Faction/racial hatreds" because they can't keep making a story where we have to team up to fight the big bad. It really does show just how incompetent they are when it comes to creating a story.
Yeah they basically scrubbed everything violent out of the game its insane. There shouldn't ever be peace in the game only short lived truces. Most of the races of the horde and alliance should hate each other for what they've done because its fantasy world for entertainment where we want war.
@@Daxel134Horde never had “war” it had a punching bag called Alliance. If you want war find another franchise.
Right... like Sylvanas killed genn son right in front of him with a special arrow. That's a big hate mark
uhm... neither kaldorei or worgen were portrayed as villains tbh. they were just ripped the opportunity of retribution on so many occasions
No wonder they brought back Chris Metzen, hopefully with the departure of Steve Danusser
I'll think about playing once they fire that hack.
Doubt it but one can hope before that maniac crashes whats left against wall
They can keep Danuser - just banish him and his merry fellows to background lore and side quests in the same way Ion should only be making raids.
17:18 "We don't need an 18 year old prodigy showing up with a better understanding of the fel than the 10,000+ year old warden" ... "this just reeks of insecurity..." That was the best line in the video. I really LOL'd.
Lysander = ARR Alphinaud except it never all falls apart and everything works out perfectly
Yup.. ARR Aphinaud only worked because his utopian plan fell on its face and he had to deal with the real world (so to speak).
I fucking hate when writters try to teach me real life lessons in a fantasy setting when the interesting thing in there are the restrictions to feel the races different or unique. They end up making the World feeling void and boring in the process.
Bellular really has a gift for this. He managed to underline everything wrong with Blizzard's modern takes on the races of this game.
They are following the comics woke trend.
Next: Long scenes of characters eating together or shopping with more therapy conversations!
That's already well on its way in Dragonflight. The only thing yet incomplete is demonizing regular people while lionizing the protagonist mistfits.
I don't really understand why they don't have a race lead for each major race, like they do with classes. Sure they can still overlook parts of the lore but to have someone guiding the direction the lore of a people go (and have been) seems a lot better than just making shit up and hoping people don't care.
Genuinely, why isn't there more about gnomes and expanding on them outside of only reaching for them when they need a hahaheehoo moment.
Because gnomes are literally comic relief. Nobody takes them seriously they're not important
@@crowxar because blizzard don't take them seriously. If they do, they could be something more.
Storyline as written by committee. Unsatisfying outcomes are inevitable.
Because gnomes are fucking cringe we need more Tauren
They did have race leads, at least for most of em. And then Blizz started killing them all and replacing them with new npcs nobody gives a flying f about. Ex: Voljiin dies and we get Talanji and zappy boi 🙄🙄🙄
When every Cosmic power can more or less accomplish what any other one can do, it's no wonder it trickled down to the playable races.
Been saying this on forums for a while, the uniqueness of the races, whether good, bad, dubious have been stripped away. Sure you're incarnating something different with different origins and pathways but their modern interpretation, rather than doubling down on what was great about them, they went the other direction making much of the factions into a strange greyslop.
The entire concept of the different "forces" in WoW all behaving exactly the same IE having a "pantheon" and having a home realm of "shadow, light, fel, order, death" etc is exactly the kind of lame concept that becomes entirely predictable in its unpredictability. Who could have foreseen that Zo'Val was doing it for the greater good, just like Sargeras! Man, what a great piece of writing that was. And that there were creators of the creators! Turtles all the way down!
@@sangallo9574 If I was to take the most cynical of stance as well, I could argue that we really are just picking a color in this cosmic battle... Blizzard could even go as far as reframing nature changes such as Druids who spend much time in the dream adopt animal traits like Malfurion to be a form of corruption like void or fel does to a body.
Nature and Light had always been beneficent forces but now they've been tarred with the same brush of moral relativism.
@Negatigger It's just the devs venting their rage at their parents (for being a pussy who didn't hold them to real standards or being genuinely abusive), boss and teachers. And also wish to be a god (aka no rules apply to you and I can do whatever with no compromising). Beating up/overthrowing a god/s as a metaphor for a being with no obligations or expectations with no one who can threaten you.
@sangallo9574 It's just MCU style writing where the villain is a ridiculous supervillain but he's supposed to have a point either to lecture the audience on how the ends don't warrant the means or that the author agrees with the villain secretly but is too scared to say it publically.
Very few things in Dragonflight are Warcraft
Next expansion: "World of Peacecraft: Peacelords of Azeroth"
Weirdly enough, there has been at least one male watcher druid among Maiev's group in the Illidan-book.
Its almost like the writers don't bother to acknowledge there own lore.....
I think it's good if sentinels are mostly women and druids are mostly men with some exceptions. It allows there to be cultural distinctness without cultural absolutism.
The game has lost it's culturally distinct races with everyone gradually dissolving into Blanduin The Good who gets on well with everyone else. I'm here for Warcraft and cultural friction which evidently the devs hate.
@@akaria6359 Funny enough diffident races having their cultural belief's gives them character (nudge nudge0 (wink wink)
@@117haseo3 I think you'll find no starker example of this than Rexxar's small talk dialogue in BFA. Now, generally speaking, the devs are all-Horde all-the-time, so you'd expect them to get a character whose literal title is "Champion of the Horde" right, but when you ask him why he joined up with the invasion forces, he says something about being _afraid of what Jaina will do to the blood Elves._ My Dude. Rexxar. You were part of the old Horde. You literally ate their babies. What the actual fuck.
What's weird is that watchers weren't originally gender-divided. Heck, they're not even night-elf only. Watchers can be of any race and any gender, they just need to be native to Ashenvale. Wardens are probably all female night elves, but I wouldn't be upset if they decided that anyone has always been able to be a warden with sufficient training.
I really don't like it when sentinels and watchers are painted with the same cultural brush; they formed under very different conditions.
To be honest I thought the N.Elf Heritage armor should of revolved around the goddess Elune or what separate them during the fall of Ashara. Not a journey through the Felwood to cleanse a moon pool....
Its the 'Let the past die kill it if you have too' mentality that seems to pervade modern writers they think that things 'NEED' to change for the sake of it instead of appreciating the world for what it is.
A culture with 10,000+ year history is not going to change in a 20 minute quest.
I love how people always point to this line as if it's some kind of hidden, malicious philosophy of modern writers when that line was literally written to be delivered by the villain of said film it's derived from.
Also, most of WoW's writing has been shit and dictated by the fact that the mechanics of a video game will always take precedent. The fact that the Foresaken are STILL in the Horde after all these years is evidence of it.
@gharnsnatch4088 So why is the other truth constantly ignored? Because it debases the other? If you take issue with both, bravo, I applaud the intellectual consistency. But strangely people seem to only speak out of one side of their mouth on this subject.
@mattmac5506 the difference with that line in the last jedi was because that movie was so divisive and it seemingly was intent on destroying the legacy of the original trilogy, which is what the entire sequel trilogy did.
@@mattmac5506 The truth is constantly "ignored' because it doesn't matter. One isn't dependent on one one another and this kind of writing isn't new or contained only within Warcraft. You can have the best writing in the world but fall victim to the malicious burning of the past to prop up your own future, and you can have the worst writing and still remain consistent to its world.
So it doesn't matter if WoW's writing has been dictated by mechanics, what does matter is that the current writing team is content (and almost happy) to rewrite and ignore the past so they can create their new story.
original night owls back in Warcraft three were really brutal. Much different than what we get today.
Next expansion the goblins will be hosting weekly charity fundraiser events
lol
Ehem...for Maui fires?
i dont understand why undead heritage requires goddamm shadowlands quest chain to be done.
Probably due to phasing part between BFA and shadowland.
It's because of the plaguing of Undercity. The Shadowlands questline has you cleaning up the ruins otherwise that cloud kills you pretty quick.
Absolutely right. On that note anyone remember how the worgen heritage quest was all about how you shouldn't be a worgen?
The problem is that the modern writers look at their predecessors work the history that has been built as something that needs to be corrected. And if it needs to be corrected that means that they're going to look at it as lesser work so they won't respect or bother to learn about it.
I'm really proud of this community. Even after years of destroying and humiliating NE lore, players still love them and want changes for the better
on Point. sick of the victim mentality of twitter generation getting into our game lore.. The team who have ultimataely inherited the game need to familiarise themselves with the god damn game... so tired of this
This reminds me of SC2 LotV where Artanis just dismantles the protoss caste system with a flick of the wrist and there's basically no negative consequences to speak of
I was playing dragon flight as a shadow priest but kinda dropped out for this exact reason - there’s no teeth to WARcraft anymore. I mentioned the shadow priest because if you read over the spell tooltips, the spells and abilities are sinister, evil, using a dark force to lay the smack down on baddies. Awesome, and in its own way feels very Warcraft. But while the gameplay of DF is fantastic, the writing and world is Hello Kitty.
“Night elves are the second most played race behind the night elves” ????
The night elves are the 2nd most played race behind the night elves. lol
I wonder what a poll would look like with the question "should all races be able to play all classes? Yes/No.
I want to see big, muscular, sweaty orcs razing cities, killing, and pillaging. I want to see hot Night Elf women doing cool stuff. I want to see undead being evil conniving assholes. I don't care about dragon's feelings, either they should be friendly blowing stuff up for us, or hostile and being killed for loot. Is that so much to ask?
Like other ppl said in other ways, this is a problem with the entertainment industry as a whole.
"Modern writing to modern audiences."
The races are too nice. So tolerant and PEACEFUL. They couldn't make it more boring if they tried! Give me terrifying Trolls whose beasts of war are just as likely to eat their riders as the enemy, Forsaken who do not give two shits about playing fair, Nightborne bent on restoring their empire and crushing anyone in their way, Worgen who are actually portrayed as the horrors that inspired them, the ruthlessness of the Kaldorei who will not hesitate bringing the fury of the ancients down on anyone who dares encroach upon their forests.
What if the Kul Tirans didn't really like an alledged kinslayer becoming their new Lord Admiral? What if there's still resentment towards the Gilneans who barred their gates and let thousands perish outside their borders only to come begging for sanctuary when their walls crumbled? What about the new Horde council having to somehow organise a bunch of disparate races and cultures who have very little in common while trying to ensure their realms don't face ruination from the constant wars and trying to prevent its member factions from tearing each other apart in a vicious competetion for aid and resources?
There are so many possible venues for intriguing, impactful plotlines to manifest and they haven't tugged at a single string. It's INFURIATING!
Better yet, why do the Kul Tirans give a single shit about peace? What stops them from literally funding Privateers to casually raid the Orcish coasts? They're supposed to be turn of the century Britain, maybe they should do turn of the Century british things?
19 year old night elf saves the day... 19 Years? WTF.... Old night elfs didn't reach adulthood before 300 years... with every patch we further strive away from the... RIP
I have another complaint about WoW that drives me nuts but isn’t mentioned by anyone. Everything is giant sized compared to characters. Every main or minor story quest I do has the npcs giga and it’s fucking distracting. Tauren are supposed to be giants, why does my Tauren look up at characters like Sylvanas. I know it’s to help major characters stand out but just stop it
100% Bothered me immensely too.
You know exactly why body type 2s can be druids and body type 1s can be sentinels. The game is no longer set in Azeroth, it is set in California.
and California is set in an insulated echo chamber of woke values.
what do you mean no longer? there has never been gender locked classes even since vanilla
This quest looks like it was written by the writers of Disney's Flop Stranger World or Disney's StarWars and Indiana Jones. always a Millennial or Zoomer solving all the world's problems while everyone watches gratefully and agrees with everything. the final "everything new is better" and "and let the past die, even if you had to kill it"
Those mediums are created for young audiences so it makes sense that kids are better at everything. However, WoW has an aging playerbase.
Well Steve Danuser thought The Last Jedi was brilliant so...
I remember reading about so people say that is an a problem with "Millennial writers". You are at the age where your life is very boring.
You don't have the life experience or understanding of History to write like GRR Martin, neither can you connect with the Gen Z to know what is "Cool" or "Trending" or "Funny" for younger audience.
Their writing is also very influenced by what's reported on TV by Main Stream media, or what's trending in Social Media.
They simply forgot they are writing a FANTASY world which should draw from Mythology and History of our civilization, not a news piece for CNN.
My thoughts exactly. They are pandering to the wrong audience. Who is the major demographic of wow? 20-45 year old males. Now it is all about feelings and boring bs.
This does it for me, focusing on the warhammer IP more now. Californian writers should just stay on strike.
@user-xw3iw7nn9l Christie Golden is over 40 years old. Blaming Millennials here is silly.
Even as a new player this quest felt weird to me. It was kinda meh and it definitely didnt feel like a HERITAGE questline more like a sidequest.
My main character was a night elf druid since Burning Crusade (stopped playing in Shadowlands after we beat Denathreus) and I can't say that how NEs has been treated in the game the last few years has been making me want to come back.
DF is trying to tell a novel inside of a short story book
The night elf heritage armour was awful. No heart in it, no sense of nelf identity :(
At this point they’re all interchangeable
this is the closest armor you have to the iconic night elf armor from vanilla trailer. It looks great, they just added a little bit more defense parts
The only thing the heritage quest represents, at least to me, is that the night elves are back to taking matters into their own hands. Bring back the savage night elves!
Savage night elves? Night Elves were never really badass.
They were a decent fighting force but never bad ass
@@JamailvanWestering Tell me you never read the old lore without telling me you never read the old lore lol
@@JamailvanWestering Bro the _orcs_ were scared of them in WC3
@@JamailvanWestering the orcs we so afraid, they thought the forest was coming alive and slaughtering their people.
@@quizkill because again they were afraid of the wisps.
If they were still under control by the Demon Fire pumping through them, that would have been shut off.
It’s no wonder that after Mannoroth’s death that the orcs began suffering from trauma and were only able to overcome the screams and torments by Varok who himself had to push him to the brink to not give in to the despair.
Maybe it's too much to ask but... I would have thought the Night Elf quest would be to plant a new Worldtree seed somewhere. 🌳
No seeds left, the one from SL was already planted in the emerald dream and will feature in patch 10.2
@@needsanameedit4982 is it going to grow out of the Emerald Dream into Azeroth? Or we just going to have a convenient portal to the new night elf city. 😆
@@Dracounguis I doubt if the tree will survive into 11.0, the writers seem to hate almost everything the lore has set up until now. Maybe the tree explodes taking the dream with it and that's how we get the world revamp.
@@needsanameedit4982 Sargeras comes back, grabs his sword, and chops it down 😆
I'm convinced the modern story writers hate what old Warcraft was. And this storyline communicated that clearly to me right from the start - one of the key NPCs is a night elf with a human friend wielding a human sword. Not exactly what you want out of a Night Elf heritage questline.
Well, the character in question was created back in Vanilla WoW and her current state now is a result of the story that occurred then. She is the kind of person that should be kind of riding the fence, but Maiev should be the one that sticks to the NE values and traditions harder than others.
The point I think I was trying to make was that she shouldn't have been in a quest about Night Elf heritage at all. She is an example of a "not very night elfy" night elf.@@frostmagemarii
Remember Garrosh? Now in 2023, we can't even have a fictional character that can just say "Watch your mouth, b*tch".
Remember Garithos? :v
@Kazookiddo7605 We can't even have say that.
I think that case in particular was appropriate to remove considering uhhh... Afrasiabi's favorite special boy dropping a gendered insult on the female character he villain-batted out of spite aged really poorly considering IRL circumstances
@@SkeletonBeleton The actions/words of a fictional character should change because of someone IRL liking that character?
Do you even hear yourself?
@@ekscalybur When that "someone IRL" is literally the person writing that character... yeah? Like you don't have to agree but you don't have to get vitriolic about it either
the heritage quest was really lame. Just kill some demons and let some guy be warden? what???
Worst heritage questline by far. Coming back of an NPC from Classic WoW after all these years was very cool, but that's about it. It's crazy when you compare that to heritage quests of Orcs or Humans, which actually focused on... You know, the heritage of a race.
I don't know, the Worgen heritage quest was pretty bad. Whole theme was basically that being a worgen doesn't matter and you shouldn't be one.
Being kind of a hippy at heart, my favorite races have always been Night Elves and Tauren. And every time this game just lets me down. I suppose at least the Tauren Heritage armor was OK.
"Forget the past. Kill it, if you have to."
Starting to feel all too familiar.
They went overboard from when the staff got busted for being scummy. They were supposed to fkx themselves but somewhere along they way they thought Warcraft had to change with them.
The glaives dont even show when you sheath them. They are hidden for some reason. It's the thing I hate the most about back items is that is hides the weapon or whatever you have on your back. Whereas before you could have a cool looking cloak a shield or weapon, now its like you have a back item, no cloak and no weapon.
The BFA Wrathion backpack used to show weapons sheaved on the back like staves etc but recently they've changed it so it doesn't show the staff. Doesn't it make sense that you can slot it through the arms of the rucksack? Why do they make the game look worse?
I'd like a toggle option to choose to show cloaks and weapons if we'd like.
When you create a committee to define your characters, you get a mix of that committee's sensibilities with minor differences for each character. Seen it happen a hundred times. The best teams of writers work separately then come together to refine and edit... If it's even necessary.
No committees back in the days of WC3 development, Dave? 😜
There was feedback, but Metzen wrote the main story and the level designers had total control of their own levels. We could add lines and give feedback, but it was up to Metzen if he wanted to change the main story or not. Thankfully he was open to feedback. @@FlinnGaidin
One of the marks of a subpar writer is being unable to resist forcing their own morality and ethics onto fictional characters that they write. I'm reminded of the Blizzard quest writer who tweeted that it "physically pained" her to write loving straight couples.
And she's the one who's behind the scenario here Tyrande and Malfurion were seperated to bring Ysera back, the odds of something happening to prevent his return are getting higher.
Has anyone found out why we brought ysera back? Havent seen her do anything so far, i am horde but shame to miss malfurion in the dream.
@@staceyvermeulen5138 If I had to guess, it's because Ysera's death was one of the more memorable moments for people from Legion, so her return during Shadowlands was Blizzard trying to play to that crowd sentiment in order to salvage some interest from a terrible expansion.
Who's that bitch name,might add to hall of infamy list just like Daloser.
I think the problem the Night Elves have that the Forsaken don't is that they're Alliance. And Alliance characters (and ones Alliance writers have claimed like Baine) keep getting shoved into milquetoast human-shaped molds and becoming props for human stories. So, we constantly get lore like Night Elves having to change whereas-- while being in the Horde comes with other problems for their narratives (villain bats and missing leaders for expansions at a time namely) --the Forsaken and Orcs get to be themselves.
Remember when Anduin failed to help the Night Elves when their home was destroyed, and yet their rage at him not keeping the promises made to them as part of the Alliance was still somehow painted as a moral failing of theirs? Like, they should've just sat down and been more patient about their capital falling under siege.
"(The night elves are) the second most played race--behind the night elves--" lol
Honestly this feels like what The Last Jedi did to Star Wars if I’m being honest.
Noo honey… noo.
The Last Jedi was actually great.
This expansion is just doodoo
@@JamailvanWestering the last jedi being great is debatable at the very least, It had some glaring flaws that may or may not matter depending on the person watching?
@@xelinco3005 or or? Those glaring flaws think the prequels are somehow classics and the OT is God..because they didn’t like that their theories didn’t come true in the movie
@@JamailvanWesteringnah it was dogshit.
Blue hair “they/thems love Mary sues because they don’t have to do any of the work and face the accountability of actions. They are perfect and are just better.
@@mogalixir it’s more a critique on unfettered capitalism.
Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
i'm so glad you took the time to eract and analyze this quest, cause i myself was very unimpressed and felt that again my beloved night elves got another screw off from the devs.
This is what happens when modern day politics start filtering into a fantasy world. It becomes more about indoctrination then escapism.
I sad I can only like this comment once.
Your words are right. Dragonflight has felt like one big therapy session. I'm so tired of overly-emotional characters and moments that I simply don't care anymore. You know you've messed up bad when players grow apathetic towards the game.
Man do I have something to tell you about the type of character Garrosh was
@@CarterArts Garrosh worked through his trauma by acting, not by sitting around in a therapy session. While he acted out in a negative way, at least this is more interesting than the Dragonflight method of sitting in an office with the AC set to 65F, a prescription for Celexa, and a clipboard.
There's a difference between Garrosh and lets say literally any of the DF characters right now. Garrosh was cool and badass, at least... @@CarterArts
....You're talking like therapy is a bad thing, bud.
The playerbase *does* need therapy after the Blizz scandals, patch delays, shortcuts, cut content, etc.
@@MorganRhysGibbons Let's have a therapy session about how Blizzard took my money for the Shadowlands expansion and then didn't make any new content for a year. They scammed most of their player base back then without any apology - then wonder why people don't give them any slack now.
They should just work in race storylines into the main one to save time and still make it feel awesome. Maybe do a spinoff quest that only your race gets during the main storyline or something
that would be great, but i can already hear the reddit shitstorm ("why do i have do create xyz to enjoy the complete story BlizZord")
I absolutely agree! Unfortunately, it's everywhere, not just Night Elves... Races, Classes, World of Warcraft losing identity and starting to feel more and more generic... Everything is the same and everybody does the same... Yes, making that so everybody can do everything brings more playability, however, at a cost of originality and character... We can see how popular are the classic servers and players still wanna come back and play 20 years old game, because it feels different... The game had tons of character at the time, but pretty low playability... Nevertheless, you were able to feel for the story and the character you're playing, now it doesn't matter... At the time, you played night elves because you wanted to be a defender of the forests not becasue you have shadowmelt so you can leave a combat...
I really felt bad for those who play on the Alliance side. That mage felt like some whimpering soy boy around his sister and Maiev. We know Maiev has always been rough, so that's nothing new, but making the sister of the mage also a try-hard Maiev wannabe was a bit too much. The Forsaken heritage quest wasn't that impressive either, but at least it wasn't as painful to do.
Typical current year writing... Tear down the old so you can create your own in place of it.
I'm not even against certain things that are not very Warcraft, but it has to be really good to make up for it not being very warcraft, if it can't do that then it has no reason to not be very Warcraft
When we finally go to Emerald Dream, writers came up with the great idea of removing Malfurion from there. The most Emerald Dream guy in lore absent in the patch about this place. Imagine when we finally have an expansion focused on Light Velen, Liadrin and Anduin suddenly disappears somewhere.
@Hawkknight i really hope bellular was right and developers just hide malfurion as a big suprise in next patch
All the other races, including dragons, have lost their mystique.
i don't care who's feelings are hurt wow needs new writers
Make Azeroth Great Again 2024
Bring the War back in WARcraft 👌
game fell off after lich king
Guess that must mean bobbys going to jail.
Night Elves need a Garrosh; someone who will rally the elves and take back the forests without mercy. Someone who will actually make the Forsaken pay for the Burning of Teldrassil. You know, Warcraft.
The night elves are the second most played race behind the night elves?
I don't know how hard it is to write characters who are thousands of years old even for an experienced writer, but it seems to me that WoW's writers don't know how to. At a most 19 years old mage can do things that a 10,000+ years old Warden has no idea about? That seems really off, especially with how a major part of being a wizard is learning for all of your life. 19 years is very young, most people are still just larger children at that age :D
Like, even if he was learning the Arcane since childhood, he would have to be a top level mage to be able to stop a thousands of years old Nathrezim from doing his evil rituals. He is very young, so he can't possibly match the experience and knowledge. The core of mage fantasy doesn't align with young characters that much, so it would be important to explain this part.
Everything must be politically correct, everything is "coded" nowadays, god forbid theres any edge or else twitter's feelings will be hurt and you know you'll hear of it. Everything is soft and sensitive because that's the community they cultivated over the years and any diversion from that will cause drama.
A male night elf should never be the focus in a night elf heritage quest. Night elves are the only matriarchal race we have and they should stay that way.
Even the void and the Demons are now good missunderstandable people lol
i was hoping we were going to at the very least be slaying demons and pushing orcs out of ashenvale, (perhaps out of a reaction to the orcs heritage quest and bring this world of warcraft as a world that reacts to things) maybe (this is asking WAY too much) but a maybe a role quest that changes depending on your night elves class where a warrior say, does sentinel army things, a druid is doing whatever druids do, rogues gather intel, priests reinforcing sentinel armies, hunters doing something, you know? encapsulating the breadth of night elf society and give a reason to do the quest again on an alt class. Not worth reinstalling for which kills me. The lore and story ive joked is why i kept my sub up during darker times in game but lacking that, there is always the other game
The work’s quality and context a reflection of the developers
To sum it all up, the night elf heritage armor quest is us cleaning out a pool
@Hawkknight did I ruin your day after summing it up like that?
@Hawkknight just making sure, never know what I could say that could ruin someone's day even the smallest word
@Hawkknight well sucks to be an elf I guess
That’s the perfect analogy for everything that’s been happening. The young upstart Night Elf tells the legendary character “I know better and we’re changing things”. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head that all of the races just feel the same now.
Great video, gave me a lot to think about. Do you think Metzen coming back could help steer these narratives in a better direction? And do you have faith in the current dev team to make a WoW 2.0 or a Classic+ without "insecurities"?
Not without a shakeup that'll probably end up being bad for the short term. An old timer being showed up by a young newb who thinks they know things (not in reality, but in the head of the young newb) with a message that it's time to move on from the old days? Seems very on the nose from devs who don't like that Metzen is trying to change the game's direction back to something playable, as the rumors from alleged insiders suggest. /tinfoilhat
Metzen already is back. He has probably okay'd a lot of the storylines we're currently seeing in DF. Metzen is not without his faults either, don't deify him as the solution to all of WoW's narrative woes. It isn't as if WoW did not have narrative troubles before his departure.
WOW is being neutered ("having the rough edges removed") and it is by design, not an accident. That's why a lot of the old players are leaving or moving to the classic versions.
The real problem is, everyone going into game design and any of those adjacent jobs, are really just bad at their jobs and have no real creativity because they are loser humans who have never had to struggle in life.
Excellent analysis of the state of the Night Elf story. Agree 100%,
I finally abandoned the game when Night Elves were left in the Horde. I still get sad when I think of the fun I used to have.
Imagine what they managed to do to Blizzard Entertainment’s biggest rockstar, the Lich King. Thanks to Steve Danuser, Warcraft is now full of these things. As long as Danuser is there, no amount of Metzen being there will fix this.
So they are slowly morphing all the races to becoming like the blonde hair and blue eyed human. Didn't someone already try to do that irl? I seem to be drawing a blank on the name. But a funny little mustache comes to mind.
This is the kind of quest chain they should be adding into the game on a fairly frequent basis. Not once a year as an emergency "please don't unsub" button.
Im hoping that the herritage quest was just a like a prelude to a bigger quest arc to give a brief character intro. Theres the silver/ blue herritage set still. I wonder if the bulk and love for a herritage quest will go into unlocking that one? Maybe like a founding of Amirdrassil quest once the events of 10.2 conclude. I think it would be fun to have to do a quest where you go to different locations to help tether the new world tree to the physical plane or something with lots of lore stuff at each area and some cool battles.
Lmao, you think Blizzard would do that for Night Elf players despite the dwindling playerbase? They cannot bring themselves to be decent to night elves under any circumstance. Everything they give comes with salt, for the Alliance in general too. The apology bee for giving three placeholder gryphons and horses? A bee, but of course obtained in the most pain in the ass way possible. The shit writing makes perfect sense, written by a bunch of narcissistic, zug zug edgelord idiots.
Next up, blood elf druids with ten times better shapeshifts and probably some npc being better and making a mockery of night elf druids despite the night elves being the oldest and greatest druids in the world, and BEs having ZERO connection to the dream.
Eh probs not but i like thinking of theoretical story lines that could be a possibility in games. Its a fun talking point with friends. At the end of the day i just want that recolour herrirage armour. That was a devils pitch fork to the you know where after waiting with the hype for it only to not be available. As much as id like a cool quest line to get it, im not holding my breath.
@0:36 Night Elves are the 2nd most played race behind the Night Elves.
Wait, who's #1? Schmitty Worbenjagermanjensen?
... the correction was on the screen when he said it ...
The problem is at its core the WoW night elf story is about them being colonized and systematically eradicated by the Orcs and Undead. If Blizzard ever actually confronted that it would draw stunningly uncomfortable parallels to real US history that would make a great many Orc players feel very defensive. So Blizzard tries to be 'edgy' without upsetting the edgelords and never makes their characters take moral responsibility for their actions. Everyone's morally grey, nobody's a villain, and they leave their players to bicker in the forums about the rest. It's the kind of writing that has come to disgust me as I've grown older and honestly is a key factor in why I don't play the game anymore.
If you're going to write a character to act like Hitler, make them take responsibility for BEING Hitler, don't make fucked up excuses for them because some fanboys might feel bad about their porn collection afterward. If you can't clear that basic storytelling bar then GTFO and stop wasting my time with your tepid backwash.
Honestly, the Night Elf Questline should have been about the Night Elves claiming Ashenvale, but also resolving the tension with the Orcs. You can have an initial misunderstanding.. Orcs and Night Elves fighting each other, until say Cenarius shows up with a bunch of druids, who meet with the Orc Shaman who discuss WHY the Orcs are even in Ashenvale for the need for Lumber.Queue Cenarius offering a path of wisdom and the druids teach the Shaman how to make wood grow faster, so the Orcs can leave Ashenvale in peace. Moral of the Story is defend your land, but wisdom can solve conflicts for longer tec etc.
@@grimnir8872 even something that straightforward is too deep for Blizzard's writers to conceive of.
Yep. When they write a story about Horde committing disgusting, abhorrent things they shouldnt give them an "out". Or at least not an easy out of the "it was all the warchief" sort.
@@MrVlad12340 at this point I'd settle for them simply not giving the Warchief an out, but here we are.
Blizzard: Why does WoW have to be about war and evil and violence?
Players: It's literally in the name. It's been that way for well over 20 years of PC gaming.
Blizzard: Oh. Well, times change! WHEEEEEE!
ironically this quote was said by one of the most war-loving orc. 🤣
I think the new writers don't understand that night elves are not tree loving hippies and are actually savage monsters who will kill anything that even approaches their forests
The devs couldn’t have stated “fuck you” (to every player that has said they don’t like the way night elves are portrayed in wow) more clearly than if they’d just given night elf players computers a virus by accepting this quest.
I think it’s fair to say at this point that the devs just genuinely don’t know/don’t like night elves and have no idea how to use them in this world they’re steadily destroying.
Their only way to use their culture in a story is as a punching bag. Their only purpose is as an example of how NOT to be.