Disregarding Blizzards weak story telling, (which let's be honest, never really was its strongpoint. look at how they are currently handling Overwatch) is the game worth getting back into at this, just in terms of playing?

 

I mean, I'd be surprised if their druids didn't talk to each other way back when. It's just, a handful of tribe shaman generally being amiable with each other does not a military alliance make. Especially since (as of the beginning of WC3) all of the Night Elf druids had been asleep for centuries, if not millennia, and Tauren didn't enjoy the same agelessness that the elves did.

The Tauren showed up, along with the furbolg and even the centaurs, to help drive off the Legion in their original invasion. That's... about it for their meaningful, government-level interactions.

Not quite. The War of the Shifting Sands was against the tattered remnants of the aqir that survived the trolls beating them into submission, some 15,000 years earlier.

The Night Elves wanted to rejuvenate Sillithus, so they went down there and started poking around, and the bugs didn't take kindly to it. Night Elf leadership promptly freaked the fuck out and thus, the war.

As for the Tauren, there's absolutely been a relationship between the Tauren and the Night Elves. It's just largely been "Oh you're plains folk? We're forest folk. You stay on the plains, we'll stay in the trees. Sound good?".

The Horde didn't have a center of power or commerce when they arrived, no. What they did have was Grom and his warriors being batshit insane enough to drink Mannoroth's blood and murder the fuck out of Cenarius. A morale blow that gave the orcs the time and space they needed to establish themselves, and, presumably with Jaina's cautious assistance, start flourishing.

By the time the Night Elves recovered from Cenarius' death, Archimonde was knocking on their door and had to be dealt with. And after that was over, no one on Kalimdor was in any shape to be fighting, so they all went home and licked their wounds for the next few years, while Rexxar and co dealt with Jaina's dad.

Fast forward to Vanilla WoW, where the orcs had been firmly established and started to industrialize, and had just started to make inroads to Ashenvale and the Tauren were expanding from Mulgore into Stonetalon. These are positions both pretty much directly adjacent to their existing centers of power, and across most of the continent from the Night Elf's base in Darnassus. It only makes sense that, between the Cataclysm and other various shenanigans that have happened that the Night Elves would be losing those engagements. If for no other reason than the supply train and logistics are orders of magnitude more complicated for the Elves.

Edit:

Personally, Legion was one of the best expansions WoW's ever had. It had some teething issues early on (and the abortion of a system known as Legendaries), but those were all fixed by the last tier, and it was really, really good by the end.

Judging by the systems being carried over and known modifications to them, Blizzard appears to have learned the right lessons from it. Classes have been simplified (again), which is somewhat unfortunate, but I'm still enjoying how it all plays.

I can't say with absolute certainty until we get to the endgame of BFA if it's truly worth getting back into it, but it certainly appears like it is.

 

The night elves never suffered a "morale blow" when Cenarius died. They just got mad. There was never a recovery period after Cenarius died, the Night Elves continued to wage the war.

After Archimonde was banished the Night Elves then went on to grow another whole fucking world tree. Don't even try and tell me that they were "licking their wounds", they were engaging in major projects to renew their immortality (except, you know, the sentinels had no involvement in that, and were basically twiddling their thumbs instead of doing something useful). The Night Elves had thousands of years to build up armaments, train their soldiers, etc and almost all night elf women participated in their martial society. The fact that any of the races on Kalimdor stand a ghost of a chance against them is a testament to the blizzard's reverence for Orcs and humans.

Also, we KNOW that the Night Elves still continued to use teleportation magic. "muh logistics" don't mean anything when you have the forces of nature that respond to your call and the closest thing to a diety that's found in the warcraft universe (Elune) actively favoring you. I'm not really sure how much actual logistics the Night Elves as an organized (guerilla) force require in the first place, since they're shooting bows and arrows made out of materials they have the ability to magically produce via the forest. Of course, the Night Elves in WoW never seem to use an guerilla tactics (or any tactics at all).

The Night Elven Sentinels are a martial society whose members consist of a multitude of 10,000 year old warriors, and are supposed to be competent and quite capable of using a variety of magics. Somehow in 10,000 years of experience, no one ever thought of a defense against firebombers, never learned any way to detect people hiding in the shadows (even though Saytrs are known for this...), never figured out an alternative supply chain method (like magic hur durr), or had any ability to store materials in their multiple fortresses?

Or maybe the night elves just got the stupid ball super glued to their head so the Horde could exist.

Hm... which of these sounds more plausible. Blizzard has consistently shafted the Night Elves from WoW release. They stripped away fundamental components of their society (men=druids, women=priests and warriors) in order to meet the needs of their MMO, and they took competent and skill combatants with 10,000 years of experience and turned them into our current incarnation of Tyrande. If you think Night Elves haven't been flanderized to high hell you played a completely different WC3 campaign than I did.

 

Did you conveniently forget that Trolls are a part of the Horde? The trolls, who've been fighting harder and more bloody wars for much longer. Don't forget the high elves who style themselves blood elves now, who aren't exactly spring chickens.

If age was the only factor that mattered, Trolls would be ruling over Azeroth.

 

Except... all of that existed long before WoW was ever a thing.

Like, the original Reign of Chaos ork campaign had the Horde stroll up and slap Cenarius in the face with Grom's massive demon-infused cock, and there was fuck-all the Night Elves could do about it. Then almost immediately after, Archimonde showed up and the Night Elves got straight wrekt, what with the heart of their society and culture being the Legion's target, and their lands being the ones the actual battles were fought in.

The Night Elves being reclusive and not terribly good at the whole war thing has been there from the very beginning. They found the Orcs' logging operations in Ashenvale, launched a successful attack that drove Grom to drink Mannoroth's blood, then got completely wrecked, and fucked off back into the woods to lick their wounds. The Night Elf campaign then started with Tyrande wondering who the fuck the greenskins were, and managing a single successful assault on an orc/Theramore joint logging operation before the Legion showed up and kicked their shit in all the way to Mount Hyjal.

You've built them up in your head as some grand army that they're simply not shown to be. Now, there's a perfectly sound argument that they should be, one I'd likely even agree with, at least in part, but that doesn't change the fact that they're not and never have been.

 

I feel like this has seemingly turned into a shitting on NE 'debate'. I want to clarify, and I've said this many times over, Blizz are not good story tellers.

Just because I'm refuting your claims that the night elves are as bamf as you say /wish they were, doesn't mean the I don't the fact they're not is stupid.

Their novels have been pretty great though (the ones I've read), and they've hired the writers of them to lead Story. Now that coders aren't in charge of the story, I'm hoping things turn around.

There are many stupid things in WoW lore I hated, but like they did with Jaina, I'm giving them the chance to turn it around.

Maybe they do so with Tyrande, or maybe they introduce some new fucking characters - dunno if anyone else realises, but they only significant/well done new antagonist introduced in WoW's history is basically Garrosh...

 

Varian and Garrosh were definitely the best characters introduced in WoW.
Shandris and Wyrmbane will be leading the Alliance Campaign so at least a night elf will get some development. The Horde campaign will be funny if you read the novel.

 

I mean... You're reitering my original point. Night Elves have been built up in their lore to be badass but they never actually demonstrate being any good at very much as a whole.

 

I didn't disagree with your original point, I said you over exaggerated it.

Personally I think it'd have been awesome if the NE culture was more truly unique, the way it was originally depicted - largely matriarchal, female only warriors and male only druids.

Blizz made them uninteresting, I wouldn't call that shitting on them from the start or whatever.

 

My point is that, no they haven't been. They should have been, that much is certainly true, but the lore has been them pretty consistently sitting in their trees being useless, with the occasional moment of glory whenever the stars happen to align.

They've never been this badass civilization of unstoppable ancient warrior types anywhere but your own head. From the beginning, they've just got their shit pushed in time after time after time. Nothing changed meaningfully in that regard from WC3 to WoW to BFA, beyond that it's now become impossible to ignore.

 

I mean they basically stopped the Burning Legion the first time around in the War of the Ancients.

 

See: occasional moment of glory.

They absolutely should be a much bigger threat than they are. They just aren't, for whatever silly reason. My assumption is that no one at Blizzard cared/s enough to find a way to do it justice, or were lazy and didn't bother to think through the implications of the world building they were doing.

 

They're also the ones responsible for the first invasion of the BL, lol.

 

Morally grey.


Well, it's not surprising.

 

I expected more from the cinematic, Jaina's cinematic gave me chills, this one was just OK. Atleast Arthas looked baller, we haven't seen cool Arthas artwork from Blizz in a while now.

There are some decently funny youtube comments going on though:
That tree will turn into morally gray ashes.
#teldrasilwasaninsidejob #hordefueldoesntmeltnightelftrees #sylvanusisaleaderofpeace

 

Baller Arthas is always cool.

As for Sylvannas, watching all the mental gymnastics people have been trying to go to in order to defend her actions has been amazingly funny. There's nothing wrong with liking a villain as a character. There's no need to try to justify her as not completely batshit insane.

 

I prefer Sylvanas´s Trailer than Jainas since this one gave us something new to chew. To be honest, this one made me laugh, she burned the tree because she got triggered and I really liked the parallels between her and Arthas and Telldrassil and Quel´thalas

 

Liked both trailers and I guess both became what they initially fought against. Jaina getting on board with her father's "genocide is okay if it's the Horde" thinking and Sylvanas becoming more and more like Arthas in her corruption and what terrors she is willing to inflict on others.

That said, don't think she was doing the burning in retaliation for what that one night elf said, seems to me that's what she wanted from the beginning, what with everything being prepared to burn the tree and all. Sure it pissed her off, but don't think it influenced her decision making there.

Now, not sure I like where these stories are going but it does seem interesting. Bah, stupid WoW, tempting me and shit.

 

Well, if you want to waste part of your summer and play with friends/multiplayer WoW is here for you.

 

If it makes you feel any better, there's all kinds of foreshadowing and glaring neon signs that say "This is the N'Zoth expansion". It's very likely that the stupid faction shit is going to be the focus for the initial bit, then by the time 8.2 rolls around, will have been largely forgotten in favor of more old god shenanigans.