I wanted to spend some (edit: a lot) of time to gather all the threads, discussions, screenshots, articles and interviews I can about The Burning of Teldrassil, before it ends.
Much like other pre-expansion events, it is only here for a short time, yet this one certainly has left its mark on Azeroth forever, as well as the WoW community. I think it deserves a post like this.
It will also be far easier to think back and revisit this event 10 years from now, for anyone, who want to see, what it was all about.
So here it is, gathered in one large thread. My last post on the subject.
All of our blog posts, evolving around our thoughts on the War of the Thorns event, The Burning of Teldrassil, followed by The Battle For Lordaeron, as part of the pre-expansion event for Battle for Azeroth, August 2018.
Please let me know if I missed any of yours – and I shall be happy to put it in.
Blog posts
(Do the links look odd to you too? They do in my WordPress Reader, but not when normally browsing. I’ll look into it. They should still work, though)
- The night before Teldrassil burns – by Cinder
- Do we HAVE to fight?? – by Navimie
- War of Thorns: Part 1 -by Gnomecore
- Prepatch 8.0 – War of the Thorns, first week, day 1.– by Wisteria
- War of the Thorns – Chapter 1: Are you feeling it? – by Alunaria
-
BfA pre-launch story: Week 1 – by Gracie
- Darkshore World Quests: Quick thoughts – by Gnomecore
- Deja Darkshore – by Wrath
- War of the Thorns, Day 4, Druid Express Fighting Force! – by Wisteria
- War of the Thorns Part 1 – Darkshore, More Like Dullshore – by Kaylriene
- Darkshore: Round Two – by Wrath
- War of the Thorns part 2 – by Gracie
- War of the Thorns -A Lot To Say – by Kaylriene
- Blaugust 1st, I don’t know about last night – by Marathal
- Random thoughts about burning trees – by Minimalistway
- War of Thorns, week two, day one – by Wisteria
- Sylvanas – The What? – by Asmiroth
- Gearing up for hate – by Fiannor
- When there are…No words – by Alunaria
- A Tree Is Burning in World of Warcraft and I´m Strangely Sad About It
- Tree burning reactions – by Navimie
- So about that thing – by Grimmtooth
- On Narrative Arcs, Morality in Storytelling, and the Developing Plot of Battle for Azeroth – by Kaylriene
- War of Thorns_ Aftermath & Opinion – by Gnomecore
- Grey and Gray Morality – by Marathal
-
War of the Thorns – Chapter 2: Arriving in Stormwind – by Alunaria
-
Darkshore: The Day After – by Wrath
-
Is it worth it? – By Ann
- Where to Begin – by Wildeheart
-
An Unexpected Cinematic: Old Soldier! – by Gnomecore
- Navi’s thoughts: “Old Soldier Cinematic – by Navimie
-
Let’s Craft #5 World of Warcraft – Teldrassil and Darnassus – by Alunaria
-
Saurfang – by Leto
- Is it too late… – by Marathal
- More thoughts on WoW’s story – by Gracie
-
Poor Saurfang – by Asmiroth
- More “Old Soldier” reactions, breakdowns and this shoulder thing – by Navimie
-
War of the Thorns – Astranaar – by Alunaria
-
The War of Thorns – by Wildeheart
-
War of the Thorns: When the story of a game is not in it – by Alunaria
-
Dune, Lord of the Rings, Warcraft, and the cutting room floor – by Marathal
-
War of the Thorns: Tyrande – by Alunaria
-
Novels Elegy and Good War Released – by Gnomecore
-
A Good War – by Mochni
Battle for Lordaeron
-
Battle for Lordaeron – by Gnomecore
- Navie’s thoughts: The Battle For Lordaeron – by Navimie
- The Battle for Lordaeron – by Gracie
-
We need a coup – by Fiannor
- Battle for Lordaeron – by Asmiroth
-
The Battle for Lordaeron – by Mochni
-
Player investment – by Gracie
-
Morally Grey – by Asmiroth
- The Siege of Lordaeron & The Parallels of Arthas – by Kaylriene
-
My last word on the subject – by Fiannor
- Win, lose or Draw – by Wildeheart
- No Tears For Teldrassil – by Kamalia
The two cinematics
A few links to wowhead with descriptions of the event
The role of Tyrande Whisperwind in War of the Thorns and Elegy
The Burning of Teldrassil – Fan Art
Wowpedia’s description of the event
Interviews
A lot of interviews were done after the event.
Many refered to it as Blizzard in need of “putting out fires”, because of how many players were unsatisfied with the storytelling that currently was going on in the game – In particular how it appeared almost misleading, to the stories we got from the two novellas from the Collector’s Edition of Battle for Azeroth.
I have tried to gather every interview, that I could find. I miss two, but I lost the links to them, please let me know if i missed any, you know.
ScienceAlert’s Interview with Alex Afrasiabi: Warcraft Storytelling – part 1
ScienceAlert’s Interview with Alex Afrasiabi: Warcraft Storytelling – part 1
ScienceAlert’s Interview with Alex Afrasiabi: Warcraft Storytelling – part 1
Cris Metzen interview with Scott Johnson on Art and Toxic Fandom
Wow-s game director responds to Battle for Azeroth’s night elf genocide drama and rocky pre-patch
Blizzard: There’s more to Sylvanas than World of Warcraft cinematics suggest
Screenshots
I gathered thousands of screenshots during this event. They can be found here, here, here and here, as well as down below.
That was all I had. Did I forget about something, you want us in 10 years to remember, when we might re-visit this blog post, then let me know 🙂
What a lovely thought to have as much on this event as possible in one place for all. I love it there are things here I have not yet seen thank you for bringing them to light.
I also absolutely love your screenshots. They push me to get more creative with my own. Im currently working on an entire button bars worth of camera swaps, emotes and macros towards that effort. I must know your secrets! 😀
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you, I am glad you think similar to me; I was not sure if it was just me. 🙂
Aw, thanks again. Yeah? Oh, let me know which swaps, emotes and macros! I can easily tour you through an edit of a screenshot, it is actually fairly simple. If you want, you can send over a screenshot you have taken, that you want editted and I shall see if I can come up with something 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, an archivist work is done top-notch 🙂 It will be interesting to get back in a while when the events unfold further and see what we felt.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thank you 🙂 That’s my thought behind this indeed – will be interesting to revisit this, once we gain more perspective and knowledge about the whole story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is a marvellous compilation of links and screenies. Very well done. I’ve dabbled a bit in it (not related to WoW or games) and I must say you always impress me with your skill and persistence. You never do anything half-heartedly ❤
This is history. I put the link to the Wayback Machine as backup. Hope it was alright 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you so much for your sweet words. I think that is my flaw, being a perfectionist (Only towards myself, never others). Sometimes I just need to let things go, and accept the outcome, I managed 🙂
But I do enjoy seeing things come together.
Oh, what does that mean, all that fancy stuff, is that the “internet storage” you told me about earlier? Of course, thanks so much for thinking of that ♥
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes one must not be too harsh on oneself ❤
Even great authors often say that they are never finished with writing a book, they just abandon it and publish.
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://alunaria.wordpress.com/2018/08/13/war-of-the-thorns-the-burning-of-teldrassil/
LikeLiked by 1 person
♥ Ooh, I see- That is so neat. Oh oh can we find old WoW forums there, do you think? It’s such a shame they were not kept on.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They were archived and put up later by some private initiative, but that site disappeared. But if we can find out the original URL to the official forums they could possibly be on archive.org!
LikeLiked by 1 person
So many different takes in this. This is a very good archival post. Neatly sorted as well. You even included interviews if game employees. It will be interesting to revisit this at the end of the expansion too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much. Yes, I found, that this event was simply too important – I had to do this.
LikeLike
Thank you so much for putting all of this information in one place. That’s a lot of work! I was worrying that I hadn’t taken enough screen shots to remember everything, but now I can cheat and come look at your excellent archive here 😀
I’ve seen my opinions on this story evolve just during the pre-patch stuff, I can’t wait to come back in a few months and revisit everything.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It really was. Thank you for appreciating it 🙂 Hah yes, you are more than welcome. And I have more screenshots if this ain’t enough… 😉
Same here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And that about sums it up! Thanks for the heavy lifting, Alunaria!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for appreciating it 🙂 Also. Heavy lifting…That’s from WoW…Which boss says that?
Edit: Oh, oh, found it!
* Soccothrates: “Did you call on me?”
* Dalliah: “Why would I call on you?”
* Soccothrates: “To do your heavy lifting now, most likely.”
* Dalliah: “When I need someone to prance around like an overstuffed peacoxx, I’ll call on you.”
* Soccothrates: “Then I commit myself to ignoring you.”
* Dalliah: “What do YOU know about commitment, sheet-sah?”
* Soccothrates: “You are the one who should be — Wait, we have company.”
Haha 🙂
LikeLike
Here are some more thoughts from a fellow Druid, Navimie of the Daily Frostwolf:
http://frostwolves.blogspot.com/2018/07/do-we-have-to-fight.html
http://frostwolves.blogspot.com/2018/08/tree-burning-reactions-and-heroic.html
http://frostwolves.blogspot.com/2018/08/navis-thoughts-old-soldier-cinematic.html
http://frostwolves.blogspot.com/2018/08/more-old-soldier-reactions-breakdowns.html
http://frostwolves.blogspot.com/2018/08/navis-thoughts-battle-for-lordaeron.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much. I am the first to admit, I am not as good as I want to be when it comes to reading blogs outside of the WordPress reader. Will add these right away 🙂
LikeLike