Yeah, post-Cata horde lore doesn't make me particularly happy either, in a lot of parts, especially the parts where Garrosh is...existing and being in charge of the Horde. It'd be less awful if he weren't actively taking the Horde from Thrall's "dammit, we just want to be left the fuck alone to do our own thing" Horde (which wasn't especially peaceful, but was about as close to it as I figure we're ever gonna see any time soon) to his ideal of a very...bloodthirsty, conquest-driven Horde that's intent on completely kicking the Alliance out of its territory completely. I know that Thrall was going on about how Garrosh is a good war leader, but, um. Thrall, have you actually seen Garrosh actually trying to accomplish tasks? He gets shit done, sure, but only by bulldozing over all the obstacles and not really paying attention to whether his allies/followers are particularly happy with his methods, which is fine in someone who's been sent to hold small, specific objectives! It's not exactly what you want in someone who is leading the entire faction. Garrosh cannot diplomacy worth a damn and, worse, thinks that this is a good thing. I kinda respect Thrall? But I don't think he's actually paid much attention to Garrosh, beyond being vaguely aware that people like the kid, he's an accomplished veteran who's the son of a war-hero, and he gets stuff done, and figuring that that'll be good enough to hold the Horde together till he's not busy with trying to fix how the Cataclysm broke the actual world. And...that honestly makes me sad, really, because it means that Thrall's never put any actual thought into who would take up the task of leading the Horde if the Alliance ever successfully took him out, and considering that Azeroth is constantly at war, that feels incredibly short-sighted. I'm not gonna lie, though, I like the Horde; I especially love the Forsaken. So I cope by internally RPing my Horde characters as just...quietly enduring Garrosh's crap and hoping that someone shanks him soon so that the Horde gets a more sane leader who isn't shoving the goblins and the trolls into literal slums. (Seriously, what the hell, Garrosh.) Spoiler: legion spoilers So I'm really excited to hear that Sylvanas has taken over the Horde, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with it. Even if the cost is that we don't have Vol'jin any more, because it bought us "fuck yeah, we don't have Garrosh in charge any more" and I will fucking take it, even if I think that's too high a price. I, um, really doubt that the tauren are gonna split and go to the Alliance, though, after some of the shit that the Alliance has pulled post-Cata, though; I think that bridge burned with Taurajo. But I've been dipping in and out of WoW since - hm, I think since late Burning Crusade / early Wrath? I did roll a DK at one point, and I remember getting so incredibly burnt-out on raiding because the guild I was with just...kept running us through the first half of the Lich King dungeons, and only ever the first half. Which is fine, for a while, because arguably we needed to gear up to do the rest of it and. Just. I have never seen the second half of that citadel, and I'm not sure if I ever will; I ended up leaving that guild (and briefly quitting WoW) because it became clear that they were really not interested in doing the whole dungeon with everyone. Augh, I know. I liked the novelty of it, that you were picking up a character who was (essentially) already pretty near the top of their career, and then having to rebuild their life after the Cataclysm hit. But dear god the starting zone was tedious to slog through. And I was finding it tedious right when it had first come out, which is a particularly bad sign when it's brand-new content. (Edited because I forgot to add a point about the tauren that was relevant to the reason why I pulled that quote.)
yes this so much! I am so tired of Alliance Good Horde Bad when the whole point of the Horde originally was like... scary-but-not-evil misfits banding together to help each other survive. and also the alliance has done some *massively* shady shit, like not paying the workers who rebuilt stormwind so that they had to turn to banditry for survival and revenge, and refusing to allow Westfall's refugees into their fortified town so that they had to either join the bandits or become prey for them. I want Vannessa VanCleef to burn Stormwind to the ground and not let them rebuild it till they pay the Stonemasons what they were owed plus interest, seriously fuck nobles so much. and being utter dicks to the high elf survivors/nascent blood elves and refusing to acknowledge the Forsaken's claim to Lordaeron when like 99% of the Forsaken are the original inhabitants of Lordaeron (seriously what is up with the writers thinking Stormwind is somehow in charge of All Humans when it was just one of *several* human countries that were half the time at war with each other, Jaina should never have been calling Varian "My king" at ICC, she's an allied ruler of an independant state with no ties to Stormwind at *all* past their alliance, isn't she originally from Kul Tiras?) anyway i think this rant got away from me a bit
but anyway yes! I really hope they let Sylvanas like... learn and develop and become a good leader who protects all the horde instead of being Yet Another Horde Villain that we end up having to put down. sadly the only other real option for who's going to go off the deep end and become a villain is probably Jaina, and there already aren't enough good women characters. like I mean Genn has really good reasons to hate Sylvanas, she wrecked his country and shot his son? but I want to see Sylvanas get... it doesn't even need to be a redemption arc, just a Put Down the Villain Ball And Don't Pick Up The Idiot Ball arc would be great! i just want to go back to about mid-Wrath and kick all the blizzard writers in the shins until they let me write everything, you know? yes i'm kind of rambling i am not a very organized thinky right now.
gonna make my OWN faction and call it the NOT DICKS FACTION. with blackjack and hookers pandas and tauren and wuffies and spacegoats and SOME belves and nelves cough cough, and anyone else who promises to NOT BE DICKS. also we will not make airships because every single airship ever gets crashed and burned SOMEHOW. also dorfs who want to join have to get a different accent. i'm sorry i don't make the rules. actually i do make the rules and that is a rule i am making. talking like Scottish Twitter is fine but i am sorry the accent and stock phrases they have now gets really grating really fast.
Ahaha, yeah, just - like. I don't ever actually do much WoW RP, but. Most of my characters think the Alliance is a bag of dicks for one reason or another, and my Forsaken characters think the Alliance is a bag of dicks because fuck you guys, they lived in Lordaeron, they died in Lordaeron, they were buried in Lordaeron, the Alliance doesn't get to steamroll in and say that they have no claim. (Especially the ones who're recent members of the Forsaken, too, where the starting area has the questline of seeing, quite bluntly, that the Alliance in general (and the Scarlet Crusade specifically) will not acknowledge Forsaken as even being real people, much less people with legitimate claims to anything.) And honestly (I say this having only hit level 51 so far, on my Forsaken mage), I'm not entirely sure that Sylvanas needs a redemption arc? She already dealt with 'okay, shit got fucked up, shit got way fucked up and that needs to be fixed', with the Plague incident, and that's still echoing through the quests, where every Forsaken plague-scientist is forever complaining about how they need to make weaker stuff than they could make. They could make you a plague that would wipe out everything alive in the whole area, Sylvanas, why won't you let them present you with a field full of corpses? (Because the last time she let them do that, she got betrayed.) I think part of the issue between the Forsaken and the rest of the Horde is, being undead is a fundamental change; just to take one of the most obvious things, food - the Forsaken (from what I can glean from the Undercity cooking quests) have most of their physical senses really muted - they don't taste subtle flavours as easily and they don't get as much plain enjoyment out of eating as a living person does, it's just a chore to them. So they don't bother with bold flavours, because they don't realize that it's not that all food tastes blandly the same, it's that they're not tasting it properly, and they don't bother with ingredients that require significant effort to get (like venison); cockroaches and mushrooms and swamp slime all tossed in a bowl with water and heated up are A Food, right? Charred bat-flesh and dubious spider-bits are A Food, right? And they don't quite get why the orc guards complain, because it's food - you don't eat food for fun, you eat it because you have to give your body energy. And a lot of other stuff too, like how a lot of the Forsaken NPCs complain about feeling numb or cold, how they feel disconnected from the emotions they know they had while they were alive. And they're all pretty paranoid (and, generally, fanatically loyal to Sylvanas) and find trusting anyone to be hard, much less anyone alive. ...basically, I think I headcanon that the magic that brings them back from the dead and keeps them running a) requires some energy input regularly. This is why Forsaken eat and drink too, even though they don't need to breathe and they can get away without eating something that a live person would classify as food. And b) it basically makes them lowkey depressed all the time, so that they forget what emotions are like except for things like hatred and anger, because those are the emotional equiv of dumping paprika into soup. (Also I feel like the stuff the Forsaken eat, on their own initiative, is equivalent to cheap instant ramen. It'll keep you going, it is not particularly healthy (but they don't care / don't realize, cos they're dead) and it costs very few spoons to make.)
I'm really hoping that Genn actually ends up being the Faction Leader Villain coming up. And maybe Malfurion, because he is a bag of dicks and Tyrande can do better. BUT I REALLY DON'T WANT IT TO BE SYLVANAS. Especially since [Legion spoilers] wrt some of Genn's actions (the worgen are relevant again!!!) makes me trust him less and less. And it'd be better than having Jaina take up the villain ball, since we're pretty low on relevant female characters in leadership roles to begin with.
it's great mostly playing pandaren because my faction logic gets to be 'well if this all goes tits up i'm just gonna head back to the turtle'
sadly we are probably stuck with both Malfurion and Illidan when really they should both be put in a sack together and thrown in the twisting nether. at least Cata got rid of Fandral Staghelm, seriously that guy was such a dick I once saw a bunch of alliance line up and cheer for the horde raid that was invading Darnassus when they went and killed him. (and then kick the horde raid's asses when they went for Tyrande.) I really like this possibility of Genn as Faction Leader Villain. Completely justified distrust of the Forsaken and desire for revenge taken too far without regard for consequences or other priorities LIKE THE LEGION COUGH COUGH would be an interesting story. Especially if watching him go too far is what pulls Jaina back from the brink.
That, and Faction Leader Villain is a pretty good way to make the Alliance relevant again. As infuriating as it is to get multiple Horde leaders in a row (and half of them dead!) at least that meant that the Horde got content. Don't fucking talk to me about the draenai and how goddamn shafted they got ON DRAENOR OF ALL GODDAMN PLACES
as much as genn is my Hot Werewolf Daddy i'd love if the alliance did get an actual 'bad guy'. people like to act like Jaina is even if her massive horde hatred is justified. i feel like they're just going to do more of the same shit though and have sylvanas just be another shitty warchief choice. then we'll kill her in a raid fight and blah blah blah more horde content but more mediocre horde content. maybe if that happens and she kicks the bucket for good baine will change his mind and step up and we'll have an actually sensible leader. also as a side note it's great how this is the expansion with a big chunk of draenei lore and it seems likely the next will have a lot of draenei involvement as well.. despite the fact that, you know, warlords would have literally been the perfect time for draenei lore. don't even get me started on how upset i am that the temple of karabor was sealed off AND shattrath was too.
We had a guild! A Draenai only guild! A roleplaying Draenai only guild that would help out draenai newbies in the starting zone! We were so hype for Legion, all of us, because we would all get to top level (we competed!!! it took our guild officers only a day and a half to hit top level at launch!!!! i skipped school for this) and then roleplay in Shadowmoon and!!! presumably!!! Shattrath!!!! BUT NO. NO. WE GOT ORCS. IM SO FUCKING GLAD THE ORCS GOT TO ORC THE ORC WITH THE ORCENING. ORCS.
orckity orc orc orc i hope you like beating up various colors of orcs because this is wod have fun the worst part is they have like 0 reason to go back to that content unless they use it for something else so it's not like they'll ever go back and give that world the attention and care that it deserved. pristine shattrath and karabor will always just be big sealed off buildings :(
Yrel not being a major Draenai faction character post-WoD is the biggest disappointment Blizz has ever given me, on top of every other disappointment they have forced me to bear.
yes. no killing off Sylvanas she is the only original leader the horde has left. and I am totally with you on Karabor and Shattrath, seriously WHY dammit. we could have had Karabor and, iunno, that ogre place the Frostwolves took over as *actual cities* instead of the dumb camps on pvp island. and Shattrath could have been a neutral city like it was in original BC. BUT NO.
and I mean don't get me wrong, it was neat seeing stuff like the arakkoa background and all but seriously, we got more lore on them than we did on the draenei ON DRAENOR. (also something that has been bothering me like forever, why do the orcs call it Draenor when (IIRC) draenei is the name the fleeing non-legion eredar gave themselves and draenor is from that? like no, what did they call the place before the refugees showed up?) also where DID Netherstorm come from, they teased bits of "oh it had to comee from someplace, Farahlon must be out there somewhere" in the garrison missions and then never did anything with that. and just. grrr. so many missed opportunities.
*pokes head in* Malfurryion whining for Tyrande was fucking hilarious. "TyrAAAANde!! I NEEED you! :((((" LET HIM DIE
Also what the fuck is up with Tyrande's accent. Why does she have an accent literally NO OTHER NIGHT ELF HAS. Why do you do this, Blizz.
LOL YES. And we're riding back to the temple and Tyrande's talkin' bout how great her relationship with him is, you know, WHILE HE WAS ASLEEP. FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. "I would go down and watch him sleep and have a one sided conversation with him, our love is so real" Tyrande, PLEASE. You deserve better than any of the Stormrage fucks, for the love of Elune.
