Going to Landfall with the Alliance Navy.

[Notamonk]

Is this a big "no no" or is this okay? Instead of writing my story as a human raised by night elfs I was thinking of changing it so that John would grow up in Theramore and survived the explosion, leaving him with nothing blah blah, goes on an Alliance Naval ship that came looking for survivors and was supposedly heading to Stormwind after their search, but crashes on a mysterious island (that's Pandaria if you didn't already know lol) and leave it at that for now.

Now obviously I'm going to go into more detail then "blah blah blah", but I was wondering if this was okay or if I should be doing something else instead.

[The Madgod]

If you're not the guy who goes and helps the alliance with whatever the hell you people are doing to screw us Horde over, then there's no reason for you not to be part of it. It's an army, and armies are made up of some named commanders, and then a legion of nameless faces. As long as you're the latter, there's no problem.

Much better than humans being raised by night elves (since he'd be a teenager if that were so, since humans have only known night elves for just a few years)

[Notamonk]

Ooh did I strike a nerve madgod? lol

My intentions weren't to have John join the army straight away or at all for that matter; infact not once did I mention that John was inscripted to the army. He was or is going to be rescued by an Alliance naval ship's crew members and was/is going to be taken back to Stormwind but instead the ship is thrown off course (yet to decide how this happens) and ends up crashing on Pandaria.

Think of as like.. Robinson Crusoe meets Indiana Jones (i.e adventurer/explorer) and has a secret love child with World of warcraft! xD lol

It's going to be amazing... trust me.. *insert maniacal laugh*

[The Madgod]

Not really, just injecting humor into my actual point

I'm literally saying you can't be that guy who helps all the faction leaders in the quests you get after doing dailies since that breaks the lore in the exact same way you would if you claimed you killed say VanCleef... but I assume you got that :P

[Mengucekli]

Alliance screwing horde over? Hahahah, that was the best joke i have heard about WoW Madgod, one of which i haven't heard of for at least 8 years..

[The Madgod]

If you really think the Alliance hasn't screwed over the Horde, then you should probably re-read lore, sir

[Khorianas]

The Story itself sounds okay. Just try to find an explanation for John being on exactly the ship that ends up on Pandaria; was it rerouted suddenly? Some kind of explanation should be there, since Pandaria is a bit an off shot for a tour to stormwind. : D

Also on Topic alliance screwing Horde over,

Garithos, and Varessa Windrunner come to mind, both for shunning the Sin'dorei. Also the Explorer's League blowing up sacred Tauren Land. *Looks at his RP Chars* What do you mean Biased, Alliance scum? :P

[Notamonk]

I never said I was going to be that guy madgod gheeze! Anyways I'm going to make this character profile regardless; post it and become internet famous and /dance in my piles of internet points and popularity. I should probably make a twitter so people who wish they were me can find out what I'm doing and thinking so they can mimic everything I do.

Damn it feels good to be internet famous.. lol

[Mengucekli]

Talking about blowing places up heh? Funny ain't it? I mean, there was an entire Alliance island naval base city you know.. WAS. And before that even happened, i just simply can't count the number of battles horde won outright. And i might remind you that Garithos is such a bad written character, he shunned elves but had no problems allying himself with Sylvanas' forsaken in a very small amount of time. So much for Metzen, and character consistency. Come on, we all know the winning side in WoW, and its Green Jesus and his freak show.

I was horde for 6 years by the way. Rp preferences is something else.

[The Madgod]

Lets not get ahead of ourselves, Monk.

And Meng... If you hate the lore so much, why are you here?

[Mengucekli]

I said nothing about hating now, did i? I believe, after 8 years of gaming, i have the humble privilege of criticising some bad sides of the lore as well. No need to be so hostile.

[The Madgod]

You're the one who's ignored a lot of the lore and has fallen into the terrible trap of calling Thrall the "Green Jesus" and calling the Horde a freak show... and said that the Horde's persecution by the Alliance was a joke. I mean really here...

I'm not being hostile. I'm asking a simple question. And you've answered it. Though personally, I don't think playtime is an important factor. I've been playing for eight years and I don't think that such alone is enough for me to be able to criticize blizzard. I'm a walking warcraft lore encyclopedia, I've been roleplaying in a warcraft setting for four+ years, and I've been writing my OWN world and seeing just how much effort is required for such. Just playing the game and paying attention to the direct story I don't think is really... enough. Sure, people have a right to an opinion, but to actually criticize and say "I could have possibly done better"? No. Not in the slightest.

[Mengucekli]

I liked Warcraft better when Thrall was warchief and there were no books about the game. But that's my opinion and i guess i am free to enjoy the game in however the heck way i like it.

Also there were no reasons for Metzen's avatar to become world shaman and Eartwarden and one of the aspects (honorarily i guess?) to almost single-handedly save the world. There are many heroes and good characters in Warcraft lore that would have made the experience much better, or at least meaningfull. There is no point in denying the fact that (even Metzen is confirming) Thrall is Metzen's character in WoW so he is favouring him. And horde is a freak show, i said this for the sake of fun. I (used to) play a walking talking bull making jokes about milks and moos.

But i will debate no further on this matter because what you said neither proves that the lore (and the writer) is flawless to the point of no-possible-to-criticise, nor explains your unnecessary hostility.

[The Madgod]

I liked Warcraft better when Thrall was warchief and there were no books about the game. But that's my opinion and i guess i am free to enjoy the game in however the heck way i like it.

Also there were no reasons for Metzen's avatar to become world shaman and Eartwarden and one of the aspects (honorarily i guess?) to almost single-handedly save the world. There are many heroes and good characters in Warcraft lore that would have made the experience much better, or at least meaningfull. There is no point in denying the fact that (even Metzen is confirming) Thrall is Metzen's character in WoW so he is favouring him. And horde is a freak show, i said this for the sake of fun. I (used to) play a walking talking bull making jokes about milks and moos.

But i will debate no further on this matter because what you said neither proves that the lore (and the writer) is flawless to the point of no-possible-to-criticise, nor explains your unnecessary hostility.

It's this exact thing that I'm talking about, mate. It's this willing suspension of facts concerning lore that just bothers me. There's basically nobody who'd be able to replace Thrall as World Shaman, simply because he's been propped up to be such since Warcraft III, the time when you actually liked him. Because he becomes a more influential character, because of a rather obvious reason, you suddenly hate him? There's no reason for it. If you want to say that he had too much time as a primary character for the story, that's a perfectly fine argument... but to say you think his character was somehow lessened because of this, when really his character was fleshed out even more and was quite frankly pretty well written, you need to supply evidence.

If you don't want to debate it, that's fine... but please, don't put words in my mouth and don't take my posts in that way. I'm a passionate man. It's not hostility, or at least, it isn't meant to be.

[Sal the Shieldhog]

It's this exact thing that I'm talking about, mate. It's this willing suspension of facts concerning lore that just bothers me. There's basically nobody who'd be able to replace Thrall as World Shaman, simply because he's been propped up to be such since Warcraft III, the time when you actually liked him. Because he becomes a more influential character, because of a rather obvious reason, you suddenly hate him? There's no reason for it. If you want to say that he had too much time as a primary character for the story, that's a perfectly fine argument... but to say you think his character was somehow lessened because of this, when really his character was fleshed out even more and was quite frankly pretty well written, you need to supply evidence.

If you don't want to debate it, that's fine... but please, don't put words in my mouth and don't take my posts in that way. I'm a passionate man. It's not hostility, or at least, it isn't meant to be.

I think the real reason many (Not saying you do, Mengucekli, just my opinion from chatting with people) hate the "green Jesus" is that he isn't the humble Warchief anymore. He's, as you said Madgod, changing and developing further as character. Some, such as those who don't wish to see him change (You yourself Mengucekli, said you preferred when Thrall was simply the Warchief), blame Metzen for choosing Thrall as his avatar (a fact I consider somewhat ludicrous, especially considering Metzen has stated his favorite character is Malfurion). Others blame it on Horde favortism ("The leader of the Horde as the expansion poster boy?!? Blizzard obviously likes Horde more!!!"), Lore imbalance, and the like.

Secondly, arguing against Mengucekli's points, Thrall has been set up for a role of this nature. He was the first shaman in years, his actions literally shook the foundations of the world. If memory serves, Drek'thar said Thrall was the strongest shaman he'd ever met. These points alone set Thrall up to fix the Cataclysm. I don't think Thrall single-handedly saved the world; even if the game did a poor job portraying this, it was through a combination of the Horde and Alliance's efforts, the shaman as a whole, various other groups, and the adventurers, along with Thrall, who saved the world. As for the whole "Thrall is a Dragon Aspect now" thing, I believe Christie Golden described it more as Thrall merely connecting the Aspects to the spirit of Earth. He wasn't an Aspect, more like a conduit, if you will, allowing the Spirit to help the Aspects complete themselves.

This is mostly just my opinions and observations, but I still believe the Thrall hate comes from the simple fact of people not liking change and the direction the writers are taking the lore.

But we're getting a bit OT here, for Notamonk's idea, I don't think it'd be a bad idea if, say, the Alliance vessel he was on was chased by a Horde warship, both got caught in a sea-storm, wrecked (much like the cinematic intro for MoP), and landed on Pandaria. I doubt Anduin's ship was alone (rather, I doubt Varian would let 1 ship and her crew guard Anduin); Perhaps Notamonk's ship was one of these, or a cargo ship following in their wake. Smething of that nature.

[Khorianas]

To come back to the topic at hand, Monk, I would really like to point at the reason for the ship changing course, since it is a rather central point of your idea. A naval vessel will not take that much of a detour for one storm. the sheer strength needed for that much deplacement would outright sink any ship. (blatant assumption by me but I feel it is correct.) So please find a proper reason for the Detour, there are plenty of suggestions here. I don't want to put any pressure on you but for me personally the execution of this aspect will matter a lot.

[Mengucekli]

I will try to elaborate one more time. Hate does not equal to dislike. For the sake of logic, please do not throw accusations around if something is not the way you see it. I said nothing about hate. Thrall is my favorite character (favorite means i like him most) in WoW universe, and undoubtly the best written one (compared to others), in my opinion. But that has nothing to do about my other opinion about him going all Green Jesus. I did not like the way they did this. And i strongly believe there could have been a better conclusion to the story with other characters as well. That does not mean i outright hate Thrall. Horde favoritism is something else to debate on, i will not go that way for the sake of not ruining OP's thread. On the other hand, about great characters and stuff they do, i want to give you one simple example: Do you remember who is Khadgar? Have any ideas what he did past 7 years? Nothing? A huge nothing that is. Danath Trollbane? Come on. Those guys are legends, i mean real legends. Refer to WC2. And Khadgar sits there, licking A'dal's boots for the last 3 expansions, and before that he was a mere quest giver. Those two are only exapmles to keep this post short. There are A LOT of other well developed characters Metzen wasted for the sake of Thrall. And only after a millenia of people crying on the forums, Blizzcons and whatnot, pleading for attention for their favorite (or simply liked) characters, Metzen accepted the fact that Thrall took too much of the spotlight. I mean, after 8 years or something. Come on, i am an aging living being. I can not wait my entire life for Metzen to turn his glorifying gaze towards other characters. Did he really say he liked Malfurion? Hahah (I used to like him too, when he was actually doing something, back in WC3).

On topic, sorry for the disturbance notamonk, i allways find the sea-faring stories intriguing. It would be perfect explanation fro him being in Pandaria too. Maybe put family roots back even to Kul Tiras? You know some sailors of Kul Tiras moved on to Theramore when Jaina first passed on to Kalimdor. That would add even more depth to his character i guess, but it all depends on how you like it.

[Notamonk]

To come back to the topic at hand, Monk, I would really like to point at the reason for the ship changing course, since it is a rather central point of your idea. A naval vessel will not take that much of a detour for one storm. the sheer strength needed for that much deplacement would outright sink any ship. (blatant assumption by me but I feel it is correct.) So please find a proper reason for the Detour, there are plenty of suggestions here. I don't want to put any pressure on you but for me personally the execution of this aspect will matter a lot.

I haven't had much time to think about it; but I was thinking something along the lines of the captain of the ship (yet to be named) receives word of allot of Horde activity *insert direction of Pandaria* of their current location and they're requested to scout the area and *insert mysterious fog and crash into pandaria*.

John wakes up and finds himself on a beach shrouded by large over hanging trees and exotic plant life that he has never seen before; still in shock over what had just happened he blindly yells for help and for the other crew members of the ship. Unaware of who or what was listening to his cries for help.

Not but moments later he noticed something from the corner of his eye moving the leaves atop the strange plant life; unaware of what it could be John steadily rose to his feet kneeling in the sand and slowly lifting himself stumbling back and forth almost as if he was in a drunken stupor. John cried to the being in the tree top "Please... help me." John quickly fell back down and began to black out. As he was blacking out going in and out of consciousness he noticed something.. a large powerful looking being launch it self towards John. When the creature made impact with the beach beside John he blacked out from the sheer force of the landing.


Just an idea I had for the character bio; presumably how he finds Pandaria, etc. Not really sure who I want to make the creature that was stalking John to be though. Maybe I'll change it up so he makes a camp and notices someone or something watching him then BOOOM NEW CHARACTER INTRO! lol

But yea, looking forward to being able to sit down and really think about this and writing it all out!

[xensorlol]

Lol. Alliance screwing over Horde... which faction mana-bombed Theramore again.. ? Yeah. We did. >

[Notamonk]

You just had to bring it up again didn't you... well atleast Alliance are smart enough to not mess up their own emoticons while trying insult them! ;D lol

Edit: Exhibit A.

>

lol