Will the Warlords have any personality whatsoever?

[Deleted]

I posted this one the official EU forums a few days ago but since it was "presumably" largely ignored by the blues I am reposting it here with the intent that the mmo-champ community will pick up on it and hopefully pester the devs on twitter or maybe even some would do post similar threads over on the US forums where it is more likely to get noticed by the dev team and receive a response. Here is the original:

We can all agree that WoW has attracted and still attracts different people for different reasons throughout the years. Blizzard has stated numerous times that their philosophy is gameplay first and everything else later. So far they have been fairly consistent about it and have continued to refine and improve our experiences within the game.

For many others though including myself the story has always been the main draw for every expansion. Although I wasn't particularly excited to hear that they would be bringing back characters that should've stayed dead in the first place and the whole traveling through the timeways thing sounds a little gimmicky I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

One aspect that the story team has consistently avoided ever since Wrath is not allowing the 'villains' of the subsequent expansions to grow as characters and form their own personalities and quirks. The Lich King might have been a little overused making appearances almost everywhere in Northrend but the difference between him and WoD is that now the focus is not just one but many antagonists left for us to explore and get to know.

Neither Deathwing nor Garrosh were that prominently displayed during their time in the spotlight though they could've shared more screentime with Ragnaros and Lei Shen without either becoming overbearing. What is worse we rarely got to interact with them during questing or running dungeons and they were supposedly the center pieces for their respective expansions. They were relegated to a few episodic appearances here and there until finally we killed them off - the reason given was always the same 'do it to them before they do it to us'. Deathwing never developed beyond that and we never got any reason as to why is that Garrosh believes orcs are superior the everyone. They just seem like mindless zombies hell-bent on destruction with nothing in between to make us want to get to know them.

Not every antagonist has to be devious and multidimensional but after the presentation that Chris Metzen gave at last year's Blizzcon the Warlords themselves seem to be very distinct from one another. Hopefully we will get to see what makes them who they are and go through their personal stories whilst leveling through Draenor.

Blackhand and Kargath have already been confirmed to be raid bosses and I believe there was a blue post about the latter on the US forums a few weeks back.

Please save Kargath Bladefist, Bashiok. You're his only hope. He needs to join the New Horde.

His... hand is a blade. Evil. That raid encounter writes itself, man.

Hopefully by the time we get to kill them off there would be a sufficient backstory to make the encounters seem more worthwhile than a few boss mechanics to learn. Characters such as Kilrogg Deadeye and Ner'zhul could usher in a new and fresh approach to end level content and storytelling because there are so many options for the story team to explore with them. Here's to hoping they won't be relegated to being one dimentional hulking boars but an Illidan like fully fledged character.

Thank you for reading!

[Akraen]

I hope they have -actual- personality and aren't all gruff ESFJs that want to smash our heads in.

We need a real proper evil INTJ mastermind or scorned INFP in reckless denial.

[Northem]

It would be epic every Warlord had a distinct personality ... Would it be too much to ask for Blizzard?

[Deleted]

I liked as Lei Shen turned out, and even, the somewhat questionable development of Garrosh. Maybe we see some of this in the Warlords.

I hope for some badass mastermind Gul'dan ... so my WL can learn something from him =), but as it is most of the time with mainstreamstuff, it'll are only some cruel bullys that someone needs to take down.

[Leare315]

I hope so. They spent way too much time exploring pandaria and not enough time exploring Anduin, Vol'jin, Garrosh, Lor'themar and Jaina this xpac, and this was pretty much their story. Wrathion, Taran Zhu,Nazgrim(i'm horde, dunno about the human) and The celestials all got plenty of spotlight, though.

We know Durotan's going to be a major player, what with him being the horde's go to man this xpac, and him being the only warlord standing against the iron horde. Hopefully each quest zone has some serious face time with these guys. I'm not sure what else they'd be talking about.