South Barrerns: Alliance: General Hawthorne

[Minikin]

Been leveling an alt to see the alliance side of the story in south barrens and just came across this guy. Seems really cool. Is there a character like him on the horde side?

Summary of what happens:
- He was the alliance general that realized that Taurajo was a soft target, not really a major one
- Found out that the greater hunters in taurajo were out on a hunt so he authorized an attack on it
- He ordered gaps in his lines to allow civilians to escape Taurajo, because he didnt want them being part of the battle
*(horde side from what I have read, not done the quest yet, is that those gaps lead to quilboar lands, not planned by him just how it ended up happening)
- He has looters in the ruins of taurajo thrown in chains for disrespecting the dead horde
- He keeps talking about peace and settling down, thinks that civilian casualties will never end the war. has a clear sense of what to do and not to do.
- His superior does not like his someone moderate stance to the war
- The ambassador with him thinks he is too soft on the horde
- Gets killed by horde assassins on his way to Fort Triumph. Basically horde thinks he left a gap but planned to do so by tricking the escapees into quilboar lands, getting them slaughtered, thus named him butcher of taurajo. But in actuality that wasnt his intention. Just more so shows how misunderstandings and grudges in war lead to endless conflict. Suspected that his superior and that ambassador betrayed him by letting the horde know when he will be on the move.

[Dalheim]

Horde gets the info about where he was from a corpse, iirc.

[Deleted]

Been leveling an alt to see the alliance side of the story in south barrens and just came across this guy. Seems really cool. Is there a character like him on the horde side?

Summary of what happens:
- He was the alliance general that realized that Taurajo was a soft target, not really a major one
- Found out that the greater hunters in taurajo were out on a hunt so he authorized an attack on it
- He ordered gaps in his lines to allow civilians to escape Taurajo, because he didnt want them being part of the battle
*(horde side from what I have read, not done the quest yet, is that those gaps lead to quilboar lands, not planned by him just how it ended up happening)
- He has looters in the ruins of taurajo thrown in chains for disrespecting the dead horde
- He keeps talking about peace and settling down, thinks that civilian casualties will never end the war. has a clear sense of what to do and not to do.
- His superior does not like his someone moderate stance to the war
- The ambassador with him thinks he is too soft on the horde
- Gets killed by horde assassins on his way to Fort Triumph. Basically horde thinks he left a gap but planned to do so by tricking the escapees into quilboar lands, getting them slaughtered, thus named him butcher of taurajo. But in actuality that wasnt his intention. Just more so shows how misunderstandings and grudges in war lead to endless conflict. Suspected that his superior and that ambassador betrayed him by letting the horde know when he will be on the move.

The dwarf actually is not his superior, if I remember correctly, but refuses to give the General the warning about the Horde ambush that the player brings him, because he thinks, it's going to piss off even the 'moderate' Alliance forces enough that they will insist on retaliation.
That questline pissed me off real bad, it's so stupid that our characters would go along with that. And it's also showing quite nicely how a single asshole can turn everything to shit.

[Minikin]

The dwarf actually is not his superior, if I remember correctly, but refuses to give the General the warning about the Horde ambush that the player brings him, because he thinks, it's going to piss off even the 'moderate' Alliance forces enough that they will insist on retaliation.
That questline pissed me off real bad, it's so stupid that our characters would go along with that. And it's also showing quite nicely how a single asshole can turn everything to shit.

ah i thought the superior wasnt revealed, (i just hit fort triumph and his widow arrived to mourn) in the part of the story iam at so far. It just said "they" dont agree with his stance. the other commander is using his death as a front, quote was something like "hawthorne would want his death avenged with biblical proportions", when we know given the previous quests that he wouldnt.

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Horde gets the info about where he was from a corpse, iirc.

hmm gonna have to find out. if the corpse is ambassador gains then i guess he wasnt betrayed, if not...still going with that the general was betrayed for being a good person

[Deleted]

ah i thought the superior wasnt revealed, (i just hit fort triumph and his widow arrived to mourn) in the part of the story iam at so far. It just said "they" dont agree with his stance. the other commander is using his death as a front, quote was something like "hawthorne would want his death avenged with biblical proportions", when we know given the previous quests that he wouldnt.

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hmm gonna have to find out. if the corpse is ambassador gains then i guess he wasnt betrayed, if not...still going with that the general was betrayed for being a good person

I don't remember the exact quote, it's been a few years since I played it, but I played it both Horde and Alliance and kept thinking I want to kill the real worm, not the General. ^^ (played Alliance first and then Horde. It's quite a tragedy)
And he was betrayed, but by the one that you turn the quest in to before. I think it was a dwarf. That one knew what was going to happen and why and prevented the General and the others from getting that info. The others are stupid too and abuse the General's death for some more warmongering, but as far as I remember they don't actually send him to his death.

[Magnagarde]

I remember this scenario from way back in Cataclysm. Went through it with my tauren at first and then on my worgen. I think that all the ihabitants of Bael'modan paid the price for this too as far as I remember? You get a quest from a goblin to set the dwarven fort up with explosives.

[Deleted]

I remember this scenario from way back in Cataclysm. Went through it with my tauren at first and then on my worgen. I think that all the ihabitants of Bael'modan paid the price for this too as far as I remember? You get a quest from a goblin to set the dwarven fort up with explosives.

This is yet another one, where someone tries to make things worse by driving everybody into a revenge frenzy, but the final guy that you turn that quest in to, at the Ogre outpost in Dustwallow, iirc, prevents this in the case of the Bael Modan quest. The Alliance guys at Fort Triumph go full retard and the Horde in Dustwallow tries to promote peace or at least not mindless revenge.

[Magnagarde]

This is yet another one, where someone tries to make things worse by driving everybody into a revenge frenzy, but the final guy that you turn that quest in to, at the Ogre outpost in Dustwallow, iirc, prevents this in the case of the Bael Modan quest. The Alliance guys at Fort Triumph go full retard and the Horde in Dustwallow tries to promote peace or at least not mindless revenge.

I remember from that quest that Taurajo and Bael'modan are destroyed.

[Deleted]

That's right. You get to the Alliance questing after Taurajo is already destroyed and I'm not sure about Bael Modan, because I keep mixing the 'new' quest up with the one from Vanilla, but I think you destroy Bael Modan in the last queststep before you go to ... a Tauren, I think?.. and he sends you to Dustwallow Marsh with a message of how he wants revenge and the guy you hand it in to then replies that he understands, why the Tauren would want that, but we shouldn't go along with it.
I'll have to go there for my Allied Races questing just to refresh my memory of it, it's been so long ago and I avoided Barrens since then because I hated the fact that my character could not have the stupid dwarf hanged ^^

[Minikin]

I don't remember the exact quote, it's been a few years since I played it, but I played it both Horde and Alliance and kept thinking I want to kill the real worm, not the General. ^^ (played Alliance first and then Horde. It's quite a tragedy)
And he was betrayed, but by the one that you turn the quest in to before. I think it was a dwarf. That one knew what was going to happen and why and prevented the General and the others from getting that info. The others are stupid too and abuse the General's death for some more warmongering, but as far as I remember they don't actually send him to his death.

ah kk ill update when im done with it, should be tomorrow or something. so far, the ambassador with him ambassador gaine's got intel from our collections at Taurajo that there is a warrant out for the head of general hawthorne. he reads it just says "interesting..." and ends it there. the very next quest is hawthorne thanking you for your efforts, telling you to go to fort triumph and that he will meet you there. as you ride off down a messenger runs up to you near fort triumph that general hawthorne was ambushed and killed on the road and strung up like some dog.

when i got to fort triumph his body is in the tower on a table, with his widow there. the commander outside using it for revenge. the ambassador no where to be seen right now. but my current quest is to go talk to the dwarven leader of Bael Modan, so it is still active. I will see what happens next.

[Dalheim]

ah i thought the superior wasnt revealed, (i just hit fort triumph and his widow arrived to mourn) in the part of the story iam at so far. It just said "they" dont agree with his stance. the other commander is using his death as a front, quote was something like "hawthorne would want his death avenged with biblical proportions", when we know given the previous quests that he wouldnt.

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hmm gonna have to find out. if the corpse is ambassador gains then i guess he wasnt betrayed, if not...still going with that the general was betrayed for being a good person

The corpse is from a spy dressed up as an Orc in the Horde fortress (dont remember the name) that you kill.

[Magnagarde]

Think the opportunistic dwarf traitor wanted the general dead so he can move up in the ranks or he simply wanted to kill civilians, which he couldn't under this guy.

[Marrilaife]

The dwarf actually is not his superior, if I remember correctly, but refuses to give the General the warning about the Horde ambush that the player brings him, because he thinks, it's going to piss off even the 'moderate' Alliance forces enough that they will insist on retaliation.
That questline pissed me off real bad, it's so stupid that our characters would go along with that. And it's also showing quite nicely how a single asshole can turn everything to shit.

The irony is the guy really wanted the war with the horde so bad and in the end all it brought him was causing his son to die. Which of course got him even more pissed & bloodthirsty.

But overall it's a good written zone, it shows both factions in ambiguous light instead of "here you go these are the bad guys". Similar thing with Stonetalon - you get a horde guy who wants everything bombed and you got another (a Tauren) who wants diplomacy but it ends with his family killed as far as I remember. However Garrosh throws the bomberman general off a cliff as a punishment.

I liked these stories. Contrary to for example most Forsaken stories where it always ends "just press the I WIN button, drop the plague, problem solved". I really don't like the post-WOTLK Forsaken lore. I hope BFA brings something more than "Sylvanas uses plague for n-th time driving all opponents away or killing them".

Now that I think of it, many interesting horde stories involve Tauren (like 1000 needles) and I hope with the addition of Highmountain allied race, we'll get more of their stories.

[Nekosom]

God I hate so many things about those quests from an Alliance perspective. Blizzard, especially during Cataclysm and Mists, just could never let Alliance players have any fun. Always stuck being the goody-two-shoe. I remember watching Cata previews and seeing the Ruins of Taurajo thinking, "Finally, the Alliance are going to act a little naughty!" Then you play the zone and not only was Taurajo a major mistake that players don't get to participate in, but that all you get to do in Taurajo is arrest looters. I couldn't believe it. It's a warzone and we're arresting looters. I honestly couldn't blame the guy who let Hawthorne get killed. I'd be frustrated too if my commander was obsessed with playing fair while the other side was doing anything but.

Really hoping for more from BfA on that front.

[Kaleredar]

God I hate so many things about those quests from an Alliance perspective. Blizzard, especially during Cataclysm and Mists, just could never let Alliance players have any fun. Always stuck being the goody-two-shoe. I remember watching Cata previews and seeing the Ruins of Taurajo thinking, "Finally, the Alliance are going to act a little naughty!" Then you play the zone and not only was Taurajo a major mistake that players don't get to participate in, but that all you get to do in Taurajo is arrest looters. I couldn't believe it. It's a warzone and we're arresting looters. I honestly couldn't blame the guy who let Hawthorne get killed. I'd be frustrated too if my commander was obsessed with playing fair while the other side was doing anything but.

Really hoping for more from BfA on that front.

Well the Alliance would have probably got more "war" quests if Blizzard hadn't just given them all to the Horde to finish instead.

Gilneas storyline? Finished by the Horde. Hillsbrad? Horde. Azshara? Horde.

I feel like Blizzard was far more interested in showing the "elemental devestation" quests to the Alliance and then the "alliance vs horde" quests to the horde.

...which makes the results of those altercations seem very one-sided.

[Mormolyce]

Yeah it was a good bit of lore. The revamped zones in Cata actually had some of the best writing of any WoW zone, and all people ever did was piss and moan about them...

God I hate so many things about those quests from an Alliance perspective. Blizzard, especially during Cataclysm and Mists, just could never let Alliance players have any fun. Always stuck being the goody-two-shoe. I remember watching Cata previews and seeing the Ruins of Taurajo thinking, "Finally, the Alliance are going to act a little naughty!" Then you play the zone and not only was Taurajo a major mistake that players don't get to participate in, but that all you get to do in Taurajo is arrest looters. I couldn't believe it. It's a warzone and we're arresting looters. I honestly couldn't blame the guy who let Hawthorne get killed. I'd be frustrated too if my commander was obsessed with playing fair while the other side was doing anything but.

Really hoping for more from BfA on that front.

Maybe don't play Alliance if you don't like the fantasy of being the good guys.

[Minikin]

The irony is the guy really wanted the war with the horde so bad and in the end all it brought him was causing his son to die. Which of course got him even more pissed & bloodthirsty.

But overall it's a good written zone, it shows both factions in ambiguous light instead of "here you go these are the bad guys". Similar thing with Stonetalon - you get a horde guy who wants everything bombed and you got another (a Tauren) who wants diplomacy but it ends with his family killed as far as I remember. However Garrosh throws the bomberman general off a cliff as a punishment.

I liked these stories. Contrary to for example most Forsaken stories where it always ends "just press the I WIN button, drop the plague, problem solved". I really don't like the post-WOTLK Forsaken lore. I hope BFA brings something more than "Sylvanas uses plague for n-th time driving all opponents away or killing them".

Now that I think of it, many interesting horde stories involve Tauren (like 1000 needles) and I hope with the addition of Highmountain allied race, we'll get more of their stories.

definitely. when i finished up in bloodmyst (that area needs smoother quest direction, freaking guy sent me to the same place three times for different things!) i had to chose where to go and many people said southern barrens has a really well done story, so away i went. it so far has been well worth it.

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God I hate so many things about those quests from an Alliance perspective. Blizzard, especially during Cataclysm and Mists, just could never let Alliance players have any fun. Always stuck being the goody-two-shoe. I remember watching Cata previews and seeing the Ruins of Taurajo thinking, "Finally, the Alliance are going to act a little naughty!" Then you play the zone and not only was Taurajo a major mistake that players don't get to participate in, but that all you get to do in Taurajo is arrest looters. I couldn't believe it. It's a warzone and we're arresting looters. I honestly couldn't blame the guy who let Hawthorne get killed. I'd be frustrated too if my commander was obsessed with playing fair while the other side was doing anything but.

Really hoping for more from BfA on that front.

in a way i agree with you, but partially i also see why it is that way. Blizzard shows alliance and horde in a different light (the pandaren make it pretty clear). I dont mind the goody two shoes thing so much as incomplete stories. For example @Marrilaife pointed out the forsaken thing, which i totally agree with. The forsaken are anchored to their plague, its like all they do and its getting kind of bleh. you spend quests upon quests perfecting it and then using it as an I win. Gets boring. Which sucks because I was very interested in the Forsaken quests then lost interest, given their history. It fast becomes a very genocidal undead vs living kind of thing.

The horde is a force of action and complex. The alliance is linear and a reactionary force. That is my opinion honestly. Because the way I see it, if they horde never came to azeroth, wed just be a bunch of scholars or farmers. There wasnt much happening here between factions (besides the whole well of eternity thing) until they came along. As metzen said, "this grand alliance was formed as a response to these badass orc warlords"

[Kaleredar]

Yeah it was a good bit of lore. The revamped zones in Cata actually had some of the best writing of any WoW zone, and all people ever did was piss and moan about them...

My issue about the Cataclysm zones is that they were never... fixed.

Cool, big spectacle things are cool and big but only as just that... SPECTACLE. Like, that giant elemental towering over the volcano in ashenvale? Yeah, he's cool (though they could've picked a model that wasn't just a fire elemental)... until you realize he's ALWAYS there, ALWAYS shouting, and the area is in a constant state of upheaval. Even after you defeat him... yep, still there, volcano is still erupting... same with the defias in Westfall. They attack sentinel hill and... just keep attacking it. Every time you go back there, it's still under attack. I get that Cataclysm was supposed to be this constant state of turmoil, but you never feel like you're having an affect on setting the world straight... which would be okay if the quests didn't show that you were. But they do, and you never see that part.


So I really see it as in line with Cataclysm as a whole... really cool beginning, really "meh" follow through.

[Mormolyce]

My issue about the Cataclysm zones is that they were never... fixed.

Cool, big spectacle things are cool and big but only as just that... SPECTACLE. Like, that giant elemental towering over the volcano in ashenvale? Yeah, he's cool (though they could've picked a model that wasn't just a fire elemental)... until you realize he's ALWAYS there, ALWAYS shouting, and the area is in a constant state of upheaval. Even after you defeat him... yep, still there, volcano is still erupting... same with the defias in Westfall. They attack sentinel hill and... just keep attacking it. Every time you go back there, it's still under attack. I get that Cataclysm was supposed to be this constant state of turmoil, but you never feel like you're having an affect on setting the world straight... which would be okay if the quests didn't show that you were. But they do, and you never see that part.


So I really see it as in line with Cataclysm as a whole... really cool beginning, really "meh" follow through.

That's just the way WoW's zones work.

[Kaleredar]

That's just the way WoW's zones work.

I felt it was largely an issue in Cataclysm, though. Which is strange considering that phasing had just become a huge thing in Blizzard's arsenal.


Perhaps some of it had to do with the zones being "revisited..." that is, we when we saw a NEW zone (Like howling fjord or Netherstorm or whatever) whatever weird shit we saw going on there we just "assumed" was par the course for that zone. But we knew places like Ashenvale were relatively calm and serene and seeing them upset and then STAY upset was just particularly jarring... which is fine for a first impression... but they just stayed that way, and you don't get the feeling that the story of the zone really went anywhere. And they had the ability to make that not the case.

For my previous example with the lava guy, think of it this way... Say you enter Ashenvale, and you see the volcano, and see the big bad guy, and see all the lava and the boiling lake it's causing. That's what it's like now. Say you do the quest chain and you defeat him. The fiery guy is phased out and the volcano stops erupting at the end of the quest and it stays that way. (not how it is now) Cool, now we're getting somewhere. You feel like you had an impact on the zone. You'd get a feeling of "hey I remember the time I stopped that huge lava bad guy!" every time you wandered past the area, instead of the "didn't I kill that guy..." feeling you get now. Hell, to put icing on the cake you could have some later quest that takes you BACK to that area and now you see it phased so that plants have started growing back in the region and there are some NPCs helping clean up the destruction. THAT'S satisfying.

And I think the lack of that is why people felt Cataclysm's story telling was lacking. Because they shook up the zones, had you ostensibly fix them in the quests, and then... they were just never actually shown to be fixed.