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  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    Technically, yes. The First War was entirely between the Orcish Horde and the Humans of Stormwind, whereas the Second War expanded the conflict to include Dwarves, Gnomes, Elves, Trolls, Ogres, and Goblins. It also expanded the region of the conflict to Lordaeron, basically the entirety of the Eastern Kingdoms. You could say the same thing of WW1 and WW2, if you wanted; in that WW1's conclusion led inexorably to what would become WW2.
    Was there even a timeskip between said wars though? WW2 takes place 20 years after WW1 thats a whole another generation, WWI did end technically with a treaty.

  2. #42
    The Insane Syegfryed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MyWholeLifeIsThunder View Post
    I think it's because of scope; The Pandaria conflict was mostly restricted to that continent; in terms of escalation, each of the Great Wars has had a larger scope than the previous. First War was orcs and Humans in a part of Southern EK, Second War on most of the Northern half and some isles and Draenor, Third War both Kalimdor and EK and Draenor.

    The pandaria conflict didn't reach as high stakes in terms of theaters as the Third War so that might be why it wasn't consider as a Fourth War -would have been if Garrosh hadn't been cut short- In contrast, while we really are seeing the blood war in some areas, it's clear that it was a global conflict that kept escalating.

    Like overall, it's hard to disagree that the scope of the pandaria conflict and the blood war is different with the last one being far more global. Garrosh's reign felt cut short to reach that level, specially on how long the Horde as a whole followed him in contrast to Sylvanas.
    the wtlk-mop war was also global, it also went long than bfa shitshow

    Bfa "war" resume to 2 shit warfronts, zandalar and kul'tiras and some war table quests

    the previous war had conflicts all over the continents in cataclysm, tol barad, twilight highlands, tanaris, and so on

    The reason is just Blizzard mistake, like people commented, they want exclusivity and/or didn't want to people see how bfa is a copy paste

  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by Syegfryed View Post
    the wtlk-mop war was also global, it also went long than bfa shitshow

    Bfa "war" resume to 2 shit warfronts, zandalar and kul'tiras and some war table quests

    the previous war had conflicts all over the continents in cataclysm, tol barad, twilight highlands, tanaris, and so on

    The reason is just Blizzard mistake, like people commented, they want exclusivity and/or didn't want to people see how bfa is a copy paste
    I'm just offering an in universe explanation, and to mee, the Blood War felt like a far more explosive and world-wide affair than the more simmering skirmishes of Cata that ended on MoP.

    What I am saying, it's that it makes sense for me why this is the 4th War and not the previous Alliance/Horde conflict, which was more of an escalation that ended on a short burst, unlike the Blood War that started with a major burst followed by another, and the escalation going on from there. IMO it makes sense why this war was seen as the 4th War from its start.

  4. #44
    Moderator Aucald's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matthias View Post
    Was there even a timeskip between said wars though? WW2 takes place 20 years after WW1 thats a whole another generation, WWI did end technically with a treaty.
    A few years, yes - about 5 according to most chronologies. It took some time for Lothar to gather up the dispossessed survivors of Stormwind and the surrounding region, and then time to make the voyage across the sea northwards toward Lordaeron while avoiding the Horde, and then more time for Terenas Menethil II to take stock of what happened and gather to him the Grand Alliance of Lordaeron to prepare for a Horde invasion.

    WW1's treaty is largely considered an unmitigated disaster by most parties, and its terms led directly to the growing conflict that become WW2. The 20 years between WW1 and WW2 were also not free of conflict and are generally called the Interwar Period by historians. The Spanish Civil War was probably the most noteworthy of the Interwar Period's conflicts, though it also includes the Corfu incident and the Italo-Ethiopian War.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  5. #45
    The Insane Syegfryed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MyWholeLifeIsThunder View Post
    I'm just offering an in universe explanation, and to mee, the Blood War felt like a far more explosive and world-wide affair than the more simmering skirmishes of Cata that ended on MoP.

    What I am saying, it's that it makes sense for me why this is the 4th War and not the previous Alliance/Horde conflict, which was more of an escalation that ended on a short burst, unlike the Blood War that started with a major burst followed by another, and the escalation going on from there. IMO it makes sense why this war was seen as the 4th War from its start.
    the "universe explanation" we could give its just that the war didn't rly end at SoO, what is bullshit, but they can try to say it was just a ceasefire, to masked their visible mistake

  6. #46
    I mean, the Third War doesn't make much sense either.

    First War: Stormwind vs Horde. Ends with Stormwind's defeat. OK.
    Second War: Alliance vs Horde, ends with the Horde's defeat, still in the same ballpark.
    Third War: Alliance vs Horde... then Alliance vs dead bois then dead bois vs elves then Horde versus Night Elves then Horde versus demons then Night Elves versus Alliance + Horde then all three vs demons and then in Frozen Throne it just gets stupid, if that's counted. It's less a continuous conflict than a series of regional wars converging on a final battle. But regardless, it's not about Alliance vs Horde overall, so its position in the scheme seems owed solely to it being featured in Warcraft III.

  7. #47
    Moderator Aucald's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    We disagree indeed. I think muddling Vol'jin's mind is a cheap plot device. Not only because it cheapens the character (he is supposed to be a Shadow Hunter, speaking with spirits and loa is what he does, his class flavor, if you will), but because it raises the question why nobody doubted his ramblings - including himself. Particularly since they happened during a Legion invasion, when Dreadlords trying to manipulate things was a very real concern. It's a rolling ball of stupidity knocking down characters who are supposed to be wise. It's funny what you said about drama requiring people to be dumb... Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, said you never want your heroes or your villains to be dumb, because then you don't have any stakes anymore. I tend to agree with him.
    Or, you could consider his closeness to (and reliance on) the Loa to be a weakness that Mueh'zala (himself a Loa) exploited well. As for his appointment of Sylvanas there were concerns raised, and Vol'jin himself addresses those concerns - but a combination of the gravity of the situation, Vol'jin's own seeming conviction, and the fact that Sylvanas had just worked to save the Horde at the Broken Shore serve to convince most of the assembled. As for your take on Breaking Bad, I'd agree; but also underscore a difference between characters being dumb, and dumb decisions being made. No one is immune from dumb error, no matter how smart there are - we are all fallible and much of drama relies on that very fallibility. The key in making it "good writing" is to make that fallibility believable - and that is ultimately a subjective line every reader or view makes in the sand for themselves. I can buy Vol'jin being conned by a veritable god of death speaking to him in the midst of a crisis.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    And even if we accept that, the change from "they whisper" to "a whisper" still stands out. It goes back to the Vol'jin's quest chain BFA and is confirmed by Mueh'zala in the Shadowlands voice files as "one little whisper". You go back to your classic habit of constructing an explanation for it, which I already told you doesn't sit well with me. There is no functional need to make this change either, other than to streamline the reveal. It still raises the question "Who did Vol'jin think was whispering to him?", and it makes one wonder why he went in search of a single entity from the start. Perhaps the BFA chain would have played out better if he thought he knew the answer, but when he visited those spirits, they told him it wasn't them. As it is, it leaves other questions open - who removed his memories and why? Because Mueh'zala's plan was to torture him, and he didn't get him anyway. Come to think of it, Mueh'zala being Bwonsamdi's boss also doesn't jive with parts of the BFA quest chain.
    That's more a semantic nitpick than a real argument, in my view. One voice or many doesn't really matter overly, and you can simply assume that Vol'jin is being florid about "the spirits" as opposed to enumerating them in the plural or what have you. Mueh'zala could've also been talking directly through him, especially since Vol'jin had no memories of what had happened - making a temporary form of possession all the more likely, and meaning that Mueh'zala was basically using Vol'jin's body as an oven mitt and saying whatever he felt needed to be said to smooth the transition over. I assume we'll learn more about Mueh'zala and Bwonsamdi's relationship in the Shadowlands story itself, which will tell us more about what happened.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    Well, it's been a pretty hotly debated topic since at least Legion, people got invested.

    And it is a frustrating time to be Horde on these forums, with all the gloating and people getting morally outraged if we even tried to enjoy our story. It's ironic how lore-wise the Horde committed its darkest deeds in BFA, but as a Horde fan I feel like we were abused and we are still being bullied. Somehow this is supposed to be ok because some Horde NPCs burned Teldrassil and killed some other NPCs. Meanwhile, we are not supposed to be upset about losing Sylvanas, Nathanos and the Forsaken identity, but rather happily kill the former and cheer for the latter. It's just daft when it comes to fandom engagement.

    And the worst part is the gloating is unearned. It's like Legion asked us "How much is 1+1?", I say "2", the class dunce says "3", and then BFA came and said "Sorry, the question was actually 1+2, the second person got it right".
    I don't really disagree there, though I don't consider myself "Horde" or "Alliance" insofar as that goes - I play both sides and enjoy both perspectives pretty much equally. I do think Teldrassil was a bridge too far for the Horde, myself; and I feel bad for anyone who got buy-in from WC3 for their Horde identification. In way it kind of sucks either way - because the "let's be evil" group finds themselves hard-stopped by Sylvanas being deposed and a new Horde leadership ostensibly devoted to peace being instated, and the "noble Horde" group still have to bear the stigma of Teldrassil and the atrocities of the Blood War conducted by Sylvanas (as well as the legacy of Garrosh's warmongering).

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    Then we can only judge them at the end of Shadowlands, or whenever the missing puzzle pieces fall into place (not that people speculate too much about those). But how much can we allow ourselves to be dragged along through a non-committal story with no answers?
    I've found there's a pretty big divide between there not being any answer, and people not liking the answers we receive. The questions are typically answered - but whether or not you like those answers depends on your subjective take.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    That all comes from hindsight though - which is the same as saying retcon. I certainly wasn't expecting the Horde to deviate from that line so hard and so fast without a more quantifiable reason.
    That's not really what a retcon is. "Retcon" is perhaps this forum's most misused term, with "Mary Sue" as the close runner-up.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I won't claim to know who is responsible for this story, and even if I knew, like I said, I believe they can do better... But this was one of the most poorly handles arcs in World of Warcraft history, especially relative to how much weight was put on the story. I mean, TBC failed to explain a lot of things, but the lore was minimal back then. Cata was pretty crap, but it was sort of a transition between the narrative-light TBC and Wrath and the more complex MoP, and they did a lot of work on old zone quest revamps. WoD felt like it skipped a bit, but that's because it did. BFA had narrative threads set up from Legion, it had lots of voice acting, popular characters, high stakes, a highly dramatic conflict, access to high quality cinematics, promises of a GoT-like moral greyness, and a writing team basically given free rein.
    There's always the potential for improvement - but I think it's a misstep to judge a story on what could have been, and better to judge it for what it was. I actually think Cata had a good story behind it, it was the gameplay elements that got a bit botched. WoD, however, I can't really help there - I think that's a case where "rule of cool" storytelling ran amok and required a number of narrative wedgies to "fix" later on. BfA has similar issues, though not nearly as bad a WoD in the story department - mainly in BfA I think they wanted a particular arc to move from A to B to C but didn't give a lot of thought about the extended ramifications of said story elements.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I can't even fathom what went wrong. I mean, the pacing alone... As Horde players, we've been out of the war since 8.2.5, and Nathanos still gives most of our world quests. Doing Heroic Darkshore doesn't make any sense, while Alliance can imagine they're clearing out Forsaken rebels.
    Warfronts and World Quests that stuff is all a product of its timelocked status, that's kind of been status quo since the early days of WoW.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I'm not sure it will stick, it's too complex and too bland at the same time. Like you said above, the game needs conflict to drive its story forward, and this council ain't gonna provide it. And WoW always bets on brand recognition. The concept of Warchief is iconic, cool and nostalgic. It gets people to fist pump, unless you turn it into a joke. Will this New Horde be as appealing without one? The "bad leader on the throne", like I said, is a false problem, because it can just as easily apply to a King.
    WoW is at its best when said conflict comes from external sources, IMO. The Horde and Alliance in a tenuous teeth-clenched teamwork arrangement against third-party threats like the Legion, the Scourge, or the Old Gods. You get plenty of adventure, drama, and conflict in such a scenario with the need to force either faction to be "the bad guy" and so forth. That's my $0.02 anyways.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I doubt we'll get that many more allied races. It can get old. I'm hoping for another set by the end of BFA, but beyond that I wouldn't bet on it.
    I think we'll find the Shadowlands covenant races (in part or in their entirety) are going to be the next Allied Races in WoW. I would be very surprised if the next expansion ends without a few of them making the jump to playable - my money is at least on the Kyrians and the Venthyr, but possibly also the Night Fae and the Maldraxxans.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  8. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by rayvio View Post
    well Warcraft 3 didn't actually feature a war between the Horde and Alliance so I guess Cata/MoP should really be considered the third war
    How do you figure? The Blackrock Orcs assaulted various towns around Lordaeron. Grom and Thrall sacked multiple Alliance bases around Stonetalon. Daelin invaded Durotar and started butchering orc settlements, ultimately leading to the Horde storming Theramore and executing him. It wasn't as grand as the first and second wars in terms of scope, but the war definitely saw the two factions fighting.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Matthias View Post
    Maybe you lore heads can explain this to me but....

    Aren't the First War and the Second War...technically the same war? The Second War starts right after the Alliance regroups after the fall of Stormwind....seems like the same conflict to me though.
    One could make that claim, though the first war was between the Orcs and the kingdom of Azeroth (hence renamed as Stormwind with no explanation given), while the second war saw the Horde opting to attack a new target and included all of Eastern Kingdoms and known Draenor.

    Really, it's an easy device to refer to events within one of the "Warcraft" games.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    Because Blizzard's current writers are that flippant about lore. The funny thing is, they kind of screwed themselves out of giving a reasonable explanation for it. They can't retcon which conflict was called the Third War because Zekhan mentions it to Saurfang as something that happened in a relatively distant past, and they can't claim that Wrath to BFA was one continuous war because if it was, people who fought in Wrath, Cata, MoP and even Ashran and Legion would be able to call themselves "Veterans of the Fourth War" as well, and the achievement is clearly for the BFA campaign only (this is ignoring the fact that the end of SoO was presented as a very clear end to hostilities at that time). But bless you @Aucald for struggling to make sense out of this one.
    Yeah, the Alliance-Horde War is distinct from the 4th War. Legion introduced items that gave strategic information in the event of the 4th war, indicating nothing that came before Legion was considered the 4th War.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    Just like the Third War wasn't a single conflict (e.g. the sacking of Lordaeron, the sacking of Quel'Thalas, the invasion of Kalimdor, the conflict in Ashenvale, and finally the unified Alliance/Horde/Kaldorei forces vs. the Burning Legion at Hyjal)...
    I always assumed the third war ended with Daelin's death and Arthas' merging with the Lich King.

  9. #49
    Mists of Pandaria: The Fake War blizzard wants us to forget.

    I guess its because of the scale of it or something similar.

  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aresk View Post
    I always assumed the third war ended with Daelin's death and Arthas' merging with the Lich King.
    The Third War is presumed to have ended at Battle of Mount Hyjal, with the death of Archimonde at Nordrassil. The conflict with Daelin and Thrall's Horde later on wasn't really part of the Third War. Arthas' merging with the Lich King was an another event which nonetheless gave rise to another threat later on to be handled in WotLK.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    The Third War is presumed to have ended at Battle of Mount Hyjal, with the death of Archimonde at Nordrassil. The conflict with Daelin and Thrall's Horde later on wasn't really part of the Third War. Arthas' merging with the Lich King was an another event which nonetheless gave rise to another threat later on to be handled in WotLK.
    It just seems odd to not count Daelin's actions as part of the war given that he had chased after Thrall when the orcs stole the ships, and then went to Kalimdor due to Jaina's departure of Lordaeron before the Legion destroyed it. It was the continuation of a conflict from the Darkspear Isles and the fallout from the attack on Lordaeron. If you don't consider the conflict between the Horde and Kul Tiras during Thrall's exodus as part of the Third War and instead focus on the Cult of the Damned's plotline in Lordaeron through the culmination of the Burning Legion's invasion, then the Third War's plot is really all about Ner'zhul and his schemes on getting free from Legion control (as mentioned by Kel'thuzad), which culminated in Arthas claiming the armor from the frozen throne. In terms of the narrative, they feel like parts of the Third War, even if the overarching threat had been dealt with prior (similar to WW2 ending four months after Germany's surrender).

  12. #52
    Moderator Aucald's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aresk View Post
    It just seems odd to not count Daelin's actions as part of the war given that he had chased after Thrall when the orcs stole the ships, and then went to Kalimdor due to Jaina's departure of Lordaeron before the Legion destroyed it. It was the continuation of a conflict from the Darkspear Isles and the fallout from the attack on Lordaeron. If you don't consider the conflict between the Horde and Kul Tiras during Thrall's exodus as part of the Third War and instead focus on the Cult of the Damned's plotline in Lordaeron through the culmination of the Burning Legion's invasion, then the Third War's plot is really all about Ner'zhul and his schemes on getting free from Legion control (as mentioned by Kel'thuzad), which culminated in Arthas claiming the armor from the frozen throne. In terms of the narrative, they feel like parts of the Third War, even if the overarching threat had been dealt with prior (similar to WW2 ending four months after Germany's surrender).
    You could call Daelin and Arthas collateral damage of the Third War, more or less; but regardless of their key roles in later events the Third War is still considered concluded with the defeat of Archimonde and the end of the Legion threat. I would say Daelin's conflict is more akin to the Cold War that followed WW2, a hotspot of trouble but not itself a theater of the same war before it.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  13. #53
    It's called "the Fourth War" because Blizzard has the audacity to pretend that BFA was as "epic" as a full-fledged "Warcraft 4" would've been.

  14. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by WFD1992 View Post
    I mean, wasn't the fourth war the war that took place between the Alliance and the Horde and later the Alliance+Darkspear Rebellion and Garrosh's Horde?
    well one makes the alliance look a little antagonistic and the other makes the horde look like absolute warmongers.

    since they cant have the alliance look bad. and the horde must be the engine that propels drama.....TADDAAAA.......4TH WAR.
    Blood Elves were based on a STRONG request from a poll of Asian players where many remarked on the Horde side that they and their girlfriends wanted a non-creepy femme race to play (Source)

  15. #55
    Wouldn't it be because they are only counting "wars with the legion" in this numbering system?

    First war: The war of the ancients (Original legion invasion resulting in the sundering)
    Second war: The orcish invasion of OG Warcraft (Was a legion plot).
    Third war: WC3, the war against the scourge (was a legion plot, involving actual demon invasion)
    Fourth War: Legion (Legion invasion again, which wraps up just before BFA starts).

    They don't count Faction wars (Horde vs alliance) because they arent legion involved.
    Last edited by Surfd; 2020-07-05 at 07:53 AM.

  16. #56
    Long comment, little time to reply so far, but I'll give it a try now:

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    Or, you could consider his closeness to (and reliance on) the Loa to be a weakness that Mueh'zala (himself a Loa) exploited well. As for his appointment of Sylvanas there were concerns raised, and Vol'jin himself addresses those concerns - but a combination of the gravity of the situation, Vol'jin's own seeming conviction, and the fact that Sylvanas had just worked to save the Horde at the Broken Shore serve to convince most of the assembled. As for your take on Breaking Bad, I'd agree; but also underscore a difference between characters being dumb, and dumb decisions being made. No one is immune from dumb error, no matter how smart there are - we are all fallible and much of drama relies on that very fallibility. The key in making it "good writing" is to make that fallibility believable - and that is ultimately a subjective line every reader or view makes in the sand for themselves. I can buy Vol'jin being conned by a veritable god of death speaking to him in the midst of a crisis.
    Dumb decisions can be interesting so long as they get explored in a compelling way. In this case, exactly how Vol'jin was tricked doesn't even seem to matter to the story. It feels like nothing more than a blunt explanation for the change of narrative direction. Legion story line building up to faction conflict expansion - Horde must be on board with Sylvanas, so Vol'jin props her up with an epic speech. Later, as faction peace is pushed once again and Sylvanas is moved into a villain role, that needs to be changed up, so waddaya know, Vol'jin was tricked by Mueh'zala, quick, let's kill him in a dungeon, and we can disregard that vision bit.

    I feel like Blizzard is trying to take a George R.R. Martin-esque stance on visions and prophecies at the moment. It's not just Vol'jin, a lot of prophecies proved to be false, misguided, incomplete or simply lies and manipulations: Elisande's visions about the future of the Nightborne, Xe'ra's vision about Illidan, the vision Sargeras showed to Kil'jaeden, Velen's visions in general, Zul's prophecies about Zandalar, the old god visions (the three lies told by the boy king and so forth), and I'm sure there are more. Unless we're talking about some obscure prophecy concerning the player saving everyone in a leveling zone, they're all wrong. As much as I like this take in a story like ASoIaF, where the setting is realistic and the prophecies and visions matter less than what various human beings do because of them, in WoW it raises a couple of problems.

    First of all, they don't feel like a commentary on superstition or a realistic feature of the world. WoW is already over the top in plenty of aspects. We've got time travel pop up at least once per expansion, we have planet-sized lasers and swords, we have planet souls speaking through dwarves made of diamonds, we stood toe to toe with gods, and we are canonically chosen ones who can return from the dead and were tasked to carry the very heart of said planet soul. The touch of realism provided by the message that "prophecies are wrong" doesn't really change the tone of the overall lore (and we had plenty of prophecies who were exactly right, of course).

    Also, let's not forget that this is an MMORPG, featuring numerous flavors of cultures and races. Such a diverse high fantasy world should have room for characters who can legitimately speak with the loa/spirits and have legitimate visions and prophecies. Should they be limited in scope? Of course. But they shouldn't be plain wrong or outright manipulative so often, because that will undermine the flavor of such spiritual characters and cultures. Why would anyone trust, let alone revere, a Shadow Hunter if they can be so easily... ehmm... trolled?

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    That's more a semantic nitpick than a real argument, in my view. One voice or many doesn't really matter overly, and you can simply assume that Vol'jin is being florid about "the spirits" as opposed to enumerating them in the plural or what have you. Mueh'zala could've also been talking directly through him, especially since Vol'jin had no memories of what had happened - making a temporary form of possession all the more likely, and meaning that Mueh'zala was basically using Vol'jin's body as an oven mitt and saying whatever he felt needed to be said to smooth the transition over. I assume we'll learn more about Mueh'zala and Bwonsamdi's relationship in the Shadowlands story itself, which will tell us more about what happened.
    It's not semantic at all!

    Plural implies multiple entities are in agreement. A consensus among multiple parties will always weigh more than advice from one guy. It lends the whispers more credence. No matter how you spin it, there are only three options here: either this is a retcon, heavily implying that their original plan was different, or they employed manipulative writing for the original cinematic to make sure Horde players were on board, or there's much more to the story and Mueh'zala is either lying or wrong (an interpretation which would be likely in ASoIaF, but basically tinfoil in WoW).

    No, your explanation that Vol'jin was being puppeteered doesn't work. Not only is it even more revisionist than knocking down multiple whispers to one, but it doesn't even line up with the more recent interpretations of the event. Mueh'zala himself describes it like this: "Azeroth lies in ruins due to one little whisper to this foolish troll". No claim is made that he was in control of Vol'jin's actions and words.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    I don't really disagree there, though I don't consider myself "Horde" or "Alliance" insofar as that goes - I play both sides and enjoy both perspectives pretty much equally. I do think Teldrassil was a bridge too far for the Horde, myself; and I feel bad for anyone who got buy-in from WC3 for their Horde identification. In way it kind of sucks either way - because the "let's be evil" group finds themselves hard-stopped by Sylvanas being deposed and a new Horde leadership ostensibly devoted to peace being instated, and the "noble Horde" group still have to bear the stigma of Teldrassil and the atrocities of the Blood War conducted by Sylvanas (as well as the legacy of Garrosh's warmongering).
    I said this before, but I will repeat it because I think it's an important take.

    The problem with Teldrassil is that any Horde character/player who went through that quest chain is implied to be complicit in the burning - i.e. they just stood there as the decision was made, the order was given and carried out and the tree became completely engulfed beyond any hope of rescue for any of its denizens.

    On one hand, Alliance players are justified in feeling that any payback for Teldrassil will be hollow so long as the collective group represented by the Horde PCs get away scot-free (even more so if they get to parade themselves as heroes alongside the Alliance in the end). On the other hand, these events weren't voluntary or really even satisfying for most Horde players, so a punishment/contrition narrative would honestly be sickening to me (and the latter would also be out of character for the few who did find it satisfying).

    I want to be wrong, but it feels like, in wanting to be edgy and GoT-esque, the writers set themselves up to disappoint at least one faction, possibly both. At the moment it's leaning towards both. Ironically, the only satisfying pay-off I can think of is a return to the status-quo: Tyrande revives the murdered Night Elves and Teldrassil is regrown, and Sylvanas switches sides at the end (either because that was the plan all along or because she realized she'd be losing, but she'll certainly claim it was the former) and the Horde accepts her back to the Alliance's chagrin. Basically WoW's version of Bobby Ewing showing up in the shower.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    I've found there's a pretty big divide between there not being any answer, and people not liking the answers we receive. The questions are typically answered - but whether or not you like those answers depends on your subjective take.
    The problem stems from the poor continuity. It was the writers who decided they could handle story arcs spanning multiple expansions. So far it feels like the pacing suffered (foes that could have had their own expansions were crammed in a single patch, and the war zipped by way too quickly), and there are severe doubt that the ongoing mysteries will be resolved in a logical, non-flippant way. If all the hanging pieces fall into place in a believable way, it will be hard to argue against the result even if we aren't happy with it (see the Red Wedding). But if the results are unsatisfying and the narrative is shaky, then they might as well retcon it again, why not?

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    That's not really what a retcon is. "Retcon" is perhaps this forum's most misused term, with "Mary Sue" as the close runner-up.
    A retcon is a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency.

    I don't think many people would have argued after MoP that the position of Warchief was strong. Pretty much all the core races except the orcs and maybe some goblins had rebelled against Garrosh in full, and most of the surviving orcs would have been the ones who sided with Vol'jin or at least agreed to stand down (and certainly most orcs wouldn't have been blind Sylvanas loyalists due to cultural reasons). To say that the Horde still had an issue with blindly obeying their Warchief can only be a retcon, and a monstrously idiotic one at that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    There's always the potential for improvement - but I think it's a misstep to judge a story on what could have been, and better to judge it for what it was. I actually think Cata had a good story behind it, it was the gameplay elements that got a bit botched. WoD, however, I can't really help there - I think that's a case where "rule of cool" storytelling ran amok and required a number of narrative wedgies to "fix" later on. BfA has similar issues, though not nearly as bad a WoD in the story department - mainly in BfA I think they wanted a particular arc to move from A to B to C but didn't give a lot of thought about the extended ramifications of said story elements.
    I'm not sure what part of Cata you liked so much. Thrall was absolutely ruined in it. He was at the same time way too overpowered and important, ineffective, over the top and boring. The villain was not interesting, some of the zones had trite stories (I'm looking at you Uldum) or were counter-flavor (Night Elves in fire caves), and the climax was fairly lame, involving wacky adventures through time, filler antagonists in uninteresting settings and a plain-looking laser-firing McGuffin.

    WoD had a strong beginning and very cool atmosphere. Its main problem was a failure to develop Grom's character properly, resulting in a meme-worthy conclusion, but it was still fairly satisfying. Sure, the cosmic premise was a bit silly and raised some meta questions they preferred to sweep under the rug instead of committing to an explanation, but Shadowlands poses the exact same problem, so the jury is still out on how much better than WoD this arc will be.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    Warfronts and World Quests that stuff is all a product of its timelocked status, that's kind of been status quo since the early days of WoW.
    Of course, but for a Horde player doing World Quests for Emissary, Heroic Darkshore for the 460 ilvl gear, mission tables or invasions, it still breaks immersion. I can't remember any expansion where this was such a glaring issue.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aucald View Post
    I think we'll find the Shadowlands covenant races (in part or in their entirety) are going to be the next Allied Races in WoW. I would be very surprised if the next expansion ends without a few of them making the jump to playable - my money is at least on the Kyrians and the Venthyr, but possibly also the Night Fae and the Maldraxxans.
    Personally, I wouldn't want that. Bringing those races back to Azeroth would break the other-worldly mystique of the Shadowlands and would be more of a shark jump moment that the time traveling in WoD. Maldraxxus doesn't even have a proper playable race anyway. There are plenty of cool mortal races that should take precedence if Blizzard is going to add more allied races - Mogu and Sethrak for one.

  17. #57
    Moderator Aucald's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    Dumb decisions can be interesting so long as they get explored in a compelling way. In this case, exactly how Vol'jin was tricked doesn't even seem to matter to the story. It feels like nothing more than a blunt explanation for the change of narrative direction. Legion story line building up to faction conflict expansion - Horde must be on board with Sylvanas, so Vol'jin props her up with an epic speech. Later, as faction peace is pushed once again and Sylvanas is moved into a villain role, that needs to be changed up, so waddaya know, Vol'jin was tricked by Mueh'zala, quick, let's kill him in a dungeon, and we can disregard that vision bit.

    I feel like Blizzard is trying to take a George R.R. Martin-esque stance on visions and prophecies at the moment. It's not just Vol'jin, a lot of prophecies proved to be false, misguided, incomplete or simply lies and manipulations: Elisande's visions about the future of the Nightborne, Xe'ra's vision about Illidan, the vision Sargeras showed to Kil'jaeden, Velen's visions in general, Zul's prophecies about Zandalar, the old god visions (the three lies told by the boy king and so forth), and I'm sure there are more. Unless we're talking about some obscure prophecy concerning the player saving everyone in a leveling zone, they're all wrong. As much as I like this take in a story like ASoIaF, where the setting is realistic and the prophecies and visions matter less than what various human beings do because of them, in WoW it raises a couple of problems.

    First of all, they don't feel like a commentary on superstition or a realistic feature of the world. WoW is already over the top in plenty of aspects. We've got time travel pop up at least once per expansion, we have planet-sized lasers and swords, we have planet souls speaking through dwarves made of diamonds, we stood toe to toe with gods, and we are canonically chosen ones who can return from the dead and were tasked to carry the very heart of said planet soul. The touch of realism provided by the message that "prophecies are wrong" doesn't really change the tone of the overall lore (and we had plenty of prophecies who were exactly right, of course).

    Also, let's not forget that this is an MMORPG, featuring numerous flavors of cultures and races. Such a diverse high fantasy world should have room for characters who can legitimately speak with the loa/spirits and have legitimate visions and prophecies. Should they be limited in scope? Of course. But they shouldn't be plain wrong or outright manipulative so often, because that will undermine the flavor of such spiritual characters and cultures. Why would anyone trust, let alone revere, a Shadow Hunter if they can be so easily... ehmm... trolled?
    That implies that the developers didn't know where they were taking the story - and they've told us already the storyboard is already prepped 2-3 expansions into the future pretty much at all times. I mean, you could make the claim that the devs are lying, but you'd need to present some kind of evidence to prove that. Sure. they do change some aspects of the story mid-swing if they're not working out, but major elements like the fate of Sylvanas don't be like something you can do a body-swerve on and keep your intended story intact. As for prophecies - well, best not to believe in them much at all, or at least consider the source. The Light tells us the prophecies that would shape the future in the ways it wants to shape it (what it considers the "true" path), whereas the Void tells us prophecies that are all possibilities because the Void views all possibilities as mutually true even if they're exclusive. Sargeras didn't really show Kil'jaeden or Archimonde a "vision" inasmuch as he simply deceived them for his own purposes, whereas Elisande was simply a mortal being trying to make sense of omniscience (the time-sense accorded to her via the Nightwell) and basically failing at it. Prophecies in WoW *can* be right, sure; but the odds are no greater than that of guessing for all intents and purposes.

    As for the Loa, like the Trolls themselves, not all of them are good and many of them are self-serving and solely self-interested. They may be powerful and give their adherents power in turn, but they've never had the wisdom one expects of greater beings.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    It's not semantic at all!

    Plural implies multiple entities are in agreement. A consensus among multiple parties will always weigh more than advice from one guy. It lends the whispers more credence. No matter how you spin it, there are only three options here: either this is a retcon, heavily implying that their original plan was different, or they employed manipulative writing for the original cinematic to make sure Horde players were on board, or there's much more to the story and Mueh'zala is either lying or wrong (an interpretation which would be likely in ASoIaF, but basically tinfoil in WoW).

    No, your explanation that Vol'jin was being puppeteered doesn't work. Not only is it even more revisionist than knocking down multiple whispers to one, but it doesn't even line up with the more recent interpretations of the event. Mueh'zala himself describes it like this: "Azeroth lies in ruins due to one little whisper to this foolish troll". No claim is made that he was in control of Vol'jin's actions and words.
    That's definitely semantic, sorry - you're quibbling about the term "plural" after all. Perhaps it is a fundamental change to what Vol'jin previously claimed (though I still consider it more or less flowery language on Vol'jin's part), but it's simply not of consequence. Whether it was Mueh'zala acting alone or a susurrus of Loa doesn't change anything about what happened, what Vol'jin relates, or what will happen later in Shadowlands. Mueh'zala also doesn't have to make any positive claim for the whole possession angle to be true - perhaps temporary possession is what a "whisper" entails for a being Mueh'zala. Perhaps Mueh'zala is lying because he wants to aggrandize himself and minimize Vol'jin, who really knows? Either way, it's not really consequence. As for whether or not it's a retcon we'll get to below.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I said this before, but I will repeat it because I think it's an important take.

    The problem with Teldrassil is that any Horde character/player who went through that quest chain is implied to be complicit in the burning - i.e. they just stood there as the decision was made, the order was given and carried out and the tree became completely engulfed beyond any hope of rescue for any of its denizens.

    On one hand, Alliance players are justified in feeling that any payback for Teldrassil will be hollow so long as the collective group represented by the Horde PCs get away scot-free (even more so if they get to parade themselves as heroes alongside the Alliance in the end). On the other hand, these events weren't voluntary or really even satisfying for most Horde players, so a punishment/contrition narrative would honestly be sickening to me (and the latter would also be out of character for the few who did find it satisfying).

    I want to be wrong, but it feels like, in wanting to be edgy and GoT-esque, the writers set themselves up to disappoint at least one faction, possibly both. At the moment it's leaning towards both. Ironically, the only satisfying pay-off I can think of is a return to the status-quo: Tyrande revives the murdered Night Elves and Teldrassil is regrown, and Sylvanas switches sides at the end (either because that was the plan all along or because she realized she'd be losing, but she'll certainly claim it was the former) and the Horde accepts her back to the Alliance's chagrin. Basically WoW's version of Bobby Ewing showing up in the shower.

    The problem stems from the poor continuity. It was the writers who decided they could handle story arcs spanning multiple expansions. So far it feels like the pacing suffered (foes that could have had their own expansions were crammed in a single patch, and the war zipped by way too quickly), and there are severe doubt that the ongoing mysteries will be resolved in a logical, non-flippant way. If all the hanging pieces fall into place in a believable way, it will be hard to argue against the result even if we aren't happy with it (see the Red Wedding). But if the results are unsatisfying and the narrative is shaky, then they might as well retcon it again, why not?
    Eh, I didn't really feel my Horde character was necessarily complicit in the burning, mostly because I had no agency in the decision nor did actually carry out it out. I'd feel very differently if the scenario had a part in it where I literally lit the ordinance that was fired at Teldrassil or some such. I definitely didn't feel good about from the Horde perspective, but I still felt and continue to feel that the primary mover of that event was Sylvanas. Mind you I can't speak for every Horde player, so there may be some who do feel complicit in the act, and I wouldn't blame them for that.

    I think the developers were just wrong about how Teldrassil would fall on the playerbase. I would hazard that if you were a fly on the wall during the planning of BfA, you'd find the developers just wanted something *big* to happen, something to shake up the status quo and up the stakes for the coming faction conflict. But the combination of railroading players on the Horde coupled with the fact that there could be no real resolution to conflict beyond an armistice for the Alliance created a situation that couldn't help but to disenfranchise a wide cross-section of players. Basically it was just a case where they didn't think this plot develop through fully, and now they sort of have to haphazardly paint over it while brushing it under the rug, so to speak. I will not be surprised if Shadowlands basically acts as a big reset button for the WoW franchise, and callbacks to BfA will be kept at a minimum. I've put forward a few theories on how they might try to "fix" the mistakes of BfA, such as bringing all the dead from the Blood War back to life due to some kind of shenanigans in the Maw. It would be a terrible thing to do lore-wise, but it would basically "reset" the problem of Teldrassil despite being a narrative cop-out.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    A retcon is a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency.
    That's not what a retcon is, though. Retcon means "retroactive continuity," and it's a narrative device that retroactively alters an established continuity, e.g. altering past events to account for current or future circumstances. What you're talking about is called a re-contextualization, information that re-contextualizes past info and forces a reinterpretation of current or future circumstances, but explicitly does not change said event(s). A great example of a true retcon in WoW is the Eredar/Draenei retcon, in which the Eredar were originally one of the evil demonic races sealed away by Sargeras and later freed when he went mad. This was retconned in TBC with the Draenei having been good previously, but then corrupted into becoming demons by Sargeras - except for the splinter-group under Velen who came to be on Draenor and so forth. As you can see here, past events were explicitly altered to allow the Draenei to exist, and that change was applied retroactively to the continuity of WoW. Imposing a different interpretation does not need a retcon, especially if no previous interpretation exists outside of wild mass-guessing or epileptic trees (aka tinfoil-hat theorizing) from the fandom. Re-contextualization can simply be basic story development. A Hitchcockian or Shyamalan-esque "twist ending" would not be a retcon, for example; even if it does force you to reinterpret what you previously thought was happening in the story.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I don't think many people would have argued after MoP that the position of Warchief was strong. Pretty much all the core races except the orcs and maybe some goblins had rebelled against Garrosh in full, and most of the surviving orcs would have been the ones who sided with Vol'jin or at least agreed to stand down (and certainly most orcs wouldn't have been blind Sylvanas loyalists due to cultural reasons). To say that the Horde still had an issue with blindly obeying their Warchief can only be a retcon, and a monstrously idiotic one at that.
    The Horde's issue with the position of Warchief has pretty much been a constant, so I wouldn't call this a retcon by any means. Essentially the Horde is only as good as its leader, and this a repeating motif borne out in WC1 through to BfA, from Blackhand to Sylvanas. I could go one for ages as to why this is the case, a meandering exegesis that would take us into the mires of Selectorate Theory through to the Keltner's Paradox of Power and so forth. But basically put, the problem of the Horde isn't really "monstrously idiotic," it's a pattern you can see in real-world history repeated over and over again. It deals with the nature of power, the pliability of the constructed public, and the nature of semiotic polemic and political theory.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I'm not sure what part of Cata you liked so much. Thrall was absolutely ruined in it. He was at the same time way too overpowered and important, ineffective, over the top and boring. The villain was not interesting, some of the zones had trite stories (I'm looking at you Uldum) or were counter-flavor (Night Elves in fire caves), and the climax was fairly lame, involving wacky adventures through time, filler antagonists in uninteresting settings and a plain-looking laser-firing McGuffin.
    I liked the Twilight's Hammer, the Old God lore, the Twilight Dragonflight, the Dragon Aspect lore, the interesting closed loop of Nozdormu/Murozond, and some of the interesting side-story narratives going on. I wasn't overly fond of what they did with Thrall as the World Shaman, but most of my issues with that just came from the problem of how it came about (e.g. Thrall abandoning the Horde to Garrosh without any real consideration). I liked the Molten Front and appreciated the many stories surrounding it (Leyara, Staghelm, Ragnaros, etc. etc.) It's easy to try to render things down to pablum, but only if you mentally skip or gloss over the interesting details along the way. Calling the complex and convoluted Molten Front/Fireland arc "Night Elves in fire caves" is a vast oversimplification for the purposes of jaded cynicism. I would say that if you're so cynical about the story that you jettison 80% of it then you're probably not in a fit state to enjoy it at all.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    WoD had a strong beginning and very cool atmosphere. Its main problem was a failure to develop Grom's character properly, resulting in a meme-worthy conclusion, but it was still fairly satisfying. Sure, the cosmic premise was a bit silly and raised some meta questions they preferred to sweep under the rug instead of committing to an explanation, but Shadowlands poses the exact same problem, so the jury is still out on how much better than WoD this arc will be.
    I enjoyed exploring Draenor and doing the leveling content for the lore of Draenor before it became Outland, but that was about it. The rest of it, from characterization to lore-breaking cosmic wedgies was just difficult to follow. I was less than surprised when they retconned much of WoD's lore out of existence in Chronicle Vol. 2-3. Shadowlands does indeed pose some of the same issues, albeit fortunately not with the same problems that WoD's premise proposed. It'll all depend if they learned the lessons from WoD's narrative issues and apply those lessons to Shadowlands's lore.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    Of course, but for a Horde player doing World Quests for Emissary, Heroic Darkshore for the 460 ilvl gear, mission tables or invasions, it still breaks immersion. I can't remember any expansion where this was such a glaring issue.
    Legion had many of the same game systems that were more or less "frozen in time," from WQ's to Legion Invasions, mission tables, etc. etc. Like doing the same Suramar WQ's from the Insurrection arc after you'd long topped Elisande, or contending with the Legion Invasions in the Broken Isles after sacking Antorus. Actually all of WoW's content has this issue to various degrees, and basically it comes down to separation of game and story.

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    Personally, I wouldn't want that. Bringing those races back to Azeroth would break the other-worldly mystique of the Shadowlands and would be more of a shark jump moment that the time traveling in WoD. Maldraxxus doesn't even have a proper playable race anyway. There are plenty of cool mortal races that should take precedence if Blizzard is going to add more allied races - Mogu and Sethrak for one.
    Not really sure how I feel about it myself, but regardless I'm pretty confident it will happen. Maldraxxus and the Night Fae would be difficult races to implement as playable, but the Kyrian and Venthyr are pretty much based on existing models with fully playable rigging.
    "We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see." ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  18. #58
    It was to highlight Sylvanas as the main causer of conflict in the recent years(kinda like Arthas was a big player in the third one) but also in hope people wouldn't try to remember the war between Varian and Garrosh was the same.
    Quote Originally Posted by Varitok View Post
    No, she is my waifu. Stop posting and delete this thread immediately.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ophenia View Post
    Voted Baine because... Well, Baine. Total nonsensical character, looks like World War II Italy, nobody really understands what role he's supposed to fill, not even himself

  19. #59
    The Lightbringer Nathreim's Avatar
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    Bad writing which sums up just about everything since WoD.

  20. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Even that is rather confusing because all this "Muh Azerite" pretty quickly took a backseat.
    Azerite was the catalyst, but major Battles such as the War of Thorns, Siege of Lordaeron and Battle of Dazar'alor had nothing to do with Azerite.

    Not to mention, no one within the game even refers to it as such, that name stems from some description in a Blizzard museum.
    The most well known reason the US declared war against Britain in what became known as the War of 1812 had been peacefully resolved before the war was even declared, let alone any battles were fought. Azerite was the catalyst.
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

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