How would you have made the Army of the Light ?

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight]

One of my biggest disappointments with the story of WoW was the Army of the Light, that had been the subject of one prophecy given to Velen and the Draenei by the Naaru, and was at the center of Velen's shorty during the Cataclysm, with this army having been promised to be a great coalition of many races in the universe saved or rallied by the Naaru to face the Burning Legion and the darkness of the universe.

Yet when we finally saw the Army of the Light in Legion it was turned into just a small army of Lightforged Draenei with X'era, Turalyon, Alleria Windrunner, Lothraxion and a few NPC being the only non-Draenei members of the army, with no new race being a member of this organisation.

If you could rewrite the Army of the Light, what would you make of this faction ? What new races or beings would you have created to be members of this army ? What new weapons, equipment, tech would you have equipped them with in addition of what we saw in Legion such as the Warframes, the ships and laser cannons ?



I for sure would have created many new races to be members of the Army of the Light, including one living crystal humanoid race, one faery-looking race, one wyrm-dragon like race able of flying but who breath light instead of fire, one similar to the Gelflings from the Dark Crystal franchise, etc...

The Army would have been far greater in terms of number of soldiers, ships and weapons, with many Naaru and prime Naaru serving as leaders instead of just X'era, and the Lightforged Draenei would have rather served as experienced officers but still relatively few and so far from the majority of the members of the army, I would have also added some magic and tech techniques and they would have been a greater opposition to the Legion across the universe.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Same as it is, but when represented in-game I would have more than just Lightforged Draenei.


Also I do not get the impression that the army is "small" by any means. I always took what we saw in-game as it being a portion (perhaps the main strongest coalition) of their army focused on Argus. The army has been described as survivors from across many planets across many galaxies of the universe so that would suggest the sum total of the Army of the Light is spread throughout the universe.


Who knows what is going on in the background with the AotL since the end of Legion up through us going into the Shadowlands.

[Zuben]

I think it's fine the way it was, since Light was revealed to have malevolent aspects to it. Rather than include everyone it sported the most fanatic followers available, which allows them to carry on as Light's proxies, darker elements and all. We've already seen it in Turalyon afterwards. I much prefer this over a generic good guys coalition.

[Trumpcat]

I would have made it the opposite of what it was. So it would be a large awe inspiring coalition of forces that wage a cosmic war against the infinite forces of the Legion. We would see Naaru vessels fighting the Legion star destroyers, huge lightforged armies plunging against the demonic forces. One Lightforged equaling 50 demonic spawns, yet still getting overwhelmed. Then in the peak of what seems the imminent Legion victory, as the Mother of Light ship gets struck down we appear with the Xenedar ramming into the Legion cannon. From there we would regroup with Turalyon and Alleria, they would be involved and powerful and be the heroes that they originally were. The army will get reinvigorated and the entire campaign on Argus would be one of constant large scale pressure.

Instead of portraying the Legion capital as sulfur drenched cave system it would be an imposing demonic city littered with the black needle-like towers they erect elsewhere. We would see the Lightforged heavy weaponry destroy some of them. We would still need to have small group or solo content, but the massive armies battling around and above us would be buying us time and will keep the feeling of this being the final stage of the battle of the universe. We would be disabling Legion weaponry/gates to help the army, the army would be providing cover fire for us and take down the swarms of demons.

So it's sort of like how it was, but it would be made with passion, it would be large scale, epic and satisfying. It would live up to the hype that built the Burning Legion since the 90ies. To help realize it I'd have the devs/writers brainstorm the most epic and fulfilling scenes, situations and outcomes. Imagine grabbing epic moments from LOTR and Star Wars and merging them into Warcraft. Instead of the Excel spread sheet graphic art we got.

[Aucald]

I support an Army of the Light that would've been a good deal more varied, composed of both Draenei as well as those few surviving members of worlds whose sentient populations had been put to the flame or mass-converted into demons, wherever possible. It would've been interesting to see a handful of uncorrupted Ered'ruin (in their original form as the Titans' servants), a few Mo'arg, a couple of non-demonic Sayaad, and some Shivarra. Maybe even a vanishingly few of the species thought to be extinct like an Aldrachi warrior or two, or perhaps a few remaining Light-Bearers from the world of Fanlin'Deskor.

An army of those whose homeworlds had been corrupted or destroyed by the Burning Crusade, all with their own burning desire for vengeance against Sargeras and his host.

[Xaviaton]

I think the easiest way would probably be to have the role of the Army of the Light we see in the game be reduced a bit.

I think the AoL was "retconned" internally before they were released in 7.3. At the beginning of the expansion I think Argus was planned to be a separate expansion much later down the line (I believe Ion or someone else said that they had a different final patch planned originally). When that plan changed they had to adjust the standing of the army - particularly if it was already planned that they would join the Alliance in 8.0. There is also still the question of the future Anduin leading the army again the shadow (rather than Legion) which might indicate that they will save this (Grand) Army for later.

I think they should have more or less left it at it was but indicated that the AoL we interacted with in 7.3 was a splinter group of the AoL with a majority of Draenei that had the very specific goal of retaking Argus - going against the wishes of the majority of the army (The Grand Army of the Light if you will). I would also be much more comfortable having Turalyon being the leader of a small faction than of the entire army. It would also recast Xe'ra as a more zealous Naaru which I think would be fitting. I would love to see the Army of the Light as was promised in dialogue one day, and would be perfectly fine with it being mildly retconned from just being races from Legion worlds to include Old God worlds as well but within the scope of a single patch I do not think this could have ever been done well.

[masterjc]

One of my biggest disappointments with the story of WoW was the Army of the Light, that had been the subject of one prophecy given to Velen and the Draenei by the Naaru, and was at the center of Velen's shorty during the Cataclysm, with this army having been promised to be a great coalition of many races in the universe saved or rallied by the Naaru to face the Burning Legion and the darkness of the universe.

Yet when we finally saw the Army of the Light in Legion it was turned into just a small army of Lightforged Draenei with X'era, Turalyon, Alleria Windrunner, Lothraxion and a few NPC being the only non-Draenei members of the army, with no new race being a member of this organisation.

If you could rewrite the Army of the Light, what would you make of this faction ? What new races or beings would you have created to be members of this army ? What new weapons, equipment, tech would you have equipped them with in addition of what we saw in Legion such as the Warframes, the ships and laser cannons ?



I for sure would have created many new races to be members of the Army of the Light, including one living crystal humanoid race, one faery-looking race, one wyrm-dragon like race able of flying but who breath light instead of fire, one similar to the Gelflings from the Dark Crystal franchise, etc...

The Army would have been far greater in terms of number of soldiers, ships and weapons, with many Naaru and prime Naaru serving as leaders instead of just X'era, and the Lightforged Draenei would have rather served as experienced officers but still relatively few and so far from the majority of the members of the army, I would have also added some magic and tech techniques and they would have been a greater opposition to the Legion across the universe.

first of all I would change argus completely.
wtf is that backwater junkplace?how can it be base of main force of Burning Legion?
everything is broken there and absurd. it should have factories for weaponization. pools of rebirth etc. it should feel menacing not depressing.


about Army:
why not add every race that has ever been from every expansion there? and lots of other reskins?
no need to invent unique npcs. any standard guardian could randomly be from any race. even taunka. pandaren. arakkoa and so on.

let's say that for all these milennia Naaru handpicked certain individuals and lightforged them for army.
and for future, when we have added more subraces,there could have been flying arakkoa. mag har. ogres and so on
for every expansion simply add new npc models to existing pool

also make these npcs perishable in attacks by hostile mobs on beacons. or spawn them randomly to patrol and attack enemy groups and sometimes wipe. so after each reapawn there will be different combination of races. thus army will always feel it consisted from every race

- - - Updated - - -

One of my biggest disappointments with the story of WoW was the Army of the Light, that had been the subject of one prophecy given to Velen and the Draenei by the Naaru, and was at the center of Velen's shorty during the Cataclysm, with this army having been promised to be a great coalition of many races in the universe saved or rallied by the Naaru to face the Burning Legion and the darkness of the universe.

Yet when we finally saw the Army of the Light in Legion it was turned into just a small army of Lightforged Draenei with X'era, Turalyon, Alleria Windrunner, Lothraxion and a few NPC being the only non-Draenei members of the army, with no new race being a member of this organisation.

If you could rewrite the Army of the Light, what would you make of this faction ? What new races or beings would you have created to be members of this army ? What new weapons, equipment, tech would you have equipped them with in addition of what we saw in Legion such as the Warframes, the ships and laser cannons ?



I for sure would have created many new races to be members of the Army of the Light, including one living crystal humanoid race, one faery-looking race, one wyrm-dragon like race able of flying but who breath light instead of fire, one similar to the Gelflings from the Dark Crystal franchise, etc...

The Army would have been far greater in terms of number of soldiers, ships and weapons, with many Naaru and prime Naaru serving as leaders instead of just X'era, and the Lightforged Draenei would have rather served as experienced officers but still relatively few and so far from the majority of the members of the army, I would have also added some magic and tech techniques and they would have been a greater opposition to the Legion across the universe.

first of all I would change argus completely.
wtf is that backwater junkplace?how can it be base of main force of Burning Legion?
everything is broken there and absurd. it should have factories for weaponization. pools of rebirth etc. it should feel menacing not depressing.


about Army:
why not add every race that has ever been from every expansion there? and lots of other reskins?
no need to invent unique npcs. any standard guardian could randomly be from any race. even taunka. pandaren. arakkoa and so on.

let's say that for all these milennia Naaru handpicked certain individuals and lightforged them for army.
and for future, when we have added more subraces,there could have been flying arakkoa. mag har. ogres and so on
for every expansion simply add new npc models to existing pool

also make these npcs perishable in attacks by hostile mobs on beacons. or spawn them randomly to patrol and attack enemy groups and sometimes wipe. so after each reapawn there will be different combination of races. thus army will always feel it consisted from every race

[Powerogue]

If they had made Argus an expansion, they could've had more dev work into varied races and characterization for npcs like the light dreadlord, maybe instead of the portals where we have those mini-instances each one would've been a zone of the expansion with its own bizarre races and lightforged versions respectively.

Not too mad though, if they had done that we would've had two expansions about fighting the legion in a row, I think everyone was getting burnt out on black and fel green. Gameplay over lore sometimes, though a short story about the Army would've helped a lot.

[Maljinwo]

The fact that this fabled army of light is just a bunch of white draenei with a human leading them is depressing

There should've been more races. A rag tag group of hardened survivors from multiple planets

[The Stormbringer]

If they had made Argus an expansion, they could've had more dev work into varied races and characterization for npcs like the light dreadlord, maybe instead of the portals where we have those mini-instances each one would've been a zone of the expansion with its own bizarre races and lightforged versions respectively.

Not too mad though, if they had done that we would've had two expansions about fighting the legion in a row, I think everyone was getting burnt out on black and fel green. Gameplay over lore sometimes, though a short story about the Army would've helped a lot.

This. Argus should've been its own expansion, where they could've fleshed out things considerably and given us re-skinned pre-existing races and lots of cool new alien races. It should've felt huge and epic, like we were assaulting a world too deadly to survive on without the help of the Army of Light, and even then it would be rough. They could've even still included the rebel Broken group, popping up now that the pressure is being taken off of theme.

I feel we should've gotten a similar thing with the Black Empire... it would've made for a great expansion. Alas, it seems Blizzard loves pissing away their best lore for minimal payout.

[Aresk]

Honestly, I would've removed the Army of the Light from the narrative. It doesn't really add much, contextually. We already see naaru fighting the Burning Legion in TBC. We see Draenei opposing it in TBC. The Army of the light is really just Sha'tar 2.0, right down to being led by a member of the Sons of Lothar. Instead, I would have Velen going forth to create an army from other survivors from Legion attacks, races that the naaru helped escape similar to the Draenei. Have the player get involved in more recruitment. Create an expansion of refugee worlds (with one zone per world, not dissimilar from Shadowlands) and the struggle to forge a mighty force. Have the Legion wipe it off the face of the map. And then have the survivors of that force, faith shaken, commit to the guerilla tactics we see at the end of Legion. Create a Suramar-style Legion city that we have to strike at on Argus. As is, the Army of the Light in its entirety seems to be no more than what a Legion-ravaged Azeroth on its own can muster and is then essentially removed from the picture as soon as it shows up; in terms of inspiring hope against the Burning Legion, it fails miserably.

[Mehrunes]

The fact that this fabled army of light is just a bunch of white draenei with a human leading them is depressing

There should've been more races. A rag tag group of hardened survivors from multiple planets

TBH the human part is even more depressing than the Draenei. I'd be fine (albeit still disappointed) with a bunch of whiter Draenei, but having 25k year old veteran Light zealots succumbing to the human potential of cardboard cutout human Paladin #5132 was just pathetic.

[sighy]

I would have preferred at least a few nods to the grander armada abroad playing up the fantasy that they're Light's answer to the Legion and there are a lot more of them fighting abroad, with this being basically just their capital ship or something. (The one that crashed not Vindicaar)

[Soon-TM]

TBH the human part is even more depressing than the Draenei. I'd be fine (albeit still disappointed) with a bunch of whiter Draenei, but having 25k year old veteran Light zealots succumbing to the human potential of cardboard cutout human Paladin #5132 was just pathetic.

There is a lot of wrong with the way that the AotL was introduced, but this is probably the worst offender. But there are other irksome points:

• Why did a Light-infused, avenging squad of quasi-angelic beings has to be almost exclusive to Draenei? Hadn't the Legion consumed countless worlds during the course of its Burning Crusade? Couldn't the AotL recruit even a single non-Draenei, aside from Lothraxion and Blandalyon?
• Why did such an awe-inspiring army look like a ragtag bunch of clowns paroding a military parade, instead of a scarred army of survivors?
• Why the @#$& was the capital of the Legion a bunch of void-infested ruins? Wasn't the BL created with the explicit purpose of fighting the void and prevent it from claiming a World Soul, which Argus certainly had?
• More generally, how could the Legion's homeworld look like a green lime-hued junkyard instead of a big, imposing, menacing place? Even Boring Shore managed to look meaner, with the crashed airships and the silhouette of the Tomb of Sargeras over yonder.
• Last but not least, why is the AotL Generic Good Bois Club #49252058 instead of a bunch of Light-hardened fanatics? Why are they a-OK with freaking VOID elves? Just because of Human Potential?

[OwenBurton]

One of my biggest disappointments with the story of WoW was the Army of the Light, that had been the subject of one prophecy given to Velen and the Draenei by the Naaru, and was at the center of Velen's shorty during the Cataclysm, with this army having been promised to be a great coalition of many races in the universe saved or rallied by the Naaru to face the Burning Legion and the darkness of the universe.

Yet when we finally saw the Army of the Light in Legion it was turned into just a small army of Lightforged Draenei with X'era, Turalyon, Alleria Windrunner, Lothraxion and a few NPC being the only non-Draenei members of the army, with no new race being a member of this organisation.

If you could rewrite the Army of the Light, what would you make of this faction ? What new races or beings would you have created to be members of this army ? What new weapons, equipment, tech would you have equipped them with in addition of what we saw in Legion such as the Warframes, the ships and laser cannons ?



I for sure would have created many new races to be members of the Army of the Light, including one living crystal humanoid race, one faery-looking race, one wyrm-dragon like race able of flying but who breath light instead of fire, one similar to the Gelflings from the Dark Crystal franchise, etc...

The Army would have been far greater in terms of number of soldiers, ships and weapons, with many Naaru and prime Naaru serving as leaders instead of just X'era, and the Lightforged Draenei would have rather served as experienced officers but still relatively few and so far from the majority of the members of the army, I would have also added some magic and tech techniques and they would have been a greater opposition to the Legion across the universe.

They should have added more races into the Army - not just hundreds of glowing draenei, an imprisoned Void-dabbling high elf, and a single former demon creature whose loyalties are dubious at best.

[Mic_128]

I think it's fine the way it was, since Light was revealed to have malevolent aspects to it. Rather than include everyone it sported the most fanatic followers available, which allows them to carry on as Light's proxies, darker elements and all. We've already seen it in Turalyon afterwards. I much prefer this over a generic good guys coalition.

I mean, no reason why we couldn't have both. Imagine if we teamed up with a 'good guys' coalation made of races from all over the universe. Fighting together in a more outright war, akin to the Molten Front. Getting hints of the rather powerful zeal the army has on stopping the Legion, it almost being an obsession...and once Argus is dead and Sargeras contained, the Army of the Light set their sights on Azeroth, intending to 'reward' us by forging us anew in the Light, whether we want it or not. Yes, we helped defeat the Legion, but now instead of the chaotic fel-powered demons, we now have a horrifically focused, Light-powered army, ready to rain holy hell on the planet.

As for the actual Argus stuff, something more like the Molten Front. That actually felt like we were fighting a war. We had a main camp/base, we were doing bombing missions and all sorts with a range of other important NPCs, working together to stop Ragnaros. I want more of that. Also, for Argus to actually be the seat of the Legion's power, not a shattered, near-abandoned planet that still has Draenei living on it all this time.

[Soon-TM]

I mean, no reason why we couldn't have both. Imagine if we teamed up with a 'good guys' coalation made of races from all over the universe. Fighting together in a more outright war, akin to the Molten Front. Getting hints of the rather powerful zeal the army has on stopping the Legion, it almost being an obsession...and once Argus is dead and Sargeras contained, the Army of the Light set their sights on Azeroth, intending to 'reward' us by forging us anew in the Light, whether we want it or not. Yes, we helped defeat the Legion, but now instead of the chaotic fel-powered demons, we now have a horrifically focused, Light-powered army, ready to rain holy hell on the planet.

I'd have loved to see this, not only it would have given more narrative clout to the AotL, but it would have served as a serious warning that the whole "the enemy of my enemy..." thing may have (and often has) some quite harsh limits.

Also, for Argus to actually be the seat of the Legion's power, not a shattered, near-abandoned planet that still has Draenei living on it all this time.

Yeah, pretty much this. Argus felt like some random backwater outpost, instead of the Draenei homeworld and capital of the @#$&ing Burning Legion.