Before the Storm [Spoilers]

[Tharivor]

Caring about your people is often a path that leads to damnation in this franchise.

Arthas cared about his people. Kil'jaeden cared about his people. Kael'thas cared about his people. Garrosh cared about his people. Even Sargeras cared about his people.

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Also, this is a 180° turn for Sylvanas' character. Sylvanas never considered Undeath a 'blessing', in fact her most popular and iconic quotes, which date back to Warcraft III, are 'What joy is there in this curse?' and 'What are we if not slaves to this torment?'. That was the entire point of Sylvanas' character. She despised her current condition, but accepted it nonetheless because it meant that she had the chance to kill the one responsible for it.

But now Sylvanas actually considers Undeath a higher state of existence and even believes that Humanity is a burden?! Nonsense. The real Sylvanas would never seek to inflict Undeath upon others UNLESS IT WAS STRICLY NECESSARY TO ENSURE HER OWN SURVIVAL. But inflicting Undeath upon the people of Stormwind is not vital to her survival. It is just bloodshed painted as righteousness, as if she were doing a favour to those innocents by 'freeing' them of their Humanity and twisting them into abominations.

Sure, a living person will have to do living chores like eating, resting and sleeping. But at least they won't be ugly and rotting corpses held together by a foul sorcery and constantly tormented by remorse and agony.

It's a progression I agree but IMO a natural one. With the Lich King dead both she and the rest of the Forsaken had a choice- return to true death or embrace undeath as a legitimate mode of existence and carry on. If she contuned to embrace the "slaves to this torment" mentality then the former was the only real option. However by accepting the Val'kyr and deciding to return to unlife she clearly decided that unlife was better than no life. Unlike her raising by Arthas, this time she chose undeath so it makes no sense for her to continue despising a condition she has now freely embraced.

Also there were always factions among the undead that embraced their new state, the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow perhaps being the most famous. It makes sense that the longer the Forsaken remain in unlife the more they embrace it- it's probobly the only mode of existence many of them can properly remember by now. Whether this is wrong depends on how seriously one takes the Void=evil and light=good shtick- just because it's an existence predicated on dark magic and is opposed by the light doesn't mean it's not a legitimate mode of existence for those who embrace it.

I agree though that freeing Stormwind from its humanity sounds weird though- I'm eager to read what exactly that means,.

[Necroxis]

Yeah but its one thing to be okay with what you are and another to decide you want to go forcibly turn hundreds of thousands of other people into the thing it took you over a decade to be alright with, the entire time before that being a living nightmare of agony.

I mean you can see it from the new Forsaken refugees in Orgrimmar that are sitting in a circle talking about how they never asked for this and hate what they are now.

[Varodoc]

With the Lich King dead both she and the rest of the Forsaken had a choice- return to true death or embrace undeath as a legitimate mode of existence and carry on.

Indeed, and Sylvanas instantly chose the former, since she couldn't bear her Undead state anymore and commited suicide as soon as Arthas was gone.

However by accepting the Val'kyr and deciding to return to unlife she clearly decided that unlife was better than no life. Unlike her raising by Arthas, this time she chose undeath so it makes no sense for her to continue despising a condition she has now freely embraced.

But she didn't embrace Undeath because she loves it, did she? She embraced it because she literally has no other option. She either remains Undead, or she goes to the same Hell as Arthas, which means eternal torment. Indeed, even back in Cataclysm, she would still say quotes like 'What are we, if not slaves to this torment?'.

I agree though that freeing Stormwind from its humanity sounds weird though- I'm eager to read what exactly that means,.

It means exactly that. She wants to kill every single last Human in Stormwind and raise them as Undead, because she is convinced that Undeath is a blessing.

Which goes against her previous characterization in Cataclysm. Sylvanas never showed any desire to conquer lands outside of Lordaeron, and in fact she didn't target Stormwind when there was the Fourth War in Cataclysm, so why did she decide to target Stormwind now, that there was a fragile peace between Alliance and Horde?

Yes, this is basically Garrosh 2.0. At least Blizzard could be more subtle with their villain bats.

I mean you can see it from the new Forsaken refugees in Orgrimmar that are sitting in a circle talking about how they never asked for this and hate what they are now.

And the Forsaken soldiers in Stormheim who rejoice upon death and gladly embrace the grave.

[GetCrunk]

What? Because the Horde player is the one who killed Hawthorne? If you want to make this argument you need to apply this logic to every single faction leader since 99.9% of the time they're not actually doing the work themselves. Baine never said Hawthorne shouldn't have died, by the way.

He said no to retaliate against and is self imply no revenge to be taken against the Alliance that includes Hawthorne

[Necroxis]

He said no to retaliate against and is self imply no revenge to be taken against the Alliance that includes Hawthorne

Baine was not involved in the quest in the game. After the fact all he said was that the Tauren were not to go murder an Alliance town or some other act of revenge in exchange for Taurajo. General Hawthorne, the man who ordered the attack, was long dead by that point.

All Baine was doing was stopping a new cycle of violence from taking place. That does not make him Anduin or the Alliance's bitch. That makes him somebody who is stopping more of his people from dying. Remember that the Tauren historically have been a peaceful race? Why are people so willing to just throw out racial identity to serve this asinine faction war storyline?

Striving for peace is not a weakness.

[Dagoth Ur]

Meh.. Obvious aside, I too fail to see point of all this. I mean this book was supposed to set the stage for impending faction war and give both sides adequate motivation to engage in it, and it basically did none of that. Since Silithus and Stormheim apparently didn't count, it all basically boils down to Sylvanas just looking for any excuse to start it, while Anduin, like the cute innocent puppy he is, continues to endure slaps and pursue the noblest of goals all in an effort to save the side that does the slapping too.

Don't know if this was done on purpose or what, but if the goal was to make both sides feel at least somewhat justified and pumped for faction war, this was definitely not a way to do it and it completely failed. If the goal was to prop Anduin up while making other side feel completely alienated and unjustified in their agression.. than bravo I guess.

Only saving grace is that none of this gets mentioned in BfA as far as I've seen, so at least it'll be easier to forget it all.

[Arrashi]

Striving for peace is not a weakness.

But sacrificing his own people for sake of it is.

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Meh.. Obvious aside, I too fail to see point of all this. I mean this book was supposed to set the stage for impending faction war and give both sides adequate motivation to engage in it, and it basically did none of that. Since Silithus and Stormheim apparently didn't count, it all basically boils down to Sylvanas just looking for any excuse to start it, while Anduin, like the cute innocent puppy he is, continues to endure slaps and pursue the noblest of goals all in an effort to save the side that does the slapping too.

Don't know if this was done on purpose or what, but if the goal was to make both sides feel at least somewhat justified and pumped for faction war, this was definitely not a way to do it and it completely failed. If the goal was to prop Anduin up while making other side feel completely alienated and unjustified in their agression.. than bravo I guess.

Only saving grace is that none of this gets mentioned in BfA as far as I've seen, so at least it'll be easier to forget it all.

It feels like blizzard gave golden 5 sentence long summary of what they want to see and she just did her thing.

[GetCrunk]

Baine was not involved in the quest in the game. After the fact all he said was that the Tauren were not to go murder an Alliance town or some other act of revenge in exchange for Taurajo. General Hawthorne, the man who ordered the attack, was long dead by that point.

All Baine was doing was stopping a new cycle of violence from taking place. That does not make him Anduin or the Alliance's bitch. That makes him somebody who is stopping more of his people from dying. Remember that the Tauren historically have been a peaceful race? Why are people so willing to just throw out racial identity to serve this asinine faction war storyline?

Striving for peace is not a weakness.

I never said striving for peace is a weakness, my point is Banie took action against his people that wanted revenge,
Anduin did noting against Genn and Rogers for an assassination attempt against the Warchief of the Horde

[Deleted]

Anyway, just another shitty Christie Golden book then. Nothing new, I wish Blizzard would fire her ass already.

Just this.

[Necroxis]

So you're mad that Baine had conviction and stood up for what he believed in because you disagreed? Or are you mad that Genn and Rogers tried to kill Sylvanas? Because those two topics are completely separate but you keep bringing up Genn and Sky Admiral Rogers as if Baine was involved in that at all.

What is Baine actually supposed to do when a group of Tauren come to him asking to go murder more Alliance because of Taurajo? Kill them? Tides of War establishes that he really doesn't want to see any more of his people dying, to the point of taking a bloody piece of cloth from a Tauren that died during the temporary siege of Theramore in preparation of the Mana Bomb and smearing it on Garrosh's face.

Please tell me what Baine was supposed to do in that moment that was the right decision. Clearly he gives people a choice to back down from that position or leave, as he did with the Grimtotems, he didn't just knee-jerk exile them with no recourse like Lor'themar might have done. He's not kowtowing to the Alliance, he's trying not to get more of his people killed.

[Aucald]

some of this seems inconsistent with the previews we had, are they changing stuff?

for example,
the only defector mentioned in the preview was parqual.
anduins sense (holy this spidey sense shit is so stupid) seems counterproductive given he gets Calia into the meeting but then later at the end of the preview asks why she did what she did.
Turalyon is coming off as a complete zealot

Parqual was the first identified defector, who had Alliance sympathies well before the Arathi incident took place. A few more of the Desolate Council were swayed by the sudden appearance of Calia Menethil (daughter of their beloved and lost King Terenas) and her proclamation - most of the Desolate Council maintained loyalty to Sylvanas but were conflicted (those still in the field after Calia's unveiling), and a few basically threw the towel in on the whole affair and went back to the Thoradin Wall. Sylvanas, for her part, only considered this last group truly loyal, as they had given up entirely on reconciliation and embraced lonely bitterness in her view. The small group who seemed to be defecting, as well as the majority who personally remained loyal but were still mingling were looked upon as traitors either in reality or in essence, and so cut down by the Dark Rangers after Calia revealed herself.

I think Anduin's "spidey sense" is being oversold here - it doesn't guide him to make right decisions or provide him with anything in the way of foresight. It's more about emotions and less about any kind of prophetic ability. As for Turalyon, he kind of is a zealot when it comes to the Light and his views on undeath and demons. All of the Lightforged come off as zealots for the most part, but he at least checks himself once he feels that the Light is still with Faol despite his undead state.

[Teddybearavenger]

I don't get all Baine hate. Character stayed true to his original. Hes Tauren and son of Cairne - its pretty oblivious hes willing to make peace between both factions for greater good. Friendship between him and Anduin is good thing - they like W3 Thrall and Jaina. Both want peace but forced to war because of happened events.

PS I wonder if Blizzard setup Anduin to leave Alliance and make him true neutral character after BFA.

It's called Effing WARCRAFT. What part did devs miss on a FACTION VS FACTION EXPANSION???? Seriously there is no excuse. There's not 1 thing good for this expansion. Not even the allied races which makes me sad most of their stories are beyond shit.

[GetCrunk]

So you're mad that Baine had conviction and stood up for what he believed in because you disagreed? Or are you mad that Genn and Rogers tried to kill Sylvanas? Because those two topics are completely separate but you keep bringing up Genn and Sky Admiral Rogers as if Baine was involved in that at all.

What is Baine actually supposed to do when a group of Tauren come to him asking to go murder more Alliance because of Taurajo? Kill them? Tides of War establishes that he really doesn't want to see any more of his people dying, to the point of taking a bloody piece of cloth from a Tauren that died during the temporary siege of Theramore in preparation of the Mana Bomb and smearing it on Garrosh's face.

Please tell me what Baine was supposed to do in that moment that was the right decision. Clearly he gives people a choice to back down from that position or leave, as he did with the Grimtotems, he didn't just knee-jerk exile them with no recourse like Lor'themar might have done. He's not kowtowing to the Alliance, he's trying not to get more of his people killed.

1. I do not care less the attack against Sylvanas I care for the attack against the Warchief of the Horde.
2. Yea Baine should have ask Alliance to take action against that attack or will be retaliation.
3. And wasn't Camp Taurajo before the attack of Theramore?

[baskev]

How so? Didn't you play Cata? Did you miss how he's making excuses for the Ally's attack on Taurajo, that they had every right to destroy everyone and everything there because cows were training warriors and hunters there? Did you miss how he exiled his own people who wanted to get back at the Alliance for it?

Blizz made a 180 turn in his character during Cata beta. I really hoped that they'd try to make him into a decent character in BfA, but alas.

Yes they did take a turn. And it has been a very close friendship. Several horde members are having doubts ( saurfang, baine) about the horde. Why give a friendship like that.

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Based on the expanded preview, she allowed the first Forsaken who returned to the Thoradin Wall to return without punishment - seeing them as thoroughly broken will all notions of reconciliation (or possibly defection) quashed. Those who lingered in the area or, worse, were moving to the Alliance side of the field were cut down by the Dark Rangers she'd dispatched once Calia had made her desperate shout-out to the assembled crowd.

I have not read the book yet. But i thought it was both sides who got fired upon.

And yes she was: http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screen...mal/735214.jpg

read this page. It where council members. but they where still returning to sylvanas. Numbers/% there are non. Some got back to her side. But if you read it, anyone who she deemed as trouble makers got a arrow.

[Deleted]

I'm no super fan of WoD but to pretend this just started with even Cata is pretty ridiculous. Warcraft has always been very cliched and stole most of its story elements from other things, rely heavily upon cheese, and overall not really care much for telling some deep story.

I mean Vanilla had very little story, BC was completely ass backwards and ruined RTS characters to make them bosses, the Lich King's entire arc is just Darth Vader, Cataclysm is unfinished, MoP's ending is awful, all of WoD is a time traveling mess to just tie into the movie, and Legion is a fanservice expansion.

Let's not pretend there was ever some golden age of storytelling in WoW. Its so 2014-16 to blame every bad thing on SJWs. The real problem with WoW's storytelling is Blizzard now directly writing to please fans. Fanservice writing is almost always absolute garbage.

No. Blizzards story telling was always quite bad and at best mediocre.

What has changed at this point is the amount of SJW and feminist nonsense you can see in the book and the BfA story, combined with Christie Goldens fangirl-gasms and her preferred cliche's and kind of characters, together with her real world agendas, which brings the story to a cringe level it never had before.

Golden also doesn't write to please fans. She writes to please herself, creating characters like Anduin and Baine, who are boring, annoying and often act in a retarded, unrealistic way. And then she thinks a lot of fans like this nonsense, meanwhile looking at her twitter account, getting positive attention from her oh so lovely, kind and beautiful followers, meanwhile calling everyone who criticize her book mean and they don't understand and hurt her feelings.

[Aucald]

I have not read the book yet. But i thought it was both sides who got fired upon.

And yes she was: http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screen...mal/735214.jpg

read this page. It where council members. but they where still returning to sylvanas. Numbers/% there are non. Some got back to her side. But if you read it, anyone who she deemed as trouble makers got a arrow.

She fired on two of the three groups defined - the first group wasn't on the field anymore, they'd returned to her side some time before. For the number remaining it didn't matter to her if they were retreating back to the Thoradin Wall (Horde side) or toward the Alliance side, they were cut down as potential or actual traitors.

[Zulkhan]

Someone who will stand up to the Alliance without going crazy? Even the Alliance's "fanatical" characters like Genn and Jania get to remain virtuous, but Horde players constantly have to choose between characters that think the Alliance can do no wrong and are unwilling to fight them, or crazy maniacs like Garrosh or now Sylvanas.

Though personally I don't mind Sylvanas I can see why players are frustrated.

Quoted for truth. Right now it seems like the Alliance is the faction having "morally gray" characters, with people like Jaina, Genn or even Shaw, or someone like Rogers who's not even that "gray" but yet not even that much extreme to ever wear a villain hat; on the other hand the Horde seems divided between benevolent and borderline rebellious people and a borderline evil "establishment" leading everyone to think Sylvanas will turn into a raid boss, much like Garrosh did. For once, I don't personally believe that but the story is handled in such an annoyingly unsubtle way that causes an inevitable irritation nonetheless.

[FelPlague]

Basically these information confirm my biggest fear: despite of what Blizzard had said, there is really no explanation why the war takes place except "Sylvanas is crazy".

If the book stops before touching any real issue that may lead to war, then I do not think we will get any substantial information between this book and the pre-event. And since we could safely expect that no more new quest-lines will be added prior to the quest we already have seen on PTR, the only thing we will know about the starting of the war will be "Horde matches on Silithus-->NE sends fleet to Silithus-->Horde maneuvers and attacks Ashenvale--> War Starts".

There will be no casus belli, no formal declaration of war, nothing except "Sylvanas wants the war".

Or you know like in wotlk we wont know why stuff happened until the very end?
blizzard is not going to give away the whole story before the expansion is even out.

[GetCrunk]

Or you know like in wotlk we wont know why stuff happened until the very end?
blizzard is not going to give away the whole story before the expansion is even out.

They said BtS was prelude of BfA and the reason why the conflict begins.
But from the preview and the people that had the chance to read the book is seams is was pure bs

[Dagoth Ur]

Or you know like in wotlk we wont know why stuff happened until the very end?
blizzard is not going to give away the whole story before the expansion is even out.

I honestly can't imagine what could even possibly happen that would at least somewhat justify it, apart from blatant nonsense like blaming it on Old Gods.