Suramar was sealed to keep Azshara from the Pillars of Creation?

[ravenmoon]

It was my understanding that the Pillars of Creation were originally used by the Highborne of Suramar to seal the portal the Legion had created in the Temple of Elune (what would go on to become the Tomb of Sargeras) - this does not necessarily imply that they all returned to their keeping in Suramar. We know that the Eye of Aman'thul did, as it was later used to create the Nightwell, but the Tidestone appeared to be moved to Nar'thalas Academy for study and the Tears of Elune brought to the new Temple of Elune in Val'sharah. It's possible that after the Pillars were used during the War of the Ancients that agents of Neltharion and Odyn recalled their respective Pillars back there and then, and the Highborne's possession of them was only temporarily - meaning that the shield over Suramar was erected solely to defend the Eye of Aman'thul from the Legion (which is probably reason enough given its nature and set of powers). It's also possible that after sealing the portal the Pillars were spread around to use as weapons or defenses against the remaining Legion forces. and were then lost in the upheavals following the Sundering.

Didn't they say in Gamescom or one of the narrative sections that the Pillars were scattered and hidden after the second portal was closed, the night elves in Suramar kept the Eye of Aman'thul and the others were hidden for safe keeping.


The Tidestones were shattered by Queen Azshara, which likely means this happens after the 2nd portal is sealed, but before the shield goes up, indicating a substantial period of time.. , the others were hidden with other beings for safe keeping

[SirBeef]

I think this is a touch of revisionist history on the part of Thalyssra - although it probably *was* a concern the leadership of Suramar had when the Shield idea was broached. Thalyssra is likely taking what was originally an ancillary concern and swapping out for the self-serving and primary concern that Elisande revealed in the Legion storyline. Perhaps that was indeed Thalyssra's primary concern as opposed to Elisande's when the idea for the Shield was being planned.

Exactly, much like how Chronicles explains things from a cosmic/reader level and how that contradicts things that maybe Brann intreprets things, or how the NEs believe stuff to be. When in reality It may have been something else becasue they were unaware.

[ravenmoon]

Exactly, much like how Chronicles explains things from a cosmic/reader level and how that contradicts things that maybe Brann intreprets things, or how the NEs believe stuff to be. When in reality It may have been something else becasue they were unaware.

Yeh... that's standard though, and a good tool to use when you need to tweak the official story. Much easier for Brann or the night elves to be wrong than the original narrative

[SirBeef]

Yeh... that's standard though, and a good tool to use when you need to tweak the official story. Much easier for Brann or the night elves to be wrong than the original narrative

Yup. One of they ways Chronicles was a successin my mind. It retconned without retconning.

[ravenmoon]

Yup. One of they ways Chronicles was a successin my mind. It retconned without retconning.

Indeed, while I understand a certain degree of vagueness is necessary in these things, they must not be afraid of detail when it is good, and shouldnt retcon it either later.

The stuff they first did with the night elves in wc3 in their origin, set up, and features like immortality and intelligence etc, that was all cool.. they didnt need to nerf or retcon any of it. Rather than reduce them to children of the forest only, they should have expanded them to the children of the stars they were originally called and shown the aspects of their race that fully reflected that down the line. Immortality could have gone, but should have come back etc.

I just fed up of everytime they visit them, they take something cool away or nelf me further, to the extent they are nowhere near the calibre of competence they had in wc3 or are spoken of in their lore and pre su dering era. This is unnecessary, and theyd be much more enjoyable if stories that were written to nerf them also had stories that buffed them

[TheFirstOnes]

Except the people of Suramar only had 1 Pillar at the time, Azshara already had the Tidestone prior to the Legion's first invasion on Azeroth, the wall was meant to protect the people of Suramar from the Sunwell's destruction, as well as isolate them from the outside world, and also it was believed by even Azshara's people that Suramar was nothing more than a sunken ruin (Which, it obviously wasn't, but still).

[ravenmoon]

It is far more effective and far more immersive to treat the past as history and show it as such via unreliable narrators. It allows for exploration and surprise in the narrative when evidence can emerge that is counter to the known narrative that is simply not possible with an ironclad canon.

It doesn't help that it feels like the Chronicle is only protected from being retconned by it being pointlessly ambiguous. The most glaring part in Legion was probably with the death of the Pantheon where Norgannon's scheme was explained and then shown as a failure only for Sargeras to somehow have the Pantheon captured in Argus. Yes, the Chronicle does not explicitly say what happened after the Titan essences dispersed when the Keepers failed to contain them but them somehow ending on another planet (or multiple planets if we account for the unexplained sanctum of Eonar in the raid) in a distant part of the universe is simply a cop out. If you are going to invest in canon then that canon should be detailed and ambiguity should be explained through further detail, not through contradiction; a good example would probably be the Forgotten Realms, a MASSIVE fantasy setting with hundreds of writers that still managed to keep a very tight ship with its lore for decades (until the company just decided to nuke it but it got better).

And the best argument in favour of sticking with an unreliable narrator approach is that WoW's canon feels worthless because we have absolutely no reason to believe that the writers will adher to it when they are on record saying they won't. They say they don't care about the lore if it contradicts the story they want to say and have constantly retconned.

This. Especially the bolder part. I cant stress how important that is, and stunned how they have no concept of this value.

As for the rest, if Forgotten Realms could do what they did with their lore, and SWTOR could go to the extent they did to tell an incredible story in an MMO,I am dumbfounded why a company like blizzard who did the RTS and has such incredible quality in art , music and systems as well as programming and IT can fail so badly at excellently portraying g and organising their lore????
This is what puzzles me, it's not like they are deficient on the creative front.. we love the universe, the races and the scope and depth of the whole thing, yet we fi d this creative element pitfalls very far behind the standard in game that other aspects give when it comes to conveying the story or enhancing the narrative in a way that correctly, and excellently builds on previous material.

I can u understand changing things for new and better developments and accommodating things for gameplay pr systems reason, but far too often I see either poor effort put in, for something that could be much better or should have been far more involved.

What is worse is when fans bri g up these things, that the devs omit or forget, they are completely blanked, showing creative is completely out of touch and not engaging its community on the lore section.

Face itm there is talent amongst the fans too, creative types are drawn to the lore, they are an asset worth engaging with or looking into so these huge aspects are not omitted.

[ravenmoon]

I honestly feel that their team just lacked people with a background in RPGs.

It did, in every area for MMOs and rogs, but they raised their standards across the board, except in the story department where in game one stagnated and quality dropped. While they invested in extra material like novels and comics which is good, they made a much smaller effort compared to their art or systems or music team to give a world class world leading experience of lore. They never caught up to other titles in a way I feel they should have done.

They never got to the stage of voicing all quests,
Look how long it took for the quest window to change
Look how long it took them to switch from stationary noc and quest window to having alternatives like the npc following you and talking or giving you more info, stuff that could have been done in tbc.
They failed to bring out their lore in the hugely popular game, the biggest asset in taking the franchise to another level and drawing more people to the game.

Good lore would take to better movies and series which in turn draws far more people, not just traditional gamers to the actual game.


Yet despite failing to properly and seriously upgrade their lore, we fell in love with their world, their story, their races, but most of us who did, did so on the back of the RTS games not wow.

Many would have started playing wow cos of friends or ratig s, loved it, then gone back to follow the RTS, and because of the RTS games got heavily into the lore cos they wanted to know more about the iconic races and characters they loved so much to take on their avatars.

Failure to grasp how extremely important lore and story is in modern media entertainment and the impact it can have is astonishingly short sighted.


Whoever was in charge of lore did not stick up for it enough. He probably caved from the pressure from programmers, designers and senior guys who dont have or u understand the full importance of lire. It is his responsibility to persuade them, demonstrate to them and insist they do it right as well. Inspire them.

Judging from the art, the art team is plenty inspired by the lore to create the stunning imagery, they needed to have gotten voice actors program better noc quest deliveries, similar to how they do it mostly now in WQ or raids, like was done in the RTS telling a story alongside your adventure.

They did not and still dont