Would You Forgive The Horde?

[Feanoro]

Time and experience between these various events is fucked up. Like Duskwood being ravaged by worgen is not an old event and still happening when the Gilneans show up. Death Knights literally come from invading living settlements and walk in the gates of the respective faction cities. Stormwind might be more experienced, but in the DK case there's still fresh blood of the living staining their gear when they show up. Draenei are just a fucked up example in general and Night Elves post third war are equally screwed for the sake of story progress.

I won't argue that any of these are well written, or even consider the rest of the world. Blizz writers have a nasty tendency to focus on the story in front of them without considering the setting. My understanding of their intent is that events of past expansions aren't happening any more even though the quests are still available, i.e. the Duskwood worgen were cleaned up by adventurers years before the Worgen starting zone. What I was getting at is that the Forsaken took place sometime between WC3 and WoW, when everyone only knew the mindless Scourge. Since then, they've learned that's not always the case, as backed by Prissypants apologizing to Sylvanas over it.

In the case of the DKs, two factors apply. First, after the "duuuude awesome" moment, it felt abrupt and rushed. Suddenly capital city! I suspect some bits were cut here. The second factor is scale. We travel in a blink in game, but for reference, Karazhan to SW is supposed to be a week of gryphon flight. Light's Hope to SW should proportionately be even longer, and news is supposed to have made it there before the DK arrives. He/she doesn't get a warm welcome by any stretch of the imagination, but isn't kill on sight. What's the difference? Years of knowledge, news to expect him/her, and Tirion's personal vouching.

[mickybrighteyes]

In the case of the DKs, two factors apply. First, after the "duuuude awesome" moment, it felt abrupt and rushed. Suddenly capital city! I suspect some bits were cut here. The second factor is scale. We travel in a blink in game, but for reference, Karazhan to SW is supposed to be a week of gryphon flight. Light's Hope to SW should proportionately be even longer, and news is supposed to have made it there before the DK arrives. He/she doesn't get a warm welcome by any stretch of the imagination, but isn't kill on sight. What's the difference? Years of knowledge, news to expect him/her, and Tirion's personal vouching.

Thing is... they don't travel by foot or by gryphon to reach stormwind. They portal to the outskirts.

[Feanoro]

Thing is... they don't travel by foot or by gryphon to reach stormwind. They portal to the outskirts.

And then we get into game mechanics. Usually we're supposed to understand temporary/one time portals as a player convenience, not a canon portal, given the difficulty they're supposed to have to be cast.

Since we could go round and round on the portal and accomplish nothing, my primary point is there's years between the Forsaken envoys and the DK players. More than enough time to learn about non-Scourge undead.

[mickybrighteyes]

And then we get into game mechanics. Usually we're supposed to understand temporary/one time portals as a player convenience, not a canon portal, given the difficulty they're supposed to have to be cast.

Since we could go round and round on the portal and accomplish nothing, my primary point is there's years between the Forsaken envoys and the DK players. More than enough time to learn about non-Scourge undead.

I dunno... the quest text was:

"On the platform, southeast of me, is a portal to Stormwind City. Take this letter, given to me on your behalf by Lord Fordring, and deliver it to King Varian Wrynn. Use the portal."

edit:

as in, the DK is told to utilize a portal to travel to their destination... specifically.. by the npc

edit2:

it'd be one thing if teh portals were always there and you're just told to go to town or whatever. It's a slightly different deal when teh NPC's specifically designatre them as an option

[Feanoro]

I dunno... the quest text was:

"On the platform, southeast of me, is a portal to Stormwind City. Take this letter, given to me on your behalf by Lord Fordring, and deliver it to King Varian Wrynn. Use the portal."

edit:

as in, the DK is told to utilize a portal to travel to their destination... specifically.. by the npc

Been a while since I rolled a DK, so didn't recall that. Let's see, possibilities are:

1) Writers were too damn lazy to remember portals are rare.
2) Explicit instructions to the player, that seem to assume he/she is an idiot. It stops just short of "click the portal".*
3) Combo of 1 and 2.

It does seem to support my idea that they got to the end and rushed it, as it comes pretty close to breaking the fourth wall. It felt VERY incongruous that there was just poof, city, ride right in. You'd think there would be a bit more, where the DK is challenged and reluctantly allowed in with an escort or something.


* Of course, if they HAD said "click the portal", I know some people in here would try to argue that mice are now canon.

[Super Dickmann]

My "headcanon" for this has always been that brief submergence into the Scourge hive-mind essentially scrubbed away their ability to speak or understand Common, ensuring that the living couldn't try dissuade them or play on any remaining emotions to attempt to pry a member of the Scourge away from the yoke of the Lich King. Obviously this doesn't work for the newest generation of Forsaken raised directly by Sylvanas' Val'kyr, though I guess you could say that they still use Scourge methods of raising the undead and this scrubbing behavior still happens because they don't know any better (or don't really care).

But yes, it's really just a gameplay mechanic with a very loose lore justification in a handful of places.

Unlike the thing about Forsaken endurance which, despite my personal dislike for it you can mostly explain away by noting that they're constructs maintained by necromantic magic, and in a 'clap your hands if you believe' situation those unused to combat or who think more about the troubles of their body will also have more of them, that's not really the case with the speech. Like for example, I enjoy your idea here and it gels with how Nathanos sees his time under the Scourge in Dark Mirror, hell, I can mostly buy it for lesser undead, but he can also speak Common, and we know higher undead like Death Knights do maintain their memories in fairly good shape since they later struggle with their guilt, something we don't actually see in Forsaken.

If I had to wrangle it into shape, I'd just say that there is such an effect because the mind is maimed by the process of necromancy, while the body is altered so that parts of it are disused, so elements of the hearing/speech mechanisms take a while to get used to but eventually click into place. That's why even regular Forsaken can easily speak Common ten years after their raising since they now understand their state better and have more control of their body but Dan and Zelling don't have this because their experiences relate directly to when they were raised/had their minds returned to them. Given time they'd be fine too.

[Bogdand131980]

I mean he took down a reaver and kept cutting down demons while the hordes leader got ganked by a random demon and then ran away

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Nah
The big twist will be sylvanas planned on the factions uniting against her because she wants us to realize together we are stronger and break the wheel

Hello biggest cliche ever

Hard to understand how "together we are stronger" works when she wiped out a serious % of the NE.

[scubi666stacy]

That's a stinking lie.

We like Taurens.

So Camp Taurajo was a love letter to them?

[azshanna]

We don't need your forgiveness ! actually it would be nice if we could burn other alliance capital cities !

[Carolus Rex]

Horde has to feel sorry first.

[Mehrunes]

My "headcanon" for this has always been that brief submergence into the Scourge hive-mind essentially scrubbed away their ability to speak or understand Common, ensuring that the living couldn't try dissuade them or play on any remaining emotions to attempt to pry a member of the Scourge away from the yoke of the Lich King. Obviously this doesn't work for the newest generation of Forsaken raised directly by Sylvanas' Val'kyr, though I guess you could say that they still use Scourge methods of raising the undead and this scrubbing behavior still happens because they don't know any better (or don't really care).

But yes, it's really just a gameplay mechanic with a very loose lore justification in a handful of places.

It doesn't work for the older generation either. People like Leonid Bartholomew can communicate with humans. And it's not like he's an exception. Renee Lauler communicated with human captives in a short story. Apothecaries communicated with their test subjects. So on and so forth.

[Aucald]

It doesn't work for the older generation either. People like Leonid Bartholomew can communicate with humans. And it's not like he's an exception. Renee Lauler communicated with human captives in a short story. Apothecaries communicated with their test subjects. So on and so forth.

It doesn't work in a lot of places, which is why I relegate it to the realms of headcanon as opposed to any kind of suitable speculation. Though I guess you could say it's entirely variable - and may not work for those with greater wills, greater intellects, or just sometimes plain doesn't work for reasons unknown (like perhaps some influence of the Light). You could even say that some Forsaken could re-learn Common despite its loss following their transformation. But at the end of the day I think the language divide is just a gameplay contrivance and isn't represented in lore in any real way beyond flavor here and there.

[Revamp Man]

Hard to understand how "together we are stronger" works when she wiped out a serious % of the NE.

Never said she was smart

Besides what better way to get people to hate you than genocide