I mean, he is literally called Arthas. Doesn't get much more obvious he is partially inspired by Arthur.
And yes, Arthurian legend is very much referenced constantly, but the idea is quite clearly a dark reverse take, where the golden prince of a prosperous kingdom leads it to ruin, rather than a commoner leading his fallow kingdom to glory.
The world revamp dream will never die!
While true, it's also true that the concept of a dragon themed place called the Dragon Isles is something that the players have known about.
Avaloren meanwhile has not ever been mentioned before, so players have not gotten any idea what it could contain, nor any reason to get a connection to it.
The world revamp dream will never die!
I'm not a huge Tinker fan but I'd rather have Goblords of Undermine than anything related to WoD.
Except that wouldn’t be a WoD-style expansion. It would be Arokkoa and Ogres fleeing Yrel’s army and joining the alliance and horde and warning of Yrel’s eventual arrival. Yrel would then invade Azeroth, since AU Draenor would be a dead/dying world at that point. We’d be fighting her and her army here, not on AU Draenor.
After that, bring on Undermine.
Or it connects to some kind of new location. Not sure. It seems like it's building up to something, but I can't tell if it's going to just be a particular area or feature internally called "Frontier" in DF (it's pretty easy to see how that could come about, given that the Dragon Isles are certainly a frontier, and any patch zones we may go to even moreso) or if it will be an actual world revamp. I'm on full copium, though, even though I made the wrong call about this both pre-SL and pre-DF.
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You seem to be overreacting to what everybody is aware is copium. None of us unironically expect it, we're just fantasizing. The Bellular video was a tad bit presumptuous and posting it strikes me as unnecessary, but this is something everybody wants to fantasize about because we'd prefer not to get back on Danny's wild ride.
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Ugh, anything but that. We've seen the current team's take on cosmology. I like high-concept stuff, but it only works in the right hands. It was done very well in Legion, but Shadowlands sort of soured it for me.
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lol /10chars
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It's definitely difficult to overlook the Arthurian parody in Arthas. He's also very much Elric of Melnibone, but the Arthurian element is quite central to the whole bait-and-switch back in Warcraft III.
Odyn as the final boss of SL is silly. Now that they are revisiting the concept that he is a big asshole, a little more publicly than his backstory with Helya, I think its possible that he will be A boss sometime down the road. There isn't an Order/Titan character more suited to be a villain other than the constellars, who are just doing their jobs, and Sargeras who doesn't count.
The recent lore book doubles down on his arrogance and I kind of think its building up to some kind of reveal that he wants the Titan's glory all for himself.
That's not a burn considering we now have a massive Odyn villainry dump for Dragonflight.
It's not so much we're expecting Turalyon villain arc, besides that its what WoW does, its that we're expecting an evil Light arc & he's the character with the strongest association to the Light. And frankly, not much characterization otherwise.
Especially since Turalyon has the potential to return some depth to the Alliance. I much prefer the idea of the Alliance taking a permanent darker turn under his long-term leadership than for him to briefly be a problem for the Alliance and then become a loon pinata for not fitting in with the squeaky-clean image that Blizzard needs the Alliance to maintain these days.
I think he's better when characterized as a well-meaning and mostly-benevolent leader, albeit one with a strong militaristic streak and a zealous personality. I think long-term leadership from Turalyon is the best thing the Alliance could hope for in its current iteration if the goal is to develop some marginal personality or identity.
It's actually looking good. This time with the Dracthyr, the Alliance has the more measured and interesting reaction ("we don't trust them 100% also visage seems shifty we should expose that") while Horde has the "lol k whatever" response. In the past it has been the opposite.
They are going to use Turalyon to give the Alliance some character while Horde chills out for a bit.
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Already happening as of the Dragonflight intro, considering Shaw and Turalyon's realistic reactions to the Dracthyr.
I wouldn't say it's dark really. More realistic for sure, but it's not like they are considering initiating pogroms and sending the Dracthyr to the ghetto. They are told about dragon equivalent beings created by Deathwing, and then start considering that maybe they should consider upping their ability to suss out dragons in disguise, to prevent situations like Sinestra happening again.
The world revamp dream will never die!
You're confusing "dark" and "nuanced". "Dark" is if Blizzard went full grimderp and decided the Alliance needs to be the Imperium of Man, Turalyon declared himself dictator forever, and all the Void Elves and whathaveyou were arbitrarily purged or oppressed For the Evulz. "Militaristic and suspicious", "zealous", and "authoritarian" contribute to nuance in measured doses for a benevolent faction. Thus far, the Alliance has been wholly deprived of character. Their strengths are mild, and their moral weaknesses are nonexistent. What I'm calling for is a balance, some element of personality that actually exists among the Alliance beyond "lol good guizzz". This was there in Classic, but gradually faded out and wholly dissipated after Cataclysm or so. Even in Warcraft II, where the Alliance were unequivocally the heroes, they had these traits which provided them with a passing measure of personality.
Can you actually describe the identity of the Alliance right now? Could you weigh their pros and cons as a faction? Turalyon represents a philosophical shift that can allow them to return to their roots and become a more interesting faction.
Last edited by Le Conceptuel; 2022-10-21 at 08:16 PM.