The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Nymrohd]

I don't think it was really jarring compared to the rest of Cataclysm. The VAing that entire expansion was very campy and exaggerated.

See this ridiculously overacted dragon for example :

GOOD. Camp fits Warcraft.

[Jaggler]

Curious thing is that some of their Horde counterparts have green eyes.

https://www.wowhead.com/beta/npc=255...las-adventurer

Alliance one don't have green eyes, only gold and blue eyes.

Maybe we don't get high elf allied race but all of blood elf customisations except fel eyes while Horde players get Amani customisations.

Not really curious, because why would a (green eyed) Blood Elf enter Stormwind?

The golden eyed model also went through the Horde portal room, haven't seen the two female models so far.

[Joshuaj]

"Metzen ruined everything Danuser started" "Metzen fixed the mess Danuser made"

Y'all really love believing this crap, huh?

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Ever thought that, maybe, just maybe...they worked together on the Saga's foundation before Danuser left?

[Ersula]

As far as contractors go, Adam Christopher isn’t a woman, neither is Andrew Robison, who are the most recent ones blizzard has used with heartlands.

It's true. This "all female" narrative staff guys have invented in their minds really tells on themselves.

[Vakir]

snip

Careful. We all know art isn't political.

Camp is better in WoW than whatever this is. It bugs the shit out of me when they use camp instead of actually nuanced performances and personalities - Arthas' huge ass downgrade in Wrath comes to mind - but if it's between Skeletor and a community theatre after a binge in an opium den, I'll take Skeletor, yeah.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It's true. This "all female" narrative staff guys have invented in their minds really tells on themselves.

Ya if you want to say the story has gotten worse that’s fair game and I’ve been on that train since SL, but pretending it’s because of woman is just weird and shows that the person has some deep seeded issues.

[Enrif]

But again, that is only placating one side.

Making Thalassian Elves as a whole neutral, would basically mean taking away Silvermoon from the Horde. If you have to take something away to give something to someone else is just a bad deal, especially, when High Elf fans already have an (albeit imperfect) solution

Well, would be fine if the exodar or the new Draenei city also becomes neutral, afterall the blood elves and Draenei are sister races in many respects. Or well, bel ameth and gilneas are neutral too.

[Nymrohd]

Careful. We all know art isn't political.

Camp is better in WoW than whatever this is. It bugs the shit out of me when they use camp instead of actually nuanced performances and personalities - Arthas' huge ass downgrade in Wrath comes to mind - but if it's between Skeletor and a community theatre after a binge in an opium den, I'll take Skeletor, yeah.

Nuance belongs in nuanced stories. There have been moments of brilliance here and there (for me, the entire BfA promotion between the cinematic and the Warbringer shorts was just magic) but they are the exception to the rule.
Warcraft is fast food, not a seven course experience. And fast food can have bold flavours and large portions and do its job for a reasonable price (well, before inflation it could). I think Warcraft works best when it is Rule of Cool with camp performances. Sadly it's been a while since we have had that. Undermine was pretty decent but it did lack edge at the end. The rest of TWW was just tepid as was the entirety of DF.

As for masculinity in Warcraft. Modern society has not figured out what to do with masculinity; what version of masculinity can actually be celebrated and is not problematic. I'd also argue that little about the "girlboss" culture is actually feminine; it is so often masculinity performed by females.

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Btw, was the TWW beta launch this bad? I sincerely cannot remember and I think I would if it was this bad. It's not a problem; this is what beta is for. But I think I'll wait for the weekend to even try playing.

[Jaggler]

Well, would be fine if the exodar or the new Draenei city also becomes neutral, afterall the blood elves and Draenei are sister races in many respects. Or well, bel ameth and gilneas are neutral too.

Or you know, everyone gets to keep their own places and we keep some uniqueness in the game.

[Vakir]

Nuance belongs in nuanced stories.

WoW is absolutely pulp, but there's degrees. Arthas is a standard fallen hero but we share in his frustrations, his triumphs, his response to betrayal, and his shifting loyalties with actual real emotion in his performances. When he calls Kel'Thuzad his friend, you believe it, and it's sweet even if it's in the name of omnicide. When he mistakes the nerubians for calling him the traitor king, it's funny. When Sylvanas has him dead to rights, you're still thinking about how he's going to get out of it.

Other than his obviously still amazing design carried over, the Lich King in Wrath could have been anyone. He is Morgoth put through a power dryer and left out in the sun too long. That's more what I mean.

As for masculinity in Warcraft. Modern society has not figured out what to do with masculinity; what version of masculinity can actually be celebrated and is not problematic. I'd also argue that little about the "girlboss" culture is actually feminine; it is so often masculinity performed by females.

It's also just such an obvious and transparent ploy. How many of these new girlbosses even matter and stay relevant?

Talia, Talanji, Faerin, Earthen girl, the Winter Queen, Kyrian lady, inevitably Orwenna, they are immediately discarded after they've served their narrative purpose and don't even have any meaning beyond looking progressive.

It's blatantly artificial, not some deep developer conspiracy.

The reason we don't see anything beyond bland involvement with Anduin and characters resembling him is because the developers have zero fucking interest in doing anything with anyone but those types of characters.

The affirmative action girl boss parade AND the conga line of weak willed, uncertain, or villain batted and discarded dudes (a prayer for Zul'jan) are both symptoms of the same problem. It is not the latter acting in service to prop the former. They're just moving pieces on a board that goes into the furnace after 1.5 years. Yaaay.

[Ersula]

Normally I am critical of people complaining about the "feminization" of the setting because I am fine with giving the blood elves a more sultry or femme characterization....but you gave them the same voice as the Prince of the Mechagnomes? It's very obviously the same voice. The VA didn't even put on a different cadence or anything. It's just Robin from Teen Titans, emphasis on Teen. At this point he voices a disproportionate number of male characters. I know big fantasy games usually have a small selection of VA doing voices for everything but they got to do it a little more deftly.

Kind of like when they recast Khan in the King of the Hill reboot. I'm fine with the idea of recasting but the voice you got sounds like a teenager voicing a 60 year old man.

[Dracullus]

Btw, was the TWW beta launch this bad? I sincerely cannot remember and I think I would if it was this bad. It's not a problem; this is what beta is for. But I think I'll wait for the weekend to even try playing.

Oh yeah. I just wanted to see some warband stuff and fly around the zones, couldn't do it like first 2 days. It's problem that will solve itself in few days, probably there are ton of people like me who will launch it from curiosity to check few things, but don't want to become unpaid tester for Blizzard next 3 months.

[Vakir]

Normally I am critical of people complaining about the "feminization" of the setting because I am fine with giving the blood elves a more sultry or femme characterization

Hell, I think most people would be entirely on board with the hoity toity and poshness played up, they've already done so and the androgyny and vanity is even parodied in their jokes at times. Pretty sure they avoided removal, but I could be wrong.

This is...nothing.

[Xilurm]

There is an occasional ethics issue with changing VAs; if the existing VA is not available because they are striking. Happened with Undermine, hated how it affected gameplay but I could not fault Blizz for their choice there.

Yeah, that makes sense. In this case it doesn't. It's not like changing the voice of a continuous character. It's just some random npc's.

[Cheezits]

Yeah the Robin guy is just a miscast imo. He does good work but has a very specific range.

[Marlamin]

Hi Marlamin!

I have downloaded BETA and it looks to me facial rigging isn't in yet?
All of them have the same expression (very neutral) but there is difference in the size of their lips.

I'm not against the neutral look so I would be happy if this is final.
However, is there a way to check if the rigging is done for them?

I can't say I have a super easy way to check that, maybe see if there are any .bone files for those models, provided you are talking about the Haranir.

[Santandame]

Yeesh. Just bad, those voice lines.

I'd like to know if voice direction was changed. Things are back to being around early Wrath (most female Vrykul/Val'kyr) and late Cata (basically all of the Deathwing raid) levels of weak.

At least it isn't OG Theralion?

This is Jale Rivermane erasure.

[Vakir]

This is Jale Rivermane erasure.

Hey, with that much conviction and urgency, how could I not beware the deep places of the Earth?

[Limayria]

Nuance belongs in nuanced stories. There have been moments of brilliance here and there (for me, the entire BfA promotion between the cinematic and the Warbringer shorts was just magic) but they are the exception to the rule.
Warcraft is fast food, not a seven course experience. And fast food can have bold flavours and large portions and do its job for a reasonable price (well, before inflation it could). I think Warcraft works best when it is Rule of Cool with camp performances. Sadly it's been a while since we have had that. Undermine was pretty decent but it did lack edge at the end. The rest of TWW was just tepid as was the entirety of DF.

As for masculinity in Warcraft. Modern society has not figured out what to do with masculinity; what version of masculinity can actually be celebrated and is not problematic. I'd also argue that little about the "girlboss" culture is actually feminine; it is so often masculinity performed by females.

- - - Updated - - -

Btw, was the TWW beta launch this bad? I sincerely cannot remember and I think I would if it was this bad. It's not a problem; this is what beta is for. But I think I'll wait for the weekend to even try playing.

I'm honestly really surprised we haven't gotten any major story beats focusing on fatherhood as that seems like an area where we could really have some more traditional masculine "energy" without getting too close to anything controversial I think. Though that might have some to do with the struggles of introducing new younger characters

It's also weird seeing characters like the winter queen or the kyrian lady (kyresta I think?) as "girl bosses" when the leaders of the other two covenants were men (Primus, prince) and honestly having the lesder of the valkyar faction not being a woman would have been strange lmao. And a queen is also pretty fitting for a fae court though I'd have much preferred them to have had canonically third gendered fae characters using neopronouns. I wonder if that would have gone over better with players lol


Id hazard a guess considering even games like deltarune struggle with the community understanding a character being non binary but I do also feel like a more fantasy/cosmic story with a character being explicitly a third gender with a different set of pronouns (ze/zer fae/faer etc)


I definitely agree that the Warcraft mainline story is lacking ambition it used to have but it's strange to me that people act like it's significantly worse, are we really acting like the actual character butchery of TBC/Wotlk is better than what we currently have? I love the vibes of TBC but the actual writing is abysmal there just was so little we could fill in the gaps with better things

[Hearthfinder]

The Haranir root travel ability seems weird. It takes you to Harandar, then you manually need to travel to an area of the map that counts as being near to one of the world trees' roots. This changed the ability into a slow teleport to said tree.

How is this in any way near as effective as the DID mole machine, for instance? Fewer locations, more cumbersome, and pretty slow. It's way more efficient to just HS to Stormwind and use a portal.

It gets weirder because if the implication is that you can't travel using the roots unless you're near them, then why would you be able to travel to Harandar without roots in the first place?

There seems to be some type of spiritual thing going on, but it still seems weird to me.

It'd probably be better if it was just a green mole machine, honestly. A giant root appears whereever you are, and you choose a location associated with world trees, including Harandar but perhaps also the Great Trees such as the one in Duskwood.