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

[Alanar]

You are describing the area from wotlk forward. In vanilla there was a giant bubble blocking people from entering but the Intention is that Dalaran was there, just inaccessible. You can witness this in Classic right now. Unless your point is "If I cant go there then it doesnt exist" which is a wild take considering things like Northrend or Gilneas wasn't accessible until wotlk/cata, but we knew for sure that they existed.

Nah, I meant vanilla. I believe the story was that the city was under construction. It was destroyed before vanilla.

While lorewise it was there being worked on, it simply wasnt a accesible city, nor was it one really at the time. It only returned or rather first time ever in wow in wrath. Treating the vanilla bubble as an actual city, is not really fair for that matter.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

That said, I'm still in the camp that believes Iridikron will end up being our Legion Illidan.

Same.

It seems like he's set up that way too. No doubt he'll gain great powers but if the Titans are involved like actual Prime Titans and not their .0001% avatar forms in Legion than there's no way he could take the spotlight from them. As nothing in the series even comes close to the Prime Titans powers besides Sargeras of course.

So Iridikron will be the Illidan of the Last Titan and aid us again a army of invading Titanforge army. I can see the Titans mass drop podding infinite amounts of soldiers from orbit. But at the end when the Prime Titans actually arrives, we're still going to need to release the BEAST/GOAT aka Sargeras to stop them.

[Vakir]

He does hesitate initially and does lament their death, he just sees it as a necessity in the moment. It doesn't help that he was under severe time constraints so spending much time looking for an alternative wasn't actually that feasible.

When did you last actually do the questline?

During Remix. It carries about as much empathy as the Lord Farquaad sacrifice meme. Then his speech at the end to Ravencrest goes on for what feels like 10,000 years with absolutely no response to it with the implication thereof that he is completely justified.

Edit: Indeed, the quest title and his paraphrasing of it borrowed from Edmund Burke implies he's in the right, even though the entire point of that quote is total inaction in response to oppression. Shades of the stupid use of First They Came by the Game of Thrones writers in their final episode.

It's bad if it's selling us on the moral perspective of a race described as benevolent, at least back in TBC, is what I'm trying to say.

But more importantly, the idea that it's to draw some parallel between him and Xe'ra is comical. Xe'ra's basic observations from the information we have plus the even more she does should be that Illidan is brash, unpredictable, capable of murder on an impressive scale, seeks power even when his cause is noble, and doesn't always hold himself to the same laws or standards as expected of others.

...and what she got was a brash and unpredictable reaction where he didn't hold himself to the same standard of sacrifice as others and murdered her. Huh, I guess she was only half paying attention to literally everything, oops.

So now that we're done with a "well ackshually" of a few token and disingenuous lines, which is it? Is Xe'ra a total fucking idiot, or was this a course correction from a player rejected story.

Because it's not anything other than those two. Metzen asked pre-Legion if we wanted a "redemption story" for Illidan at Blizzcon and that's also a smoking gun.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

My point is that doesn't mean everyone else should be censored if they start being a bit more evil you know?

I agree that I don't think things should be censored but that poster is right about the orcs being like the Nazis since Orgrim decided to conquer and mass murder a entire race of people on a different planet just for fun with the excuse of being "for muh bloooood and glory!!!!"

So Blackhand and even Orgrim whose suppose to be a bit better than Blackhand is still no different that other sick and evil leaders throughout real life history like Stalin and Hitler.

Although the evil factions are pretty cool in these fictional stories as I always find the old gods and burning legion cool in fiction just not in real life.

[Magistrate]

I think with Fyrakk that was actually the point. The guy was an insane shortsighted idiot who didn't really have any goals beyond having it all burn and Iridikron basically just threw him at us to buy himself time, never expecting him to succeed. He was never intended as a major character and didn't even get much focus in the patch that revolved around killing him.

Imo a big problem with DF was this pattern.

Stories which were really B line things got raid tiers and the actual backbone got shoved into one off quest chunks or something.

For instance, Abberus should have been the mega-dungeon. It was following a secondary character with little to no impact on most events or any real consequential intersection with the driving force of DF--the incarnates. Fyrakk just went down there to soak in soup and light Loamm on fire (Shadowflame, which I'm pretty sure in the same expac they said couldn't be put out with water, and we just threw some buckets at 3 houses after one of the most powerful beings on azeroth essentially dropped a nuke on it, but that's a whole other thing).

Then Dawn of the Infinite (despite some mechanical annoyances) should absolutely have been the raid.

Amirdrassil was a good raid and I didn't mind the zone but again I feel it was a miss making that a raid given you could remove Fyrakks attack and nothing in the long term of the story would be affected.

They should have done something else for the final raid. My money would be the Oathstones that we went through so much trouble to activate, clearly had magical energy, but ended up being useless. That would have been more clearly tied to dragons and the premise set up at launch which put so much stress on them. Having them empowered by Azeroth randomly after the tree was defended was visually interesting but nonsensical.

[Super Dickmann]

Since Blood and Honor is an Alliance phrase as opposed to a Horde one, I have to assume that contrary to what Metzen told you this actually means the Horde are clean of fascist influence. At least this puts Umbric's antics in BfA in a new light knowing he's doing it to advance Alliance National Bolshevism. Granted, I'm not sure how well it'll get along with Anduinite End of History theory, but maybe Umbric's Red-Brown Alliance will give the Alliance some meaningful intrafactional conflict.

Given the Horde are afflicted with the plague of Goblo-Bolshevik subversion, maybe this actually puts their militarism in the camp of Acéphale since they were anti-fascist but were similarly immersed in aestheticized violence. Bataillean Accursed Share economics weren't something I expected to see in WoW but they might as well, the Horde is starved for identity after the pisstake of the Horde council.

I raised this topic with him actually, and his answer surprised and awed me, since it gave me a good idea of Chris's subtlety as both a writer and a national socialist. You see, if you examine WC2, you'll note that none of the on-click quotes feature these themes. Orgrim's Horde and the Amani are racially unaware, subject to implicit Goblo-Bolshevik subversion, only using 'Lok'tar', which at the time didn't even mean what it does now. By comparison, by Vanilla, orcs routinely greet you by invoking Blood and Thunder (a clear reference to the Sturmabteilung, revealing Metzen's disapproval of the ousting of Röhm and a Strasserite tendency in his thinking), praising the Leader ("Thrall Hall!") and even have "Victory" as a goodbye quote. How to bridge this?

The answer is in Of Blood and Honor. You'll note that the phrase is tactically applied in the book, first as regards the ethos of the Silver Hand as adopted by Tirion, a human paladin, Metzen's favorite combination and one of his favorite characters. When he later extends a hand to Eitrigg, he swears on his blood and honor and it's only at the very end that Eitrigg repeats the line back to Tirion, showing how he's adopted his thinking, thinking he'll carry to Thrall's Horde and thus immerse it in a Völkisch perspective. Tirion, as a committed Hitlerite, has taken into account that whereas the Alliance might once have been able to demonstrate the superiority of humanity, it has since fallen to the wayside. As with the Führer acknowledging that the future belonged to the asiatic race upon his defeat, Tirion too noted that since they were so readily able to defeat the Alliance if not for their internal struggle and the disunity, the orcish race was superior and deserved to carry on tenets more appropriate to it.

Tirion is later proven to be prophetic, as despite figurehead leaders like Anduin and Jaina which are of fine stock, Umbric's prominence shows the triumph of the global scourge of Communism in the Alliance (itself obviously a veiled reference to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as noted when Varian, betraying his heritage, subverts the ruling Bronzebeard rule and places a council, which is to say a soviet, in charge of the dwarves, which would go on to be the subversive Anduinic model worldwide.).

[Gurahk]

Saying "...But the gameplay is good" for an RPG is like saying "Yeah, the writing of this movie sucks, but I watch it for the special effects". Story, worldbuilding and vibe matters.

What? Gameplay is the most important part in a game.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

didn't pause for a second on any decision and the information we were given and the style it was delivered didn't even depict Illidan that way. He didn't try any other path whatsoever than immediately just murdering his disciples for power and didn't seem even remotely with an ounce of empathy. I'm not criticizing the action as an in-character decision, but we go from zero to 100 and Xe'ra responds to it with "yup this is the way, what a noble soul." There's degrees to how pragmatic you make someone and how they respond to it.

If you read WoTA it’s pretty clear Illidan was just always a psycho/sociopath. He,

Lights Brox on fire because Tyranda wants to get him free instead of going on a date

Kills a ton of his own wizards and when he’s relived of command for doing so takes it as a betrayal to his greatness

Let’s Malf and Tyranda possible die because he realizes malf also loves Tyranda and vise versa

Let’s Malf get tortured for above reason

Kills abunch of night elfs after the war because they don’t understand how great he will be with the power of the new well.

Illidan at his core only cares about him self and making him self look good and every one else is a pawn to that aim.

[Nymrohd]

He does hesitate initially and does lament their death, he just sees it as a necessity in the moment. It doesn't help that he was under severe time constraints so spending much time looking for an alternative wasn't actually that feasible.

When did you last actually do the questline?

There is no empathy, no hesitation in the voice acting. It feels performative, he is just rationalizing his actions so he can keep on. Why should he be the one who survives instead of any of his fellow Moonguard? That never crosses his mind.

[Limayria]

Imo a big problem with DF was this pattern.

Stories which were really B line things got raid tiers and the actual backbone got shoved into one off quest chunks or something.

For instance, Abberus should have been the mega-dungeon. It was following a secondary character with little to no impact on most events or any real consequential intersection with the driving force of DF--the incarnates. Fyrakk just went down there to soak in soup and light Loamm on fire (Shadowflame, which I'm pretty sure in the same expac they said couldn't be put out with water, and we just threw some buckets at 3 houses after one of the most powerful beings on azeroth essentially dropped a nuke on it, but that's a whole other thing).

Then Dawn of the Infinite (despite some mechanical annoyances) should absolutely have been the raid.

Amirdrassil was a good raid and I didn't mind the zone but again I feel it was a miss making that a raid given you could remove Fyrakks attack and nothing in the long term of the story would be affected.

They should have done something else for the final raid. My money would be the Oathstones that we went through so much trouble to activate, clearly had magical energy, but ended up being useless. That would have been more clearly tied to dragons and the premise set up at launch which put so much stress on them. Having them empowered by Azeroth randomly after the tree was defended was visually interesting but nonsensical.

They probably didn't wanna put too much story content in raids as even lfr is lacking in getting people who only care about the story into raids seemingly. Hence the creation of story mode for raids


I also don't think there's any reason inherently that story should be in raids rather than dungeons or quest

[Vakir]

and making him self look good and every one else is a pawn to that aim.

That's definitely how it was in WotA. WotA's depiction is significantly hardened, though, from the depiction of the character in WC3 and is prone to Knaackification, where Malfurion is Jesus and way more patient towards Illidan and his decisions, which is not what we were shown and told. Ditto Tyrande not having her brash streak. Malfurion is further made a Messiah where they implied he met with Illidan while imprisoned many times to attempt to renounce his decision, while in WC3 he treated it like he forgot entirely and treated him like a dirty little secret that should never be let out.

I personally think it's good to walk it back somewhat to create a sense of depth or nuance, where Illidan more resembles what he does now vs. being a one and done power hungry monster like the dozens of others that we have. Knaak has a lot of problems like this with moralistically stark depictions.

Ditto it being a better choice having Malfurion being a bit sanctimonious and rigid in-game instead of a bland paragon of moral imperviousness. Sadly, having a character flaw is improved when it's pointed out and we generally don't get that outside of Tyrande going "no u" and doing what she wants to bust Illidan out. Nobody ever talks about how pompous these two can be outside perhaps Thalyssra's decision.

[Super Dickmann]

Ditto it being a better choice having Malfurion being a bit sanctimonious and rigid in-game instead of a bland paragon of moral imperviousness. Sadly, having a character flaw is improved when it's pointed out and we generally don't get that outside of Tyrande going "no u" and doing what she wants to bust Illidan out. Nobody ever talks about how pompous these two can be outside perhaps Thalyssra's decision.

Tyrande summarily executing the Wardens for disobeying her abrupt decision to free Illidan was both a nice showing of Night Elf theocracy (as she explicitly ignores Malfurion's disagreement), something that made how much Maiev hates her guts hold over and also has never come up in the entire MMO, even when people question Tyrande. It also makes how much softer and indecisive she is as Night Warrior even worse.

In respect to Illidan, my only strong belief that it may have been intentional is the combination of Kayn being the favored version in the Demon Hunter hall, with him doing stuff that's obviously not-Anduin approved, Tyrande and Malfurion's harsh and dismissive judgment of him at the end and, most of all, just how completely what you literally do in terms of gameplay and what Xe'ra says clash. @Sondrelk 's take that they just ran out of money is the only thing that can explain why they didn't just retcon things to make Illidan come across better, as they've done plenty of times in other flashbacks to fit their current idea of a character. The dissonance between Xe'ra explaining that Illidan is the messiah and him eating his followers because he didn't pack mana potions is just too large otherwise, even Blizzard would have caught it.

[Vakir]

Kayn is the canon choice, but have we ever received confirmation that it's by narrative intention or just that he was the most selected and settled on later? He's definitely more interesting and the re-Shading of Akama is depicted as actually pretty dark in terms of his despair reaction, but I think people could be argued to have picked Kayn way more often because he's pro-Illidan and Demon Hunter early adopter PCs probably like Illidan. Also, blood elves.

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There is no empathy, no hesitation in the voice acting. It feels performative, he is just rationalizing his actions so he can keep on. Why should he be the one who survives instead of any of his fellow Moonguard? That never crosses his mind.

And given especially Caleb, O'Brien can absolutely sell that in a performance and then some. If he doesn't, it's very clearly intended.

A voice direction W.

[Super Dickmann]

Kayn is the canon choice, but have we ever received confirmation that it's by narrative intention or just that he was the most selected and settled on later? He's definitely more interesting and the re-Shading of Akama is depicted as actually pretty dark in terms of his despair reaction, but I think people could be argued to have picked Kayn way more often because he's pro-Illidan and Demon Hunter early adopter PCs probably like Illidan. Also, blood elves.

Blizzard at the time were up front that they could support morally dubious characters as a character choice (see also the Ebon Blade and mre than both combined, helping Odyn enslave the Kvaldir) and they also want Illidan to be cool. You are primed to disagree with Altruis if you play DH. For one, he doesn't appear for the actual intro where you and your friends score a major W against the Legion following Illidan, and when he does appear he has a drab design and acts like a stick in the mud. You know, presumably, playing TBC that Illidan wanted to steal people's water and also put coal in their Winter's Veil socks, but the game itself doesn't bring any attention to it where it readily could have. Everything is done to favor Kayn.

[Limayria]

Kayn is the canon choice, but have we ever received confirmation that it's by narrative intention or just that he was the most selected and settled on later? He's definitely more interesting and the re-Shading of Akama is depicted as actually pretty dark in terms of his despair reaction, but I think people could be argued to have picked Kayn way more often because he's pro-Illidan and Demon Hunter early adopter PCs probably like Illidan. Also, blood elves.

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And given especially Caleb, O'Brien can absolutely sell that in a performance and then some. If he doesn't, it's very clearly intended.

A voice direction W.

it literally makes 0 sense for the DH pc to side with Altirus, you are Illidans #1 demon hunter why would you suddenly betray him after being locked up by the people who killed your master? and only let you out because those same people had a security breach thats endangering the entire world

[Vakir]

Blizzard at the time were up front that they could support morally dubious characters as a character choice (see also the Ebon Blade and mre than both combined, helping Odyn enslave the Kvaldir) and they also want Illidan to be cool. You are primed to disagree with Altruis if you play DH. For one, he doesn't appear for the actual intro where you and your friends score a major W against the Legion following Illidan, and when he does appear he has a drab design and acts like a stick in the mud. You know, presumably, playing TBC that Illidan wanted to steal people's water and also put coal in their Winter's Veil socks, but the game itself doesn't bring any attention to it where it readily could have. Everything is done to favor Kayn.

Valid. I do wonder how much that, the post-quest with the two hearing the message, and the Xe'ra quest and eventual nuking of her was always intended and how much the people involved communicated prior for evidence for or against.

Either way, enough of my fel posting, I think the argument is made clear: Moral dubiousness interesting, generic psychopath characterization bad, ultimately happy with the middle ground received, Xe'ra quest has major performance and action disconnect.

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it literally makes 0 sense for the DH pc to side with Altirus, you are Illidans #1 demon hunter why would you suddenly betray him after being locked up by the people who killed your master? and only let you out because those same people had a security breach thats endangering the entire world

You aren't his #1 at the very onset if I'm not mistaken. You select prior to being given formal command.

Also, Altrius still stays when he returns and you picked him, so obviously the narrative is that he trusts you as a reformer middle ground and is willing to work with Illidan with his intentions in TBC clarified.

It fails, Kayn is the better choice in all ways, but I mean the intent is there.

My question was never about who the more popular pick and why, but if there was a deliberate intent from the very start behind the canonicity that we could confirm via Blizzard's mouth. But that's unlikely, so we're left with "it's canon, who cares if it was always meant to be," which is fine.

[Joshuaj]

it literally makes 0 sense for the DH pc to side with Altirus, you are Illidans #1 demon hunter why would you suddenly betray him after being locked up by the people who killed your master? and only let you out because those same people had a security breach thats endangering the entire world

Are you though? Always presumed that, at the start of the expac, you're simply one of his Illidari.

[Sondrelk]

The whole Kayn/Altruis thing is he nearly the thing that truly solidified for me why having actual tangible choices in an MMO wasn't going to work. The game cannot take a firm stance when you can either play Ilidari Demon Hunters who follow lockstep behind Illidan the infallible. Or Illidari the harshly judged Demon Hunters who want to prove that they have good intentions.

Stick to one or the other and live with the consequences.

[Limayria]

Are you though? Always presumed that, at the start of the expac, you're simply one of his Illidari.

The other illidari defer to you on the maradum mission at least, leaving you to make some choices like how when you get to the "choose your spec mission" it's your player character chosing what fel secrets from the mcguffin book to give everyone

Or the sacrifice needed to open the portal is left to you to choose


I don't think you're the formal leader of the illidari in general but like the demon hunter leader was always the way I understood the interactions in the maradum mission and the fact they defer to you to settle the Kayn/Altitus dispute

The whole Kayn/Altruis thing is he nearly the thing that truly solidified for me why having actual tangible choices in an MMO wasn't going to work. The game cannot take a firm stance when you can either play Ilidari Demon Hunters who follow lockstep behind Illidan the infallible. Or Illidari the harshly judged Demon Hunters who want to prove that they have good intentions.

Stick to one or the other and live with the consequences.

These two groups don't have to be separate, having the demon hunters following Illidan seeing his goals as having justified the means but do have genuinely good intentions, which is really what would have made the most sense of a direction to take the class narrative, moving the Kayn vs Altitus conflict to a class hall epilogue of the demon hunters reckoning with the way Illidan is and setting up their existential struggle with life in a post legion world after having literally destroyed their bodies and souls in irreparable ways to bring about this world


Basically illidari being good people who bought into Illidan's cult of personality and ended up too deep to change and their reckoning with the fact that after everything they do for Illidan he still abandons them with out even a good bye or anything at the end of legion


But of course it's basically impossible to have any meaningful story involving the illidari because the most important character in the illidari story is a faceless "champion of azeorth" so the single most interesting and unique aspect of wow lore is left to rot

[Magistrate]

They probably didn't wanna put too much story content in raids as even lfr is lacking in getting people who only care about the story into raids seemingly. Hence the creation of story mode for raids

Well to your point if this really is a problem we have story mode to solve it entirely. But separately of that, the story of a raid is immensely important and it isn't just told in like...I'm not sure what you're imagining I guess. I'm figuring you feel this is a problem because of rp segments or text chunks in the chat box? Neither of these things are necessary.

You take the main story beats which are obviously more epic and meaningful and create polished encounters using WoW's longstanding most important gameplay pillar.

If story didn't matter for a raid we should have just had a hozen raid instead of SoO, or a beach turtle raid instead of dazar'alor.

The maximal resources should be used on the main story beats, not side plots.

also don't think there's any reason inherently that story should be in raids rather than dungeons or quest

I agree. My point is that the main story beats should be the focus of the highest fidelity content.