#i also got to that one cinematic in legion where he fights sylvanas and is like... inexplicably shirtless | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wowheadquarters · 6 years

Text

Attack on Not-Theramore timelines

For @shatterstar1998. Alright, time to summon my inner bronze dragon Authormi, we are going to explore different timelines. That is, timelines in which Garrosh Fuck-up Hellscream decided to bomb someone else’s capital instead of Theramore by the end of the Cataclysm. Reactions, story arcs, what all changes in these different timelines?

Stormwind The fight here was actually pretty much similar to the one on Theramore Isle, with a few exceptions: Reinforcements (and also Alliance generals) were able to come to Stormwind much faster than to Theramore, there was no Jaina Proudmoore, nor Rhonin, but there was Sylvanas with her Plague Wagons. As result: Varian Wrynn and a handful of generals have died (a lot of them becoming Forsaken), plus countless soldiers and civilians. The Mage Quarter is now The Magic Crater, Anduin rules what is left of the city. The Alliance is officially in war with the Horde and the Mists of Pandaria are less about Pandas and more about the war.

Ironforge, Aerie Peak and Shadowforge Garrosh isn’t an exclusionist and when Nazgrim asked him “What Dwarf capital do we Attack?” he said “All of them.” Which proved itself to be a fatal mistake, because the forces weren’t focused in one place but three... And mostly underground where they weren’t used to fight. While Aerie Peak eventually got hit by the mana bomb and Ironforge is as of now full of lava, Shadowforge is actually clean of the Blackrock Orc, and now even the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer live in the Blackrock Mountain... which has become the main fortress and amory against the Horde. There is Mekkatorque inventing weapons like crazy. Pandaria has been discovered around the time of the Legion, while most of Azeroth was too focused on the Mecha Wars. Oh, and there are mana-gryphons now.

Darnassus You know that trick “Stuff Teldrassil with wisps full, so it blows up”? Garrosh didn’t know the trick. Also, there is no longer any Garrosh Hellscream, the Horde forces were reduced to 20 % of what it used to be. Baine and Vol’jin are dead too. There are exactly 10 wisps left in the world. Malfurion is also dead. The Veiled Sea is full of splinters. The Night Elves sprouted a new vengeance-seeking life-sucking death-bringing subrace called Lanadorei, the Mourning Elves which are not playable, but bear the worgen curse and oppose everyone and everybody, defeating them being yet another plot in Mists of Pandaria.

Gnomeregan Actually, nobody from the Alliance has really noticed or cared about this one. Gnomeregan is still in a bad shape, no matter how hard Mekkatorque works on it. All he did was leading the Horde forces into the irradiated zones, and that was it. Now we have a slightly radioactive Horde. Garrosh has been pun on a trial and consequently in a prison by Thrall, Pandaria went far more peacefully, Sylvanas’ Apotheracy now work with the Gnomes to find some large-scale de-radiationizer. Baine Bloodhoof is the new Warchief, everything is far more peaceful.

Exodar Y’know... Garrosh didn’t think this one entirely thorough. He got whacked by the Naaru, personally kicked in head by Velen, and also the Draenei have still a lot of feelings about the slaughter on Draenor, and while they are very peaceful race, that doesn’t mean they are necessarily forgiving and they want their vengeance. It was Garrosh who started the war, true, but it was Vindicator Maraad who continued in it. There wasn’t even any time to drop the mana bomb on Exodar, because Maraad ordered to drop a great deal of the blood red crystals on Orgrimmar and all over Durotar, turning the zone into Bloodmyst Wastes. It served also as a test-flight for Exodar after the repairs.

Gilneas At first Sylvanas was really hype for this one, but then it turned out that Garrosh wants the city destroyed. So Sylvanas and Genn did that spear-lending scene from the MoP cinematic and joined forces against the attack. Gilneas eventually got mana-bombed while Sylvanas was still inside. She was later rescued, but the rebellion against obviously treacherous Hellscream, was already started, and the Alliance helped. Siege of Orgrimmar happened. far earlier.

Orgrimmar This is instant treason, but the Horde can’t do much about it, can it? Almost everybody in any leading position is dead, such as Thrall, Vol’jin, Baine. Sylvanas and Lor’themar are on the other continent, they are fine and taking in refugees. Saurfang leads a war against Garrosh with whatever he has left of the Horde (it isn’t much). MoP goes pretty much as it went, except Garrosh is viewed from the very beginning as the evil guy we are fighting against.

Echo Isles Alright, I have said that if you bomb Gilneas, siege of Orgrimmar starts much earlier. If you bomb the Echo Isles, it starts instantly and it is... far more voodoo induced. And also Vol’jin comes to the conclusion that actually the Zandalari had a point, so it is actually trolls from all over the Azeroth taking over Orgrimmar. Pandaria has to wait, because we get a Troll expansion beforehead, named something like The Warlords of Azeroth. Also, Alliance Dark Trolls, I suppose.

Thunder Bluff See Orgrimmar, but there are minor changes. First one - Mulgore becomes an end-game zone and Thunder Bluff is a gigantic crater now. Taurens now start in the Thousand Needles. The Grimtotem are on Garrosh’s side, while all Centaurs have put aside their differences and joined the Tauren.

Undercity Well, another fight in the Undercity, can’t say we haven’t seen that one. The results are nearly the same as in Gilneas, with one quite an important difference - Koltira is rescued, and upon finding out what Sylvanas has done to him, the Ebon Blade temporarily (very, very temporarily) joins Garrosh Hellscream.

Silvermoon First of all, the capital of the Blood Elves becomes... Theramore! Second, there is a huge plot-deal with an arcane infuse spreading from the north thorough the Eastern Kingdom, as the bombed Sunwell decided to seep into the soil and contaminate everything. Plaguelands and Ghostalnds are full of undead arcane monsters and it’s seriously creepy. There is no Purge of Dalaran, instead Kirin Tor joins in against Hellscream in the very beginning, because Aethas Sunreaver gives those inert bastards some very good yelling. Kalecgos marries Jaina. MoP is mostly the same, because nobody gives a fuck about Blood Elves otherwise.

Bilgewater Port It doesn’t result in any kind of war and Garrosh achieves literally nothing. A new race of Gillblins is added. In this case Gillblins are a product of a rapid mutation of (mostly) Bilgewater Golbins hiding underwater at the time the mana bomb went off. Normal Golbins are still with the horde lead by Gallywix, Alliance Gillblins are lead by Her Finesse Milda (Finesse as in “fin-esse”), Horde Gillblins are lead by Gazlowe. MoP stays the same, but Azshara wents thorough yet another terraforming and is now again lvl 40-45 zone.

Torchkeep ...Let’s say the Golden Torch has arrived on Azeroth somewhat sooner, say around the Cataclysm at latest, and settled in Northrend. Upon Torchkeep being attacked by Garrosh’s army, Velen was all like “Hey, we are killing the demons now? Cool idea, let us help.” so Horde and Alliance cooperated here instead of fighting one another (although Garrosh meant to betray the Alliance and throw the bomb all the same). However, the Golden Torch booby trapped the place like crazy and set it on self-destruct mode, while they all boarded their Netherships and fucked off from Azeroth. MoP went pretty much the sam, though, except initially Horde and Alliance weren’t at war. Rhonin died in the Purge of Dalaran. Taedal’s awesome expansion has never happened and never will (not like it is any different from the current situation).

#World of Warcraft #WoW #Warcraft #This has been fun #alternative universe #alternative timelines #Attack on Theramore

27 notes · View notes

doodlingadventures · 6 years

Text

About the C.Golden Novel

I’ve got 4 anons in the inbox asking me the same thing, “Do you think that something will happen in Before the Storm that will make Sylvanas’s actions more justified?” And... well, here are my thoughts

(if they’re al the same person, yeah, I got your message, but I need time to answer my friend xD)

#BFAspoilers

Ok, so first of all, something must have happened; In the recent scenarios, night elves are supposed to be sending a good chunk of their troops towards Silithus, to the point where Darnassus and Ashenvale’s only defense is Malfurion. Although the only big events that Blizzard is giving us are the Burning of Teldrassil and the Siege of Lordaeron, some big events that happen in the novels are never referenced in game (Garrosh’s trial, for one).

Anyway, my point, whatever happens, can’t be caused by the Horde. Not to justify Sylvanas’s actions, because, let’s be honest, she doesn’t need it. Whatever happens must justify the other Leaders of the Horde supporting her.

For one, Blizzard needs to convince us that Baine, an outspoken pacifist, someone that considers himself a friend to Anduin, someone that spoke up against Garrosh while he was doing this exact same shit, leader of a culture centered around the worship of a nature Goddes and pretty pacifists in general, and advised by a fucking Archdruid of the Cenarion Circle (Hamuul Runetotem, if you’re wondering) is not only going to be ok with these attacks, but is also going to actively collaborate. (And be ok with blightspreading, but that’s for another post, because thats a lot to adress, and include all the races)

Then, they have to give us a justified reason as to why would the Blood elves be willing to leave the Eastern Kingdoms for an All Horde Kalimdor, as Sylvanas wants. Because... What about the Sunwell? Do you really think that the Sin'dorei are going to leave their city, their fountain of Light that literally keeps them alive and sane, behind, so the Alliance has it? After all they fought to purify it, and Lor’themar had to kick out Alleria and the Void elves for the fear they had of it being corrupted? And we don’t even know if the Sunwell can be transported. We are talking about the purified heart of a Naaru mixed with Arcane energy and water resting/contained in a platform... I don’t know for sure if it can be moved or transported, but if the Elves could have done so during Arthas’s attack, they probably would have…. so I doubt the Sunwell is going anywhere.

Then, they have to convince us about the Darkspears. That one may seem simple, since Vol’jin was the one that wouldn’t have favoured war, and he is no longer amongst us, but, the current leader seems to be Rokhan, and he is of the same line of thinking as Vol’jin (in fact, on the recently datamined text about the Shalayn, “Sylvanas wants ta give 'em a chance. Dey got no home left. If dey can work with us, den dey got a home with da Horde. If not, dey be gone.” His attitude is very in character, considering he is from the “warcraft III to WoTLK Horde” way of thinking. He is also always described as a sweetheart, I’m kinda quoting Thrall). If you want to argue that Rokhan is not the leader of the Darkspear and that another member is, the only options left are Master Gadrin (whom, in all honestly, is more like one of the elders of the tribe and guides the youngsters, I have yet to see help in decission making or war planning or... away from Sen’jin village), or Zen’tabra, another Druid of the Cenarion Circle, and Vanira, a Shaman and member of the Guardians of Hyjal.

If you’re thinking about that Troll that appeared in the Horde end-of-Legion cinematic, her name is Bwemba and she is an emissary.

(all of these characters I’ve ust mentioned have models for 8.0.1, so one way or another, they’ll be making an appearence. Maybe even clear a bit of the confussion with the Darkspear leadership?)

And despite everything, if there is one thing that the Darkspears are never, ever, EVER going to be ok with, is raising someone into undeath. First, because of their beliefs and hinted relationship with the Loa of death, making undead triple the heresy for them, and second, because of what motherfucking Zalazane did to them ( and no one dare say he has no relevance anymore, he is making another appearence at BFA, and the shit he pulled cannot be forgotten so easily).

Maybe in a microcosmos where this is just another tribe of trolls, they wouldn’t have problem in attacking the Night elves, but they’re not just “another tribe of trolls” and this characters are not warmongers.

The huojin... I doubt that they would be willing participants. Pandaren are not known for their streaks of cruelty or interest in war. Yeah, the Huojin are kind of the “aggressive side”, but nowhere near the level of this. They’re a wild card, so let’s leave them at a “?”.

Then, we have the Orcs. Some must be already thinking that of fucking course the Orcs would be in favor of a war, but again, context. Saurfang and Eitrigg are on the hardcore side of Honor, and the Orcs that survived the Siege of Orgrimmar were against Garrosh’s methods, tactics and phylosophy. There are still those who don’t like the Alliance, obviously, and will fight if it means survival for their people (technically that’s the whole issue with Ashenvale since classic) but that is one thing, and what the novellas and scenarios are showing us is very different. And to go backwards on this characterization for no reason is... bad writting. Also, Saurfang starts the book with a “warning” for Sylvanas, and in Ashenvale he is supporting her so... SOMETHING must have happened that changes his mind, even if in the end he can’t take it anymore. And it is in character. Rembember that this guy has been in here since the begining, and he saw what the Horde had to do to survive once the Draenei were all “dead” and the resources started to scarce in Draenor. He more than likely doesn’t want to go through that again, even if hopefully it’s not what we’re going to do.

Then we have the Forsaken. I’m not going to get into how each person writes their forsaken characters, but let’s have a soft agreement that most of them would do anything Sylvanas says, because the ones that disagreed already left her comand (there are a few, examples, but I’m pretty sure we are all thinking about that NPC in the plaguelands, so let’s leave it at that). Although I would think none of them are too happy to be leaving Lordaeron (which, yes, I’m aware of the question, why is Sylvanas so fiercely defending the Undercity if she plans on moving the whole of the Horde to Kalimdor? No idea. I’d say she plans on killing the maximum number Alliance possible, and leaving the city unhabitable? But then we are fighting to get hold on some Eastern Kingdoms areas so... I have not enough data to answer that properly)

The Goblins.... to which, yes, there are exceptions, but if they’re under Gallywix’s orders and there’s profit, they’ll collaborate.

About the Allied races... I don’t want to go much into it, but if something happens that convinces the Tauren and Blood elves respectively, then the Nightborne and the Highmountain would be convinced too. Let’s leave it at that for now.

What kind of event must happen to fulfill this? Well, I’m not so sure. It isn’t about making the Alliance out of character either. It could be that the Alliance tests the Azerite and it’s much more powerfull than what they expected, so they destroy a Horde settlement

(I highly doubt it, because the synopsis of the book keeps painting sylvanas as the aggressor, but still, for the sake of speculating

) because there were too many Horde troops there, or by accident because they only wanted to scare them off, or, something. Or it doesn’t have to involve explossions; maybe specific characters make threats about recovering Lordaeron, or Quel’thalas, or to purge the Horde from the Eastern Kingdoms with the power of the Azerite, which makes Sylvanas go “

fine, then we all stay in Kalimdor, so fuck you

”, and the others leaders agree...?

I can’t tell you what happens because I don’t work at blizzard, but the point is that something is happening, and whatever it is, it should serve to “”justifie”” (as in, make the characters react accordingly) the actions taken by the Horde. Otherwise it is not only out of character, but also bad writting, especially if Blizzard wants to push that narrative of “After the big baddie is defeated, a war starts because we are our worst enemies” that they’re apparently so happy with, and then put one of the two factions as the clear bad guy, just to forgive everything when a bigger baddie appears, AGAIN. Like they fucking did with Grommash.

This is what I think. Hope the answer satisfies you anons!

#bfa spoilers #sylvanas #baine #the darkspears #blood elves #opinion #long text #wow spoilers #world of warcraft #speculation

7 notes · View notes

boilingheart · 7 years

Note

hey Mimi! i come to you asking about the general rundown of the current state of WoW! i quit playing sometime around the time Cataclysm came out, and with Legion popping up everywhere, i'm giving it a try again! is there anything extremely important i should be aware of that changed/got added? thanks in advance, and sorry if the question seems a bit too big to answer!

Hi @demicorpse ! I’m not sure if I’m the best person to ask about this since I haven’t necessarily played since August last year but I’ll do my best!

So if it’s been since Cata that you played, there’s a few things to catch up with which I’ll put under a cut cause even though I paraphrased it’s a little long.

Horde - During Cata, Thrall passed over the mantle of Warchief to Garrosh Hellscream. Orgrimmar was under reconstruction because of the cataclysm. Orgrimmar’s reconstruction is complete now, so there’s no more engineers and such on the walls.

Garrosh became corrupt and led a lot of genocidal acts against both Horde and Alliance, and launched a mana bomb (basically the magical equivalent of a nuke) on Theramore. Rhonin (the “Citizens of Dalaran!” mage) died in that explosion, sacrificing himself (i think) to contain the explosion so it didn’t spread past Theramore. Jaina was also saved by him, and her demeanor has changed drastically, as she’s no longer the sweet peacelover, but instead filled with rage and despair. Her hair is also white for the most part now.

During MoP, Garrosh sent an assassin to take out Vol’jin, but it failed and he lived. Garrosh also almost killed Anduin by dropping a bell on him, crushing every bone in his body.

Garrosh took the heart of Y’Shaarj, an old god, and absorbed its power, and desecrated a lot of land and people too. Pandaria, the ancient home of the pandaren. We defeated him in the end raid for MoP, and Thrall made Vol’jin warchief instead.

Garrosh went on trial in Pandaria for his crimes, but with the help of a bronze dragon named Kairozdormu and a purified black dragon whelp Wrathion, he broke free and went back in time 35 years and prevented the orcs from drinking the demon blood, which then ignited the shittiest expansion Warlords of Draenor. Nothing of real importance happens there except Khadgar looks like a silver fox, and alternate Gul’dan is now in our timeline and brought the Legion over to us

Alliance - Bear with me I main Horde so everything I know about Alliance is just what I’ve read.

Okay so during Cata, Stormwind was partially destroyed. For many years until Legion, the park was just gone. Now it’s been rebuilt, anmed “Lion’s Rest” because as of Legion, Varian Wrynn is deceased.

After Jaina lost Theramore, she has been enraged, wanting the Horde to pay for what had been done to her. Even after Garrosh had been defeated in MoP, she tried to urge Varian to take out the Horde before they can try to plot more evil, but Varian just threatens them instead when he Vol’jin said he speaks for the Horde now

Anduin became friends with the black dragon Wrathion I mentioned earlier. They’re popular in the fandom so I’m not sure if you know them but I feel like it’s worth mentioning that during Garrosh’s trials, Wrathion betrayed Anduin there in favor of sending Garrosh back in time. Wrathion has pretty much been MIA since, despite spending a majority of MoP talking about how the Legion was coming and they needed to do something to defend Azeroth before it is too late.

As of Legion, Varian Wrynn, Vol’jin and Tirion Fordring are dead, having lost their lives during the Assault on the Broken Shore (new zone) where the Legion was arriving through a portal (Tomb of Sargeras i think).

Sylvanas Windrunner is Warchief of the Horde. Her and Greymane have a lot of friction this expansion. Lots and lots of Forsaken vs. Worgen.

Anduin Wrynn is now king of the Alliance. He now has recovered half of Varian’s sword, and it looks like he might become a paladin later? We don’t know. He has not been very active this expansion, but he is grieving.

Illidan is back. His body had been stored in a vault because even though he was dead, Maeiv still felt he needed to be imprisoned. I think alt-Gul’dan stole his body and tried to use it as a host for Sargeras to possess him and wreak havoc on Azeroth, but that attempt has been thwarted at the Nighthold raid. Since demon hunters can’t necessarily die, their souls just go out to the Twisting Nether, they can just come back to their bodies. We put Illidan’s soul back in his body and now Gul’dan is dead and Illidan is ready to kick some ass

The Illidari were also imprisoned by Maeiv, but she freed them when the Legion arrived because she felt we need them to fight the demons (g00d move).

Pandaren are a playable race as of MoP. Monks are a new class that came in the same expac, and they can heal, tank and dps. Available to all races.

Demon Hunters are a new class as of Legion, exclusive to belfs and noofs. You start at level 98 for that one. You can only have one per realm, and you must have a character at least level 70 before you can make one.

Gnomes can be hunters now btw.

Right now we’re at the Broken Shore trying to help people and trying to push back Legion forces that are spilling through our world. I think those are just the very important points to know, you can always do more reading on details cause there are a few other things that have happened in between too. I hope this helped some!! Check out the WoW cinematics if you can, and if you need specific lore stuff, I highly recommend Nobbel87 on YouTube! He specializes in video essays on WoW Lore history stuff. Super cool!

#bheart talks #answered #ahh i hope i covered enough! i think that's pretty much what u need to know #demicorpse

4 notes · View notes

airanke · 7 years

Text

Everything Wrong With The Broken Shore Scenario

Okay I updated this entire thing to be basically a break down of what the title says. Mentions some good things, but most of it is salt from me.

FYI. Most things about this entire plotline / storyline / questline were and are bad, and I have zero tolerance for horrible story-telling. Especially if it involves character deaths. And if I’m still salty about something that happened nearly a year ago? I think that means that somewhere, someone, SOMEHOW, managed to screw up majorly.

Using this video for the HORDE SIDE (and only covering the Horde side, I DO skip over Varian’s death for the first half of this rant, and cover it in the second half, which is focused on the Alliance).

Understand that if Varian and Vol’jin’s deaths had been executed well, I would not be as angry about this entire scenario as I still am. I would have accepted them! Broken Shore was not well done. The entire scenario was - for lack of a better word - bullshit. Varian’s death? Bullshit. Vol’jin’s death? Bullshit.

I won’t bore you with more unnecessary exposition on my part. Onward we go.

0:00 - 0:14

Okay! Let’s start on a slightly positive note! Good set up. Lots of demons around, though - and this is me being nit-picky - there doesn’t appear to be a lot of demons pestering Horde forces. If we’re supposed to believe that the Horde was getting “overrun”, should have been more demons, and more people fighting. We’ll chalk this up to rendering times and stuff like that instead of bad planning, though. We also get to see that Baine is fighting off Demons while Thrall crawls on the ground, which is a good thing, because we know that Baine is 1) preoccupied and 2) Thrall is close to being out of commission. So yeah. Good set up.

0:14-0:26

First, I’ll talk about how nice it actually was to see Sylvanas display emotion - as out of place as it feels. When did she develop any sort of “emotions” or “feelings (of liking / tolerance)” toward Vol’jin, exactly? All we know from the Siege end when you talk to Sylvanas on what she thinks of Vol’jin being Warcheif, is that 1) she won’t take orders from a troll, but also 2) that she admires / respects Vol’jin’s tenacity. So a slightly positive - if confusing - touch. That Sylvanas had genuine concern for Vol’jin’s well-being is an interesting look into her character.

This is also where the Horde side of Broken Shore goes to shit. Sylvanas had more than enough time to shoot the Fel guard that attacks Vol’jin. Consider, for a moment, that when she was alive, this woman was Ranger General of Quel’Thalas. Also, in the opening set up scenes, we see one of her token arrows take down a demon that was going after Varian, so distance was definitely not an issue. Need proof?

Purple explosion, and Sylvanas’ arrows are almost always encased in purple magic. Happens at 0:04. Immediately afterward, between 0:05-0:06, the shot zooms in on Sylvanas, who is very clearly standing at the top of the cliff. So you cannot argue that there was a greater distance between Voll’jin and Sylvanas at the point where Vol’jin was stabbed. Now, understand that I could have very easily accepted this. I could have accepted Vol’jin’s getting stabbed and subsequently the death that followed. I should have been able to accept it - but it was poorly written, and thus, I cannot accept it. Even almost a year after the fact. If people are still angry about Vol’jin’s death, it means Blizzard did something wrong in their writing. Don’t believe me? Still think her inability to shoot the Fel guard coming at Vol’ijn is passable?

0:26

Please explain to me, then, how this horse is here.

By magic?

Then using that same logic, by magic Sylvanas should have been able to easily shoot the Fel guard that attacked Vol’jin.

How is this horse here? Why is it not dead? Why are there no demons trying to attack it, why is no Fel bat trying to whisk it away, and why is there such a severe lack of demons in this entire shot? If this horse is somehow magically here, then by that same magical-ness, Sylvanas should have shot the Fel guard that stabbed Vol’jin. How can you possibly make an error like this? Do you know how terrible of a writer you have to be to think that you can have a woman of Sylvanas’ calibre, with the experience she has behind her - the thousands of years of experience - could not shoot a single Fel guard while she had more than enough time to and since she was already looking at Vol’jin, she would have seen approach him?

But here, have a horse, perfectly fine, ready to go, waiting for her to leap on it’s back so she can go rescue Vol’jin. Because even in a fantasy setting, during what is supposedly a massive demon invasion, that is perfectly logical and perfectly acceptable.

0:27-0:32

Another positive point! Again in the department of us getting to see there’s more to Sylvanas than her dark, angry, brooding side. Also dang girl is strong, picks up Vol’jin like it ain’t no problem.

But again, this only further pushes the question of why she somehow couldn’t take out the Fel guard that stabbed Vol’jin. At this point, I am personally beginning to question her capabilities as a Ranger General. Can shoot down a Fel bat no problem, but somehow can’t shoot a Fel guard? I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything better, however, female characters in this game / story are poorly handled and poorly written at best.

0:32-0:40

Set-up shot. We’re supposed to feel really worried because oh no here comes a big force of demons.

Except they’re... walking. Now we can argue that they’re walking because they know they’re going to win - but if you’re out to wipe out all life on Azeroth, why wait? Why take it slow? Why not swoop in and take everyone down while Sylvanas is distracted with Vol’jin telling her not to let the Horde die, and while Baine is (supposedly) still fighting demons off of Thrall? Sure it’s a big force, but that’s all it is. A big force taking its sweet time to come kill the Horde.

0:41-0:46

Sylvanas thinks on what Vol’jin has said. Again, a good look into her character. It oddly shows that she has come to see the Horde as her people - in a way, though I find this character change to be incredibly strange and a bit jarring. Either way, we get a nice range of emotions from her. We see that she does not want to call the retreat, but resigns herself to the fact that she must do it, 1) out of respect for her Warchief’s technical last command, and 2) because she knows that it is the best option (also, because if she dies as well, then who will lead the Forsaken? If we’re still running with the idea that Sylvanas is selfish and only cares about herself).

I mean just look at her face:

Not the face of someone who wants to call a retreat. And immediately following it, we get a pretty neat shot of her with a resolved expression in that, regardless of how this is going to affect their tender allegiance with the Alliance, she is going to sound that retreat:

All good points.

My complaint is that this seems very out of character for Sylvanas, but what was her character like to begin with? Between Vanilla, Wrath, Cataclysm, and Legion Sylvanas, it’s a whole lot of “what” and “how”. Her character is inconsistent. Suddenly she cares about Vol’jin, and apparently the Horde as a whole. Uh? Where’d that come from? Was there a book I missed? What are the relationships between all these characters anyway, because in the books Jaina forgave the Horde for what happened to Theramore, but after this event she goes back to hating the Horde (and I presume, breaking up with Kalec, because he explicitly told her that he couldn’t be with her if she was going to let herself be consumed by anger).

A rant on Jaina is for another time though. Let’s move on.

0:46-0:57

Good use of music, but that’s about it. We see that Thrall is down, and Baine is picking him up while looking to the Val’kyr like they’re angels (and I suppose they are, in a way). We see minimal shots of Horde soldiers being shot.

We also see zero demons.

..... why are there zero demons in this scene?

I thought Broken Shore was crawling with them? I thought there was this massive force coming through a portal? I thought the Horde was close to being overrun? We don’t even see Fel bats flying around. The Horde seriously just walks calmly away from this situation. There’s no panic, there’s nothing, just... calm walking. Seriously, look at how calm these characters are:

We are clearly about to be overrun, you guys.

Apparently the Legion decided it was time for a coffee break, and they’re all sitting in lawn chairs playing Go Fish while they watch the Horde retreat. Yeah. Sounds quite logical to a large demonic force looking to purge Azeroth of all life.

0:57-1:00

Again, we see no demons. And the Horde ship is perfectly fine, intact, not damaged, no demon has touched it. Because obviously, if you’re as cocky as the Legion so obviously is, you wouldn’t destroy the Horde’s only escape from the Broken Shore. So basically, the Legion intended to kill off the Horde and Alliance at this point but weren’t really committed. Gul’dan just wanted to be able to gloat about killing Varian and Vol’jin later (he’s poorly misinformed, especially in regards to Vol’jin, but, what can we expect from an overused villain who got a sad backstory? Nothing really).

You could of course argue that the Legion left the boat alone because they anticipated wiping out the Horde forces, but that’s not really an excuse not to cover all possible scenarios. After all, isn’t that why the Legion keeps failing in its invasions in the first place? Because they don’t account for all the possible scenarios?

You could also argue that the Legion simply wanted to gloat about how powerful they were by taking out Varian and Vol’jin. Unfortunately, none of the Alliance were around to actually “see” how Varian died (we only know because we, as viewers, were shown in the cinematic. None of our characters were actually there, savvy? We were all busy retreating). At least Horde characters “saw” Vol’jin die - but I digress.

There is no logical reason aside from being abhorrently cocky that can be given to excuse why the Legion would not have destroyed a stationary boat docked at the beach.

I will skip over the part showing Varian’s death, and go right to the part where we see Sylvanas on the boat (since I’m going to cover Varian’s death in the Alliance part of this rant).

3:57-4:15

Sylvanas honestly shows little to no remorse over her call because it was the right call to make (but I also question it at this point since Blizzard decided to have nearly zero demons throughout the entirety of the Horde cinematic, despite the fact that supposedly our side was in a Very Bad Spot™). We also see Varian’s blade fizzle out. Cool.

Moving onto the Alliance side of this (which the Horde was forced to watch, because obviously we had to know what happened to Varian, but none of the Alliance players were forced to watch what happened to Vol’jin. Nice one Blizzard, nice one).

At this point I also stopped going off of the Horde video I linked previously, and switched to this one for the FULL Alliance part. And boy howdy do I also have a lot of complaints - so buckle your seat belts! I’m actually going to argue for the fact that Varian’s death was as much bullshit as Vol’jin’s was! Me! A Horde-biased player! WoW!

0:00-0:39

All set up and exposition. What I liked was seeing was 1) Mekkatorque blindly shooting a Fel guard because Gnomes don’t get enough attention, and 2) Varian yelling at Genn to stop clawing at a Fel guard’s face. The “my lord!” was a nice touch too.

But also, that’s a lot of demons. Where were all these demons in the Horde cinematic? I thought that I was supposed to think that my side was being overrun? Something’s Not Quite Right™.

It’s almost as if Blizzard wanted the Alliance to think that the Horde was retreating for no real good reason. Who would have ever thought? Because obviously if leaders come to an understanding with each other, PVP will magically disappear along with it. Along with battlegrounds.

Solid logic.

Wait. Where’s Jaina? I thought she was there?

0:39-0:53

I had to laugh for a moment because of where I paused... anyway! Varian is stunned to hear the Horde retreat. Those Dark Rangers also walk away from their posts far to calmly for my liking. If the situation for the Horde is as dire as we’re supposed to believe, they should be hauling ass. Except apparently the situation is not as dire for the Horde as we’re supposed to believe. Imagine that.

Now, Varian has a moment where he appears to be thinking that perhaps something happened up there that caused the Horde to retreat. I’ll prove it! Look at his expression here:

That is the expression of a man who is thinking about a reason for why Sylvanas was sound a retreat. Then there’s Genn. Who’s angry snarling basically brings Varian to this:

So Varian decides that Genn is right, they couldn’t have ever trusted Sylvanas, and so there is nothing but anger. Yay. The demons also oddly leave both Genn and Varian alone for this entire set of dialogue. I’m glad to know that there is also a lack of demons at certain points in the Alliance cinematic as there were in the Horde cinematic.

Let’s throw a positive point in here: the range of expressions in these cinematics plus the updated 3D models is really nice!! And the music, in both, is excellent, as per usual.

And we move on.

And still no sign of Jaina at all.

0:54-1:05 (this was also part of the Horde side cinematic. The Gunship up to Varian’s death)

There’s the gunship! But without the Horde the Alliance will supposedly be overrun, and I mean, there are a lot of demons, but the Gunship seems to be taking care of them pretty easily-

1:05-1:06

.... oh. So THAT’S where that mass of demons that waddled slowly out of a portal ended up. Instead of chasing down and killing off the Horde. I see they have their priorities in place. Perhaps their whole mission this entire time was simply to kill off the Alliance. We will never know.

1:07-1:15

Everyone goes to the Gunship - and again, instead of chasing them down, the Legion just marches toward them. Walking over a bunch of dead demons. This is about as dire feeling as the Horde cinematic when the Horde started retreating. Which is to say, it doesn’t feel dire at all. These demons aren’t even running. They’re walking. Taking their time.

And still no Jaina. So it is safe to assume that she teleported away from the battlefield to sulk long before any of this stuff happened at the Broken Shore. Which means she basically booked it after we all fought the demon that appeared after Tirion died. And furthermore, have you noticed how the cinematic very suddenly became all about Genn and Varian? Mekkatorque has also mysteriously disappeared. At the very least, we know that Baine was busy taking care of Thrall on the Horde side.

But what happened to Jaina and Mekkatorque?

I’ll get to why Jaina was mysteriously removed from the cinematic in a little bit. The answer is quite obvious when you sit back and think about it for as long as I have.

1:16-1:45

Look guys it’s the star of the show! Gul’dan! Who should be dead and shouldn’t have been used as yet another endgame boss, but alas. Here he is. Because a Bronze Dragon somehow took Garrosh back in time after the Bronze Dragons had supposedly lost all their power (and that is... yet another story for another time. Sheesh).

Also that. That is a Fel Reaver.

And, that Fel Reaver is why Jaina was completely removed from the cinematic.

Aside from, you know, being a female character whose only purpose is to be a pile of angry, overly salty meat (I am personally infuriated over how Jaina’s character has been handled, but as I mentioned quite far above, that’s a rant for another time).

Jaina is an Archmage. It makes perfect sense for Blizzard to conveniently forget about her even being present on the Broken Shore if you’re intending to bring in a big bad like the Fel Reaver. She could have (in my opinion, given that, you know, she’s an Archmage) very easily either a) frozen the Fel Reaver, b) blasted it away with a powerful fire or arcane spell, or c) summon a massive wave of water to push it away (or at the very least, summon some Water Elementals to, oh I don’t know, put out the Fel Reaver’s fire? Completely plausible).

In order to make Varian’s “heroic sacrifice” make sense, they had to pull out the one other character on the Alliance side who could have dealt with the Fel Reaver no problem. Which means removing any trace of Jaina from this entire scenario, because Varian’s death makes absolutely zero sense when you consider the fact that Jaina Proudmoore was present in this fight.

She was there.

And she was conveniently removed because she could have taken down that Fel Reaver with ease, and don’t you dare try to convince me otherwise or defend Blizzard on this point. You cannot just remove a character like that from a cinematic when said character was vital to the fight (see: The Alliance would not have been able to get up to the platform where we all saw Tirion die if Jaina was not present to create her path of ice).

But no. She is somehow not here. She is somehow not present in the one situation where her presence would have prevented a character’s death.

I’m angrier about the fact that she was axed from this cinematic than I am angry over Varian’s death. Notice how both Sylvanas and Jaina - powerful female characters with years of experience under their belt - were reduced to either suddenly incapable of using a bow (Sylvanas) and magically gone from the entire situation (Jaina).

Some Archmage. Some Ranger General.

1:49-2:14

Emotional scene with Genn and Varian. A nice touch - and again, good range of emotions on the characters, excellent music.

Not enough to save this terribly written, terribly executed plot though.

2:15-2:34

Varian takes down the Fel Reaver in one shot.

This is precisely why no one will be able to convince me that Jaina wouldn’t have been able to take out that Fel Reaver in one shot, because she is and was and will always be fully capable of doing so. I’m almost saliter over how Jaina was handled than I am over Vol’jin’s death. Incredible.

We’re going to skip over Varian’s whole one-on-one with a bunch of Fel guards and being killed by Gul’dan because there’s not a lot I can say about it, considering that Blizzard generally does well on their fight scenes. My only irritation is how quickly Varian goes from “FOR AZEROTH!” back to “FOR THE ALLIANCE!” because the Horde is Evil™ and Abandoned The Alliance For No Good Reason At All™.

3:53-4:09

We see Genn screaming in rage to the sky (a nice touch) and the light of Varian’s blade going out (also a nice touch).

And that’s it.

In short, the entire reason why Vol’jin and Varian died is because Blizzard decided not to use powerful female characters to their full potential. They completely undermined both Jaina and Sylvanas’ capabilities as experts in their respective fields.

Vol’jin’s death was not a nice twist on the “female character dies to further male’s plot line”, no, Vol’jin’s death was a mockery of Sylvanas’ capabilities as a Ranger General - if we want to get all feminist about this, of course. The fact still remains. Jaina was still removed from the Alliance side cinematic e n t i r e l y despite her obvious presence in the scenario itself. We don’t even see a hint to any of her spells in the scenario as well.

It was by MAGIC!!! that both Vol’jin and Varian died, and not because the Broken Shore was somehow a well-written scenario.

#Vol'jin #Varian Wrynn #Jaina Proudmoore #Sylvanas Windrunner #WoW #World of Warcraft #Legion #Air's antics #I'm still so salty about this it's STUPID #IT'S SO STUPID #I SHOULD NOT GET ANGRY ABOUT THIS EVERY TIME IT COMES UP #BUT I DO #I GET SO ANGRY #ESP OVER HOW JAINA WAS HANDLED #WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS OKAY?#FFS

28 notes · View notes

necroarchived · 7 years

Note

🏐`•.¸¸.•´ｍｏｕｉｐｐｏｎｍｅｍｅ!!`•• .¸.•●☀️ “Unpopular 🔥 Opinion”

Send a 🔥 to listen to Frost complain like a champion.

Specified later to be about major character deaths.

I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAYABOUT THIS.

Placed under a readmore because I’m self-aware enough toknow that this is just going to be a lot of rambling, frothing hatred.

BUT OKAY SO. LET’S DO THIS.

Vol’jin. Fucking Vol’jin. I’ll be entirely honest, I’mone of those people who didn’t pay a lot of attention to Vol’jin until hestarted smack-talking Garrosh and then became a Mega Badass during Mists ofPandaria. I’m woman enough to admit that. But I’m also woman enough to admit that that’s because Blizzard didn’t givehim enough to do throughout Vanilla-Wrath, which is a damn shame because once they started playing around with him, Vol’jinwas awesome. He was so badass. The man took a knife to the throat and survived,then went on to lead the rebellion against GARROSH HECKSCREAM, FUCK YOUGARROSH, YOU SUCKED SO MUCH. (God I miss the days when we were all united inour seething hatred for that dickwaffle.)

Then Vol’jinbecame the Warchief of the Horde, a Warchief that the Horde could bereally and truly proud of, which they neededafter the fiasco that was Garrosh. They deservedhim. Hell, man, I started making Horde characters because I was so excited tohave Vol’jin as a Warchief. I was so excited!

And then!Warlords of Draenor dropped! And Vol’jin… did fucking nothing.

I was willing toforgive that. Warlords of Draenor wasa fiasco on so many levels from a storytelling perspective (not the least beingKhadgar’s somewhat-shitty introduction into the spotlight at the cost of Jainaand Wrathion but whatever. That’s a different salt.) so the lack of Vol’jinmight’ve not been too bad. Warlords didn’t even have a Troll Area, which is howyou knew it was a bullshit expansion. (You needthe Troll Area for it to be a real WoW expansion.) I was forgiving. I couldwait. With the Burning Legion coming back, Vol’jin was definitely going to getto do some kickass stuff as Warchief. He was going to do great.

And then Blizzardfucking murdered him.

I mean, are youjoking? I outright refused for monthsto believe that they were actually going to kill Vol’in after it was dataminedthat he would die, especially considering the immediate outcry from the player base. And people weren’t pissedbecause he was a major character – after all, we also lost Varian, but he was awell-executed Major Character Death.(But this is salt, so I’m not spending time on that.) Not only did Vol’jin diebefore he did anything of worth asthe Warchief, before we got to know how he handled that mantle and saw him inaction, but his death was so. so bad. They literally stuck him like a pig by some random-ass demon in a cinematic thatwas very clearly centered on Sylvanas Windrunner. And the second cinematic,where he named her his successor was again – centered on Sylvanas Windrunner.Blizzard did Vol’jin the disservice of killing him Too Damn Soon and thenmaking his death all about Sylvanas. Hell, even in the scenario, Varian istalking with Sylvanas like she’s incharge, when the fuckin’ Warchief of theHorde is right there next to her. Like damn, dude, at least acknowledgeyour new antithesis!

Now we have Warchief Sylvanas. And Sylvanas is… not Warchief material. “The spirits toldVol’jin she is!” The spirits are Blizzard and Blizzard is fucking stupid. Sylvanasis selfish, ruthless, and disconnected to the extreme from mortality. Thesemake her a fascinating character, but they don’t do well to foster her into aWarchief of worth. And thus far, that’s proven true. Sylvanas hasn’t reallydone a lot as Warchief that she wouldn’t have done as Banshee Queen. Vol’jin,meanwhile, has become ash. It’s just… so, so dumb.

(Not to mention,Sylvanas is functionally immortal and now in charge of a bunch of mortals. That…doesn’t jive well with me. Seems like a really bad situation that, whilepotentially interesting, Blizzard likely wouldn’t handle well.)

The whole dealbetween her and Genn would be so muchmore interesting if it were Sylvanas and Genn fighting each other while Vol’jinand Anduin try to hold them back. Sylvanas, from her Siege of Orgrimmar text,indicates that she had no intention of obeying a troll Warchief to begin with.And Genn obviously doesn’t respect Anduin at all, considering how quick he was to disobey direct orders andassault the Horde when there are MOTHERFUCKINGDEMONS attacking. Like – damn,buddy, I get that you’re upset about your son, and Sylvanas definitely deservesto get socked in the jaw for the shit she pulls in Gilneas, but now is not the time. Down, ya daft puppy. Vol’jinand Anduin could bond over being relatively new leaders of the Horde and theAlliance, the Forsaken-Worgen conflict would have a bit more equality about it,no leaders need to die!! Everyone is happy!

Except no, they’re not, everyone’s kind of low-key unhappy, because Blizzard is dumb.

Arthas’ deathactually ties into a different salt I have against Blizzard, which is that theyset themselves up to fail with their business model with World of Warcraft. Many eons ago, Blizzard decided that they neededto, every year or so, make an expansion and center it around our strugglesagainst a particular Big Bad, likely one from the Warcraft RTS series. These expansions would revolve around usdismantling their forces, killing their lieutenants, salting the earth, andculminating in us sieging their stronghold and slaughtering the Big Bad.

The issue withthis model, friends, is that eventually, you’re going to run out of Big Bads.

Which they’redoing.

Arthas?Deathwing? These were two of the biggest,baddest villains in Warcraft. Deathwing’s been menacing Azeroth for overten thousand years, insidiously pulling the strings of kingdoms forgenerations, and yet I’m supposed to believe that he suddenly decided to becomea Flying Furnace of Rage? That Thrall somehow was cool enough to literally replacehim as the Earthwarder, then wield the Dragon Soul to kill-steal Deathwing?(AND THAT THAT FOR SOME FUCKING REASON RENDERED THE DRAGONS STERILE?Like w h a t the actual fuck, Blizzard, how drunk were you when you made that decision,and how much more drunk were you when you decided to stick to it?)

Arthas, in lessthan a year, razed three of the most powerful nations on Azeroth to the ground,slaughtering and damning thousands upon thousands of people. He ascended to physical godhood in what many considerto be one of the best-written character arcs of Blizzard history. (Though I, ofcourse, might be a bit biased about this.) Under his leadership, the Scourgecame to be one of the three main powers of Azeroth, with just as likely achance to dominate the planet as the Horde or Alliance. Arthas was popular, dangerous.

And then theykilled him.

Like – yeah, froma non-storytelling point, Arthas needed to die. He was a dangerous zombie godwho wanted to turn us into his zombie slaves. The issue is, once they killedhim, Blizzard lost that dangerouszombie god as a threat to pit us against. The Scourge could no longer be usedas a worthwhile threat, because hey, theirzombie god was dead. We won. Plus, the Scourge just wasn’t as cool anymore,because Arthas – the prince we watched fall, the death knight we loved to hate –wasn’t around to make it extra cool. But due to the way they decided to set uptheir expansions model, Blizzard set up Arthas for the slaughter. And now the onlytime you see Arthas is… literally everywhere else, because he was a popular andiconic character, even eight RL years after his death. (Note how often he’sfeatured or referenced in Heroes of theStorm, and how many WoW ads feature images of him.)

Blizzard seems tounderstand that they really Fucked Up killing Arthas, because they’re murderingBolvar’s character in an attempt to make him the new Arthas. The things he’shaving the death knights do is literallythe sort of shit Arthas would send us to do. Hell, Arthas’ ghost even comesback to bitch those very truths at us! And this is a shame mostly for Bolvar, because the interestingpotentials with his character are basically scrapped. A Good Lich King, onewith morals who halfway cares about the world and the mortals within it, wouldhave been really cool to explore. Instead we get a guy who tells us to goassault Light’s Hope and drive the red dragonflight into possible extinction.That’s not Bolvar. That’s Orange Arthas.

Blizzard iskilling off their characters left and right and they’re mostly doing it badly,making everyone suffer theconsequences. For every Varian-level character death, we get a Vol’jin, Kairoz,Deathwing, Arthas, Ysera, Illidan, Kael’thas, all the fuckin dragons atthis point. Deaths that Blizzard did notwrite well, deaths that ultimately harmed the story more than helped it.

And I don’t thinkthey have any intention of stopping.

#salt #chiisana-kyojin #chiisana kyojin #//#ace why must you ask me these things #do you not understand how much rage i'm hiding #do you not bro #do you not #ooc. royal correspondence. asks.#ooc. here a snowflake speaks. mun.

8 notes · View notes

doodlingadventures · 7 years

Photo

My hunter right now.

I’m trying to take this with humor, but hooooly shit. I’ve failed

I did the Anduin questline with my Alliance alter.There’s nothing in particular wrong with that quest line. What surrounds it however… this is going to be me just bitching. Because, you know, it’s good for the heart to bitch from time to time about something you’re not ok with. You know, just let it all out. Because hooooooh boy.

Where do I even start… It’s not only that he Horde players had to find something else to do because Blizzard had forgotten about us, the Alliance also got extra Artifact power ( 6 million extra?) for that quest, AND a cinematic. AND the feel that their story is progressing. AND their characters are growing or/and having an arc.

And I’ve gotten comments such as “Oh, but it’s not a main quest, you have to go and find the compass”

MOTHERFUCKER

So you have to fly out a bit from the broken shore map and find one of those GLOWING YELLOW EXCLAMATION POINTs to find the compass??

WOW, clearly the fucking quest was hard to unlock eh??? YOUR FUCKING FINGERS MUST BE SORE

And meanwhile we’re sitting here, stuck with Sylvanas, who HASN’T HAD A SINGLE MOMENT OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SINCE TORMENHEIM, MONTHS AGO the only thing we’ve learnt new about her is that She and Nathanos canonly want to bump uglies, and why Nathanos now has a sexy body

…..

I swear to everything that’s fucking sacred.

And that’s not even the worst part, oh no, because even if next week the Horde gets something (which I doubt, or else we would have heard something from the ptr), the only character that has shown a focused intention on doing something to avenge Vol’jin’s death has been Tyrathan Khort, and I love his character and his relationship with Vol’jin, you know that, but that the Warchief of the HORDE has to be AVENGED BY AN ALLIANCE CHARACTER

BLIZZARD

LA MADRE QUE TE PARIÓ

And I swear, I’ve tried to stay positive this expansion; there’s a lot of good things about Legion, and even when they killed off Vol’jin in such… an unceremonious way, I thought about why they had done it. And you know, I didn’t like the possible reasons, but I did understand them, and just by a storytelling standpoint I thought, “ok, they are going to bring him back, that’s why they’re not going to focus much on his death”

But….this?

One thing is to handle things subtly and another is to sweep it under the rug like they never happened/have no importance. It just feels as if we had forgotten Vol’jin... Not only Vol’jin, but all the Horde characters that died on the Broken shore. Sure, they didn’t have names, but neither did the random stormwind soldiers whose souls we save, and they are remembered and their sacrifice is taken account. The Horde spirits are controlled by the Legion and you have to kill them. All the skeletons I’ve seen are Orcs. I don’t think I’ve seen alliance spirits to kill in the broken Shore so far (ALLIANCE, not elfs).

If Archmage Vargoth uses fel, it’s not his fault because he is possesed, but if a Sunreaver is the one that allowed the Legion to get into Dalaran’s weapons, noone is surprised...

And no important Horde character is taking part on the Broken Shore events. Where are Baine, Lor’themar, Thrall? Where is even Sylvanas? Isn’t this their fight too?

And don’t even get me started on Magatha.

MOTHERFUCKING MAGATHA

We have to shut up and deal with her even after what she did. “She is too dangerous so we better keep her close” THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WENT WRONG WITH CAIRNE. KICK HER INTO THE MAELSTROM AND HEAR THE VOICES OF REJOICE WHEN SHE DROWNS.

Fucking hell. I don’t even know....

Maybe I’m rushing things, maybe next week we will get something equally satisfying for our faction, but I highly doubt it. If the Horde version of the questline wasn’t ready they could have just waited, because together with this week’s underwelming “Storyline quest”.... I just...

Maybe it’s silliness would have been funny in any other circumstances, but now... it’s just frustrating. If after the crystals there had been something else, maybe I wouldn’t have taken it so badly, but I don’t know.

I just needed this out of my chest. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong later, as always, but if there’s someone else that has been feeling bad about these events... here you can vent too.

Good night.

#vigilserpens #venting #wow #I don't even know how to taggg this #eychan bitches about stuff she didn't like #whatever #tyrathan #crisas the wakener #sorry phone users #serpenlupus

11 notes · View notes