Seeing how good the Legion teaser was done; I'd rather have the Blizzard guys do the whole movie in animation. Fuck Live+CGI. The story can be told better that way, and with better fidelity.
They'd have to massively expand their animation team for that. They've mentioned before that their CG teasers are basically constantly in production from the moment they finish their work on the last one.
But those animators dont suck...
I think it will be a very average movie, which means pretty good for a movie based on a game. But it will probably be disappointing to fans, as well as non fans who will be expecting LOTR.
Warcraft has been disappointing for fans for a good long while now.
I think that the most disappointing thing for me in Blizzard stories is how often people, most memorably women, get corrupted by whatever dark power there is.
Whether it's Kerrigan, Leah, Sylvanas, or now Cordana, it's long since gotten old.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
I don't think it's necessarily that people get corrupted that is bad. It is usually how fast they get corrupted. In SC kerrigan gets captured after like 1 mission with her. Diablo 3 is really just a quick experience overall and don't really think it is a good storytelling medium anyway. Sylvanas has been pretty F the world since she got turned, which I don't think was terribly long after she was introduced in the campaign (been a long time since I played WC3). I don't even know who Cordana is so if she turned it was obviously too quick.
Just doing things too quickly overall seems bad. It makes it so each expansion is its own standalone thing rather than tension and story building between them. Legion would have made much more sense to be released either after TBC or WotLK. But after Cata and MoP doesn't make much sense, and WoD doesn't really make a whole lot of sense either. I realize there is sort of the continuity between MoP and Wod with Garrosh, but I think everyone was done with Garrosh a LONG time ago. Illidan and Arthas had years for people to play the RTS and hope for the final showdown which really built it up. Now I guess Sargeras might be the big bad in Legion which is cool because he's like Azeroth's "winter is coming". But then they decide, oh actually there are void lords and they are actually the big bad and everyone is like "huh?!"
They gotta develop some characters before they go killing and corrupting them or whatever. Get people invested in the characters and wanting to know more about them/want to kill them enough. I actually kind of liked Yrel in WoD because she was part of the leveling process, and was involved in raids and stuff. Khadgar can die in a fire for all of his stupid go collect 900 of an item and bring it to me crap. He was also basically a deus ex machina the whole time. Even in the WoD intro he just summons meteors and explosions and destroys bridges and dams then teleports away. It's like dude you couldn't have used that on the enemy and not destroyed infrastructure we could use?
Well that was kind of ranty... Hopefully Sylvanas doesn't go full Garrosh next expansion, or if she does, make the horde vs alliance part actually matter instead of making a new 3rd NPC horde splinter faction.
Cordana's the Warden that chased after Illidan all through WC3:TFT and TBC who I believe ended up corrupted in some way to facilitate Illidan coming back as a good guy in Legion.
They gotta develop some characters before they go killing and corrupting them or whatever. Get people invested in the characters and wanting to know more about them/want to kill them enough. I actually kind of liked Yrel in WoD because she was part of the leveling process, and was involved in raids and stuff. Khadgar can die in a fire for all of his stupid go collect 900 of an item and bring it to me crap. He was also basically a deus ex machina the whole time. Even in the WoD intro he just summons meteors and explosions and destroys bridges and dams then teleports away. It's like dude you couldn't have used that on the enemy and not destroyed infrastructure we could use?
Well see the thing is, I've brought this up before in other threads but Yrel is a problem of a character being developed the wrong way. She's supposedly a major character during Alliance leveling, but Horde players have absolutely no idea who the hell she is other than that she shows up at one point to steal credit during the first major encounter with Blackhand, and then shows up at the end of Hellfire Citadel to act as a question prompt for Khadgar to leave that open-ended expansion hook in the end FMV. Horde don't care about her, and nobody will miss her if they try to do anything major with her at this point because she hasn't been around long enough to be anything more than token.
The model characters for good NPC attachment in my opinion so far have been General Nazgrim and Admiral Taylor. They were both major characters that worked with you throughout the story without being obnoxiously overstated in their presence like the faction leaders(and Yrel for the Alliance). They were well known by both factions, well respected by both factions, and both factions' players mourned their losses because both factions were involved with them in some fashion, including their deaths. (or pseudo-death in the case of Taylor... and I don't even want to think about the new bullshit I've been hearing about Nazgrim in Legion)
I have my own problems with Khadgar though, mostly every time he casts a Mage spell that my Mage doesn't get to cast. Like, hey, I'm a fuckin' Mage here - why don't you teach me a few cool spells mister I-now-have-Atiesh-because-reasons?
That is because he is an Archmage, not a mage, duh. He is the prestige class of a mage, you just haven't hit high enough level yet to switch over.
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Horde players rescue Yrel too in the initial Tanaan intro.
I agree she didn't get any face time after that, but everyone should know who she is unless they don't read quests or pay attention to what they're doing, and if that's the case then I think they only have themselves to blame.
It's less about not paying attention, and her just being forgettable, on the horde side. She was what, the apprentice of the male draenei guy who died or something? Since the whole thing was supposed to be a joint operation between the two factions, they really should have used all the characters more often.
But then I am also pretty played out on the whole horde/alliance aspect at this point, it feels so contrived given every expansion is some new amazing threat that forces them to work together, except they still manage to fight each other during, yet still come out victorious.
In game it's been what, roughly 10 years since the players got involved? 7 since they "worked together" to beat the Lich King.
+2
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
Storywise, peace broke down during the Cataclysm with Garrosh flexing his muscles and periodically attacking the Alliance. It fell apart completely afterwards, then the Horde split and the rebels joined with the Alliance to oust Garrosh. Everything's somewhat chummy now, what with everyone teaming up to fight the Iron Horde and the Legion.
Storywise, peace broke down during the Cataclysm with Garrosh flexing his muscles and periodically attacking the Alliance. It fell apart completely afterwards, then the Horde split and the rebels joined with the Alliance to oust Garrosh. Everything's somewhat chummy now, what with everyone teaming up to fight the Iron Horde and the Legion.
Well, peace broke down some time before Garrosh really started to become a major figure in the story, when Varian appeared on the scene during the Battle for Undercity in Wrath shortly into the expansion, screaming racial epithets and blaming the Horde as a whole for Bolvar's death at Wrathgate, proclaiming that there will never be peace between the Alliance and Horde.
His constant antagonizing through Wrath was a large part of the reason Garrosh ended up so agitated towards the Alliance, and gave Garrosh his perfect excuse to drive tensions further through Cata/MoP. (though Garrosh would have pushed things without an excuse 'cause he's a giant twat)
He's still a bit of a dick, but the slow realization that "...hey, maybe I kind of fucked up here" has finally been dawning on him, and to his credit there so far haven't been further seriously overt tensions between the factions after the ousting of Garrosh as Warchief.
Garrosh however was the believable reason for the re-escalating tensions between the Alliance/Horde - prideful son follows in Daddy's footsteps and ends up making all of the same mistakes, but unlike his father, learning absolutely nothing from them. Probably in no small part due to the fact that he had an actual established back story to work with to justify why he was doing what he was doing - compared to doing what they did with Varian nearly completely out of the blue, and then emergency-retconning motivation through comics and visual novels after the fact to explain away how contrived it was at the time.
I wish they had gone with the "honorable but hotheaded" version that they had (accidentally) pushed in a couple of the books and questlines for Garrosh (especially the one line in Stonetalon). I liked the idea that the war was shades of gray rather than black and white.
But nope, they had to announce that those were mistakes from too many cooks in the kitchen and then push the berserker version.
(I also think, lorewise, Warlords was a massive mistake).
Cordana's the Warden that chased after Illidan all through WC3:TFT and TBC who I believe ended up corrupted in some way to facilitate Illidan coming back as a good guy in Legion.
Total complete Legion spoilers for Maiev
She's totally not corrupted or crazy and she is actually the one that captures, and releases the Demon Hunter from your imprisonment
Don't really have many thoughts on the movie except the guy they got to play Khadgar looks like some punk who dropped out of community college and now sells really shitty weed to his friends.
I wish they had gone with the "honorable but hotheaded" version that they had (accidentally) pushed in a couple of the books and questlines for Garrosh (especially the one line in Stonetalon). I liked the idea that the war was shades of gray rather than black and white.
But nope, they had to announce that those were mistakes from too many cooks in the kitchen and then push the berserker version.
(I also think, lorewise, Warlords was a massive mistake).
This so hard.
I think there's a lot of things they could have done with the story in Warlords that would have made everything OK. I really wish they wouldn't have pulled the alternate history thing and just used straight up time travel without trying to explain any of the paradoxes.
Kairozdormu, the bronze dragon that freed Garrosh, is actually the quest giver on the Timeless Isle in Pandaria. I didn't realize that until way late into the expansion, because you never actually see him in WoD. I wish they would have had an introduction scenario at the beginning of WoD with the players chased after Kairozdormu and the freed Garrosh, followed them to the Timeless Isle, and watched as Kairozdormu and Wrathion harnessed the powers of the Isle (that the players had been gathering) and sent Garrosh back in time. It would have cemented the 'Wrathion has been leading everyone along this whole time' plot bit.
I wish they had gone with the "honorable but hotheaded" version that they had (accidentally) pushed in a couple of the books and questlines for Garrosh (especially the one line in Stonetalon). I liked the idea that the war was shades of gray rather than black and white.
But nope, they had to announce that those were mistakes from too many cooks in the kitchen and then push the berserker version.
(I also think, lorewise, Warlords was a massive mistake).
This so hard.
I think there's a lot of things they could have done with the story in Warlords that would have made everything OK. I really wish they wouldn't have pulled the alternate history thing and just used straight up time travel without trying to explain any of the paradoxes.
Kairozdormu, the bronze dragon that freed Garrosh, is actually the quest giver on the Timeless Isle in Pandaria. I didn't realize that until way late into the expansion, because you never actually see him in WoD. I wish they would have had an introduction scenario at the beginning of WoD with the players chased after Kairozdormu and the freed Garrosh, followed them to the Timeless Isle, and watched as Kairozdormu and Wrathion harnessed the powers of the Isle (that the players had been gathering) and sent Garrosh back in time. It would have cemented the 'Wrathion has been leading everyone along this whole time' plot bit.
That is kind of part of the legendary ring quest line, if I am remembering correctly.
I agree on the time travel though, it rarely works out in stories, especially when they are trying to create some alternate timeline deal out of it. It just gets confusing.
I wish they had gone with the "honorable but hotheaded" version that they had (accidentally) pushed in a couple of the books and questlines for Garrosh (especially the one line in Stonetalon). I liked the idea that the war was shades of gray rather than black and white.
But nope, they had to announce that those were mistakes from too many cooks in the kitchen and then push the berserker version.
(I also think, lorewise, Warlords was a massive mistake).
This so hard.
I think there's a lot of things they could have done with the story in Warlords that would have made everything OK. I really wish they wouldn't have pulled the alternate history thing and just used straight up time travel without trying to explain any of the paradoxes.
Kairozdormu, the bronze dragon that freed Garrosh, is actually the quest giver on the Timeless Isle in Pandaria. I didn't realize that until way late into the expansion, because you never actually see him in WoD. I wish they would have had an introduction scenario at the beginning of WoD with the players chased after Kairozdormu and the freed Garrosh, followed them to the Timeless Isle, and watched as Kairozdormu and Wrathion harnessed the powers of the Isle (that the players had been gathering) and sent Garrosh back in time. It would have cemented the 'Wrathion has been leading everyone along this whole time' plot bit.
That is kind of part of the legendary ring quest line, if I am remembering correctly.
I agree on the time travel though, it rarely works out in stories, especially when they are trying to create some alternate timeline deal out of it. It just gets confusing.
It is sort of, but the problem with it is that you don't get to do that until you're level 100 and doing the end of legendary quest part uno. You never actually see him break Garrosh out of prison and go back in time. When you see Garry kill him he's disguised as an ork! When you fight him, you fight his dragon form. I think you only see his 'normal' blood elf form from Timeless Isle for about 10 seconds while he's a corpse. It really would have been better if they had done the Garrosh prison break when the timeless isle was still fresh in peoples minds, like as part of a WoD launch event like we had with the echo's of doom/theramore's fall/undead invasion stuff from the previous expac launches.
I resubbed tonight to go have fun with any new content and get myself prepped for the new expansion, and I heard you could fly in Draenor now, which is cool.
Man that was my fastest resub-unsub turnaround since I started playing mmos.
I didn't realize you had to rep/daily quest grind to unlock flying in Draenor, which is probably totally my fault, I just assumed it would be like every other flight training where I'd just have to buy it.
It reminded me that the game is all about locking the fun content behind weeks of unfun stuff, and I've never been able to bring myself to do crappy daily quests every day.
The weird thing is, I know I'll play other mmos and I might even come back to WoW sometime, once I forget why I quit, but I think locking something that is so basic in every other zone in the game behind a rep grind made me see the treadmill and get disillusioned in record time.
The trick to keeping me playing an MMO is to not give me that crystallizing moment where I realize that the game isn't about me having fun but instead about keeping me just unsatisfied enough that I'll log in tomorrow to chase the fun always just out of reach.
I resubbed tonight to go have fun with any new content and get myself prepped for the new expansion, and I heard you could fly in Draenor now, which is cool.
Man that was my fastest resub-unsub turnaround since I started playing mmos.
I didn't realize you had to rep/daily quest grind to unlock flying in Draenor, which is probably totally my fault, I just assumed it would be like every other flight training where I'd just have to buy it.
It reminded me that the game is all about locking the fun content behind weeks of unfun stuff, and I've never been able to bring myself to do crappy daily quests every day.
The weird thing is, I know I'll play other mmos and I might even come back to WoW sometime, once I forget why I quit, but I think locking something that is so basic in every other zone in the game behind a rep grind made me see the treadmill and get disillusioned in record time.
The trick to keeping me playing an MMO is to not give me that crystallizing moment where I realize that the game isn't about me having fun but instead about keeping me just unsatisfied enough that I'll log in tomorrow to chase the fun always just out of reach.
I don't think the way the ended up gating flying was a good idea. It punishes people like you needlessly.
Really there isn't anything in the game for you right now, unless you want to get into raiding, so unsubbing was probably the right choice.
I wish they had gone with the "honorable but hotheaded" version that they had (accidentally) pushed in a couple of the books and questlines for Garrosh (especially the one line in Stonetalon). I liked the idea that the war was shades of gray rather than black and white.
But nope, they had to announce that those were mistakes from too many cooks in the kitchen and then push the berserker version.
(I also think, lorewise, Warlords was a massive mistake).
This so hard.
I think there's a lot of things they could have done with the story in Warlords that would have made everything OK. I really wish they wouldn't have pulled the alternate history thing and just used straight up time travel without trying to explain any of the paradoxes.
Kairozdormu, the bronze dragon that freed Garrosh, is actually the quest giver on the Timeless Isle in Pandaria. I didn't realize that until way late into the expansion, because you never actually see him in WoD. I wish they would have had an introduction scenario at the beginning of WoD with the players chased after Kairozdormu and the freed Garrosh, followed them to the Timeless Isle, and watched as Kairozdormu and Wrathion harnessed the powers of the Isle (that the players had been gathering) and sent Garrosh back in time. It would have cemented the 'Wrathion has been leading everyone along this whole time' plot bit.
That is kind of part of the legendary ring quest line, if I am remembering correctly.
I agree on the time travel though, it rarely works out in stories, especially when they are trying to create some alternate timeline deal out of it. It just gets confusing.
They also really missed out on the chance to play around with time travel. Lore characters meeting alternate versions of themselves. If you have a Draenei or Orc character, you should have a chance to meet yourself as a child in a quest. To fight Garona, you could have been able to recruit main timeline Garona to fight with you. After losing Samaara, there could have been a scene later in the game where Yrel meets the much older prime timeline Samaara - and the prime timeline Velen. I would have loved to have seen a young Garrosh get mentored by Thrall, trying to do things better.
If I missed any of those things, mea culpa.
The indicators that I can remember of people remembering "oh hey, alternate past" were few and far between - I recall that Gul'dan brings it up with Khadgar in one scene. And that's basically it.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
I wish they had gone with the "honorable but hotheaded" version that they had (accidentally) pushed in a couple of the books and questlines for Garrosh (especially the one line in Stonetalon). I liked the idea that the war was shades of gray rather than black and white.
But nope, they had to announce that those were mistakes from too many cooks in the kitchen and then push the berserker version.
(I also think, lorewise, Warlords was a massive mistake).
This so hard.
I think there's a lot of things they could have done with the story in Warlords that would have made everything OK. I really wish they wouldn't have pulled the alternate history thing and just used straight up time travel without trying to explain any of the paradoxes.
Kairozdormu, the bronze dragon that freed Garrosh, is actually the quest giver on the Timeless Isle in Pandaria. I didn't realize that until way late into the expansion, because you never actually see him in WoD. I wish they would have had an introduction scenario at the beginning of WoD with the players chased after Kairozdormu and the freed Garrosh, followed them to the Timeless Isle, and watched as Kairozdormu and Wrathion harnessed the powers of the Isle (that the players had been gathering) and sent Garrosh back in time. It would have cemented the 'Wrathion has been leading everyone along this whole time' plot bit.
That is kind of part of the legendary ring quest line, if I am remembering correctly.
I agree on the time travel though, it rarely works out in stories, especially when they are trying to create some alternate timeline deal out of it. It just gets confusing.
They also really missed out on the chance to play around with time travel. Lore characters meeting alternate versions of themselves. If you have a Draenei or Orc character, you should have a chance to meet yourself as a child in a quest. To fight Garona, you could have been able to recruit main timeline Garona to fight with you. After losing Samaara, there could have been a scene later in the game where Yrel meets the much older prime timeline Samaara - and the prime timeline Velen. I would have loved to have seen a young Garrosh get mentored by Thrall, trying to do things better.
If I missed any of those things, mea culpa.
The indicators that I can remember of people remembering "oh hey, alternate past" were few and far between - I recall that Gul'dan brings it up with Khadgar in one scene. And that's basically it.
Don't worry, it's not too late for that - there's no doubt in my mind they'll shoehorn her somewhere into Legion. But yes, they've very conspicuously avoided any main time line characters meeting any past versions of themselves.
They do a poor job of explaining exactly how old either of them are, but Thrall wasn't even conceived by the point in time we enter into, so I wouldn't expect Garrosh to have been born yet either if we assume they're roughly the same age. It's also way too similar to Rhonin and Illidan, which probably would have just pissed off a bunch of people needlessly considering how largely disliked by the fanbase Rhonin is and the fact that Thrall is already derisively referred to as "Green Jesus" as it is. (not that they're not already experienced with needlessly jabbing at their fanbase anyway amirite har dar dar)
Garona raises some issues that I have with how the WoD events reconcile with main timeline Garona. Considering the main timeline's Garona never had Gul'Dan's hold on her broken like we did with the WoD version, are we going to have to worry about main Garona being controlled by alternate Gul'Dan? Khadgar knows how to break the control, so will he realize and make any effort to do that with main Garona? Without one of those orb thingies, can he break the control?
Who knows - it will probably just be tossed to the wayside and ignored like certain other major plot threads(Hi Magatha). We'll probably never even see her anyway considering Garona-Prime has made absolutely no appearance in the game to date, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've tried tweeting to that one WoW writer dude a few times about it but I've been roundly ignored so far.
They do a poor job of explaining exactly how old either of them are, but Thrall wasn't even conceived by the point in time we enter into, so I wouldn't expect Garrosh to have been born yet either if we assume they're roughly the same age. It's also way too similar to Rhonin and Illidan, which probably would have just pissed off a bunch of people needlessly considering how largely disliked by the fanbase Rhonin is and the fact that Thrall is already derisively referred to as "Green Jesus" as it is. (not that they're not already experienced with needlessly jabbing at their fanbase anyway amirite har dar dar)
Garrosh had to be conceived before his father went through the portal, and probably before his father took the blood of Manneroth. So, I think that that means he should probably be around in some form.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
Horde players rescue Yrel too in the initial Tanaan intro.
I agree she didn't get any face time after that, but everyone should know who she is unless they don't read quests or pay attention to what they're doing, and if that's the case then I think they only have themselves to blame.
When Doomhammer dies you get to see her at the defense of Shattrath
They do a poor job of explaining exactly how old either of them are, but Thrall wasn't even conceived by the point in time we enter into, so I wouldn't expect Garrosh to have been born yet either if we assume they're roughly the same age. It's also way too similar to Rhonin and Illidan, which probably would have just pissed off a bunch of people needlessly considering how largely disliked by the fanbase Rhonin is and the fact that Thrall is already derisively referred to as "Green Jesus" as it is. (not that they're not already experienced with needlessly jabbing at their fanbase anyway amirite har dar dar)
Garrosh had to be conceived before his father went through the portal, and probably before his father took the blood of Manneroth. So, I think that that means he should probably be around in some form.
In one of the books, during the time period of Warcraft 2, one of the Orc Chiefs is scrounging for troops and goes to Garadar, at that point you have a very ill Garrosh asking about his father, and being brushed off because he needs healthy soldiers, not sick children.
So Garrosh is quite a bit older than Thrall.
But in the alt-Draenor, Garrosh had discovered that he had never been born (yet alt-Grom definitely felt a kinship with him as can be seen in the intro and the HFC patch trailer).
Warcraft has a bad habit of putting critical lore in novels and not in the game.
And then contradicting the lore between game, novel, and any other form of media it comes in (see also: Varian's anger management resolutions. I think there at least 3 or 4 times it's been "fixed.").
I wish they had gone with the "honorable but hotheaded" version that they had (accidentally) pushed in a couple of the books and questlines for Garrosh (especially the one line in Stonetalon). I liked the idea that the war was shades of gray rather than black and white.
But nope, they had to announce that those were mistakes from too many cooks in the kitchen and then push the berserker version.
(I also think, lorewise, Warlords was a massive mistake).
This so hard.
I think there's a lot of things they could have done with the story in Warlords that would have made everything OK. I really wish they wouldn't have pulled the alternate history thing and just used straight up time travel without trying to explain any of the paradoxes.
Kairozdormu, the bronze dragon that freed Garrosh, is actually the quest giver on the Timeless Isle in Pandaria. I didn't realize that until way late into the expansion, because you never actually see him in WoD. I wish they would have had an introduction scenario at the beginning of WoD with the players chased after Kairozdormu and the freed Garrosh, followed them to the Timeless Isle, and watched as Kairozdormu and Wrathion harnessed the powers of the Isle (that the players had been gathering) and sent Garrosh back in time. It would have cemented the 'Wrathion has been leading everyone along this whole time' plot bit.
That is kind of part of the legendary ring quest line, if I am remembering correctly.
I agree on the time travel though, it rarely works out in stories, especially when they are trying to create some alternate timeline deal out of it. It just gets confusing.
They also really missed out on the chance to play around with time travel. Lore characters meeting alternate versions of themselves. If you have a Draenei or Orc character, you should have a chance to meet yourself as a child in a quest. To fight Garona, you could have been able to recruit main timeline Garona to fight with you. After losing Samaara, there could have been a scene later in the game where Yrel meets the much older prime timeline Samaara - and the prime timeline Velen. I would have loved to have seen a young Garrosh get mentored by Thrall, trying to do things better.
If I missed any of those things, mea culpa.
The indicators that I can remember of people remembering "oh hey, alternate past" were few and far between - I recall that Gul'dan brings it up with Khadgar in one scene. And that's basically it.
Don't worry, it's not too late for that - there's no doubt in my mind they'll shoehorn her somewhere into Legion. But yes, they've very conspicuously avoided any main time line characters meeting any past versions of themselves.
They do a poor job of explaining exactly how old either of them are, but Thrall wasn't even conceived by the point in time we enter into, so I wouldn't expect Garrosh to have been born yet either if we assume they're roughly the same age. It's also way too similar to Rhonin and Illidan, which probably would have just pissed off a bunch of people needlessly considering how largely disliked by the fanbase Rhonin is and the fact that Thrall is already derisively referred to as "Green Jesus" as it is. (not that they're not already experienced with needlessly jabbing at their fanbase anyway amirite har dar dar)
Garona raises some issues that I have with how the WoD events reconcile with main timeline Garona. Considering the main timeline's Garona never had Gul'Dan's hold on her broken like we did with the WoD version, are we going to have to worry about main Garona being controlled by alternate Gul'Dan? Khadgar knows how to break the control, so will he realize and make any effort to do that with main Garona? Without one of those orb thingies, can he break the control?
Who knows - it will probably just be tossed to the wayside and ignored like certain other major plot threads(Hi Magatha). We'll probably never even see her anyway considering Garona-Prime has made absolutely no appearance in the game to date, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've tried tweeting to that one WoW writer dude a few times about it but I've been roundly ignored so far.
Garona-Prime is one of the heads of the rogue class faction in the sewers, she hangs around their class hall.
Warcraft has a bad habit of putting critical lore in novels and not in the game.
They even have a very good cinematics team that could crack it out for those too lazy to get the novel and are upset at what happened between exps
They really should just keep all the critical lore in the game proper. The game story is really suffering at this point; they need as much interesting stuff happening in the main quests as possible.
That and the quality of the books is very inconsistent. I'm not going to pick up a WoW novel when I want to read when there are so many other great books out there that I know aren't a gamble quality-wise.
I agree she didn't get any face time after that, but everyone should know who she is unless they don't read quests or pay attention to what they're doing, and if that's the case then I think they only have themselves to blame.
I am one of those people
0
AngryThe glory I had witnessedwas just a sleight of handRegistered Userregular
edited March 2016
He has a story credit with no writing or producing credits.
I'm sure he had input, probably a lot at the conception stage of the first mismanaged version that caused Raimi to quit.
Something just seems consistently... off I guess in that trailer. I don't think it looks as bad as people are saying though.
It's probably the 'style' they're going for.
I assume Metzen is at the helm of this project and that's where 90% of the shitty direction is coming from.
Green Moses included.
People always blame Metzen.
He's working on Overwatch now, and has nothing to do with WoW anymore except for occasionally being a mouth-piece.
Game wise, sure.
Metzen would not let his baby (The Greater Warcraft Universe) be manhandled poorly. He's probably the one who gives yea or nay to specific directions.
Angry on
0
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
People have probably heard about Hearthstone's new Old Gods expansion, which I'm pretty interested in because they've promised to show off the two Old Gods we haven't ever seen in-game before, Y'Shaarj and N'Zoth. This pic has surfaced:
Im reasonably sure after the hearthstone set the only thing we're going to hear about the old gods will be from the shadow priest artifact weapon storyline.
Im reasonably sure after the hearthstone set the only thing we're going to hear about the old gods will be from the shadow priest artifact weapon storyline.
They could go into a Queen Azshara raid.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
+1
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
N'Zoth is actually said to be the Old God who is controlling the Nightmare infesting the Emerald Dream, and we clear that out in launch content. Maybe he gets all pissed off and comes to attack us directly. Could be on Thal'dranath - maybe it rises up from the sea, 'city of R'lyeh'-style.
Blizzard is completely missing the whole point of Cthulhu mythos, namely that you're not supposed to actually see the monsters because then they are mundane. That's why people take sanity damage looking at them in Call of Cthulhu and they're only described in brief phrases that are the closest to what the viewer can interpret of the monstrosity mortals can't comprehend. Because the less a monster is seen the more our imagination will be able to do than any amount of CG could accomplish.
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I think that the most disappointing thing for me in Blizzard stories is how often people, most memorably women, get corrupted by whatever dark power there is.
Whether it's Kerrigan, Leah, Sylvanas, or now Cordana, it's long since gotten old.
Just doing things too quickly overall seems bad. It makes it so each expansion is its own standalone thing rather than tension and story building between them. Legion would have made much more sense to be released either after TBC or WotLK. But after Cata and MoP doesn't make much sense, and WoD doesn't really make a whole lot of sense either. I realize there is sort of the continuity between MoP and Wod with Garrosh, but I think everyone was done with Garrosh a LONG time ago. Illidan and Arthas had years for people to play the RTS and hope for the final showdown which really built it up. Now I guess Sargeras might be the big bad in Legion which is cool because he's like Azeroth's "winter is coming". But then they decide, oh actually there are void lords and they are actually the big bad and everyone is like "huh?!"
They gotta develop some characters before they go killing and corrupting them or whatever. Get people invested in the characters and wanting to know more about them/want to kill them enough. I actually kind of liked Yrel in WoD because she was part of the leveling process, and was involved in raids and stuff. Khadgar can die in a fire for all of his stupid go collect 900 of an item and bring it to me crap. He was also basically a deus ex machina the whole time. Even in the WoD intro he just summons meteors and explosions and destroys bridges and dams then teleports away. It's like dude you couldn't have used that on the enemy and not destroyed infrastructure we could use?
Well that was kind of ranty... Hopefully Sylvanas doesn't go full Garrosh next expansion, or if she does, make the horde vs alliance part actually matter instead of making a new 3rd NPC horde splinter faction.
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Cordana is the warden who you have to kill near the end of the legendary ring quest.
Well see the thing is, I've brought this up before in other threads but Yrel is a problem of a character being developed the wrong way. She's supposedly a major character during Alliance leveling, but Horde players have absolutely no idea who the hell she is other than that she shows up at one point to steal credit during the first major encounter with Blackhand, and then shows up at the end of Hellfire Citadel to act as a question prompt for Khadgar to leave that open-ended expansion hook in the end FMV. Horde don't care about her, and nobody will miss her if they try to do anything major with her at this point because she hasn't been around long enough to be anything more than token.
The model characters for good NPC attachment in my opinion so far have been General Nazgrim and Admiral Taylor. They were both major characters that worked with you throughout the story without being obnoxiously overstated in their presence like the faction leaders(and Yrel for the Alliance). They were well known by both factions, well respected by both factions, and both factions' players mourned their losses because both factions were involved with them in some fashion, including their deaths. (or pseudo-death in the case of Taylor... and I don't even want to think about the new bullshit I've been hearing about Nazgrim in Legion)
I have my own problems with Khadgar though, mostly every time he casts a Mage spell that my Mage doesn't get to cast. Like, hey, I'm a fuckin' Mage here - why don't you teach me a few cool spells mister I-now-have-Atiesh-because-reasons?
I agree she didn't get any face time after that, but everyone should know who she is unless they don't read quests or pay attention to what they're doing, and if that's the case then I think they only have themselves to blame.
But then I am also pretty played out on the whole horde/alliance aspect at this point, it feels so contrived given every expansion is some new amazing threat that forces them to work together, except they still manage to fight each other during, yet still come out victorious.
In game it's been what, roughly 10 years since the players got involved? 7 since they "worked together" to beat the Lich King.
Well, peace broke down some time before Garrosh really started to become a major figure in the story, when Varian appeared on the scene during the Battle for Undercity in Wrath shortly into the expansion, screaming racial epithets and blaming the Horde as a whole for Bolvar's death at Wrathgate, proclaiming that there will never be peace between the Alliance and Horde.
His constant antagonizing through Wrath was a large part of the reason Garrosh ended up so agitated towards the Alliance, and gave Garrosh his perfect excuse to drive tensions further through Cata/MoP. (though Garrosh would have pushed things without an excuse 'cause he's a giant twat)
He's still a bit of a dick, but the slow realization that "...hey, maybe I kind of fucked up here" has finally been dawning on him, and to his credit there so far haven't been further seriously overt tensions between the factions after the ousting of Garrosh as Warchief.
Garrosh however was the believable reason for the re-escalating tensions between the Alliance/Horde - prideful son follows in Daddy's footsteps and ends up making all of the same mistakes, but unlike his father, learning absolutely nothing from them. Probably in no small part due to the fact that he had an actual established back story to work with to justify why he was doing what he was doing - compared to doing what they did with Varian nearly completely out of the blue, and then emergency-retconning motivation through comics and visual novels after the fact to explain away how contrived it was at the time.
But nope, they had to announce that those were mistakes from too many cooks in the kitchen and then push the berserker version.
(I also think, lorewise, Warlords was a massive mistake).
Total complete Legion spoilers for Maiev
This so hard.
I think there's a lot of things they could have done with the story in Warlords that would have made everything OK. I really wish they wouldn't have pulled the alternate history thing and just used straight up time travel without trying to explain any of the paradoxes.
Kairozdormu, the bronze dragon that freed Garrosh, is actually the quest giver on the Timeless Isle in Pandaria. I didn't realize that until way late into the expansion, because you never actually see him in WoD. I wish they would have had an introduction scenario at the beginning of WoD with the players chased after Kairozdormu and the freed Garrosh, followed them to the Timeless Isle, and watched as Kairozdormu and Wrathion harnessed the powers of the Isle (that the players had been gathering) and sent Garrosh back in time. It would have cemented the 'Wrathion has been leading everyone along this whole time' plot bit.
That is kind of part of the legendary ring quest line, if I am remembering correctly.
I agree on the time travel though, it rarely works out in stories, especially when they are trying to create some alternate timeline deal out of it. It just gets confusing.
It is sort of, but the problem with it is that you don't get to do that until you're level 100 and doing the end of legendary quest part uno. You never actually see him break Garrosh out of prison and go back in time. When you see Garry kill him he's disguised as an ork! When you fight him, you fight his dragon form. I think you only see his 'normal' blood elf form from Timeless Isle for about 10 seconds while he's a corpse. It really would have been better if they had done the Garrosh prison break when the timeless isle was still fresh in peoples minds, like as part of a WoD launch event like we had with the echo's of doom/theramore's fall/undead invasion stuff from the previous expac launches.
Man that was my fastest resub-unsub turnaround since I started playing mmos.
I didn't realize you had to rep/daily quest grind to unlock flying in Draenor, which is probably totally my fault, I just assumed it would be like every other flight training where I'd just have to buy it.
It reminded me that the game is all about locking the fun content behind weeks of unfun stuff, and I've never been able to bring myself to do crappy daily quests every day.
The weird thing is, I know I'll play other mmos and I might even come back to WoW sometime, once I forget why I quit, but I think locking something that is so basic in every other zone in the game behind a rep grind made me see the treadmill and get disillusioned in record time.
The trick to keeping me playing an MMO is to not give me that crystallizing moment where I realize that the game isn't about me having fun but instead about keeping me just unsatisfied enough that I'll log in tomorrow to chase the fun always just out of reach.
I don't think the way the ended up gating flying was a good idea. It punishes people like you needlessly.
Really there isn't anything in the game for you right now, unless you want to get into raiding, so unsubbing was probably the right choice.
They also really missed out on the chance to play around with time travel. Lore characters meeting alternate versions of themselves. If you have a Draenei or Orc character, you should have a chance to meet yourself as a child in a quest. To fight Garona, you could have been able to recruit main timeline Garona to fight with you. After losing Samaara, there could have been a scene later in the game where Yrel meets the much older prime timeline Samaara - and the prime timeline Velen. I would have loved to have seen a young Garrosh get mentored by Thrall, trying to do things better.
If I missed any of those things, mea culpa.
The indicators that I can remember of people remembering "oh hey, alternate past" were few and far between - I recall that Gul'dan brings it up with Khadgar in one scene. And that's basically it.
Oh, and it turns it that one of the changes in this storyline is that Garrosh was never born (again, revealed in the short story).
Don't worry, it's not too late for that - there's no doubt in my mind they'll shoehorn her somewhere into Legion. But yes, they've very conspicuously avoided any main time line characters meeting any past versions of themselves.
They do a poor job of explaining exactly how old either of them are, but Thrall wasn't even conceived by the point in time we enter into, so I wouldn't expect Garrosh to have been born yet either if we assume they're roughly the same age. It's also way too similar to Rhonin and Illidan, which probably would have just pissed off a bunch of people needlessly considering how largely disliked by the fanbase Rhonin is and the fact that Thrall is already derisively referred to as "Green Jesus" as it is. (not that they're not already experienced with needlessly jabbing at their fanbase anyway amirite har dar dar)
Garona raises some issues that I have with how the WoD events reconcile with main timeline Garona. Considering the main timeline's Garona never had Gul'Dan's hold on her broken like we did with the WoD version, are we going to have to worry about main Garona being controlled by alternate Gul'Dan? Khadgar knows how to break the control, so will he realize and make any effort to do that with main Garona? Without one of those orb thingies, can he break the control?
Who knows - it will probably just be tossed to the wayside and ignored like certain other major plot threads(Hi Magatha). We'll probably never even see her anyway considering Garona-Prime has made absolutely no appearance in the game to date, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've tried tweeting to that one WoW writer dude a few times about it but I've been roundly ignored so far.
Garrosh had to be conceived before his father went through the portal, and probably before his father took the blood of Manneroth. So, I think that that means he should probably be around in some form.
When Doomhammer dies you get to see her at the defense of Shattrath
In one of the books, during the time period of Warcraft 2, one of the Orc Chiefs is scrounging for troops and goes to Garadar, at that point you have a very ill Garrosh asking about his father, and being brushed off because he needs healthy soldiers, not sick children.
So Garrosh is quite a bit older than Thrall.
But in the alt-Draenor, Garrosh had discovered that he had never been born (yet alt-Grom definitely felt a kinship with him as can be seen in the intro and the HFC patch trailer).
Game wise, sure.
Metzen would not let his baby (The Greater Warcraft Universe) be manhandled poorly. He's probably the one who gives yea or nay to specific directions.
And then contradicting the lore between game, novel, and any other form of media it comes in (see also: Varian's anger management resolutions. I think there at least 3 or 4 times it's been "fixed.").
Garona-Prime is one of the heads of the rogue class faction in the sewers, she hangs around their class hall.
They even have a very good cinematics team that could crack it out for those too lazy to get the novel and are upset at what happened between exps
They really should just keep all the critical lore in the game proper. The game story is really suffering at this point; they need as much interesting stuff happening in the main quests as possible.
That and the quality of the books is very inconsistent. I'm not going to pick up a WoW novel when I want to read when there are so many other great books out there that I know aren't a gamble quality-wise.
I am one of those people
He has a story credit with no writing or producing credits.
I'm sure he had input, probably a lot at the conception stage of the first mismanaged version that caused Raimi to quit.
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They could go into a Queen Azshara raid.