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[WoW] Conflict starting in August

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Posts

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    I wonder what form the Alliance finger wag will take this time.

    Maybe a newspaper to the nose this time. Abandon all pretense.

    Don't y'all go genociding anymore, y'hear? and clean your room.

  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    It's a matter of expectations. Many players created their Horde characters based on where Horde left off back at the end of WC3. The whole noble savage, group of refugees looking to build better lives for themselves in a world where an uneasy truce has finally been achieved. Now however, through no fault of their own, the character that was created to explore noble savage and refugee stories is now a moustache twirling villain who regularly commits unspeakable atrocities and then is defeated by the pure and perfect Alliance forces in the end, who choose to magnanimously turn the other cheek again and again. They have now become the unambiguous bad guy, and they can't even make a serious argument that the other side is morally questionable as all shades of grey have been removed over time.

  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    Henroid wrote: »
    But you're not playing your character in WoW. You're playing a character that Blizzard has crafted a story for, along with the stories going on in their setting.

    Then they have crafted a story where you go from being one of the heroes who effectively defeated Satan with the help of allies of all races, to sudden and extreme hatred of each other.

    It's confusing as shit.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    World of Warcraft character creation is closer to choosing to play as one of the characters in Streets of Rage, than it is to picking up a D&D character sheet. You may get to customize the look and abilities within some hard set parameters, but as far as the 'story' of your character goes you don't get control of that. That is not what this game is.

    If you don't like what happens in the actual mechanics of the game, do what us roleplayers do; ignore it, write out your own headcanon on what your character did at what given time. It won't be represented in the game because you're not a coder or quest designer, but your imagination is pretty much all you've got. It's all we've got. And for the most part we're fine with it!

  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    MuddBudd wrote: »
    Henroid wrote: »
    But you're not playing your character in WoW. You're playing a character that Blizzard has crafted a story for, along with the stories going on in their setting.

    Then they have crafted a story where you go from being one of the heroes who effectively defeated Satan with the help of allies of all races, to sudden and extreme hatred of each other.

    It's confusing as shit.
    Yeah I'm not arguing to defend how dumb the hard shifts in Warcraft writing are. I thought with Metzen gone the shitty writing would be a thing of the past but y'know.

  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    the best part is that because we live in a modern society that has recognized that war is a bad and miserable thing, the moral of all the war stories between the alliance and horde is gosh they shouldn't fight, which makes warcraft an intensely nihilistic series

    liEt3nH.png
  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    Henroid wrote: »
    World of Warcraft character creation is closer to choosing to play as one of the characters in Streets of Rage, than it is to picking up a D&D character sheet. You may get to customize the look and abilities within some hard set parameters, but as far as the 'story' of your character goes you don't get control of that. That is not what this game is.

    the problem is not that the characters do things that players wouldn't do in their situations

    the problem is that the characters do things that the characters wouldn't do in their situations.

  • DacDac Registered User regular
    edited August 2018
    Okay, I'm confused. Did the Alliance capture Lordaeron or was it so salted that it failed?

    Because it just dumps you in Stormwind after that with like, no denouement after the climax.

    Buh?

    Dac on
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  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    Dac wrote: »
    Okay, I'm confused. Did the Alliance capture Lordaeron or was it so salted that it failed?

    Because it just dumps you in Stormwind after that with like, no denouement after the climax.

    Buh?

    No one captures anything in this war because every city is destroyed

    liEt3nH.png
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    Blizzard can do whatever they want with their story. The risk they end up running is that at some point players who may empathize and identify with their alter-ego (and who they have been able to do so to one degree or another for more than 10 years), get turned off the story and stop playing. Or they get turned off by the story and proceed to skip all the cutscenes and quest text. This may not be bad, but it also means that one of the potential draws to come back to the game when classes or specs are not really enjoyable to play has now been removed. It's unlikely to be the final straw for everyone, but the story being a complete joke (LORELOL) removes one of the potential reasons for people to buy and play a new expansion.

  • EnclaveofGnomesEnclaveofGnomes Registered User regular
    Dac wrote: »
    Okay, I'm confused. Did the Alliance capture Lordaeron or was it so salted that it failed?

    Because it just dumps you in Stormwind after that with like, no denouement after the climax.

    Buh?

    I think even if they could be bothered magicing it all better they don't have the troops to occupy it...or the desire really.

  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    Dhalphir wrote: »
    Henroid wrote: »
    World of Warcraft character creation is closer to choosing to play as one of the characters in Streets of Rage, than it is to picking up a D&D character sheet. You may get to customize the look and abilities within some hard set parameters, but as far as the 'story' of your character goes you don't get control of that. That is not what this game is.

    the problem is not that the characters do things that players wouldn't do in their situations

    the problem is that the characters do things that the characters wouldn't do in their situations.

    This. I did the Horde side on several of my characters. My rogue and warlock, for example.

    I still refuse to do it on my Druid.

    It'd be like playing an Alliance priest who is suddenly given a quest to murder Anduin.

    They've invested so much storytelling energy into stuff like the Druid order, where even in Classic WoW, we had Moonglade, a neutral city for all Druids. Long before Shattrath and Dalaran were a thing. It wasn't perfect, PVP could still happen, but mostly it didn't.

    And then Legion ramps that up a notch AND does it for ALL the classes. Every class now has an organization that unites them all. It wouldn't surprise me if Paladin and Priest players are also a large portion of those who problems with this Horde side stuff.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    I mean, at this point, the Alliance is probably well within their rights (or it would be understandable if they chose to do so) to just fly their spaceship into orbit and "rod of god" all the major horde cities and holdings. If the devs or writers gave a shit about continuity or lore, the Alliance has access to a large number of i-win buttons and if they take off the gloves then it is over for the Horde.

  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited August 2018
    Dac wrote: »
    Okay, I'm confused. Did the Alliance capture Lordaeron or was it so salted that it failed?

    Because it just dumps you in Stormwind after that with like, no denouement after the climax.

    Buh?

    I think even if they could be bothered magicing it all better they don't have the troops to occupy it...or the desire really.

    Even before Sylvanas' crap, the north end of the Eastern Kingdoms has always been ... unwelcoming. The Scourge's mark has never really left. Blighted (or scourged, or whatever terminology is now correct) animals still wander around everywhere. Also murderous ghosts. Poisonous green goop. Maybe some Death Knights - are the DKs still in EPL? It doesn't seem like a place humans would want to live anyways. The Blood Elves sure don't, as I understand it. The Ghostlands is a supposed to be a shithole, which is part of the whole Liadrin only lived there so she could keep killing Scourge thing.

    hippofant on
  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    edited August 2018
    As far as I'm concerned, my monk is still Grandmaster of the monks and my paladin is still Highlord.

    That remains the case until and unless Blizzard does something ingame to demonstrate why I'm not. Accordingly, my characters did not participate in the War of the Thorns, because they are a little bit busy managing an entire order.

    Of course, realistically, I went and did it, because, well, you have to at least once.

    But this kind of mental disconnection from my character is not good for player engagement, no matter how much handwaving anyone tries to do about an MMO not being about engaging with your character.

    Dhalphir on
  • EnclaveofGnomesEnclaveofGnomes Registered User regular
    Where have you been getting all the player engagement until now?

  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited August 2018
    I don't really have a strong position on whether it's "reasonable" for players to feel one way or another about it, but I definitely can attest that there are people who are, at least saying they are, quitting Horde and just playing Alliance now cuz of this. Even if you think that's entirely unreasonable on their part, it doesn't seem really smart or cool for Blizzard to spite all of those subscribers. Yeah it's Blizzard's game and they can do what they want, and yeah maybe those players are just being entitled/irrational/whatever, but that doesn't really change the fact that it didn't have to be this way, and that's somewhat unfortunate. (I.e. Dhalphir's (?) suggestion of having the Alliance attack first would allow them to tell more or less the same story, so far at least, without engendering as much outrage from Horde players, I think. And maybe just better writing that's actually morally gray.)

    hippofant on
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    Here's another fridge logic thought: why did Jaina just give up her attack on her magic galleon and instead glare at Sylvanus et al on their zepplin at the end of the cutscenes. Jaina's cutscene powers seem to have no problem moving her boat around or teleporting with exacting precision and the Horde leaders aren't in great shape in that scene either.

  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    Here's another fridge logic thought: why did Jaina just give up her attack on her magic galleon and instead glare at Sylvanus et al on their zepplin at the end of the cutscenes. Jaina's cutscene powers seem to have no problem moving her boat around or teleporting with exacting precision and the Horde leaders aren't in great shape in that scene either.

    Spell cooldowns /s


    Don't think about it too much, you're already overqualified for Blizzard's writing team.

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    Where have you been getting all the player engagement until now?

    Are you kidding me?

    Legion was unbelievably good for identifying with your character. Class identity was at an all-time high with the order hall, the artifacts, and the campaigns, all of them came together to make you feel more like a paladin/monk/mage/whatever than you ever had before. Everything your character did was bent on the Legion, everyone was essentially one big faction with very minimal conflicts, which made sense since the Legion was the big bad in history and barring some minor skirmishes, outright conflict would be idiotic.

  • ZythonZython Registered User regular
    Well...that was grim. Glad I stayed around to see it before my sub ended.

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  • DacDac Registered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    Here's another fridge logic thought: why did Jaina just give up her attack on her magic galleon and instead glare at Sylvanus et al on their zepplin at the end of the cutscenes. Jaina's cutscene powers seem to have no problem moving her boat around or teleporting with exacting precision and the Horde leaders aren't in great shape in that scene either.

    Another question: if it's shown that Jaina's magic can wipe away the blight/plague gas, why is Lordaeron being salted with gas even an issue?

    I mean, on the east end you see there's canisters and canisters of the stuff, but we've already established that you flying machines that could probably blow that shit up so that you could commence with the cleanup. Lordaeron is sort of symbolically important to the humans - you'd think they'd want to retake that shit, considering it's one of the last places the Horde can even pretend to contest Alliance control of the Eastern Kingdoms.

    Steam: catseye543
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  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    Dac wrote: »
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    Here's another fridge logic thought: why did Jaina just give up her attack on her magic galleon and instead glare at Sylvanus et al on their zepplin at the end of the cutscenes. Jaina's cutscene powers seem to have no problem moving her boat around or teleporting with exacting precision and the Horde leaders aren't in great shape in that scene either.

    Another question: if it's shown that Jaina's magic can wipe away the blight/plague gas, why is Lordaeron being salted with gas even an issue?

    I mean, on the east end you see there's canisters and canisters of the stuff, but we've already established that you flying machines that could probably blow that shit up so that you could commence with the cleanup. Lordaeron is sort of symbolically important to the humans - you'd think they'd want to retake that shit, considering it's one of the last places the Horde can even pretend to contest Alliance control of the Eastern Kingdoms.

    because people can only do things if the plot wants them to do it

    liEt3nH.png
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    Also, the forsaken are already dead, some of them don't have jaws, and they certainly don't need to breath. That's why they have their underwater breathing racial. The only reason it isn't infinite is for balance reasons.

    The forsaken are immune to plague because they're already dead. It's as simple as that.

    not when it literally melts them

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • NobodyNobody Registered User regular
    edited August 2018
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    It's a matter of expectations. Many players created their Horde characters based on where Horde left off back at the end of WC3. The whole noble savage, group of refugees looking to build better lives for themselves in a world where an uneasy truce has finally been achieved. Now however, through no fault of their own, the character that was created to explore noble savage and refugee stories is now a moustache twirling villain who regularly commits unspeakable atrocities and then is defeated by the pure and perfect Alliance forces in the end, who choose to magnanimously turn the other cheek again and again. They have now become the unambiguous bad guy, and they can't even make a serious argument that the other side is morally questionable as all shades of grey have been removed over time.

    My favorite part is that literally any time the Alliance does something questionable, Blizzard (especially Christie Golden) makes sure to have a Horde character forgive them.

    Taurajo? Baine makes sure to state that it's a viable military target and exiled Tauren who were angry about the destruction.

    Purge of Dalaran? Vol'jin sends Jaina a letter saying they're cool and he completely understands.

    Nobody on
  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited August 2018
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    Also, the forsaken are already dead, some of them don't have jaws, and they certainly don't need to breath. That's why they have their underwater breathing racial. The only reason it isn't infinite is for balance reasons.

    The forsaken are immune to plague because they're already dead. It's as simple as that.

    not when it literally melts them

    I really don't think it's that blight. We ran into it as Horde. If it literally melted us, gas masks wouldn't protect us from it.

    I think that that it was just the regular old Undercity green goop. Especially given how fucking much of it they had and apparently they were just storing it in barrels and tanks around UC, and we could just strap it on as a personal blight-thrower, but that's just fanwanking on my part.

    (Hell I suspect this is all fanwanking on all our parts, since Blizzard didn't see fit to tell us what exactly that shit was. From a dramatic perspective, I think we're just meant to treat this like if Sylvanas had rigged Undercity to explode with bombs, but cooler. Not sure we're supposed to be reading really deep into figuring out which sort of blight this is, chemical weapons, etc..)

    hippofant on
  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    So speculate away but is that it? They just get back on the ghost ship and fly away? Seems pretty horrible for the Alliance. I mean
    they capture saurong but uh, they barely seem to have hurt the Horde at all

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    Pailryder wrote: »
    So speculate away but is that it? They just get back on the ghost ship and fly away? Seems pretty horrible for the Alliance. I mean
    they capture saurong but uh, they barely seem to have hurt the Horde at all

    I mean,
    The horde killed teldrassil, we killed the undercity. We didn't get to take back Lordaeron because Sylvanas is an evil vindictive evil person but they still lost a lot of troops and one of their capital cities. Plus we have Saurfang which is a pretty big get. I imagine we'll convince him to help us overthrow Sylvanas, or he'll go double agent on us or something

  • UrQuanLord88UrQuanLord88 Registered User regular
    edited August 2018
    I can't really recall all of Legion's storylines but I remember it with minimal horde v alliance shenanigans. I vaguely recall that the gist of the expansion was that both sides were inept/utterly broken at the Broken Shore (heh) that we, the players, had to step in to fill the gaps as <insert class faction here> to beat the Legion. With the Legion defeated, I guess they should have had a couple of quests to deal with the fact that we are still somehow aligned to Alliance/Horde? idk. All I'm saying a warlock powerstruggle would have fit quite nicely prior to BfA.

    I guess without much knowledge of game development, its easy to point out the flaws and inconsistencies and the number of stories / tie-ins you'd have to keep track of. Probably best to just nuke the world and start again, right? (WOW2)

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  • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Pailryder wrote: »
    So speculate away but is that it? They just get back on the ghost ship and fly away? Seems pretty horrible for the Alliance. I mean
    they capture saurong but uh, they barely seem to have hurt the Horde at all

    I mean,
    The horde killed teldrassil, we killed the undercity. We didn't get to take back Lordaeron because Sylvanas is an evil vindictive evil person but they still lost a lot of troops and one of their capital cities. Plus we have Saurfang which is a pretty big get. I imagine we'll convince him to help us overthrow Sylvanas, or he'll go double agent on us or something

    Or a rescue op is in order.

    Or he is forced to fight in gladiator matches until a party from the future comes back with help from the bronze dragonflight to free him from a heroic 120 stockades instance with help from....hm who can we say secretly likes the noble savage types from the Horde? Let's go with something crazy and say Turalyon.

    Speaking of, you'd think he would be one guy interested in retaking Loderon.

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    Bigity wrote: »
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    Pailryder wrote: »
    So speculate away but is that it? They just get back on the ghost ship and fly away? Seems pretty horrible for the Alliance. I mean
    they capture saurong but uh, they barely seem to have hurt the Horde at all

    I mean,
    The horde killed teldrassil, we killed the undercity. We didn't get to take back Lordaeron because Sylvanas is an evil vindictive evil person but they still lost a lot of troops and one of their capital cities. Plus we have Saurfang which is a pretty big get. I imagine we'll convince him to help us overthrow Sylvanas, or he'll go double agent on us or something

    Or a rescue op is in order.

    Or he is forced to fight in gladiator matches until a party from the future comes back with help from the bronze dragonflight to free him from a heroic 120 stockades instance with help from....hm who can we say secretly likes the noble savage types from the Horde? Let's go with something crazy and say Turalyon.

    Speaking of, you'd think he would be one guy interested in retaking Loderon.

    Possibly, but
    I doubt sylvanas will sign off on a rescue op. She's probably pretty pleased her main detractor is no longer a problem. As far as she probably knows the alliance killed him I'd guess? Only did the alliance side of the quest though.

  • KruiteKruite Registered User regular
    the best part is that because we live in a modern society that has recognized that war is a bad and miserable thing, the moral of all the war stories between the alliance and horde is gosh they shouldn't fight, which makes warcraft an intensely nihilistic series

    The implication here is that some fight s are not worth having

  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    Kruite wrote: »
    the best part is that because we live in a modern society that has recognized that war is a bad and miserable thing, the moral of all the war stories between the alliance and horde is gosh they shouldn't fight, which makes warcraft an intensely nihilistic series

    The implication here is that some fight s are not worth having

    the fights between the alliance and horde are not

    liEt3nH.png
  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Kruite wrote: »
    the best part is that because we live in a modern society that has recognized that war is a bad and miserable thing, the moral of all the war stories between the alliance and horde is gosh they shouldn't fight, which makes warcraft an intensely nihilistic series

    The implication here is that some fight s are not worth having

    the fights between the alliance and horde are not

    Especially when we have had Magni, the literal speaker for Azeroth herself, telling us that she's going to go down with old gods soon and we need to be ready, for like the last year.

  • tyrannustyrannus i am not fat Registered User regular
    edited August 2018
    MuddBudd wrote: »
    Which is terrible, but they're undead, its not like age is a factor. Think about that.

    They can wait for the land to recover and then start using it. The Forsaken might be the longest 'lived' race on Azeroth, now that the Night Elves aren't immortal.

    It's a bit terrifying to be honest.

    YEAH KINDA SUCKS BEING OUTCASTS THAT DON'T GO ANYWHERE WHEN YOU DIE.

    Kinda sucks seeing your old family grow old and die be taught that you are an abomination

    Almost enough to drive someone to murder??

    tyrannus on
  • evilthecatevilthecat Registered User regular
    tyrannus wrote: »
    MuddBudd wrote: »
    Which is terrible, but they're undead, its not like age is a factor. Think about that.

    They can wait for the land to recover and then start using it. The Forsaken might be the longest 'lived' race on Azeroth, now that the Night Elves aren't immortal.

    It's a bit terrifying to be honest.

    YEAH KINDA SUCKS BEING OUTCASTS THAT DON'T GO ANYWHERE WHEN YOU DIE.

    Kinda sucks seeing your old family grow old and die be taught that you are an abomination

    Almost enough to drive someone to murder??

    No.
    Anduin attempted to give the forsaken their lives back.
    Sylvanas murdered them all.

    tip.. tip.. TALLY.. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    tyrannus wrote: »
    MuddBudd wrote: »
    Which is terrible, but they're undead, its not like age is a factor. Think about that.

    They can wait for the land to recover and then start using it. The Forsaken might be the longest 'lived' race on Azeroth, now that the Night Elves aren't immortal.

    It's a bit terrifying to be honest.

    YEAH KINDA SUCKS BEING OUTCASTS THAT DON'T GO ANYWHERE WHEN YOU DIE.

    Kinda sucks seeing your old family grow old and die be taught that you are an abomination

    Almost enough to drive someone to murder??

    I was more thinking along the lines of, it's a bit terrifying that there's a faction of undead who can commit war crimes like using the blight then just... wait it out. It'd be like us nuking a city we want, and saying 'alright that's ours in a few thousand years'.

    On top of the fact that, IIRC, Forsaken don't have nearly as strong a tie to emotions as they did when alive. Although that might just be a defense mechanism for the psychological trauma.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • ThorbanThorban Registered User regular
    Nope.
    Anduin attempted to usurp the forsaken via Calia Menethil.
    Sylvanas executed the traitors.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    Pailryder wrote: »
    So speculate away but is that it? They just get back on the ghost ship and fly away? Seems pretty horrible for the Alliance. I mean
    they capture saurong but uh, they barely seem to have hurt the Horde at all
    This is the part of the story where the bad guys sprung their dastardly trap and the good guys, weakened as a result, have to figure out a way to defeat the superior forces of evil. The good guys' victory will be all the sweeter after they've been through this hardship.

  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    Check out this Machinima thing.

    https://youtu.be/ihwUBeExByA

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
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