So… all throughout WoD, Grom Hellscream was referred to as Grommash, and the explanation I seem to remember Blizzard giving at the time was: Grommash was a more dignified “full form” of his name, that the WoD version used because he remained uncorrupted. Okay - Fair enough.
I noticed early in the beta for Reforged however that the Warcraft III unit’s name had been changed from Grom Hellscream to Grommash Hellscream. This instantly rubbed me the wrong way, because this IS the corrupted green version, and per the prior explanation, leaving his unit named Grom seemed fine and appropriate.
Now campaign mode has released, and I’ve noticed within the first 2 prologue missions that dialogue has been altered to remove the name Grom entirely. Any time Thrall or his troops previously used the name “Grom” in Warcraft III Classic - the audio has now been chopped up and altered to make them say “Hellscream” instead (because there’s presumably no dialogue recorded where they actually say the name Grommash)
Seriously… WHY was this change even deemed necessary? His name has been Grom since Warcraft II, and the explanation they gave in WoD still allowed for the Main Universe Green Version to continue using the name Grom.
I’m genuinely curious - What the heck is the rationale behind scrubbing the name “Grom” from this game?
To be fair, I would have liked Thrall to at least mention his orc name once. I always did wonder as a child how weird of a name it was for an orc until finding through thirdparty exposition that his birthname was Go’el.
As much as I an annoyed at their attempts to erase the name “Grom” as a shortform for Grommash, that’s not my real beef with this.
It’s the fact that the audio edit was sloppy, and extremely noticeable. I feel like this is one of the reasons they wanted to do dialogue re-recording, and it’s clear that not having that was a big setback.
That’s not to say Reforged hasn’t had any successes yet. I appreciate that they attached the small mini-campaign with the Darkspears and the murlocs to the end of the original tutorial campaign, and that the Sea Witch was given a naga model.
Yeah but that one actually makes sense. Thrall didn’t learn his orc name until Burning Crusade, when we discovered the Mag’har surviving in Outland and he met his Grandmother. He was raised by humans, and his parents died while he was a baby. Thrall was the only name he ever knew before Outland.
I can think of no actual lore reason for the name “Grom” to be wiped from existence… hence this thread asking: Why?
No you’re exactly right. Grommash was always his full name, Thrall did just call him Grom to be informal, and Mannoroth did just call him Grommash to be formal. And that was a simple enough concept.
The weirdness is that they’re now wiping out the informal version for seemingly no reason.
Practically no one, save Mannoroth, used the formal version before Warlords of Draenor (or at the very least, used it sparingly). He was always commonly referred to as Grom, dating back to Warcraft II, where he debuted. The WoD version of the character used Grommash exclusively though, and at the time that seemed weird, because up to that point we’d heard him referred to as Grom far more commonly… which prompted Blizzard to explain - The WoD version used the formal form of his name, because he was uncorrupted, and considered it more befitting of his uncorrupted state and perhaps his position as Warchief… (I don’t have the exact response, I’m admittedly just paraphrasing the explanation I seem to remember them giving at the time)… They weren’t however acting as though no one had ever called the character Grom before.
In Reforged however… they’re wiping out the name Grom entirely. And acting as if no one has ever called the character Grom before. Any dialogue where he was formerly referred to as Grom has been altered.
Why? Who the hell knows! That’s what I’d like to get an answer for…
It’s not like calling him Grom as an informal nickname was breaking any plot or anything.
This is indeed one big mystery and I would very much like to hear some sensible explanation cause it doesnt make any sense why they would remove “Grom” from the conversations entirely. Do they really think its too confusing for new players if he is called both Grom and Grommash? thats the only explanation I honestly could think of…
But do they honestly think players are that stupid these days?..Apparently so
This is kinda interesting topic, I grew up on different language and he was called hellscream everywhere as far as I can remember, for me playing W3 now in english is completely new experience
I’ve never seen it actually confirmed by anyone at Blizzard, but there’s a theory that they started using his full name since “Grom” had been trademarked by Honda.
I’ve never seen it actually confirmed by anyone at Blizzard, but there’s a theory that they started using his full name since “Grom” had been trademarked by Honda.
Frankly a legal reason is about the only one that actually WOULD make sense to me, but if they haven’t confirmed it… all I can do is continue to wonder why, lol.
Still - Assuming that’s the case - Seems odd that there would be trademark concerns between a fictional Orc invented and established in a mid-nineties video game, and a modern motorcycle produced in 2014 (thanks wikipedia!). It’s not like anyone is confusing Grom Hellscream with a bike… but then who the hell knows when it comes to lawyers…
What bothers me is that someone spent time on this pointless change, honestly, although I noticed it, those who I introduced to the game with reforged have not, so it may not be as noticeable as some of us think.
(I mean, hell idk about you, but I hugely notice the new death voiceovers for grunts/footmen/peasants/ghouls/etc, and I know from experience that casual players wouldn’t.)
Instead of changing grom to hellscream they should have redone some of the awful voice acting in the game, like the obvious adult female intern voicing the peasant children, or the Blackrock blademaster that sounds like some regular schmuck larping an evil orc.
I just can’t believe they went through and changed something so utterly pointless(For the worse really) when there is so much other s---- that needs dealing with.)
This. It was mentioned in the leak of WoD that happened pre-Blizzcon. They can not refer to Grom as Grom anymore. That’s why they called him Grommash in WoD and why Thrall calls him Hellscream in Reforged.
I don’t think this is the reason because they also removed all instances of Malfurion being called “Furion” and I find it unlikely there are two instances of trademark conflicts with character names. I think this is Blizzard simply deciding against using nicknames for core characters.