Blizzard should clean house on its character roster

Hey, I take offense! Gazlowe is arguably the most developed and longstanding Goblin character in Warcraft. He likely would have just been the Horde Goblin Racial leader had we had Gobs as an option in Vanilla. Everything else you said is absolutely right, but in no way is Gazlowe a downgrade from Gallywix as a Goblin PC lead. Cartels aren’t clans, they’re businesses, its perfectly fine an “outsider” took charge. And while Wix is a great character, he was a downright horrific PC racial leader on several levels.

EDIT: The real crime is that neither Sassy or Mida were developed on over the years.

EDIT2: As a side note, I actually don’t mind our current Racial Leader roster on paper, even if I recognize many of them need TCL. That said, with Rexxar committing fully to the Horde, and Rokhan finally heading up the Darkspear officially, I want Nazgrel dusted off and taken out of Outlands to get the WC3 Scout Amigos back!

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I like Gazlowe, but it’s obvious as hell he was put in because they needed someone to.

No explanation as to why he’s running the Bilgewater now, just here he is, no new model, no real explanation, no development.

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I mean, the “settup”, as little as there was, was hard to find even while it was in the game.

It was exclusively during the 8.2.5 patch after reckoning. On the Loyalist side you can stumble across some dialogue from various Gobs about Wix apparently last being seen franticly burning documents before disappearing. So when combined with his own quest earlier on, it implies he’s made some VERY bad investments in the course of this War. Both in his own private toys, and within Sylvanas herself. Which he didn’t want to face consequences on. Then after he vanishes, there is a small scene that can randomly appear with Thrall requesting Gazlowe to take the position of Trade Prince due to Wix’s disappearance. Tying into his whole Union subplot, riddled with Bilgewater members, during Mechagon. Rokhan finally accepting official leadership of the Darkspear played out similarly; he was not the Racial leader prior to Sylvie’s departure. This was also the same short period that teased Velonara’s rising through the ranks of the Anti-Sylvie Dark Rangers.

It wasn’t good … but there was a loose explanation that did play off prior background elements with both Gazlowe and Rokhan taking their current positions. It is what it is. As for Wix, the settup seems to be him eventually resurfacing as the Trade Prince of the Venture Co. As he was intimately working with them throughout BfA and we kill their prior head in the Motherlode. Which I’d actually like for him TBH.

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Gazlowe is an okay character, but I would have preferred for him to stay neutral and an actual Bilgewater goblin to be elevated to leadership and fleshed out in the process instead. I’m really tired of neutral characters pretending suddenly to be gung-ho for the Horde.

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Gazlowe was “neutral” in the most mechanical way possible. Hell, even Voss (as weird as she in her current role) few real connections to the Alliance despite her neutrality. Beyond “neutral quest” needs that is. To the point where she’s the Horde equivalent to the Alliance’s Tess in the Rogue Order hall.

Gazlowe has always been very Horde aligned. He’s never not been Gung-Ho for the Horde. He built Orgrimmar twice and our WoD Garrison for goodness sake. And honestly, given his links to the WC3 Horde, there was never any benefit to keeping him and Ratchet neutral beyond a mechanical boat between Kali and EK. Its actually more accurate to say that it made increasingly less sense that he of all people remained neutral for as long as he did. Though, on a tangent, I’m not even sure how the Kali Steamwheedle make enough profits from the Alliance to make neutrality more viable than just backing a Horde that has far more demand … with far less competition. Most of what the Kali Cartels could provide the Alliance the Alliance have their own sources for.

And you’re right, it would have been nice if Sassy or Mida had been built up into fleshed out characters. They still should. But most people don’t even know who they are. However, this “actual Bilgewater” thing is not a problem when it comes to cartels. For Goblins alone, that is truly a non-issue. During both the Trade and Peace Wars Cartels likely rose, fell, and traded hands many times. They’re businesses, not tribes.

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Mechanically neutral is still neutral, and the goblin back bench needs developing. I know you love Gazlowe to death, and I find him the least objectionable of the neutrals shoved onto the Horde as afterthoughts, but they are still afterthoughts.

Of course they are. But I’ll be honest, so long as Wix remained leader of the Bilgewater the other Goblins of the Bilgewater were never going to get that development. They strangely have a better chance now with him gone. Because like Baine & Anduin in their respective roles, Wix served as remarkable excuse to be very lazy with how the Bilgewater was written. Turning the entire PC race into little more than Greed Filled Lemmings meant to die en mass for his one funny note he kept hitting. Wix was literally written in such a way where he’d ostracize, push out, or just outright kill ANY Goblin intelligent enough to not put up with his crap.

So unless you were like Mida/GobSquad who knew how to ride the line of using his stupidity for personal gain, or Grapplehammer or Sassy who just stopped being part of the Bilgewater outside of name only … Wix as a racial leader was designed to prevent the rise of other noteworthy characters. He was the perfect excuse to never develop those on the bench. As it was totally IC for him to bully or murder them out. There was a reason that if you wanted any Gob story with them showing their intellect, you’d have to go outside the BW.

EDIT: And I don’t know if you haven’t noticed but the Horde AS A WHOLE is an afterthought. Which is why I’m not overly concerned about a handful of once Horde Leaning neutrals being shuffled into our roster. Rexxar, Gazlowe, and even Voss were all various degrees of Horde leaning long before now. Its not like their neutrality ever amounted to obscene plot relevance and development that the Alliance or Alliance-Leaning neutrals regularly get. The Horde leaning neutrals were never going to get those same benefits in this game.

Tfw blizzard hasn’t produced art for half of the Horde’s racial leaders.
:dracthyr_lulmao:

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More than that right? Of the Core Races: Rokhan, Voss, Gazlowe all use default models. And frankly, Eitrigg of all characters deserves one at this point. For the ARs: Thalyssra, Mayla, Geya’rah, and Kiro do too right? Of the council, only Thrall, Baine, Calia, and Talanji have custom rigs. Let alone official artwork. Yet for some reason Rexxar has one? I’m not complaining should he actually be allowed to actually commit full time to the Horde this time, but it is a bit weird lol!

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Yes, I also know you despised Gallywix. I didn’t, but if they want to get rid of him, whatever. I just would have preferred them not to shove a neutral into his position. Doing so diminishes both the Bilgewater cast and the neutral cast. (It’s the same objection I have to Lillian Voss, except that at least they didn’t completely rewrite Gazlowe’s personality in the process.)

I have, and frankly, that makes shoving neutrals at us worse for me. It’s not only lazy but kind of insulting, and it feels like we’re being taken over from outside.

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I believe the implication was that by 2030, Gazlowe will have been replaced by Goblin auctioneer #3.

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I didn’t despise Wix as a character, I very much enjoy him. But I did come despise him as a Racial Leader. Because he created a situation where the ENTIRE PC Goblin race was defined exclusively by their racial flaws and zero for their racial strengths for over a decade. He was the antagonist of the Bilgewater’s intro questline, who arbitrarily was kept in charge “because of Thrall”. What were the Bilgewater under Wix? Greed filled lemmings dying en-mass to man who’s only strength were wealth and self-preservation. He wasn’t even intelligent, he knew nothing of tech, he was just “Greed! LOL JOKE RACE!”

Which meant that if you wanted ANY Goblin stories where they weren’t JUST THAT, you’d always have to turn to the neutral Goblins outside of the Horde. Largely the Steamwheedle. The Horde Gobs were the BAD and STUPID ones. That was just fact. They were either too dumb to not be suicidal lemmings for Wix, or too evil to care they were. While all the “Good Intelligent” Gobs either were pushed out, were never part of the BW to begin with, or actually joined the friggen Alliance like Renzik and later Grezzix. Do you know how much that absolutely sucked as a Goblin fan? Over a decade of that? So NO I do not consider Wix surviving to do other things, while us getting the closest thing to a WC3 Horde Legend Gobs have in this setting as his replacement as a bad thing.

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Sure, I get your point on Gallywix. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but I get it. However, that does nothing to make me happier with having Gazlowe as a replacement. By pushing him into Horde leadership, they are decreasing the already-small neutral cast and refusing to increase the already diminished canonical Bilgewater cast. It’s a net loss for the game world, and I resent it.

As for Gallywix “surviving to do other things,” do you seriously think he’ll do anything except turn into a villain that we’ll work against if not actively fight in future? Screw that for a plot point.

But his neutrality largely always existed to facilitate a functional travel point mechanic, it NEVER made sense for him to have. Less and less so in act in the events following Vanilla. In fact, it actually makes very little sense for most of the Steamwheedle to have maintained that neutrality on either continent as the years went on. I have no idea how the EK SW locals like Bogpoddle and Fuselight make enough profit from the Horde to make maintaining neutrality within those regions worth the economic losses of pissing off the Alliance. Same goes for Gadgetzan and Mudsprocket on Kalimdor. And frankly, I’m not even sure how Everlook still exists. Who do they trade with? The NEs that hate them? Hell, the Speed Barge isn’t even Steamwheedle. Its a Bilgewater and Gnomergon installation. The only Steamwheedle town that might benefit from that neutrality is Booty Bay.

Gazlowe should never have been made neutral to begin with. No more than Rexxar. He likely would have been the Horde racial leader had Goblins been a playable race since Vanilla. So his revoked, forced, “doing it for a boat point” Neutrality being lost does not bother me. I don’t take it as an “insult”, despite the fact that Bilgewater characters like Mida & Sassy should have ALSO been built up too. Especially given the Mechagon Horde intro had some of the best stories, and best characterization of Bilgewater Goblins in over a decade. That all was great! And they were working under Gazlowe. As for Wix, I would wager he’s being settup as a reoccurring minor antagonist (which he always was) as the new Leader of the Venture Co. Given his intimate ties with them during BfA and us killing off their prior Trade Prince in the Motherlode. He also still owns the Motherlode.

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Once again, none of your points address my actual complaints? If you’re trying to persuade me that this is actually a good idea, you’ll have to convince me that there is a solution to the problems it creates for me.

I will say that I could tolerate them just pushing in Gazlowe if he was the only one they did this with. But he’s not—he’s part of a larger repeating pattern of neutrals and outsiders coming in and taking up prominent positions in the Horde: see Lillian Voss, Calia Menethil, Rexxar in BfA … and I’m half-convinced they were trying to add Valeera Sanguinaar as well until somebody reminded them that she is devoted to Anduin and they realized they couldn’t possibly deprive him of one of his biggest fans.

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Oh no, don’t get me wrong, I understand the problem with some of them. Rexxar should never have been made neutral in the first place, so he’s the same as Gazlowe there for me. Lil has always been primarily Horde leaning, outside of her needs to facilitate neutral dungeon stories that the Alliance never had much stake in on a story level. Not so different than what happens to Malf often, or Turalyon/Alleria in Legion. So she bothers me a little more, as they didn’t put in the work to get her where she is; but I could have easily seen a journey for her to get to a similar Horde endpoint IF Blizz had bothered putting the effort in. IMO ingredients were there for her to become more a part of the Forsaken as her revenge story continued to cool/end, they just skipped the actual baking process. Her revenge story was done, they could have built her up for this new one.

Calia and Valeera … no you are absolutely right. Hell, Valeera being “Horde Aligned” makes zero sense, and clearly is Blizz just doing their standard “pretending to consider the Horde in the stories they write”. Turning characters like Baine and Lor’themar into “Token Good Hordes” they can throw into a scene to pretend the Horde exists. Then forget them on some hallway floor, with their content always being first to get cut. Or just making Alliance characters in all but name “Horde characters” for that inclusion. Hell, part of what bothers me so much about Calia is that … could you imagine what would have happened had they put all that effort put into her into Voss instead? To make her transition into being a part of the Forsaken more natural, rather than just skipping it all and making Voss a placeholder for Queen Golden Self-Insert? But naw, Calia gets it instead…

As you said, “The Horde is an afterthought” in this Game. A plot device to be used when they need a motiveless villain, and totally forgotten and along for the ride as optional sidekicks when not.

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Why the hell do all these faction leaders have to keep popping up and following us around? Does the president come to fight in every war? Does the mayor come to go grocery shopping with you? This is supposed to be the players’ story.

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Its never been the players story. Not really beyond merely providing enough of a sandbox to allow people to fill those sandboxes with headcannon. But in reality, the PC is not really part of this world. They’re both a force of nature that rolls through and causes havoc, but also something that no-one really remembers after they pass through. WC3 was the root of WoW, which was very NPC Hero driven. And for the most part that never really changed outside of Vanilla. Even BC had a lot of this Hero driven storytelling, it just did a semi better job of knowing which Heroes to use when and where in each scenario. Wereas now, its just the same handful of largely Alliance/Alliance-Adjacent Heroes used for everything.

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To be blunt, Blizzard brought it on themselves (albeit mostly due to devs who are now no longer part of the company). They killed off or derailed too many of their old characters willy-nilly without bringing in new ones to replace them.

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This is a dead horse by now but I’d like to add that Gazlowe was in the Monkey Island clone they canceled back in the 90s, and he was Thrall’s buddy even in that. Basically the OG Goblin character and literally as old as Thrall is conceptually. WoW keeping him neutral so long to push Gallywix, a character who casually shared a name with a random Venture Company goon we’d whacked in Vanilla, was pretty insulting. Very Cata.