No cosmic force is benevolent or malevolent. That is like saying fire is evil because it burnt your house down. Or gravity is benevolent because it holds the planet together. They are the fundamental forces of the cosmos and can only act according to their natures.
Denizens of the Void cannot help but attempt to share the Thousand Truths, it isn’t like they mean to drive you mad because your brain cannot withstand witnessing infinity. The forces of Order have been friendly because we are acting within their plans. The moment we are not, we will become an obstacle to remove for optimal efficiency.
Case in point Odyn(the lord of ravens) will release the Old God Yogg-Saron in order to gain access to the resources needed to get rid of us(the note on Avaloren describes how the prisons of the Old Gods contain the resources needed to invade Avaloren) after we rescue the Storm Dragons from his clutches in 10.2.
Of course since Tyr once went against Odyn and only shoved Order into the wellspring because he feared the taint of Yogg-Saron which is the very thing that Odyn is unleashing he will upon resurrection work with us against Odyn.
Yogg-Saron is known to boast about how he wants us to suffer eternally(as well as about how madness will consume you) while bringing about the end of days unlike N’Zoth who promises salvation despite having an irrational hatred for the Light.
Yogg-Saron gloats about being the ultimate evil of Azeroth and how our pride will lead to his victory(most likely because our defiance of Odyn is an act of pride).
I’d argue that has the same issue if Fel had ever actually featured as a cosmic force. Pretty much everything we know about it is Sargeras, not an actual elemental representation.
Going by what you said, forces of Order too are just acting according to their nature. They cannot help but attempt to integrate you into their plan, it isn’t like they mean to strip your identity because your brain cannot maintain stability.
I also think it makes no sense to say the forces are all the same when their natures are fundamentally different. So far, we only know that the Void wants - destroy the universe and make everything Void and the Titans’ plan to organize the universe into a giant clockwork system (assuming that hasn’t been retconned). Everyone else, as far as I know, is still up in the air.
Did Odyn really do that (or say he would) or is that just a fan theory?
Certainly not unhappy to have Metzen back. I’ve been around long enough to remember the forums ripping him to shreds for this and that, but that man can do world building. I can’t see his guidance being anything but a good thing.
This sounds like a big step in the right direction. He’s done a lot of good work. And many of the characters we know and love (or love to hate) were due in large part to his work. My only criticism of Metzen was a few inconsistencies and shilling Thrall a bit too hard in Cata. But he was humble enough to admit those, so I have a good feeling about this especially if he stays away from the tainted parts of the old guard.
He’s really one of the only likeable personalities left on the team and he has the best stage presence during blizzcon. I wonder how much involvement he is going to actually have as executive creative director, or if it’s just something they are doing to boost the image of the team because they know there are a lot of people who still like Metzen.
Oh just wait, certain folks on these forums will absolutely tear strips off him the moment something is added to the game they don’t like. Danuser? Who? Nah, Metzen will be the new punching bag.
BFA at least gave us allied races.
Shadowlands … Well, if they retconned that and said the timeskip was a haunting dream that echoed from the defeat of N’Zoth which bared hints of truth (So Sylvanas is making sure troubled Night Elf souls are guided to the afterlife, and Elune gave Tyrande a world tree seed imbued with the souls of her people) – I’d be okay with that.
Or at the very least, retcon large aspects of Shadowlands that kicked the prior lore in the nuts merely so it could flex its own inferior craptastic story …
Personally I’d love for them to restore Wild God & Loa lore in accordance to the Emerald Dream (Heck, bring back Ursoc as a big F-U to Shadowlands) – and either get rid of ‘The First Ones’ or say they’re merely a different Pantheon of Titans, with the same lore in their origins but from very, very far off in the universe that didn’t encounter each-other until eons after each of their orders had been created — You could say they went into hiding after the darkening rise of Sargeras towards @ why we haven’t heard much from them.
Chris Metzen aside… I am concerned that it almost seems like no one else can take the reins without driving the lore off a cliff or using a free hand to steal mommy milk from the fridge.
If Metzen’s home planet needed him one day, and he left for good, it almost seems like no one else could get it right. Blizzard doesn’t have anyone ready and able to step up and land the plane, so to speak.
I hope they take this moment to maybe expand from the “Golden era” and find new artists to breathe some life into the franchise.
Madeline Roux’s contribution was a breath of fresh air, I hoped she would have more involvement.
ya know, I’m starting to believe my tin foil hat theory a bit more; furthermore, this’ll make no difference if he had a single hand in DF.
Cuz genuinely, DF is sadly, not good. Lore wise… What even is lore any more?! Actually, I can’t even make that argument anymore because if I played for the writing, I’d be playing the game right now.
I still think early DF was great. Wandering around a big fantasy world, stumbling into adventures and coming to learn of the peoples and societies that inhabit it is when WoW is at it’s best.
When it’s at it’s worst is when it won’t shut up about it’s convoluted deep lore and demi gods in dire need of therapy. Which of course is where the story went. Idk I was having oodles of fun having storytime with Walrus Grandma and learning the courting rituals of Centaur society. Where it lost me is when it tries to make ageless kaiju and their mecha Jesus relatable characters.
I’m really hoping for an expansion that keeps things more or less ground level for once. Threats in Azeroth are only as serious as they’re portrayed and the bigger they get the less interesting they are imho.
Take the Scarlets. Buncha genocidal zealots that want to exterminate the Forsaken. Okay that’s easy enough to understand. I get what their deal is, what their goals are and why they should be stopped.
But then you get to the Jailor who threatened all of creation which you’d think would make a more compelling threat. But as he’s only menacing stuff in an extremely vague, non specific way it’s kinda hard to care.
If a bandit camp is going to pillage a village and torch their crops if the townsfolk don’t cough up the protection money I get why the situation is bad. If the cosmic concept of soil degradation is threatening the god queen of corn I’m a little less invested.
Admittedly, DF has some of the best side content I’ve seen. I do agree, we should step away from cosmic foes for a while. We need advancements upon the world itself, upon it’s peoples.
I just hope they remember variety is the spice of life.
The moment I fell in love with WoW was early on in Vanillia when I’d started my day in The Barrens fighting centaur, pirates and dinosaurs. Then ended it with my first run of SFK in Silverpine. I’d gone from running around the savanah hunting velicoraptors to battling through a werewolf infested haunted castle in one play session with only two loading screens.
The world truly felt massive and storied.
I think where modern WoW falters is by trying to focus expansion’s one a single narrative throughline. When I think they’d be better off just presenting a world with a lot of unrelated threats. Like vanilla had you fighting a dragon, an old god, an arch lich and a giant fire elemental. None of which were interconnected. It was a big world that had a lot of big problems.
Honestly? Metzen will probably be able to fix the “vibes” that everyone seems to agree are off. Beyond that? He’s one guy in a big team, a part of a bigger company, that’s caught in an even bigger sh*tstorm.
And the old people still playing this game, myself included, should remember that we had plenty of reason to rue Metzen’s influence even during the “golden age” of WoW. World Shaman Thrall? Villian batting Garrosh? High King Varian? Just… all of WoD? All his ideas, or at least ideas that got the greenlight.
Metzen was working on Titan before Wrath even launched and when that died he moved to Overwatch. Its hard to say what they did with his ideas and unfinished works and how much was his.
