My problem is that Bfa sucked and the story is bad. Which would lead to hanging out and RPIng with people and an argument breaking out about how the story is bad but in character lmao
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Just gonna throw my two copper into the Horde sympathizing discussion, because Bates has had quite the heel-face turn in this regard. This is a man who was just about as murdered as you can get. Watched the Horde at its absolute worst, gorged on fel blood burning down the town he was supposed to protect before being unceremoniously coup de grâce’d. I built him to hate the Horde, to accost any he’d find on the road, and yet. When I actually started playing him, something changed.
He didn’t want to fight. When he finally met an Orc in-game, at first he was cold, but eventually he warmed up, got to talking. Turned out this Orc was an old veteran who was just about retired, but in his youth, he was part of the attack on Grand Hamlet, the same one where Bates lost his life. And then Bates learned it weighed on the Orc, the death and the destruction that seemed like glory and conquest, when the fel haze lifted he could not sleep, that he too was haunted by his actions.
Bates now sees this Orc as a very dear friend, one that he- and I as a writer- could have never predicted. The First War was thirty years ago. Hatred is a burning emotion, but fires need fuel. After that long, Bates found there was no more fuel for his hatred. That it was a burden, a heavy toll, that to continue to let it burn would resort to using him as fuel, to consume and turn him into something he did not want to be.
And that’s the story of why I carry 50 Elixir of Tongues on me at all times.
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Not going to lie, these are some of my favorite kinds of stories.
Tam had her own war story that took more of a star-crossed-lovers angle. And while it didn’t have the best IC/OOC ending, it was a major turning point for her character that still informs her thoughts and actions today. Would totally do it all over again.
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Re: Eternally Happy Pandas.
With the exceptions of Taran Zhu (corrupted and normal), that one boss in Shado-Pan Monastery who’s not Sha-corrupted, and the assorted NPCs that are Sha-corrupted…are there that many ‘serious bizness grump bear’ NPCs in Pandaria?
The Pandaren very much seem to be not merely a “stiff upper lip and all that pish tosh what what, ey old chap?!” sort of people, but rather a “smiling through adversity, laughing through their tears” sort of people. I freely admit my knowledge is far from perfect and there are entire parts of MoP I have yet to actually play through cuz it came out when I wasn’t playing…but Taran Zhu really felt like a major outlier to me.
The Shado-Pan in general tend to exhibit this sort of sterner approach to the Pandaren life. But they were less a culture and more of a military approach for Pandaria. Everyone was different, such as Yalia Sagewhisper who had a somber, but stoic approach to discussions.
The Pandaren have the conflict where their culture had emotions locked away in the fear of losing control of yourself. The Sha’s influence on mainland Pandarens had them develop a culture where they followed traditions to maintain their “negative emotions”. People presume the Pandaren are happy-go-lucky because it’s pretty well hammered they are still in the mindset of controlled emotion.
But they are now in the position where they can express emotions without fear. Where they can show anger or envy, fear or doubt without a fear of losing themselves to a curse.
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The thing about the Sha, is that you had to slip first, for them to get you. The one in Townlong who died to her own hatred, she didn’t act that way, let herself feel that way, because Hatred got to her. Hatred got to her, because she already let herself be swallowed by it naturally. She didn’t need the Sha to go on a reckless self-destructive killing spree, she started that on her own. The Sha of Hatred just ended it.
This both shows that it is entirely possible for Pandaren to be more… primal, in behavior, and how hard it would’ve been for them to survive. They have “humanity”, they are people, but people who could not acknowledge whole parts of themselves at risk of dying if they did.
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am i necroposting by saying that kai had this conversation with a death knight and came to the conclusion that being a demon hunter is awesome and she’s super cool and can fly?
10/10 would sacrifice her miserable life beforehand to be able to fly
Yeah, while its very painful and dangerous to become one, its clearly a net positive to be a demon hunter imo!
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also consider that a lot of demon hunters lost everything before becoming demon hunters. It’s canon that Illidan specifically sought out traumatized people to become demon hunters.
So the “sacrifice” probably refers to what got them into that position anyway. And I tend to see it as a coping mechanism to deal with their loss rather than having demon powers. The demon powers are a bonus, but losing your entire family to the burning legion or to the scourge or to the mana shortage probably wasn’t radical.
But I mean, if someone told me that my trauma could let me turn into a giant demon lady, that’d be a benefit I guess?
I had a Broken character that got a TON of flak IC for having a burning hatred for Orcs. Are you really going to tell a dude that’s angry his family and people got butchered and he was horribly deformed by a weapon the Orcs used that he’s wrong for being mad? I completely get characters wanting to forgive the Horde, but you can imagine how shocked I was when people were ICly attacking him for not liking Orcs.
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God the number of people that said my Vindicator was over the line for just swinging at Orcs first and asking questions later is WAY too high so I feel you on that one.
Bro I don’t know how you’re supposed to feel about people that mad a road out of your family’s corpses, but I’m pretty sure it’s nothing positive.
And honestly I’ve see a prominent attitude in the RP scene where it’s shocking that Draenei might be jerks in any regard. The presumption seems to be that as a race that devoutly worships the Light they should be more forgiving I guess.
Homie they were classist on Argus. Getting into college required navigating a maze of death traps, and everyone thought that was okay because Archimonde was in charge of admissions. And HE was doing it because it was funny.
They’ve been fighting a war against demons for thousands of years. They have no home and have some feelings about it.
Their cops are called Vindicators.
And if the side materials are to be belived, they killed a bunch of unarmed refugeees during the Cataclysm. And Velen wasn’t that quick to stop them when he found out. His response was essentially telling Anduin not to bother him while he was working.
And let’s not forget that the nature of their culture meant that the majority of them were fully on board with the idea that they could rule the universe because they were naturally better than anyone else. With all that in mind I feel like Elves wish they could operate on that level of arrogance. Imagine ruling an entire planet and then deciding the universe should be yours too.
The Draenei are pleasant but they’re not so stupidly good that they turn a blind eye to people that legitimately anger them. And it’s just…they have GOOD reasons to be mad about a lot of things. So it’s profoundly frustrating to play a Draenei expressing rage or hatred and being told ‘No, you should forgive everybody.’ Composure isn’t a lack of anger. It just means they’re not swinging at everyone that looks at them funny.
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This. This this this this this this this. Too many people forget that you can have an angry and hostile character that still shows self control. I think it’s a byproduct of the game mechanics themselves always solving problems with hitting things until they don’t move, and so many characters also resort to violence way too often against other characters.
Also I totally agree with the Draenei topic I just don’t have anything else to add on that front other than ya hit the nail on the head.
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my orc would probably shrug and go “you know that’s fair. i hate orcs too.”
honestly there should be more reason to dislike orcs after garrosh, within the horde. i’mma be honest, garrosh’s mentality doesn’t come out of nowhere, and i like to headcanon that it’s still a problem. so most of my characters are like. at the very least they look at other orcs and are very careful with interacting with them.
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Yup. My Orcs, while they aren’t full-on “True Horde” level buttholes, you can definitely see echoes of those who followed Garrosh in even the most remorseful of them.
Soteria here, mostly is cool with them because she likes that they tend to be more aggressive, and she cares more about not being refined and elegant than making meaningful change.
Other Hordies I have are pretty much, “I’ll fight beside you, but you have my side, not my back”
Very delayed response from me but I think I’ve seen you before! I’ll keep an eye out.
Oh! Coming back to this thread, because I got a new one! This one is both IC Viewpoints AND Lore!
Blood Elves: “Get out, void-learners. You’re super dangerous.”
Blood Elf Exiles: “Aren’t you guys being a little bit dramatic? Didn’t we literally just dabble in Fel Magic? Don’t we still- OH NO, TENTACLES.”
Blood Elves: “See, we told you. Now get out and stay exiled.”
Void Elves: “…Okay, guess we’ll just join the Alliance now since you all just are leaving us to the actual wolves, I guess.”
Blood Elves: Surprised Pikachu Face T-TRAITORS! D:<
Void Elves: F̷͉̟͒̔o̷͕͒̏͗͘r̷̩͉͚̦̃̿ ̷̞͖̟̮̯͌͗̐͊t̴̛͚͚̻̜͓̿̄͝h̵̹̀͜é̶̙̠͚̿̐ ̶̗̳̾͊̀́͘Á̴͙̯̹̃͝l̷̤̋ĺ̶̡̯̠̤͔i̶̫̠͉͍̣͌̍à̸̢̪͋ǹ̵̠̥̌͑͘c̶̘̤͚̹̍̈́́̕͝e̵̳̖̻̞̍ ̶͉͓̃̈́̿́l̸̗̻͔̥̀̀́ỏ̵͕̯̮̮̓l̵̲̼̭͓̘̅̕
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It was for two reasons. Arguably the bigger one, is that the void people studied the works of the nation’s biggest traitor, Dar’khan Drathir. “Why would you study him if you did not intend to follow in his footsteps?”
The other, that Alleria showed how vulnerable the Sunwell is to the Void, nearly singlehandedly corrupted the center of their people.
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Wouldn’t Kael’thas be the nations second-biggest traitor? And didn’t he study fel and make deals with demons? Shouldn’t warlocks be seen with just as much suspicion, then?
Warlocks don’t study directly from Kael’s journals, the Void Elves studied Dar’khan’s own writing. His specific spells.
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But wasnt it Kael who brought the fel crystals the blood elves were using in Burning Crusade to rebuild and power their cities? The surge of fel-magic use in blood elven society to recover from the scourge attack seemed to happen under Kael’s guidance
Edit: I am unable to find an ingame firsthand account of where those fel crystals came from so I might be misremembering. I do think we are meant to believe that this all happened before Kaelthas turned over the reigns to Lor’themar, however.