Dumb Thoughts : What "ITS THE RULES!" stupidity your brain throws at you?

Wyrmrest Accord
1

I have a weird brain.

Like, breaking news to all of you, I get it, but its weird up there and I’ll be randomly going about my day and the Goblin Committee that lives in my head will randomly just pass me some bogus nonsense and I’m expected to just go about my day? Like I’m normal and functional?

So, to silence the brain-worms, gonna drop some of the notes they’ve passed me over the years when it comes to WoW.

Orcs need to use maces, spears and axes. I don’t know why, but the image of an Orc with any sword or sword-adjacent weapon other than a Weeb Stick (Katana) or a Dao/Sabre just evokes this primal “NO.” from the very pit of my soul.

I don’t know why. Guns, crossbows, bows, all fine. Daggers and fist weapons, sure. Staves and polearms, sure, but swords? In this economy?

Dwarves are kinda in the same boat for me, but the image of a Dwarf with a bow just makes me laugh. Their build is all wrong for it, and their beards are just gonna get tangled in the bowstring …

And a Dwarf with a sword that isn’t somehow as wide and thick as they are just feels primally wrong on so many levels …

Elves though? Complete opposite. An Elf with an axe or a mace just feels off to me somehow. And the longer and thinner the sword, the better, because they just give off this agile forest nymph vibe (except the Kaldorei Men, that I am still not entirely certain are not their own distinct sub-species …) and that just yells hit-and-run to me.

Sin’dorei in heavy plate that makes them as wide as a Dwarf just works despite the bias, and I don’t know why.

I just love me some big ol’ stompy boots on a character. A strong foundation and all that.

Gnomes kind of weirded me out for the longest time because how is that thing going to have the physical strength to lift a weapon twice the size of their torso and use it in battle. In my head, its just video game models and the reality of Gnomes is that they’re built like shorter, skinnier Dwarves with bigger heads and I will die on that hill forever.

They don’t feel right with a weapon in their hand other than a gun, crossbow, staff, polearm or dagger … unless its a mechanical version, and then it just goes super hard. Those chain-swords from Mechagon are just the :dracthyr_blob_dance_animated:

A Human who has a sword is either:

A) a Noble
B) the Protagonist/Main Character
C) a Spellcaster
D) a Rich Bastard

Everybody else uses spears, maces and axes, bows and crossbows and if they’re lucky, wands and guns.

Like, if there was a one-handed spear option, I would never use a sword on any Human outside of the 4 variants above. There’s a reason most of the human soldiers are equipped with spears in the cinematics …

Allergens and the various races must be a nightmare.

What if you can’t put pepper in a dish consumed by a Vulpera because its toxic to them?

Do Draenei have to cultivate specific crops on their Void-Ships because without the nutrients/components from the plant, they’ll start to sicken and weaken and no other planet has a similar analogue they could use?

Given the Dwarven resistances to poison, especially ingested ones, ties well into their loves of potent beer, strong ales and heavy meads, but what about in other sources? Is Dwarven food highly spicy? An overload of flavor? Their resistance to cold, at least amongst the Bronzebeard Clan, speaks of either a high internal metabolism or thick layers of body-hair and fat under the skin to retain heat. If its the former, then Bronzebeard Dwarves probably function like they’re diabetic and suffering from a lack of glucose, meaning they feel, or need to, eat more and eat more often to fuel that accelerated metabolism.

Pandaren food must be like heaven to most people, given the massive portions and excellent tastes of Pandaren cuisine sourced directly from the Valley of Four Winds. Dwarven beer would feel very single-note compared to Pandaren brews, especially since its more about the flavour and the texture from Pandaren beers, while Dwarven ones are about getting you hammered as fast and pleasantly as possible.

Talking Mounts and You:

We have a lot of mounts. Like, a lot. I’m nearly to 600, and I’m only the filthiest of casual collectors.

How many of them are thinking, feeling, talking creatures? Drakes, Wyverns, Proto-Dragons are the most common sapients we use as mounts, but what about the others? Titanic creations, void monstrosities, children of Wild Gods and Loa, the list goes on.

Surely we’re not just shoving them into a stable and calling it a day. The average adventurer is likely to have one, maybe two mounts and the rest are loaners or situational. I can’t imagine a Dragon of any type being willing to bed down in the hay with mere beasts of burden while their rider goes off for soup’n’swains in the nearby tavern!

And where do they go when we’re not riding them? Is it a mercenary deal, ie I carry you, you give me X% cut of your loot? Is it a partnership? There’s just so much that could be done with this and it irks me greatly that we don’t get to play up with this more!

There’s more but I’m running out of energy.

What’re your thoughts?

2 Likes
2

Too much blade, not enough… haft.

3

This is a good point, and brings up more food for thought. How many whelps have the collective heros slain?

These are fully sapient/sentient beings and we kill… alot of them. Some of which right after hatching, or even before.

That is all kinds of dark, even for me… which is saying something.

I am still gunna do it, of course. But I figured some others must really wrestle with it.

1 Like
4

blushing

1 Like
5

I was going to make a dumb joke along the lines of “WORDS WORDS WORDS ME NO READ WORDS WORDS” but you do bring up some interesting points.

First, spears and polearms are woefully underrated and underrepresented in a lot of fiction. Swords have often been just as much of a status symbol as they are an effective weapon, and much like ornate metal armor, are often more about conspicuous displays of wealth while in relative safety rather than being effectual in battle. Bows and spears made empires, while swords got the parades (not that making empires is a good thing, but that’s not important for this discussion).

Outside of that, I might disagree with some of your taste in weapon aesthetics and cultures in the game, but that really does just come down to one’s preferences. For example, people with long beards have been using bows for millennia, and I don’t really have a thematic issue with dwarves using them, but I do understand grooving with the aesthetic that WoW has put forward for so many years now of dwarves dwarfing it up with guns.

Gnomes and other small races, though, are supposed to subvert our expectations (in as much as they can after so many years, but the point remains the same) by being ridiculous with their weapons. “Oh, dang! We’re stuck in the desert! What are we going to do? Maybe we could ask this nice fox looking thing coming towards us! Maybe they know where we can find water! Huh, I think they may be carrying something? Uh, they’re running at us pretty fast. I think they’re waving some flags. Semaphore, maybe? They don’t look happy. Are those axes? Each one of those things looks heavier than my entire body! I wonder if we could be friends! [die]”

Anyway, I’m just going to address that. You got some other good words in there, too.

1 Like
6

from my research on using swords, height actually has very little to do with your ability to use a sword. there are very short women who train with greatswords. swords actually aren’t that heavy, comparative to how big they are. a zweihander is only about 2 to 4 kilograms. there are heavier chihuahuas.

1 Like
7

I know, but the brain worms. And also the fact WoW makes weapons absurdly chunky for the aesthetic, and too much larping and watching people try to pull off ‘cinematic’ moves with their weapons and end up yeeting themselves off their feet when they forget that mass + momentum x stupidity = yougonlearntoday.

Hell, you’re generally only lightly encumbered by proper plate-armor, and only mildly restricted in movement at worst.

8

Wait but what about the Burning Blade Clan

9

Milk before cereal, otherwise it all gets mushy.

10

From what I can recall, they used https://www.wowhead.com/item=25608/lantresors-warblade and heavy dao-like two-handed weapons that they’d smear with grease, and either set on fire immediately before battle or have sheaths with flint sparkers on them to that when the blade was drawn, it would be automatically lit.

Also the Burning Blade turned into roadside bandits and slavers because the Draenei caravans were lightly defended, at least at first, so heck the bastards.

11

Anything other than a polearm or stave is a complete waste of my time.

2 Likes
12

All characters must have the Kafa Press. Slamming that cup is good luck. The RNG gods demand espresso.

3 Likes
13

I’ve always had this internal thing where I think the shorter races would or should more commonly gravitate towards either pole weapons or ranged weapons. That’s probably why I’ve fitted every dwarf melee fighter I have with a polearm for their two-handed weapon. To an extent I also balk a bit at the idea of Dwarves with bows, though mainly because they have guns and are one of the races most synonymous with them.

I sometimes wonder what fantasy fiction looks like in Warcraft, or any fantasy setting, really. Surely what is considered fantastical must differ to some extent in a world where what we consider fantasy is their reality. I find myself pondering this on occasion, especially given that many of the civilian characters I’ve made over years have been writers who at least dabble in fantasy (very original).

Why is Moonglow the only glowing beverage in Azeroth? Between this and Nuka Cola Quantum I’m forever dying of thirst for drinks that glow. I need more glowing drinks. I crave them. I can’t be at peace without them.

I often feel like a maverick for eating cereal dry. I have transcended this debate…or at least I would if I still ate cereal.

3 Likes
14

I headcanon that after encountering the Draenei, space fantasy in the vein of Star Wars absolutely became a big thing on Azeroth. Often written serially, with diehard readers flocking to harbors or zeppelin towers when new installments are due to arrive a la Charles Dickens fans.

5 Likes
15

The best Orc sword in the game and I’ll die on this hill:
https://www.wowhead.com/item=62859/sword-of-insurgence?bonus=4790

There’s some similar models so any of them are acceptable (inc Dark Iron Reaver), but this sword is perfect for any Orc!

I would not disagree on the Dwarf/Bow argument. On my Dwarves, I generally prefer to use the vanilla (or newer) blunderbuss style gun. It’s a classic gun that’s used in a lot of old WoW promos etc and it just suits them well.

For one handed weapons on my Dwarves, I prefer axes and maces. I’m not a huge fan of swords for Dwarves.

Gnomes…

My jam. Always. I would agree that mogging larger weapons, etc on them just makes them look comical, which is why on any Gnome I have, I tend to stick to smaller weapons, shields, simple armor. I fully believe my Gnome Warriors are completely capable of slaying giants however. You doubt Gnomish abilities at your own peril.

I was happy for BFA/Mechagon/etc to give us more techno-type weapons, but I am also aware Blizz tends to give people something and then forget it for years after. So, not sure I’ll see anymore techno stuff for awhile.

I would say my “it’s the rules” most recently, has been those Tusks from Remix. I just think they should have been a heritage armor piece or restricted to Orcs due to their significance. Maybe Blizz could have crafted some other shoulder piece, that contained a piece of those shoulders for other races? I don’t know. I just don’t think I will ever feel right mogging them on anything other than an Orc.

3 Likes
16

Agreed with dwarves and guns. Before transmog I’d take a green gun over a purple bow any day.

2 Likes
17

You’re a Monk. All you have to do is wave your hands around a little bit and you can make any drink glow with the soothing light of chi.

Imagine not eating cereal dry, but eating cereal with any glowing liquid you find tasty. For me, that would be warm, glowing coffee.

:coffee:

2 Likes
18

i have a mental image of a gnome doing some Shadow of the Colossus moves to climb on top of a massive Tauren.

5 Likes
19

The only races that should use axes are orcs, trolls, vulpera, and maybe pandaren.
Everyone else should use swords, maces, or daggers.

20

Heyo! And I got the pointy wizard hat to prove it because, “ITS THE RULES!” :mage:

Here’s a brain-worm I thought about before: If an Orc is born in Gilneas, doesn’t that make them Gilnean? :exploding_head: You could put it into a TRP3 profile your a “Gilnean Warrior” and it’s technically correct. :thinking:

1 Like