What, you don’t like the watered-down colonial literature “Heart of Darkness” reference? Where the entire message of the book, about European colonialist racism, is missed? 
Just an edgy quest name.
I genuinely believe the numbers were crashing halfway through BFA and they had to take a sharp turn.
But unlike WoD’s sharp turn, they laid the groundwork with 8.0 “just in case”.
YE SAVED AZEROTH CHAMPION! Please ignore the giant sword sticking out of the planet.
Like, the least we could do is like … I dunno cutoff everything above the surface if we can’t pull it out? Sealing the wound and maybe finding some functional use for the materials that comprise a Titan Planet-buster sword? That has to be semi-possible right? Like, its a resource?
That sounds painful.
Well, one could hope that with the switch that blizz had from BfA “wait and see” to “we’re listening to the feedback” we might see some improvements and maybe even taking into consideration what the players think about their actions.
Now, Shadowlands is not a perfect expansion, it has problems, it has quest lines without a proper rounding up, events that suddenly happen, and a bunch wth moment in both story and gameplay.
But it’s also not a terrible one. It even looks like it might be possible to build something decent on top of what is currently going on. Overall, not ideal, but an improvement. (and to be honest, after the old time answers alike “you just don’t see a bigger picture” I was given in Cata / MoP, the current team acts noticeably better).
gl hf
Wasn’t there also a Heart of Darkness reference back in Stranglethorn Vale?
Sigh … I have more less enjoyed SLs so far.
It feels like there was a cohesive vision, that would be a downright stellar start to an expac if not for it being so bogged down by BfA’s baggage. That being said, I will certainly breath a massive sigh of relief if we are allowed any indication that the supposed “Heart and Best of the Horde” Baine will be getting a personal story arc here. If the supposed “Best and Heart’s” only participation in this expac is him being thrown away as worthless garbage by Zoval and maintaining his Token-Good horde plot device status by sitting around pining for Anduin (as always, at the expense of his own characterization needs) … man…
Well, it would reinforce the notion that “The Horde is Nothing”. And that the “Best and Heart of Us” is a worthless plot-device who’s characterization needs always come behind the plot’s needs for them.
There’s a reagent in BC, from Black Temple and a gem recipe from the same expac that are both called Heart of Darkness, it gets referenced a few times in WoW
This can almost entirely be summed up as a failure of writing. I completely agree. My point wasn’t intended to be that they don’t spend time/effort/resources on the Horde, it’s just that the narrative, as currently written, comes across as if being in the Horde is just the “wrong” choice.
Forcing them into some form of atonement, etc, doesn’t change the fact that it is a burden to constantly play while being told the Horde is the “wrong” choice. And (I know we disagree on this point) since the Alliance is always portrayed as the “right” choice, then the Horde will always be the “wrong” choice making it a perpetually repeating cycle.
Honestly, when during the war campaign mission I had no choice but to help Brann Bronzebeard to kill Captain Conrad I was so disappointed. I mean, overall blood trolls seem so simple as a take on trolls but something about them just gripped my attention. It was a blast. But… have to support Brann
gl hf
Just get a chainsaw!
Nah I genuinely think it was supposed to go like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aobNxeft_no&ab_channel=Altamox
BUT WAIT
7. 8.3 Azshara sucks all of us to the bottom of the sea. During this patch we plan to use Xalatath, and she tells us she can trap Nzoth if we help free her, since they can’t both be in the dagger. We raid Azshara, she figures out what we’re planning, and N’zoth takes her. Xalatath sticks around.
Expansion 9 is then
9.1 Nyalotha stuff
9.2 A proper ending to the faction war. Xalatath tells us we’re not fun anymore, leaves, but tells us what’s coming.
9.3 We take down Nzoth who succesfully resurrected his brothers but in service to him, so the raid is 4 wings with Cthun, Yogg, the Sha, and then Nzoth at the end. BUT we used the Lich King Bolvar’s forces to defeat the Old Gods since you know, Death-Shadow stuff. Nzoth breaks the helm as a final attack and the veil breaks.
10.0 Shadowlands
11.0 Lightlands, since we just removed all the Shadow and Death that was keeping it at bay.
iirc yes
Because I believe the original purpose of the Blood Trolls was that they were worshipping Mueh’zala, not G’huun.
“But…but we can’t have the Alliance be the bad guys! They’re human! Make it so those ugly monster races like orcs and undead strike first! Much better!”
Which becomes even more hypocritical when you consider Alex Afrasiabi’s comment at Blizzcon:
It doesn’t matter who fired the first shot.
Judges call BS on that one, sir.
Yeah, the pacing would have been far more natural with this. Though I think the Alliance attacking Lordaeron first is sort of irrelevant tbh (if Stormheim and Silithus counted).
However, I would say that if they wanted to properly use that route (with the majority of the same story beats), they would have to press the Horde into a “Entrapment” Narrative. Have the Alliance aggression leading up to the WoT actually count (thus, justifying Saurfang’s WoT from the Horde’s perspective to some degree), and then have Sylvie’s Burning of Teld be used to “rock and a hard place” the Horde. Allowing them to hate being made a tool in such an act, but being too afraid to weaken themselves enough to what even they would admit is justified Alliance vengeance to oust Sylvanas
It would NOT have made for a more enjoyable story experience for the Horde player. But it would have made sense of a LOT more of Anduin and Sylvie’s tactics; Baine’s breaking when he did; and kept the majority of the story beats the same … while giving the Horde at least some avenue to recovery. By making it more apparent that we are victims of her too. Especially when she bails.
Clearly they don’t even think this is true. Otherwise they wouldn’t have buried Stormheim under a mountain of justifications, or had the Bilgewater in Silithus attack the Explorers League … for no reason other than they are Gobs. Because if either event were allowed to be what they should have been “Alliance Aggression and Acts of War” … then The Alliance Fired the First Shot. And the Second. Then rubbed salt in the wounds with SI:7 in Org. Thus, at least justifying Saurfang’s WoT (not Sylvie’s Teld).
But, because they “couldn’t”, Blizz made sure they didn’t.
The sad thing is, that he is right. With Teldrassil, it wouldn’t matter who shot first, it wouldn’t matter at all. Teldrassil framed the horde either way in a black color.
Well, does it really not suit goblins to secure their resources by violence? Really not at all, not at all, never?
You have to admit, it suits the goblins to do that.
Argi
Often caught chewing on things they shouldn’t be, goats were initially blamed for the crash of the Exodar.
I think overall it’s more about the fact that the payoff for all the effort is getting both nightborne and highmountain as the enemies. And given the comments of the devs that the faction conflict is not going away completely, for the alliance they are and will be enemies.
gl hf
While the Lightbound and Argussian Reach are apparently ours. As the second rep is what is tied to the Void Elves I believe. But, all of Argus are our apparent canonical enemies.
To your general question, I think why many wanted Suramar simply was, the great questline and the long time put into the faction to free the Nightborn.
No questline, no story in Legion, was longer. i mean, thats the reason many people complained about suramar, lightforged, uff, i mean, we have 9 quests or so? 9-12 quests, the rest of the area were wq´s.
I am not sure there was much of questing centered on the horde interacting with Lightbound. I might be wrong though, not aware of such tight interaction with them of the horde. I though in WoD the horde was more about alt-Draenor orcs.
Lightforged became a thing rather late in the expansion though. So the impact won’t be that much IMO. And void elves appeared out of thin air.
gl hf
This isn’t true, and moreover I’ve already told you why it’s not. The war campaign finale dedicated time to showing multiple Horde leaders acknowledging their complicity in events and vowing to act differently going forward, and it was also a story thread that ran through the entire Horde war campaign with Saurfang’s story, then Baine’s in 8.1, then Lor’themar’s in 8.2. Thrall isn’t even the only Horde leader who goes to meet with Tyrande in Shadows Rising, Baine (and Calia, though she’s not a leader) are there with him, Thrall is just the one speaking the most because he originally sought to go to Mt. Hyjal on behalf of the Earthen Ring. The Horde has already been shown acting to make sure that Sylvanas and her loyalists are brought to justice and taking steps to prevent the rise of another Sylvanas or Garrosh, most visibly by abolishing the Warchief position.
There was never a reason given why they felt they would need to secure their holdings in the first place, let alone through violence. That’s the insulting part. The only reason given was “they were Goblins”, and because the Sapphretta abduction happened after the attack by the Alliance in Silithus … Blizz half-a**ed a reason for the Alliance to not have been the aggressors. So, the Cartel, attacked the Explorer’s League TWICE. Once for no reason given beyond making sure the Alliance slaughtering Goblin civilians wasn’t an act of War, and the second to have that little love story in BtS.
It also used to fit the Explorers League, who before Blizz whitewashed the hell out of them would actually massacre entire villages in their quest to secure Dwarven relics. Lookin at you Stonespire.
There was a reason, Goblins are the only people Azerith knew before and what they were capable of. Of course they would want to secure this war-critical resource, that’s just the way it is. Goblins will take any advantage they can get, by force if necessary, and if not for a few lucky escapes, no one would ever know what was going on down there.
i don´t think so, i mean, not every member of the explorer league is fanatic, i mean, the leader in stonespire was fanatic, but thats mean not, that every other leader of the eL have to be fanatic aswell.
The El is not a hivemind, not every char in charge have the same ideals.