It actually still kind of works since the Iron Horde was still lead by the same Chieftains who jumped willingly into the slaughter of their enemies. There just isn’t any demon blood to make them go crazy after killing the Draenei.
Well they jumped on the murder train because Garrosh pulled a KJ on Grom, and manipulated him into believing if he didn’t go to war the orcs as a people will die out and remain in internment camps. Still narratively ruins the orcs as being victims of demonic corruption.
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No, it doesn’t only work for the original Horde. Garrosh’s Horde had these characteristics, and Sylvanas was able to hijack this ideology to goad Saurfang and the Orcs into war. This problem never went away.
Exactly.
Prior to Warlords of Draenor, the original story was that the orcs were traditionally a warrior culture, but with a sense of honor and—somewhat more importantly—guided by the wisdom of their shamans, some of whom were even the clans’ Chieftains. This goes right back to the Biblical era traditions of “Higher Power (read: Elements) via Tribe Prophet (Shaman) will tell us what to do next.”
All of that went out the window with, “Oh, all these orcs were actually just waiting to go to war to begin with,” especially in Ner’zhul’s case—oh, he’s not being manipulated by Kil’jaeden and Gul’dan, he’s not being corrupted by the Skull of Gul’dan, but now he’s corrupted by the Void, so same difference. 
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Ner’zhul is a special case cause his clan was being threatened with destruction if they didn’t find some way to contribute to the iron horde war effort, and more so then soothsaying.
Wasn’t the current state of things established by Rise of the Horde? Aside from the existence of the Bladewind clan.
Honor, at least how the Orcs understand it, is part of the problem.
Orcs value strength, Orcs believe that wars of conquest can be honorable. Their ideology often disdains and shows anger to the “weak” or to the peaceful. It doesn’t like underhanded tactics but that’s an elastic concept that in practice translates to “what my enemies do is without honor, therefore my enemies are dishonorable”.
That kind of thinking is what makes their enemies worthy of death, and given the Orcs’ racial supremacism, you do not need to take many steps to turn this into genocide, and from there, purity spiraling into yet more genocide. (We saw a hint of this in MOP when a certain orc began to turn that honor-logic on one of his goblin allies for demanding fair payment)
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Originally (in the main universe/timeline) Ner’zhul was being tormented by visions of his dead wife, who told him to lead the orcs to war against the draenei. Ner’zhul did this thinking that he was being sent these visions by Draenor’s Elemental Spirits, when it was in fact Kil’jaeden the Deceiver—Kil’jaeden had actually had Gul’dan sabotage the Elements so they couldn’t warn Ner’zhul of this.
In Warlords of Draenor, Ner’zhul’s wife is still alive and they simply have Ner’zhul being corrupted by a Dark Naaru (the Dark Star) and the Void.
You tell me which story sounds better-written.
No, see…you using Mists of Pandaria as an example is a perfect demonstration of how much the original take of orcish culture has been butchered, something that actually began with Mists.
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Well as I said Ner’zhul this time was being pushed by fear of his clan being wiped out, then being corrupted by the void naaru.
I still prefer the original.
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I mean, Ner’zhul knowingly dooming himself to try and save his clan only for his own corruption to cause him to doom it anyway is a fairly good story if it had better overall development (though it is basically just retreading Arthas).
I think it would’ve worked much better if AU Ner’zhul got visions from the Dark Star about him becoming the Lich King in his timeline and decided to something to avoid that fate…but that’s my semi terrible take on it.
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See, this would have actually been interesting to see, because it’s the same kind of “tragically self-fulfilling prophecy” of what happened to Arthas.
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Ehhh timeline was changed to an extreme degree after grom refused the demon blood, cause instead of KJ leading the legions efforts after successfully corrupting the orcs it was Archimonde who took the lead in AU draenor and he operated way differently then KJ and wouldn’t have done the lich king route.
That’s because Archimonde was a general and a warlord; his skill lay in commanding troops on the battlefield.
It was Kil’jaeden who favored scheming and cunning, hence his title “The Deceiver.”
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But as we seen with the last patch, destiny did reassert itself to a degree and the Orcs were corrupted anyway, Gul’dan just found someone else to do it instead of Grom
Oh I know, but as I said when KJs corruption plan failed Archimonde immediately took the reins.
Yup. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Though that was primarily because Blizzard needed a way for the Legion to return for…well, for Legion.
Given that Warlords was essentially a bridge between Garrosh as Warchief in Pandaria and the return of Illidan and the Burning Legion, though, they certainly could have handled the execution and pacing better.
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Definitely, I was just sad that they killed off cool characters like Ner’zhul soo quickly and in such a disappointing manner
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Not to mention Archimonde, and then we have the whole “well, he died in the Nether, so he’s gone” thing afterward.
Pretty much all of Warlords was dissatisfying from a narrative perspective. Gameplay was fine, and the raids were genuinely entertaining, but the storytelling was absolutely abysmal.
No, see…you using Mists of Pandaria as an example is a perfect demonstration of how much the original take of orcish culture has been butchered, something that actually began with Mists.
I disagree, I think it’s something that started in Warcraft 3 with Grom, and then got iterated on with Garrosh. The ROC campaign was deeply critical of orcish honor culture - as frankly described in the OP to this thead.
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