Excellent! All will go according to plan! 
Let the House of Nobles pay for their crimes against the people of Westfall with a nice trip with Neptulon!
2 Likes
I’m just gonna point out how this is being celebrated but when the critique was originally given when Human Heritage questline went live, too many people in this forum pearl-clutched and treated the suggestion with absolute contempt and that nobody would like it
So just gonna revel in the fact those people were materially wrong, rangeless, uncreative, unimaginative, and lack all nuance
5 Likes
Now I’m curious, have any of those very vocal people posted their take on these news? Would be fun to see.
Nope, same as with the warlock NPCs, absolute silence
2 Likes
Boo. Hiss.
They really are just allergic to making Stormwind at all interesting aren’t they?
One thing I liked about the SW quest storylines is how quietly screwed up they were. Like right out the gate in Westfall you’re tasked with murdering the homeless to see if they know anything about a murder. No, not the one’s you’re commiting in broad daylight the one over respectable people with money.
And while I suspect that tonal dissonance was unintentional I did think it had potential at least.
I kinda liked the idea of SW having a sort of ostensible;
Vibe
With the squeaky clean surface hiding a nightmare world of royal autocracy.
And if that had been SW’s storyline this may’ve been a welcome finale. But instead it’s a story about nothing but just and noble aristocrats cedeing power to the people purely because they’re such good sports like that?
Yeah. Totally. That’s how it happens. Lenin just politely asked the Romanovs to stop it and they went “Oh on God there’s horrendous poverty? Ish my bad man we couldn’t see it past these absurd moustaches we all have for some reason. Feel free to take the reigns”.
I guess civil disobedience isn’t necessary afterall. See kids? Just trust the ruling class to do what’s best and it’ll all turn out fine.
And anyone mad about wealth gaps or labor theft is probably just a deranged terrorist.
8 Likes
Did you miss the following bits where it’s only a few younger nobility even okay with the idea and Vanessa is fully expecting other nobles sending trouble their way? Honestly I imagine this’ll build to a head especially given I’m sure Anduin will be keen on it, but I really doubt the House of Nobles will be too tolerant of it or him just showing up after being absent for 5 years and being okay with it.
2 Likes
I don’t know how to break this to you, but Blizzard fundamentally doesn’t understand how narratives work, and seem pathologically disinterested in making the Alliance capable of wrongdoing.
I will bet you $20 right now this not only goes off without a hitch but is seldom if ever addressed again by the narrative.
2 Likes
We’ll see! I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t, but like, I don’t see why they literally changed the heritage quest if they had zero plans on it whatsoever. I understand the cynicism, but this was a good change and maybe it’s a sign of stuff to come.
6 Likes
Time will tell as in all things. But they’ve done the Narnia Congress twice now between the Desolate Council and Horde Council.
And the lore as to how that operates is still relegated to a few paragraphs in a few multimedia products, sold separately of course.
Like they’ve basically a UN Security Council staffed with nothing but fairytale monsters and they still have done NOTHING with it. Thats a hate crime against the abstract concept of creativity.
4 Likes
They also want to paint the nobles as mostly good and princely. Not at all sociopathic and cruel, unless they are being manipulated by Onyxia or some outside force. The rich and powerful are generally painted as morally good and deserving of their station and the poor? Well, we do enjoy murdering hobos. I feel like class conflict is badly needed and the Alliance leaders need to be bad about it.
Think Napoleon III and the Tsar of Russia or the American robber barons of the late 19th century and early 20th. Bad corrupt leaders with their boots on the neck of the poor and exploiting the commoner’s faith and labors for their own betterment. Alliance needs to show that we aren’t all happy little idealized monarchies where every king is a saint and every leader is divinely touched and saintly in his or her actions. That just makes the Alliance boring.
2 Likes
C̶o̶r̶p̶o̶r̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶. I mean Stormwind is just far too wholesome a place to fall to corruption unless it’s caused by Smaug or Cthulu.
Afterall look how progressive they are they have a gay man heading H̶o̶m̶e̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶S̶e̶c̶u̶r̶i̶t̶y̶ SI:7.
Ya know. In a background sort of way that can be easily edited out or retconned the milisecond doing so might become unprofitable.
4 Likes
I think you hit the nail on the head. Blizzard entertainment doesn’t want to paint the rich and powerful as cruel and inept or selfish unless it’s outside corruption, because it would cause us to question the rich nobility in game and whether or not they deserve their status and that may lead some of us to question the rich and powerful in the real world. If oligarchs in a videogame are corrupt, would the real ones be the same or worse? Can’t have that form of class conflict. That would make investors nervous!
2 Likes
i dont believe you can transition from a feudal system to a democracy if you dont solve first the “how do you feed people” problem.
although if it turns out that the human kingdom are very few people it may be possible though.
Logistics just aren’t a concern in Azeroth.
This is objectively a silly plot point. The House of Nobles and Throne of Wynn has just been objectively nothing but forthright and dutiful save for one incident of dragon as goth girl manipulation.
Which is entirely understandable if you ask me.
So this is just silly, especially if the Defias remain a villainous faction.
This seems really interesting, and a House of Commons would add some depth, especially since there are likely plenty of non-nobles with as much if not more personal power than the average baron.
They better include Gryan Stoutmantle in this though. The man held Westfall together for years with nothing but duct tape and the Light.
4 Likes
I mean the group poised to have far heavier powers if this stuff is successful is literally called the Breadbasket Guild. Also loads of revolutions and societal tensions literally are built upon the “Hey the people aren’t being fed” problem.
Anyways! I’m not expecting glorious communist revolution, if anything I’d imagine it’d be a bourgeois revolution akin to the French, England, or American colonial revolution, mixed in with a certain Good Would-Be-King-Going-Forth realizing the old-money style nobility is bad and not needing to be beheaded or whatever after helping abolish the nobility, himself included. And honestly? I don’t need a whole three expansions worth of content where Alliance players continue to bludgeon the poor for them or whatever as, nor do I think it’d make for something too compelling, I’d probably think it’d be a lot of waiting that’s not going to be interesting in the end for the build up or whatever. I’ve been through this song and dance before with a certain other MMO and that wasn’t even one with a wholly unrelated faction that’d have nothing to do with Stormwind Nobles unless invited, and it was nothing but disappointment the several times the games done that sort of plot line for me.
I think, if we get an EK/Kalimdor revamp expansion soon, making it so Westfall and other human-centered zones around the treachery of the House of Nobles and Vanessa as the main character we follow with Anduin returning and supporting them is enough of a build up for the writing around the idea of the Nobility being tossed out is fine with me.
3 Likes
If anyone should be communist it should be the Horde. It does feel a lot like some sort of collectivist military machine. No beggars starving in the streets like in Stormwind, either.
We don’t need hereditary monarchs. Just the Great Leader to guide us to victory! XD
I am a proud practitioner of Marxism-Leninism-Thrallism, with Hellscream characteristics.
4 Likes
This is just tedious white washing of the Humans and alliance in general. Taking anything interesting about them out of the game and making them utterly plain.
This is not interesting content. This is just some writer’s perfect idea of a utopian society, and they are just squeezing it into the game.
4 Likes
I am reminded of Genn saying “the farmers next” and how that could have had a lot more weight if Blizzard chose. Especially when one considers what that could mean - drafting the people of Westfall, who were most opposed to the crown.
BfA could have been an exercise in displaying the small tales that make up the larger battle for Azeroth. It would have been something to see Humans from Westfall being taken from their homes and forced to fight, while decrying Human involvement in wars between Elves and Orcs and Trolls across the sea.
Something to the effect of : “ the crown didn’t pay my family for their work, but they can pay for these foreign wars and take our sons to die in far away lands.”
2 Likes
lmao
“Anduin fixed everything about noble corruption off screen, Stormwind is perfect now”
You: this is great, it is not utopian
“Actually that was wrong, there is still great inequality across Stormwind’s territories, the nobles are in majority evil and corrupt and only the younger generation wants to help uplift the poor and disenfranchised, Anduin failed”
You: this is a perfect utopian society I hate it
Smoothest brain I’ve ever seen
6 Likes