When did I even hate on him? I praised him two posts ago for his love of the character and the franchise. His work and passion is the reason many of us LOVE this franchise. The man has a life outside of Blizz now. He should be allowed to pursue it without having to worry about Thrall all the time.
I said we should develop our lackluster cast so that he DOESN’T have to always be there. So that Thrall isn’t our Anduin. Nothing more, nothing less. Thrall is great. Metzen is great. Getting back World Shaman Thrall would be fantastic. Doesn’t mean he can’t take a backseat every now and then so we can have Rokhan or Lillian up front. Or do we just let the Horde cast end up like Muradin? Forgotten and irrelevant.
With other characters of the Horde that have been villain-batted, like Garrosh or Sylvanas, their seeds of evil were already well cultivated. Garrosh may have had moments of good, but he was slowly built up to be the warmonger he turned out to be. Lor’themar or Thalyssra suddenly becoming an evil power couple would be a ridiculous 180° shift for those characters even for Blizzard’s standards.
The Orcs lost Saurfang and regained their savior Thrall to restore order to the Horde. The Forsaken lost Lordaeron and for their loss of Sylvanas, were gifted Calia Menethil, an almost unanimously despised character by Undead players.
Okay. In retrospect, I agree. Though we shouldn’t be stopping with one horde race when the entirety of the Horde has been Blizzard’s dumpster bin for a decade.
Yeah there were quite a few artifacts like that. I remember on this toon, when I got one of the special Felo’melorn encounters with a blood elf archaeologist, he said that it had incinerated thousands of trolls (not enemies, specifically trolls) and I was like “…bruh.”
A few lines off screen is all it takes. The seeds are already there for Thalyssra. She used a zombified army of her own people to further her own ends, and Lor’themar is just that crowd guy who agrees with whatever the current consensus happens to be. The 180 shift is well within blizzard standards.
Let me pose the question. Why list the power head of the Horde again? The council idea helps the Horde avoid being unheard or forced to take actions. Sylvanas originally didn’t want to invade Gilneas. When Garrosh forced her, she revealed her own colors more and more.
A council would help the Horde more than the stained mantle of Warchief.
This bugger was stained from the offset. That’s the funny thing about it. Of the 7 Warchiefs the MU Orcs have had, 5 of them led their people to ruin. Of the remaining 2, only one of them (Thrall) was really allowed to do anything. Then if you extend into the None MU PC Faction Horde’s, the Fel Horde, Dark Horde, and Iron Horde all have equally bad track records with that role. Its shocking how much of a mess a position that has only been around 4 38 years truly is.
That being said, the issue with the Council is that its going to take more work to settup properly. I’m not opposed to it in principle, but a decade of massive neglect by Blizz towards our Faction and Reps makes such a system concerning. A Council of Underdeveloped, Underused, and Grosslly Underpowered characters isn’t going to do anyone any good. And we really need Gaz, Voss, Rokh, Geya, Mayla, and Kiro developed. They are all in really bad shape atm.
Big oof, best i can do is more screen time for calia.
Serious tho, they dont have anyone to represent the forsaken besides calia.
Voss is busy (with proudmore i guess?) taking care of the remaining forsaken back home, where we’re going only calia will be available.
For all intents and purposes she’s been pushed as a forsaken leader, in shadows rising, in icecrown citadel, also visiting the shadowlands.
It sucks and its not something that can be fixed this expansion.
i honestly hope tyrande kills her and they put another forsaken more deserving of the position, it would make both of us a favor.
i dislike her character, and its not her fault, she was just not developed well and being hamfisted on everything… also i dislike her for how her character comes off as preachy, its unbearable it reminds me too much of anduin.
It’s better than a lot of other options, but I still have mixed feelings about it. I’m so TIRED of fighting former Horde leaders by this point that anything involving a fight against Sylvanas isn’t going to be a complete pleasure.
It is plausible that the player character will enact the final blow given how much more work they applied to the in-game cinematics. The escape cinematic shows more care now. Who’s to say we won’t be instrumental in such later?
i dont think so, we will of course beat the jailer, he is the big bad however sylvanas has lots of people that want her head on a pike.
in MY opinion voss or calia + tyrande should be up there killing the beach, the forsaken also deserve a bit of the action, voss strikes me as a vengeful character so i think it would be pretty cool however i dont see it happening, i also dont see us landing the killing blow, no…
i feel it will be weird to have her as a raid boss without her escaping somehow if tyrande isnt there to stop her.
For me, the best way to give a Horde feel-good moment would be to make a very Horde leaning zone focused on shamanism, ancestral stuff, and other Horde themes. Populate it with the minor characters and give them good storylines to support it.
I’m generally of the opinion that the main characters for both factions are unsalvageable. I’d rather the game get back to smaller localized faction stories than these seeming attempts to write it as some sort of “epic” movie narrative. It’s just not working.
This is derailing my own thread a bit, but I feel like this movie narrative approach would not be nearly so bad if we weren’t on a theme park ride. If we as a character had agency to have conversation branches with big name NPC’s, we could confront characters that make stupid decisions and call them out on it. Imagine if, for example, you could soften or harden Anduin’s stance on the Horde.
I guess that wouldn’t work with the cinematics built the way they are, though. I dunno. I do like following along with big name characters and seeing how they develop and age as time goes on but how WoW is set up currently does not allow much time to flesh these characters out.
Calia Menethil is not forsaken. Just straight-up, she has nothing at all to do with the Forsaken. remember that “The Forsaken” are a particular faction of undead beings, just like the Scourge or the Ebon Blade, or undead created by Bwansamdi. They are a distinct culture and society, formed out of the scourging of Lordaeron, servitude to the Lich King, and then liberation from his control “by Silvanas” (thanks Illidan, Azerothian MVP)
Calia has none of that. She died last week or so of an arrow to the head, then Magic Jesus Sunshine Sparkle Unicorn Energy made her a “light undead” so she stays sexy for mass market appeal (though tbf Sylvanas had that going too, idk.) Everyone loves and adores her in both factions, she’s never suffered anything after that whole “Sylvanas’ personal pincushion” moment.
She has absolutely nothing in common with the Forsaken. period. She’s undead - but so is Bolvar, and he’s not forsaken, either.
As for the rest; the people of Lordaeron overthrew the Menethil Dynasty when they broke out of the Lich King’s control, installed Windrunner as their new sovereign, then helped kill Arthas. Even if Calia hadn’t abdicated her claims 9which she has done) those claims have no validity.
But I suppose, as with Gallywix, Blizzard’s writers just love putting people in charge of the Horde factions, who have absolutely no reason to be in charge of them.
I mean, at least they finally got rid of him. So that’s a plus. And for the character who likely would have been the Horde Gob leader if Gobs had been a playable race in Vanilla no less. Plus, Gazlowe is right. Cartel’s aren’t “tribes”, they are businesses. Cartels likely grew, fell, and changed hands any numbers of times during the Cartel Wars. The only thing odd about him taking the reins of the Bilgewater is that Thrall requested it; but its not the end of the world.
As for Calia, I generally agree. “She has nothing in common with the Forsaken” … beyond who they were before they even became Forsaken. Which is probably why Blizz has saw fit to surround her with newly undead Alliance; with Voss being just about the only character who understands the Forsaken experience at least. Can you imagine Calia trying to interact with someone like Belmont or Faranell lol?! How about Tehd? Paxton? Lydell? Hell, how bout even Tattersail or Velonara?
I just had to prove she had ties with the forsaken not that she is forsaken, she doesnt need to have something in common (she doesnt eat brains or does alchemy, like faol shes more restrained) she doesnt even need to look like a forsaken, i disproved his claim and thats it, independently on how you feel about calia, independently how she fits in the story, thats it.
dont make a mountain from an anthill he was making a hyperbole and i corrected it, for the record i weep for the reasonable forsaken that have to endure calia as the new head honcho of their faction, her characterization is horrible and its hamfisted but we all can see she was pushed forward as the queen of their ruined kingdom, to say she has no ties with the current forsaken is ridiculous given shes the heir and recognized by some of them.
the rest of what you said looks like a comment about her so i wont adress it.
You’ve got a good point. Rarely have the cut scenes involving main characters/faction leaders been even half as memorable to me as, say, Oronok Torn-Heart’s quest chain in BC Shadowmoon Valley, or even more minor quests like the wolf spirit in Terokkar, the Thunderlord relic chain in Blade’s Edge, or defending the burrow against centaur in the Barrens, all left more of a lasting impression of immersion on me personally. I liked WoW more when the faction leaders provided more of a good backdrop for us as player characters to take the reins. As it stands WoW has felt for a while now more like a TTRPG in which the GM’s pet NPCs hog all the spotlight and we’re just along for their show.
Sure. But it’s a very weak one at that. She shares none of their struggles, their interests, their plights, their downsides or otherwise. She is as far from the Forsaken as she can get.
Also, calling the Forsaken “squatters” when they literally are the people of the land is a bit off the mark.
That’s basically what I’m doing. If it gets that stupid, then I’ll just go play the older versions of the game when Metzen had the reigns and made decisions that were less questionable than now (sans making Illidan a villain for BC. That was weird with a capital W.).
Claiming that Thalyssra used the withered to, “further her own ends,” is incredibly disingenuous, especially considering that Thalyssra’s goal was only ever to save the people of Suramar.
Thalyssra’s harnessing of the withered ensured that they served a higher purpose other than being some mindless fiend terrorizing the Broken Isles or fodder for the Ettins and Fal’dorei to kill or feed off of. Thalyssra gave purpose and meaning to a people too far gone to cure, and allowed them with the last of their life, to fight back against the forces that inflicted that fate upon them.
The Nightborne are indebted to the withered - it was through Theryn, a withered, that the Nightborne discovered the Arcan’dor, the means by which they were able to end their crippling dependency on arcane energy and would ensure that they would never know the fate of withering again. Even after Suramar’s liberation, Theryn is allowed to roam the gardens of the Nighthold until the last of his days, in peace.
None of this was done callously on Thalyssra’s part or to fulfill self-serving motivations.
