I Miss Old Brill

Lore Story Forum
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Classic Brill really is more interesting than it’s modern version.

It’s in the heart of Forsaken territory and despite having derelict exteriors every building’s interior has been maintained. Which yes was a bit lazy design wise but it said something interesting about the Forsaken. IE that they’d go back to typical human creature comforts when given the chance.

Cata Brill is just reuses of the same Forsaken buildings first seen in Wrath. And that was a war front. This was an expeditionary force setting up foward operating bases in enemy territory. So it makes sense there’s little in the way of a town hall or local tavern.

But then Cata just replaced Brill’s buildings with those existing ones. And now that could make thematic sense as Sylvanas saw the Forsaken as merely her bulwark against the infinite. Until it turned out she was already in cahoots with the mastermind of the Hell she saw. Until it turned out in a loyalist Forsaken Heritage questline she actually did care UwU.

But either way it doesn’t make sense anymore. I’m really hoping if we get a revisit we get a look at what civilian Forsaken infrastructure looks like.

They have the capacity to drink, make merriment and sleep. And furthermore they have no shortage of paying wandering adventurers from allies that decidedly enjoy doing so. So it’s weird Cata Brill resembles a military outpost rather than a town.

That works for Tarren Mill, Andorhal and the Sepulcher but Brill should be an illustration of what the living dead get up to when they’re at rest.

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I somewhat disagree, tbh.

The dilapidated buildings mostly communicated that “Forsaken Society” didn’t really exist yet. Brill was hastily re-inhabited after Lordaeron’s collapse and there wasn’t enough organization, energy or resources to actually fix anything. It’s even possible that a large number of Forsaken weren’t certain if they’d even exist long enough to make fixing up the area worthwhile.

They were ghosts, haunted the remnants of a dead town.

I do agree that Cata Brill is too militaristic, but I don’t think the buildings are the problem. The problem is the plague wagons, meat wagons and other military equipment lying around. The buildings themselves are an inn, a library and a laboratory. The only one of these that has an obvious military slant is the lab, and that’s only because it’s being used to make Blight. If we broaden our grasp of what Forsaken chemistry does for their society, it can easily be understood as a valuable civilian workplace.

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See though Brill is where the Forsaken actually have firm control and Tirisfal is the only place they have firm control. And every single building there is well maintained.

Once you get further out they’re huddling in ruins with piles of bones still lying on the floor. But Deathknell and Brill are fully furnished and seeing as they were much closer to the epicenter of the Scourge that seems a deliberate action by the Forsaken.

I don’t think they should just have human buildings again but they should have buildings that suggest people live there. Taverns, town halls, churches, blacksmiths. As it stand they have 3-4 structures and how many mad science labs do you realistically need?

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Visual storytelling is important. There is a reason one is compelling and the other is … less so.

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I prefer decayed forsaken and not the new version
Forsaken lost something when they just became lordaeron people. if thats what they still are? undeath lore… lol

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The new Forsaken town hall building as of Wrath is missing a bit of that homey feel, yes. What you’re really missing is a Forsaken Tavern. Unfortunately I don’t know how long we’ll have to wait for such a structure to show up in the game again.

The Forsaken do drink, eat, and make merry, as seen in a secluded area of the Undercity where Forsaken civilians dined at a series of tables. I think it was part of a rogue or demon-hunter questline or something. So blizzard has designed tables and decor fitting a place for feasting, we just don’t have an adjoining building to fill like the typical Alliance copypaste tavern. Which the prior Brill tavern was just using the delipidated skin of, as seen in Westfall and other locales.

So far the Forsaken have a handful of structures. A Town Hall, an Apothecarium, a two-story Townhouse, a Tower with accompanying walls, and a selection of Tents. Honestly adding a Tavern and a Barracks/Crypt structure and we’d be on the level of our living human counterparts. Maybe we’ll see such things if Blizzard decides to update northern Lordaeron when they develop Quelthalas.

After all, they’re claiming they’ll have Player Housing available in the next expansion. Since there’s no way we’re going to just plop houses down wherever we want, I suspect we’ll see our houses as effectively apartments in the major cities. If I was hoping for true player housing, I would hope that each race can have it’s own Racial Housing that would exist in their racial capital or equivalent.

But I’ll try not to dream too big. Small indie company and all that…

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Cata definitely has far more “it seemed like a good idea at the time” aesthetic choices than not, and the result is that they changed or got rid of a lot of iconic things in the game that to this day they haven’t really replaced, or the things that they replaced them with just haven’t connected the same way with players. Sort of the same deal with old Orgrimmar, or Lor’danel replacing Auberdine.

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IMO, you could just say most of Kalimdor and be correct. Newgrimmar, the whole of Auberdine, Ashenvale and Azshara, both Barrens (though I have fewer issues with the northern half), Lake Thousand Needles, and I could go on for smaller issues I have with most of the zones.

How do you so radically change all of that and then just look at Silithus and think “yup, this is a very fine questing zone, no changes”???

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I remember hearing something about how there are files indicating Silithus was going to get revamped to deal with the aftermath of AQ stuff from the Med’an comics but they ran out of time.

“But they ran out of time” can apply to a lot of Cata zones, though moreso the Eastern Kingdoms. I feel like they started with Kalimdor since those areas have the more drastic changes, then underestimated how long it would take which resulted in a good chunk of the EK not changing as much, outside the Lordaeron areas.

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Another few that struck me when I was playing SoD in the first phase was the Stonewrought Dam, the Loch itself, and then also Westfall. The Dam is obvious, it was a major set piece that they just destroyed and never replaced, but the Loch and Westfall both had this vast quality to them that was broken up by the revamps. Both zones feel smaller as a result, much like the Barrens.

And I think that’s the crux of the issues with Cata versus the originals, the old zones feel like they’re less of a theme park, they exist in their own world and we’re just visiting. There’s a lot of ‘wasted’ space, but that’s the point.

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A big part of the zones feeling larger isn’t directly revamp related but moreso mounts being earned at a lower level and the “fog of war” view distance increasing as the game went on. I specifically remember how when Legion was coming out they talked about doubling the view distance, and I think they increased it again more recently.

Though I’ve been playing through SoD lately and I have to say, as much as it’s true that a certain atmosphere was lost as time has gone on, running around so much without a mount really sucks.

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I miss it too. I’d like to see the Old towns with the old aesthetic, but with modern graphics. Modern companies have this whole collaborative dynamic, but they really need to pivot to having “an undead person” “the Tauren guy” and “human developer.”

Then they can hire a hunter dev, a warlock person, etc.

If they don’t, I don’t think the games going another twenty years; I don’t think it’ll make it through the WS Saga.

I don’t think there is a possibility of the story being fixed. That’s sunk with TWW (upon all the previous failings that came before it.) But the team COULD make an amazing brill. And a new Thrallmar styled city. Etc.

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Alliance Rogue questline from Legion. You have to assassinate a Legion spy there. I’ve done the parallel one in Darnassus.

And it remains annoying to me the Forsaken’s only party was in a hard to find part of the Rogue’s Quarter only Alliance rogues were made aware of in a now canonically destroyed city.

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Classic Brill was just a carbon copy of Goldshire with a few things relocated and a graveyard. It wasn’t that cool, my man.

However I do agree, the Victorian Nu-Saken architecture absolutely lacks a goth bar to hang at.

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That’s kind of the problem though. There’s nowhere to lounge. Hell there’s nowhere to even sit. Not a single chair to be found.

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I never played much Horde back in the day but have been playing Classic on and off for the past 2 years or so and have to say that Classic Brill was way better. It feels like an actual town/settlement and has a bit of a cozy atmosphere, despite it being an undead town than the CATA revamp has. The CATA revamp it really doesn’t feel like a town anymore. There’s really no tavern like there once was or even a town hall. It’s all sort of merged together into something boring.

It has been said a million times over by now but the CATA revamp really ruined many towns and cities on both factions. The idea of a revamp itself wasn’t bad but the way it was done was not good in many cases. Especially when it totally destroyed towns and made them eyesores or just ruined the character of a town or zone.

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Honestly, I suspect the reason the Blizzard developers never put chairs in Horde cities is because the Horde racial model skeletons look so awkward sitting on any chair that isn’t an enormous throne.

Thanks to our hunch, Forsaken PCs sitting in a chair look like a child pouting for being put in a time out. Doesn’t look all that fantastic if I’m being honest.

Tauren just look plain uncomfortable, like they know they’re sitting on something that is far far too small for their size.

So to avoid placing a bunch of awkwardly-seated NPCs in each Horde settlement, they just avoid placing chairs.

And if it’s not our awkward postures, then I think the other viable reason for the lack of proper seating is because every Horde settlement is more of a military base than a civilian community. Not that this doesn’t also apply to some Alliance settlements, but it’s a very intentional design for the Horde. If we expand into a new area, it’s always been depicted as a militant incursion, so everyone’s on their feet and ready to fight, or working on building more military structures.

Which is why the Forsaken’s Tim-Burton Buildings amuse me so. They’re very much not Military structures, what with the two story house building having an upstairs bedroom, and family decor even when it’s on the edge of Scourge territory in Northrend. Internally they’re all civilian structures, but since the Forsaken are part of the Horde, the buildings all end up full of military personnel standing next to chair-less dining tables.

Sometimes you can just tell that Blizzard’s primary concern wasn’t always immersion. Sometimes they just wanted to slap a building down, put two people standing inside of it ready to hand out a quest each, and called it good. I mean after all, who would just—hang out—in a place where you’re meant to do a job and then move on to the next station to get the next job?

Why did they settle in this spot, surrounded on all sides by enemy forces and cut off from supply lines?

Stop asking questions, just hurry to complete quest and seek out next quest.

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That looks like a particular… object… on the map.

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Huh… that it does. Odd…

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There is no modern brill. We destroyed it on our way to Undercity. Oopsie guess that’s what happens when you commit genocide