Is it just me or was Gilneas Reclamation SEVERELY disappointing?

Community General Discussion
105

I disagree with this heavily.

In a game where we have playable werewolves and zombies, neither things should be considered a ‘evil curse’. Hands down, flat out, it’s boring to just constantly move toward the idea of ‘let’s ‘cure’ this! Let’s ‘cure’ that!’.

Why do people play worgen over humans?

Why do people play forsaken over humans?

Because we want some flavour and enjoy the darker variety of the races. There’s give and take when it comes to either situation. You gain various powers but need to contend with the need for much greater self control.

I hate how Blizzard has framed the worgen as just… not being lycans in the future because for some stupid reason, it’s not passed onto children (some of the dumbest lore). I hate the obsession some people have for ‘curing’ the undead, too. It’s obnoxious.

People are interested in and play both because we enjoy the fantasy of it, not because it’s ‘evil’ or ‘wrong’ like people are trying to frame it.

Absoloutely no point in having anything even remotely interesting playable if it’s just going to be shoved into the ‘nope sorry it’s all bad!’ box when there’s so much more nuance that can be done with it.

Also:
Absoloutely stupid that a mary-sue pure light thing is now the leader of the forsaken, a message that you need to ‘lightforge’ to be good, even though our characters have agency and plenty weren’t interested in following the horribly written character that is Sylvanas.

Absoloutely stupid how Tess is the leader of the worgen and, guess what, not a WORGEN. It’s just generally eyeroll inducing and I’m so tired of the most boring leaders replacing people instead of those who actually represent a player race.

I feel bad for both worgen players in this entire situation and undead players for what I mentioned above. It sucks.

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106

That’s not ‘taking an inch’. Because guess what? The inch came right back (whoops, sorry Undercity).

Player parity is the doom of all so-called ‘faction conflict’ because both sides need to have equitable experience in the world. So you can never have any real gain or loss, you can only have inconvenience. Hell, the players don’t even have input as to what gets lost or gained, so it’s literally the universe suddenly deciding you need a time dragon to go back to your old city hub again. ‘Shoulda been a better player, dummy!’

The faction conflict is stupid because you can’t actually lose it. Planetside has more stakes than WoW does and Planetside’s characters literally cannot die.

107

Again, Gilneas is a human nation with a human outlook on the world. It only went Worgen maybe a decade or two (damn you timey-wimey ball!) in the overarching narrative, so the whole ‘wolf-thing’ is a very recent discomfort. It stands to reason that the Worgen Curse, given just how damaging it was to Gilneas at its onset, is now strictly controlled and slowly being phased out. Just like the Forsaken; undeath is a curse. It’s not strictly evil, but it is absolutely negative. It is a perversion of how life is meant to work and it is also a harrowing fate worse than death for most.

It absolutely makes sense that these curses are contained and monitored and actively prevented from spreading. The undead never find rest, and the worgen never find peace. This isn’t a fate they want to expose their loved ones to, so naturally they want to cure it and return to normalcy.

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108

I think in-universe it’s totally fine to view these things as something that needs to be cured. It adds depth to the character, and creates interesting situations and obstacles to overcome.

For example, I love D&D games that include in-game slavery and racism when above table we all abhor it. It gives us struggles to fight against. It creates vices we have to overcome. The worgen and undead ‘curses’ are the same way, imo.

And to add onto that, some in-game characters may not want that cure because of reasons xyz, and that’s great too! They see the benefit of being a plague-resistant living corpse or a beastman with increased agility and razorzsharp claws. That doesnt mean that the in-game average joe would feel comfortable around either one, and see their condition as something normal and beneficial.

Normalizing these conditions in the story makes them boring, and its not like Blizzard is going to remove either playable race because of story beats.

TLDR: Story-wise, let them remain ‘curses.’ Its not going to affect the ability to make one, and the story will only get more bland if the world suddenly starts bwcoming indifferent to the idea that these conditions exist.

109

Been pretty much maining a Worgen since cataclysm and waiting for Blizzard not only to do something with Gilneas but make paladin a class for them considering they already have priest & there’s a huge cathedral dominating the Gilnean skyline… but nope, some Troll hair colors, a Draeni skin and more Warlock stuff. Nothing for Worgen besides a terrible mog set that looks like something out of an N64 game. As you said, 10 minutes of walking even with reading all the quest text and watching the cut scenes. Couple months of hype for nothing. Yeah, this was very disappointing.

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110

Which is honestly a flaw in the lore itself, in my personal opinion. Yes, it makes sense to not be spread by some folks, but the entire society absoloutely hates it despite its benefits. Why even bother to allow them to be playable if it’s framed as ‘completely wrong’ everywhere you turn?

It makes sense that some would hate it and not want it spread. But there’s never any other side of it. Again, being either an undead or lycan isn’t something turning people mindless (and those that do go into mindless rages, yes, are stopped or put down). There’s ways to live with it, and again, benefits to having it.

It just feels entirely pointless to have any of it playable if the narrative is strictly that it all ‘needs to be cured’ and ‘end forever’. Which, again, is a problem with the narrative and lore writing in general. It’s frustrating and a tired trope.

I’m not saying to normalize them or stop calling them a ‘curse’ but showing the other side as well and the benefits of them rather than ‘oh no, pure evil, pure bad, we need to cure it’ which is being pushed for both undead and worgen constantly. It’s fine for the general public to hate it, fine for a group to hate it, fine for the majority to hate it, but… when literally every narrative in the story is ‘this is bad, say goodbye to it forever’, you never see these people:

It’s just not something we ever actually see. It’s pushing more and more toward ‘we need to make it not exist ever again’, which is a frustrating story beat. It’s fine they remain ‘curses’, but the ‘evil and bad and need to get rid of it’ portion is the annoying part when it’s the only one we ever see. Does it make sense for many to have that attitude? Yes.

Is it annoying that it’s implied practically everyone does, and therefore, why bother making any of it playable?

Also yes.

It may not affect the ability to make one, but the story is very bland with the implication that it’ll all go away anyway because we figured out some ‘cure’ or it all died off. There needs to be a balance of both, not indifference, no, but at least showing more nuance than is currently present.

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111

I subscribed specifically because they made such a mystery about this questline… all for killing random NPCs in the area for barely 10 minutes, who logically have nothing to do there.
The zone didn’t get an overhaul, there’s no inn, no auction house, no trainers, the pier remains unused without a ship… they didn’t even add the absolute minimum in the form of a portal and a flight master. Ironically, the zone belongs to the Alliance, but Sylvanas’ banners are still hanging around and only the Horde has a flight master there… Just wow. :rofl:

As a reward, they gave an awkward mount that has nothing to do with Gilneas and a clown costume… Luckily, I only bought one month of game time. What an embarrassing move. :sweat_smile:

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112

Genn lost his son to an arrow in front of him, yet he’ll let his daughter lead the charge into battle in front of him at the same location? Any stubbron old man who learned that harsh of a life lesson would never forget nor would they allow it to unfold in front of him again.

No stakes, no interesting story, no humor, no personality, no badass moments. Just 10 mins of killing the Scarlet (it could have been any placeholder enemy).

And that outfit. A 3d rose on the hat and belt buckle, then the same texture painted on 2d on the torso. Wild this is what they chose when 8 months ago a single reddit user did a redesign of the heritage armor that was widely loved and 3d, in their spare time.

I will say this: the animation in that cut scene was STELLAR. Where has THAT been all expansion? Bravo animation team!

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113

For the same reason your DK is playable; because you wanted to play an outsider of norms. DKs aren’t suddenly fully and wholly accepted in society, they keep well away from the living knowing full well what their powers can do if they lose control of themselves, and undeath is rightfully feared and hated as a horrific fate to endure.

You as a Worgen is fine; you were a victim of circumstance and overcame. But the general stance is ‘curses are bad, the worgen state is a curse, so let’s make sure the curse doesn’t spread’ and that is a sane and good stance. Hence why it made sense for Tess to be told ‘no’ when it came to becoming a Worgen; Gilneas needs to recover from the curse, not become further cursed. That means taking what steps are necessary to eradicate the curse once and for all.

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I would argue that the only people that view forsaken or worgen as completely evil, irredeemable abominations are enemy factions like the Scarlet Crusade.

Obviously the alliance and horde can see the benefits for those afflicted, otherwise they wouldnt let them into SW/Org.

And as for the acknowlegement of the benefits “never being something we see,” i agree that it could be lampshaded more, and it’s also hard to do when Blizzard shelves the relevant characters for years, or only has them in a speaking role. Hopefully it can be beought up more in npc quest banter, or something similar, going forward.

I think the only time it’s mentioned for Worgen is in the starting zone, or in SFK. I don’t recall for the Forsaken, but i do remember at least the forsaken themselves admitting some of the benefits.

115

Omg the clown costume :man_facepalming:

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116

My reposted thoughts on this garbage heap of an update:

The fight for the Wrathgate, the front door of ICC, had far better writing, impact, and story-telling than this garbage questline that offered barely any payoff for what should be a large piece of the story for the Worgen and Humanity in WoW.

  1. The Quests - Nothing put this entire chain into more focus than the act of chasing rats through a tunnel with a torch. Once you hit that quest, you could tell that this ride was quickly coming to a laughably bad conclusion. The rest amounted to a simple zerg fest of killing some randos in the streets.
    …
  2. The “Plot” - What really stuck out was Tess Greymane, a member of the Uncrowned, failing to know even basic details of the Scarlet Crusade. A faction who has been around since the inception of WoW and yet the supposed ultimate spy faction couldn’t…what? Be bothered to do basic research? Then after that, Genn Greymane, mastermind behind some of the worst decisions in all of Warcraft, just hands over his rule to his daughter. She was scolding him for his disdain and then goes weak in the knees with love for him cause this coward cannot ever be held accountable for his actions. There is no grand scheme, no maneuver, just terrible get along gang vibes as you fight a half-hearted battle. What happened to the ferocity of the Worgen? Where were the shadows in the windows, stalking a moonlit city?
    …
  3. That final boss - I don’t even remember her name because she served no purpose, offered no resistance, and was not a threat in the slightest. Common elite spawns in the Isles offered more challenge than she did. And then you just walk out, holding hands and singing a tune.

This entire story felt like it was crafted the night before by an intern, showing no care or craftsmanship for the lore of this game. Shadowlands was bad, but holy crap Blizz is doing everything they can to phone this stuff in with the most uninspired, lazy, and undercooked story in all of WoW.

At this point, they may as well use AI to write the story because the stuff ChatGPT comes up with would at least have a spark of inspiration and storytelling. People are looking for the next game, they are at the door waiting to leave WoW and this is what is offered. It’s a sad, sad look at what the future holds for WoW where we’ll probably beat Iridikron in a game of hearthstone and call the War Within a draw.

tl;dr: For a story focused on Werewolves, this entire thing felt toothless.

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117

I mean, the worgen are ugly.

118

M+'ers didn’t get anything with 10.1.5 either though. No dungeon balance. No class balance in the notes.

It seems the wow team has moved on to the next few expansions.

119

We need a portal to Gilneas from Stormwind but they couldn’t even be bothered to give us that.

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120

So half baked and rushed out it ain’t even funny. Why was the quest just killing high health mobs over and over again? Where was the cool worgen moment? Where were the cool rewards? Most importantly, why is the city empty and boring and not even registered on the map as an Alliance capital city now?

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121

This just makes my point even more. I was using “taking an inch” to stress that the other “threats” out there failed to do so. You responded by stressing that Teldrassil was more brutal than an “inch.” Just emphasizes my point.

Again, non-player faction threats have always been handled in a pathetic fashion in WoW (the last time they posed a serious threat was the RTS games). The player factions can never fully win over each other, but at least they have managed to do things like take away each other’s territory and sack each other’s holdings. The pertinent question is whether an opposing faction is able to inflict serious losses, not whether they’ll fully win.

Gilneas should’ve been fought for in Battle for Azeroth. It would have given the Alliance something to feel good about, and felt like a meaningful victory over the Horde. But they missed their window, and tried to create some sense of victory in the present day by using… the Scarlet Crusade? Can a victory over the Scarlet Crusade even qualify as meaningful? The answer is no.

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122

Yeah I guess this is what they meant by “we want the players to be involved in reclaiming Gilneas.” It was either this or Blizzard tossing Genn the keys to the gate and saying, “all yours again.” We could have finally wandered into the empty zone. It’s exciting by comparison.

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123

its the new silvermoon

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124

Tbh, it’s about what I expected from a x.x.5 patch questline in this expansion.

I think it was a little better than the Eredar questline in that at least it had voice acting.