It... really wasn't that bad?

Lore Story Forum
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So I’d been waiting to actually do the new Red Dawn quests for a minute now, and after seeing the General Forum ranting about how bad the ending was, I figured I’d see it for myself.

And I’m lost - the only complaint that I’ve seen that I’d say is valid with no strings attached is that they should’ve put more time into the finale cutscene, akin to the questline intro cutscene.

Everything else? WILDLY blown out of proportion.

Marran wasn’t spared because “we need to be the better people”, she was spared to avoid turning her into a martyr and further fueling the motivations of the Red Dawn. Danath LITERALLY SAYS THIS.

Her having her name and rank taken from her is notable because it’s clearly established throughout the questline that these things hold serious cultural influence here - so much so, that Marran was willing to look past Faerin’s elven heritage due to the weight of the name Lothar and invite her to join them.

I can at least understand when people miss details only brought up in quest descriptions, item text, or dialogue that plays if you stick around after accepting/finishing a quest - but how are people seriously missing details like these.

It’s tiring seeing people frequently ignore anything story-related, criticize story moments that they ignored almost all context for, and then turn around complain that the story isn’t “masculine” enough and that they need to “put the WAR back in Warcraft” despite them also not knowing enough about the story to know that the themes they’re criticizing have been around for the majority of the franchise’s history.

Aside from that, I can’t speak too much many of the finer details of the patch, such as Danath’s comment about Sons of Lothar because I haven’t dug too deep into their lore, whether that be the books, the Alliance Warfront campaign in Arathi, or even the Heartlands audio drama - so until I have more context, I don’t have enough information to call it correct or not. That said, I did generally enjoy it.

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While you’re right about there being a valid reason to not kill her, the problem most people have is that Merrin wasn’t imprisoned.

She may no longer have her rank and title, but she’s still alive and free, so can cause harm in the future.

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My main thought was that it was too late to prevent her from being the figurehead of the cause, and the formal stripping of the title wasn’t going to mean much to her followers.

Not huge flaws though

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it’s pretty wild how the story forum has managed to stay so pleasantly sheltered from the fecal storm happening in GD over this

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Not really. GD has a lot of foot traffic. Therefore you tend to get a lot of trolls who love to cause drama for drama sake.

The occasional one will come here but they tend not to get the sort of reaction or engagement they want.

Sometimes Blizzard moves those sorts of threads here and they just slowly die.

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honestly it’s a good barometer to determine who actually cares about the story versus the many people who only claim to for the sake of their political agenda. the conversations are almost never as lore-literate in those threads, which isn’t surprising. it’s just really… “tranquil” in here, at least by (extremely flattering) comparison

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Isn’t this topic kind of old news for the Story Forum? I feel like any grievances have been aired out already.

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i guess very few of you are tuned into the rampant idiocy of asmongold. that goober stoked things for today, it seems

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So you criticize the critics without having a clue yourself? I would reconsider this position. The questline’s premise makes no sense and contradicts the game’s continuity.

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i hate to have to ask, but… can anyone even remind me why the syndicate was involved?

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ye it was alright. Is the drama some racist thing

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Nials convinced the syndicate to join the Red Dawn by drawing on the shared ancestry the people of Alterac and Stormgarde have. That even though the two kingdoms rarely saw eye to eye, now is the time for unity in the wake of the Mag’hars presence in the Highlands.

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don’t, uh… the people of stromgarde have common ancestry with all humanity*? i just checked the warcraft wiki page with the relevant lore (containing the contents of the flyers), but i have to say, this feels like such a generic entreaty. i suppose it’s meant to play on an opportunistic identity for the syndicate? is there some subtlety i’m forgetting here??

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It is meant to play into the “make Arathor great again” nonsense the Red Dawn is all about. Basically they seek to remake the Arathor Empire and planned on using the Mag’har as a scapegoat to recruit humans from all paths of life to their cause. Even the Defias and Scarlet Crusade.

The Kingdoms that made up the Seven human kingdoms (Lordaeron, Alterac, Stromgrade, Gilneas, Dalaran, Stormwind and Kul Tiras) all originate from the Empire of Arathor which had Strom (now Stromgrade) as the capital.

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so in other words, it’s more like old-school geopolitics the setting is kinda formerly known for, being an rts and all. from that angle, it makes the people going “this isn’t warcraft” that much funnier.

careful, i thought the goal was to avoid bringing GD down here…

edit: apologies for that weird double-quote. prolly an indicator i need a nap :sweat_smile:

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That is literally what the questline is all about though. Even more so when you factor in Danath saying “do not look so fondly on the past” to Faerin in reference to the myths and legends of the old Arathorian Empire.

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i getchu, i’m just lightly ribbing you for your phrasing. i didn’t miss the broad strokes, to be sure. the game is fairly light on subtext.

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The phrasing was deliberate.

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y- yeah… i took it to be… i thought you were making a joke, so i was at least attempting one in turn. if it whiffed, it whiffed. more evidence for my need for sleep.

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What rampant idiocy? The guy commented on the cutscene and he has a point, it was absolute dog vomit from multiple angles. It reminded me of that old TORtanic cutscene that everyone liked to pass around in 2012.

Just because you don’t like him doesn’t make him wrong.

I haven’t even done the quest yet. I’m not commenting on the story, and he wasn’t either. He was pointing out how lame that entire fight scene was and how even one of the lowpoints of this game, BFA, did it way better. Hell, fan machinima from the early 2000’s did it better.

That cutscene was embarrassing man. I hope an intern worked on that. And I hope he doesnt work on any more animations after this.

1 Like