Zandalar was in ruins in MoP and it was because he gave Zul control while doing nothing that he made to be a pretty foolish king in Cho’s telling of the story.
Or you decided to live in echo chamber. I dont particularly remember Alliance fans caring about Rastakhan one way or the other and if anything considering everything the Horde did pretty didnt care much about anyone who was supporting the Horde.
Because they were not the focus of the story? As I recall it most of the DF centaur’s storyline focus more on Tomuul and Windsage Boku.
I would also point out, the same could be said of the orc clan leaders back in Warcraft 2. They were virtually indistinguishable and just different levels of “rawh, kill” and yet we got so many due to gameplay/flavor reasons.
And so was Rastakhan, his first major apperance ingame was in MoP and only to be show to be incompetent/to make Zul more dangerous by comparison.
And that is literally why Blizzard has been playing match maker recently and getting people like Baine/Mayla and Lother’mar/Thalysra together. I expect these guys will end up with kids sooner or later.
He got the same treatment as the other troll leaders, a case of the dead.
I said what Literally Cho said. Zul predicted Cataclysm, Rastakhan chose not to act on it and decided to stay, those who wanted to leave, left with Zul, so there was no civil war.
It was not in ruins in MoP. It was BELIEVED to be in ruins. It was hit by Cataclysm, but the questing experience didn’t really elaborate on it at all. And it should’ve had. The questing expeirnece should’ve included confrontation regarding Zandalari activity, it should’ve included Pandaren, but it didn’t happen.
Why?
Because entire Zandalar questing was done wrong. It didn’t focus on things that it should’ve focus.
Echo Chamber…ECHO CHAMBER! I find it ironic that is coming from you, a person that is so warped in his own beliefs that doesn’t give courtesy to look at something from different persective, and continues to live with prejudice to playable races instead of looking at it as an creation on their own. And notice the narrative errors.
I was on various forums, official, not official, MMO-Champion and Discord channels, and got plenty of people who play both faction, and many of them were not happy about it at all. There were threads begging devs to not kill Rastakhan before even patch hit.
Heck, I know one draenei female player (who don’t play WoW anymore) who was so upset about that, that she respeccted to resto talent tree so she wouldn’t hurt Rastakhan directly, that’s how much she loved this character. And I know plenty of people like that.
Additionally time usually helps to adjust your views and positions, even when something appeared to be good or bad at the beginning turned out to be revered/disliked later.
Like entire MoP expansion which was considered to be joke expansion and to this day wins the polls for best expansion execution so far.
Maybe you should reflect on your own case of living in echo chamber, because to me it looks like projection. There is a reason why I don’t have either red or blue background.
The difference is, that we’re supposed to improve over time, not regress. And if you agree that that they’re forgettable then I am surprised why did you have an issue with my original post to begin with, where I complained mostly about the issue of execution of female leadership, not that it is issue in itself.
Rastakhan was NOT a book character.
Rastakhan is important leader of a powerful faction, that ruled over 200 years.
Rastakhan WAS THE LAST PROMINENT TROLL LEADER LEFT, therefore he deserved better treatment on that basis alone. You have plenty of human women that are still kicking and nothing bad hapens to them, but trolls get no such a treatment. They don’t have anyone prominent left. Even Rokhan who appeared in WC3, only got proper character development in BfA, and it’s still not enough.
The whole change of leadership was pointless anyway because Talanji became irrelevant after BfA. So in hindsight it was bad decision. Much better option would be for both of them to remain. But nothing meaningful came out of his death, and nothing meaningful came out of Talanji ascension.
Rastakhan would somehow make up for loss of Vol’Jin, and I always wanted to have prominent female character, but not at the expense of existing male, because there are so pathetically little of them anyway.
And don’t you see the problem here? Or you take a joy in dunking on race you dislike?
If that is the case then I see no reason to even talk to you, because I care, I am invensted and you don’t. So you’ll just argue with me to spite me. I don’t go to nelf threads to rub in their faces that since they got mistreated that this is their thing now, and they should suffer some more.
But you’re doing exactly that. Thankfully not all posters are so spiteful.
Teretha’s death a shocking display on how far Blizzard was willing to go to fetishize brutality against women and that’s not even taking into account that there’s also Sylvanas in this franchise who experienced btruality and an allegorical and now subtextual rape.
And Wonderbread has the audacity to say women characters in this franchise haven’t suffered as much as men. Men in this franchise just die. They don’t experience dehumanization, brutality and degradation as female characters do.
As valiant (from both angles) as this thread is it’s still just a bunch of men sitting around a public forum debating the validity of women, without any of them asking (or respecting) women’s input on this topic.
To at least some degree I think Rastakhan may have fallen victim to WoW’s habit of indulging the fantasy trope that mortal individuals living far beyond their races’ naturally occurring lifespans by magical means is somehow just bad in and of itself (as opposed to being so if the means of achieving it are immoral.)
So as he’d lived so many lifetimes already by way of Rezan’s blessing, he “had to die” as some sort of atonement for daring to live more than his biologically defined allotment.
Plus there was the narrative sense of him paying the price for having become complacent and tacitly allowed things to get out of hand in Zandalar prior to the players’ arrival.
Add on to the fact that Bwonsamdi intentionally allowed him to die. As he had wanted Rastakhans soul for a long time. While also seeing Talanji as a better pawn, I mean ally.
The story never talks about a “civil war” in fact, it was never implied at all that would happen. What the story was focused on was a king who did nothing and ultimately lost the support of his people to Zul.
It should have, but the reason it didn’t was simply rule of cool and they wanted Dazar’alor to be some shining city in the middle of absolute chaos.
And many people didnt care. And others, actually seemed moved that he did. Which is what Blizzard was going for. You know the video of his death is still on youtube right?
Because no one complained when we had villages of Tuskarr, Pandarens, Hozen, Junyi who many also had forgettable male leaders, but the moment we have one where its female dominated its suddenly an issue. The centaur had several clans as a form of world building. The clans were the “characters” as it were more so then any individual NPC including their leaders.
Rastakhan was first added in the RPG. He did not have any presence until MoP and made to be an ineffective king. Which continued in his BfA appearance. So yeah, he was a book character. I don’t even think he was mentioned in Vanilla all the way to Wrath, but someone can correct me on that.
No, I see him dying for the reason a good chunk of characters die, which is this is an MMO and like it or not, the trolls are one of the staple guys we all kill including things like the Legion, Old Gods and dragons(well in DF case proto-dragons)
No, it was specifically that Rastakhan allowed Zul to go with people that wanted to join him. Because he wanted to avoid conflict in his own kingdom. Zul’s predictions always came true, this is why he was so much esteemed and was able to sway so many people.
No it shouldn’t EVER happen to begin with. Zandalar Survived the Grat Saundering, but couldn’t survive Cataclysm? Come on. And that place is of great cultural significance, we’re talking about first native Azeroth civilization, it’s very cradle. It would be enormous WASTE to lose it like that. In a game, that is constantly looking for new zones and places to explore, sending Zandalar of all places on the bottom of the sea would be super dumb decision.
What presence of cinematic has to do with anything? And point is, that no matter how well this scene was pulled out or not, it was still a massive a waste. Becuase once again he was the last established troll leader left. To you it didn’t matter, because you were not invested at all, but to me, and other players who actually play these races, it was a massive bummer. Becuase that was yet again another loss.
The thing is that clans themselves are forgettable too, the problem is that for supposed tough warrior faction they don’t exhibit any of that energy.
If It was me, I’d split it that there are equally male and female Khans and each one is conflicted with each other, over different things, and the questing would be about resolving their issues and finding common ground. This way clans would be far more distinct I believe.
Maybe even throwback to the vanilla questing where you had to pick a clan. and that clan would take a residence in Marduuk (that would be kinda sweet). It would give some player agency, as You’d pick clan that resonated with you the most.
There is a difference between being a sidenote in rpg book, and being part of the actual story which Taretha’s case was. She appeared and died in the very same book. And I’m surprised that I have to elaborate on such an obvious difference between these two.
Rastakhan was built up since Vanilla, as very wise and active leader. He was constantly organising meetings with other troll tribes, he sent his people to cull the threats, and up to Cataclysm Zandalari were neutral faction, they were displayed as priest/ scholar society and in Zandalar questing we didn’t do any ‘scholaring’ at all.
And I think there is a problem, where X faction has laughable roster of chartacters and on top of that constantly loses even more characters. So they’re left with nobodies. This issue mainly concerns Horde, as they constantly lose any noticeable characters, and most of them are one note characters as well. Alliance on the other hand not only keep most of their characters but saw lots of their heroes return.
Like Turalyon and Alleria.
We killed Illidan, and bam Illidan is back. (he is not Alliance char technically tho, but he is prominent nelf character)
Magni returned, Bolvar returned. The only real loss was Varian. I know that their stories weren’t really high quality and they got neutralized, but they’re still there and can participate in grand plots. Good for Alliance, I just wish that Horde would also keep some of their characters and expand their roster as well.
But so far that is not the case. All Horde leaders are perma dead. Maybe Vol’Jin will return, someday somehow… And only becuase players were constantly nagging about it, and devs expected nobody would care.
So I think that this is far more important issue. Becuase when we create a character we want for said playable race to have a meaningful story progression, but how can you progress a story, if you lose people that could push it and expand the story, characters that could give sense of legacy and aim?
Replacing the awesome T-Rex Loa with a humanoid loa for the prelates is just such a mundane cliche Mary-Sue move too — Like "Oooh a Paladin order who follow a holy symbol of a humanoid figure? … How original!"
Lorewalker Cho says: The Zandalari people turned to their King for help, but there was only one Zandalari equipped to help them: the prophet Zul. The prophet, and the mighty warfleet he had assembled while his King sat idle. Lorewalker Cho says: You see, the TRUE power of kings and emperors stems from the power to aid their people. Lorewalker Cho says:The moment they fall, they cede their power to the one who can.
No the reason he swayed people was he could actually do SOMETHING. Again, the entire thing showed how Rastakhan did nothing while he was warned, several times and ultimately his people turned to Zul because of his own inactions.
The idea that surviving one disaster means you will forever survive disaster is stupid. Everyone was affected by the Cataclym. That was the point.
And you get Talanji to replace him and see her grow(or fail) as she leads her people. Rastakhan was, before BfA more of a figure head then any well formed characters. And if anything, Blizzard followed though with his depiction in MoP of being an ineffective king.
Eh, the worse one could say is they are the archetypical similar to the taurens. Relatively peaceful but willing to fight if needed.
The split was 3/4 in favor of females. The conflict they wanted was related to the Incarnates, like it or not Blizzard still wanted it to tie fairly closely to the main bosses of the expansion.
Again, it has been forever and a day but was Rastakhan even mentioned in Vanilla? I don’t even recall him being mentioned in Wrath when we worked with the Zandalari against the Drakkari.
In any case, even his first major apperance was Cho telling us his story and him being ineffective.
The reason we have most of our character is for the simply fact for the greater majority of Warcraft’s story we have been the lighter side of the gray scale of WoW. Horde have lost their leaders because well, most of them were questionable to just outright evil.
I stand corrected on the quotes, but still Rastakhan was proved to be the one who was right by remaining in Zandalar. Because Zandalar didn’t sink, and those who stayed kept their home.
If all Zandalari went out then a very grom fate would await them as this game won’t allow trolls to get any foothold.
Lorewalkers on top of that don’t have to know everything they came up with the information from sources that were available and Zul was very manipulative.
Except Cataclym never entierly destroyed a zone to the point it completely disappeared. There where cracks on the ground, some zones got flooded. It was a small cake compared to the Great Saundering that drowned half of the world.
And Cataclysm didn’t reach every zone, Kul’Tiras for example isn’t far away and was not scratched, upper EK, also nothing. Unless we count forsaken as separate form of Cataclysm.
So it was very selective in top of that.
Talanji doesn’t have the same presence, history and legacy behind her, he was over 200 years old, and she was described to be a teen (which isnsuper weird considering her looks). There are so many things that could’ve been explored with him. We could’ve had proper family dynamic, we could’ve had some proper confrontations, but nothing of essence happened. And with his death Talanji is now bloodthirsty and, so rither she will get defanged or made to be killable enemy because she would be a trouble. Either direction is not satisfying to me.
I like her, bit I liked him more. He had beaming personality he had proper presence and oberall was very enjoyable character, Zandalar lost it’s spark with his death.
Taren were neglected for years. They are meant to have many tribes and vatious attitudes but the last tume I learned anything meaningful about them was in Vanilla. (but Dunwalker Dezco from MoP was a great story too).
Ye and the only guy was a dungeon boss. Very subtle.
If he was ineffective he wouldn’t last 200 years. That is a big chunk of history and proper narration that went to WASTE.
How was Cairne or Vol’Jin evil? Maybe I wouldn’t be this upset that Cairne was killed offscreen if his son wouldn’t turn out to be such a disaster.
But Vol’Jin didn’t leave anybody behind him. Just a void. And Rastakhan was a new wound after the Vol’'Jin fiasco. Reminding players to never get comfortable with troll characters because they will die soonish after.
Hey Wonderbread, do you happen to a spare brain? Cause I got a strawman that needs one. Please point to where Zerde said anything about Vol’jin or Cairne being evil. Zerde said most of the horde fallen leaders were questionable to just outright evil. The key word is MOST. Not all, most. As in between 50% and 100% but never reaching 100%.
inb4 you do the whole “what I actually meant was X” shtick again.
And the main point I was making that Horde constantly is losing prominent characters with nobody to fill the gap. And it just happens that the biggest ones weren’t evil.
And I don’t see why you chose to act so snarky, did I do something to you? Did I offend you in any way shape or form?
It was not my intention. But I also dislike when I make a clear point and someone tries to make a detour from it to dismiss the problem - once again. So I guess it makes us even.
Now you guys are arguing over a minor misunderstanding. This could be a great opportunity to confront the sexism alive and thriving in this community but instead you are all going to argue about word usage.
I love a well written protagonist, male or female.
Having said that,
In the beginning, Warcraft was about pink bros and green bros getting into a slap fight. It was an Action Bromedy (Bro Comedy). All the men had massive muscles, thick hair and sick mustaches.
Now. It’s like walking into a Starbucks and having to wait in line for the worlds dullest cup of coffee.
Talanj was already shown that she was going to be the faction leader of the Zandalari Trolls from the expansion artwork. So that meant that her father was going to go.
