Patch 10.2.5 - Seeds of Renewal

I did fully appreciate the Blizz response to the fiery Nelf Genocide and subsequent homelessness follow-up that had me serving hors d’oeuvres at a party.

I’ve been unsubbed for a while due to other life stuff, but I was planning on jumping back in the game for the Gilnean reclamation.

I was so looking forward to the timeline Blizz was putting out - I thought that this reclamation of Gilneas showed that they were focusing content on story areas popular with the audience. I was looking forward to a mini campaign to reconquer and restore Gilneas, to get to look for all sorts of juicy lore bits of why the Scarlets were there and what foreshadowing was added for the upcoming stories.

But… this is it?

A 10-minute quest, the only lore being ‘Scarlets are here because they’re acceptable punching bags (no IC reason to be here specifically)’ and the only foreshadowing being generic ‘You haven’t seen the last of us’?

I am underwhelmed and depressed about future stories’ potential, if this is the quality Blizz is fine with releasing.

Like, I get that it takes Blizz a lot of man-hours to build a scenario like this, but are there no lore afficionados in their teams to make a few textual-only (and thus lowest-effort-needed) additions to describe why/how the Scarlets specifically took over Gilneas City (even if it’s just an interactable journal that adds no time to a speedrun playthrough), make up some personalized comments from the Scarlet enemies towards Gilneans/worgen/Forsaken, and add some more references to Gilnean history (that aren’t incorrect bland moralizing, like Tess saying Genn built the wall to hide from his feelings without getting any pushback (and chance for more history to be delivered in-game) about the contemporary reasons), or more concrete tantalizing hints at the future (like some cryptic comment about the light crystal coming up in whatever the next expac is named)?

There’s nothing story-wise to chew on. That’s what I most wanted from this event.

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A long while ago I once said on the old forums about how much I absolutely adored the Cata version of the Forsaken starting experience. There was a lot to dislike about Cataclysm and though I personally enjoyed most of it, there was some glaring issues, especially with how the Alliance was handled, that I understood. But the re-touch of the Forsaken questline accomplished two key things: A) Made you understand the desperation of the Forsaken when there are literal enemies at every doorstep (Scarlets, Mutated Wildlife, Forsaken, Kirin Tor, etc) and made you feel moments of triumph in overcoming those threats.

It’s hard to make zombies feel like heroes. They’re in every version of media the de-facto bad guys and early WoW wasn’t shy away from reminding you of that. Their lore emphasizes how they don’t have feelings, moral compasses, and take glee in suffering. But in small periods, Belmont seemingly sacrificing himself to buy you time to escape, or that horseman guy who throws himself on the explosions so you can leave the cave and warn Sylvannas, etc helped invest you into their fight. And I say that even if we as players all know they are being thrown away by their leaders and Garrosh.

And I’m just speaking on the Horde’s perspective, let alone from starting and playing as Worgen, who’ve been on the receiving end of the Forsaken’s pre-emptive aggression for the last 10 years.

I completed the quest with a character who directly participated in killing Greymane’s son just for him to only gruff at me a bit later and reward me with new duds.

Not only I got a new hat, Gilneas for my character is now a neutral city. I can buy gear, repair my loot, even talk to the Rogue Trainer(who now has the Uncrowned title) and enter proving grounds. I can tell the Greymane staff to leave the manor and have the whole place to myself and juggle fire torches to get ready for the fire dance party at the Nelf’s new tree.

Can I throw in a meta-narrative bit for a second? As a player I am 9 games away from having 100wins in the battle of Gilneas BG. And I know mechanics and story always= disconnect but as a player how often do I need to activate the suspension of disbelief before I just abandon faith in continuity altogether?

And here’s the thing. I’m not against Alliance having their land back. At all. It’s a great moment. A triumphant moment. But it should have been 100% Alliance. Alliance heroes kicking not Scarlets, but the Horde out. Some holdovers from conflicts past. Old warlords who refuse to buy into the peace times. Something else than the universal punching bag that’s competing with trolls as the most underwhelming threat since the game’s inception.

The questline, along with Bel’ameth feel like cost cutting measures. Because drafting up two different forms of content(as they did in the past) is too much and not worth the time to give nuance. They are scared(when they weren’t before in the past) to exclude a faction from certain forms of content. And they are neutering every aspect of conflict and character motivation from the game-even when those character’s grievances are wholly legitimate.

Yikes.

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Gilnean reclamation quest be like.

Horde running in to help.

Gilneas: Let me see what you have.

Horde: BLIGHT

Gilneas: NOOOO!!!

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Gilneas and Silverpine are two of my absolute favourite quest zones in this game’s history. This cooperation business feels like it cheapens both, to a certain extent.

100%. It would have been more triumphant for the Gilneans if they were able to do it themselves rather than alongside the hated enemies who drove them out in the first place. And the Scarlet Crusade?

Honestly, this part made me actually angry. We know NOTHING of why the Scarlets were there, what their motives were, etc. The Scarlet Crusade is a villainous faction and they should remain one, I’m not arguing for sympathetic Scarlets. But damn it, I’d like a BIT of nuance. If they’re the villains I’d at least like to know what their goals are, what they’d like to achieve in Gilneas, etc.

Those Scarlet Pamphlets found at the end of BFA could have been used to give them motives that made things WAY more interesting. (https://www.wowhead.com/news/manifestos-from-the-scarlet-brotherhood-tabloid-books-in-tirisfal-glades-312225 for reference, there’s four of them, they’re not long, they’re interesting and worth a read.) One of them, “The Cursed Old Wolf” argues that the Crusade needs to rally behind Greymane in order to achieve their objectives, even though they think he’s cursed and very much hope to betray him someday.

How much more interesting would this story have been if the Gilneans went in, armed and ready to retake their home, and the Scarlets simply… bowed. And welcomed home the King of Gilneas to his rightful human lands. Perhaps they could have painted a narrative of being desperate refugees, clinging for life in the wake of a resurgent Forsaken, begging for asylum in Gilneas. Genn might have been conflicted. Had he not failed the help the humans of Lordaeron once before? Why spill the blood of people who WANT him to return as King, people who only want asylum from a world that hates them. He might see himself as their redeemer, a hope for the future.

Perhaps the questline, then, could have revolved around figuring out what the Scarlets REALLY want, and why. In uncovering their plot, it could be discovered that the Scarlets are not so friendly to Gilneas as they seem. That one could have even involved the Forsaken, who would be interested in Gilneas’ willingness to deal with their own personal devil, so to speak.

Instead the Scarlets seem to have been ONLY present as a convenient punching bag for both factions. It was a frustrating waste of their potential as villains.

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I havent logged on yet to do any of this, so this made me laugh out loud just picturing it rofl.
Thank you xD

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Can we have beards as well please?

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FINALLY!

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imagine if Gilneas reclamation was Alliance only

Forsaken gets a follow up to their earlier Scarlet problems, and move on them in Gilneas

oh no, we accidentally bombed some alliance

On the other hand, what if the Scarlets just gave the land back to the Gilneans (is it too much of a stretch for some Gilneans to be Scarlets?) and started an alliance with them to route the Forsaken?4

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Imagine a scenario where the Scarlets in Gilneas are more anti-nonhuman Gilnean nobles like Godfrey/Ashbury/etc and/or unevacuated Gilneans who reluctantly allied with the Scarlets as their only choice against the undead in the region.

Imagine if these Scarlets offered to aid the Gilneans in driving out the undead (preferably a re-reanimated Godfrey and co., or Sylvanas loyalists, or Sylvanas loyalists who re-reanimated Godfrey and co.) - Genn knows that such a truce will not last, but agrees for the moment. (And just imagine the possible banter between Godfrey, Genn, and an anti-undead and anti-worgen Gilnean noble!)

Then, when the undead are driven out and the Scarlets spring their sudden-yet-inevitable-betrayal… their ambush forces collapse, their weapons platform misfires, their bombs fail to explode, etc - and Tess walks up instead with a nice quip. (Maybe even have a rogue-only bonus quest to help her sabotage all that stuff.)

Ah, I had such hopes for the reclamation. Alas, it is what it is. :cry:

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I just remember doing the Gilneas Storyline on my Zanda here, watching Genn have the audacity to get snotty about them being here to help.

“MF’er, you attacked -my- people. Frankly the Horde should tell you and your people to pound sand until you cease being king.”

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Outland dragonriding has proven to be a mess for me. I have 5 more courses left and it can’t be over soon enough.

I would like to thank the 2 rage-fueled random players at different courses today, who felt the need to pop into my whisper and tell me how lousy I am and that I should get out of the f****** way of people who can actually play the game.

I play slow. I fly slow. I make it a point to wait for everyone else at a race point to go and try and time my flight start so that I won’t be in people’s way. I’m not logging in at 3AM just to get this done.

Anyway, cool new mog outfit on the vendor. whee.

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you know you can objectively point all this out to me and i will agree it’s garbage but i

i dunno

the mak’gora between sylvanas and saurfang broke me so hard that I’ve circled around to just going “okay, that happened” to pretty much everything they do these days.

i can’t muster up any anger or resentment or hatred or anything. i don’t get how the rest of you have managed it for so long. at a certain point, doesn’t it just get exhausting?

me, playing the world’s tiniest violin for the people who offered shelter to a faction actively committing genocide facing consequences for their actions

i understand from an IC perspective why the zandalari are upset but from an ooc perspective i am not sympathetic.

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