I personally would of liked to of seen several forces vying for control of the region. Rebel Forsaken royalists, Scarlet Crusaders, and Wolf Cultists would of been a fun trio to have to deal with.
Just Scarlets is… okay… I guess. It isn’t bad, as no one minds punching a scarlet in the face. Kinda playing it a bit safe… Perhaps the others are around and the chapter titles do not make that immediately obvious?
This is a good point, maybe the Scarlets are just part of it but we do come across Wolf Cult people as well.
I will say though, like I mentioned before, Scarlets are fine AS LONG AS it’s because they are walking back the heritage quest and instead having the Gilneans embrace the curse as part of their culture (which they had done for 10 years prior to the heritage quest). Also I could see Scarlets potentially being a new major threat with the Arathi being in War Within.
I think the last time I even saw Crowly was Legion! At least Celestine shows up every once in a while, last seen as a Dream Surge vendor.
She’s in the new patch, she shows up with Genn to help fight Fyrakk’s forces, if you use the Cenarion horn near her and Genn she says, “It is nice to fight for a home rather than flee from one.” And Genn responds, “And return a debt long overdue.” (helping the Night Elves with their new home)
That’s right! I forgot about that, it happened so quick. So much going on in that quest. lol
How can the Scarlet Crusade be a major threat with their track record of failure, no way to replenish their numbers beyond the writers want it to happen and the writers’ obsession with using them as punching bags? If they’re going to be a threat, the writers need to give the Scarlet Crusade a win so they can actually seem like a threat.
At this point the Scarlet Crusade are the “all powerful, powerless enemy” character type from fascism as noted by author Umberto Eco: “The enemy” somehow manages to be both pathetically weak and an all-powerful menace depending on what the demagogue needs at any given time.
Why? It’s boring at this point. I’d rather punch a wolfcult worgen, Forsaken war criminal or Drust in the face.
The Wolfcult would be a little bit difficult to make work though… at least the original wolf cult that was in Gilneas.
That was made and lead by Alpha Prime (the First Worgen), spreading his message of 'Purity of Essence", how the Worgen form should be seen as a blessing and accepted. Any information about them really only exists outside of the game, either in the Curse of the Worgen comics or in other areas. When Prime regained the Scythe of Elune, he planned to use it’s power open the dream and call the rest of the sleeping worgen into the waking world. However when he activated it, the spirit of his dead friend Arvell appears and rips him to shreds, killing. After that the remaining cult members were killed off/dispersed.
Hard to spread the message of “The worgen form is a gift” as a cult when the leader/Primary antagonist was already killed?
Oh hell, what am I saying. That happens literally all the time.
Good point. Maybe not him then. But I’d still rather punch some Forsaken war criminal or Drust.
By the way, if we want to punch a fanatical enemy in WoW, what about the Drust? The death-magic obsessed Vry’kul largely inspired by Scandinavian, Germanic, and Norse cultures and mythologies… Given the Gileans’ and Worgen’s ancestral ties to druidism, it’d make some sense to have Drust as an enemy the worgen need to defeat to reclaim Gilneas.
The fact that Alexstrasza didn’t even blink at my DK who slaughtered every Red Dragon in the Ruby Sanctum for a mount…
I was about to point out the druids of the flame.
The Scarlet Crusade makes for a convenient enemy.
For one, they’re religious extremists attempting to force their views on everyone else. For another, they’re unrepentant racists. These are both generally considered very bad qualities in an organization of people. You can feel as good fighting Scarlets as you would fighting Naz German World War II political party members.
It’s about as inoffensive as it gets, and Blizzard is playing it safe these days.
I think the thing that most people are finding jarring about the Crusade being an enemy yet again is that the forsaken recently trounced on them pretty hard in their heritage quest line.
But yeah, you’re right about them being a relatively safe enemy for people to beat up on
That and they’ve never expressed any interest in Gilneas before, for that matter. Their whole thing was Lordaeron and purging the Scourge, and seeing everyone who wasn’t a Scarlet as a member of the Scourge.
I can understand and appreciate why people feel like it’s a weird choice for a mutual enemy. I think ideally, there would be two separate questlines here for each faction. For the Alliance, your story is about purging Sylvanas loyalists and members of the Royal Apothecary Society whom have gone full Putress. On the Horde side, the quests would be about eliminating feral worgen whom for one reason or another are no longer curable (maybe those RAS lads did something to them).
At least, I think that’s how I’d prefer it, but Blizzard doesn’t exactly make faction content anymore, so it is what it is. Either way, I’m just glad Gilneas is getting reclaimed in-game.
They seem to be hinging this on the fact the Scarlets in the Forsaken heritage quest were attempting to summon in reinforcements and the Forsaken put a kibosh on that. So, I guess the reinforcements were meant to be coming out of the ruins of Gilneas.
The most interesting angle for this development is ironically on the Forsaken front. I am super curious if it was Calia’s insistence the Forsaken withdraw from the region without making plans to hand the region over properly that made the power vacuum which the scarlet’s exploited. It might be a good moment for her to learn kindness sometimes kills.
I dunno, this sounds pretty bad because I think the horde-side questing would just devolve to “kill your victims”.
It’s why beating up the Scarlets is the safest bet. Nobody sane actually cares about their fate
The Forsaken killed Genn’s son, invaded his home, blighted it, killed his people and made them refugees.
I doubt just killing couple of scarlets makes any of that go away.
I think someone had said it earlier but even finding a way to bring Godfrey and his guys back would have at least made sense. Saying he somehow survived Shadowfang or maybe even got rezzed by a faction of the Scourge could have been cool. If only because he has a connection to the Gilneans as a traitor. Scarlets being one of the competing groups in Gilneas wouldn’t bother me, but them as the only group and just being the same old crusade is rather boring. I’m happy to see Gilneas back in Worgen hands, but that’s very meh.
This would have been awesome if Godfrey got resurrected by the Scourge and became part of the storyline since he was a big part of the Worgen starting experience. That would have been so cool. Having him with the Scourge while also having the Scarlets as enemies would have been nice cause Blizzard could then have double downed on both the Godfrey’s hate of worgen and the Scarlets disliking them to make the Gilneans embrace the curse more and accept it as part of who they are now.