The cosmology lost all credibility the moment they tried to claim arcane was tied with “order” when it had always been described as the opposite.
Something so obvious and core to the WoW universe, and they just invert it overnight. Entire zones were described as being ravaged by arcane magic (netherstorm) we constantly see the arcane mutate and warp things. We see npcs talking about corruption and addiction.
The war of the Ancients. The Guardians Of Tirisfal. Archimonde destroys Dalaran and mocks mages for “stealing our fire”. This is because fel magic was just concentrated arcane. The arcane was simply pure, raw magic from the nether.
There’s an arcane boss in WoTLk that literally shouts, “CHAOS!” for Christ’s sake.
But no, it’s order because titans like using it.
The new cosmology is trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. It’s nonsense fanfiction that doesn’t understand its own source material, and its led us to this idiotic shadowlands mess.
I mean, it makes sense if they put effort into it, because IRL anything that is too rigid tends to chaos/loss (eg energy in a system) and anything too unstable seeks to become stable (eg radioactive isotopes).
So “Fel” is like radioactive isotopes and “Arcane” is entropic, which allows for the flexibility of fel and the instability of arcane to retain coherent in the older lore.
Dude, stop doing the writer’s work for them. You should be getting paid for this. You remind me of Bellular. You’re putting way more thought into this than anyone who actually wrote this. I respect you, but I promise you Blizzard isnt as smart as you are.
Flattery gets you everywhere in life but there has to be someone with a pseudo encyclopedic knowledge of largely useless information like me on the team
Trying to imagine how the mage schools would get fitted into that suggested elemental revamp. Arcane stays as-is, but fire and frost? Maybe fire could be Elemental and Frost would be Nature, but it still seems hella weird. And the class design is supposed to allow you to keep your uncasted schools available if one gets kicked, so I think sticking both fire and frost into the same thing would be a nonstarter.
Edit: Maybe fire could go into Fel since I think the belf blood mages were supposed to be dipping toes into demon magic as an explanation for Fireball and Flamestrike, but it still seems off.
I dont get why we’re trying to make this make sense anymore. Elune let her kids’ souls explode because she’s an idiot. The devs are too drunk to notice why none of this makes sense. What is left to salvage from this short of a reboot?
Ice is a type of water, ergo just having “Elemental” magic. Lightning IRL is traditionally attributed in the West and a lot of Not-Asia otherwise to either Fire or Air, but that’s why just having an Elemental School is easier.
In this case then divide Elemental into four schools: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.
I know this isn’t relevant to WoW, but what do Asian cultures prescribe lightning? Is it considered something holy, more like what the game shows to be the light?
Depending on tradition, and there’s a lot, but it’s attributed say to Metal (because on the logic of conductivity) or Fire (e.g. Chinese Wuxing as one of the ming) or its own thing (because literally summoned from the heavens).
Because blizzard has not clearly laid out how the gods and pantheons of each realm can/do interact with another, and its really really REALLY bad that they are not becuase right now, each pantheon can interact with other realms exactly the right amount as needed and it makes for bad writing.
For example, here is just a quick list of inconsistencies in the power levels, and ability to interact across realms in wow.
Titans the pantheon of order, can reside in reality with out any issues, and can even shape it, while the void lords had to expend most of their energy to throw the old gods into reality to try and corrupt a titan.
Traveling between realms seems to requier massive amounts of power and energy as even elune struggled to communicate to us and had to use an avatar, yet sylvannas can break a crown and rip open a massive 2 way portal to the shadowlands.
The light was able to invade the shadowlands directly with out anywarning and in a very direct and specific location, yet the legion and or disorder can not spawn direclty on azeroth and requiered a crap ton of magic in order to even find it.
The pantheon of some realms seem to be tied directly to their realm and can not leave it or our bound to it, yet the pantheon of order, the titan, can. is the realm of order just on auto pilot?
Blizzard tried to creat cosmic lore, but the issue is, the way they are doing it is like trying to change the tire on a car while it moving. They need to stop, lay out the rules and laws of this cosmic order they are trying to make, and sucking at, and then go forward with it.
but there has to be someone with a pseudo encyclopedic knowledge of largely useless information like me on the team