Almost zero horde characters. and the ‘horde’ characters that exist are the peace loving type that just talk to jaina and anduin.
All of the zones are alliance theme’d as well. besides maldraxxas. One of the covineates should have at least been an elemental plan with open fields and looked similar to the barrens, mulgore and naggrand so the rustic types could feel at home.
Instead we got the, Paladin and holy light priest zone
The scourge zone
The night elf, farries and fae, wild gods, yesera zone
and the castles and nobles zone.
All of which are very much alliance theme’d.
I’m not all that concerned about Zone aesthetics, so much a I am more than a little frustrated at the total lack of relevance Shamanistic or Spirit Worshipping cultures have in this setting. Especially with it seeming like its very unlikely that Baine (one of the two Horde reps we have, and the main one of the single most spirit worshipping PC race) is likely not going to get a personal story in this expac. Rather, he’s likely going to sit over at the base of the stairs with Thrall, away from all the important people doing important things … pining for Anduin … all expansion.
Its a wee bit annoying we seem to be getting another “running away from the consequences of villain batting fun” expac where established Horde lore is being undermined. WoD 2.0 anyone?
I mean the real issue is that Shaman were not used at all in the thematic construction of the Shadowlands, even to sustain the portals to the Shadowlands (instead using Death Knight Shadow Mages, lol).
Bastion isn’t Light for the hundredth time T.T
Yes. Which should have Undead/Forsaken plot development and yet here we are.
Half of Horde is Wild Gods too whether directly (Trolls, Vulpera) or indirectly (Orcs, Tauren).
The problem is that NONE of Ardenweald has ecological diversity. There is not “Ocean” zone for Aquatic Wild Gods (that could’ve had beaches and palm trees like some Troll zones), there is zero Desert zone for that biome (again, Deserts like the Barrens, Tanaris where the Farraki are, etc) and there is not plateau/grasslands (like Mulgore, or Nagrand), and not even a damn JUNGLE for crying out loud.
We see what happens when a Wild God’s world is destroyed before they can be revived with Droman Aliothe. She was allowed to be revived but stayed in Ardenweald.
What happened to all the Aquatic Wild Gods of her world >_>
Where is Gral supposed to swim I ask you. <_<
The Tirna Trees should’ve been:
Tunda
Taiga (Swamp)
Grasslands
Plateaus
Desert
Tropical Forest (Jungle)
Deciduous Forest
Warm Ocean
Cold Ocean
River/Lakes
This is Castlevania and San’layn slander and I will not stand for it.
In an ideal world, Ardenweald would’ve been divided into three sections, with a giant “moat” around the Heart of the Forest:
One section would’ve had Jungle + Swamp leading into the “warm ocean” part of the moat around the Heart
One section would’ve had Deciduous Forest + Grasslands, leading into the Lake/River part of the moat around the Heart
One section would’ve had Desert + Tundra (divided by a mountain range maybe) + Cold Ocean part of the moat around the Heart
Instead we got Magical European Dark Deciduous Forest Number Three Hundred And Forty-Three, with zero aquatic, desert, grassland, or otherwise subzones, as the interdimensional cosmic afterlife for nature.
And in the same ideal world, there is already Forsaken development in Maldraxxus given IT IS THE BIRTHPLACE OF NECROMANCY THAT IS THE CAUSE OF THEIR EXISTENCE but alas! Alas.
People throw shade at the Alliance for being generic but there’s a secret, underappreciated superpower that comes with being generic: You fit in well no matter the situation and context.
I mean. Really? The Alliance has had almost an exclusively antagonistic and very shallow relationship with the Death Cosmology up until now. The Horde has several core cultures that revolve around ancestral spirit worship or the Loa of Death. And that’s not even including the literal race of Dead people that could (and should) have been easily incorporated into a Land of Dead expansion. So, just like with the BEs and Forsaken against Arthas, their own murderer. Just like the MU Orcs in the majority of Outlands, their own planet. Just like the Earthen Ring against the Firelands in Cata, y’know … the Horde race built “Element Balancing” Neutral faction. And just like the MU Orcish people AGAIN against KJ … its less "The Horde “doesn’t fit” so much as “Blizz just wipes away what relevance we should have … to hide in their safespace of the Alliance”.
Like truly, when going into the SLs, did you really think that one of the four primary actors we’d be dealing with would be another Fey-Wild like Emerald Dream where NE Druids especially would find themselves quite at home? That seems less “them fitting the setting”, and more “the setting being made to fit them”.
The Alliance’s relationship with the Scourge has considerably more depth than you’re giving credit for, even though it’s an antagonistic relationship. In fact, with the Jailer being the ultimate power behind the Scourge, the Alliance has a far stronger connection to this expansion than anyone else.
Its exclusively an antagonistic relationship. And that does not mean they don’t have relevance in the current Meta-Narrative of the Jailor, but that doesn’t exactly give them any relationship or relevance with the lands or spirits of the dead PRIOR to that. While the Horde, in many ways, have … but find zero relevance in Blizz’s current imagining. Which is why we keep seeing threads like this one. As they absolutely should.
EDIT: And as Sarm said, I’m not sure WHY Humanities antagonism with the creator of Arthas would ultimately result in them having more relevance than the PC race who was literally created and enslaved by him?
I’m not going to say the alliance would have 0 narrative connection to the scourge, but them over the forsaken? That just sounds bizarre to me.
You don’t get more intimately affected than being a direct casualty and post-death press-ganged servant and permanently mentally marred for the effort. A living human might have had a chance to flee, but a forsaken character can’t escape themself.
The Forsaken would have a stronger basis if they had actually ever been an anti-Scourge force in any functional capacity instead of being a glorified Scourge proxy for most of their existence
The depth of the Alliance’s relationship with the Scourge comes from the fact that the Scourge is basically an “anti-Alliance” in terms of what it was created to do as well as its aesthetics, not to mention where it got the bulk of its forces.
You can even see this in the Scourge emblem, which straight up has frozen Alliance lions on it:
While I would have liked if Blizzard gave them more of a positive focus in WotLK myself, I don’t think them being anti-anything is necessary when their very existence is a result of the scourge’s corruption.
Maybe if they actually were in conflict with the nature of their own existence in some way, given that the Scourge/Jailer are antagonistic forces that we are supposed to be in conflict with. You can’t have the Forsaken take the lead against those factions when their actions suggest they have more in common than they have differences.
Like, if the Forsaken took the lead in WotLK in a way that’s consistent with their prior characterization it would have taken the form of the Forsaken poaching Scourge commanders/techniques/technology to use for themselves and then using it against the Scourge’s enemies.
Fighting a faction of undead slavers who want to take over the world loses some of its thematic luster when you are also playing as a faction of undead slavers who want to take over the world.
I mean, they were? They just never got nearly the same level of attention than the Alliance Pali crowd did in that story. Yes, that investment in that story for them took on the form of a personal vendetta against Arthas, but that was their whole gimmick in WC3. In fact, many Forsaken and BE posters were very upset in WotLK that their races weren’t allowed the relevance they should have had in his downfall. Its not that they didn’t have “relevance”, its that they were denied it by Blizz. They had just as much as Humanity did.
And, even if what you were saying was true (its not, the symbol of the Scourge using the Lions is obvious because of Arthas being in charge) … all you’ve done is prove that the Alliance has relevance in the Lich King storyline. And by extension, the conflict against the Jailor. It does not however prove that they have MORE relevance than the Forsaken, who were both created and enslaved by both Arthas and the Jailor. Its merely that one group is being allowed to act on their relevance to that story, and the other is not. This actually also does apply to the Sylvanas story as well. Since y’know, she used, betrayed, and left homeless the Forsaken, thus making them VERY relevant in her fate. But, they are super unlikely to have any part in this story or her consequences.
Bastion, at first blush, also resembles a popular media depiction of heaven: idyllic fields and glades amidst the clouds inhabited by winged humans in togas. Many priest and paladin abilities allow your character to sprout light wings and one Holy priest ability turns you into a Spirit Healer, which are confirmed to be Kyrians.
The Kyrian gear consists of pretty much nothing but golds, pastel blues, and whites as well as lots of feathered wing and halo imagery. Again, all stuff associated with pop culture depictions of angels and the priest/paladin class.
Before the revelation that any of the Covenant abilities dealt arcane damage, names Shackle the Unworthy, Elysian Decree, Radiant Spark, Divine Toll, Boon of the Ascended, Echoing Reprimand, Scouring Tithe, are invoking a lot of Christian religious terminology commonly associated with priests and paladins.
The Church of the Light in Warcraft has strong associations with concepts of law, order, conviction, justice, and Paladins devoting themselves to a higher cause this is all over the story of the zone/covenant.
Like honestly, if you’d put this image in most any fictional work…
People would assume its Heaven.
The relationship is less overt/textual and more thematic/subtextual. Similar to how Maldraxxus is so painfully aimed with an appeal to Warlock/Death Knight/Forsaken sensibilities, even if someone didn’t tell you outright.
If you spun it a little bit to helping free them from the lich king’s control to wololo-flip some undead units that way, that’d actually sound pretty cool and good. You’re kinda preaching to the choir about the forsaken raising others into undeath, though; I wasn’t fond of that stuff in Cata in the first place.
See, I actually played undead vanilla questing. I remember it pretty vividly in fact, and what I remember was only fighting Scourge in the event that they were in the way of my constant campaigns against the living while I gathered plague ingredients that were not so subtly implied to be intended to create my own Plague of Undeath
“The Forsaken are an anti-Scourge force” was always something that we were told and never shown. What we were shown is that a world in which the Scourge got what it wanted and a world in which the Forsaken got what they wanted were functionally identical.
I mean, even ignoring that the Scourge was a force created to destroy the Alliance and was comprised almost entirely of Alliance archetypes but perverted (Knights and Wizards but Evil, to say nothing of the fact that it literally formed its ranks from the Alliance’s fallen), Arthas being in charge was kind of a really big deal given that every undead in the Scourge was an extension of him in some way.
