I’m still expecting for it to be Shaw. I just don’t know why, but I cannot shake this gut feeling that there must be a reason he’s everywhere in this expansion. I could “MAYBE” justify why Nathanos is literally everywhere IF Blizz really intends for him to be Sylvie’s replacement (and Jaina, because so far at least there has been heavy involvement in and by Kul Tiras) … but why Shaw?
If they just needed some military type to be around, Wyrmbane could certainly use some TLC. But instead, Mathias Shaw (the master of Assassins and Spies) is just everywhere this expansion; it is sort of bonkers. And it isn’t as if his presence has amounted to much more than “lock-picking” several times … but yet he’s still just there? I dunno … maybe I’m just overly paranoid about a guy that somehow survived being abducted by a Dread Lord for no conceivable reason.
My theory is Shaw’s around because he’s a terrible spy. Blizzard is shoehorning in Il’gynoth’s whispers wherever they can. For example, Azshara using the Magni as a pawn line. It turned out to not be Magni was a cultist, he was just duped.
So I now see the same for “The boy-king serves at the master’s table. Three lies will he offer you.” The “he” referred to there I think isn’t the “boy-king” (Anduin) at all, but the “master.” And not “master” as in an Old God. But simply spy “master.” As in Shaw. And the three lies just being Shaw being tricked so many times. I.e. one of the lies being that the Horde was marching to Silithus. Not because Shaw intended to lie, but simply because he told that lie to Anduin and the rest because Shaw was tricked. But the lies still lead us to how current events have gone.
I don’t know if Detheroc replacing him and telling lies in his name would count, so I’m having a hard time matching up all three lies. But still, that’s where I’m seeing this.
Great! Then many of you issues with the Goblins should be fixed by someone like Gazlowe taking over the cartel then? I mean, he’s effectively already thrown all semblance of neutrality out the window now (with even his own Greasemonkeys sporting Bilgewater colors). He’s competent; efficient; doesn’t nearly leave the same environmental impact on his surroundings as Wix’s leadership does; he cares for his people; and he’s a damned good boss.
Not only that, he’s got a longer history with the Horde than just about any other Goblin; and even within that short Mechagon intro quest he brought out a more diverse range of positive Goblin personas than we’ve seen since the Bilgewater intro questline (before Gallywix, the harbinger of our destruction, was shoehorned in as our leader for some bizarre reason).
Yes.
If some Horde character in a higher position is there to be the voice of reason then I would not be as concerned.
Like a “Hey none of that now. You are making our shamans and druids very upset.”
But until then it seems Blizz wants me to stomp on them with my morally grey fire giant.
Than we are like of mind on this. It is about time that Gallywix gets some long overdue Karma and the cartel be lead by someone with serious lore and is portrayed as a sympathetic and admirable representation of their race. It will allow for the Bilgewater’s racial narrative to stop stagnating as merely “Gallywix’s Greed Filled Lemmings” … and allow for the race to actually create “more” symbiotic relations with other peoples of this world.
There are no downsides to Blizz replacing Gallywix with Gazlowe as Trade Prince.
He’s also historically more open to having open trade relations with the Alliance; which SHOULD be a trait that you want in a Goblin Horde Racial Leader. ANYONE (both Alliance and Horde) should also be extremely suspicious of a Goblin leader that throws potential profit out the window like being Horde exclusive; its truly unnatural.
No, I’m pointing out that if you decimate and enemy and then make it so they can’t get back on their feet after it leads to a perfect brand of desperation in a populace for an even worse dictator to take control…
I was actually comparing them to WW1 Germany if anything… not that its that close of a fit.
Yes. The night elves have been relegated to the pumpkin patch until we need someone to be slaughtered as a consequence of Anduin’s incompetence or until we raid Elune, whichever comes first.
So much fan fiction on how to exterminate the Horde.
Why punish players for a story they did not write. Players of BOTH factions hated the burning of Teldrassil. If you are using this BAD story just to hate on the horde well I have bad news, Sylvanas will be the raid boss and the Horde will be forgiven AGAIN because they can’t write a different story.
I’m sorry for the fellow night elves who were sacrificed as a an excuse for war, and also for the undead who got their fantasy destroyed, apparently you can’t be evil anymore and have to follow a light raised undead lich king sister.
I think it just stems from frustration.
And what you described is exactly what everyone fears.
It just seems that Blizzard is not afraid to punish the Alliance playerbase to push the Horde narrative but absolutely frightened to punish the Horde for the Alliance narrative.
Hence the Horde bias topic that pops up.
Teldrassil, Oh its horrible, oh the humanity, oh are we the bad guys!
But no! Saurfang feels bad. That makes it alright. Lets fix ourselves! Yey! We are fre- I mean redeemed!
But for the Alliance? Well… the whole scenario becomes an afterschool special as to why vengeance is bad.
I mean the ONE opportunity for vengeance we had was the Darkshore Warfront quest.
In this payback quest we had to lose 2 named characters. Be forced to kill turned Khaldorei for months, Tyrande’s first response to Forsaken is to “let them live” and the whole fight was a giant glorification of Nathanos’ roasting skills.
So yeah. It is pure frustration.
We aren’t allowed to win even on a small scale so it keeps building the frustration more and more until breaking point.
You either quit or you rage.
And can I ask … how exactly is Blizz “pushing” the Horde narrative? We went in a circle. Hell, worse than going in a circle, we regressed and then came back to same spot we started at because Blizz did not want to bother actually putting in the work to rebuild the faction after the first round of villain batting us (so much so that they invented an entire AU for us to puts around in instead).
There is no … real forward momentum here on the Horde story; its just a recycled story bit that Blizz decided it wanted to reuse. What you seem mad about isn’t the fact the Alliance (more specifically the Kaldorei, because … sorry, the Alliance Faction does not have as much to keep them invested in this conflict beyond their affiliation with the NEs) is a “reactive” entity in this story; while the Horde is largely “proactive” … that’s it. That’s the difference.
Neither Faction Narrative is really progressing, its just actions being taken in a cycle; with the only one likely seeing “pushing” or “progression” being Sylvanas herself.
Look I never said it was GOOD narrative.
It is a steaming pile of garbage.
But a big part of this expansion began and still continues to be about the true Horde identity and Blizzard isn’t scared to do something horrific to the Alliance to push that narrative but is frightened out of their mind to do the same to the Horde.
During MoP they were scared they would punish the Horde player too harshly but was this concern ever given the Alliance player?
I don’t think so.
Do you want focus on the Alliance Identity? Because I will agree that THAT narrative is overdue. However, the issue with focusing on the Horde identity in BfA is that Blizz does not seem to really have a concrete grasp of what they want it to be (so they focus on really absract things like “Honor” … with no real forethought put into what that means for each group or individual). But I do agree that the discussion of what the Alliance is should take center stage soon.
I will however say that the potential for a new (very good) Horde identity could result from BfA; but that is in large part due to the potential that comes from the Allied Races themselves (specifically WHO we got). Each race we’ve gotten so far potentially serves to enhance the Racial Fantasies of their corresponding Core Race (subsequently making the RACIAL narratives more important, and possibly breaking down the WC3 monopoly thats starting to really impede the Factions growth).
However, this “potential” (actualized or not) has very little to do with the Faction Conflict itself (or even this stupid rehashed rebellion story thread; or even Saurfang) … but the introduction of new blood that serves to perhaps balance out the Faction thematically. Its an excuse for these peoples to join the Horde, little else (and if thats all that was needed … then this war story could have been done in many different ways to reach that same functional end result).
this is something that i mentioned a few months ago in this thread:
gilneas and theramore have something in common:we had to wait 6 years until we get something out of that.
So we will have to wait 6 years until our nelfs bros gets the same treatement? because 6 years is a damn long time.
i hope we can get that sooner.
so yeah, like i mentioned earlier, maybe we don’t need to punish horde players as long we can get something positive out of it.
Night Elves just need more than a fist pump of a small vid… i would love to see them come back to their roots that they had in WC3. they should be the driving force behind the alliance becoming more than white knight good guys.
As a weird side note … anyone just a little bit bugged about how easy it would have been to make that Nathanos/Primes vs Tyrande/Malf fight more palatable? Like, we’ve seen what Primes are capable of at Andorhal. Their ability to essentially summon an endless stream of Common Val’kyr is an ability that makes them particularly nasty to deal with (on top of their own boosted abilities).
So then Blizz … if you really wanted a Stalling Tactic scenario where Nate was able to hold the line just long enough to rez Sira and Summermoon, why was this core ability of these Primes absent? As far as I remember, only one of the Primes was responsible for rezzing; so why the hell was the other one just not summoning HORDES of the common Val’kyr to hold off the two NE leaders alongside Nate? Rather than it just being this bizarre scenario where Two Primes and Nathanos held off the two demi-gods of the Kaldorei; it would be the two Demi-Gods two-man armying what was such a nightmare to deal with at Andorhal.
Eh. The Alliance version of the fight was against an army of Royal Dreadguard that was with Nathanos and Kaldorei Dark Rangers - probably the very same ones that the Horde player was able to raise in their questing. Alliance version Nathanos couldn’t lay a hit on Tyrande (Horde version is different, where Tyrande is an attackable target).
The additional units make it look a lot less like they’re just fighting an empowered Nathanos. But that doesn’t really make the situation more palatable because Signe is just not attackable in the scenario.
You can’t interact with her, do damage to her, nothing to even put up the illusion that you could actually interrupt her raising the Night Elves. It was just a plot point that was going to happen without Tyrande or Malfurion or the player being involved with it.
I made this following complaint on the Tides of Vengeance PTR Forums (and the Story Forums, too):
Blizzard’s solution?
They simply changed the scenario stage description to:
The Night Elves have three needs, right now. Their homeland, justice, and vengeance. Anduin’s reaction to those needs has ranged from grudging, lukewarm “aid”, to passive hinderance, to active opposition. And none of the Alliance have made a break from him, except Genn’s feeble attempt.
Anyone, of any race, faction, creed, age, gender, whatever, that stands in Tyrande’s way in this hypothetical gets exactly what they deserve, up until we’re bludgeoned beyond recognition with the villain bat, and forced beyond all sanity, logic, reason, and morals to stop her.
