Listen, all that is requested is one major storyline -in game- where humans do not get the last laugh. It’s not hard to ask for.
Also not having the Forsaken getting to do the damage. They’re still grounded from the director fanboying too hard for Sylvanas and need to spend at least 10 years in the basement.
Not hard, but not realistic you realize. Even removing the fact Humans and Orcs are the faces of the series…Humanity is the principle audience of the game. You’re always going to have Human antagonists like the Scarlet Crusade or Lady Ashvane in the game…but it’s going to be other Humans putting down the hurt.
There’s never going to be a moment when the Trolls, Goblins, Tauren, hell…even any flavor of elf you care to name…there’s never going to be a moment where those races will get the moral high ground over Stormwind. We got close with Wrath era Varian. But they decided to de-escalate the conflict that would have ended with players in real life hunting each other down in the corridors at Blizzcon by making Varian more and more reasonable while Garrosh got more and more pants on head crazy.
And with the next two rulers of Stormwind being literal Human Male Paladins…
I’m sorry to crush what ought to be a very reasonable request, but unfortunately Humanity in WoW has gotten a bit too homogeneous. Both Gilneas and Stromgarde are functionally satellite kingdoms to Stormwind, and Lordaeron’s on the Red side now. Unless War Within introduces some new Human kingdom that can wield the villain bat, I don’t see there ever being a point where Humans don’t “get the last laugh”.
Sir, I actually did that raid, I don’t think she qualifies as human anymore.
I mean, there is a rumor about that ‘Other side of planet continent’ being ruled by some light emperor.
But honestly my view of them will be influenced by the guys in that hole in the ground in WW since if they’re just light aligned dudes finally coming out (and having growing pains for it) because of a void invasion, I’m still going to vote Turalyon gets Garrosh-batted as a fair trade for MoP and BFA. It’s easy to make humans the antagonist since you can easily have humans be their foil. SW just has an episode of going off that cliff wrath era Varion ran them towards and needing to be slapped back into place by Jaina and Anduin.
I am with Lohkash.
Also, this idea that Turalyon should get to be exempt from being villain batted for being ‘An OG character from the RTS days’ is honestly silly.
Yeah, he’s that, he’s also a individual from a time when the Alliance was much less diverse and he’s been shown to be very zealous. It’s not nearly as far of a leap as people think for him to do what he thinks is right to the detriment of the many, and then when he gets pushback pull a Garrosh and plant his feet to double down and incite greater issues.
More importantly. Turalyon being an OG from the RTS days would make this more impactful since unlike Garrosh, he’s not just a aggressive man made of bodybuilder and puddy. He’s someone we saw as the hero, but is now opposing us because not everyone fits a narrow view. It would also provide great tension in story with characters like Velen, Windrunner, Anduin and probably Tess, Malfurion and more.
I’m just tired of the golden haired Light boys™ being corrupted. I’m so tired. Please, please leave Turalyon alone.
Is it really corruption, however, if it’s a case of same character, different world?
Whew, that was a lot to catch up on.
As far as what we’re going to see:
Everyone knew we could expect Green Jesus as soon as Metzen was back at the table. It’s not even a surprise. He’ll probably be light in WW and then ramp up a bit in the next 2. We will see no other Orcs. If we do, they’ll also likely be Metzen.
We are probably going to see mostly Humans, Dwarves, Void/Blood Elves, Orcs, Forsaken in this expac. If they spotlight any other races, I’ll be surprised. And if it’s an allied race, don’t expect to ever see that again. This also includes Pandaren. We’re getting the remix, but we’re never going to have another original Pandaren spotlight. Blizz has forgotten they exist as far as expac characters. And any other leaders besides the favored few are just going to be the ones who stand around a table, mute…or possibly sit on a floor somewhere.
Turalyon’s treatment of Allerya really didn’t age well, but he must be somebody’s favorite boy, so despite his actions, they’re really trying hard to put the villain bat squarely on the victim here: Alleria the bad mother.
Anduin is Arthas 2: Electric Boogaloo.
At this point as far as land claim, I don’t think it really matters. If Turalyon can be in SMC unhindered (while his wife is basically told SMC is a sundown town for her - let that sink in), it doesn’t matter who owns what because it’s all the same picture. Turalyon will be in UC next. Then traipsing through Org. The only benefit I see to this is that I can now have all the reason for Horde Kirsy to be in SW. Thanks, Blizz. She really likes it there.
It’s just a theory (a game theory!) of mine, but I think Sanduin’s messy break-up with the Light has to do with him freeing himself from Zoval’s control.
His two Dad’s didn’t just miraculously appear, he says several times before being converted, “The Light is with me, even here.”. That was the Light, pushing him power to break the Jailer’s control.
He found out that the hard way when he realised most of the powerful, useful souls that got sent to the Maw were all used up, to make more Mawsworn, weapons, and anima to power it all.
Despite everything, his father got snuffed out and will never know peace. Saurfang died for nothing and likely his son, being a Death Knight, likely ended up in the Maw too.
The Light lied to him, every step of the way, to get him to fight for it, and Aerin, the Dwarf he fell in love with and who died in his arms, likely either suffered the same fate or likely went to Bastion and got mind-wiped by the Kool-Aid Paragon, at best.
What’s the point in faith if you’re going into the blender anyways?
Also
Reminder that Jaina is also our token scaly/Dragonslayer. Meditate on that…
Just as you think Turalyon being immune to the villain bat is silly, I think that villain batting him because “let the other side suffer an old character turning against them” is just as silly.
I agree that the Alliance should have a villain for the Horde to oppose without reservation, but I don’t think villain-batting Turalyon will do that. In fact, I think picking Turalyon will just create the kind of anger and pushback that will poison discussions and lead to the circular logic of “see, human fans won’t accept anything”.
He’s also shown to let go of that zealotry and prejudice in literally every single case it’s come up.
But he would be “just an aggressive man made of Light and zealotry” if they did that. Look at the recent incarnations of the Scarlet Crusade - they’ve always been evil, but they’ve slowly lost any bit of depth to that evil they used to have in favor of “look, they’re Light and they’re villains!” Why would Turalyon the Light Zealot be treated any differently by the same writers? How would that Turalyon the Light Zealot come to be while keeping the above accepting Turalyon in mind as the starting point?
Then he’d be a real mirror to Hellscream - the OG name, but functionally a completely separate character whose only role is to trash the name’s legacy.
I don’t think that this would outweigh the great story potential Turalyon has with these characters when not being villain-batted.
Turalyon is in a good place, story-wise - as a person always striving to do good (as a role model for supporters), but who isn’t infallible and makes mistakes, even if he tries to fix them (so he can be disagreed with, for non-supporters, without the story guilt-tripping players over it like when disagreeing with Anduin). I think demanding a flawed character dive off the cliff into villain territory is a bad idea, and is how we’ll get stuck with the dichotomy of characters being either ‘100% right and if you disagree you’re just ignorant or misguided’ (again, Anduin), or ‘that character did something bad so let’s just turn them into a full villain’.
It’s also about providing the horde players who had to suffer through the garbage of BfA a nice moment of triumph.
You have any idea how genuinely irksome it is to start playing this game in Cata, decide you enjoy trolls in game because their lore was cool, only for Blizzard to mockingly tease you with a nice moment of Vol’jin as Warchief only to off him to make Alliance feel better for offing Varian and to put a Director’s body pillow in as warchief? THen on top of it, they grant you something seemingly interesting in BfA with playable Zandalari and a storyline on that continent only for Blizz to write humans in crapping on everything without any consequence?
I’m not going to be inclined to ever say I don’t think a major Alliance character should be shamelessly villain batted, and a character from one of the groups that’s had everything positive shoveled to it on a silver platter story and writing wise. I don’t want Tyrande being villain batted cause Blizzard cant handle writing that in a way that wont be horrible. I don’t want Alleria villain batted. Villain bat the boomer Dogmatic paladin and give his willingness to let go of his zealotry a write off similar to Garrosh’s scene in Stonetalon.
On top of the fact that the only other race in this game recently who has gotten to enjoy a high point without interruption is the Night Elves, and that’s probably only because it happened 1 patch ago.
What if we compromised and had a Horde character say “GO GET 'EM, ANDY!” any time Anduin did something?
And that patch happened entirely without fighting the Horde.
(Which a lot of fans aren’t too happy about - and I don’t think Amirdrassil solves any of the night elf issues with the Horde, either, but it was a good story by itself.)
So if that’s the example of the kind of story that’s needed, then why demand a specific Alliance character get their unique traits retconned so that they can be made into a generic villain? Why not ask for an unsullied positive troll story instead?
For example, I’d love for the next expac, as an underground setting, to heavily feature the Dark Trolls with the Zandalari featuring heavily as the Player Character representatives negotiating with them. As much as I love the datamined Arathi, I feel that a Dark Troll faction and zone would be more fitting.
And after some back-and-forths in datamining, I’m hoping that Talanji spotted in the Harronir encampment will be just that, and not a placeholder as feared.
Nah. With our luck it’s going to be the Stalewind humans show in what should be a Dwarf themed expansion with Thrall showing up to engage in BfA tier ‘Muh orc pain’
I just want playable Ethereals in Midnight.
You know i changed my mind about humans never taking Ls in game, having your most significant faith leaders overtly defect to the void is an oof. Like seriously, Archbishop Benedictus and Bishop Farthing were both leaders of the Twilight’s Hammer and Lord Stormsong was evil from the get go. Brother Pike stepped in for Kul Tiras but who does the Church of the Holy Light even have anymore?
Alonsus Faol is back I guess but he’s an undead in Lordaeron and exactly where I want him to be (Cmon, let the Forsaken have ONE hero of Old Lordaeron. Nathanos doesn’t count)
I’m still hoping that someday the PC will stumble across a Forsaken Natalie Seline in Lordaeron, who gives a short explanation of “Hmm, it seems the preservation spells I cast on my body were not as long-lasting as I had hoped” and then goes about leading the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow in full Forsaken style.
That would be amazing frankly, seeing her as a human in legion was a definite letdown, such a great opportunity to raise her as Forsaken was squandered!
My unpopular opinions from this long thread chain for people to yell at me later :