I’m still not super fussed about The Spider Queen…because again, we see her people suffering. Her mom had the better head on her thorax, but it’s not that the new Spider Queen was wrong for wanting her mom to do something.
It’s easy to “endure” when you’re high enough not to be begging right at the gate of the palace.
I’m torn.
On the one hand, this is one of Blizzard’s more complicated motivations and I feel like that should be praised and rewarded, on some level, with some patience. I’m inclined to say they’ve earned the right to ask us to see where this goes.
…but at the same time, it is really close to Blizzard’s favorite trope of a woman ruler going berserk (shout out to Sylvanas, Elisandre, the Mantid Empress whose name escapes me, Jaina for a little bit until they forced her to be nice again, probably some others). And it’s not like Post-Scandal Blizzard is any less lazy and timid, they’re just lazy and timid in a different direction.
But shoot, it’s not like they’re going to change anything because of us, so it’s silly to contemplate.
I mean, I’m fighting hard not to dunk on the Arachnophobe mode being implemented but then the first story cinematic is exclusively Spider People.
But I’m trying to at least give Blizzard a fair shake after checking out completely with Shadowlands and just flat out ignoring Dragonflight completely.
Is there a crab version of the cinematic?
I don’t get it, either, but we don’t want another West Side Story-style dance fight to break out around here.
That said, I’d rather have complicated spiders than simple ones.
There’s also the fact we don’t see Mommy Spider die.
I wonder if we’ll be working with her, down the road.
If anyone tries to tell you what happens before the Expansion drops?
I’m more interested in that these Nerubians appear to have stayed out of every major conflict since the Sundering, and given what we saw of the Northrend Nerubians, that’s a very different take on Nerubian politics for this Empire. I’ve seen the Test versions of the quests, but apparently we’re getting a lot more ‘stay awhile and listen’ content, lore books and the like in the Launch version of the War Within that will expand on why this Nerubian Empire has remained in isolation and doubled down on the Old God rejection that makes the Nerubians so unique amongst the descendants of the Aqir.
Well, we may see more of her when we meet the faction-neutral off-shoot of the Nerubians that want to rebel against their tyrannical overlords and have every reason to want to join the Horde or Alliance and would probably fit in well, as the Pandaren and Dracthyr have, but we aren’t getting for some reason so we can have another dwarf instead.
The fact that we are only getting Earthen as an allied race feels like such a colossal misfire for this expansion to me. I have no doubt that some people are pretty excited to check them out, but it would be like an alternate reality where they tried to sell Midnight in a few years by adding Lightforged Draenei or Mechagnomes. It’s a neat feature that appeals to a very narrow subset of players who might “upgrade” from their current race to the fancy new variant, but almost certainly won’t attract new people to go from a human or orc to a dwarf.
And more than anything, it just feels so… lazy in a world where we used to reliably get two new races for an expansion, and already had Battle for Azeroth where Dark Irons were added as one out of eight new playable options. In that light, Earthen just don’t have any kind of “wow!” factor because they are still just a glorified reskin. Even going from the Dracthyr/Evoker addition which had an entirely new class to deal with balancing to this just comes off as cynical and cheap when races are basically 90% cosmetic at this point.
Being able to play as some kind of Nerubian race, though? If it was the new non-spider bipedal ones we’ve seen previews of (which would sidestep the whole arachnophobia issue)… THAT would have instantly convinced me to jump onboard for War Within because it would be something new and unique. Instead of right now, where I’m firmly in the “maybe I’ll be bored enough to buy it for myself around Christmas or my birthday next year” boat.
I’m hoping its a Bait-and-Switch tactic where “You thought it was Bedazzle Dwarves, but it was ME, [Race players have been yelling for for years]!” is the big surprise.
I’m actually in a $100 bet that Haronnir end up a playable race by the end of the War Within, and there’ll be at least two more Allied Races, one for each Mega-Faction, will be brought forwards as a .5 or .7 patch kind of event to keep people playing by grinding.
Hoping Krokul/Broken or Ethereals for the Horde and Mok’nathal or Taunka/Yaungol options for the Horde. I would commit Geneva Suggestions for the Ogres, but alas, its highly unlikely that’ll ever happen.
You know, I wouldn’t be so hot on Harronir either because the model previews make it look like they have a really half-hearted aesthetic with no defining features other than slightly different ears and don’t even provide an interesting silhouette… but part of me has been nursing a secret suspicion about this expansion, that the Arathi faction is being set up as the most obvious one for us to ally with that there will be some late-campaign twist of teaming up with some unlikely, stereotypically “monstrous” faction instead once it’s revealed that Faerin Lothar has a little too much in common with the Scarlet Crusade mentality. Which would, admittedly, be a cool way to reveal a new allied race in the first content patch of TWW.
(I also have not been following the story previews much at all, so that’s just purely based on vibes and nothing else.)
Literally any of these aside from Taunka would’ve been far more noteworthy than Earthen, if you ask me. The fact that Taunka aren’t playable yet is so baffling to me when they would probably require less effort than it took to add Eredar customizations for Draenei.
And I’m still holding out hope for playable Ethereals in Midnight, because that seems like the only option I can think of that would actually tie into the whole theme of the expansion — unless they decide to add proper High Elves, I suppose, but I feel like that falls into the “you don’t need player housing, we already did garrisons” zone at this point with Void Elves now being able to look mostly normal.
If Midnight does let me play as an Ethereal, I’m buying the most expensive version day one, no hesitation whatsoever.
I love Taunka.
While I’m fine with new Dwarves, I wish they’d give us some of the more popular races people keep asking for. It’s like they’re actively avoiding all of those races and giving us things we didn’t ask for.
I know they’re trying to generate excitement through the unexpected, but really just filling the requests for races we asked for would generate a lot more than what they’re giving us.
You think you know what you want but…
I have to endure being called a Ren’dorei by every NPC and story beat. I was born by having to be super best friends with a bunch of Broken.
It’s messed up, but I kind of agree with what they said.
Very often, the audience doesn’t know what they want. Very often, the audience will demand that their wishes be fulfilled exactly as they desire them to be fulfilled and then complain that there was no tension or surprise. I mean, there are stories upon stories about how getting exactly what you want doesn’t make you happy.
I, for example, wanted an expac where the Horde literally have to justify their lives to the rest of Azeroth. And while I still think that’d be cool, that’s just my personal preference and I feel like a lot of people would probably prefer to be killing monsters and getting big swords.
I feel where Blizzard’s statement falls apart is both that it was delivered with a lack of tact and timing and also because while we might not want everything we claim to, we certainly know what we don’t want.
Void elves coming from the Krokul rep remains one of the dumber decisions Blizzard’s made
I hope in midnight they are like, here’s this high elf faction get exalted with them and unlock Krokul
I think you mean:
When you get exalted with this high elf faction, Nobundo appears for some reason and asks the player to help him talk to a faction of man’ari from a planet we’ve never heard of before, who’ve been active Legion agents up to this point but have some flavor text saying they actually never liked bright green and will be happy to join a faction with a better color scheme. But this man’ari faction has been studying Life magic because the Legion wanted to corrupt it or something, and the magic life seed they were experimenting on explodes just as the player arrives and infuses all the man’ari with wild life magic that infuses them and changes them into the krokul model! After freeing them, the player unlocks Lifebound Broken, who use the Krokul model but only in shades of red and green and all of their customization options include leaf-covered skin and giant flowers in place of horns. All their voicelines will be based on plant puns and they’ll have an Australian accent for some reason, but don’t worry folks you have your playable Broken!
Then maybe in several years Blizzard will reluctantly give them options that aren’t covered in plantlife.
/s
I know that’s sarcasm, but the image of Demons getting corrupted with Life Magic and having to deal with not only being cut off from the Fel, and the corruptive entropic magic the Fel was infused with, but now being powered by Life Magic and being changed by that would be fascinating to watch,
Life isn’t some lets all hold hands and sing kumbaya, its as feral, as violent and as destructive as the Fel, but how would the Demons deal with a Magic that’s just as hungry and destructive as the Fel, but doesn’t consume itself over time? An energy that will continuously evolve and adapt, grow and expand, and they have no idea how to handle it because all they’ve ever known, all they’ve ever evolved to deal with, is the finite and consumptive energies of the Fel, and Life will always find a way.
I’d be for that.
Anyway, it’s a fair statement to say that sometimes the player base asks for things that are out in left field and sometimes we don’t know what we want.
I do however feel comfortable in saying no one asked for Bedazzledwarves or wanted them. I’m a Dwarf fan and even I did not ask for them. I will excitedly take them, because they come in blue and I can finally make a Frostborn, which I’ve wanted since Wrath.
This entire Bedazzledwarf race could have been an email.
People would go literally nutso if Blizz had given us playable Nerubians. Rumors we get Harronir, but tbh I really just want Blizz to expand cosmetic options and stories for the already existing playable races instead of adding more.