Visiting: Dun Morogh

Lore Story Forum
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This was interesting to play as I really remember 0 about the pre Cata zone. I leveled a Gnome lock to level 20 something in the long long ago but I’d be hard pressed to remember anything specific.

And genuinely this might be the most I’ve enjoyed a starting zone outside of Tirisfal. I’ve already made a topic about Anvilmar I’ll link somewhere and be focusing on the post nursery zone content.

For the duration you’re fighting the Frostmane, Troggs and Dark Iron. The Frostmane do have that weird and frequently trollish problem of having nothing but legitimate greviances. But I kinda get the sense the Dwarves and Gnomes do not feel anything but recoil over this moral dilemma. And it’s honestly kinda refreshing to see the Alliance be completely ruthless bastards.

Seriously there’s no half hearted attempt to justify anything. You just seize on the chaos to destabilize, displace and decimate the locals for no other reason than you can. But of note at least some Dwarves seem to admire their courage. When the Frostmane pull a daring raid and steal rams to be ridden against the Dwarves they’re refered to as brave. They’re still all going to be butchered by the bushel, but I imagine the Dwarves would drink to their tenacity. Granted Dwarves will raise a toast to anything but still.

Also speaking of the quests I liked how many didn’t hand hold me. I appreciated I actually had to figure out to /whistle to get the rams back. And to get to the airfield you’ve to double back and take a left to get to a waiting gyrocopter. Obviously none of this was even remotely difficult to figure out but I’m used to quests hand holding you so thoroughly that I appreciated having to read the text quest and actually think for a few seconds.

The finale was also suitably dramatic. I really hope Blizz stops with the bombing run quests. They were done well approximately once in BC with the Shattrath Skyguard questline and that was because you did it on your flying mount, and had to juke airborne attackers and antiair volleys. Otherwise they’re just at best visually interesting, and at worst frustrating, point and click sidshows that just exist to kill 5 minutes.

Bombing run aside though the Dwarf on Dwarf violence was quite fun. The Darkiron side stepping Bronzebeard airpower by going subterranean is actually a historically useful tactic. I like how I had to rally the troops and have a showdown with their general whom I knocked off his mech.

Then we go to Moria of course. Because if the Dwarf clans are all jake now why TF are the Dark Iron attacking? Having to arrest an Ambassador and march him to court was neat. I liked the banter from the guards and the arguments between the council and general intrigue and conspiracy theme of the story.

All in all I really enjoyed it. But once again I come away ever so perplexed as to why the Alliance insists on making itself the Human Potential show when everyone of Stormwind’s allies are vastly more interesting to talk to.

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My ongoing theory is that every time they use a dwarf character who doesn’t have a flashing Designated Comic Relief Character sign above their heads, they’re genuinely too much fun and Blizzard is afraid it will ruin their Epic Serious Storytelling if characters (and worse, players) steal an iota of joy outside of Designated Comic Relief Beats.

Even Magni, woooons and all, is fun, dagnabit.

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Honestly they’d be if anything more fun to fight.

The use of mortors, musketeers, bomber planes, and battle tanks really gives this cool grabbag feel of “Anything that causes awesome explosions”.

Seriously I don’t think the Horde fights the Dwarves anywhere in BFA. I really wanted to see the Bronzebeards and Dark Iron square off against the Sin’Dorei and Shaldorei.

Be a fun juxtaposition as this time the Horde would be the guys with knights in shining armor, and the Alliance would be the crude dudes with attitude. Elves and Dwarves seem to never like eachother but you don’t ever get to see them fight. Tell me it wouldn’t have been sweet to see a duel between a Nborne Spellsword and DIron Underking? Or a sniper’s duel between a Mountaineer or Farstrider?

Also as an added note it upsets that me that in the years since Wrath there’s never been a proper pilotable Steamtank or Meatwagon. There’s the knock off versions in some EBGs but I always thought it was a bit lame the factions use identical vehicles.

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There’s the Dark Irons and the horrifying demise of… A lot of goblins, but that’s the only really major one I can think of. And I’m not sure if I’m conflating it with the void elves throwing goblins into void portals. Or even if that really happened.

…BFA Alliance really had a strangely pointed grudgematch against goblins, given that goblins were basically supporting cast for all the excessive mustache twirlers.

But seriously, you can’t write a dwarf WITHOUT gusto. And gusto is fun.

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Dun Morogh is probably my favorite Alliance starting zone, for sure. The crunchy snow, the music and just the general atmosphere brings me such a wave of nostalgia that is only matched by Mulgore (my favorite Horde starting area).

There’s something about Dwarves in general that I just love, they’re so boisterous and brash and I love the multi-faceted characters we see coming from them in general. They are one of the few races in the Warcraft universe that doesn’t adhere completely to one ‘archetype’ which makes me love the variety they have to offer.

Bronzebeards are brave and adventurous albeit foolhardy and stubborn, Dark Iron are cunning, scheming and just generally suspicious but the recent glimpses into their structure now that they’ve joined the Alliance have been very welcome. Lastly (and my favorite) the Wildhammer, who are just these incredible WILDLINGS (for lack of a better description) that live in the forests and hills with their gryphons and have even been called ‘savages’ by their troll neighbors.

Dwarves also manage to strike that perfect balance of funny without being cringe but still offering enough heart to take them seriously.

I know this post is about Dun Morogh but I just wanna take every opportunity really to gush about how underappreciated Dwarves are in the story and how they deserve exposure. Like, Moira? Hello? She’s cool as heck guys, what gives?

Anyway yeah, I love Dun Morogh.

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Dun Morogh is a lot of fun. I’ve always enjoyed… Wait a minute.

I don’t mean to derail your thread Ben but I am getting a little tired of being told my favorite playable race isn’t interesting. That said I do think having the Dwarves take the stage for an expansion or two would be a welcome change.

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Well until someone can convince me I’m wrong I can assure you you’re going to be hearing more about it.

I’m also leveling a Worgen warrior through Kul Tiras as I never got through it all in BFA. And having to go to SW from Boralus anytime I need to upgrade my mount skill truly does the place no favors.

SW could’ve been interesting. It threatened to be in Vanilla at least what with the missing king, people’s revolution, corrupt aristocracy and a boy king at the perfect age to be manipulated by schemeing viziers.

But then it turned out the king was fine and doing some bizarre retread of Thrall’s origin. And was a gruff warrior but still had anime protagonist hair and did the ever embarrassing “there are two wolves inside you” thing. The Defias turned out to be completely chaotic evil terrorists with more in common with COBRA than the Bolsheviks or Sons of Liberty. The aristocracy was only greedy because a goth gf dragon was manipulating them and the boy king turned out to be a nicer person than Superman or Jesus Christ.

So. Yeah not much in the way of intrigue there.

Meanwhile the Council of Three Hammers at least was on some borderline GoT court drama. There’s a bunch of 3 foot tall nuclear physicists with laser spider tanks. Purple tiger riding amazon warriors as old as the ancient trees they live in. Crystal goat SPHESS MEHREENS older than some stars. A bunch of tough as nails Bristol dock workers who wandered in from an actual medieval society. And a buncha Victorian werewolf berserkers who appear to be the only ones who figured there should be some aesthetic to their architecture.

So yeah of the bunch I’m really perplexed why SW constantly has the spotlight. You just don’t see this in the Horde. The Orcs might be the lead singer of the band but it makes time for everyone to get their own guitar or drum solo. Blue side the rest are just back up dancers for the Human Potential show. And they don’t even go with the humans who’d at least sing a fun sea shanty.

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I’m not trying to convince you that you are wrong. I just think that you and I have different interests. For example, I do not think that having intrigue of the sake of it is interesting nor do I think that having a nation that is strives to be just and a decent place to live is a bad thing in a story. Quite the opposite because it shows that the people living there have something to fight for. Also, I’ve always enjoyed stories about knights and paladins and would like to see more.

As for Stormwind always being the spotlight that I actually agree with you on to a point. In keeping the original intent of your thread, I would very much like to see the Dwarves take center stage for the Alliances forces. Seeing steam tank and mortar teams supported by riflemen and gryphon riders sounds fantastic. The point where I disagree with you on is that Stormwind needs focus on its day-to-day dealings, citizens, and the house of nobles. There is a lot of potential story material there that could be interesting in a wide variety of ways.

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The climax of the Elwynn Forest storyline is the imprisonment of a very evil gnoll. Oh, and you fight the Defias, who are totally in the wrong, but even they can do no evil on their own and have to be misled by dragons and dreadlords.

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The thing is every problem I’ve with Stormwind is so effortlessly addressed by Kul Tiras that it’s outright frustrating.

Boralus is lived in. There’s puddles and trash scattered about. The taverns seem like they’d smell of stale tobacco smoke and dried, spilled beer and rum. There’s multiple religions, with some worshipping the Light, others venerating the Tidemother, the Druidic Thornspeakers and of course the Cthulu cults which are just bound to spring up if you make that many tentacle statues. There’s an actual sense of culture with folk songs, taboos and superstitions. There’s political conspiracies, a serious crime problem and private companies with startling influence on their society.

Suffice to say they actually feel like humans. Whereas Stormwind just feels very Disney to me. I can understand wanting a version of humanity that is for the most part at their best, like with LotR or Star Trek. But that’s pretty problematic in this setting as they are set against an enemy which is also a player faction and is at least advertised as being at worst anti heroes.

Metzen compared the Alliance to Captain America and the Horde to Wolverine. Which was an excellent idea. Trouble is somewhere down the line SW became this always right and always good faction. So the Horde not only needs to be the aggressor, but also completely out of control barbarians, for the Alliance to fight them.

Nothing illustrates this better than the Horde BFA opener. You sneak through SW to spring Talanji and Zul out’ve the Stockades. And there’s this point where you’re hiding right under Anduin’s nose, and it’s framed as this ‘don’t even breathe’ tense stealth moment.

But- why is it tense? What’s Honest Andy gonna do? Give me a fair trial and humane treatment? Then probably let me out anyway because he see’s the goodness in everyone?

Meanwhile Sylvanas expects me to down this cyanide potion if I’m caught, and that would probably be the best idea. There are fates worse than death and she’ll be happy to educate you on the specifics. A quick death is preferable to incurring the Banshee Queen’s wrath. Or at least the post Legion version of her.

So instead of Captain America and Wolverine it’s Jesus Christ and Darth Vader. Which just doesn’t work because this was never supposed to be Good VS Evil so the Alliance comes off as blithering incompetents and the Horde as twitching psychopaths.

It’s embarrassing for everyone involved and I think you can pinpoint the exact moment the faction conflict went south. It was in Cata when they had an off screen peace treaty so Garrosh could start the war even though Varian declared it in Wrath. That’s when SW became the ‘Do No Wrong’ faction and the narrative has suffered for it ever since.

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I didn’t think of it that way at all. Primarily because Gnomes and Dwarves are, well, Gnomes and Dwarves, and Ice Trolls are giants by comparison. Especially if you play a Gnome on a fresh server, the whole situation becomes outright comical. The Trolls (“the victims”) get crushed beneath an avalanche of squeaking gnome girlies with pink pigtails and anime eyes. And unlike Tauren, who are always portrayed as gentle giants, the Trolls are rather unsympathetic cave dwellers who attack anyone on sight who dares to trespass into their territory.

Even their Vrykul fathers and mothers were utterly perplexed by their lame jokes and generic personalities!

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I mean yeah. They got ran into the mountains by a bunch of drunk Scottish squats and pygmy nuclear physicists.

WTF kinda situation is that? I’d be mad as hell too. One day you’re just chilling then a mortor blows your house up and an arachnid tank shooting lasers vaporizes your friends.

I can see why they’re a touch disagreeable. Particularly after you waltz up and kill their children in cold blood for the crime of inconveniencing an incompetent gnome.

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I’m still amazed that there are a total of four edgy races in this game, and the Alliance somehow got three of them, and they still focus primarily on the vanilla humans.

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Which is so weird. Blizz could have focused on the zealotry of the Lightbound Draenei, the Dark Irons speak for themselves with their history with the other clans, and they could do a few quests about the dangers of the worgen potentially causing another outbreak in a packed city like Stormwind or something along those lines.

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Honestly, I wasn’t sure whether to include the LFD, but with them, it’s 5 edgy races, with Alliance owning 4. The other one I was thinking are the giant man-wolf beasts.

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Interestingly enough, Dark Irons and Void Elves seem to get along decently well. There was a smaller scattering of lines between them in BFA, and when the suicide army happened in Nazmir, Dark Irons and Void Elves stood together, like Humans and Dwarves, and Night Elves and Worgen, and we know those other two pairings are both on excellent terms.

Kind of a shame that Blizzard doesn’t realize (or capitalize on) the fact they’ve got a, ‘Dark Alliance,’ sitting right in front of them. Dark Dwarves, Corrupted Elves, Cursed Humans (Worgen), and Mad Genius Gnomes (Mechagnomes).

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After BFA I’m extremely doubtful they’re ever going to make the Alliance the bad guys, much less even all that questionable.

A conflict over a newly discovered miracle resource is the perfect basis for a morally gray war story. Both sides could have their moments of greed, paranoria, barbarity but also reason and honor.

We also had N’Zoth. And I think it would’ve been so cool if the sword had weakened his prison and he’d instigated the war to demolish resistance to his return. That’s the big 3rd act twist. Then the final act twist is N’Zoth really didn’t do much. The paranoria, the fear of the other, that gnawing whisper telling you to get them before they get you - that wasn’t him. That was already there. He just gave those thoughts an encouraging pat on the back.

That could’ve been a hell of a story. Instead the miracle resource was a red herring that ultimately effected nothing. Seriously it’s never even a plot point in Zandalar, at least Kul Tiras has the Ashvane Co. Azerite Pirate conspiracy thing.

And the leader of the Horde was just in service to the Devil and trying to kill as many people as possible. So, no moral grayness there. Only hilariously after all that we are to forgive her and expect the Horde and Alliance to normalize relations.

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To be fair, our, ‘Dark Alliance,’ in the works isn’t necessarily evil. They’re twists on existing core races of the Alliance, its identity, that are steeped in otherwise taboo or dark practices.

I think they’d make for a good counterpoint within the Alliance, to take the pragmatic path rather than the moral one, to show you cannot rely on morality alone.

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