Welcome to Durotar! Champion, go inflict some violence on the workers to keep them working.
It’s okay, though. We’ll have them all talk like they’re cognitively impaired because that will make inflicting physical trauma to keep the underclass in line hilarious.
Also, cactus apple surprise!
Yeah that’s one of those things that’s fine in a RTS. Lol look the builder units are silly doofuses. We do have fun here.
But then in the context of a living world, ya just start to get a sinking feeling between peons and peasants.
“Did… did they enslave their differently abled citizens?”
The very first proclamation Kael’thas ever made was that Anasterian would be the final king of Quel’Thalas. His regent choosing to respect that, regardless of his personal reluctance to wear a crown, is a pretty strong legal bulwark against opportunists like Lyandra Sunstrider or unrelated nobles with even weaker claims, like the Windrunners.
I guess Alleria could try and sell herself as the rightful ranger-general, but as it stands she’d essentially be campaigning to be leader of the blood elf Farstriders… a job she can’t very well do while Silvermoon’s void ban is in effect.
All peons being like that was an interesting choice to double down on, but while Blizzard has never quite figured out how peasants fit into the Stormwind society (or what the Stormwind society even is beyond A King, Some Dudes, Some Other Dudes, Dude with a mustache, Horatio Lane), they’re pretty adamant about their depiction of peons.
Ironically, I would say that playing the game SHOULD feel like a video game version of playing with your old He-Man action figures, mashing them against each other and going all “Rawr!” “Wham!” “Zap!” “Mwahahaha!”
It’s strange because its obviously one of the ideas they stole from Warhammer.
But their Orks are essentially an invasive fungal ecosystem. Other creatures like goblins, snotlings and squigs grow out of it as well. So there being this kinda weak, dumb Orkoid that exists to build stuff makes sense in that context.
The peons are just weird. And I do think they’re funny and there is such a thing as overthinking. But- it’s still just weird there’s Orc halfwit construction workers.
Top it off with the Horde killing Sira Moonwarden, then raising her, and not only does she join their side but is placed in command of the warfront so the Night Elves only get to defeat a stolen character.
It is hard not to wonder if the Devs were outraged at the Teldrassil blowback and went out of their way to make the fall up as insulting as possible.
And this was after the worst of the stuff got changed by further blowback.
Atleast usually. Part of it depends on the genre. Some games give me the “playing with toys” vibe, such as Mortal Kombat. Something like Telltale games don’t, as those are games focused on showing their narratives. Books aren’t games, so instead of it usually being a good thing that they have that vibe it’s actually the opposite, they usually shouldn’t feel that way.
It’s been touched on in this thread a few times, but WoW has this issue where we kind of whiplash between THE TRAGEDY OF WAR WHERE THERE ARE NO WINNERS ONLY THOSE LEFT BROKEN BUT ALIVE, poop quests, SOULS ANHILATED IN THE MOST PAINFUL AND DARK-GRITTY WAY POSSIBLE IN SUPER HELL and “Something need doing?”.
Thats a thing though, right?
I mean, in the past we said “Lol, neato! Thats the thing from WC3! Memberberries!”
We have not only run out of those things, but they have intentionally moved far away from those things.
What remains is still comic relief. Of course it needs to be done properly, but its necessary. You need to take the medicine with a spoonful of sugar. That said, the game shouldnt feel like it’s lecturing you one second and making fun of you the next. Thats abusive.
Blizzard has, in recent years, had a harder time with this than at other points in the franchise, and part of the problem could be us. Maybe we are a little more mature. Maybe we are a little fried by real life. Maybe a little bit of both?
I would like to see Telgorus Rift expanded into a proper zone for the Void Elves complete with numerous Void-Infused animals for Void Elf Hunters to Tame and Maybe some Void-Infused Demons variants for Void Elf Warlocks to acquire. With an actual Castle instead of a bunch of tents.
My favorite thing was how much more fun the mission table quests sounded.
“Ivar Bloodfang’s worgen are marching on Shadowfang Keep. They’ve been reinforced with Gnomish spider tanks and Kaldorei archers!”
“Holy Ish. Alright we’re going to need to send Lillian Voss with a division of Dreadguards and Goblin sappers. When do we head out? I can’t wait to experience this thrilling battle”
‘Oh you don’t. You’re the Commander. Haven’t you ever heard of delegation? We need you for much more mission critical stuff. Like uh, well some Zandalari kids are playing pranks on the Tortollans and the Vulpera need someone to collect hyena ish. Step to, Commander’.
Commander, you have no time for Worgen…
…You got to get that Turtle to the water!
I’d successfully repressed that memory until you brought it up lol
They should put this on the box for the next expac.
There’s a kind of humor that mixes gracefully with traumatic situations-- that’s the time for the gallows humor and the bleak jokes, which is one of the things I love about forsaken at their best.
But it’s got to be the right sort of joke. Tragedy doesn’t mix well with wacky slapstick.
It depends.
I would use the wacky slap stick to mix it.
I’ve made this comparison before but Fallout is a franchise that does that tight rope walk beautifully.
It’s a series with meaningful things to say about the horrors of war. It’ll interrogate your personal sense of justice and pragmatism. Debate still rages about choices in say New Vegas because they often reflect the player’s authentic worldview.
They also have wacky stuff like a horny brain in jar, a crashed UFO with a picture of Elvis in it, and a gang of rolling pin wielding grandmas in pink dresses.
It just spaces these things out. They do not have Fisto the Robot (guess what he’s for?) next to a harrowing story about the American government performing horrific experiments on political prisoners. These things tend to be far away from eachother.
Whereas WoW kinda sign waves between tones. So one moment you’re being asked to meditate on the horrors of war, and having moments where you recognize the enemy’s inner humanity and refuse to be but pawns in a tyrant’s game.
Then you’re obliged to hop in Mag’Har hamster ball of death and careen gayly down hill. Splattering your fellow thinking, feeling man’s memories of childhood against a tree as you run right over them.
And yet, hearing those things described back to back, I still cant help but chuckle about the hamster ball.
Opps! (/10 Characters)