Okay, this one isn’t anything relating to the giant argument going on right now, but… Why is Crushblow Outpost still around?
During the Vulpera recruitment scenario the Mag’har need help with construction at Crushblow Outpost. The fact that this outpost still exists is baffling to me. It is a location that was set up to fight the Twilight Hammer during the Cataclysm, and is located in the rear-end of the Highlands near no other Horde encampments or towns. The closest thing to a non-military target nearby is a ruined Wildhammer village (That is still ruined). The base is small, served as a staging ground for a conflict that has ended years ago, and I can not imagine it serving much of a useful post since it is so far out of any trade lanes / roads / major overlooks that it could only really serve to keep watch over ruins, and the nearby Ogres who are too far away from any Horde base of operations to serve as a threat.
Yer for some reason the base is still fully manned, has an entire deployment of grunts there and is receiving active improvements after the war. Like… for what reason? It isn’t a Civilian settlement, it’s a military post. The Horde has to have been rather strained after the 4th War, yet they still have the time, resources, and manpower to invest in a base that can’t possibly serve any useful purpose to the Horde? Why? Like there are so many more useful places that work could be going, even in just the Twilight Highlands. Not to mention civilian infrastructure. A tower along the Barrens trade routes, or overlooking the sea near the tip of Durotar … or anywhere else really.
My other major Lore cringe is when the world is assumed to be based on it’s in-game size rather than what we know of it’s in-lore size. Like, we don’t have exact measurements for the lore-size of the world, but we know that regions are far more expansive, and hold far more population than what is shown in game. Like, Ashenvale and the Barrens should both be massive zones, that could take days of in-game travel to just stick to the roads and get through, yet we see entire regions being moved along in the time it would take to walk it over in game, except in the narrative as well.
I can understand the game taking shortcuts here, as having things flow is more important, but I hate it when in the lore narrative and stories that things are put into game-scale as well. It makes things so inconsistent and adds in so much room for debate and talk over people arguing over why didn’t X do Y when they are so close, when narratively those locations should be distant by miles, not yards.
Coming back to OP, I’m not a fan of “X was right” or “X was completely justified” threads.
They tend to always go along the lines of, “Okay so X did this, this, and this, which was terrible, but that’s okay because Y did this, this, and this, which is actually even worse! Therefore it’s okay for us to overlook any of X’s mistakes.”
Baine rebelled against Sylvannus when she raised Derek Proudmoore and planned to use him as a Manchurian Candidate, literally saying “This is too far!”.
Why that was too far and nuking the NElves tree fort wasn’t, I don’t know.
Because if all the leaders of the Horde had turned on Sylvanas when she started going too far the same way they turned on Garrosh, then BfA would have been nipped in the bud during the pre-patch event. For the narrative to work they wanted it to, characters kind of just had to not be there and if they were, just not do things where they might normally have.
Immediately after Teldrassil they knew the Alliance was going to be gunning for the Horde with murderous intentions. Starting a civil war at that moment would have just resulted in their own people being overrun and slaughtered.
By the time Derek was being tortured Anduin was already working with Saurfang and Baine likely had some level of guarantee from backchannel communications that removing Sylvanas from power would result in the Alliance drawing down hostilities.
This may or may not have been part of Baine’s thought process when he later freed Derek Proudmoore, but in the cinematic where Sylvannus raises him into undeath Baine clearly reacts like this is some unspeakable act of evil that is beyond the pale compared to everything done previously.
The emotional narrative is that this is what drives Baine from Sylvannus’ Horde and it works well in that respect, and sure, Baine probably stayed on because he didn’t want to get rekt by the Alliance, I just think it’s cheesy in a metanarrative sense that Baine stayed on after the unnecessary mass genocide while acting like THIS was too much.
Not necessarily. The way BoE Corruption drops go, a momentary drop while clearing trash can pay for months of game time. As it has for me.
I enjoy raiding, but I might have kept it down to 2 or 3 Heroic Raid Ready Alts before 8.3. Just out of what I consider worthwhile. But I don’t mind whipping out more Alts in 8.3 for Heroic Raids. They get gear, they get momentos for their cloak tech tree, and I get a chance at those sweet BoEs. And I meet new folks.
I shutdown alot of other Gold income methods that I loathed, and am doing more Gold income methods I enjoy. The farming is fun, since I enjoy raiding. So the value of time really depends on what you are doing in that time.
The no-so-subtle rapey undertones to the Arthas-Sylvanas dynamic are just way too grimy for me to be on board with Arthas achieving anything at her expense. It’s probably the only suggestion that makes me uncomfortable on here .
Who gets to decide that? Darth Vader blew up planets. Sylvanas burned down a city. Hell, I still see threads and theories about how Garrosh can be redeemed.
For the record, I’m not arguing for an Arthas redemption. At least not one dependent on killing Sylvanas. I’m criticizing the arguments against it, which seems to come down to “I like/dislike this character. Therefore they should live/die.”
People acting like each individual should represent the average stereotype of its race (sorry OP, that includes races being class locked with very few exceptions)
People acting like it is logical for every single faction leader to act like an emotional teenager above favoring a better future despite their potentially strong emotions (looking at some of the faction war “fuel”) here
People acting like a certain race/character is one way based on looks despite every single piece of lore around them being the opposite.
Because a character who made another character’s body do horrifying things against their will shouldn’t be redeemed by killing the person he tormented again.
Arthas isn’t like Illidain who did bad things to stop worse things. Arthas did bad things, then some worse things and then just the worst thinhs. Asking for a redemption arc for him is like asking for one about Gul’Dan. Maybe some unjust stuff drove them to the darkside but they started and kept doing objectively evil ish for their own personal gain and definitely wanted to kill or enslave all life on Azeroth and beyond.
I like the character- as a villain. I’d accept a heroic Arthas if we went to a parallel version of Azeroth like with WoD, where the timelines changed wildly. But the Arthas that killed half a continent? Bit of an ask.
It made things extremely convenient for the narrative that Darth Vader’s redemption included his death.
And by the way, that was Tarkin… not Vader. Vader warned Tarkin that even “the power to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the Force.” In his case it was not even sufficient to to make Leia give up the Rebel Base.
What Tarkin failed to do by direct intimidation and force, Vader obtained by the subtle means of planting a tracker on the Falcon and allowing her to escape. A plan that would have totally succeeded save for “a one in a million” shot.
Honestly, if that was the BfA we got? Where Sylvanas looked badass and possibly heroic, and Anduin looked kinda almost sorta badass (while crying)? So much better. That cinematic did sell me on BfA. The Teldrassil wallpaper we saw at Blizzcon didn’t. It made me ask questions, sure, but banshee Sylvanas, Power Word Healing Bubble Anduin, those sold me.
who helped found and continued to work for the Empire and tried very hard to defend the Death Star and considered it a useful weapon, even if he didn’t think it as impressive as the force.
People were clamoring to see Hux and Kylo Ren redeemed back when they were holding fascist rallies and blowing up entire solar systems. Honestly, nobody is really beyond redemption, and plenty of stories have managed to pull it off.
What concerns me more about an Arthas redemption is that it would simply continue the trend of bad things done by Horde characters/races being unjustified or unforgivable while Alliance characters/races get their misdeeds downplayed, redeemed, or revealed to have been justified in the long run.
Arthas doesn’t get to be redeemed. Hell, Vader doesn’t either. He gets a cool ghost body because the force is an idiot. Same drill for Sylvanas. They’ve done so much that a “lol, I’m sorry, I did a good thing see” is hollow bullcrap. The best either could do is (perma) die well, fighting something worse than themselves.
Arthas went down like the monster he was. It would have been more poetic justice had Sylvanas been there instead of Tyrion, but he was put on the path to oblivion by collective actions of the people he had hurt.
Sylvanas should get the same, regardless of whatever her 4d chess game may or may not be. Save the world, fine. Then die for your massive crimes.
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