I think it’s important to not take IC opinions, those of our own characters and those of others, too…personally? Like, this shouldn’t be causing anyone any OOC anger or upset. It’s all just story, a story that we’re all telling together from multiple angles from a framework that was maybe not constructed in the most solid manner by the writers of a video game. You know?
Sometimes our characters will have a point of view that will be unpopular, even if it’s what we think is the “right” opinion. Sometimes other characters will challenge them on it, even knowing that their character is “wrong” or while agreeing with their character’s point of view OOC. Sometimes other characters will up and decide that our characters should stop breathing and act on it. As long as everyone is playing out their character’s point of view in good faith and not using their character as a mouthpiece for their annoyance with the flimsy structure of the story that Blizzard is telling, it’s all just story. One big collaborative glom that is always going to have a lot of takes and angles, as many as there are participants.
It’s not worth the spoons to be upset over the cats resisting or ignoring being herded in the same direction, or criticizing the directions that they’re running in. The cats are always going to be running in a million directions, that’s the nature of massively collaborative storytelling. The bigger the scale on said story, the more people participating, the less control over how it is interpreted and seen we’re ever going to have.
Honestly I just sort of just… tuned all of Stormwind out - too many OOC drama, too much accusations of stuff going left and right for an entire bloody week; not even the Dracthyr were THIS bad when they came out - neither were Darkfallen as far as I recall.
I had this exact situation happen a few years ago on WRA. My Broken Draenei Shaman was in Stormwind with a few guildies from this military guild he was in and he made a comment about how the Orcs are evil and shouldn’t be trusted. They all immediately turned on him and started threatening him with being court martialed and all these other things for “threatening to break the peace treaty with the Horde”. One of the people threatening him was a Draenei Death Knight of all things. I was just completely blown away by this. I stopped hanging around with the guild after that. It was just a really bizarre response that seemed to completely ignore history with the Horde and why someone may not like them.
Really just feels like the eternal cycle of something new being introduced and people who don’t like it make it their whole personality for a while.
While it’s not as prevalent, I’ll still get IC and sometimes OOC comments about how being a Worgen is filthy and they should be ashamed of being in Worgen form because of being insensitive to other survivors.
So it just wasn’t one conversation. I did the questline recently and took my time with the quest and read it in full. Velen was called by Hatuun and Velen mind you was was not only surprised that Hatuun called him back to Argus, then was angry that he had help from a Man’ari and bound Arza’kal with the Light.
Hatuun was more “You’re an idiot. You call yourself the Prophet, fine. Prove it. Listen to him and help him.”
Velen said. Bet. He only went through with it because Hatuun challenged him.
Second.
The description says that it’s a relic for Draenei. I think by now most people would know what Ata’mal Crystals. Some would know they’re important to the draenei. Might not know what they do. But they’re important.
The kaldorei would know that they’re kind of dangerous and capable of altering Flora and Fauna. If left alone. So it wasn’t just oh he turned a 180. He tested Arzaal, to see if he could prove himself. He wasn’t expecting himself to sacrifice himself to get back something that was thought lost. It was that act by returning the Ata’mal crystal to Velen that made him change his mind. Which surprised Hatuun and made him pause thinking that there was hope.
And it’s not like Arzaal’s group is just sitting there. No they’re raiding Legion compounds and stealing valuable supplies and giving them to the Broken. And some of that is also finding lost Draenei artifacts which you can help with at the end of the questline.
As other folks have already said, being too openly hostile or having radical opinions definitely do get people feeling cagey and, at times, pretty hostile. That being said, I’ve played some more extreme Light-worshippers myself who have been well-received too! It usually comes down to how you plan to bend the lore and making sure to do your research into the Church of the Holy Light.
If you want to play an extremist that will be accepted generally, try and take a look at Wowpedia or some other lore sources to get a general vibe for the Church. A lot of poorly accepted extremist characters often take real life and historical doctrines from religions and just slap them into the game. However, the lore does mention old priestly/paladin bigotries! You could easily play a Paladin who doesn’t like Arcane users like mages or evokers, since that is mentioned in the lore!
As long as you ask OOCly before ICly attacking folks, and are able to ground your character’s more fundamentalist opinions in lore, you should be fine!
