Why were the Worgen sidelined so much in their own city's reclamation?

Lore Story Forum
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tl;dr: Blizz seems to want to abandon the “Cool as hell werewolves” part of the Worgen identity in favor of them just being “British humans with an affliction that’ll die out after a generation or two.” They just made the Heritage questline but arguably worse.

I’m not the only one to point out how disappointing the Reclamation of Gilneas was, I certainly won’t be the last. But I gotta air out my grievances directly here.

Was every facet of the quest bad? No, the cutscene at the end was (mostly) good. The charge through the gates was cool. Going through the same vermin-infested tunnel that Worgen had to escape in the intro quest was a nice little callback. But there were… so many issues all around.

For starters, everyone already agrees that arbitrarily making the Scarlets the enemy we had to fight was just stupid. You didn’t need to have us fight Horde-aligned Forsaken. Just have us fight a splinter cell of Forsaken who didn’t want to cede Gilneas. You already have had us fight rogue Forsaken before, why not have it again?

“Oh but we wouldn’t want to retread the same territory!”

Like how we already had a questline fighting the Scarlets literally last patch? The Forsaken heritage quest? Except there it actually made sense for the Scarlets to be the main antagonists.

But, that disappointment aside, the quest still could have been good! But… it wasn’t. There were far too many missteps. For starters; Why is the Horde there? Why do we have to share reclaiming our city, that we lost TO the Horde… with the Horde? The Forsaken cleaning up Lordaeron was a Horde focused quest, why can’t this be an Alliance focused quest? Why were we fighting alongside Voss and Calia? I love Voss, but she has absolutely no ties to this storyline other than the fact that she knows Tess. It’s possible
that having only her aid with infiltration could have been accepted, but shoehorning Calia, who is already not popular, into the quest is just laughable. Especially when you removed other Worgen characters from the story.

Why were Darius and Lorna Crowley relegated to just background NPCs during the (pitifully short and underwhelming) battle? Why were the founders of the Gilneas Liberation Front not present during Gilneas’ Liberation? Why didn’t they have any dialogue? Darius didn’t have anything to say about him finally freeing the kingdom that he originally rebelled against during the Northgate Rebellion? Not one?

So, all of this is very annoying and frustrating. But it doesn’t end there.

Why were the Kaldorei not really involved in the slightest? Sure, there were a few Night Elf scouts but… really? They didn’t want to help the Gilneans reclaim their land? Not even after Genn defied Anduin specifically to help them reclaim Darkshore from the Horde? The Worgen and Kaldorei have fairly a tight bond because of the origin of the former’s curse. Hell, Gilneas’ first contact with the Alliance after the Wall was built was with the Night Elves! They took them in.

And with that said, let me talk about another missed opportunity that seems to show exactly what Blizzard’s problem with their Worgen writing is.

What do both the Gilneans and the Kaldorei have in common? Druids! Even before the Worgen curse, some Gilneans practiced Druidism in the form of the Old Ways. With the Kaldorei taking them in, and the Worgen curse coming from Druidism, it would very much make sense for Gilneans to embrace a more naturalistic, Druidic culture. Not necessarily replacing their aristocratic Victorian vibe, but more merging it with a werewolf/harvest witch aesthetic. And Blizzard had the perfect way to show that off, to really hammer it home… and they blew it.

In the final stage of the quest, you fight a Scarlet leader, a complete fanatic of the Light, within the same Cathedral that the Worgen player character fully turned in the intro quest. Essentially; The Light did not save them, even in what should have been a sacred place.

Now, the tables have turned; The very same Gilneans who holed up in that Cathedral against an army of ravenous monsters, break into it to fight a different kind of monster; one of fanaticism that embodies the worst parts of the religion that failed to protect them.

And so, what do we see with this? Do we see Genn and the Crowleys tearing their way through rank and file Scarlet troops, showing them that the Light will not save them any more than it saved the Gilneans? Do we see Celestine of the Harvest (another ignored character) decrying the tyrannical belief of the Scarlets, declaring that they are the true beasts? A symbolic battle that shows the new, more nature-tuned Gilneans fully embracing the great strength that is their curse? Showing that, while they needn’t fully abandon their past, they needn’t cling to it, a nd can move on to fully embracing the Worgen curse as a part of their identity? As that very same curse, and the Druidism surrounding it, is the thing that gave them the strength to take back the land they lost?

Nope. We get Calia, the Lightforged (or whatever) undead just… throwing spells at one Scarlet. While Genn and Tess are also kinda there, hitting away.

And at the end of this “battle” (more of a skirmish), what happens? Genn abdicates the throne to Tess. Now, Tess is not a bad character by any stretch. I like her! But with the Worgen heritage quest basically hammering home the fact that she shouldn’t be a Worgen, the fact that that’s something the new racial leader of the Worgen believes is… painful.

Blizz, you already messed up with the Worgen heritage quest by, instead of making it be a “WORGEN, HELL YEAH” quest, like heritage quests should be, it was more of a “Being a Worgen is bad, actually. Don’t do it at all.” Which did not feel good to Worgen players. This was your chance to redeem yourselves. And you gave us a quest where we were effectively sidelined in favor of more humans and the Forsaken.

Yeah, we got Gilneas back. Which is cool. But the entire experience of getting it back was so messy. So short. So full of squandered potential. It feels like you did it out of obligation to just tie up a loose end rather than having an actually decent story to tell.

Honestly, if this is what you were going to gives us, I’d rather you have just not done it at all.

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I’m so glad the questline is getting the hatred it so justly deserves.

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Could not have said it better myself, OP! You hit home on all the points that are wrong with the Gilneas questline.

I hope Blizzard sees all the hate it’s getting and realize we don’t want more crap like that, we want questlines for Worgen that actually show it’s ferocity and how the Gilneans have accepted it into their culture. You know, the way the NPCs all say, “Our curse grants us strength!”

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Honestly I was expecting an actual campaign with various stages. Not “kill crap in graveyard, torch some rats, get some bombs and kill a lightspawn that came from a human”.

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I feel like the lightspawn/Scarlets part of this isn’t done yet. Just in general, not remaining strictly tied to Gilneas. Although I guess it possibly could.

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I could see them as an antagonistic faction in Midnight. Maybe get some recruits from the Arathi we meet in The War Within.

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We yes, its not done yet. The quest bold face tell you “this isn’t the last time we will see the Crusade”.

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I really, genuinely empathize with Worgen fans in regards to this questline, I really do. None of it does justice to the Worgen fantasy (which Blizzard seems to think just boils down to Britishness, for some reason) and after all this time you absolutely were entitled to a big proud homecoming moment that put the emphasis on what sets Gilneas apart from the other Human kingdoms (as you absolutely are entitled to getting an actual Worgen for leader, lol).

However I want to say this. Don’t believe any of it “favored the Forsaken”. It really didn’t. All it did was double down on the insanely harmful tropes Forsaken fans have been vocal about ever since the end of BFA : “Queen Calia”, ambassador of the Good Forsaken Gang nobody likes, leading the Forsaken down a path of Redemption and Fantasy Betrayal For The Sake Of Neutrality nobody asked for.

You know what’s hilarious ? At the end of the questline, Calia says “I will hope that all these efforts have led to at least an understanding of the plights of both Gilneans and the Forsaken”. And for christ’s sake, she’s right, but not for the reasons they had in mind : the Worgen and the Forsaken now basically face the same fundamental narrative issue, one that consists in the writers forcing a new racial direction down the fans’ throat through a sequence of leadership change even though said fans very explicitly refuse that new direction because it goes against their legitimate expectations and the fantasy they were sold initially.

So our plights really are the same. If anything, it should unite Worgen and Forsaken fans in purpose. Let’s collectively ask for the worthy writing and fantasy validation we ARE entitled to instead of turning against other fanbases that frankly don’t have it any better out of bitterness.

(I’m not suggesting that’s what you’re doing btw, just saw a lot of that from other posters)

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As for Tess herself, I feel like she’d be quite easy to fix, cuz she’s still a cool character (and she’s also pretty neat visually, love her design). Make her a Worgen, keep Genn around and we’re off to a good start in that area.

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I liked how the Scarlet Crusade was like “Nya-Haha! Dig up their dead and burn their bones! We’re dastardly!”.

Anyway, I kind of felt like a mercinary in the whole thing. The check cleared, so we’re retaking Gilneas today.

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They’re trying to make the Varian lightning strike twice where they shove an unpopular character down our throats until they can gaslight us into forgetting we hate them.

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Ooo, so we’re gonna kill Calia to make people like her?!?

Yay, I’m okay with that, let us all organize a memorial to celebrate honor her demise.

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She will likely live(or unlive) until the end of World of Warcraft.

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Nah, she’s a Horde character. They have a habit of dying. She isn’t a Team Blue character, who just retires because they’re tired of being in the story so much.

I understand your confusion though. She does come across as very Alliance.

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Sure, we’ve heard that before with many things. I’d just rather this not turn into the “X was merely a setback” meme they’ve been previously.

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I’m reminded of how the Forsaken heritage quest had them walking under the lake, a unique thing that only they could do because they’re undead. This questline should have had something uniquely worgen that they did in that same vein.

Or if they wanted to give the curse some danger, have Tess accidentally get bitten in the chaos of a fight. That would also solve the problem of the worgen racial leader not being a worgen.

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Blizzard was never going to do this for 2 reasons:

  1. They hate worgen. They have made this clear since their inception where they have cut so much worgen content, and then BfA destroyed any and all racial pride with the heritage quest.

  2. This Gilneas story was more about showing that the Forsaken are good now, and that under Calia they have tutned a new leaf. Cause Blizzard wants to force this stupid Calia crap on us, and this everyone is friends now narrative that hasn’t been earned at all.

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Your comment doesnt really work when you just got talking about varian dying. Thrall legit retired too at one point. If anything both factions need more retirees instead of new writers killing them off to push some half baked narrative theyll never finish a la vol’jin.

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I like how you compare one Varian to all the Horde characters killed off and think they are equal.

Well done.

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Cairne, vol’jin, garrosh. Who am I missing? Is the kind of story you want the kind where we get exact parity in every single thing and people need to die in stupid ways to appease the other side? Cause thats how we get Admiral Taylor dying in a dumb throwaway questline and Nazgrim becomes a raid boss.

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