It’s definitely identifiable judging from the Korthia intro, to the point that we’re heroes of prophecy. The problem is they don’t care enough about worldbuilding to explore that bit of information, or are deliberately withholding it until it’s no longer relevant.
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You know I brought up Mass Effect earlier and I think that franchise and Warcraft suffer from similar ailments.
In that both seem to believe the big over the top apocalyptic threats are what got people on board with the setting. When it was the fascinating world building, interesting races and nations, and fun characters that actually brought people to the table. And breaking all that just for a showy ending is how you kill a franchise.
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I actually really like Zovaal. He’s just straight up EVIL. When I think of the power behind the Lich King, I don’t think of it as some sort of “Morally grey” anti hero or whatever.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/857832082448449536/863513458326372372/image0.png
When I think of some sort of King of Death. I think of this guy. Pure evil. What they need to do with Zovaal is just make him do some destruction. Make him cool. Depth isn’t really needed.
The Warcraft universe is relatively small to the point the Legion was already boasting that it has nearly destroyed most of the know universe by the Illidan novel. I think they destroyed about 10-15,000 thousand planets.
We’ve had no shortage of pure evil villains. We literally just had one with N’Zoth. Maybe it’ll turn out he’s just a family man trying to meet his mind enslavement quota this epoch to make ends meet for his quintillion shoggoth babies. But until such a time I think that was pure evil done better. Because at least we got a glimpse of what would befall the Capitols should we yield to Squidworst’s maddening whispers.
And I get we see the Jailor tormenting souls. But again he’s torturing vague ghostly shapes. And I can’t empathize with the loose suggestion of a person because I don’t know how it feels pain. Or even if it’s in pain. For all I know some of that may be consenting fun I’ve barged into.
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We don’t have numbers for populations. But, it would not matter anyway. Even if millions died throughout the entire Fourth War it would be a drop in the bucket when we’re talking about a intergalactic scale.
And now comes the fun part: If such a death count is actually significant enough to get the attention of the Jailer or make a significant change in the Shadowlands, that means the universe is comically small…which then begs the question what the army of the Burning Legion was doing throughout the Azeroth-invasion. Because if a death toll of a few millions is significant, that means most planets don’t even have life on them…meaning the Legion was doing what? Invading gas giants? Lifeless rocks?
It doesn’t matter from which angle we look at it. There’s always a plot hole or some logical problem coming up. And that’s the funny thing about this entire situation.
Now to be fair there is one angle, where all of this does make some sense: If both the Shadowlands and the Burning Legion were only active in the “Azeroth-galaxy”. But, the problem is dialogue in the game does not support this idea as some talk about the multiverse and Kil’jaeden himself talks about a crusade to the edge of creation meaning the end of the universe.
There was actually a thread a while back (I think you can no longer access it, because it was in the old one) where someone speculated about the population of Stormwind using Varian’s line of “200 ships at my disposal” from the one MoP-cinematic. He used a variety of metrics (like the Royal Navy’s rating system for ships) and concluded that there were around 45,000-50,000 people serving in the navy. In turn Stormwind would need a population of at least six million to support such a fleet…and that’s only the fleet because as we know Stormwind also fields the largest army. So we can probably triple the number.
Which is nothing. Not even on a galactic scale considering that the Milky Way alone has around 100-400 billion planets.
The Legion wiped out most of the universe in its millennia of crusading so I can buy that there’s few inhabited worlds left.
“Few” is relative though when talking about the entire universe so Teldrassil would still have been an infinitely small drop in the bucket.
1 Like
Preach, brother. Preach.
Dude. I recently did a “Kaldorei Run”. I’m almost done with it. Started in late April with a Level 1 night elf hunter. After Teldrassil, I stopped myself from levelling every 5 levels until I got to the next zone: Teldrassil > Darkshore > Ashenvale > Desolace > Feralas > Felwood > Winterpsring > Hyjal
About halfway through Hyjal now.
I gotta say: It’s good.
My friends ask me “why do you pay $15/mo for a game you hate?” Truthfully, because WoW is now 3.5 games: Retail, Retail Past Expansions, Classic, and Classic BC. I’ve had a blast just roleplaying and leveling. It’s not new content, but it’s good content. Just a relaxing stroll. No one is shoving “YOU GOTTA COLLECT THIS MACGUFFIN TO STOP THIS NEW WORLD ENDING THREAT AND DO IT RIGHT NOW HOLY HELL WHAT ARE YOU WATING FOR WHY ARE YOU EVEN READING THIS QUEST EVEN?!” down my throat.
I helped a dwarf around an archaeological site. I beat up some demolishers. I infiltrated a demonic cave. Some furbolgs needed help, and I helped them. Ragnaros is now climbing Hyjal, and I’m trying to stop him.
It’s been nice, and I’m trying to figure out what race or class I’m gonna do next.
Hunter! Level through each zone Nessingwary appears in. Goblin! Azshara + every Steamwheedle Zone. Tauren seems fun! I haven’t done a lot of Horde content. Maybe toss in some Taunka for good measure.
It’s still there, I just wish the modern game reflected it.
EDIT: I turned off as much quest help as I could. Turned off my full-map quest indicators. Found a macro to hide my minimap. Found a macro to hide my message window. It’s forcing me to read things and explore and make mistakes and hate myself and feel good when I figure it out. Hell, a few nights ago, I was told to find some zone through a cave on the south side of the zone, so I whipped out my Eagle Eye to scout potential locations before moving on. It’s nice.
EDIT 2 Electric Boogaloo: Get drunk and put on your favorite movies/shows while leveling. Divine.
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Leveling is probably my favorite component of any RPG. And my interest kinda wanes after max level. There’s countless versions of Tamriel that must’ve fallen to Dagon or Alduin by now because the chosen hero of the land stood still forever after maxing their main offensive skill.
WoW was able to delay that feeling with gear. And I actually did conceptually like the idea of building your own artifact in SL. But I was imagining something like a Jedi putting together his lightsaber. And when I finally saddled up with enough ash to get my damn magic necklace I felt more like I was finally paying off a debt. I was more excited I could now walk out of that Torghast part time job I’d been working to pay it off than I was at the jewelry.
And that sort of end game grind really inhibits my desire to level more characters. I do think the best charm of the old WoW versions is that a high level character is dangerous on their own. Obviously a geared max level will best a fresh one, but the fresh one can still leave a mark and perhaps even win if the geared one gets cocky or stupid.
But in modern WoW hitting max level is practically where the game starts. The power creep is as such that you’ll be blasted into oblivion even by someone wearing LFR and non rated PVP gear. Which is a shame because I rather like RPPVP, and unless I want to RP most of my characters as civilians I’m in for hours of repetitive grind before they’re ready for even the lowest tiers of competitive play.
I’ve a Priest, DK and Hunter at 60. A Druid, Rogue and Monk somewhere in their 50s. And the rest of the classes bar DH at 50, and even he’s 40 something. I’ve stories I put no small amount of thought into all of them.
And yet I never play any of them. Like everyone else my first run is as a good guy with this toon. So then I eagerly worked up my DK but by the time I’d done Revendreth and Maldraxxus twice to get their optimized ability and marched through Torghast to get their artifacts- I barely wanted to play anymore. Especially not with all the balancing tweaks hanging over my head like a poorly secured anvil. Just waiting to crash land on my head and inform me my struggles were in vain and I’d have to do them over again to be properly geared this time.
I honestly wonder if the writers and devs even play this game sometimes. All of their ideas have been so strongly and thoughtfully opposed by players who’s actual IRL livelihood is tied into this nonsense, so they also have more than emotions tied in with this franchise not going up like the Hindenburg.
The game I love is in here, somewhere. I absolutely loved Revendreth and Maldraxxus. Hell the Venthyr music might be the only track I’ve listened to IRL while working because a soothing if conspiratorial vibe is pretty on par for my line of work. But it’s being smothered by all this bull headed, short sighted idiocy.
And we like to preem and puff and say we’ll unsub that’ll show them. As if WoW is even sort of Activision’s main golden calf. The entire playerbase could quit simultaneously and the company would shrug, cut support for the IP without blinking and go about their day not losing one millisecond of sleep.
Part of me legitimately wishes I never got reinvolved with this whole sordid affair. Should’ve just let WoW be in the past and remained rose colored in my memory. This whole experience has been like trying to visit a favorite high school teacher only to discover they’ve deevolved into a drunken husk of their former selves.
5 Likes
Might want to visit the Fracture Chambers.
I’m just saying if your enemies shall define you then we are some dishwater drab dullards in regards to the Jailor.
Everything he does has been done better by the Scourge, Legion or Black Empire. And let’s face it those weren’t exactly ground breaking villains for the fantasy genre but at least they wore their trope hats at a jaunty angle.
In keeping with stealing I’d assumed the Jailor would be Azeroth’s answer to Asmodus or the general concept of Lucifer. A handsome, wheeling and dealing lawful evil sort. That’s something WoW is sorely lacking. Though thankfully Sire Denathrius yet lives and is born to play that role. So all is not lost yet.
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The frustrating thing is Blizz can write some really compelling evil villains. Gul’dan, Lei Shen, Azshara, The Lich King and Denathrius are all haughty, engaging, unapologetically evil and just ooze character.
The Jailor isn’t one of these villains. His model is uninspired, his powers are vague, his dialogue is flat (not the voice actors’ fault - the lines are just hopelessly generic), and his motivations/aims are too nebulous to be interesting. We know he wants to do something evil, and that something may or may not involve Azeroth’s world-soul but other than that 
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Even with his personality deficiency there were interesting things you could’ve done. Like what if he wasn’t actually lying. He does have a plan to make a more just and fair universe. Trouble is, he’ll have to unmake reality and everyone in it to do so.
That could be interesting. The heroes would essentially be fighting to maintain an unjust status quo from a certain perspective. But they could also argue hey, yeah ish is bad but it’s not beyond salvaging and blowing it up isn’t exactly fairer to everyone already stuck in it.
Or really just any motivation grander than “I’m going to enslave everything because I’ve a skull for a face”.
13 Likes
Even if they just had him villain monologue at you as you went through the raid, to lay out his reasoning and his justification, would be better than the fat load of nothing we have right now. I was kind of thinking about that last night - it’d be pretty easy work to just record a bunch of Jailer lines and play them during the raid.
The charitable interpretation of the fact that we don’t really understand the Jailer’s motivations would be that the writing team is saving that for a big secret.
The uncharitable interpretation is they don’t have motivations for the Jailer to communicate to us.
13 Likes
Christ. You don’t think the current writing team may have confused subversion with plot twists do you?
Because WoW was never really about big twists or reveals. More subversion of tropes. Like the Orcs being not so little green men from beyond the stars was novel, but what was interesting was learning they were normal if intense people hoped up on Monster Energy to be foot soldiers in the Legion’s grudge with the Draenei. Who are themselves a fun subversion as the cloven hooved and horned demons are actually the most devout servants of this setting’s angels.
None of this was a big twist. It was just flipping the script on tired old fantasy tropes. My favorite thing about this setting is nothing is inherently evil. Sure things like black dragons and the living dead skew toward cruelty but there’s still good people amongst them.
And that’s become gradually less true. Denathrius seems like a corrupt politician and thats what he is. Zooval seems like a deranged prick and that’s what he is. The Kyrian seem like a bunch of aloof incompetents and that’s what they are. And so on.
In retrospect I think I was so enamored with Maldraxxus because it felt like WoW again. Like yeah there’s these grotesque monstrosities living on a giant tumor that love battle, bioweapons and black magic. But, many of them are absolute sweethearts and are the way they are so the Shadowlands can have a constantly improving army capable of self repair.
Everything else though can be safely judged by their cover. Which is just really lazy for this setting.
7 Likes
I really wish Blizz would drop this TV show-esque “wait-until-next-patch-for-the-answers-to-this-major-plot point” mentality. If the greater story was good, it’d be fine. If we got lore updates each week, it’d be fine. When you’ve gotta wait 6+ months for very minimal and barebones lore advancement, it’s exhausting.
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It’s very disappointing how the hyperfocus on Horde flaws ruined the subversion of the “Orcs are big evil brutes” concept, as did portraying the “generic noblebright fantasy friends kingdom” overly straight as it made it hard to justify a faction conflict without the Evil Warchiefs.
I feel like Forsaken writing in particular bounced a lot from subversion to “yep, they are just vile beings.”
13 Likes
Tbh the Forsaken are only out of line in the Alliance version of Darkshore. And it really highlights Blizz’s inability to write morally gray. Because on the Alliance side the Forsaken have, presumably just because they found it funny, forced the Nelves to dig in a quarry as slave labor.
Which curiously enough they also do in Alliance Gilneas. Also for no reason at all. You’d think you’d want to actually secure a region before putting the chimney sweeps to work in a mine of no clear strategic importance. Yeah sparing a bunch of soldiers to guard random prisoners of war you’re punishing for no clear reason does sound like the sort of strategy we should expect from Miss Power-Slide At A Mounted Combatant.
But of course neither of these things happen in the Horde playthrough. In Red Darkshore it’s just Deathguards protecting Goblin miners being attacked by Worgen Guerillas. And in Silverpine the only non combatant you harm is that big chicken you poison to in turn poison the Ettin that eats it. Your sacrifice was not in vain, Comrade Cluck.
And of course on the Alliance side you don’t see the 7th Legion murdering surrendered Forsaken soldiers and loudly declaring they’ll march over your broken bodies all the way to Lordaeron. Suffice to say the Forsaken don’t seem to have the option of being the bigger man and walking away.
And of course, of course, the moral grayness of that whole episode was also torpedoed because it turned out Sylvanas actually wanted to invade Gilneas to uh, I don’t know take control of the Worgen. Because I guess they’re also robots and if you log in as their alpha admin they just obey all your commands.
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Remember when they also had Belmont running a death camp? I know it didn’t make it to live, but the fact it was ever in the game at all is baffling.
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