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Jsor posted:It's because we're missing a whole game, which they shoved into the manual. Thrall's origin story, which I believe explained a lot of this poo poo, was a Curse of Monkey Island-esque P&C adventure game that Blizzard canned because they thought it sucked, despite being like 98% done. Lex Luthor voiced Thrall. Some Russian guy got a copy and has a longplay of it, he says he'll sell it to you for $5000.
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Jan 13, 2016 22:34
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AradoBalanga posted:I honestly wish we did get that game, because what I've seen of the longplay, it looks interesting and more importantly, something new and fresh for the franchise that could have led to new avenues to expand the Warcraft universe. Adventure games were dead at the time and it looks like an adventure game that commits all of the worst sins of adventure games while doing nothing unique with the genre.
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Jan 14, 2016 03:59
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Litany Unheard posted:Adventure games were dead at the time and it looks like an adventure game that commits all of the worst sins of adventure games while doing nothing unique with the genre. this wouldn't have stopped blizzard fans form playing it.
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Jan 14, 2016 04:22
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Even so, Blizzard decided it wasn't up to their standards, so they scrapped it, and put the plot into a novel instead (yes, a novel, not just the manual for Warcraft 3). Worth noting that a lot of the game's elements and plot points were (naturally) dropped. Such as Thrall meeting Deathwing (who was just a regular black dragon with some extra armor plates slapped on at the time). Or Kargath Bladefist being involved. Or Zul'jin being reduced to a small merchant trader. I'm happy with the novel we got, personally.
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Jan 14, 2016 04:29
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I have to admit, as weird and often dumb as Warcraft plots can be, I really do like a lot of the miscellaneous lore. I'm really happy with what they did with the dragons, for instance. (Well, until they did... whatever it is they did with that cutscene I've only seen out of context where the dragons lose their power as aspects). In some respects I wish they had made Warcraft 4 instead of Starcraft 2, because while Starcraft 2's plot was interminably stupid, it's partially because they grafted a high fantasy plot onto Starcraft where it had no business being. The tonal shift and character change between SC1 and 2 amplified a bad story and made it worse. WoW's plot is unfortunately constrained by things like the need for PVP, the requirements for the boundaries of the two factions to remain relatively static, and the need to have emotionless, motiveless ciphers be reasonably responsible for major world events.
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Jan 14, 2016 06:10
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In fairness, even in context, that scene was... I can't quite bring myself to say "stupid as all hell", since it probably would've been awkward for a number of potential plotlines if the Aspects were still at full power. But it could've been handed more gracefully. Granted, considering it came from their single-laziest raid ever made (even the Argent Tournament was almost entirely new assets, at least!), I get the feeling that that was somehow the best they could come up with.
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Jan 14, 2016 08:36
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Litany Unheard posted:Adventure games were dead at the time and it looks like an adventure game that commits all of the worst sins of adventure games while doing nothing unique with the genre. What are these worst sins and can you put them into a context in comparison with other adventure games?
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Jan 14, 2016 08:51
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The worst bit about the Aspects losing their power during that sequence is nothing has ever suggested their duty is to end the day of twilight. They still need to guard magic, the dream, life, time and the earth, those didn't stop needing guarding. Even worse is that the logic behind it is the Titans gave them their powers to halt the Day of Twilight, except the Day of Twilight happened because they had powers so it makes the Titans look stupid. Basically the Aspects losing their powers instead should be them deciding to no longer interfere with the works of mortals unless they're going to end the world. Thus you can happily write out the Aspects but still have them be powerful figures within the lore who if things really went wrong would stand and fight, whilst using Malygos and Neltharion of examples for how the Dragon Aspects can be made into monsters. I honestly hate that the end of Cataclysm made the Aspects powerless because it ruins some of the fantasy of the world and as mentioned before makes the Titans look like either idiots or jerks.
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Jan 14, 2016 10:52
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Personally, whether it's accurate or not, I prefer to ignore what they're saying in that whole scene and just go with the idea that giving up their Aspect powers by channeling it all into the Dragon Soul was the *only* way to truly kill Deathwing after just *how* corrupted and mutated he'd become. Duty or no, there was only one way to do it - and that's to channel *ALL* their power - not just some of it - through the very artifact that was created by Deathwing himself to use against THEM. Was that WHY the Titans gave them their power, for that instant? Hell no. Was there an alternative that let them keep being Aspects? No. Do their various flights still need to do their jobs? Probably a good idea. Will not having an Aspect make a dragonflight's duty harder? Yes. But were they ever 100% mandatory? Gods no. The world will keep going even without a united Blue Dragonflight, or without a Black Dragonflight - it just means we don't have them to help out. Note that the Bronzes haven't exactly stopped doing their jobs, or completely lost their powers. Losing the Aspects is a blow, but it doesn't mean the Flights are powerless now. Dragons are still Dragons - the heads of the various flights are merely no longer Physical Gods.
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Jan 14, 2016 11:14
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Can someone spoil me on what happened to Malygos? I know Deathwing went bonkers a long, long time ago and Malygos was on the edge the whole time - poo poo. Don't tell me he got CORRUPTED.
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Jan 14, 2016 11:26
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Malygos was insane for quite a while after Deathwing slaughtered most of his flight, but when Alextrasza was captured by the Dragonmaw her Prime Consort went to him for help. He agreed and working with others they saved Alexstrasza and stopped the initial return of Deathwing, shattering the Dragon Soul and thus returning the powers given to it. Malygos regains his sanity due to this and another blue dragon bringing the nether dragons to his lands. Now that he's sane again he finally notices how many loving mages there are and remembers the last time there was this many mages the Burning Legion came knocking. Thus he declares war on all magic users because his job is keep the arcane ways of Azeroth controlled and safe and these mortal mages are using it in an unsafe manner, which at this point Malygos considers using magic at all unless you're a blue dragon to be unsafe. A number of his flight refuse and Alextrasza tries to talk him down but nope he's a raid boss now. His final 'plan' after you spend a while beating down those loyal to him and stopping him from killing the mages of Dalaran involves re-routing the ley-lines of Azeroth beneath his home in Northrend so that anyone who wants to harness them has to ask him first, doing so would've been akin to a second Cataclysm before the actual second Cataclysm and so Alextrasza is forced to order his death. Or at least this is what I remember, some of the specifics might be wrong.
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Jan 14, 2016 11:59
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Now that's loving retarded.
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Jan 14, 2016 12:05
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BlazetheInferno posted:I'm happy with the novel we got, personally. Was that the one where red hair mccool mage summons a velociraptor army?
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Jan 14, 2016 13:35
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Lord_Magmar posted:Thus he declares war on all magic users because his job is keep the arcane ways of Azeroth controlled and safe and these mortal mages are using it in an unsafe manner, which at this point Malygos considers using magic at all unless you're a blue dragon to be unsafe. A number of his flight refuse and Alextrasza tries to talk him down but nope he's a raid boss now. His final 'plan' after you spend a while beating down those loyal to him and stopping him from killing the mages of Dalaran involves re-routing the ley-lines of Azeroth beneath his home in Northrend so that anyone who wants to harness them has to ask him first, doing so would've been akin to a second Cataclysm before the actual second Cataclysm and so Alextrasza is forced to order his death. 
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Jan 14, 2016 14:46
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Actually no, the only people who get shafted by his actions are mages and the entirety of Azeroth itself, in fact the reason Malygos even cares is because Dalaran is literally sitting just a small flight outside his home and is being levitated by exceptionally powerful arcane magic and thus a big example of what Malygos assumes is the same decadence Azshara and the high borne did which lead to the Burning Legion invasion. Magic in Azeroth is interesting because lots of different sources create somewhat similar effects. For example healing someone might involve calling on the element of water, the trees and forests, the power of the light or just a small localised rewinding of time. The only people who use arcane energy, which flows through the leylines, are mages and Blue Dragons. Warlocks call on the twisting nether for power, which is generally stronger but more likely to get your soul eaten. I would like to at this time point out that as bad as Malygos was, and he was pretty bad considering that whilst doing this nonsense he decided to kickstart the recreation of the Blue Dragonflight, regardless of the opinions of his consorts, Deathwing was still worse, the first thing Deahwing did after he was torn open and started bleeding magma was go off and force himself on every single one of consorts, only one of them survived and she was horribly scarred from the experience. Also one of the things he's going to do if he wins in Cataclysm is have relationships with the corpses of Ysera and Alexstrazsa who are technically his sisters. Deathwing has problems. Also depending on your stance around fate Nozdormu might be the worst because his powers involve explicitly knowing the entirety of his own life, from start to finish, and due to this he is also able to view literally every point in Azeroth's past, present and future. So he knew all of this would happen, he even knows that he turns evil and becomes Murozond, leader of the infinite Dragonflight in an attempt to avoid his own death which leads to said death. This also means he knew of Neltharion becoming Deathwing and Malygos turning evil and did nothing because that would be against the true timeline of Azeroth as told to him by the Titans. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jan 14, 2016 |
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Jan 14, 2016 15:09
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Suddenly, I understand the people who say that Elder Scrolls lore is confusing.
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Jan 14, 2016 15:16
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anilEhilated posted:Now that's loving retarded.
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Jan 14, 2016 16:23
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For what it's worth, Metzen has said before that his biggest regret about the evolving lore of the Warcraft franchise is the Aspects and making dragons anything more than beasts. I think he's been trying to write them out of the story for years now.
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Jan 14, 2016 17:23
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Funnily enough that makes it worse for me, because the Aspects are actually a really cool bit of world-building that I felt made Azeroth a richer place. Also that is a bit awkward considering even in Warcraft 2 the Dragons were intelligent, after all Deathwing is in that game. Nearly marries Arthas sister too from memory. I don't know when Metzen started writing but Dragons were never just beasts. I personally would've been fine with the sequence at the end of Cataclysm had it's context changed, not losing powers but expending them and thus needing a while to recharge, or possibly outright using them to kill Deathwing instead of losing them afterwards. Also the age of mortals thing still remains dumb but that's seperate.
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Jan 14, 2016 17:38
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Can I get a lorepost on what the Dragon Aspects are? I know that there are different kinds of Dragonflights, and that the Infinite is kind of a big deal, but not any more details. Is there even a Warcraft lore thread?
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Jan 14, 2016 17:43
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Tasteful Dickpic posted:Can I get a lorepost on what the Dragon Aspects are? I know that there are different kinds of Dragonflights, and that the Infinite is kind of a big deal, but not any more details. It's focused on WoW, but there is indeed. Long story short, when the Titans reforged Azeroth they elevated five great dragons and their bloodlines to oversee important parts of the world and ensure their proper functioning and guard against corruption. This has since been retconned to specifically being there to stop the Hour of Twilight. Red: Life, lead by Alexstrasza the Lifebinder. Green: Nature, lead by Ysera the Dreamer. Blue: Magic, lead by Malygos the Spellweaver Bronze: Time, lead by Nozdormu the Watcher. Black: Earth, lead by Neltharion the Earthwarder Each flight has a variety of powers generally associated with their role - bronze dragons can stop time and travel through it, blue dragons are universally powerful spellcasters, etc. The black flight was corrupted by the Old Gods (long, LONG story), and the Infinites are rogue bronze dragons trying to shatter the flow of time (another long story). There's a bunch of other lesser flights like the artificial twilights and nethers, but they're irrelevant to this story. The frost wyrms we see in this game are the corpses of blue dragons reanimated by the Scourge - the blue dragons mainly live in Northrend. It can probably be assumed, but not explicitly stated, that seeing the corpses of his brethren raised and used like this is a factor in Malygos' growing ire against arcane magic due to the necromancy involved and the mortals using it.
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Jan 14, 2016 18:11
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Basically each Dragonflight is tasked with maintaining something the Titans created. The Aspects are the biggest and most powerful of the flights, and the first of their flights. Every member of a Dragonflight can in theory be traced back genetically to their Aspect. The Aspects themselves were not born but made of the flesh of the ancient proto-drake Galakrond, who was so large his skeletal remains cover most of a the central part of Northrend. Each Aspect was given great powers by a Titan alongside a great duty. Alexstrasza, the Life-binder, has total control over life, her breath can reverse death and burn away injuries, she is also the Dragon Queen and thus technically rules all the flights, in practice she is the first among equals because the other Aspects were somewhat indisposed for a while. Her duty is to protect the life of Azeroth. Neltharion, the Earth-Warder, had total control over the earth, his body is a literal representation of the planet and with thought alone he can reshape mountains. He caused the Cataclysm in WoW this way. He was also the largest and physically most powerful aspect. His duty was to keep Azeroth in a state which would support the other flightsand keep the Old Gods and the Elementals sealed, he had the hardest job really. Even worse is because his body is linked to Azeroth he cannot escape the whispers of the Old Gods sealed within the planet, so he goes mad and becomes Deathwing the Aspect of Death. Malygos, the Spell-Weaver, had total control over Arcane energies. He's arguably the least impressive aspect, on the other hand his powers are the most varied because anything a Mage can do Malygos can probably do 1000 times more powerfully. His duty was to keep the Arcane Ley-Lines from tearing the planet apart and regulate the use of magic so as to keep the planet safe. Nozdormu, the Timeless, has Mastery over Azeroth's timeline. He can travel to any point in time in any location both mentally and physically, he can also force other people to do the same and can even speed up or slow down their personal clocks and such. Whilst possibly the most outright powerful from what he can do he's powerless because he knows how Azeroth is supposed to go, and his Duty is to keep to the script given to him by the Titans. He was lost amongst the Timeways for quite some time which made his flight worry, he also is technically the leader of the infinite dragonflight, who are evil bronze dragons corrupted by the old gods. Finally Ysera, the Dreamer, protects and watches over the Emerald Dream, which is sort of a back-up copy of Azeroth. It shows what the planet looked like right after the Titans finished and presumably if anything went really wrong it would be used to reboot the planet. Her duty is to watch over the Dream for all time, as such even when awake she remains dreaming. Her eyes only open for the most dire of circumstances, which so far have been Sargeras nearly making it on planet and Deathwing causing the Cataclysm. The whole thing is pretty much with great powers comes great responsibilities and then exploring just how bad having them can be.
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Jan 14, 2016 18:21
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In addition, all dragons can shapeshift into humanoid forms - most typically humans and elves, but some blues and bronzes like to take on the appearance of gnomes. And yes, elaborating on an earlier note, Arthas does have a sister named Calia and she was almost engaged to Deathwing. It was a major plot thread in vanilla WoW that the Black Dragonflight had thoroughly infiltrated the human kingdoms, and Deathwing posed as a powerful and charismatic nobleman of Lordaeron long enough that he was a member of King Terenas Menethil's court and there was serious talk of him wedding Calia Menethil. Fortunately, that never went anywhere and Calia never appears in this game. There are similar high-placed agents of the Black Dragonflight in the human kingdoms of Stormwind and Dalaran. Calia survives Lordaeron's fall, but she's MIA until WoW's new expansion releasing this year wherein she finally makes an appearance as a priestess of the Light who has relinquished her royal title in light of Lordaeron's destruction. She's one of the leading voices of the Conclave, a new organization in the expansion that's a collaborative effort between all the major religions and priesthoods of Azeroth (yes, really - there's a similar thing for every class in the expansion) to address the Burning Legion and its corruption through the lens of considering them spiritual threats rather than merely physical or magical.
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Jan 14, 2016 18:38
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Will the Conclave have judicators too?Cythereal posted:In addition, all dragons can shapeshift into humanoid forms - most typically humans and elves, but some blues and bronzes like to take on the appearance of gnomes.  I've lost all respect.
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Jan 14, 2016 18:52
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SirDrone posted:Was that the one where red hair mccool mage summons a velociraptor army? No, it's the one titled "Lord of the Clans" and focuses entirely on Thrall and his story, how he grew up, reunited with his people, learned to be a shaman, then murdered the gently caress out of Aedalas Blackmoore, the guy running the internment camps and the guy who raised him as a slave and gladiator. Sidenote to Poil above me: One of the most notable dragons to take on a Gnome form is the recurring character, the Bronze dragon Chromie, or to use her full name, Chronormu. She's shown up in several places over the years. She offered quests in the Western Plaguelands, in and around Andorhal, she was present in Northrend at Wyrmrest Temple as a representative of the Bronze Flight (and offered a fun pair of quests where you fought along your past/future self - sadly not much effort put into that, just created an NPC that looks identical to you, same gear and all), she was there to help us when we used the Caverns of Time to take part in the Culling of Stratholme, she helped out a little bit when Ragnaros got uppity and we went to the Firelands, she helped send us to the Timeless Isle in Pandaria, she was there for Garrosh's trial (took place in a novel), and most recently helped out on Draenor to track down a rogue Bronze Dragon who helped Garrosh escape. That most recent one finally saw her get her own unique voice-set.
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Jan 14, 2016 21:50
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Aaaaand this is the point where I give up. Is there anywhere where all the post-TFT story would be laid out in one place in a coherent manner (i.e. not "jump around from character to character without giving you any context for anything" like a wiki does)? I haven't played anything past TFT and can no longer understand what on Earth the thread is talking about
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Jan 14, 2016 22:05
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Same.
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Jan 14, 2016 22:43
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Well, it's hard because of all the retcons adding new stuff that's older in the setting's timeline than anything the games show. I'll see if I can come up with a cliff notes.
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Jan 14, 2016 22:52
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Hell with it, I'll try to give it a shot, at least for WoW at launch.... Though it's kind of hard even then, because there were so many plotlines going on all at once. Vanilla/Launch WoW: The game started off four years after TFT ended. The Alliance and the Horde are pretty firmly in cold war territory with each other. Each faction ended up welcoming new allies into their ranks: Night Elves for the Alliance, and the free-willed undead (the Forsaken) for the Horde. There isn't any one particular threat driving things along, so I'll try to break them down a bit more: -The Scourge has laid waste to much of the northern human kingdoms, turning nearly all of Lordaeron into the hellish Plaguelands. Leading them from the gigantic necropolis Naxxramas is Kel'Thuzad. The main two factions fighting against them are the Scarlet Crusade (a bunch of paranoid and xenophobic humans who will kill anyone who's not from the Crusade) and the Argent Dawn (the moderates of the Crusade who broke away, and consequently work with the Alliance and the Horde). In the intervening time, Sylvanas and her followers carved out a tenuous kingdom for themselves in the heartland of Lordaeron, taking control of the old capital city... And its' sewers. -The Old Gods and their minions start making their debut. To make a long story short, they're basically incarnations of pure chaos who used to rule over Azeroth many thousands of years ago, until the Titans showed up to reorganize the planet. At the end of the ensuing war, the Old Gods were sealed away, and their lieutenants (the Elemental Lords) were banished to their respective planes. Back in the present day, the factions start noticing the spread of a strange species of extremely hostile insects, the Silithid. What eventually follows is a campaign that leads to the utterly barren desert of Silithus, where one of the Old Gods, C'Thun, was imprisoned in the fortress-city of Ahn'Qiraj. Eventually, adventurers manage to break into the city, and proceed to kill C'Thun... But with a warning that there's more to come. -Roughly three hundred years ago, the Dwarves of Ironforge (the ones who joined the Alliance) are locked in a civil war with their rival clan, the Dark Irons. After swinging the momentum back in their direction after the initial surpise attack against them, they begin to march on the Dark Iron kingdom, intent on wiping them out. The Dark Iron emperor, in his desperation, attempted to summon a host of demons to even the odds... And instead accidentally summoned forth Ragnaros, the Elemental Lord of Fire. Ragnaros was furious, since the summoning left him massively weakened, and enslaved the Dark Irons while the Ironforge dwarves got the hell out. In the modern day, the current Emperor of the Dark Irons takes Moira, the crown princess of Ironforge, as his hostage. This brings down the wrath of the kingdom, which orders adventurers to kill him... Only for Moira to tearfully explain over his still-cooling corpse that she loved him, and is carrying her child with him. The adventurers then continued to press on, far below the depths of the Dark Iron capital, and slew many of Ragnaros' minions in his personal lair, before defeating the Lord of Fire himself, banishing him back to the Firelands. -The Black Dragonflight is trying to wreak chaos throughout the world, covertly placing themselves in positions of power among mortals that will allow them to maximize their damage. The two most notable are Onyxia, who pretends to be the steward of the child king of Stormwind (and arranged his father's disappearance and his mother's death(indirectly)), and Nefarian, posing as the lord of the remnants of the Horde of the First and Second Wars who never surrendered/got on the path to redemption. Both are outed and subsequently killed. -The trolls of the southern jungles of Stranglethorn worship Hakkar, a mysterious being who dubbed himself the God of Blood. Demanding daily live sacrifices in his name, he was defeated and sealed away by the ancient trolls when they realized they'd gotten far more than they'd bargained for. His loyal priests lived on, however, and worked towards bringing him back over the years, eventually culminating in an effort to resurrect him in the ancient troll city of Zul'Gurub. The tribes caught wind of this, and attempted to send in champions to defeat them, only for said champions to become his slaves. The Zandalari (the tribe from which all others come from, making them the de facto leaders of the trolls) got involved, and sent in adventurers to much better success. That... Should be everything major, I think. Regalingualius fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Jan 14, 2016 |
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Jan 14, 2016 23:09
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You guys are the MVPs
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Jan 14, 2016 23:20
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Here's maybe the simplest way of doing a general overview of the post-TFT warcraft story I can come up with. This does not cover anything in great detail and skips over many small events. Vanilla WoW: 4 years after The Frozen Throne Vanilla WoW finds the world of Azeroth in a tenuous and uneasy peace between the Horde and the Alliance. The Alliance: The human kingdom of Stormwind, rebuilt after its destruction in the First War, stands as the last bastion of human power in the world after the falls of Lordaeron, Dalaran, Arathor, and Alterac, the self-imposed isolation of Gilneas, and who the gently caress knows about Kul'Tiras. King Varian Wrynn of Stormwind is missing, leaving the boy prince Anduin on the throne and guided by regents Bolvar Fordragon and Katrina Prestor. To the north, the dwarves of Ironforge under King Magni Bronzebeard survive and prosper, but are troubled by war with the rebellious Dark Iron clan and disappearance of Magni's daughter, the princess Moira. Ironforge is strengthened by the arrival of the gnomes, who have been forced to abandon their subterranean city of Gnomeregan due to invasion and betrayal. Across the sea in Kalimdor, the night elves under High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind have reluctantly joined forces with the Alliance out of shared distrust and fear of the Horde. Altogether, the nations of the Alliance are divided internally and beset by unrest and change. It's an uneasy alliance at the best of times, but shared enemies are common ground enough to work with. The Horde: The Horde has changed little since the end of TFT. From the new city of Orgrimmar, Thrall rules a growing and prospering confederation of orcs, jungle trolls under the shadow hunter Vol'jin, and to the west the tauren tribes lead by High Chief Cairne Bloodhoof. All three races are steadily pushing back native threats like the centaurs and quilboars, building new cities, and thriving among the challenges. The most unexpected change since the end of TFT is the Forsaken, lead by Banshee Queen Syvlanas Windrunner. The Forsaken have claimed the fallen lands of Lordaeron as their own and begun to establish themselves as a society. Well aware that the people of the Alliance consider the Forsaken untrustworthy and dangerous if they consider the Forsaken to be people at all, the Forsaken have reached out to the Horde for membership. Though many orcs, tauren, and trolls are just as uneasy about the Forsaken as the Alliance, Thrall and his advisors decide not to stand on prejudice and give the Forsaken a fair chance. These are the main actors of the good guys throughout WoW, and most of the large-scale threats in vanilla WoW boil down to a few main plots and enemies. The Black Dragonflight: The evil black dragon Deathwing, who has in the past worked alongside the Horde, continues to plot the Alliance's downfall. Deathwing himself is not present, but his eldest son Nefarion and eldest daughter Onyxia are proceeding as planned. In secret, the black dragons have taken control of the so-called Dark Horde, a group of diehard Second War Horde fanatics who evaded capture and eradication and have continued their demon-worshiping ways while fighting a guerrilla war against the Alliance from their stronghold of Blackrock Mountain. Divided and beset by problems on all sides, the Alliance cannot muster the strength to once again siege the mountain. Worse still, the Black Flight has infiltrated the heart of Stormwind itself: Lady Katrina Prestor, one of prince Anduin Wrynn's two regents, is secretly Onyxia herself. The Black Dragonflight and their pawns are no less hostile to Thrall's new Horde, but the Horde's geographical location means Deathwing's brood is almost exclusively an Alliance problem. The Undead Scourge: Arthas has been conservative in his efforts during this time, pouring his resources into unseen campaigns in Northrend. The Scourge has been consolidating its hold on the former kingdom of Lordaeron, now known simply as the Plaguelands. The Forsaken have forced the Scourge away from the immediate proximity to Lordaeron City, but the Scourge are opposed by only a few holdouts in the Plaguelands: the zealous Scarlet Crusade formed by Lordaeron survivors who have become utter fanatics in their opposition to the undead and paranoid of outsiders who they suspect of carrying the Scourge's taint, and a group known as the Argent Dawn who recruit from across Azeroth to oppose the Undead Scourge. From the Black Citadel of Naxxramas, Kel'thuzad oversees the Scourge forces in the Eastern Kingdoms, while across the sea the Scourge has begun to subvert the quilboars of Kalimdor to gain a foothold on that continent. Ahn'Qiraj: The Forgotten One that Arthas and Anub'arak faced in The Frozen Throne was in truth only a fragment of a vast primordial being known simply as an Old God. The Old Gods were the original masters of Azeroth before the arrival of the Titans, who sealed them away deep underground when they made Azeroth into a verdant paradise and set wards over the world when their work completed. Unfortunately, the Old Gods have been steadily subverting their prison, and across southern Kalimdor vast hives of insect-like monsters have begun to appear and spread, clearly intelligent in their movements but the monsters themselves seem to simply be beasts. They are ultimately minions of the dark kingdom of Ahn'Qiraj, the domain and vassals of the Old God known as C'Thun. Long ago, Ahn'Qiraj attempted to shatter the Titans' shackles and conquer the whole of Azeroth, but were fought by an alliance of night elves, tauren, and dragons, and eventually defeated and buried once again. They're now coming up for another round, and a fragment of C'Thun has reached the surface. I can go into more detail on any of this if you like, but these are the main plot threads of vanilla: unrest and turmoil in the good guy races, and the three big threats. Edit: Whoops, beaten.
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Jan 14, 2016 23:24
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Onyxia "secretly" using the same surname as Deathwing did during his own ill-advised attempt at undercover operations, yeah.
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Jan 14, 2016 23:32
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anilEhilated posted:Onyxia "secretly" using the same surname as Deathwing did during his own ill-advised attempt at undercover operations, yeah. Note that no one in-setting figured out that Lord Prestor was Deathwing. Onyxia presented herself as Lord Prestor's sister and was accepted for it in the highest circles of nobility.
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Jan 14, 2016 23:33
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True they never did find that out. Due to Deathwing having to run and go heal after his attempt to regain his Demon Soul. So he abandoned his plan to marry into the Alliance leadership.
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Jan 15, 2016 00:07
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Regalingualius posted:Nefarian Great writing choices.
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Jan 15, 2016 01:59
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Cheez posted:HI, I'M BADDY MCBADSON, BUT YOU CAN CALL ME BAD. HOW DO YOU DO? It is a time honored tradition in fiction. Poor Remus Lupin was doomed to become a werewolf from day one.
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Jan 15, 2016 02:10
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Theres another character named Wrathion. What the hell happened at Blizzard? Diablo 1 and 2, and Starcraft had their flaws, and we are seeing Warcraft 3, but WoW is a huge nosedive in terms of their writing, and one which generally has persisted. Like I think they and Bioware (ME3 was literally incomprehensible, but the ending of Wrath of the Lich King is drat close) may be honestly the worst writers in the industry. With Bioware we have a somewhat clear idea of what happened, but what happened at Blizzard? Why did their writing take such a dive in quality after shortly before/after WC3 and why has whatever happened only gotten worse?
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Jan 15, 2016 02:12
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Stage One Blizzard was a company of adventurous new ideas, mainly mixing genres: Rock and Roll Racing, Lost Vikings, Diablo. Stage Two Blizzard was taking previously thought of ideas and polishing them to a mirror sheen: Diablo 2, Warcraft 2 and 3, WoW. Stage Three Blizzard is about making games that you never stop playing: Hearthstone, HotS, adding Pokemon to Wow. God bless the writers, but this is not an arc of creative blossoming.
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Jan 15, 2016 02:24
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Part of the problem with WoW is that there is a whole team of writers and they get a whole lot of freedom with what they do at the micro level. Chris Metzen for all that people complain about him doesn't really do much of the minutae, he gives his team the broad strokes and has them fill out the details before checking if they fit. Which means the quality of WoW lore and writing varies quite a bit. Although Metzen is still a fairly easy target, for instance he introduced a female Orc Shaman to be Thrall's wife because he hated that people thought Thrall and Jaina made a good couple. He seems to only have one story and that's CORRUPTION, and because he's so important within the company people rarely tell him no when he writes lore. I personally don't mind most of WoW lore, there's some spectacularly dumb stuff but for the most part it's passable and in some places it's actually great. As I've mentioned the dumbest thing is the age of mortals and the aspects powers leaving because their purpose was to stop something that happened because they had those powers in the first place.
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Jan 15, 2016 03:23
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The only WoW book I've ever read was The Last Guardian and it was pretty good, but I really like Medivh. I could never get into Knaack's writing, though, which closes off a great deal of the more "important" books. But if I continue about some of these books we're going to edge closer and closer to making it harder to keep the "no direct, non-immediately obvious from WoW WC3 spoilers" rule going. Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 03:36
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