Literally everyone's face in this looks bad. I guess Moira looks semi-normal for a dwarf. Anduin got that redditor face, Gazlowe looks like he's morphing into Gallywix, Alleria looks like a crackhead with finger paint for eyeliner, Faerin not gonna say anything bad about her, Thrall looks... weird, not sure how to describe him.
Doing thrall in the style of MAD Magazine is certainly a... unique choice.Clearly not a good choice, but certainly unique.
Bad art style.
I'd be more inclined to believe Anduin Lothar and Faerin Lothar share an ancestor from a thousand years prior if their last names weren't identical. If the two lines diverged that long ago, then one of the two should really be different even if it's Luthar or Lothrin. Thinking on it, I'd find it more believable if the two shared a line named Loth (or some variant) and the lines diverged into one becoming Lothar and the other another variation. While you can argue it's a fantasy setting so disbelief can be suspended, Faerin already lost my interest as I find it hard to believe both her and Anduin Lothar would share the same last name over a thousand years and who knows how long prior to that. When I see fantasy writers do that, it makes me think they're lazy and just ignore that a lot can change in a few centuries. While I'm aware some family lines can remain the same over centuries (Barker, Baker, and Smith are certainly good examples), names are far more likely to diverge as families branch out and move into new cultures. There's also the changes in alphabets and languages over time. It's way too easy to just hand wave away change over time and believe things remain stagnant when it doesn't. Maybe Faerin will be a good character, but after just seeing her name without really knowing much of her story has resulted in her having an uphill battle on becoming a character I care about instead of yet another throwaway one off Mary Sue. Ignoring changes over time actually doesn't make me too hopeful for the rest of the story. What else is being hand waved to simplify the story? Granted, I'm a bit of a family tree person and like going back generations to see how things change and what stays the same. Seeing what little I have of Faerin and the Arathi, I'm already starting to not care for the Arathi in general. Blizzard's just turning them into some giant empire and for what? They become the next Scarlet Crusade/Army of the Light hybrid that Yrel then leads to try to take over Azeroth later? They become yet another allied race? They become cannon fodder to Xal'atath and get wiped out later to show she means business? Actually, the latter might not be a bad idea. Have her or her master wipe out an entire culture on Azeroth to really up the stakes. Sure, they take out Dalaran, but an entire empire? Now that'd be something to really push the urgency. Can't really kill off any playable races as they are, but introducing another human kingdom only to wipe them out an expansion or two later without making them playable? That would be interesting.Frankly, I might be fine with Faerin having the last name Lothar if we didn't already have so many other characters that are unchanging over time. She's just another in a long list although instead of a long lived character like Tyrande, Anasterian, etc, she's from a long lineage that I'm supposed to believe has retained things like beliefs, language, and identity from a thousand years ago? Just look at Earth in the last thousand years. A thousand years ago, English was nothing like it is now. I honestly doubt any language now sounds like it did a thousand years ago besides maybe Latin but who natively speaks that anymore? Spoken and written English is very different now compared to back then and even from 400 years ago. WoW has things like the Night Elves and Draenei who evolve slowly and likely still speak the same language from centuries earlier, but a race like the humans should see changes in that same time frame. Fantasy stories that span centuries often forget that and begs the question why even bother saying so-and-so is thousands of years old when nothing really changes from when they were born and when the story takes place? Everyone may as well be the same age. If the only point is to have an elderly mentor figure, why do they need to be centuries old? What purpose does it really solve? The length of the timeline could easily be re-evaluated to cut a bunch of dead space if the entire point is to have the mentor having lived during some event like 700 years prior. What happened between then and the current story? If nothing, what's the point to the gap then? Showing actual change makes that gap actually feel real and believable. Faerin just feels pigeonholed and may as well just be the daughter of Anduin Lothar for what she's worth in my opinion at this point. The constant throwing around of a thousand years, ten thousand years, etc, is starting to become really meaningless when there's not really anything being shown for it. A thousand years could easily be a decade prior.Onto the book itself, I preordered it when it was originally announced. Not going to spoil myself reading the short Blizzard just released. Shame Christie Golden will no longer be writing for Blizzard. Guess time will tell if that's a mistake. I hope they didn't chose to bring back Metzen at Golden's expense.
The audacity to have Christie Golden write a story for the next Xpack and then axe her before it even comes out is truly an astounding choice. What can you expect from an indie dev company like Blizzard though?
finally gazlowe also in the spotlight
blizzard has done nothing to convince me, a horde player, to buy this expansion or any of the next 3 in a matter of fact, if anything they seem to be pushing me away with my favorite race, Belves, just turning neutral/alliance in the future. have no desire to come back if that's the case.
are we even allowed to say we dont like faerin at this point?