General Lore Discussions

Post by cephadex

You know, this isn't a new topic but I just really felt the need to bring this up. In this expansion, the most beloved and anticipated orc lore figures are presented as bad guys who fall to us like stumbling fools. All we have left is Thrall, who was raised by humans; even the horde hates the horde, our coolest historical figures are hated. I'm trying to figure out what Bliz was thinking with this; maybe they tried for all kinds of storylines and felt this was the only way they could work out an expansion that included the beloved zones from TBC, old lore that people liked, features from WC3 where you build usable structures, etc... but still, really? The people who would get excited for orc lore are exactly the people who would stare in disbelief as we are made to hunt down the Warsong clan and watch Durotan and Orgrim's deep friendship turned into something to be tossed aside.

What meaning is there to the horde now that our greatest thing is bloody Thrall? And alliance fans aren't even going to recognize we're going through this, they'll just whine that it's "yet another expansion about orcs" where they don't see this feels like a slap in the face to people who love orcs. Sorry for the negativity, there are a lot of things I really love about this expansion and I really enjoyed the arakkoa storylines, but now that I'm finally in Nagrand it just makes me want to cry. I loved the Warsong clan...

Post by Adamsm

Course the flip side of that coin is how do you turn the 'great' heroes who started off as villains anyways; had it been actual time travel, we'd still be trying to kill them since they would be the demon corrupted versions. In the Rise of the Horde era, all of the things we see on Alt Draenor do not exist, as they were wiped out already.

And hopefully in the next expac after that Thrall will drop to the back ground and the other Horde heroes will get to step to the fore(unlikely I know but you never know). I think that may be why I liked the Maraad story so much; because Warlords is more then just the Orcs, there are the other races on Alt Draenor as well, and let's get some info about them too.

Post by cephadex

There could conceivably have been a plot where the orcish clans were prevented from drinking the blood of Mannoroth and didn't become evil otherwise. For example, if they were prevented from drinking his blood and then united against the Legion. Or even if they did decide to make the Iron Horde and invade Azeroth, but then the Legion tried invading Azeroth and the Iron Horde ended up fighting them instead of conquering. Or that they formed the Iron Horde but that they wouldn't have been "simplistically evil" - like there was good in them as well as bad, and there was reason enough for us as horde players to side with them, not for a purpose like taking over Azeroth but something more complex.

Post by Rankkor

I feel so strongly about this topic that I made a thread about this on the official forums.

Copy of the text:

For all you guys are trying to sell to me the idea that the Iron Horde is the most dangerous force we've yet have to contend with, I'm just not seeing that at all. Lets examine previous enemies and why we had good reasons to fear them and treat them seriously as a menace.

TBC: Burning Legion. This one doesn't need much explaining, its an endless host of demons from across the entire universe. They have an infinite list of planets they've already conquered, razed, destroyed, and assimilated into themselves. They're like the borg, except even more dangerous since they have planet-rending capacities with their magic.

They're backed up by Sargeras, the most powerful of the Titans, and have as generals some of the most powerful beings the universe has ever known, capable of going toe-to-toe with actual gods and demigods and either put up a decent fight, or actually win.

WOTLK: The Scourge. Again, we had plenty of reasons to fear them.

During Warcraft 3, these guys absolutely RAVAGED the alliance, and single-handedly brought some of the most powerful kingdoms on azeroth to ruin. Lordaeron, Silvermoon, Dalaran, Azjol-Nerub and plenty of other kingdoms fell to their might, each of our own fallen bolstering their numbers.

Their leader, The Lich King, a near omnipotent being with near endless power, and armed with a weapon capable of killing you deader than dead with its soul feeding capacity.

Cataclysm: The Twilight Hammer.

Right off the bat we were given plenty of reason to fear these guys and take them seriously despite them being a bunch of suicidal nutjobs. They caused a second sundering, they came perilously close to cause a third. Were it not for us, they could and would destroy our world and cause the end of all life on our world. Worse yet, paranoia sunk in, since they had members hidden between our friends, even among the highest ranks of leadership.

Who among our friends would be the next to sink their knives into our backs? there was no way of knowing until the betrayal had actually taken place.

They were backed up by none other than the frikking Old Gods, the literal source of prime evil on all of existence, and championed by Deathwing, the strongest, and most dangerous of all the Dragon Aspects, empowered by the Titans themselves.

Mists of Pandaria: The Sha.

This threat was a little hard to take seriously at first, but all it took was a quick glance at the jade forest to understand what we were up against here. Its very easy to conquer and defeat outside enemies, we have a clear vision of who is a menace to our society, to friends and family. But what about the enemy within? how do you fight against your own pride? fear? anger? doubt? In a land where all your negative emotions can manifest themselves in physical form, and rend the land infertile, how are you supposed to even keep a grip on your sanity, when your very core elements of your persona can easily turn against you and your friends?

That was a very unique concept, and it paid off. They were creepy, they were relentless, and we were given proof of what would happen to our world if we failed to stop them. The entire civilization of the Mantid was very likely tainted beyond repair by just a single of the Sha. Imagine what the seven could do together?

They were also backed by the Old God.

But now lets look at the enemy we're facing in WoD:

The Old Horde, minus all that made them dangerous in the first place.

hmmm what?

There's no demonic blood to give them unnatural might, meaning these are regular orcs, the exact same kind we faced and easily crushed in SoO.

No warlocks to corrupt or taint the land. Less clans joined this version of the horde than on the original version.

But it gets worse. These guys are not even capable of doing what the old horde could: To conquer their own world.

When the old horde crossed into Azeroth, they had already conquered all of draenor. They drove the draenei to near extinction, and actually caused the extinction of all the other civilizations of draenor, including the saberon, the arakkoa, the ogre empire, everything.

This old horde hasn't been capable of doing even that. Karabor still stands, Auchenai still stands. Most draenei places are still very much alive. They can't even compete against their neighbors, as the Arakkoa are untouchable in their high perches, the genesaur use them as puppets, the magmaron use them as bowling pins, and the shadow council is not there to give them the demonic edge that would actually make them a threat to take seriously.

They are so harmless several more clans flat out refused to join them, and were not exterminated. They are so harmless that pretty much all of the warlords save two (Kilrogg and Grom) are dead within the first patch.

But wait!!!!! they have like..... advanced technology dude, imagine an army of Warhammer 40k proportions invading us. Okay, if that was what they delivered, I'd actually feel threatened, but these are not orcs in power armor, these are orcs in loincloths and body paint, and NO MAGIC. The few that do have technology here and there are using obsolete tech, and its lampooned and lampshaded by everyone all the time.

One of the garrison campaign quests shows how Gazlowe thinks their tech is incredibly primitive, and they had to resort to kidnapping a Dark Iron Dwarf to actually start producing advanced machinery.

Ohh they have high numbers? so do we, unlike the scourge who can replenish their numbers with our dead, or the twilight hammer who can brainwash our friends to their side, or the burning legion who are actually infinite and trillions upon trillions away on the dark beyond.

For crying out loud, each expansion offered an event to show us how dangerous our enemies were if we didn't stop them. Scourge attacked orgrimmar and stormwind. Twilight Hammer caused a sundering, and an elemental invasion ON THE ENTIRE WORLD.

Iron Horde? hmm.......... they totally owned an understaffed, and godforsaken outpost in the middle of nowhere, and then promtly got beaten straight back into the dark portal. The small advanced party that made it to blackrock immediately crushed.

So, with my most sincere tone, face and expresion, I ask you blizzard: why am I supposed to be afraid of these guys again? No, seriously, I need to know. What exactly is it about them that is supposed to make me take them seriously as a threat when they are so woefully incompetent, they are actually outshadowed by bigger, more menacing threats like the shadow council, the arakkoa, the genesaur, the magmaron.

If they can't even conquer their own planet, how can they expect to conquer ours?

Part of me hopes one of the devs will look at it and hopefully comment on it, but chances are slim. Its Tweeter or GTFO these days. (And it'll be a cold day in hell before I actually go to that page)(##RESPBREAK##)520##DELIM##Rankkor##DELIM##

Post by 355559

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by cephadex

Rankkor, I agree but I don't think there's any need to defend every point there. All you have to say is "we defeated Archimonde and Kil'jaeden." If the point is to make us fight against something powerful enough that we'll be trained to fight the Legion, you can't get any better than fighting against the highest generals of the Legion...

Incidentally, on an unrelated note, in the Frostfire quest involving Gul'dan, how is it that he knew about and acknowledged K'ure's presence inside Oshu'gun? I thought the orcs not only didn't know about him being there, but also refused to believe it when Velen tried to tell them later, and were enraged by the suggestion their dead ancestors were drawn to a dying Naaru. Even in an alternate timeline you'd think they'd be just as upset about a suggestion like that...

Post by matheus314

Answering to you Cephadex, I've said before that the Orcs need to get rid of Thrall ASAP. Of course that they would not want to kill him literally, but he needs to be de-attached from ANY orc (and horde) responsabilities. How this would be done, I don't know. But the more he stands with the Earthen Ring and less with the Orcs, the better for the Horde as a whole. I'm sure Rankkor would be 10 times better than me to suggest who should be the new leaders of the Orcs, so I'm not gonna go that far.

I understand how bad is to see most of the Old Horde heroes comming back just to be vanquished once again (because that's what happen to anyone who stand against Azeroth these days). I'd be pulling a Jackie Chan if they bring back an alternate evil version of Uther, Alleria or Danath, just to make we kill them as enemies.

Lately, what's comming to my mind, is that Blizzard made this Warlords expansion thinking on giving the Orcs a big lore lesson, but when they heard the metric-ton of complains about "yet-another-orc-xpack" they, as always, went all the other way overboard, trying to change the focus on how these alt!Orcs are bad and the Draeneis are good.

I haven't played the beta yet, but I'm well aware of most of the spoilers already leaked. So I got a question for who played the horde part of Draenor: Aren't the Frostwolves joining the new Horde? I thought that Durotan and Draka would be major lore figures for the Horde side, and that ultimately, would show that there's a nice part of the Orcs that is not all about blindly conquering anything they consider "not-orcish". How far is that from what's happening in game?

Post by cephadex

Matheus, thanks for your response; in response to your question, Durotan and Draka are indeed "good guys" in WoD. But other than I guess the Laughing Skull, only the Frostwolf Clan are presented as good guys, and I get the distinct feeling this was done because they're Thrall's parents, and Thrall is perceived as "good." That is, obviously he wasn't actually raised with them and they played no part in him being "good" in WoW, but from the devs' perspective, I get the feeling they thought it would flow nicely to have Thrall's parents be "the good guys." That probably also flowed nicely for the devs considering in the original storyline Durotan was the only clan head who didn't partake in Mannoroth's' blood, so he was always "good" in that sense.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed being part of the Frostwolf Clan, but lately it feels like there's an emphasis on the difference between "Thrall horde" versus "horde based on the things that made us like the orcs in the first place." And "Thrall horde" is basically "horde light," ie, "not really horde," so having to choose him over legendary orc figures feels almost like betrayal to me. Yeah, I get that in the original lore the clan leaders did bad things, but at worst they were ambiguously good/bad where they were complex enough you could see both sides of it, certainly they weren't absolute bad guys, except maybe Gul'dan.

Post by Stabhorn

They are so harmless that pretty much all of the warlords save two (Kilrogg and Grom) are dead within the first patch.

And we know from his Lords of War episode that Kilrogg's already doomed.

Post by Morec0

I'm still calling it: Iron Scourge from the Lich King Ner'zhul as resurrected by Archimonde.

Also, if they don't make one of the patches a Tides of Darkness reference... I'm gonna hurt someone.

Post by Adamsm

at worst they were ambiguously good/bad where they were complex enough you could see both sides of it, certainly they weren't absolute bad guys, except maybe Gul'dan.Blackhand and his children, the Shadow Council, the Twilight Hammer clan; there was a lot of evil in the Original Horde beyond just Gul'dan. You see the rise of the monsters pretty clearly in Rise of the Horde, Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal books. Yes some of them were good...and others weren't; Kargrath on both worlds ended up in the same position, as a Warlord(Warchief of the Fel Horde in the case of our time line). And then there's Zuluhed and Nekros of the Dragonmaw.....

Post by Stabhorn

What's the status of the original Dragonmaw in WoD?

Post by cephadex

Anyway, I think the Maraad episode answers pretty clearly the question of whether the Lords of War eps are meant to show "alternate draenor" versus "our timeline's past draenor."

Post by morginar

What's the status of the original Dragonmaw in WoD?

That would mean there are dragons in Draenor, think the Dragonmaw was formed in Azeroth for the dragon riders.

Post by Stabhorn

Post by matheus314

Anyway, I think the Maraad episode answers pretty clearly the question of whether the Lords of War eps are meant to show "alternate draenor" versus "our timeline's past draenor."

Does it? O_o

Post by Adamsm

What's the status of the original Dragonmaw in WoD?

That would mean there are dragons in Draenor, think the Dragonmaw was formed in Azeroth for the dragon riders.

Oh, I thought it was an original clan.

It is an Original Clan: The Dragonmaw came over from Draenor and were known as that before they enslaved the Reds.

Post by Skreeran

But it seems to be the case that there are no Dragonmaws on the Alternate Draenor. I think Blizzard has decided to pretend the clan was formed on Azeroth.

Post by Adamsm

That would be silly then...as that would go against four books and the quest lines in Outland Shadowmoon and the Twilight Highlands. We'll probably find out later that the Dragonmaw were wiped out by the Iron Horde or something.

Post by 355559

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

General Lore Discussions

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