General Lore Discussions

Post by oneforthemoney

Post by Morec0

So next expansion: The Underpale? Other continent? Other Azeroth? Or, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, let us go back to our own timeline!

Other Azeroth with Gul'Dan becoming the new Lich King since Ner'zhul died.

REALLY on't want to go to Alt Azeroth...

But I think we're still a Patch away from any kind of other Expansion. I don't believe this was the final one.

Post by Rankkor

I don't believe this is the final patch either, but this IS the final raid. Only the last raid has a cinematic. And as stated above, we ran out of baddies to kill. Who would we go up against next? Ogre Empire was razed to the ground, Cult of Rukhmar is in shambles and the few highborn that remain joined the Order of the Awakened, Shadow Council is destroyed, Iron Horde was trampled, what was left became fel horde and then got trampled, and what little was left from that, reformed.

Without an iron horde, ogres, arakkoa, or demons, what's left? Pale Orcs? they never were a major threat, just nuisances that lack intelligence and power to pose a real threat. Magnaron? too stupid to be a threat by themselves, the Iron Horde subjugated them, we subjugated the Iron Horde, we can break them too. Primals/botani? Would that even be a thing? that we never really stopped Yalnu and he actually succeeded in leaving a tiny spore into Stormwind, and the human capital becomes Fungiwind?

I wont deny I'd love to see that happen, but I highly doubt that's the direction they'd want to go.

Scourge 2.0, plant edition, The Last of Us comes to Azeroth!!!!

Also, the legendary ring is completed too.

While I do feel there's another patch left, its likely to be just a story patch, meant to lay the foundation for the next expansion, introduce the new threat, etc. Maybe it wont even take place in Draenor, but in Azeroth for a change.(##RESPBREAK##)520##DELIM##Rankkor##DELIM##

Post by oneforthemoney

Maybe an old god or the Draenor equivalent to tie together the pale orc thing and Cho'gall's incessant dancing around the place. Or the titans, but I have to agree with Rank's assessment. We've dealt with any raid worthy threat. The only thing that can conceivably be added might be some new timewalker dungeon or something to do with the time travel aspect this expansion has been all about.

Of course, Mists only had around two patches for new raid content. I could see, maybe, something to do with an enemy coming from across the sea, if only to set up a new Draenor expansion later, but otherwise I think Warlords is largely finished here. Overall though I did enjoy it. Entertaining new content, pretty good story, and I think it had more of a Warcraft feel than either Mists or Cataclysm did. It's no Wrath, and Archimonde was pretty meh as a final boss, but Gul'dan managed to give it the good villain neither Grom or Garrosh could.

Post by Stabhorn

Post by oneforthemoney

That had to be Warlord's one big weakness. Not enough screen time for ostensibly important characters, but to be fair there was a lot of ground to cover. Not like the Lich King who wandered in to shake his fist angrily at you every zone, but something with a little more substance, like Gul'Dan. But that has been WoW's big weakness for a while now. And why we went to revisit old villains too rather than new ones, I imagine. By its definition we have to kill these guys by expansion end, which doesn't leave much for building up villains of greater substance. Unless we get a thing like Garrosh which was more a case of too many cooks flailing at one meatheaded pot.

Post by Rankkor

Meh, for me this expansion has been hit&miss.

Enjoyed some elements, but greatly disliked others. It was hard for me to get invested in it because the very premise of it was to take something I love (Orc Culture) and raze it to the ground. Other than the frostwolves and the laughing skulls (Who barely even show up) every orc was evil, and we had to kill them all. I was hoping instead to form a federation in draenor.

To recruit from each clan, the dissidents that refused to be a part of the Iron Horde. Like the Shadowmoon Exiles, but applied to every clan, and doing more than just a cameo in a single quest.

That we would build up an army on draenor made both of draenei, and orcs from each clan that would refuse to damn themselves, SPECIALLY the burning blade clan which has been my favorite for a long time (Blademasters Rule!!!).

Instead, I watched all orcs become chaotic evil =/ particularly the warsongs.

Also, when it was announced that the enemy would be orcs with advanced tech, I was imagining orcs in power armor, maybe not to Warhammer 40k levels, but at least a technocratic faction that would use tanks, helicopters, guns, and so on to wage war. Instead, that only happened to the blackrock orcs, and the rest stayed exactly the same. And even with the blackrock the only tech they had was in weapons, no practical tech to complement the guns and rocket launchers. This resulted in a faction that despite being built and hyped as this big dangerous threat, ended up being pathetically easy to overcome.

But to make matters worse, the Iron Horde not only failed to be menacing (they were unable to do much in azeroth, and weren't even able to do what the old horde did in draenor) they couldn't even remain The Iron Horde for the rest of the expac, and instead became The Old Horde 2.0 at the last minute.

I'll admit that I enjoyed Gul'dan as a villain (he is by far the best bad guy in warcraft mythos) but we never get to fight him, neither in the legendary nor in any raid, he doesn't even gets killed, just put in the freezer for later use like the lich king (a practice that I abhor completely). And I feel like they VASTLY wasted a lot of good characters that could have done so much more. Like Doomhammer. Seriously, killing him like a punk was NOT okay. And his bromance with Durotar was never explored at all. And Saurfang never showed up. Pretty much the only orcs that do anything of note were Durotan and Drek'thar. Because even Draka did very little in this expac.

Bottom line, It was meh, for me. Not as bad as cataclysm (nothing ever will) but definitely one of the lowest expansions for me at least.

And those were my issues with the orcs, I also have issues with the draenei =/ (seriously, teasing us about Karabor being the capital city, and then not even allowing us inside was not okay.) but they weren't as badly handled as the orcs were. And frankly they needed a lot of love after years of neglect.

Post by Atik

I was fairly happy with the Draenei. It was especially interesting to watch them not think their kind could side with the Legion, and become flabbergasted when their forces joined Gul'Dan and the Shadow Council. I do agree they got quite shafted in later zones, which was disappointing.

On the Orc side of things, I was just completely let down. I mean, we opened up so strong with Tanaan Jungle. The intro quests made you feel like you were in danger. The Iron Horde had you outnumbered and outgunned, and they were ten times more ruthless than your ragtag bunch of misfits. You gathered up the Draenei and Frostwolves, and were prepared to wage a sort of Guriella war against a far superior forces.

And then, after it being set up that it was REALLY ^&*!ING HARD for Garrosh to connect AU!Draenor to Main!Azeroth? Your mages just rip open a portal back to Stormwind/Orgrimmar. And you bring such an absurd amount of forces that the tables are turned completely and you just decimate the Iron Horde at every front.

Fel, the one Garrison that actually falls? IT DOESN'T EVEN FALL TO THE !@#$ING IRON HORDE! Some no-name cultist of the %^&*ing damned kills it. CULT OF THE DAMNED. We rewound back to Wrath for a quest chain that didn't even get a real resolution. To kill of Admiral Taylor unceremoniously. Immediately after axing Nazgrim in SoO. Because "$%^& cool characters, check out the fancy cinematics".

I mean. Lore-wise, this expansion could have been a million times better without the Garrisons. Imagine it, you don't get reinforcements. There are no reinforcements, you have whatever forces you brought with you, coupled with whoever you scrounged up from the people on your side. And now you look out across Draenor, and your gang is set against BILLIONS of Orcs that are armed to the teeth and ready to put your head on a pike.

Sounds so much cooler than "Bring in stupid amounts of highly prepared men. Kill all the brown people." Or, to quote Zero Punctuation on a similar subject; "That about sums it up, doesn't it? We have killer death robots, they have rocks."

Post by oneforthemoney

I'm going to have to agree on the faction bit about the Garrisons. I think it would have been really improved if, as you said, we were locked in Draenor and had to build up our forces from the natives, like in the beginning zone in Pandaria. Could have opened up a lot of potential for building up the new world, new factions, new characters, with only those forces from Main Azeroth who survived the initial push and destruction of the portal being with us.

That being said, I think that the Iron Horde not having won over every clan was a good move on their part. It showed Grom and Garrosh's greater weakness as leaders, but also that if not for the corrupting influence of fel, the orcs aren't all ravening monsters who can easily slide down the slippery slope to genocide. And as for the Iron Horde, they were a large threat, in that they were winning the war by a huge margin before we showed up. Sadly, that didn't really keep, for obvious reasons once we arrived and turned it around.

Post by Rankkor

Fel, the one Garrison that actually falls? IT DOESN'T EVEN FALL TO THE !@#$ING IRON HORDE! Some no-name cultist of the %^&*ing damned kills it. CULT OF THE DAMNED. We rewound back to Wrath for a quest chain that didn't even get a real resolution. To kill of Admiral Taylor unceremoniously. Immediately after axing Nazgrim in SoO. Because "$%^& cool characters, check out the fancy cinematics".

this is another thing that grates me.

I was never that attached to Taylor (being mainly horde and all) to be sad that he's dead, but for the love of all that's holy, how hard could it be to let his killer be the iron horde? You know, to actually give them a semblance of menacing. No, instead they chose some random yahoo from "cult of nobody cares" to kill off a major character.

I'm going to have to agree on the faction bit about the Garrisons. I think it would have been really improved if, as you said, we were locked in Draenor and had to build up our forces from the natives, like in the beginning zone in Pandaria. Could have opened up a lot of potential for building up the new world, new factions, new characters, with only those forces from Main Azeroth who survived the initial push and destruction of the portal being with us.

I'm not that opposed to the idea of garrisons, just the way they were implemented. Both from a gameplay perspective, and a lore perspective.

From a lore point of view, I love that we're finally generals of the Horde/alliance, and have an army to command and all that stuff. But I agree that having an incredibly convenient portal back to our capitals to bring unlimited supplies made this whole war feel like a joke. It was like playing a match of Warcraft 3, and use the cheat codes to beat the opponent in 5 minutes.

It would've been better (MUCH, MUCH MUCH better) if we built our garrison using LOCAL supplies. That the horde garrison used Frostwolf buildings, and SPECIALLY that the alliance garrison used draenei buildings. But no, Humanmasterrace =/ and as for our buildings, I've ranted too much about them already.

Rather than magically transport a base, and an army from azeroth, it would feel a lot better to just start from nothing and amass armies from the locals, and bases from the local resources too. Recruit dissidents from each Iron Horde clan that don't like the abrupt change that orc society has undergone (Rather than have every orc embrace the cultural 360°. Why must the frostwolves be the only ones who rebel?) and act as diplomants to unify the Iron Horde dissidents, and the Draenei Forces under one banner. Our banner.

That being said, I think that the Iron Horde not having won over every clan was a good move on their part. It showed Grom and Garrosh's greater weakness as leaders, but also that if not for the corrupting influence of fel, the orcs aren't all ravening monsters who can easily slide down the slippery slope to genocide. And as for the Iron Horde, they were a large threat, in that they were winning the war by a huge margin before we showed up. Sadly, that didn't really keep, for obvious reasons once we arrived and turned it around.

Well, yeah, but it also made them utterly incompetent. I mean Atik nailed it, there's a HUGE dichotomy between how the Iron Horde is presented in the blasted lands and tanaan (Unified, disciplined, ruthless, relentless, unlimited, unstoppable) and how they're presented in the other zones (getting their asses handed back to them without a single victory to their name).

With previous threats, there was something they'd do to establish their credibility as a threat. The Scourge and Cult of the Damned obliterated the original alliance and brought 6 out of the 7 human nations to their knees in War3, so they didn't need any intro in WOTLK. The Twilight Hammer caused a second sundering during cata, and were attempting to finish the job, and had infiltrated agents among our people, going as high as the upper echelons of our leadership (as evidenced by Sauranok and Benedictus).

The Sha demonstrated how dangerous they were when we visit the Dread Wastes, a zone that was utterly and completely consumed by their power, and was a preview of how the rest of azeroth would look like if the sha was left unchecked.

But what exactly did the Iron Horde do to merit any sort of credibility? They went through the portal and beat 2 god-forsaken outposts in the middle of nowhere, and even that could only be done because of leftover garrosh loyalists aiding them.

In draenor they don't exactly do anything, nor do they have complete control over any area. In Frostfire they had rivals in the form of the frostwolves, ogres, and magnaron, in Gorgorond there were the primals, and the magnaron again, in Talador, holy crap, they had as contenders the Arakkoa, Legion, Ogres, Frostwolves, Draenei, Blood Elves, etc. In Arak they had the Arakkoa, Saberon, and Fungus stuff to the south. And in Nagrand, which was pretty much the only zone where they had any semblance of dominance, they still had the ogres to the north.

A good way to establish their credibility was to have a zone where they ruled supreme. Where they came, they saw, they conquered. All settlements razed. All tribes subjugated. An absolute victory over every denizen of the zone. As a way to demonstrate to us what would happen if we don't stop them. Instead, we watch as the Iron Horde was preparing to invade a new world, when they never even controlled their own one in the slightest.

They couldn't even stick to their guns and refuse the demon blood. Just pathetic.

Post by Skreeran

Yeah. I'm just gonna have to attach a big "What they said" to this argument. I haven't played the expansion yet, but speaking as an observer, this expansion really hit the pavement hard from a lore point of view. I mean, of all the potential they had by hitting the big dumb Time Travel/Alternate Universe button, they really just ended up smashing it all to pieces like a huge clumsy monster.

Post by Adamsm

Post by Rankkor

I'm not surprised; Warcraft has never done the alternate universes well. It was sad when they did it in Twilight of the Aspects and then when they did the Alternate Me thing at the end of War Crimes....both of those were really weak.

YMMV on that. I liked how the AU was handled in Twilight of the Aspects. Hell, I wanted the whole book to take place there, as the whole setting was fascinating, from Arthas marrying Jaina, Blackhand becoming king, etc. One of the more amusing parts of Heroes of the Storms for me is how the extra skins for the heroes are taken from AU settings (For example, Tyrande as a blood elf of the Windrunner family, Malfurion as the betrayer, Illidan as the chosen Shan'do, Tyrande as Malfurion's Warden rather than Maiev, Kerrigan from starcraft as a prominent Succubi, Thrall as a fel orc, Rehgar as a member of the Iron Horde in a AU where Garrosh was never beaten and Rehgar vows to take down his organization from within, etc).

I'll agree with you that the Alternate Me crap at the end of War Crimes was awful.

One of my biggest beefs with this AU is their lack of consistency. They insist down to the bitter end that this alternate draenor is identical to our own save for Garrosh never being born, but its demonstrated just how false this is, as there's dozens and dozens of differences in here (just to mention one, Rulkan is still alive). When we ask for an explanation for the discrepancy, we're given dismissive responses that basically say "look at the pretty cutscenes and stop caring about the details"

As far as I'm concerned, the devil is in the details, and continuity is not a polite suggestion. If they don't care about the details of their own story how can they expect us to care about the story?

Post by Adamsm

YMMV on that. I liked how the AU was handled in Twilight of the Aspects. Hell, I wanted the whole book to take place there, as the whole setting was fascinating, from Arthas marrying Jaina, Blackhand becoming king, etc. Yeah but other then Alternate Blackhand and the completely unnecessary return of Taretha.....that's all we know about it. They didn't go any deeper into it beyond 'hey this happens'. They could have left out the entire alternate thing and just had Blackhand replaced by a Twilight Assassin and it would have had just as much impact. I get that Thrall had to show Nozdormu(good lord /roll eyes) how to pull himself together but come on, that was just inane.

Post by morginar

Blackhand becoming king, etc.

Blackmoore* Blackhand is a orc. And warlord of the Blackrock.

Also I could see a patch/raid in Faralohn, maybe Dimensius? Other than that there is the old god of draenor.

Post by Rankkor

Blackhand becoming king, etc.

Blackmoore* Blackhand is a orc. And warlord of the Blackrock.

Errr whoops :P

And I sincerely doubt that we'll see Farhalon. I mean, nothing is impossible of course, but I see it as very unlikely. What exactly would we do there? Why shouldn't our armies go back to azeroth now? We came to draenor to stop the iron horde, and they were. We stayed to stop the rise of the legion (Even if said legion never threatened azeroth if they can't travel through time) and we did. What else is there to do?

Post by Atik

So, a slight change of topic here.

Forgive me if this comes off as an RP-focused question, but I feel like it has enough of a 'general lore' feel to it, and it's just sort of a general curiosity that crossed my mind.

What happens to undead and demons in an Anti-magic zone?

This especially came to me when I realized that Death Knights are the class with such an ability. How do they survive in their own Anti-magic bubbles?

Or am I thinking of it the wrong way and it's more a mass silence?

Post by CalaelenDT

I've always seen Anti-Magic Shields/Zones/Bubbles as something that blocks/absorbs magic effects directed at it from the outside, not as something that completely negates any form of magic inside it's radius.

I'm not sure what you mean with how undead, demons and DKs would survive inside an Anti-Magic field. As far as I know they don't require magic to live, they merely use it. Undead and DKs were revived using magic yes, but it's not their life source, they wouldn't just collapse if they were ever in a magic free zone.

Post by oneforthemoney

I think it might work more like a sickness for them. Demons have fel basically in the blood, so deny them that and they would probably end up sick and dying. Death Knights probably have it better, being greater undead, with both their own souls inhabiting their original bodies. Lesser undead like Forsaken might have the same sickness issue, but Death Knights can probably handle it better, though it is likely why their anti magic spell is outward oriented and anti magic zones temporary. The better crafted and more ingrained the magic is, I imagine the harder it is to deny it. You can't just slap a demon with an anti magic glove and expect them to collapse.

Post by Adamsm

Since both the Fel and Necromancy are already inside of the bodies and not being channeled to them from an outside source...they'd go on as they do, just reduced to using their natural/unnatural weapons against a foe in there, since from what it is suppose to sound like, magic is useless within the shield.

General Lore Discussions

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