The Queue: Puppies and Burning Crusade hijinx
@MatthewWRossi
I have no idea what this is or why my wife and I made it. It’s not even accurate in its own panels! The Human says they found him two panels ago but clearly it’s just one panel ago!
Also, I hope you like pictures of a puppy. You made her sad, you monsters.
There’re so much spoiler stuff released today, it may be a problem for those averting them to stay here.
There’s always our forums and discord if you’re desperate for a spoilers fix. We try to label every post with spoilers and give warnings whenever possible so people can avoid them. We’re always curious what folks would like to see in the future, though — would a daily or maybe just weekly (depending on how thick the spoilers are in a given time) Spoiler’s Corner post be something people would like? I’m not promising this — I’m not an editor here, I don’t set the post schedule — but I can always mention it and see what the others think.
Edited to add: Okay, so we don’t have forums anymore? Jeez, have your computer explode one time and you lose track of everything.
I hate being sarcastic towards creative efforts as a general rule, but I have absolutely zero plans to listen to the new audiobook. I’m already getting enough Legion and Argus exposure, thank you very much. Wake me up when we get a Dwarf story!
We had two Dwarf heavy short stories and a Moria comic at the start of Legion, Magni even gets a story quest this patch, I don’t think Dwarf lovers can complain they’ve been forgotten this time around.
And the Audio Drama is exceedingly well done and sheds a lot of light (yes, I know) on the story we’ve all wanted for years as to what exactly happened to Turalyon and Alleria, why time works differently in the Nether, and how Turalyon lived so long. It’s a good story. I don’t even like Audio Dramas and such — I can read a lot faster — but it was well performed and acted and definitely worthwhile for folks who enjoy the format.
If you don’t want to listen to it, don’t. That is as always your call. I’m glad I listened to it.
You know what I would have liked to see on Argus? I’d like to have run into some Eredar who, a couple thousand years into Sargeras’ “deal”, finally decided that they’d been ripped off, that the Fel wasn’t an upgrade from the Arcane. But given how long it’d been, and that openly resisting Sargeras was a good way to have the Killy/Archy duo smoosh your head, they just bided their time and gathered strength, continuing to develop Arcane mastery, and hoping that when Velen returned (he would eventually, right? Right??) they’d be able to join forces and overthrow what the Eredar had become.
And then, after the Legion was defeated, some of those Eredar Reformed folks would get curious about Azeroth, maybe seeking ways to undo the Fel-damage to their people. They’d come over, but some of them can’t stomach Velen’s “we serve the Light” thing. And that’s where we’d get player-character Draenei warlocks, and how the Draenei-variant called “Eredar” become a race option for the Horde.
Any Eredar who didn’t believe in the Sargeras party line after watching the Legion roll over every world it encountered for millennia would likely have been sent off to die in one of the many, many invasions the Legion has participated in over the years, then their soul would return to Antorus where it would be tortured for as long as it took before it broke.
Sargeras and his Shivara doom priestesses are not fooling around. They’ve had untold thousands of years to break any demons who dissent from the program — just ask Ulthalesh what happened to him when he tried to rise up against Sargeras. He became a stick. I’m not saying it’s impossible — Blizzard can do whatever they like with the story — just don’t hold your breath looking for ‘good’ Eredar.
However, we do meet Broken on Argus and it wouldn’t be hard to see some of those guys no longer down for Velen’s leadership.
I’m torn on this because for one thing I don’t think Draenei Warlocks make sense. Making pacts with demons is a terrible idea and Draenei especially know that, having seen the Eredar go down that path. Also, from a game perspective Horde Eredar really dilute the Draenei cool factor, just like giving the Alliance High Elves would to the Blood Elves. I’m not sure they’d ever go and do that when they could introduce a race like the Ethereals and make them faction-agnostic from the get go.
I think on the whole I’m glad they didn’t do this. But I get wanting something unconventional. I wanted Blood Elf Warriors for a while. And then we got them and I was happy, so maybe I’d change my mind if they actually did this, even though right now I don’t want them to.
I don’t know how to ask this question.
I really did not like Legion, like I REALLY did not like it. I did not like how they incorporated dungeons into professions. I did not like the grind for flying (if you want to delay flying then delay flying, but the grind felt tedious). But what really put me off was the basic story. My horde character saves the Exodar and Stormwind, and I kept doing quests for Alliance characters. And I kept thinking that this was ok because there would be a balancing horde quest(s) later on. But that did not happen. In the end I just felt confused and I was never emotionally engaged with the story. “Where is Voljin’s replacement?” “Who after 2 xpacs, who was leading the Orcs?” I kept checking the forums because I felt I was somehow missing half of the xpac’s story.
I am reading here on this website how the horde share a Draenei space ship to Argus. And from listening to the podcasts it seems that there is little or no notable horde npc’s on the ship. I can’t help thinking this seems really odd to me.
And this was after the very disappointing WoD, where my character kills the Orc leaders that were supposed to be so inspiring. Not to mention how the MoP lore was not exactly a happy ending.
I guess my question is, with my reaction to the game as it stands, should I even bother preordering the next game? Do you think the developers will have a more engaging horde story? Or do you just think it’s time for me to disengage entirely and just stay with my current (non Blizzard) MMO?
I like my characters and I had fun playing this game up to around Cata. Then it seemed like the game and story changed. Now the horde (and in extension WoW in general) seems uninspiring to play for.
To answer your question, I think it’s early to talk about pre-ordering the next expansion. BlizzCon is in a couple of months, we’ll likely find out what it is there, so I’d wait until you at least know what the expansion is going to be before you make that decision.
As far as Horde/Alliance story balance goes, I think a lot of people mistake what that is. This is the Burning Legion invading and threatening to destroy Azeroth. They hit the Alliance and Horde so hard at the Broken Shore that those factions are in disarray. Any Alliance or Horde figures who do show up in this expansion with the exception of Stormheim are doing so as part of a general war effort led not by either faction but as support to the Kirin Tor and the Class Orders. Stormheim is Horde and Alliance grudges seething and eventually boiling over, with Sylvanas and her Forsaken scheming while Genn Greymane and his Worgen straight up going for revenge even at this absolutely worst possible moment for that distraction.
Having Baine at Highmountain would have been nice, but honestly, he’s of no more importance to the Highmountain Tauren then your character is — you’re the one actually there to help get back the Hammer, after all. We still get Horde figures on the Vindicaar — Aethas and Lady Liadrin off the top of my head. Is the problem that they’re Blood Elves and not ‘traditional’ Horde? Velen showed up at the end of the Sunwell and I never heard my Horde friends complain about that, nor did my Alliance friends complain that the place was full of Blood Elves. Illidan’s not an Alliance character, Turalyon and Alleria have been missing for years.
I’m not saying there aren’t story elements for both factions that need picking up. I just feel like this expansion wasn’t focusing on who leads the Alliance and Horde right now. It was easy to show Varian’s succession by Anduin, but when Sylvanas became Warchief having a big sidequest about who leads the Trolls now probably seemed less important.
Some of this is also class-centric. My DK (Alliance, mind you) went to see the Horde leader in Stromgarde and staged a raid on Undercity. I actually had no idea what you were talking about when you said you saved Stormwind until I realized you’re probably talking about a class quest from one of the campaigns. I know Rogues do that at one point. Priests get an undead Alonsus Faol, which is a pretty big deal for the Horde. So I wonder, if it that the Horde isn’t represented, or it isn’t the Horde we’re all familiar with? It’s less Orcs, Tauren and Trolls and more Forsaken and Blood Elves this expansion, with the big Blood Elf involvement in Suramar and now on Argus. Does that just feel less Horde to some players?
Blizzard tends to respond to our feedback and often it feels like a pendulum. They did a lot of Orc storylines and there was a ton of complaining, so they pulled back on that this time around. It’ll swing back. But if you just hate seeing Draenei around, I’m pretty sure the next expansion will feature them a lot less. Still, for me, this was a pretty sweet expansion. Tons of Draenei lore, a whole new city of Tauren, it’s been pretty great all around for me. Those races are my jam and its been great to see them featured over Orcs and Trolls and Humans.
Ultimately it comes down to personal taste. I mained Horde in Cataclysm and past of Mists and frankly, Garrosh took the Horde in a direction I couldn’t stomach and I haven’t played it nearly as much since. But the Alliance storyline got better after the disappointing Cata/Mists stuff, so I’m fairly happy with it. Everyone feels differently.
Definitely hold off on worrying about pre-orders until the next expansion is announced. For all we know it could be World of Warcraft: Orcs in Space.
For those who have listened/are listening to the new audio dramas, are they a full cast audio production, or is it really just someone reading at me? (one of these will keep my attention, the other will not)
It has the same narrator as the Gul’dan one did, but the major characters (Turalyon, Alleria, Lothraxion, Locus Walker, Xe’ra, various demons) all had their own voice actors, and pretty solidly done all told.
I know people already answered this but I figure new readers might not mind seeing the answer. Besides it’s an easy question to answer and not full of opinions like some of the other ones we’ve covered today.
Okay, there we go. Puppy is happy again. Queue is finished (you guys don’t know this, but my power was out all night so I had to write this in a hurry) and we’re headed towards the weekend. Hopefully y’all will have a good time.
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