Up next in 10
This week we have four listener questions answered by our lore experts Joe and Matt. First, they discuss the Ethereals and what their timeline is in relation to the timeline on Azeroth. Has this race existed for years, decades, milennia -- or something different entirely. They pivoted to the dragons and their aspects, and how choice figures in. Chromie, for one, clearly got some element of choice in how she appears in her bipedal form. How might other dragons choose, and how might new discoveries change what they choose? Is Alexstrasza going to become a Kul Tiran? Then, we pivot a third time to the old-school class quests like the Paladin's Charger questline and how they tied in to the class fantasy of the player, plus how they might be brought back in the future. Finally, we pivot once more, back to where we started, with Ethereals. This time you asked about Ve'nari and her secretive nature. The Ecodomes hardly seem nefarious or easily sabotaged -- why did she keep them a secret from us?
You ask us questions and we luckily have some loremasters on hand to explain the answers. If it were just me you'd be listening to hold music while I frantically scanned through everything in our Warcraft in print guide looking for something approaching an answer. Hope you like the muzak version of Careless Whisper!
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0:11
Hello and welcome to Lore Watch round table free form discussion about lore in your favorite media. I'm your host Joe
0:16
Perez, one of several lura focused folks from Blizzard watch and I've got my aether traveling companion with me
0:22
today, Matt Rossy. How you doing today Matt? I'm wrapped forever in bandages of my own disdain. I mean that seems pretty accurate.
0:30
Uh today friends, we're going to be answering some questions from you, our wonderful listeners. If you have
0:36
questions for this or any of our shows, just as a reminder, you can go ahead and send those into podcast at
0:41
blizzardwatch.com. Specify the show that it is for in the subject line as well as any special
0:46
pronunciation of your name. If you want to hit us up on Discord, we have two channels set aside for everybody. We
0:52
have the Q and podcast questions channel open for everyone. Same rules apply. If you are a Patreon subscriber, however,
1:00
you get access to the Patreon Q and podcast questions channel. We tend to look there first as a way of saying
1:05
thank you for helping us keep the lights on. We're going to start with a question here from our friend Speed Lancer. Do we
1:11
yet know how long ago the ethereal shattered Caresh in their attempt to stop Dementius the first time? Various
1:18
NPCs and lore items mention eons and millennia, but I never saw a definitive measure of time. How likely is it that
1:26
it happened around the War of the Ancients? Um, so Caresh has been for the
1:33
last 20 years up until this expansion, Caresh has been a plot hole. Uh, well, it's been not well defined and a lot of
1:40
the stuff even in Burning Crusade, uh, was, I think, decidedly vague on
1:46
purpose. Um, in I believe the Burning Crusade, I think they hinted at it being
1:51
about a thousand years ago, which would put it closer in line to events on
1:57
Azeroth. But as we moved into the war within, we now know that it was probably
2:03
several tens of thousands of years ago. It part of the confusion is based off of
2:09
how long the life of an ethereal or a broker is after they've been moved into their uh energy state, which we now know
2:16
is basically namortal unless their energy is taken away from them or used
2:22
or or their wraps are destroyed in a way that they can't hold themselves together. So, I don't know that saying
2:28
that it happened around the War of the Ancients would ever be a good measure of time, but it definitely happened longer
2:34
than we initially expected. And I'll let Matt add anything he wants to that one. Well, there is a quest with a character
2:41
named Outcast His who says um that the
2:46
devouring took place 100,000 years ago, perhaps more. But that's just one guy.
2:52
Uh I don't know how valid his statement is. Um I do know that it took a while
2:59
ago and I think it took well even if we go with the most conservative estimate
3:07
it took significantly it happened way before uh anything that happened on
3:13
Azeroth um including you know the invasion of the legion. I think it
3:18
probably took case place before the destruction of Argus even. So, but
3:24
that's this is this is just one person saying this. Uh
3:32
while I don't I don't necessarily think that leaving it incredibly vague as a plot hole so much as it was just them
3:39
not defining it cuz there was no real reason to do so and they've always
3:44
wanted to keep it open so they could do something with it later. But regardless of how you define it, if you call that a
3:49
plot hole or not, it doesn't really matter. The point is they have been vague on purpose and as a result of
3:55
this, we do not have anything like consensus on how long ago it was. Um,
4:02
but the war of the ancients was only 10,000 years ago. um which is I mean I say only like 10,000 years is a short
4:08
amount of time but compared to say the you know the destruction of Argus
4:13
um that which is well over 25,000 years ago it's quite possible that it that the
4:19
you know they didn't happen even close to each other um I would find it unusual if they did especially since
4:26
Dimensionous isn't in any way shape or form related to the to to um Sardaras uh
4:32
much closer to the kind of being that, you know, orders old gods around. So,
4:39
yeah, I I don't think that there's a connection, but I cannot stand here and tell you that there isn't, if that makes
4:45
sense. I I cannot tell you when it actually happened. I can just tell you
4:51
that everybody seems to agree that it took place a while ago. Um, but that's as that's as specific a timeline as we
4:58
get, I believe. Uh, in case unless there's a quest I'm forgetting that Joe remembers, which is quite possible.
5:04
No, I I don't think we ever get any like real definition. I think part of the other thing to consider here too is I
5:12
believe they've established that time gets weird around major cosmic events in certain cases where at one point in time
5:20
the twisting nether the the the space between worlds uh was considered anomalous to time and space essentially
5:27
where traveling through it could be you know decades could be millennia could be
5:33
eons not exactly a linear path. off via time or spatial reasoning.
5:40
It's also possible that with the what they did to Caresh that time may be
5:47
considered or or looked at differently from their perspective. For them, it could be a blink of an eye, right? It it
5:53
could have not been, you know, 100,000 years ago. It could not have been an eon ago. It could have been yesterday. Um it
6:02
but it I think it is again purposely not specifically like qualified. It's
6:10
not specifically like described beyond people's recollection of it. And I think
6:16
that's the more important takeaway at least in terms of characters and story. It's how they feel about it. Right? Like
6:23
for somebody like Venari, I don't know that they would dwell on the length of time. they would view the task at hand
6:29
and looking back on it they may look at it as oh yeah that that just happened like yesterday whatever no big deal it
6:34
doesn't change what I have to do today. Uh Locust Walker another example of somebody who you know that wound is
6:42
still fresh and therefore for him no time at all has passed. Uh for some it may be that something that they're
6:48
trying to put behind them uh and are trying to move past and then there are others that are just kind of stuck in
6:53
that sort of wake of the events. So maybe there is a a metaphysical reason
6:59
why uh we have different accounts of time or maybe it is just the concept of self because that's the other thing we
7:05
don't really know right like we learned during the whole ritual uh of of
7:11
essentially giving us rushy wraps and us going through and being temporarily able to make ourselves incaporeal that it's a
7:20
very hard process and the folks that went through it didn't necessarily
7:25
necessarily have a choice. Um that they were wrapped as like sort of to keep
7:31
themselves together and in a humanoid form, something you know that couldn't
7:36
be well they were in a form that was essentially going to be easily consumed by the all devouring, right? And so they
7:42
needed something to keep themselves together. We don't know how that tragic event forced or warped their sort of
7:49
sense of reality or self, right? We also know that they can be unbound for a
7:55
certain period of time during the I can never remember the actual uh boss's name
8:01
because we only just call it wacky waving inflatable tube man. Uh but he's like the second or third boss depending
8:07
on what order you go in in Mana Forge. You see the energies of the souls being
8:12
distilled into tubes to then be wrapped uh in the special threads and then given
8:20
form. But before they are given that form, they're sort of energy blobs or or
8:27
like energy elementals, I guess, would be the best way to put it, they don't necessarily have a sense of self. They
8:33
don't say anything. They don't really react. And we don't know how long they've been swirling around in it. Uh, and it reminds me of demons in
8:40
particular. It reminds me of Anourus where for a demon, I'm going to air
8:47
quote here. um going through the process of Enourus. They don't necessarily know
8:52
how much time has passed. They're aware of the torture. They're aware of the pain, but for them it could have been a
8:58
day. It could have been 100 years. So, is that the same for the Keshi? Is it the same for the Atherealss and the
9:05
Brokers based off of when they were given or coalesed back into a humanoid
9:12
form? No idea. So, I think again I think it's purposely vague and I think it's
9:17
made for for broader broader consumption at least in our terms. Go ahead, Matt. I went up and looked um up Outcast His
9:24
entire dialogue tree um from the turn-in quest and he actually says a couple of
9:31
things that kind of attach to what Joe is saying, which is why I I thought I should go look at it. Um he talks one of
9:38
the things is when he says, "Hm, a 100,000 years perhaps more. Who can count anymore? The peril and flaw of
9:44
being immortal is that time is meaningless. But meaningless as it is, it was all I
9:50
needed to break two oaths. One to Nexus King Salidar himself when I lost left
9:55
his ranks. The other he lowers his gaze deep in thought is a subject that weighs heavily on my soul on my shoulder. And
10:01
you know that's they don't have a connection to what they were like the
10:06
only connections they have are little bits of memory. They their their physical essence, their physical form is
10:13
just uh a construct built around the energy, possibly even just straight up their might be how um the brokers can
10:22
get into and out of the Shadowlands. Maybe they just take off their suits and go through a thing that you know goes
10:29
through and then since they're sapientma they cannot go to the Arbiter, not go to
10:36
any of the places. I don't know. But I do think that there's a connection between them being because I think
10:43
that's that's got to be what they are. I mean, that's just, you know, if they are souls, they arema, you know, we've seen
10:50
this when you go to the Shadowlands, that's that's what they the souls there are made of. That's what they are. So, I
10:58
feel like the time disruption is because essentially they are dead. They are not
11:05
physical beings with living bodies anymore. They their time doesn't do anything to them. Yeah. And that's why they're out of time
11:12
essentially. Yeah. Like they do not they do not live. They do not die. They are outside the cycle.
11:19
Yeah. And and it also makes me think of some other things that we've we've talked about in the past that sort of
11:25
play into this concept of time as well. uh not just the bronze dragon flight and the infinite dragon flight that is time
11:33
manipulation but going back to like the short story a thousand years of warrior and lived a
11:40
thousand years except that they kind of didn't right no time passed even though time passed
11:48
uh they mentally experienced a thousand years subjectively physically nothing
11:54
happened to them because the twisty nether doesn't do that for whatever reason. Yeah. And we and we know that for a at
12:01
least we know that in particular the uh what was it? Argus. Argus was fully
12:06
within the the twisting nether, right? Um that it being fully shrouded in the
12:12
Nether alter time. Caresh is also in a weird spot. It exists and doesn't exist
12:19
all at the same time. Um it's and our interaction with it. We are never
12:25
actually on the planet like itself, right? We're on the outskirts of it.
12:30
We're on pieces that have been jettisoned away from it after exploding. Like you look over and you see like
12:37
these the swirling core of the planet. Uh and yes, maybe that's where part of
12:43
the the mana forge takes place, but it doesn't really feel like it's actually in the core of it. And most of our
12:49
interactions with it are outside of it. So, you know, we don't know if it's
12:54
actually within the Twisting Nether, or maybe it is. Maybe that's why they're able to distill all that void energy
13:00
down to to essentially uh supercharge and wake up the fragment of Dementius's body. We also know that Dementius
13:08
emerged there originally, and we don't know the mechanism of that either because now you're you're adding void to
13:14
the mix, right? and void. And I think not to interrupt you, I think we should also mention that this
13:21
also has a a correlary in what we know about Outland. Yeah, Outland is a big chunk of Draanor that
13:28
is not in regular space, nor is it in the Nether fully and different parts of
13:33
it are differently in the Nether. Like Nethertorm is practically in the Twisting Nether. And you'll notice
13:40
that's the only zone in Outland that had a mana forge built on. Yep. And when the Atherealss came to
13:47
Outland, they mostly congregated in Nethertorm. They didn't entirely
13:53
congregate there. Some of them went to other places, but even the ones that went to other zones, none of them went
13:59
to the zone that felt the least Nethery, which is the starting zone, um, Hellfire
14:06
Peninsula. Well, and and I want to I want to add on to this too real quick is now think of think of that going back to
14:12
Nethertorm, going back to when we went to Burning Crusade in the first the first uh foray into there.
14:17
That was our first introduction to EcoDoomes, right? Why were they building them there? Because they needed to know
14:22
how the eco reacted in an environment that was similar to to what happened to Caresh, right? Where does Venari go to
14:29
learn what she needs to know about revitalizing Caresh? She goes to the mall. Both of these places are out of
14:36
time, right? They they are essentially removed from time. But now going back to the thing I was going to say about the
14:41
void with Dementius, the void in general has a weird effect. And we've seen this
14:47
where because it is capable of seeing and essentially interacting with all
14:53
possibilities. The void itself also doesn't necessarily adhere to time to begin with. Like
15:01
considering Argus, Argus is not just steeped in the Twisty Nether. It is a world that part of it is consumed by
15:07
void. Not all of it, but some of it. Um yeah, and that's the zone we even go to
15:12
and go into the dungeon and, you know, see the Naru that is twisting. There's there's a lot of stuff going on there.
15:19
or or the home that the void elves consider themselves, you know, or consider themselves home at those those
15:26
asteroids. Uh the Talagus rift, uh like
15:31
that is also removed from time, but think of some of the other things the void has done. the Black Empire. We go
15:39
back and see it when we're dealing with and yes, we're dealing with the uh the the bronze and and infinite dragon
15:46
flight at the time. But the old gods remember things. They operate outside of
15:52
time. They have a reach that is broader than we can think of. And while they not may not be pure void, they're adjacent
15:58
to it. Imagine what that is for pure void. Imagine what that is for Dementius emerging and what that would possibly do
16:05
not just to your sanity but your concept of time. It has to go wonky because
16:11
again it just stretches in all directions. It has always existed and thus must always also exist type deal.
16:18
It doesn't care about the march of time. Void doesn't necessarily decay uh like
16:24
true living matter does. It is not beholden to it. it itself is also outside of a cycle. Uh in its extreme,
16:32
not always, not all of it, but in its extreme it kind of is. So that's is another monkey wrench to throw into it.
16:38
So, it's a long way to sort of get about answering your question, which is we have no bloody idea because it is both
16:46
possible but also impossible to really pin down the time in which Caresh exploded because it all the matter it's
16:53
all a matter of your perspective from us living on Azeroth. Maybe 100,000 years
17:00
ago, maybe 10,000 years ago, maybe a thousand from those that maybe all three. Maybe all three. Um
17:05
cuz it could have happened. It could like literally the waves of the effect could come to us at different times.
17:10
Yeah. What what is it? What is the theory? The the black hole theory or whatever it is where it's like time dilation. Time dilation, right? Because it can
17:16
happen simultaneously at multiple points in time, but it's one event, which we don't have time to get into that. That's a whole weird episode that we could we
17:24
not necessarily beholden to our watch, but Matt and I both tend to be very weird geeks that read. Well, I guess you
17:31
guys are too. We go down weird rabbit holes and uh physics and science tends to be one of them that you know
17:37
depending on Yeah. Just in this case, let's just say this. Did it happen at some point? Yes.
17:44
Do we know when? No. Do different people tell us different things? Yes. Do we
17:50
know which one of them is right? No. Could they all be right? Yes. Could they all be wrong? Also yes. That's what we
17:56
got. And I want to go on to the next question because I think it ties in with this a little bit. And this one comes from uh
18:02
Vic Zelink. Uh now that we know that what Venari's true purposes was, why was
18:08
she so secretive about it when we met her in Shadowlands? Restoring Kesh seems like a noble goal to me and not
18:14
something you'd need to hide. Did she distrust us that much back then? Or is she hiding something else that we still
18:20
don't know about? So going back to the destruction of Kesh, we now know and now
18:25
going through the war within and going through the mana forge and going through and learning what happened to ostensibly
18:33
her people. Her people are mostly against her. They are mostly against the
18:38
saving of Caresh. So many of them have fallen sway to essentially a cult of the
18:44
void under King Saladar, right? They Saladar, not just some guy,
18:51
their ruler, the one that ruled them in life, right? So, all of these people
18:56
that are being captured and being, you know, put through and being void infused
19:02
and coming out as void etherealss and serving King Saladar in resurrecting the
19:07
great devourer of the universe. That's all of them. There's a very very like I
19:12
I don't know if that could be essentially overstated. If you follow the story, the ones that are rebelling
19:19
against it are either the wastelanders who are, you know, living on the outskirts but still can fall and be
19:25
captured and being turned into uh void etherealss and a matter of fact have been since the brokers and the
19:31
etherealss have scattered to other ends of the universe to other cartels that
19:38
may have their own purposes or maybe don't want to save cares. They want to save their own bacon. So now if you
19:45
advertise that you're trying to resurrect Caresh, what happens? Let's say you tell the ethereal Jim Bob that,
19:52
"Hey, Jim Bob, I'm going to go resurrect Caresh." That's great. I'm going to go tell the boys. Jim Bob goes and tells
19:58
the boys. That entire group of people gets taken o taken in by the the void etherealss and converted over into void
20:05
etherealss to serve their king. Well, now they have to tell him that Caresh is going to be resurrected and that Venari
20:11
is in the M figuring out how to usema in order to do this. What isma? Is a very
20:16
large power source. What would I think that a giant void lord that they're trying to resurrect would absolutely
20:23
love? Oh man, delicious. And we know that this because we have
20:29
seen the void invade the Shadowlands trying to get thema. Yeah, why would it want it? Like we've
20:36
we've seen them do it. We know that they do it. We know that the various peoples
20:41
of the Shadowlands, they created a whole realm of the souls of absolutely hard
20:47
men and women and people to crush anything that invaded the Shadowlands. And the void is right up there on the
20:54
list. That's the the dangers the Shadowland has. The Shadowlands is a gigantic pool of magic. Ultimately, it's
21:00
an it's a gigantic pool of the power that drives the universe. It's sort of like a sump well where like water runs
21:08
back down into it and then the water can be brought back forth. It's also power with infinite potential.
21:13
Yes. And what does the void love? Infinite potential.
21:18
Yeah. So it it's a really fine line here. Uh it it it could be very
21:25
dangerous to tell anyone anything about what you're doing, especially when you know not only outnumbered like 20 to one
21:33
or 20,000 to one maybe. We don't have numbers, but it's pretty it's pretty staggering.
21:38
Yeah. Um and those of your people like cartels, her cartel exiled her.
21:44
Yeah. for for even looking into this like she and in fact she even quit a
21:50
like she quit a cartel to join cartel V which is why her name is Venari she's in
21:55
the cartel V except then she left them to to do this technically she shouldn't
22:00
even be calling herself but you know what are they going to do they're trying to kill her anyway she's got a like
22:05
she's got a lot of reasons to hide and a lot of reasons not
22:11
to tell anyone what's going on plus even she makes clear in addition into all this other stuff. She doesn't give a
22:17
rat's behind about anything else. Mhm.
22:22
She does not care. Like she'll work with Zalat. She doesn't care. She doesn't like Zalot. She doesn't respect Zalot.
22:28
She's certainly not going to follow her. But she'll work with her if it'll get her more of what she needs to restore
22:34
the world. You know that there's that's her her job. That is her goal. She does
22:40
not care about anything else. She doesn't care about making friends. She knows full well she's not going to make enough.
22:46
Like even if she converted every ethereal and broker who wasn't already
22:52
under Saladar's thumb, that would be like leading a group of 5-year-olds up against the mass, you know, United
22:59
States Marine Corps. You know, she she can't beat them in force. So, she's not
23:04
trying to let them fight. Let other heroes come and fight them. I don't care. This is what I care about. My
23:10
fortune for the world that was. Isn't that what she says? Yeah, I don't remember. So, yeah. No, Shaneer
23:15
doesn't give a rat's butt about, you know, telling us what she's up to. In fact, not only is it good for us not to
23:23
know in her mind because then we can't reveal it, but while we're being big,
23:28
strong heroes fighting to save the day, she can get about her job. And nobody is
23:34
going to spend time going after her with those lunatics here. You know, these people, you know, they they they went
23:40
and punched Sargeras in the face. These people are crazy. You know, one of them stepped through a portal and attacked
23:47
Sargeras with an axe. These ones killed Argus. You go ahead. You deal with them.
23:52
You fight them. I'm I'm going to be over here making effectively green houses. You think that the, you know, Dementius
23:59
is not looking at Venari and thinking, "Yeah, I definitely got to stop greenhouse lady." And that's just fine by her cuz that's her goal and she does
24:06
not care about anything else. Yeah. And I think the other thing to consider that too is just take a look at how the war
24:12
within evolved, right? And look at her story. It is it is not until she's there
24:21
and the domes are ready to go does she pull anybody in really like she has a
24:27
group of people working for her now. She may have had them before, but anybody
24:33
else would have been potentially a liability. And we may have been a liability to tell what was going on
24:40
because and and I have said this before. I will say this again and this will
24:45
always be true. We mess everything up. We fix stuff and and don't get me wrong,
24:52
we're we're the big heroes. We do some we do some great things, but it is we
24:57
can count on a single hand how many times we have left a place better than we have found it. It is not very many,
25:04
let me tell you. And it's because sometimes sometimes we go in and prevent it from getting much much worse, but we
25:09
usually do that by still leaving it pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's it's just one of
25:16
those things that is Well, regardless, getting back to the point, we could be a liability, right?
25:22
And let's look at what happened with Anduin in Shadowland. And had the best intentions. He still got ridden around
25:29
like a puppet. What would that happen if it was one of us that knew? We happened to welcome a natharrezime into our order
25:35
hall in the the paladin order. What would happen if they found out? Who would they tell? How would that affect
25:41
what was going on? Keeping it close to the mechanical chest for Venari is the
25:47
best option available. Trust a very few number of individuals, if any at all,
25:54
proceed with your quest. help distractions out by giving them what
26:00
they need to become further distractions for people that would look at you and then when the time is right, complete
26:06
your mission and that's it, right? Like until we're at the ego, she never told
26:11
us what was going on. And yes, it was a noble goal, but it wasn't the nobility
26:16
of it that was the problem. It was the potential of it being disrupted or
26:22
broken. And now because she did that, Caresh has a snowballs chance in hell,
26:28
which it didn't have before. Before this was all literally pointless. Like there
26:33
was no point. Even the people of Caresh that served its world soul couldn't hear
26:39
it. It was effectively dead. Whatever she's done, it it may have created an
26:45
entirely new world soul within the what's left of the planet or somehow reawakened the one that was there. I
26:50
don't know. I don't think it's there's even any way for anyone to know at this point, but it went from, you know,
26:57
chances like negative chance to do this, not just like very low chances, but negative chances to an actual .001%
27:06
chance. And that's on Venari who by who doesn't care about anything else. It's
27:13
even when she lets you help her, she does so because she's in the final stages and she can't fail at this point.
27:19
Like when I don't say can't fail as in she's destined to succeed. I mean she literally is like I cannot allow this to
27:25
fail. Yeah. And not only that I will do literally anything to not let it fail. But she's also at a point too by the
27:31
time we get there that even if she like if she falls there's pieces in place to keep it going. Right.
27:36
And people enough people that have been serving her that they might be able to keep it going. and the ones that she's
27:42
bringing on board too because don't forget that's a big part of the storyline as well is revealing to the
27:47
rest of the etherealss and the brokers I got a solution I got a fix and it works
27:55
watch this and then you know repopulating a dome with life from
28:01
literally nothing from essentially like I don't remember I don't remember the exact point when we we bring the world
28:08
soul to Ecodome um Aldani But there's a whole deal with like uh other people
28:15
fighting like attacking. I think it was one of the soul scribes. Uh they attack and the wastelanders attack and the mall
28:22
walker saves the day because you know that's what we do. And that's where showing the the world soul to them
28:29
convinces them to finally turn on the Nexus King. Yeah. The Wastelanders initially they turn on the they they not necessarily
28:36
turn on the Nexus Kings. I don't think they knew that he he was back in that power. But it wasn't until they were on
28:42
board with us for the safety sake of Caresh until the Nexus King showed up and invoked their oath, right? And made
28:52
them conflicted. But that goes back to the first question of where we answered where time for them is weird and for
28:58
them the Nexus King their oath to him is yesterday, right? It's not necessarily 10,000 a,000,000
29:05
years ago. is time doesn't matter to immortal beings. Yeah. You don't, you know, it doesn't affect
29:11
you. So, yeah. No, it's absolutely, it makes sense. So, there's just a lot to
29:16
it. Yeah, there's a there's a lot there. It is a complicated ethereals and brokers
29:21
are complicated. Who would have thought? Uh, but hopefully that answers your question. We're going to go on to our
29:26
next one. And this one comes from uh our friend Red Bandit, otherwise known as
29:33
uh Synchromu. Uh was just talking to my daughter about the dragon aspects and it made me wonder
29:39
what species do you think the aspects, Malagos and Altheran included, would have picked if they chose today. Do you
29:46
think they would have had a big elf motif or they have picked other denisonins like orc or janai for a
29:52
visage form? Correct me if I'm wrong. They did do that. Yeah, I was gonna say some dragons um one of uh
29:58
the blue dragon flight in particular. Yeah, but there's a there's a red dragon you meet in Blackwing Lair.
30:05
Mhm. He's there as an orc. Yeah. Um I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he's the one that later
30:11
on we fight uh in in Blackwing Layer itself. Uh he's the second boss in
30:16
Blackwing Layer. And when we first see him, he's an orc. Uh the the reason in
30:22
fact we know for a fact that that Zaxis aka Ntharian was not always a human.
30:29
That's just one of several forms he took. He came as a night elf several times. He came uh he came to the Draier
30:37
as a Dracier at least once. Um he came to other people's in different forms.
30:44
Even before he fell before he became Deathwing he was appearing in all sorts of different forms. Um, we don't know
30:51
about Malagos exactly. Like we know that a lot of blue dragons do pick different forms other than elves. Um, we know that
30:59
uh the the fact that um Oh, bloody heck. What the heck's her name? She's the head
31:04
of the red dragon flight. Alex Raza. Thank you. Alex Drazza. Alexstrazza couldn't have appeared as the elf she
31:12
appears as now during the war, you know, the the the War of the Ancients or before it cuz there weren't any elves
31:20
that looked like that. They didn't exist yet. Um, and the fact that she and Aloon
31:26
are the only two of the original aspects that are direct relatives. They are sisters. They come from the same clutch.
31:32
Not Aloon, Yera. Sera, my bad. Aloon is the moon. Yera is the dragon. Uh yeah, Yera and um
31:41
Alexstrazza were clutch mates. Same they they had they came two eggs from the
31:46
same laying. Um they were close. I think Alexstrazza basically acted like the
31:51
protective older sister and Yera acted like the younger sister who was a little flighty but actually was was a little
31:58
bit more creative. And when you read the book, you know, Dawn of the Aspects, none of them takes a visage form at any
32:04
point in it because they're all protot. But it's definitely hinted later on that the
32:11
the visage for a dragon is not the same as the visage for a dra.
32:17
Yeah, it's more malleable, right? Yeah. Like Malagos, I mean, Malagos
32:23
usually showed up when he showed up at all, either in dragon form or as an elf. But you've seen what Caligos's form is.
32:30
There's no way that's what he looked like when he was first hatched. Yeah. And I mean, Caligos technically has taken on the form of a half- elf,
32:36
right? Yeah. So, like looks like one of those one of the people from uh what do you call it?
32:43
Uh yeah, the Athor. So, the Arai. There's no there's no way that the Arathi were that in that form when
32:50
he was born because he's he's not super young just because he's not as old as the aspects the original aspects he's
32:57
still several thousand years old. Yeah. And and and I want to point out like at the especially in dragon flight
33:03
when you get to the point of the blue dragon flight coming back in when when
33:10
Caligos actually reaches or essentially lights the beacon and they all show up.
33:16
They're all one's a troll. They're all I think one's a gnome. Like they're all Isn't one a torren?
33:21
I think one is a torren. Yes. So like and we know that the blue dragon flight has integrated more with the races of of
33:29
mortals than maybe some of the others simply because they accumulate knowledge which is why the whole library exists.
33:36
But they do they will choose any and all uh motif that is available to them. And
33:43
going back to what Matt said, Drafeier seem to be the ones that have like a visage like a singular once they're once
33:50
they're chosen. Once their visage is chosen, that's and it is a hybrid visage, right? It is not fully human.
33:57
It's not pure. Yeah, I know. It is not like I look exactly like a gnome. Yeah. where where then you go to the the
34:04
actual dragons, not necessarily the dragon aspects, but just dragons in general, and it seems like they can
34:11
choose whatever form suits them in that moment, right?
34:17
And Chromy, you know, Chrommy has not just chosen a form. Chrommy has chosen a form that is not the gender that they
34:23
were born in. Yeah. And and that's and that's a statement by Chrommy that this is what my gender is.
34:29
So they they're way more malleable than the Dra theor. Yeah, we we've had some that have chosen to show up as Vulpera, but we don't
34:36
think that they were originally a Vulpera. Um but they they showed up to help with the War of the Sand
34:41
essentially there. Even Even Nos Dormu and Sormy. Yeah. Who both look like elves, there's no way
34:47
they looked like that when they were first, you know, turned into aspects.
34:53
There's no way because that's not what elves looked like at the time. Yeah. So, I mean, a few elves that existed looked like
35:00
night elves. That's what they were. Night elves are nightborn, whatever you want to call it. That's what they looked like.
35:05
And to be fair, I and I think that makes it really interesting. And I think like
35:10
Veronoth also adds some new complexity to this. So, Vernonoth is one of the
35:16
newest aspects, but even then, as a primordial elemental dragon that was empowered in much the same way that the
35:24
dragon aspects were, except by elemental lords, um, she had a humanoid form that
35:30
was closer to a Draier's hybrid form than it was a pure visage form, but not
35:36
abnormal. Like I could see us potentially seeing
35:43
future dragons taking on like hybrid forms. If you're closer to nature and you've dealt with
35:50
the plant people, maybe you start taking on some of those aspects. Maybe that becomes your visage. Um,
35:56
in again that whole malleability thing, I think it really serves them because it
36:02
lets them not ingratiate themselves, but sort of calm the waters a little bit
36:09
during first contact or uh during negotiations cuz you at some point if a
36:18
dragon saw mechanomes and was like, "Oh, okay. Let's see what they're doing." and
36:24
wants to know more about it that they could potentially take on a mechanome form. They probably could. The magic of
36:29
a dragon is powerful is is all I'm trying to say. The only thing that Uranos herself before she got aspect
36:36
powers successfully froze Odin. Yeah. Now, she didn't freeze him forever. He
36:41
got out of it. Um I don't know how I don't know if if she could beat Odin in a fight, but I think it's very telling
36:47
now she could. I'm not going to say it because I'm we're you know it hasn't happened yet.
36:53
I would put my money on please please earn enough. Please beat the beat the the snot out of I would like her to do it but you know
36:59
I'm I you know why I don't like Odin. I'm like a Pikachu that get used too many times.
37:04
You are a very angry Pikachu. Yes. Yes. But like all of them like the
37:10
dragons aspects had another level of power beyond most dragons
37:15
who are themselves like um Caligos before he got turned into an aspect was
37:22
still incredibly good at magic and and his dragon form was still incredibly powerful. We fought it in Sunwell and
37:29
the only reason we could beat it was cuz it was possessed. Yeah. you know, he he wasn't playing
37:35
like when we fought him. That was an incredibly hard fight. I had to let a druid tank it. I was very upset about
37:40
that. Um, so yeah, there's just their their forms are far more malleable. They
37:47
can be various things. I think the forms they tend to take the most they either choose to believe that these forms
37:54
express their what they truly are in a way that mortals can understand it or they're just comfortable with it.
38:01
Yeah. Yeah. Like I mean again in the the case of Chrommy is a really great example. That's you know Chromy's like
38:06
yeah man this is me. I'm I'm I'm chilling. So I'm cute. I'm fun. To other dragons I am this cute fun little thing and they like
38:13
me cuz I'm adorable and you can't really argue with it just because Chromy takes
38:19
a big Drake form. Even in Drake form she's not smaller or anything but she's pretty nice. I like talking to her.
38:25
She's giving me quests to go through time all the time. Yeah. And the other thing I I can't wait to see more. Before you
38:30
talk, I I want to see the storm drakes. Yes. Uh I want to see their like take visage
38:35
forms. It would be hilarious to me that they just look normal, but they got lightning constantly crackling around
38:40
like Sorry. I I've actually been thinking about this, right? Because now now that they're sort of embraced by the rest of
38:47
Dragon Kind and not essentially under Odin's thumb. Like I always wondered why
38:53
didn't they have a visage? They were definitely powerful enough that they could have, but is that an Odin thing?
39:01
Is that a Almost certainly. Yeah. Almost certainly because we know he interfered with them in so many other ways. Yeah. So now now that they're learning
39:07
about the true breath of their their their dragon kin and their dragon power,
39:14
you know, I I had this thing in my brain where like they take on the form of Vikru. Well, here's the thing.
39:19
Lightning Vikru. Think about this. What is Odin's visage
39:24
form? because he has one. Yeah, it's a Vikru. Yeah, Javi, what if he took their form?
39:31
What if they couldn't they weren't doing and that's how the first and that's how the first deal was brokered, right? Because we know that they brokered a
39:37
deal. We don't know how it how that happened. But you raised a good point now because that means that other beings besides
39:43
dragons can have a visage or take other forms. Yeah, maybe they learned that from the
39:48
dragons or maybe the dragons learned that from the Titans. Could you imagine the original Raen in the Mou form? Yeah, I I can. Or even
39:57
even more is what if Raden could take like a star dragon form?
40:03
Yeah, cuz I don't know. We know that dragons are the create are created from the
40:10
protodrakes by Titan influence. What if that's the Titan influence is not just
40:18
like we've seen dragons in other places. We have. We've seen elemental drakes
40:23
that lived entirely in, you know, deep home and looked like the dragon form,
40:28
not a not a proto drake. Like I don't know, maybe the one in air. We we fight we fight we
40:33
fight what essentially looks like a full-grown dragon in the the uh the air dungeon, the earth dungeon.
40:39
Um we we have all of these things. It's dragons are and I and I want to say this
40:45
dragons in WoW keep a a an interesting and I think important uh tradition in
40:52
fantasy alive where dragons can be murial.
40:57
They can be awe inspiring for many different reasons. And from a playerbased standpoint and from a story
41:04
standpoint, I always like the dragons because one of the things that I've always enjoyed in the storytelling is
41:10
the ability to imprint yourself into a story to to sort of integrate yourself
41:16
to immerse yourself into it. And dragons let you do that in a very interesting
41:21
way because it can almost be anybody, right? And how many players out there
41:26
have made fan art of themselves as dragons uh or their Draar in whatever
41:33
visage forms and it allows you to sort of imprint yourself in a way that the
41:39
other maybe uh heritages in the game do not let you. So, I like that and I hope
41:47
that it remains like that because dragons are just cool and dragons getting to be whoever they want to be, I
41:54
think is awesome. It's not. Someday, someday I really want them to connect the dragon the you know, the
42:02
dragon bone crereer clan. What was the name of that? Dragon clan. Uh the ones
42:08
the orcs that basically before they even came to Azeroth said, "Yeah, we kill dragons." Um, I want him I want them to
42:14
be tied in. I want the them there to have been dragons on Draanor. I want dragons to be something that just
42:20
happens on a world as it develops and maybe it happens even faster on worlds
42:28
where there's no world soul because that way there's more around to infuse
42:34
elemental beings and create dragons from them. I don't know. But I would love to see more. Dragon Ball. Thank you. So the
42:41
Dragon Ball apparently were always telling people, "Yeah, we these giant lizard flying things." Yeah, we we totally we know that they are. We're not
42:48
surprised by that. And everyone else is like, "How have you ever seen this before?" Yeah. And to be And to be perfectly
42:54
clear, Drraanor, not Outland. Drainor before Good before a big
43:01
explosion. Yeah. Before it got ripped apart, before Deathwing decided to go lay eggs there, which is another thing. Why did he do
43:07
that? We've never really learned exactly why Deathwing thought that was a good idea.
43:14
Like why why did you want to lay your eggs in another world? I mean, I get maybe you didn't want them to get destroyed. Sure. Like he he wanted to
43:21
protect them from the other dragon fle. Sure. But at the same time, there's more to it.
43:26
I I mean, I also think that part of the story, at least what was hinted was that he was trying to get get it away from
43:32
the influence of N'oth. So maybe I mean it certainly makes sense considering what happens with the black
43:37
dragons who come back in Dragon Flight. Yeah. Um and they they do say things like that. Um I'm just saying that they it
43:44
would I would love it if he was also just repeating a pattern like before the
43:50
before various things started happening. If you went to one of the elemental planes, you could go from the elemental
43:55
plane back to like imagine if you go from the non Titan constructed planes
44:01
back into the the material plane for lack of a better word. They don't call it anything. So, we have to come up with something. And that's where elementals
44:09
there are earth elementals on Dranor. What if they're there because of brokers? Maybe. I mean, that's one possibility.
44:16
But that would mean that the brokers were there way before we've ever heard of them being there, which is not
44:22
impossible. Mhm. Um and for that matter, uh broker technology or or uh ethereal technology
44:31
is not that dissimilar from Aexus. Yeah, it is not. Which is something um we know that the
44:38
Aexus had the ability to summon old gods because we see one in Burning Crusade.
44:44
We see one being summoned to Outland technically two. Yeah. And also in when we go to Warlords
44:52
of Dranor um that curse that gets put initially on the uh Arakoa and
45:00
eventually starts getting the orcs as well. That curse comes from weird shenanigans involving gods and creatures
45:07
from beyond, you know, the void. So there's some stuff there, too.
45:12
Yeah, there is. Uh, but I think we got time for one more question before we
45:18
call it for the day. Uh, and this one comes from X Knight. Uh, I haven't
45:24
played since Cataclysm, but one of my favorite uh, worth the grind moments from early WoW was getting my Warlock
45:29
mounts and minions. I know Paladins had their own mount quest chains. My question is, why did they get rid of
45:37
those quest chains? Also, if they brought mount quest chains back, what would you think each quest line might be
45:43
for each class and what would those mounts look like? So, we they did it in Legion.
45:49
They did. They brought they brought back some of it in Legion, which if you haven't played since Cataclysm, obviously, you wouldn't know. Um, but
45:56
class questing did come back in Legion. It was not maybe what everybody wanted.
46:03
Um, but there was elements of it there. Death Knight one is awesome. Death Knight Quest Chain is awesome. It's
46:11
dark. It's sinister. It's got good role playinging elements. It's got good good mechanical moments.
46:17
Kit Chef's Kiss A++ would not change a thing. Um you e even if you feel like a
46:24
creep after doing it, which you should, it really feels death nighty. It feels
46:30
really tied in. I wouldn't say that every class got that. No, like Shaman really didn't get that.
46:36
We got other things but not that I got I got to get even more treated like a Pokemon by by Odin.
46:44
Yeah. Although there is one good moment where I get to punch my mount unconscious so
46:49
that you know I don't have to mess around with it or do any complicated bindings. I'm a warrior so I punch my
46:55
dragonish mount unconscious and when it wakes up it's like okay please don't hit me again. You're like good. We're going to be friends now. Stop trying to bite
47:01
me. Um there are some that were really good. Uh there were some just general quests for various classes. I think
47:08
Shaman had a pretty solid quest line. Yeah. Not but their their their mount
47:13
quest wasn't that great. it. So all that to come back to the root of the question of why they have why they moved away
47:19
from it and really haven't done it very much is it takes an incredible amount of effort because partially uh our
47:25
expectation has uh grown considerably from what questing could be
47:31
right and like to give you example in vanilla WoW there were some absolutely
47:37
insane quests that classes had to go through and some appeared at wildly
47:42
different times. If you were a shaman, your introduction to class questing was
47:48
literally your introduction to playing the game because your questing was to
47:53
initially go talk and make deals with representatives of the four elements to
47:59
give you your totems to use your powers. And it was and CP might was all horde because there
48:05
were no correct alliance shaman at that time. So it it was in a way it felt
48:12
really cool. It was but other classes but other classes didn't get that like if you were
48:18
a hunter you didn't necessarily get that and uh there wasn't anything else that I can really remember that was very class
48:25
specific at the time. Not even with warlocks um until you got the mount quests. But
48:32
the mount quests for both the paladins and the warlocks they came later. They came at uh level were they level 40 or
48:39
were they level 60? I can't remember. I didn't play back back then. Um I know that you had to do Dire Mallal, but I don't think they were
48:45
level 40. I mean, they might have actually. You know what? I I think they were level 40 because you got you got a
48:50
mount at level 40. You You had to do Dal and a couple other places. Stratholme, I
48:56
know, was in it, too. Yeah. So, I'm pretty sure it was level 40. um where where other classes
49:01
Yeah, because we helped we helped with getting people their mounts, but other classes we just had to go buy them and it was it was awful. Anyway, um but
49:10
then you had upgraded ones later on. Uh like you hit level six and you could get you could get it um heroic or whatever they
49:17
called it at the time. you get 100% speed mount. And then I'll use I'll use hunters as the other example for amazing uh class
49:24
questing, but it was only available at max level and only if you did molten core and only if you got a specific
49:30
drop. If you got the petrified specific No, you also needed to get the the the quiver at the time, didn't you?
49:36
No, this the the everything started with the the petrified leaf. So when you got the petrify leaf, it opened up the quest
49:43
for both Rock Ladar um and I forgot what the initial name for the staff was
49:48
because it was it rock and lock rock and lock but it it transformed between the two
49:54
essentially. Um and that opened up also a I think it was a worthy quiver which gave you the
49:59
fork to go murder uh blue dragons to go get it. But the interesting bit wasn't you know murdering blue dragons. Uh, it
50:06
was the petrified leaf and getting Rock Ladar was proving yourself an ally to
50:12
nature by going and hunting demons and using all of your hunter skills to kill
50:19
them on weird respawn timers in like trying to beat out other hunters to do
50:27
this. And it was phenomenal questing, but it was very hard. Not just hard, it
50:35
was so griefable. It was very griefable. I remember my wife was doing it and and
50:42
I think this is kind of important to explain why it hasn't been done the same way since. When my wife was doing it,
50:47
uh, a horde warlock decided to just kill the demon or enslave it every single
50:53
time she tried to do it to the point where we had to pull our entire guild had to come out and start killing him.
51:00
Uh, and if he didn't flag, because we were not a PVP realm, we couldn't do anything until he mistakenly flagged. We
51:07
had to start running around trying to get him to target us by mistake. So, that's one reason why people were like,
51:13
I don't want to do this if I have to. Not only do I have to do like incredible kiting um all around this zone and like
51:21
one of the zones was Angoro, so you had to kite a demon and try really hard not to walk near a devil. Um, so yeah, there
51:29
was a lot to them. So I think that's one of the reasons we have to really keep in mind is that people just did not want to
51:34
deal with this level of of hard that can be ruined by other people. Yeah. But the expectations for what we
51:41
want out of a class quest then shifted and you go to an entire expansion of essentially class questing which is
51:47
Legion. While we are fighting Legion and there is a unified story, Order Halls
51:52
really brought that class fantasy and class questing to the forefront and gave
51:58
you very cool moments for just about every class. Um, some were better than
52:04
others, some storylines were better than others. Uh, and but then you had to tied up with the artifacts that we were
52:10
getting, powering up the artifacts. It fleshed out the world. The whole sto
52:16
backstory of the silver hand really became fleshed out during the paladin questing during Legion. Like stuff we
52:23
didn't know then became like real here. Um it's it has then since been not
52:31
necessarily abandoned, but they have to be very careful when they put stuff like that in because it takes so much effort.
52:40
And then yeah, they don't want to just repeat what they've already done. And also players, we're gonna expect
52:45
something special, right? Like I'm not saying that is a bad thing. We should expect good stuff, but it's it's really
52:54
it's very easy to become so used to the the quality that something subpar sets
53:00
so many of the players or something that falls below what your expectation is sets a subset of players on a war path.
53:07
And so they have to tread very carefully if that makes So Oh, it absolutely does because if you think about it in terms of that uh one
53:13
thing I want to say because I think it it plays off what you're saying is if if Legion Legion when it happened the the
53:19
the various class questing was really wellreceived and really loved but then
53:25
they kind of kept repeating themes and elements from it without actually making it the class
53:30
questing. But stuff like the the um the power the borrowed power aspect of it
53:37
kept coming back and people got disenchanted with it. You don't want to do that. You don't want to go back to
53:44
that well too quickly. And you have to find a balance point too because do you do another expansion
53:51
where everybody gets their unique quest experience? Do you throw a one-off in there like the green fire quest for for
53:59
uh warlocks or, you know, do you find organic moments to work them in? If
54:06
you're dealing with an expansion that is dealing with more of the paladin stuff, which we think we might be getting when
54:12
it comes to Midnight, does it make sense then to add class questing in there
54:18
specifically revolving around paladins? Probably does, right? Uh, but that means
54:24
the other players have you have to do it in such a way that the other players don't feel slighted, but it does make
54:29
sense organically with the story. And I think that's more where we're at these days. Instead of specifically calling
54:36
something out is this is going to be your class quest. It's more this is the
54:41
story line and it it identifies more closely with your class than maybe the
54:47
others. Um, and I think there's an element of that that we'll see occasionally. And I actually think that
54:53
that's possibly the best case scenario or the best thing that we can hope for, right? Because outside of a full
55:01
expansion experience, I think there's almost no way to do it where somebody doesn't feel slighted or somebody
55:08
doesn't feel let down potentially. And you don't want to let your players down. The people that make these quests, the
55:13
people that write these quests, they care very much about what they're doing and they care very much about how we
55:19
receive them. and they don't want to give us, for lack of a better term, a crappy product. So, they'd rather have
55:27
that quality than, you know, not. And if we are going to talk about what we'd
55:32
like to see moving forward, I'd like to see more of that, more of that
55:37
consideration of how the classes interact with the main story. I don't
55:43
need a shaman specific quest personally, but I'd like to see how shamanism really
55:49
integrates with the story. And I'll go back to Wrath of the Lich King for this. When you are going through the initial
55:54
story steps in Wrath of the Lich King, you learn how ingrained shamanism is in
56:02
what the Lich King is actually doing at the time because at one point, one of his personalities inside of that helm
56:08
was a shaman. You understand how he interacts with the spirit world, how he interacts with, you know, ancestors, and
56:16
how he's not just some onenote necromancer. It's a very complicated intersection between what it means to be
56:23
a shaman and what it meant to become a death knight. And they did it really well because it was a it was like a couple of line, you
56:29
know, like they they dropped a lot of meaning in like a couple of lines to start. I mean, there's more later, but
56:35
that initial meeting in in that expansion, it it's just it's brilliant. It's really well done.
56:41
And I'd rather I'd rather see more of that, right? I'd rather see more of these moments where, you know, we're
56:47
going into Midnight. Let Paladin have their moment. Let Paladin have their Terellion moment. Let Paladin have their
56:54
Leandrin moment where like they learn what it is to be a Paladin in terms of
56:59
what is happening in the greater uh story of the world. And that feels more
57:04
special to me. And I don't know how you feel about that, Matt. And I'll let you say your piece here. like do you have
57:11
anything specific that you'd like them to do or do you is there something that you'd like to see them integrate it in
57:16
in a specific way for like class storytelling? I came up as a warrior. Uh and I've
57:22
played warrior from 2004 on. So I've been playing a warrior this whole time and I'm still playing one. I still have
57:28
that warrior that I made at the time and I still level him every expansion. I don't necessarily play them after that,
57:34
but I always make sure to get them up uh to max level. And our our warrior warrior class quests
57:41
were were the dogs breakfast to be kind. They were go to a place and get punched
57:48
by people or go out into the woods and fight a creature like that's an elite 10
57:54
levels higher than you are when you get the quest and keep fighting it until you get that weapon. Um, if you can bring
58:01
five friends, you four friends, you really should. Um, it got to the point though that where it kind of became a
58:06
running joke. Like the best class quest for warriors in the original game was
58:11
the Quelser quest, which wasn't a warrior quest, it was warriors and paladin. And the paladins had already
58:17
gotten their shiny horses and then they got to glom onto our quest, too. We were like, great, that's wonderful. Uh, and
58:24
you know, of course, a lot of warriors got Thunder Fury and a lot of warriors got Saros, but these weren't these were
58:30
not class specific. Warriors didn't really get any good
58:35
class specific quests up to Legion where they got the worst class campaign of
58:42
them all. Now, the the the artifacts were good. I liked the warrior artifacts, but I have yet to meet a
58:48
warrior who thought that the warrior class hall was good or that the warrior questing through that class hall was
58:53
good. Like, at best, it was okay. And at worst, again, Odin makes you a Pokemon,
59:01
constantly ordering you to do to prove your worth and do ridiculous things that are really kind of demeaning.
59:07
Ultimately, I I really feel like for some classes,
59:12
the problem is that Blizzard has no way to figure out how to make them a
59:18
cohesive thing that you get, you know, quests that make sense. Yeah, warriors are too broad, right?
59:24
Yeah. an orc warrior who grew up, you know, on Drraanor before the third, you
59:30
know, war is not going to have anything to do even with an orc warrior who grew
59:36
up on Azeroth. But then there's moments like the Sarfane questing where you like where
59:42
it's like, but I'm just saying, but that's very stereotypical of like, yes, this is a warrior, right? Like you have these
59:48
weird moments, but yeah, I'm with you. I get you. And the worst part about it is they didn't even have any warriors in
59:55
the warrior class hall. Like every other like I I went on my death knight my paladin and it was like a who's who of
1:00:01
cool people that are in your class. And I went to the warrior class hall and I think Sarfang visited once. Danf never
1:00:08
actually bothered to visit. Uh Gen Greymane eventually started being my friend. Not even Gen Greyman. Sorry, Darius
1:00:14
Crowley. Darius Crowley became my friend and I could have picked somebody else. Um, and that was basically it. Um, but I
1:00:22
loved the the the the artifact quests because finally warriors got new and
1:00:28
cool things that were specifically warrior weapons, which because warriors
1:00:33
are what they are, very rarely do we get a specific weapon that's just ours.
1:00:40
Um, whereas nobody is going to see the Doom Hammer in the hands of anybody but a shaman and be okay with it, you know.
1:00:46
But if they had to actually invent a weapon to give to warriors. At the time I was mad Ashandhi wasn't one. But then
1:00:53
I'm like, who's going to get it? Hunters got Ash Condi. Paladins got Ash Candi,
1:00:59
you know, uh, warriors had Ashkandi. They're not going to just let warriors
1:01:04
have it as an artifact. So Stumcar was actually a good alternative because it
1:01:10
was unique and it had that cool thing that that even if you were a troll,
1:01:15
other trolls would be terrified of you when you pulled that thing out cuz it's the original troll killing weapon. It's
1:01:22
it's even more important than troll color. It's this giant thing that if an
1:01:27
if trolls see it, they run away from it if they can. They'll fight if they have to, but if they can, they're just going
1:01:34
to run from it because it's just so legendary. I like that. And I want them to do, if they're going to do class
1:01:39
quests, they need to feel special. They need to feel like they do
1:01:45
more than just give you a cool dad. I feel like they need to give you lore. Like some and some some classes it works
1:01:53
much easier because they have an initial common line. And even when you broaden
1:01:59
it out like with druids at this point, you can't argue all druids are from the senarian circle because it's not like
1:02:05
you know the xandelari trolls were not going in for meetings, you know. Yeah. The the the the uh kier the oh not
1:02:12
kieran tour culturus druids definitely were not either right. Like we we the
1:02:17
the scope of the classes is is expanded but pretty exponentially.
1:02:24
Yeah. But they're still basically tied to nature and tied to like, you know, a
1:02:29
synergy with like things like that. Uh, shaman, even the the goblin ones, even the Xandelari, even ones that aren't
1:02:36
aren't even like playable races yet, like the Tonka, they still kind of they're still dealing with the elements
1:02:42
and the ancestors and various spirits. And since I think we've pretty much established that both elementals and
1:02:49
ancestor spirits are tied to and we know that there's the fifth element that was being called spirit for a long time is
1:02:55
almost certainly. It all ties together. It all makes sense for shaman. Even if you bring in a shaman who's never even
1:03:01
heard of the other guys, uh it still makes sense that they they're working along this power and they are they're
1:03:09
affecting the way it it interacts with these things. But for warriors, I think almost what you'd have to do is
1:03:16
deliberately the fact that we are not friends and we're not in a group together is the core identity. You know,
1:03:25
it's we we are the simplest aspect of war. We we pick up things and we hit
1:03:33
people with things and we scream things at people and that's us. And we don't
1:03:38
need to be friends to respect that while everybody else out here is doing all this fun stuff, we're the we're the meat
1:03:45
and potatoes. You know, we are the baseline. We are we are literally living weapons in and of
1:03:53
ourselves and that's all. We don't touch tap into chi. We don't touch the elements. We're not pulling on the
1:03:59
arcane or the necroantic or, you know, life magic or spirit or shadow or any of
1:04:06
it. We are just hitting things and and hitting them as hard as we can and sometimes we get hit back. We have a
1:04:13
whole thing about saying things to dragons so mean that the dragon gets really mad and tries to kill us and and
1:04:18
ignores everybody else. It's it's not like we're not using the power of the light to compel them. We're just
1:04:24
straight up saying something insulting that we probably have a big book of insults back and you know there's like I
1:04:29
imagine all these like arms trainers come day breaking out like this giant book and dropping it. Boom. Okay, this
1:04:34
has insults for everything you can think of. People opening it up. How How did we find out that that this makes
1:04:42
from Dr. Mad? This is our legacy. Yeah, this is this is now your tome. Your
1:04:49
mother smelled like a gnome. Wow, that guy got mad.
1:04:55
So that I want to see lore like that that makes sense for that class and for other classes too. Like death knights
1:05:02
and paladins and some some other classes don't really have they have a a solid
1:05:09
food through line. But rogues, the only thing they should have in common is that they they're basically sneaky. That they
1:05:15
should be that. And that's fine. That's one of the things I I felt like the the Legion rogue quests weren't bad, but
1:05:23
they felt all over the place. And I I feel like trying to tie things together. Certain certain classes shouldn't be
1:05:31
concretized and and drawn together. They should be desperate. You should have
1:05:36
room for an orc spy and a torren who, you know, first off, we should have torn
1:05:42
rogues, but also, you know, we do have them now, right? Yes. Okay, cool. uh you know a torren who
1:05:48
just you know likes to be a scout and a human who basically plays billiards and and convinces people to give him his
1:05:54
money. They should all be rogues like you you know the the guy breaks a bottle and stabs you with it because he's you
1:05:59
know trying to get away. All this different stuff should work together in the in these specific kinds of classes
1:06:05
whereas other classes it makes sense that they're more concretized and they're more based around a central
1:06:10
point but I think it it's quite doable and it should be done. Yeah. Well, hopefully that answers your question or at least gives you some
1:06:17
insight into our thought process on it. Friends, I do want to thank you for joining us and remind you that Blizzard
1:06:23
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