Who am I?
Hey! I’m just another player in the World of Warcraft, and I’ve been around since vanilla! I’ve seen the game progress and develop, change and shape into what it is currently. I’m a roleplayer at heart, but also a massive lore fanatic that loves to dig into whatever it is I can get my hands on. The universe of Warcraft has captured my heart since the first time I got in touch with it through Warcraft 3.
Sadly, as of Cataclysm I’ve found myself looking at the universe with a hint of sorrow. Whenever I boot up Warcraft 3 and experience the original night elves, Cenarius, Grom Hellscream and Thrall’s Horde, the stalwardness of the humans and so much more I realize that WoW is a far cry from its roots. BfA excited me when I first saw it, a return to those roots, to see something come alive again which I thought had long-since died and vanished never to be seen again. Sadly, I am of an opinion that BfA has failed epicly in this regard, and so have previous expansions. This is solely my opinion, and I’d like for discussion to take place surrounding it. Let me know what you think, and I’d love to hear what makes the “new” World of Warcraft enjoyable to everyone still playing in terms of lore and universe.
And now for the actual rant: Vanilla
Ever since Vanilla came out, I’ve already had some minor issues with the lore and the universe that just didn’t make any sense to me. As if there had been some outside influence in the universe that forced things to happen, which admittedly, there was in the form of Blizzard’s game design. It was something that gnawed at me a little, but I didn’t have too much of an issue with it at the time.
Example being the Night Elves in the Alliance, a highly xenophobic distrusting race filled with savage isolated warrior-women whom fiercely guard their own forests. Until recently, they were gutting humans, orcs, and undead alike for coming inside their forests. I believe it’s safe to say that they treated all as defilers whom entered their forest uninvited, and were not at all on friendly terms with the races even participating in the battle for Mount Hyjal. A truce was formed in the end with the defeat of the Legion at Hyjal, and night elves, orcs, and the human expeditions that formed into Theramore were at peace with each other. Now… we skip four years ahead. Theramore is neutral with the Horde, the Night Elves’d been trading with the Horde for wood instead of going to war with each other. All seems peaceful… until suddenly the night elves feel a need to ally with a bunch of races whom they have nothing to do with(Kingdom of Stormwind, Dwarves of Khaz Modan and the Gnomes) on another continent. How were these “allies” going to help them in the first place, how did they even get into an Alliance with those races, and why? What in their nature would’ve even remotely compelled them to ally with another race of potential defilers with no respect for the forests? Their ideals are completely different, their tactical use is void, and they had a lasting truce with the immediate danger surrounding them. Why? A similiar rant can be made just as well for the Forsaken, whom’ve also been sheepherded into the Horde for the sake of gameplay. I get that, and I’m glad they did. I got over it, and I was glad to be able to roleplay and play my favorite race in the World of Warcraft, despite the lore feeling very off right from the start.
Now, onto the next thing which has bothered me since vanilla and is an entirely subjective nitpick. The animations for certain races, another clear example being the female night elves. These strong and proud ancient warrior women, whom have been on a long vigil for thousands of years are… behaving like eighteen year old strippers and cheerleaders? I’m sorry… what? Whilst I get that these things have been purely added for fun, rather than thought about with actual lore connotations, I do believe that in the end they’ve added to the idea that night elves are bluntly put just a young stupid race of sexy women, ready to fly into the arms of the big bulky males of other races given any chance. Even starting about how silly I think it is for a night elf to even so much as look at another race romantically would already be worth a post of its own, given their original identity, lifemates(Trolls have it too, for those of you out there moving on to new partners on your trolls all the time. Even got it in their emotes.), and seperate afterlife(Elune). Sexualization still didn’t bother me, from the skimpy armors to that… but what does bother me is what it has led to in the end. More on that later in the post, with relevant examples.
Classes in the game itself too were a problem to me. Tauren being druids to justify druids on both factions felt off to me, especially since the two races were being pitted against each other. They don’t make sense as enemies, and if they were, it makes even less sense for a purely Kaldorei organisation to take in short-lived members of a hostile race to teach them their ways. Gender-specific roles being removed from certain races like the night elves was… understandable, and luckily it was represented properly still by the NPC’s themselves. The lore however didn’t add up much, and it felt off to suddenly see male night elf acolytes of Elune, or male sentinels or female druids. The sentinels and acolytes were most off-putting, seeing as it was called a “SISTERhood” for a reason. Again, the universe was adapted and changed to fit the gameplay theme of an MMO standard and the universe suffered for it.
As for the content, what are some of the major things we as players have accomplished in the lore as adventurers? Highlights’d be Ahn’Qiraij, Blackwing lair, the molten core. We banished an elemental lord(Ragnaros), defeated the son of Deathwing(Nefarian) and his daughter(Onyxia), and on top of that we’ve beaten an old god. A being so ancient and corruptive that there’s examples in the questlines of even the ancient night elves falling to its corruption, and requiring the dragonflights and combined forces of the night elves to stop them. Quite a big feat, is what I thought. Sure… it’s gameplay. I guess I can just pretend those must’ve been some really badass people with specialized skillsets, rather than farmers with pitchforks? This trend of high-value targets being thrown into the meatgrinder did not end with vanilla, if anything it snowballed out of control in later expansions that were added onto the base game.
Burning Crusade
Ah, the first expansion! New lore, old villains and one of the peoples’ favorite races being brought to WoW! The blood elves. It was an exciting time, yet also one filled to the brim with things that annoyed me without limits as a lore fanatic, or simply made no sense to me. It felt quite often that things were being justified for gameplay reasons entirely, rather than being something plausible within the universe itself. Whilst it surely does contain many lovely things, it contains an equal amount of things I really did not wish to ever find in the universe of (World of)Warcraft.
A prime example are the draenei. All we thought we knew about the draenei was turned upside down this expansion. No longer were they the broken rugged survivors on Outlands, helping Illidan to carve out a place for themselves for their own survival against the brutal fel orcs and demons. No longer were the Eredar the ones that corrupted Sargeras, rather than the other way around. Instead, what we got was a theme of space being brought into the universe. Space in high fantasy is something I personally loathe, and I like keeping the two seperate. If I wanted to see spaceships I’d play SW:TOR, and the first retcons coming through stating that the Draenei playable race were the “uncorrupted” draenei flying around in spaceships was… very off-putting. To quote Nyhm’s music video “Pretty fly for a Draenei”: “The new Alliance race, so out of place. I didn’t know that Warcraft had gypsies from outer space.”.
Furthermore, about the draenei, it was awfully convenient that they crashed into night elven lands, destroying and corrupting the land with their technology, driving off the local inhabitants of night elves there to make space for them, and were just accepted without a single nudge back by the night elves against them. You’d think the night elves’d be pretty upset about a race crashing a spaceship into their lands, getting the wildlife in a twist, being the cause of all kinds of abominations spawning up, using the Arcane, and pretty much losing ancestral lands to this random race that fell out of the sky. No? Just me? I think even if a situation such as this wasn’t an awfully convenient thing to happen, the reaction to it would’ve been far different if it hadn’t been necessary to write a justification for playable Draenei. The least they could’ve done was throw the Exodar somewhere in the middle of the ocean on a random island to not conflict as much with the night elves and their identity. Again they are portrayed as passive and uncaring, not doing much at all. A far cry from their original identity as a faction… but it could be overlooked, again, at least they weren’t being actively changed overly much.
Onto the invasion of Outlands. Why did we even bother going there in the first place? Haven’t the people of the Alliance learned anything about the expedition sent there? The portal suddenly becomes active again, and everyone sees a need to rush straight through to a demon-infested destroyed hellhole of a planet. Even Thrall’s Horde has very little reason to want it to remain open, seeing as what’s on the other side. Nothing but death, destruction, and tattered remnants of a ruined world. You’d imagine that much like in the Warcraft games, the first and foremost objective’d be to simply destroy the portal again or just close it as they’d done before. Why risk a second Horde invasion, or worse, another full-blown Legion invasion by keeping that portal open? Why risk anyone going through it again? Another gnawing topic, that I just couldn’t justify to myself. Nevertheless… again, I got a whole new world to step foot in and I was excited to explore the homeworld of the orcs. I was hoping for interesting new characters to see, and good plotlines to pursue with beautiful aesthetics. I was both happy and disappointed at what I got.
Let’s start with the main threat. Illidan. He is currently the “Lord of Outland”, and in control over most of the forces currently conducting their business on the shattered world. What do we know about him? We know he’s a reclusive fugitive, charismatic enough to persuade others to join his cause like the Naga, blood elves under Kael and the Draenei(Now known as the Broken instead, due to the playable draenei being a thing and all the rewriting there.). So… why are we trying to kill him again, and why is he “evil” again? It seems to me that all he was trying to do was hide from the Legion at the time, and just stick it out on Outlands. Of course, again there had to be changes here and there to make him a “villain” worth killing, so they had him perform acts of cruelty against his former allies(Broken), and similar things. Right… okay. Illidan’s actually a real bad guy now without any character whatsoever anymore. Let’s go kill him! Another beloved character thrown into the meat grinder for the sake of content. Kael, Vashj and a couple of others are also prime example of characters whom’ve suddenly gone down the completely evil path for no apparent reason and in a very ridiculous fashion. Remember guys and girls, TEMPEST KEEP WAS MERELY A SETBACK! It really was, both in terms of justification and immersion. At least we got memes out of it.
A lot of beloved characters with great potential were lost that expansion for the sake of content and raids, and I was disappointed and let down to see my once-favorite characters disappear into history like that. On the other hand, at least we got a revelation about Grom having a son(Garrosh), which did make me happy. Nagrand especially was one of my favorite zones back in BC, and I was happy to have seen it.
However, I must say, that I do feel like this is a first point where faction identity started to disappear already. The expansion was mostly focused on Draenei, blood elves, humans and orcs. Night elves didn’t do much, whilst you’d think they’d be the first and foremost representatives of shutting down a gate that’d bring the Legion or other filth back into Azeroth potentially. Again they’re passive, and don’t do much apart from the Cenarion Expedition that was sent to Outlands to see after the wilds. I’m… sorry. I don’t get it, again. Those super-isolationist night elves whom were fine just sticking out thousands of years in their own lands had a sudden urge to go to a demon-infested planet and help nature there? I doubt they’d care much, seeing as they were completely fine sticking to Azeroth and shutting out everything else from getting into it. They seem to be far more into self-preservation, rather than venturing out and being good nature hippies. Where was the voice of this great race, and where was its identity? As someone whom fell in love with the night elves since I first saw them in Warcraft 3, I was disappointed.
Wrath of the Lich King
This is what most people generally consider to be the best expansion ever released, although debate does exist when put next to TBC. Personally, I prefer WOTLK in terms of story and tone. The gameplay did change quite a bit during WOTLK, and it became “easier” to many, which admittedly was off-putting to me too during the time. The old talent system will be missed.
Let’s move on to the lore and the general tone of the expansion. It was grim, it was dark, it was cold and frightening. Every zone which came into contact with the Scourge was frightening, and you felt as if you were fighting a losing battle against a limitless tide of the Undead. You literally start out surrounded and under attack, holed up in your respective factions’ starting quest hub. I liked how the powers of the Scourge were portrayed, with looming Halls of the Dead, ziggurats, Scourge bullwarks and the Fallen Kingdom bursting open beneath your feet to spew out undead Nerubians. It gave me a very reminiscent feeling of Warcraft 3 and its roots, and it felt like a proper continuation of the story when it came to the quests themselves.
Another example given the night elves came to mind, though. In Wintergarde keep Shandris with a bunch of sentinels can be seen working in the 7th legion. I’m sorry… how does this make sense? It’s an Alliance of races, and I hardly see anyone with as much experience as Shandris or even those individual sentinels submitting themselves to any of the other races. Again their original core is completely thrown into the wind, and not a single mention is made as to why these thousands of years ancient, savage, isolationist, xenophobic, racist and extremely knowledgeable and experienced sentinels decide to say. “Hey, this fourty year old human. I’d love to put my life in the hands of this child! It’s not like I’m far more qualified or anything than this brainless young monkey. Not like I’m far more capable either… no. Not at all. Lead me please, human!”
The characters however were a bit of a mixed bag for me. Whilst WOTLK definitely did introduce new and interesting characters and enemies like the San’layn, a glimpse into the faceless ones, and the corruptive presence of Yogg-Saron, it did also really not do some other characters justice. Anub-arak was definitely a beloved character from the past of the series, and whilst not ruined or misrepresented he was awfully quickly and without much interference thrown into a content meat grinder again. A quick and pretty emotionless end to a character that once meant something to the people, and had a great backstory.
Arthas too was… not quite what I expected. I expected to see a combination of Ner’zhul and Arthas, to see glimpses and influences of the old remnants of Arthas be alive after the merge and the influences of that. Instead we got a saturday morning cartoon villain, nothing at all like the trailer suggested with Arthas’ father speaking about him. We got next to nothing in terms of Arthas, and all we got was a generic Lich King prancing about telling us how we are going to die and how it was all his evil plan all along. I’m sorry, he was shallow and uninteresting. The only reason I remotely liked him was because of his backstory, and the Scourge. His death was emotional, at least until the point where it was revealed that his death was entirely pointless because of the greatest meme of WOTLK. “There must always be… a Lich King!”. Then why did we even get up there and kill him?! Arthas was doing the exact same thing as a jailor! Another rich character thrown into the meatgrinder, and turned into a generic evil bad guy for the sake of content. /tableflip “Tell them only that the Lich King is dead, and that WoW died with him.”
Cataclysm
Ah, yes. The expansion that for me and many of my friends was the tipping point. The expansion where many felt the table had truly been flipped on the lore, and an entirely new and unknowledgeable team was put on the job instead. It felt as if once again many of the races lost any and all identity that they once had, as once again orcs and humans are pushed to the forefront along with a “new” generic evil sprouting up and destroying the entire world people used to love. Whilst it definitely excited me at first, the execution was lacklustre at best. Instead of building on the world, it ruined it in more ways than I can even begin to talk about. Again, worthy of a whole post of its own. It felt like a different game, to say the least.
Let’s take a look at Kalimdor first and foremost. Garrosh has taken control of the Horde, left behind by Thrall. A promising start for the young commander whom we’ve seen grown since TBC and the son of another beloved character from the past. He’s beset on all sides by his enemies, both within his borders and outside his borders. Not just that, but Deathwing just sundered the world and destroyed many things. Okay… that works. I guess it’s a bit of a cheap plot card to play, but hey… we’ve got a new exciting world to explore with a new faction leader. Can be exciting, I guess? I gave it a try.
The first thing, being a night elf (role)player first and foremost was to immediately check on their lands and quest through it all. I was dismayed to see the least how the Kaldorei had been bent over and spanked on the butt again by the expansion for no apparent reason. Auberdine is gone(one less RP hub), Darkshore is beset by a giant tornado and is in ruins, the entirety of Ashenvale is overrun(wtf?) by the Horde, Silverwind Refuge has been wiped out along with the Silverwing sentinels there, Astranaar is under siege, Maestra’s post is under siege, demons are attacking them, Stonetalon is under siege and all but lost with all outposts having fallen or on the brink of falling, Feathermoon is still dealing with the Naga, the exiled Highborne are allowed to come back because… hey, new playable night elf mages! Doesn’t matter that they’ve been exiled for 7000 years, and that they hate the Arcane and its guts. Gotta have those delicious Kaldorei mages, and the Highborne around again! It’s not like the two were actually at odds for a reason or anything, and it’s definitely not like they’d want to suddenly forget about all of their past and let them do the same thing they were exiled for again, right? … No? Just me? Okay Blizzard. Night elves were no savage warriors this expansion, no amazionian badasses or scary stalkers of the shadows, no ancient warriors described as “the perfect warriors”. They were just cannon fodder, tree hippies, and the typical female elves that are just a great plot tool to show how big orc can smash puny elves! At least he was represented as an honorable “true” orc, which I did love to see. I hated its guts, and I hated the developments regarding this. Kaldorei were sorely misrepresented here, and not just that, they had almost all of their core areas contested or taken from them or severely damaged for no good reason besides sorely underestimating them and their already-previously-established potential, and being the gigantic powerhouse that they used to be. This trend only continued in the expansions after.
Whilst we’re still on the topic of the Horde, how come the Horde is even still capable of military actions on a scale like that? Where did they get all their troops and population from to launch an assault of that scale on the night elves, whom pretty much have their entire civilization tucked away in that corner of the world for about 10000 years? As far as I recall, the orcs were only about a fleet in terms of population, with a small island of Darkspear trolls, a tribe of Tauren that was nearly wiped out, and the Forsaken and Sin’dorei on a different continent altogether and nowhere in reach to help. Suddenly, out of nowhere, they gain a large amount of both military equipment and materials to build them whilst they’re in a desolate wasteland with nearly nothing near them to sustain a large army like that, not to mention the population themselves. How did they even get that many people in the first place, given the constant struggles of their living area, the war in Northrend, traveling to Outlands with their troops, fighting the Alliance in the first place, and needing to also just protect their own borders too? It feels as if the Horde at this point should’ve been at the verge of extinction already, and unable to afford a war against a clearly superior opponent(If they’d been properly represented like the people they were originally and weren’t harmless tree hippies.) right next to their doorstep.
I suppose Cenarius also didn’t much feel like helping out, resurrected and alive again. I’d have imagined that he’d still be a fierce protector of the Kaldorei, yet he himself does not appear to be much interested in helping them. Instead, he focuses completely on other matters and doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that the Kaldorei of Ashenvale need his aid like ages past. “Who dares defile these ancient lands? Who dares the wrath of Cenarius and the Night Elves?” -Cenarius(wc3)
So, what about the other parts of the world? How did those stack up? Well… first we got the Worgen of Gilneas. Very odd. They just tableflipped on the lore again, and made up some random story about how they’re just druids of the Pack so they can sheepherd the Kaldorei into helping them. Retcons galore, thank you again Blizzard. Despite that, it wasn’t too bad and I loved Gilneas and it’s aesthetics. I would’ve just prefered it if they’d found some other way to involve the Gilneans into the Alliance that didn’t require the retcons that they used. A simple enough solution would’ve already been that they’d set sail and ask for refuge in Stormwind after one of their alchemists discovered a “cure”. It would’ve already been kept similar, except far more fitting in my own opinion.
And… the Goblins of Kezan. They’re attacked for no apparent reason by the Alliance, why exactly? Nobody knows. I guess the Alliance just enjoy shooting random merchant vessels to shreds, and pushing allies into the hands of the Horde. I don’t believe it was ever explained, but the subsequent joining of the Goblins of Kezan and the Horde was no miracle after that, which I can get behind. It felt a bit off, but nevertheless they did feel okay in being there.
And… back to the main villain of the story. How did his end stack up when all the progression through the expansion’d been gone through? Awfully disappointing to me. This was the first time when our favorite green pickle made an appearance as his new role, namely “Green Jesus”. This entire expansion the old character of Warchief Thrall had been absent and gone, and instead he abandons his people and the Horde in the hands of an orc whom didn’t want to lead. I can’t even consider the two the same character anymore, and seeing Deathwing being blasted out of the sky by a cheap shot from Green Jesus was awfully disappointing. The raids were fun, the content was fun for a little while, but oh boy. Did I again hate how they started subverting and changing the characters. Another disappointing end to an expansion, with far too many other things to discuss which I won’t get into right now.
Mists of Pandaria
How do I even start? I saw the trailer come the end of Cataclysm, and I was already in a sour mood from all the things I’d seen there. It started off well, something I wanted to see. Orcs and humans fighting each other, conflict still existing between the two and a war brewing. Then… came the panda. I facepalmed. The serious tone of the game vanished in an instant, and I felt as if they were releasing the next Kung-fu panda movie rather than an actual expansion. I ragequitted, and I didn’t come back until WoD was announced which got my hype back up somewhat.
The expansion itself, after having played through it was both my greatest nightmare, yet also semi-decent and not as horrible as I’d initially expected it to be. The lore was mediocre, the enemies were mediocre, and the surrounding story was just boring and not appealing to me… but it wasn’t a total screw-up, and despite making a thing out of an April Fools joke, I could live with it.
The lore itself is basically a ripped-off mixture of Chinese history and various asian mythology and beliefs. I mean, the obvious example are all there for those that need one. The great wall of Chin-… I mean, Pandaria. Mongo-… I mean the bugs attacking it. The Japa-… I mean the Mogu oppressing the pandaren. Need I go on?
Right… on to some character progression in this expansion. What do we learn of Anduin, the prince? We learn that he’s a naive young brat with a mind of his own, and is willing to risk everything and throw everything into a rollercoaster of risks for peace. Okay… I’m guessing he still needs to have a few talks with daddy about how that works. The entire “Strength in Unity! Stand together! We must all be friends!” theme really poked me the wrong way, in a game called “World of Warcraft” especially from a human prince, at that. You’d think he’d be able to see at his age why they’re actually fighting.
Of course, the elephant in the room is Garrosh here again. The Siege of Orgrimmar was the thing most people in the end had an issue with, and how silly it was that Garrosh’s character was just flipped around and turned into a very generic evil guy like so many others before him. I was one of the people that was sad to see him go down that route too, him being a very controversial yet interesting character from the past expansion. I daresay he was the only character in Cataclysm that even left me with an impression.
The aftermath of the SoO was even worse to me, personally. After having ravaged their allies, beaten down the remaining Horde forces there in the city, and having captured the enemy leader Varian in all his wisdom decides to… spare the Horde? I’m guessing he really doesn’t care much about night elves, does he? It must take a great mastermind to decide that leaving an enemy stronghold alive and well after having the chance to wipe it out and assist their long-term allies by now is a -great- idea! In the end, it was pointless and Orgrimmar continues to be a present threat to the constantly-besieged Kaldorei. Jaina was actually being clever, in comparison to Varian. #DismantleTheHorde
Warlords of Draenor
Oh boy. Choo choo, here comes the hype train! Amazing trailer, amazing potential, on-par with Cataclysm in the amounts of epic fail it brings in the form of overused soundtracks, cliché villains, ruined characters and wasted potential. I don’t think this even needs much explaining, and I think almost everyone here already knows the main arguments for why this is one big steaming pile of dung.
The soundtrack was good, the visuals were good, the lore and story was bad. At least it returned again to a more “serious” setting which I could appreciate after Mists of Comedy Relief. The Legion… has returned! Again! Our favorite Archmeme Khadgar is there too, with apexis crystals and timey-wimey Doctor Who stuff! Gul’dan is back… and dies… but comes back again. Ehm. Also, Grommash is just suddenly the good guy again after Gul’dan has his behind handed to him? “Uther does not get it.”
Legion
God, I hate this expansion. I hate it from the ground up, from start to finish. This is not World of Warcraft: Legion, it’s World of Warcraft: Space invaders or World of Warcraft: Retcons. It’s anything but that which I wanted to see, and as someone whom has been digging into lore for quite a while I was frankly upset to see this many retcons and horrible writing. Don’t get me wrong, the music and art and even the zones were amazing to look at and walk through, but the universe and lore surrounding it? It creates so many more plot holes through its retcons, and for what? To create an even more broken and plothole filled story than we’ve already got at this point? To bring back cheap villains like Gul’dan AGAIN? To have Smuglord Illidan and Archmeme Khadgar in the front row seat again as fan service? To see the Legion behave like Amon’s servants from Starcraft, see Illidan go full-Kerrigan, and to be introduced to the Protoss? MY LIFE FOR AIU-… Argus… whoops.
I’m sorry. This whole thing felt like Starcraft in the Argus-parts, and the parts before it shouldn’t have existed in the lore. Suramar was sunk beneath the ocean, nothing but ruins. The broken isles were only raised about… thirty years or so ago, and they already sank again as Illidan used the Eye of Sargeras that he’d claimed from the tomb. None of the things there should’ve existed, not a single zone. Even if the isle was somehow raised -again-, the only viable zone would’ve been Azsuna with its Highborne spirits, Naga, and ruins. No Nightborne, no Highmountain, no Val’sharah and temple of Elune that apparently -was- around all this time. I mean… I’m guessing it makes total sense to make a new temple in Darnassus if you’ve still got the main temple in a good state, doesn’t it?! Great that these Nightborne were also oh-so-hidden all this time with that gigantic city of theirs with Kaldorei living right next to them! /sarcasm
Speaking of the temple of Elune, even the “emotional” moments like Ysera’s death were rendered completely pointless through the knowledge that she just lives on anyway after death. Knowing Blizzard, just like Cenarius she’ll be back whenever they need her again with a reformed body in the Emerald Dream! It was an emotional moment though, and something I’d have probably loved if it hadn’t been for the heap of retcons preceeding it and make it possible, and Ysera not actually being dead.
Order halls themselves were also silly, almost all of them brought together all related orders or organisations related to a specific class or made the player-character the leader of some god-like thing. Warriors become the literal commander of warrior-heaven(Valhalla, Halls of Valor) to give an example. All the artifact weapons being thrown back into the world also felt like a mistake to me, given that those weapons are extremely powerful with such rich backstories. All of them had a story which could’ve been further developed instead of cut off to give the player some immediate gratification through artifacts.
Addendum: They just had to bring back my favorite character from the dead and spit on her sacrifice too. R.I.P Naisha, forever suffering now as a world quest mob despite having no reason at all to have become a banshee. Injury to insult, in a long list of them.
Battle for Azeroth
I… why. Why Blizzard? After all that you’ve put me through, and baited me back into playing with another cookie swinging in front of my face after the disaster that was Legion, why did you do this again to me? Return to the roots, how hard could it have been of a task? Stick to your own lore, and stop retconning everything that doesn’t suit a plotline that doesn’t make any sense. How. Hard. Can. It. Be? The answer: Very hard bordering impossible.
Again, the Horde and Alliance are thrown into a war with so few people that they no longer should be even remotely capable of fighting considering what they just went through. The Horde should’ve likely have had their forces depleted a long time ago, and so should the Alliance have. At the time of Vanilla Stormwind existed of just some refugees that’d come back to rebuild their home with Lordaeronian aid. Stormwind was a smoldering ruin before that. Where are all these races getting all their soldiers from? Why are they still interested in killing each other? The answer: because WoW can’t exist anymore without fake incentive to actually start a war again, and without magical populations and materials poofing out of nowhere. It’s incredibly silly, and that’s just the start of BfA.
Let’s see, Space crusader Turalyon and his band of protoss have joined the Alliance, and so have a bunch of void-infected elves. Ehm. Wait. Did I write that right? Yes… I did. The people trying to purge the void and the demons are working together with the literal beings whom are going insane with the void right now, and all these staunch supports of the Light or nature, or other “good” sources are just… okay with that. Never mind those elves! It’s not like… the Twilight’s Hammer was bad or anything, right? Eh… yeah. Let’s let them live in Stormwind!
Next up: War of Thorns. This whole thing just upsets me, as much as the same thing did in Cataclysm. True, it’s more viable in BfA because of the events in Cataclysm but they remain equally as stupid. Ancients capable of killing hundreds of demons, priestesses capable of raining Elune’s gifts when needed, the powerhouse of countless sentinels with thousands of years of experience, a physique built for agility and strength, savage to the core, druids with equally as much experience in their respective fields, furbolgs, dryads, grovekeepers, faery dragons, chimaera, the very forests themselves, mountain giants, Shen’dralar whom are ancient Highborne and the most respected arcanists of the Kaldorei Empire in past times. Do I even need to go on? An invasion of Kaldorei lands would’ve been stopped dead in its tracks, especially with the resources available to the Horde.
Sadly, that did not fit with Blizzard’s plot advancement. The sentinels all go away very conveniently whilst an army just marches just besides their borders, because hey… whom’d suspect the night elves to actually be smart after all those years of literally -only- just protecting their borders? Where were the Alliance reinforcements? They are… eh… occupied somewhere… eh… yes. No. They weren’t doing anything at the time. The battle for Lordaeron came after, the Arathi warfront was not yet happening, it all started with the invasion of Kaldorei lands. Anduin surely was the greatest king the Kingdom of Stormwind’s ever had, wasn’t he? Not helping your allies, I’m sure that’ll be so much appreciated and very much in his plans of respecting his allies! So… Stormwind’s armies are incapable of coming over despite all the tools used to bring Kaldorei from Kalimdor to Stormwind, not any reinforcements at all. Uh. Okay. Convenient.
So… all of that happens due to the great nature of plot armor. Orcs with big axe does chop chop. Night elves are being pushed back, so… where were their other allies? Surely the Draenei’d be able to help, seeing all the kindness Kaldorei’ve showed them instead of just outright murdering them back in the day? Eh… yeah. I guess they’re just chilling in the Exodar, celebrating the Legion’s defeat. What about the Vindicaar then, and our newfound allies? Orbital bombardment, space lasers, flying from planets! Surely a few Lightforged and our shiny new toy’d be able to show up, right? Ehm… nope. Sorry. Plot armor demands that the night elves have to be screwed over again.
On to the next bit. Teldrassil being burnt, and Sylvanas’ baby temper tantrum. She got told off by an elf about her sob story, and she immediately throws all her leverage in the wind and decides to go full-genocide. Yeah… who cares about careful war-planning anyway, right? Those civilians surely were a threat, and it’s not like burning down world trees is a bad idea, right?
Skipping on to the actual events a bit later after Teldrassil burnt. The raising of Kaldorei Dark Rangers. There is no excuse for this part. Blizzard just had to take a piss on the grave of kaldorei, after hitting them with a shovel, tearing their limbs off and kicking them off of a cliff. The fact that the night elves raised during this was impossible pre-BfA already says enough about how well Blizzard cares about their own existing lore. They’re protected by Elune, and the Val’kyr weren’t capable of raising anything but Vrykul and Humans. Play through the Cataclysm undead quests in Silverpine if you need proof of that, where 7th Legion members assaulted the Forsaken consisting of only non-humans as to prevent being raised. Also the reason for many Gilneans deciding to drink blood and become worgen themselves, to prevent exactly that. These Val’kyr are -not- being supported by the Lich King, and as shown in Cataclysm, they really shouldn’t have been able to begin doing this. I honestly wanted to throw my computer out the window at seeing this, after all of the preceeding stuff. Just an insult to Kaldorei players.
To make matters even worse, the raised Kaldorei are supposed to have free will like all the Forsaken. Almost anyone here can likely already guess where this part is going, and of how silly it is that they willingly decide to just join the Forsaken moments after being raised(Through the power of plot armor and retcons!).
Delaryn and Sira being the first and foremost examples of how stupid it was. They seem to think Elune has abandoned them, whilst the avatar of her powers is standing right before them trying to help them. They want to go on a murder spree to kill those they call brothers and sisters and are basically their family in Kaldorei culture because… they tried helping them? Show pity on them? They just throw all their culture and ideals out the window, and become blind to everything in front of them like Tyrande being the Night Warrior. Instead, they just go with Nathanos and do their merry best to commit happy genocide along with the other Forsaken after the same Forsaken had just killed them moments ago! Sure… I’ll join my murderer and go and murder all my family and everything I care for with them. Great idea. Doesn’t go against all my beliefs and everything I stand for. /sarcasm
The biggest meme people’ve already seen around here is the Nathanos one, I’m sure. We can see Tyrande finally showing off a bit of her “new” powers(Which aren’t really new, she was just sorely under-represented like all other nelfs since forever. Example: Her holding back waves upon waves of undead advancing towards Kael’s caravan by herself.) and Nathanos just shouts “ENOUGH!” and flies off. Ehm… yeah. That happened. The powers of “ENOUGH!” will be enough to even stop the void, I tell you. He’ll just shout at them and tell them it’s enough, they’ll listen as well as Tyrande did. Sit. Stay. Good night warrior.
I think the rest of these events are already quite well-known, so I’ll skip over to the other elephant in the room nobody seems to acknowledge. The power creep of certain other characters(Cough Jaina Cough) and the utter stupidity of others. Jaina is no doubt a powerful mage by human standards, being an apprentice to Archmage Antonidas and having become an archmage herself too. That’s great, she’s strong and powerful… but is there anything which truly sets her apart from any other Archmage of the Kirin Tor out there? I don’t think so, and I believe she has no reason at all for being as powerful as she is. I constantly hear people say how Jaina is the most powerful mage alive, and I seriously start to question their knowledge of the characters living in this world. I’d very much rather place my bet on a Nightborne or Shen’dralar over Jaina, a thousandfold times over… not to mention, Azshara still being around. It’s silly how much power Jaina, is getting for the sake of appearing badass or whatever.
And then we have Anduin. He’s a young boy, recently became king… but what makes -him- special over others? What makes him a thousandfold stronger than say… Uther? I’m pretty sure Uther didn’t go around resurrecting entire armies with a crybaby face. Does he have any redeeming qualities after that? Not really. He claims to want to claim vengeance for Teldrassil… yet where was -he- when it happened, or his forces? Good joke Anduin. He has no right of even speaking about it, being the useless strategist that he is. Pulling back his forces after being blighted? Also out of the question, let’s just watch them all die and hope for some miracle to show up like Jaina in a giant flying tub… whilst apparently also not having anyone to spare to help Teldrassil before that! Great that he managed to muster an entire army in the meantime, and that all those sentinels that participated also just gave up on fighting for their home. Also… ehm. There’s no Pandaren there. They must be smoking from a peace pipe somewhere in Stormwind.
Onwards we go, The Alliance doesn’t even take Lordaeron but loses practically all Kaldorei lands. So… now we need new allies. Onwards the plot goes, and the Kul Tiras and Zandalar plotlines happen. One of the few interesting characters gets killed off rather quickly(Rastakhan) and leaves us with Troll Femduin(Talanji). At least good ol’ memelord Bwomsamdi is still around. Conflict happens, and eventually the Alliance decides it’s a -great- idea to throw the remaining few Kaldorei they still have willing to listen to them in a suicidal distraction attempt against the Zandalari mainland, where they all get obliterated by Azerite mechs. Really? Did you -really- have to put that icing on the cake again when it comes to Kaldorei? THROW SOME DAMN HUMANS AT IT NEXT TIME INSTEAD OF THE NEARLY EXTINCT AND FAR MORE VALUABLE RACE! Deep breath Sorry… Kaldorei-trigger.
Okay. Fine. Battle of Dazar’alor, most raiders here know what happens. That happens, so on we go to a small part in the war campaign which also shows me that the writers at Blizzard have not a clue of faction identity and racial traits. Shandris and Keeshan in Nazmir. Shandris there states, after obviously being absent from her own land for some reason to aid some random humans that abandoned her and sacrificed a bunch of her sisters instead of their own after her race just underwent genocide, that it doesn’t matter that two sentinels died instead of Keeshan. “No. Human, Elf, we are all equal.” Comes from Shandris. I’m sorry… did I just read that right? What the actual f-… Shandris?! What are you?! Some purple-skinned human in disguise?! Even objectively speaking, Kaldorei lives are far more valuable than those of humans. They’re physically superior in every single way. They’re more agile, they’re stronger, they’re taller, they have their gifts of Elune, an incredible lifespan, far more experience than a human could ever hope to get, and so much more and those are just simple and plain facts, without any subjective opinion. No. Elves and humans are not equal, they are most certainly not and they will never be.
Conclusion
And… I can’t go on any longer writing about this steaming pile of dung for now. There are so many things more I could point out or rant about, but I’m just tired and sick of seeing faction identity disappear, racial identities being blurred out for some poorly-executed storyline with subliminal messages of “Diversity is good! Racism is bad! Stand togethurrr we’z gunna be stronger!”. It’s ruining the universe, and things like that are draining any and all enjoyment I still even have left in this pile of dung. It makes my roleplay experiences suck, and as a roleplayer I can’t just ignore the events of the game. They dictate my roleplay, since I can’t just roleplay them out of existence whilst others accept them. They are ruining this universe, and they have been for a long time now.
All I can hope for is that Blizzard decides to fire anyone involved with lore, and hire people passionate and capable and decide to rewrite the lore from the ground up. Go back to Warcraft 3 lore, start off of a new slate and make sure to write a consistent piece of lore this time without all of the billions of retcons and plotholes that’ve been formed over all these years. That’s my dream, to see all races properly represented like they were imagined, back in the universe that I adore so much. I want a properly written universe, I want to see the races I once loved to return in their splendor again. Let me know what all of you think.
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