Garrosh was perfect. Not perfect from an in-universe perspective perhaps, but he fueled the war and presented actual moral conflict (instead of the current ‘everyone who isn’t insane agrees this is totally evil, only the slow plot speed prevents us from acting’), while also inspiring patriotism and appealing both to the traditionalists and those looking to the future.
He lived and breathed Horde, in its more radical form perhaps, but still with clear boundaries to his honour. He thought Sylvanas was too evil for example.
Well until they decided to make him evil too at least…
By SoO cata-era Garrosh was long gone anyway.
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Just that. As I pointed out it feels like the way they later wrote him was simply a short-cut to have him as a generic antagonist for whatever reason. It is like whoever initially took part to write the character disappeared or left the company and was replaced by whoever spoiled it.
Which, seeing as how Blizzard has become and employees leave or step down, is actually a possibility.
The cata Garrosh is the one we all want isn’t it. He’s not a villain, but he sure is a bloodthirsty warmonger with a lust for conquest.
I was completely okay with the bombing of Theramore, that said, I did at first think that the ground/sea assault was not only to lure in more military, but to scare away civilians.
I mean, sure, it wasn’t the most honorful tactic, but what choise was there? It was a capital city near Orgrimmar with a highway leading into the Barrens, and scouts across Durotar, yes, it was a HUGE threat, forget being fair here, blow the place to smithereens!
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Cata Garrosh was partially villain, but he was genuinely charismatic and inspirational, and he also had substantial non-villain elements that made him controversial rather than utterly detestable. He was a Warchief you could be proud of, but also gave you chances to consider if everything he does is right.
Compare Sylvanas. She does evil stuff for the evulz instead of evil stuff with good intent, she lacks any kind of redeemable quality, she is neither charismatic nor inspirational, she runs roughshod over tradition while also seemingly caring little for the future of life…
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Plus he was an ACTUAL genius in war tactics. Not like Sylvanas where she burns the world tree out of spite despite planning to capture it at first.
No, more like knowing exactly how to screw over the night elves in Ashenvale and just finding Tyrande among the chaos going on.
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Yeah my thoughts exactly on the matter, what irritates me most about the current state of the Horde is that
- the Warchief is incompetent (and not an Orc)
- there’s this weird pseudo-good guy narrative attempting to be spun by both some Blizzard writers (who love their self inserts) and players (who can’t stomach being the antagonist)
- There’s an identity crisis in the Horde present since Garrosh, although arguably Thrall is the root of this, turning the Horde away from it’s obviously antagonistic roots to a more “noble, savage barbarian” stereotype.
Many players are simply too -young- to remember the Horde before WC3 thus they are completely unaware that the Horde are in fact the antagonist faction and this reflects in the jarring identity problems.
This also ties into the fact the Horde has always been lead by Orcs, the Alliance by Humans - this is simply the way of the universe. Having Sylvanas - originally an Alliance character turned Scourge, turned free undead lead the Horde should be baffling to everyone but the Forsaken (although some credit is due to Christie Golden for giving us the idea that not all Forsaken are happy with this).
Garrosh was just a victim of bad writing in the end because they needed a villain for MoP. Thrall killing him off in WoD was an underwhelming end to what began as WoW’s original flagship character they built from the ground up.
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Sylvanas should’ve been the enemy in MoP, though to be fair, Lei Shen as a final boss would be way cooler
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it should be noted, although this might be tinfoil-hatty a little, that Blizzard and Activision’s “partnership” appears to have began to crack in 2013 with the failure of Project Titan, conveniently the same year Garrosh is turned from authoritarian, savage but still sane, dictator into genocidal warlord and made a raid boss.
Could it be that Activision tampering called for a Big Brand™ villainous turn in the narrative to attempt to stave off the decline? It’s possible, perhaps not the most plausible, but possible.
The merge between Blizzard Entertainment and Activision began in 2008, while in 2013 they bought the majority shares from Vivendi and thus became independent. In all honesty I’ve always found that to blame Activision every time Blizzard has an issue is a bit tinfoil-hatty. From what I see they are very capable to make bad decisions on their own.
In addition, if the rumour I’ve heard that Activision has now recently stepped in to give Blizzard some assistance due to the decline that only adds to it.
Everything seems to come back to this date though, something big went down in 2013 in Blizzard and it’s had painful repercussions since.
They had their Coffee machine taken.
Ah, being enslaved to coffee must be almost as bad as being bound to the Legion by demonic blood.
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being fair, I would’ve been happy if we killed Sylvanas off instead of Garrosh back in MoP.
Hell, I’d have been okay if they’d killed her instead of Vol’jin in legion.
No, I do not like Sylvanas, I never have. But i don’t want to lose yet another Warchief.
EDIT: also, I like the forsaken because the risen from the dead, nowhere to turn because you are hated by the living plot. A group who have to survive by themselves because it is them against the world.
I’m not too fond of the cult of personality that surrounds Sylvanas
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Garrosh was a true definition of an orc. He was the true Horde warchief, and everyone from Blizzard that decided he should die, the way he did, should get fired. Damn fools, I still cant get over it
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I even heard rumours Blizzard did regret their decision about killing Garrosh off
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Seems so with the Mag’har questline, where they state that of all timelines, our timeline had one of the worst Garroshes, in other words “We could’ve dealt with this character much, MUCH better, we screwed up.”
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As I said before, American writers don’t know how to write engaging stories. It’s all about pumping explosions and dramatic events without any regard for the overall consequences in the future.
One of my friends once compared Wow to a cheap Dragon Ball Z Ripoff and I kinda had to agree with him. DBZ never tried to pretend to ve something more than what it is, flashy fights with guys screaming to increase their power… WoW has been like that since Cataclysm. You defeated the World breaker, what’s next? Go kill this Orcy dude, well done in terms of power level… Then go kill the right Hand of Sargeras who could crush your brain from a distance after killing more Smorcy dudes. You didn’t had enough? Well how about the gods that created your universe and THE Titan with a death theme?
Honestly if it wasn’t for the time I have already invested and other means to have some form on entertainment ingame, I’d be out already.
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Being able to participate in raids while in war mode.