I was talking with a friend of mine, explaining Warcraft lore to him, considering he plans to play the game for the first time with me during the summer. I got to explaining how Alliance and Horde joined their forces in the assault on the Broken Shore, and how Varian had to sacrifice himself in order for the Alliance troops to retreat. Even showed him the Legion trailer cinematic, he loved it. At that point he just asked me “I still get to meet him in game, right?” when I realized that he kinda doesn’t??
New Death Knight characters don’t deliver the letter from Tirion, (who literally died more or less on the same day as Varian) they give it to Anduin, who was a small child during that point in time. New Pandaren characters just end up talking to Anduin (who was supposed to be shipwrecked somewhere in Pandaria at that point, iirc), instead of dueling Varian. All the quests Varian used to give have been changed or outright removed. The only instance where I (so far) managed to find Varian present is in Icecrown Citadel, and even there he has no voicelines attached to him- the talking animation still plays but he doesn’t say anything. (I may be wrong here, there could be other instances he appears in, but so far I haven’t found them.)
TLDR; It’s kinda weird and sad that the new players never actually get to meet or see Varian in game, even though he was, and still kind of is, a pivotal Alliance character. I get that his death is a major lore turning point, but so is the bombing of Theramore and the burning of Teldrassil, yet those places and ALL the characters/NPCs (Jaina’s and Tyrande’s old models, ie) within them are phased for new players to experience. I wish that the same could be done to Stormwind Keep as well, make it phased up until Legion content and the actual Assault on the Broken Shore, so the newcomers can meet the great King of Stormwind and see for themselves how his character evolved over the course of expansions.
WoW is extremely inconsistent in terms of dead characters.
In the case of Varian, he got pretty much replaced by Anduin in-game, although you can still see him on a few occasions (when you go to Pandaria, Argent Tournament, and the Broken Isle obviously). The same treatment has been given to Garrosh and Vol’jin, although Garrosh still has some important dialogues (Silverpine Forest, Cliffwalker Post in Stonetalon). Vol’jin is still in my Garrison.
I agree, and I disagree. I agree because you are theoretically doing quests during the Cata-time, which happened while Varian was still King. But I also disagree. When a character dies, he is just that - dead. Gone. Passed away. And I’d like to see some notion of that absoluteness in that. They did that with Cairne, and it worked really well (although he is still missed dearly).
Some characters cannot be easily taken away from a questing experience. You cannot take Arthas or Tirion out of the DK-intro, for example. But when a character has passed away, I think it should be reflected in the game as much as it can.
It says a lot about Varian if we still miss him dearly despite him being erased from the game. He will never be forgotten. Oh well, I can find solace in the fact that he has left many statues of him for us to admire.
He is the King, of course he is going to be a narcisist and distinguish himself from the unwashed rubble. There’s no such thing as a “humble King”.
Still less narcisistic than Sylvanas, whose face is printed on every shield, tabard, and banner of the Forsaken, and whose name is even in the pitiful Forsaken war cry.
The horde narrative is horribly disjointed while levelling. New pandaren get a long lecture from Garrosh only for him to despawn right after and replaced with sylvanas. Head to stone talon, garrosh is warchief again. This repeats again and again.
Part of me wants the world to be completely revamped Cata-style, but the other part realizes that all what we would get from current Blizzard is Horatio Lane “story-line” expanded to Duskwood and Arathi + Hinterlands given to Horde because, apparently, someone had the gall to make the Horde look like an underdog faction (crazy I know!) back in Vanilla.
This is why we need a world revamp, now more than ever. Cataclysm did that well, the world was revamped right when a new Warchief was appointed and the Horde in general took a new direction. And it was also able to account for other world changes, such as the fall of the Lich King, the new role of the Goblins and the Grimtotem betrayal.
Hopefully next expansion, when Blizzard has finally figured out what they want to do with the factions.
But regarding the topic, he died a hero, has a suitable successor, was given several cinematics showcasing how cool he went, and did so at his narrative peak.
What else do you want? Most the other characters have died offscreen, in a minor sidequest; or villain batted and fed to players as some repeatable dungeon/raid content.
I don’t know if people realise that those players that joined during Cataclysm, won’t have a clue about who Cairne was.
And won’t have known any other Horde that wasn’t the one we had under Garrosh. Doubt they know exactly what Thrall was for the Horde.
false equivalence. Sylvanas rallied the forsaken together and led them in their time of need, not to mention she literally founded the forsaken faction. Varian had done no such thing. Sylvanas deserved recognition for all she had done, Varian just so happened to be the kid of the previous king.
Good for you.
But I just found ironical to read about how some destruction is deserved from someone’s point of view, while posting from the angle of a race that has just had a thing the size of Teldrassil destroyed.
I guess they deserved nothing as well!!
Why?..
The fact that you think that certain race/character doesn’t deserve recognition and is to be destroyed without remorse, while arguing such from a character race that has just lost quite a lot, and is currently demanding what they consider ‘just compensation’ doesn’t strike you as extremely ironic?
