Cracks starting to show?

[luckton]

Isn't there an MMO out there that your character is technically 'three' little characters?

They'll find a way to make zerg work.

[Sjofn]

The whole TBC experience was Horde-friendly.  Wrath balanced things out as being more Alliance-friendly.  Cata screwed everybody 

I know you're semi-joking, but TBC was much more Horde friendly than Wrath was Alliance friendly. The Horde had reasons to give a fuck about Outland, the Alliance really didn't, as the draenei are horribly developed, and even they had no clear reason to give a fuck about Outland. At least in WotLK, yeah Arthas had been a human paladin and Tirion is a human paladin, but everyone had a reason to want to see Arthas dead and everyone had reasons to give a fuck about Northrend. And Cataclysm is basically Horde: The Expansion. Alliance has reasons to give a shit, but the expansion does a much better job Horde-side than Alliance-side with it.

[Rokal]

Isn't there an MMO out there that your character is technically 'three' little characters?

They'll find a way to make zerg work.

The Gibberling race was awesome. I loved how all three of them would contribute differently whenever you cast a spell or performed some other action in-battle (example). It's too bad Allods had all sorts of sketchy stuff going on with their cash shop, Gibberlings were a really cool twist on player characters.

/derail

I remember Nagrand fondly because it was one of the last quest zones I can remember that actually encouraged grouping at the end. 80-85 was a 100% solo affair and that was pretty boring. Nagrand also gets high points for being extremely pretty and for having lots of cool enemy models. If you actually look at the quests, it's kind of a shitty zone. Ta'laar was a total failure as well. Just goes to show you how important atmosphere is an an MMO. HFP probably had superior quests to Nagrand, but most people probably remember Nagrand much more fondly.

[Sheepherder]

Ta'laar was a total failure as well.

Telaar was okay, Halaa was borked.  Hand in your nerd card.

Nagrand was uniformly pretty and awesome to look at.  I liked Dragon's End too, but it's not pretty, just fucking awesome.

[Rokal]

Telaar was okay, Halaa was borked.  Hand in your nerd card.

 

[Special J]

They'll find a way to make zerg work.

Human/Zerg hybrids galore!

[Soulflame]

Nagrand, at least from the horde side, had an enormously long quest chain that had prerequisite chains in other zones, all of which culminated with bringing Thrall to meet his grandmother.

So yeah.  I liked Nagrand.

[Fordel]

Yea, the Alliance didn't get anything that neat in Nagrand. 

[Lantyssa]

Neat?  We got Corki.  It was enough to make me want to join the Horde.

[Paelos]

Neat?  We got Corki.  It was enough to make me want to join the Horde.

This is the last time! I promise!

[Soulflame]

If it makes you feel any better, I used to kill Corki every so often.

[Lantyssa]

It really does.  My only regret is that I wasn't there to see it.

[Merusk]

Any time I'm in Nagrand on a Horde character I kill whichever variant of Corki I'm nearest to.

Fucker is just too dumb to let live.

[WindupAtheist]

Cataclysm is basically Horde: The Expansion

This. I don't really have any urge to pay $15 per month to play one of the fall guys in Metzen's personal Mary Sue fantasy.

[Pantastic]

Truth be told this is just another desperation move to retain players/grab new ones.  They are just running out of things the fans have been asking for now they added goblins,worgen and deathwing, pandaren are really the last unexplored bit in the whole wowverse besides sargeras and he'll be the last expac anyways.

They're nowhere near close to running out of material for expansions. Like you mentioned, the biggest is that players have only lightly poked the Burning Legion in side quest areas and parts of Burning Crusade, there's whole planets of them out there, and Sargeras at the end of course. Emerald Dream just gets lightly touched in the occasional quest, it's still corrupt (though they may have solved that in a book). Outland is easy to travel from and has gateways to other dimensions, you could do a whole game around fighting with and against Ethereals while traveling with sparkly tube technology. The Naaruu just kind of turned up for BC without much back- or fore- story but seem to be almost gods. There's also the titans just kind of wandering around. The zones in WOW don't really cover all of the land on continents, and there are unexplored areas, and you can always 'cataclysm' an area for new stuff (especially boring areas like Arathi).

Not that I'd put an (ugh) Panderan expansion past them, but they're not really anywhere near out of hooks to hand expansion packs.

This. I don't really have any urge to pay $15 per month to play one of the fall guys in Metzen's personal Mary Sue fantasy.

I wouldn't mind Thrall ending up as the super-shaman who saves the world if they really did the story decently, but I'm not holding my breath on that after the last patch. "We need Thrall to save the world by doing this ritual on the world tree" "Oh noes he's captured" "We can save him, by seeing how cool and awsome he is, and how mean the alliance is to him", "Oh yay he's safe now he's going to get married to some orc woman and lets forget about the silly ritual."

[Sheepherder]

This. I don't really have any urge to pay $15 per month to play one of the fall guys in Metzen's personal Mary Sue fantasy.

I'm not seeing it, aside from maybe the Earthen Ring shit.  Care to explain?

I've been unsubbed a while.

[Ingmar]

This. I don't really have any urge to pay $15 per month to play one of the fall guys in Metzen's personal Mary Sue fantasy.

I'm not seeing it, aside from maybe the Earthen Ring shit.  Care to explain?

I've been unsubbed a while.

The usual Alliance whine is that they set all our zones on fire and gave them to the Horde.

[Kail]

This. I don't really have any urge to pay $15 per month to play one of the fall guys in Metzen's personal Mary Sue fantasy.

I'm not seeing it, aside from maybe the Earthen Ring shit.  Care to explain?

I've been unsubbed a while.

Ya, likewise.  When I left, the story was basically that all the Horde leaders everyone liked got put on a bus and were replaced with Hellscream waving his tumorous cock around.  I assumed they did that to give Alliance players a decent enemy, because he sure as fuck wasn't popular among the Horde.

[Setanta]

I haven't forgiven them for killing Cairne off with nary an explanation other than "Garrosh is a dick".

When I unsub I'm listing that right at the top!

[Ingmar]

I haven't forgiven them for killing Cairne off with nary an explanation other than "Garrosh is a dick".

When I unsub I'm listing that right at the top!

They turned Magni to stone and it barely gets mentioned outside of Children's Week of all things.

[Paelos]

They turned Magni to stone and it barely gets mentioned outside of Children's Week of all things.

Yeah I saw that in children's week and went, "WHEN THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!"

[Soulflame]

I thought it was mentioned in some of the flavor text when I was installing cataclysm.  Or maybe in the dwarf quest text.  Something.

[Paelos]

I thought it was mentioned in some of the flavor text when I was installing cataclysm.  Or maybe in the dwarf quest text.  Something.

Yeah but did it happen in the game. Was this one of those novel things? Was it one of WUA's dreams come to life?

[Merusk]

Wikitext:

He is present at the Elemental Invasion meeting in Stormwind and informs the other Alliance leaders about the Tablets of Ulduar. During the exploration of Ulduar, the dwarves found a set of mystical tablets created by the Titans. Activating one such tablet to protect his people from the Cataclysm, King Magni Bronzebeard fell prey to a terrible curse that fused his statue-liked form into the diamond heart of Ironforge itself. To compound this tragedy, Magni's estranged daughter Moira returned, claiming her Father's throne for herself and for her infant dark iron son. In an effort to prevent turmoil breaking out, the Council of Three Hammers is established to succeed Magni.

There's jack squat about it in the game in Ulduar. Probably the novel that let everyone know Thrall was awesome and totally not a wishy-washy douchebag.  That's where they killed Cairne too, wasn't it?

[Paelos]

They killed Cairne in a novel???

[Merusk]

I thought so, but I could be mistaken.

[luckton]

They killed Cairne in a novel???

Um..yeah...they did.  I rather liked the novel too.  Sets up Cataclysm right nicely it did.

[Simond]

Honestly, that shit needs to fucking stop. If they're going to put it in your crappy novels, at the barest minimum thet should get their machinima team to throw together a quick cutscene for the paying customers as well.

[luckton]

Pfft...don't look now...TOR's already crankin' out novels that you'll want to read if you 'really' want to get the lore down 

[Paelos]

They killed Cairne in a novel???

Um..yeah...they did.  I rather liked the novel too.  Sets up Cataclysm right nicely it did.

That's horseshit.

[Pantastic]

I'm not seeing it, aside from maybe the Earthen Ring shit.  Care to explain?

Thrall is now some kind of super-shaman who's better at doing shaman stuff than anyone else, including aspects and demi-gods. Also, since Garrosh is in charge now all the fighting between Horde and Alliance isn't his fault. Also, the players had a quest to hook him up with a hot chick who's totally going to have his babies.

[Sjofn]

This. I don't really have any urge to pay $15 per month to play one of the fall guys in Metzen's personal Mary Sue fantasy.

I'm not seeing it, aside from maybe the Earthen Ring shit.  Care to explain?

I've been unsubbed a while.

The usual Alliance whine is that they set all our zones on fire and gave them to the Horde.

It's more "the Horde looks like it's winning everywhere, their leaders actually do things, and while both Malfurion and Thrall are technically "neutral," it's pretty obvious Green Jesus isn't." The "the Horde is winning" and "their leaders do shit" ones are the ones that bug me, as I could not possibly give less of a shit about Malfurion or Thrall. When you level up as Horde, you run into Garrosh or Sylvanas all the time. You know who they are and you know the direction they want to lead their people. You see them out in the world, leading. You don't get that at all as Alliance. And the one time the Alliance beats the Horde? The Horde experiences it, but the Alliance doesn't, because it's mostly the Silverpine Forsaken versus Worgen quests. Half of the Worgen lore in the game, the Worgen don't even get to see. And Gilneas is abandoned and forgotten, even after the "victory."

Honestly, I could deal with "the Horde is winning" better if the Alliance at least felt like it was going to make the Horde pay for every inch they take, but you don't really get that, especially if you're playing Alliance, which is the big mistake. You get the sense of "whelp." And really, the best illustration of "they put the Horde first in Cataclysm" is going to Twilight Highlands. Horde gets this big show, you're in this giant air fleet flying in there and shit goes down etc etc etc. Alliance? Fade to black, come up in the middle of a fight. None of your business how it started or how you got there.

[Ashamanchill]

I got a guffaw out of that Thrall quest when he asks that orc chick to be his 'life-mate'. What a cheezy term. Couldn't they have came up with something that sounded a bit more, well, not that.

[Paelos]

I got a guffaw out of that Thrall quest when he asks that orc chick to be his 'life-mate'. What a cheezy term. Couldn't they have came up with something that sounded a bit more, well, not that.

War-consort?

[Sjofn]

Ahh, that's another good example. Thrall shows up to help fix the giant night elf tree. This is apparently part of the Key to our Victory! And we need Thrall to help because he is totes awesome, you guys. But oh no! They took him and we have to save him, even if you don't give a shit about Thrall, Alliance people! We need him for YOUR tree!



And then he hooks up with Aggra and they never fix the fucking tree because who gives a shit, Thrall has found True Wuv, and that's what's really important!