Cataclysm

[Fordel]

Also, while Illidan is angsty and Arthas is a comic book villain at least their motivations are more complex than "I'm CRAZY because an OLD GOD made me CRAZY! WHAARBLE!".

Personally I wish cataclysm went more into the 'why' of everything, instead of being intentionally vague.  This is even coming from someone who loves the whole 'old gods, lovecraft ripoff' stuff but there's way to much hand-waving in the storyline for my tastes. 

There would have to BE a 'why' first basically. Nothing Blizzard does is ever that deep, or coherent, or consistent (even with itself).


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[Lakov_Sanite]

Meh, warcraft's stories have never been epic and anyone looking to them for anything but pulp is really missing the point.  I know I mentioned wanting to know why we're killing deathwing but that has nothing to do with the quality of the writing, more due to the quality of the storytelling. Can blizzard make me effectively care about these one dimensional charicatures and yes, sometimes they actually can if the tell the story right.

[Setanta]

Darrowshire was awesome for this - Pamela Redpath was one of those moments when the game just got me.

That was decent storyline/purpose.

What really pisses me off with Blizzard is that there was no Cairne story other than some obscure story out of the game that tells of his death. Of all the WC3 chars other than Arthas, Cairne was the one I felt the most affinity for and yet it was all ragggggghhhhh... Garrosh kill shit.

Now if Pandaria showed the death and dismemberment of Garrosh, I'd be a happy person.

[Merusk]

Now if Pandaria showed the death and dismemberment of Garrosh, I'd be a happy person.

They've said the Cata and Thrall book sold so well you can plan to see more of the out-of-game stuff happen there, not less.  So expect to see new NPCs popping up for no discernible reason.

[FieryBalrog]

I stopped caring seriously about warcraft lore in Vanilla when it was obvious the Forsaken were being shoehorned into the Horde for gameplay balance reasons.

This became abundantly more clear in BC with the BE paladins and Draenei shaman stuff.

Finally, add in the fact that Metzen is overworked and of obviously limited talent, and you have a recipe for mediocrity.

[Azazel]

The majority of your motivation for wanting to kill Deathwing was supposed to come from 1-60, where you see all the changes and conflicts he caused with the cataclysm. I don't think those quests do a great job of setting up Deathwing as a villain either, but I imagine that was the intention. They needed to destroy a few places old players cared about (think Theramoore in MoP) in order to get people angry at Deathwing. Instead it was like "Oh, Deathwing turned Desolace into a place that could support plantlife... what a dick". Or "Deathwing partially destroyed Stormwind, now we just have a way better version of Stormwind".

I understand the desire to want to keep zones diverse, and not just turn everything to rubble, but a little bit more thoughtful destruction would have been effective. If they're willing to raze Theramoore for MoP, I don't know why they were unwilling to do something similar for Cata.

They're destroying Theramore? For fuck's sake - I need somewhere I can port to on that continent besides fucking Darnassus.

[Nevermore]

Remember when Cataclysm was released and some Alliance players where complaining about how much Horde bias there was?  And how those people were told 'No, there's no bias!  Next time it'll be the Alliance that has their day!"  Still waiting for that day.

Personally, I blame Ghostcrawler. ;)

[Merusk]

It's not bias, it's Manifest Destiny!  Horde is America!

 

[Azazel]

Remember when Cataclysm was released and some Alliance players where complaining about how much Horde bias there was?  And how those people were told 'No, there's no bias!  Next time it'll be the Alliance that has their day!"  Still waiting for that day.

Personally, I blame Ghostcrawler. ;)

Is that the stuff about Green Jesus, or the bigger, better, fully repaired Org vs Trashed Stormwind, or...?

Actually, been levelling my hunter, and did some TBC instances. I really enjoyed the CoT instance where you help the leader of the Horde escape from prison by slaughtering Alliance guards and so forth. I'm hoping that in Pandaria my hunter can go around killing Alliance guards and so forth in Stormwind. For the Horde!

[El Gallo]

Remember when Cataclysm was released and some Alliance players where complaining about how much Horde bias there was?  And how those people were told 'No, there's no bias!  Next time it'll be the Alliance that has their day!"  Still waiting for that day.

Personally, I blame Ghostcrawler. ;)

Vanilla. Wrath of the Lich King.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The problem is thrall ISN'T horde anymore and they made it explicitly clear to us horde players that we're stuck with bubba redneck orc warchief who is a murdering, whiny douchebag.  At least wrynn comes off as a badass, even if he's a bit...manic.

[Sjofn]

Vanilla. Wrath of the Lich King.

I wish Cataclysm was as "one-sided" as the Horde apparently thinks WotLK was. At least then the Alliance would've maybe had a victory or two, and had anything to do with anything.

[El Gallo]

Vanilla. Wrath of the Lich King.

I wish Cataclysm was as "one-sided" as the Horde apparently thinks WotLK was. At least then the Alliance would've maybe had a victory or two, and had anything to do with anything.

Yes, you could've had Bronzebeard's son immediately fall to the darkside and become a generic raid underboss while his Horde counterpart heroically allows himself to be crucified to redeem the world's sins. Then have your army slaughter some Horde troops from behind right when they were about to defeat Deathwing just to be dicks.  Grats, you now have something to do with something - you get to be fucking slimeball hyenas. Not even the cool bad guy.  The Lich King, who was a fucking orc is completely subjugated by Arthas.  If WotLK was LotR, fucking Frodo (burning jesus), Aragorn (fordring) and Sauron (arthas) are all Alliance or Alliance-alligned.  The best the Horde gets is Nameless Nazgul #7 (saurfang's kid).

For a substantial portion of Vanilla, every raid boss in the game was vastly easier for Alliance -- and in at least one case, literally impossible for Horde for a time -- because they were balanced around paladin threat debuffs.  Even after that was fixed, paladins crushed shamans all throughout vanilla   And Horde content was not only less polished, but significantly lower in volume - to the point that many Horde players that didn't do a lot of instances or accrue a lot of rested XP were forced to grind mobs because they didn't have quests.

On the other hand, off-screen before Cataclysm, they evened out the Alliance's real-estate advantage.  And Thrall plays the Jesus role this time. Oh, the humanity.  

[Merusk]

Still crying about raid difficulty 7 years later?

 

Paladins crushed shaman?

As healers maybe.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpoGKw6L4cM

and let's not forget http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhJeP1BT2JA

[Lakov_Sanite]

Nothing to do with meters. It was all about threat redux and fear ward.

[Merusk]

Fear ward was Dwarf priests, nothing to do with pallies.

And total bullshit.

Not to mention .. tremor totem > fear ward.

[Sjofn]

 The best the Horde gets is Nameless Nazgul #7 (saurfang's kid).

Right, Sylvannas has nothing to do with anything at all.

[El Gallo]

 The best the Horde gets is Nameless Nazgul #7 (saurfang's kid).

Right, Sylvannas has nothing to do with anything at all.

About the same as Jania, who I didn't count for Alliance.  But yes, Sylvannas fills the "incompetent leader who needs Thrall AND the Alliance to bail her out" (Wrathgate) and the "impotent failure who gets her ass obliterated by Arthas and flees just barely fast enough to save her skin" (ICC).  Maybe the second part gets her Merry or Pippin.  Maybe.

[El Gallo]

Still crying about raid difficulty 7 years later?

 

This move from the "Alliance lost some fights in pre-Cata lore and now only rule half the world HELP I'M BEING OPPRESSED!" guy?

I love you man, but complaining about anti-Alliance bias in WoW just blows my mind.  I'm here to help.

[Sjofn]

So you'll count Fordring "for the Alliance," even though he was never actually part of the Alliance (seriously, he's been exiled for years for being nice to an orc) but not Jaina? I see.

Did you even play Alliance? Ever? I've leveled up multiple times on both sides since TBC. No matter what in ANY of the expansions, INCLUDING vanilla, the Horde has plenty of victories. Things they can point to and say "we totally won there." Cataclysm offers no such thing to the Alliance. The best they get are stalemates and inexplicable "we won't push our advantage here, a tie is fine" moments. Any "victory" they have? They don't actually see, because they are Horde-only quests. And everything Thrall does in Cataclysm blows everything the Alliance has EVER done out of the water. Bolvar took the Lich King crown after being doomed to being alive, while on fire, for pretty much forever. Big fucking deal, all it means is he'll be a raid boss some day. Thrall showed the dragon aspects how to get shit done, and lost absolutely nothing whatsoever doing it. Hell, they can't suck his dick enough in the end cinematic.

So you'll excuse me if I find your mewling about how WotLK was totally just as bad as Cataclysm pretty unconvincing.

[Rendakor]

Tirion is a human, human are alliance. And as a Horde player, it WotLK really felt like we were playing helper to a bunch of Alliance the whole zone. Bronzebeard was the driving force in Ulduar, Tirion in ToC, and Tirion again in ICC. The same rage everyone expresses at the Deathwing ending is what I felt killing Arthas. We all died, and only killed him because some Human pally saved us all, yay.

[Nevermore]

So the worst the Horde can point to is 'Waaa! We were neglected!'  Meanwhile, from Cata on the Alliance has suffered nothing but defeat after defeat after defeat without a single victory to hang their hats on.  Tell me, how many Horde settlements were washed away, bombed to oblivion or otherwise eradicated in WotLK?

One of my favorite examples of Horde bias is how at one end of Ashenvale, Zoram'gar outpost develops into this big walled port while at the other end, that same lonely Draenei worker is still hammering away at that same incomplete hut at Forest Song, unchanged for years and years.

[Azazel]

So you'll count Fordring "for the Alliance," even though he was never actually part of the Alliance (seriously, he's been exiled for years for being nice to an orc) but not Jaina? I see.

Well, he counted Arthasas "for the Alliance", so...

I thought WotLK was prety good overall. Even little touches like the Taunka gave the Horde some extra backstory and relationship to the expansion (like Humans being mutant-midget Vyrkul, and Dwarfs and Gnomes as well, come to think of it..) We already know where elves and forsaken come from, so there's that, and Orcs backstory got covered in TBC.

[El Gallo]

So you'll count Fordring "for the Alliance," even though he was never actually part of the Alliance (seriously, he's been exiled for years for being nice to an orc) but not Jaina? I see.

Sorry for the lack of clarity.  Jaina is Alliance, just like Sylvannas is Horde.  I meant "didn't count" in the sense of "didn't list."  The guards on the Stormwind bridge also count as Alliance, but I didn't count them among the key Alliance characters in WotLK.  

Let me try to explain it this way.  Assume your character is a good guy.  How many times in Cataclysm were you actually ashamed, in a moral sense, to be Alliance?  Turajo I assume, but nothing else leaps to mind.  I don't think of losing a battle or fighting to a draw as shameful in that sense.  Slaughtering Alliance troops from behind while they are attacking the undead horde counts, as does Garrosh's incessant masturbation over the event.  Wrathgate/Battle for Undercity, plenty of shame there.  Saurfang Jr, particularly in comparison to Burning Jesus, uh-huh.  Even a lot of Cata (including the pre-expansion battles Allies complain about) makes the Horde seem like a bunch of thugs.  They took away our two most noble leaders and replaced them with Garrosh, and transformed the Horde into just the kind of savage animals Varian Wrynn said we were.  That's not a faction I'm proud to be a part of and it sure as hell isn't the one I signed up for.   At least in a video game, I'd rather feel like a good guy even if it means losing some land (as long as I still have enough quests and equal access to the fat looties).  Would you really rather be some kind of Yankees fan than a decent humanoid?

I 100% sympathize with Alliance feeling ignored by the Thrall-centerdness of Cata.  The Horde wasn't entirely ignored in WotLK.  Instead, they were consistently portrayed as cowardly, third-rate villains in an Alliance Guys vs Former Alliance Guy conflict.  That seems worse to me, and I don't remember 10% of the bitching.

One of my favorite examples of Horde bias is how at one end of Ashenvale, Zoram'gar outpost develops into this big walled port while at the other end, that same lonely Draenei worker is still hammering away at that same incomplete hut at Forest Song, unchanged for years and years.

There's been a castle full of Alliance soldiers in the orc/troll newbie zone a stone's throw from the capital since day 1 of the game.  Yes, when you remake a 60/40 world into a 50/50 world, the 60-percenters will experience a net loss.  Class warfare, Blizz hates America, etc.  I suppose they should've just retconned the maps.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Fear ward was Dwarf priests, nothing to do with pallies.

And total bullshit.

Not to mention .. tremor totem > fear ward.

First of all, it can't be stressed enough how much that fucking paladin threat reduction helped in vanilla wow, that shit meant the difference in weeks worth of wiping to a boss.  Secondly I threw fear ward in there because while it may not seem that big a deal, it really was a big fucking deal.  Tremor totems pulsed whenever they damn well felt like it and would not stop you from actually getting feared in the first place. Often times this meant you were just running around like a chicken without a head for a couple seconds.  Worst case scenario, if a tank got feared then it was the boss immediately turning and breathing fire all over the goddamned raid.   Let's not forget that you could actually run OUT of totem range pretty easily when feared, also totems were group specific.

[Fabricated]

Didn't Deathwing basically burn almost all of Ogrimmar to the ground? He kinda fucked up the facade at the front of stormwind and his cult members bombed furry-RP park, but that's getting rebuilt I thought.

[FieryBalrog]

Let's get real, how many Dwarf Priests did Alliance have vs how many UD characters on Horde (oh, uh, 40% of the horde population in Vanilla...)

Horde racials stomped all over alliance and spit on them all the way until EMFHS came out. Even now, that's like the one good racial we have. Look at Goblins vs Worgen, it's a joke (free jeeves, discount, haste, new mount model vs crit &  recolor horse & LOL RP)

[Lakov_Sanite]

UD horde did not have fear ward plus wotf was a poor mans fear ward at best.  Originally is was a very short fear resist(5sec?) even then you needed to know in advance when the fear was coming. If you didn't you still had to break the fear AFTER the fact and the resistance to fear was patched out shortly after.

[FieryBalrog]

UD horde did not have fear ward.

WOTFS

[Lakov_Sanite]

UD horde did not have fear ward.

WOTFS

lol gimme 2secs to modify, jesus.

[FieryBalrog]

UD horde did not have fear ward plus wotf was a poor mans fear ward at best.  Originally is was a very short fear resist(5sec?) even then you needed to know in advance when the fear was coming. If you didn't you still had to break the fear AFTER the fact and the resistance to fear was patched out shortly after.

Shortly after? I seem to remember a 20 second immunity at launch, and even the nerfed immunity duration stayed in game for a HELLA long time. Well into BC I think.

Edit: Actually I don't remember how long the nerfed immunity lasted. I just remember unsubbing in April '05 when they let horde rogue PvP trinkets break fear 

[Fabricated]

I remember having to make a stance-dance macro for nightbane. Literally one of 3 fights I ever made macros for.

[Zetor]

The original racial setup favored alliance in pve and horde in pvp. Then they made this worse with BC with the belf and draenei racials (to be fair, the shaman/paladin thing helped balance things a bit).

WOTF was a pvp racial, though it was semi-useful in pve as well. As far as pvp racials go, we had that slapfight a few times here already, but horde pretty much had the upper hand in pvp all the way until ToC in WOTLK when the then-new human racial "Every Man For Himself" started scaling like crazy with the uberpowerful pve trinkets available. I ranted a lot about WOTF from its original incarnation (permanent 'undead' status, so immunity to most cc and vulnerability to shackle/turn) to the 20-second immunity to almost every CC that lasted throughout half of vanilla, the 5-second immunity until WOTLK (it only gave immunity to sleep/fear/mindcontrol/seduce at that point), the 'second trinket' until WOTLK 3.3, and even the normal fear/seduce/sleep break that put the normal trinket on a 45->30sec cooldown in the rest of wotlk/cata. I mean, if you nerf a racial (severely) 4 times and it's still one of the better pvp options available... yeah.

edit: accuracy and whatnot

[El Gallo]

Alterac Valley!

[Wolf]

COME ON. BLOODLUST. Seriously.

And berserking and blood fury are still in the game. Both bis for different dps specs. Horde have retarded racials.