Resubbed - damn it's well done

[Thrawn]

If their are fishing achievements I'm hooked.  Like 18 time STV Extravaganza champion, turns out people start getting upset when you keep winning it and then disenchanting your reward in front of them.  

*edit* Found one of my old pre-BC sigs!

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's a pity you won't be able to re-sub because I have to kill you now.

[bhodi]

Achivements are also the primary way raiding guild are ranked. You have all sorts of ranking sites that use the achievements to track progress and completion of hard modes (all hard mode bosses have separate achievements)

For example, wowrankings, guildox, there are probably a hundred different websites.

[Malakili]

If their are fishing achievements I'm hooked.  Like 18 time STV Extravaganza champion, turns out people start getting upset when you keep winning it and then disenchanting your reward in front of them.  

*edit* Found one of my old pre-BC sigs!

You'll be one of those people standing around the fountain in Dalaran fishing up coins.

Anyway, here is a list:

http://www.wowhead.com/?achievements=171

[WindupAtheist]

Redirecting from the WoW movie thread.

Bullshit.  Our noble lord Thrall escaped from a CONCENTRATION CAMP and led his people away to Kalimdor.

Oh man CONCENTRATION CAMPS! We all know those MUST be evil! It's just like the Holocaust! That is, if the jews and gypsies were a bunch of hulking seven-foot tall monster aliens from another dimension who attempted global genocide so as to facilitate world conquest by demons from hell. And if the nazis didn't go out of their way to kill them. Then they would be exactly the same. Yep.

Get the fuck out of here. A bunch of four-hundred pound screaming quasi-satanic lunatics boil out of an interdimensional portal, attempt to destroy the world, manage to butcher entire kingdoms, and you're going to act all butthurt because the inhabitants of said world decided to lock them all up rather than just kill them? Please.

What did the Alliance do?  They fucking chased after them!  Tauren are close to nature and peaceful.  The trolls prefer to lounge around their tropical islands and the Forsaken, who bravely broke free from the Scourge, only want to be left alone in the ruins of their ancestral lands.  But no, once AGAIN the fucking Alliance have to attack them.

That last WoW novel has Sylvanas looking on delighted as a forsaken prisoner (whom she suspects is actually innocent) is put to grusome death before her to test their new plague. She then muses to herself about how great it will be to wipe out the humans. I can dig up the relevant quotes if you really want to be a cock about it. No, they're not the fucking good guys.

Meanwhile the orcs have been attacking the night elves in Ashenvale for years in an attempt to steal their natural resources, all while loudly screaming that they're the only ones with the sense to see the need for peace. (Oh yeah, they're also allied with someone who wants to wipe out humanity.) By any rational standard the Alliance should have declared war long ago. The tauren and trolls no one gives a shit about outside of the fact that they're allied with the orcs.

You can make all the excuses you want but the Alliance have shown time and again that they are murdering invaders.  That's the dirty little secret of WoW, the 'good guys' are actually the bad guys.  The Alliance may be good looking on the outside but inside they are ugly.

What are you, twelve?

[Lantyssa]

They're all murderous barbarians.  So we should help them wipe each other out, as long as it's profitable.

I got what you need.

[Musashi]

We got the best deals anywhere!

[Paelos]

I'd off the Goblins first. 

Fucking mercs.

[Tannhauser]

The last WoW novel?  What, do you also have night elf jammies?  Yes, by all means, dig up some quotes from your Alliance propaganda books.

As for the orcs, it's well  known they were under a bloodlust spell.  The orcs are a noble race.  I can admit that the Forsaken can be pretty nasty, but no one leaves the Scourge unscathed.  See Death Knights.  Both actively fight the Scourge.

You can rant and rave all you want, the lore clearly shows the Horde are the good guys.  Read the quest lore from the game, not some hack's novel.

[Khaldun]

Hey, I don't care whether the Alliance is guilty of bad stuff against the Horde. All I care about is that they're a bunch of cutesy cockgobblers or pansy-ass whitebread double-talkers. You can be Jesus Fucking Christ and Gandhi rolled into one, but nothing can make up for being a gnome.

[WindupAtheist]

The last WoW novel?  What, do you also have night elf jammies?

Either that, or I've done this before. (Hint: See the other 6 pages of this thread.) Also, the YOUR A NERD LOL attack doesn't work very well coming from someone who's willing to explode in defense of "Our lord Thrall!" when the Horde is impugned during a movie discussion.

Yes, by all means, dig up some quotes from your Alliance propaganda books.

I think you mean "official Blizzard product" and here you go, from page 202.

At last, Arthas, you will pay for what you have done. The humans who spawned such as you shall be slaughtered. Your scourge shall be stopped in their tracks you will no longer be able to hide behind your armies of mindless undead puppets. And we will grace you with the same mercy and compassion you showed us. Despite her great control, she found herself smiling.

Sadly the bit where they actually off both a human and a probably-innocent Forsaken in order to make good and sure that it works on both the living and the undead isn't part of the preview, but I doubt you're going to seriously suggest that both I and WoW Insider are just making it up.

As for the orcs, it's well  known they were under a bloodlust spell.

"Yes we willingly drank the blood of a demon so that we could become a powerful army of devil-worshiping maniacs and destroy your world, but shit! It seemed like a good idea at the time! Now that you've narrowly beaten us we've realized that it was a bad thing to do. Really, you can trust us. We totally regret it. So if you could just let us run free... What do you mean you're going to lock us up? THAT'S THE MOST EVIL THING ANYONE HAS EVER DONE! CLEARLY YOU ARE THE MONSTERS HERE!"

You can rant and rave all you want, the lore clearly shows the Horde are the good guys.  Read the quest lore from the game, not some hack's novel.

You mean quest lore like The Elixir of Pain?

Oh, <name>. . .the flowers are blooming in Hillsbrad and the air is so fresh and brisk. I can't help but to wallow in the misery of it all. I look out my grimy window and long for the day when our New Plague brings this world the death it deserves.

Hey, that's a ranking member of the Forsaken talking about wiping out the living in a quest that's been there since day one. It's almost like the Forsaken have always been monsters bent on genocide and arguments to the contrary are just fanboy bullshit. Funny that. Then there are the RPG supplements which explicitly state that the Forsaken want to wipe out the living, list Sylvanas as being of evil alignment, yadda yadda yadda.

Then there's the whole Ashenvale thing nobody ever goes near because it's not even a "technically this isn't our land but nobody else lives here" grey area like Alterac Valley. It's just a straight up case of attacking Alliance members to steal their natural resources.

[Fabricated]

The lore to me always painted both the Horde and Alliance as flawed good guys, but good guys none the less. Well, minus the forsaken but I think they were sorta shoehorned in as a horde race.

WotLK pitting the two against eachother is one of the better moves they've done since the faction warfare didn't really make a whole lot of sense after all of the cooperation from late Vanilla WoW to BC.

"Okay, let's all work together like a real team to defeat this old god, then let's work together to save the Sunwell...but uh, while we're fighting this life and death battle for the fate of the world together we'll still skirmish pointlessly over Warsong Gulch."

[Jayce]

If killing massive numbers of people and fauna and stealing their stuff make them evil, then neither Alliance and Horde, player or NPC, have anything to be proud of.

[WindupAtheist]

I'd also like to point out that the YOUR A NERD LOL attack doesn't work on me because after "Tanks versus Mechs" everyone already knows I'm a fucking supernerd. 

[Rasix]

I just consider you a "competitive fanfic writer", which puts you into some odd nerd-geek subclass.  At least you're not using your powers for greater evils, like Draco-Harry love scenes.

[WindupAtheist]

Personally I think making the Forsaken THAT evil is the biggest lore mistake they've made, even moreso than spacegoat death knights on motorcycles. It completely undercuts Thrall's peacenik routine and makes him look like either a hypocrite or a naive dipshit. Then if that's not enough, anymore they have him constantly standing in the corner muttering "I say, how very rude!" like fucking C3PO while Garrosh runs around like the bad guy in a wrestling match, more or less calling Thrall a faggot to his face while headbutting people at random.

But it is what it is. When legions of hulking bloodthirsty interdimensional lunatics try to conquer the world for their demonic masters and almost succeed, it doesn't make you a monster to go "Whoa, we're locking you guys up and keeping a real close eye on you!" On the other hand "MUAHAHA, LET'S KILL EVERYONE IN THE WORLD WITH BIOWEAPONS!" probably does.

Don't look at me, I didn't write it.

Also, if the two sides are morally equal it's because they're both evil. I mean let's conduct a little thought experiment, shall we? Take all of the "savage" punching-bag races like gnolls, murlocs, and kobolds. Replace them with equally savage humans. Change nothing about their actual behavior. While you're at it, put some women and children in their villages just to be realistic.

Suddenly leveling through Wetlands or something becomes the most horrifying game this side of the Columbine RPG. WoW is basically a game about sacking the villages of less-developed peoples.

(Ok, the Columbine RPG was more stupid than horrifying, but you get my point.)

[Lucas]

Now, of course there would be lots of balance/gameplay headaches, but as a roleplayer, I always wanted a neutral faction. Tauren and Night Elves are now on opposite fences only because of some of their alliances, but if you read the lore Taurens always had the utmost respect for NEs, and in part that's highlighted by the Cenarious Circle stuff. Heck, put Goblins in there as well and we're done.

[Kail]

WoW is basically a game about sacking the villages of less-developed peoples.

I think the idea of things like Murlocs et al is that they're actually threats to civilization.  Gnolls and things are supposed to be ripping apart humans, ravaging villages, kidnapping children, that kind of thing.  They just don't do that in WoW because it's not something that works in the game, so they come across as these benign creatures who are just getting the crap kicked out of them by marauding adventurers.

[Fordel]

They should have just kept the racial divisions from War3, both the NE's and Forsaken were kinda shoehorned into their respective sides for WoW. Which basically sums up the base issue for all Warcraft 'lore', it's completely secondary to gameplay. Which is great for the actual game no doubt, but sucks for the world/story.


Of course, the game would likely still be in Beta if they had to make content for four separate factions.

[Azazel]

The last WoW novel?  What, do you also have night elf jammies?  Yes, by all means, dig up some quotes from your Alliance propaganda books.

As for the orcs, it's well  known they were under a bloodlust spell.  The orcs are a noble race.  I can admit that the Forsaken can be pretty nasty, but no one leaves the Scourge unscathed.  See Death Knights.  Both actively fight the Scourge.

You can rant and rave all you want, the lore clearly shows the Horde are the good guys.  Read the quest lore from the game, not some hack's novel.

 

[WindupAtheist]

I think the idea of things like Murlocs et al is that they're actually threats to civilization.  Gnolls and things are supposed to be ripping apart humans, ravaging villages, kidnapping children, that kind of thing.  They just don't do that in WoW because it's not something that works in the game, so they come across as these benign creatures who are just getting the crap kicked out of them by marauding adventurers.

I went and browsed quests on wowwiki for a few minutes. While many kill quests are a response to some provocation, a typical Alliance player will also be asked to exterminate sentient beings because...

* ...they burn too much firewood.
* ...they eat too much fish.
* ...they're living too close by.
* ...they sometimes keep horses that stray their way.
* ...they probably didn't kill our courier, but it's a good place to start looking.
* ...they taste delicious. Seriously. Apparently murlocs are good eating.

Given that we're talking about hostilities between a bunch of scattered tribes in shitty tents and a technologically advanced continent-spanning superpower that views their lives as having zero value and will kill them for literally anything (even food) it's hard for me to view the gnolls/murlocs/whatever as being particularly villainous even when they're described as having raided a caravan or some such.

I mean I'm not saying it was a good thing when a tribe of indians would scalp a bunch of white settlers 150 years ago or whatever either, but you can sorta understand where they were coming from.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, I really wished WoW had real factions.  I'd be out there making friends with all the 'savage' tribes.  Most of the attitudes all around annoy me.

Trolls and Draenei are the only ones that don't make me hate my own race if playing one.  The latter because they try even if it's lawful cheesy, the former because they're tribal and own up to not always being good as a whole.

[Musashi]

spacegoat death knights on motorcycles.

For those of us who are totally ignorant of all things lore, this is part of the game's silly charm.

Warcraft RPGs had steam tanks, mortar artillery and helicopters.

I want to be a goblin and ride a motorcycle.  It's not too much to ask is it?

[Tannhauser]

spacegoat death knights on motorcycles.

For those of us who are totally ignorant of all things lore, this is part of the game's silly charm.

Warcraft RPGs had steam tanks, mortar artillery and helicopters.

I want to be a goblin and ride a motorcycle.  It's not too much to ask is it?


[/quote

Nope.  I like the lore and I like the pop culture references and stuff like teleporters and motorcycles.  Charm is definately the word.

[Xanthippe]

Personally I think making the Forsaken THAT evil is the biggest lore mistake they've made, even moreso than spacegoat death knights on motorcycles. It completely undercuts Thrall's peacenik routine and makes him look like either a hypocrite or a naive dipshit. Then if that's not enough, anymore they have him constantly standing in the corner muttering "I say, how very rude!" like fucking C3PO while Garrosh runs around like the bad guy in a wrestling match, more or less calling Thrall a faggot to his face while headbutting people at random.

But it is what it is. When legions of hulking bloodthirsty interdimensional lunatics try to conquer the world for their demonic masters and almost succeed, it doesn't make you a monster to go "Whoa, we're locking you guys up and keeping a real close eye on you!" On the other hand "MUAHAHA, LET'S KILL EVERYONE IN THE WORLD WITH BIOWEAPONS!" probably does.

Don't look at me, I didn't write it.

You really are good at this, you know.  I learn more about WoW lore from reading your posts than quests in the game. 

[Hindenburg]

Trolls and Draenei are the only ones that don't make me hate my own race if playing one. 

What's wrong with the tauren?

[Lantyssa]

Sorry, forgot them 'cause I'm tired and knew I was leaving someone out but couldn't remember.  They mostly keep to themselves, and they've got members going around trying to heal the lands.  Lots of respect for the Tauren, too.

[Khaldun]

If the WoW factions were anything remotely real, most of the truly competent in any race would have split a long time ago. There should be a faction called Not Mentally Defective that doesn't want anything to do with any of the Horde or Alliance hijinks.

[Hindenburg]

Yeah, because the reality is full of examples such as that.

[Kail]

Given that we're talking about hostilities between a bunch of scattered tribes in shitty tents and a technologically advanced continent-spanning superpower that views their lives as having zero value and will kill them for literally anything (even food) it's hard for me to view the gnolls/murlocs/whatever as being particularly villainous even when they're described as having raided a caravan or some such.

Well, first of all, they're not just like humans but with funny colored skin, or something.  They're actual savage races.  They're halfway between people and animals.  While that's all pretty nasty stuff to do to people, it's not really that remarkable to do it to animals.  If a pack of dogs kill off your horses or something, you don't send out a team of diplomats to negotiate a peaceful resolution or whatever; it's not something that dogs can adhere to.  Likewise, with a few exceptions (like the Winterfin Murlocs), it doesn't seem to be something that would really work with Gnolls or anything.  And despite their shitty camps and crude weapons, they are a threat to the more civilized races.  Murlocs showed up in the Eastern Kingdoms just a few years ago, and they already control massive swaths of the coastline, and a huge percentage of the rivers and lakes.  They rip up armed Alliance patrols, sink their ships, and attack their trade caravans.  Gnolls have been in conflict with Humans for generations, but despite Humans being geared with Phat Epicz, the Gnolls still control massive tracts of land.

Second of all, I don't know that they're really races you'd want to coexist with.  You're already frothing at the Horde being allied with the Forsaken; imagine if they were also allied with Baby-eating Gnolls and Alliance soldier murdering Murlocs and what have you.  If they are sentient races, then they have to contend with the consequences of their actions, and the things they're doing would be considered acts of war.  You decide to run down Mankirk's Wife, you'd either better apologize reeeeeeally well, or expect to wake up to a ring of angry Orcs.

If they're animals, they need to be culled for the safety of the civilized races.  If they're sentient peoples, they are routinely committing acts of war against the Horde and Alliance.  Either way, it's not like you're tromping into the gumdrop forest to gun down the noble indigenous peoples of the world.

[Hindenburg]

Well, first of all, they're not just like humans but with funny colored skin, or something.  They're actual savage races. 

Same was said of black people once.

Second of all, I don't know that they're really races you'd want to coexist with.

And of mexicans.



This thread is going places.

[WindupAtheist]

What exactly defines a "savage" race when plenty of presumably "civilized" races have hooves/horns/tails, place zero value on the lives of said savages, kill them wantonly at the slightest provocation, and even consider some of them good for the soup pot?

Please don't give me anything about the inherently violent and warlike nature of the savage races. Not when the Infinite Dragonflight wanted to prevent the Horde from coming to Azeroth in the first place, knowing that without a common enemy the "civilized" Alliance races would all turn upon and destroy one another.

[Kail]

What exactly defines a "savage" race when plenty of presumably "civilized" races have hooves/horns/tails, place zero value on the lives of said savages, kill them wantonly at the slightest provocation, and even consider some of them good for the soup pot?

Some way of communication/organization with other races would be the base minimum, I'd say.  A lot of Troll subraces skirt the edge of this distinction.  You can't really make a treaty with Gnolls or Kobolds, though, it's just not something they really "get"  as far as I've seen them portrayed.  The Darkspear might be just as big dicks to the Alliance, but you can at least know that they understand ideas like treaties and political repercussions vis-a-vis the eating of diplomats.

It's largely a fairly superfluous distinction, anyway.  Regardless of their level of sophistication, these aren't races that can peacefully coexist with the Alliance or the Horde (or most other races, for that matter) as I see it.  There are races and tribes out there which are fairly primitive but which are not rabidly genocidal; the Sporeloks spring to mind.  The problem with Murlocs and such is that they just run around killing your shit as their sort of default mode, and diplomacy doesn't seem to work with them, so you're left with the option to either use force or do nothing while they eat you.

[Jayce]

I don't really think you can apply 21st century morals to WoW.  I am more reminded of primitive tribes that are always on the brink of extinction or at least massive disruption.  It might not be right to slaughter those murlocs, but if it's us or them, there isn't much choice.

I do like that they made every faction have some fatal flaw and some possible redemption.  Night elves are arrogant but full of respect for nature.  Forsaken are pretty much pure evil, but given what the went through, who can blame them.  Orcs and are trolls the noble savages.  Humans get a pass because they look like us, but if you played WC3 you can see how some are racist as fuck and arrogant to boot.  See for example Van Cleef.  I could go on.

[apocrypha]

Man, you all are total racists.

Just because some race or the other has a reputation or history of doing x, y or z doesn't mean that every member of that race exhibits those characteristics! I have several taurens that don't give a steaming shit about "healing the land" or all that hippy bullshit and just want lots of gold for themselves. Undead can be romantic, humans aren't all arrogant wankers and not all goblins are avaricious!

Stereotypes are bad, ok?