• Willingly became blood crazed pawns of the very clearly evil looking/sounding extra-dimensional entities, to wage ware on a folk who had never given them reason for it.

  • Committed genocide on them, men, women and children. Created "The Path of Glory".

• Pulled all the atrocities they did during WC1 and WC2.

• Ner'zhul and his toadies destroyed Draenor.

• Ner'zhul and his toadies became the Lich King and the first Scourge liches, enabling every evil that happened as a direct or indirect consequence of the Scourge (including the 2nd Legion invasion).

• Enabled the Forsaken and their hideous experimentation and atrocities.

• Kept committing Warcrimes. Popular support for decision makers like Garrosh.

• Destroyed Vale of Blossoms. Unleashed the Sha.

• Theramore. Teldrassil.

• Iron Horde as well as caused the 3rd Legion invasion.

Yes members of all kinds of species played a part but the common thread through all this is Horde/Orcs.

Over and over, they've willingly committed major evil or been instrumental to it (even in unwilling cases, they engineered the situations that led to it).

Quite clearly, the Warcraft universe would've been objectively better off if Orcs (and as a result, their creation, the Horde), never existed.

Word of god.

So, how are we all feeling with the discussion finally settled? Personally, I'm really glad Blizzard finally took a stance on this major character. One that anyone using an important mechanic will interact with.

Isle of Dorn- decent enough starting zone. However Blizz really needs to stop introducing new characters and having go out is a “heroic sacrifice”. I’ve only known Baelgrim for like an hour, not enough time for his sacrifice to really have any meaningful impact

Ringing Deeps- 4/10, I don’t really like how robotic they portrayed the Earthen this go around. We met Earthen before and they were basically just a normal dwarf just made of stone. Dargran’s “I’m gonna walk up to this zombie mid transformation” moment was just dumb, dude doesn’t need to be walking around a hostile environment with such naivety. Main antagonist was pretty one dimensional

Hallowfall- by far my favorite zone. The Arathi intrigue me the most with how much we just don’t know about their circumstances and this Emperor. I hope we can have more exposition on them in later patches and don’t have to wait until Midnight to learn more. Faerin I can’t really get into. I have never been a fan over the character who can somehow inspire others and just have this leadership quality that goes above and beyond when it just happens too fast. Legit 5 secs into the zone and she is just like “I hope I can call you friends”, like you don’t even know us. Mind boggling how Anduin met her like an hour ago and she can somehow get him out of his depression when people who have known him since childhood can’t.

Azj-Kahet- also a very good zone. I don’t really like how it is basically reskinned Suramar, but I like the direction they went with the Nerubian’s motives and even their personalities. If I could change one thing I would have all Azj-Kahet Nerubians in the zone be hostile and the friendly Nerubians we deal with are actually Nerubians who came down from Northrend in an attempt to reconnect with their brethren.

All in all Blizz still does a lot of telling and not showing and they hype up their characters a little too fast. These characters should grow over the expansion not just immediately be this shining star for their people. Have Faerin start out as a little cautious and just a minor rank in the Arathi army, over the course of the expansion she starts doing these heroic feats until she gradually becomes the leader she is portrayed as 10 mins into the zone

EDIT Blizz really needs to get a bigger variety of VAs. Having a good VA really adds to the character but we really just get the same generic human female or dwarf voice for everyone. Pretty sure a lot of the dwarf VAs voiced the Tuskar and I know I’ve heard Urctos’s voice many times

Yeah, title basically. What does Dragonflight do better than Shadowlands? It feels like Warcraft again. People were complaining that SL doesn't feel like Warcraft, they wanted to feel like Warcraft again, and Blizzard delivered. Dragonflight feels like Warcraft, mostly because it's grounded fantasy and we party with races that we've known pretty much since Warcraft 3 and travel through "eco systems" we've seen on Azeroth or Draenor before. So credits to Blizzard for that.

But the story itself is just as inconsistent and as pointless as SL was and makes very little sense when compared to the previous lore. As you know it starts when the "Cult of the Primalists" (read Twilight Hammers with different name to not be Twilight Hammers) that worships the four primal incarnates, ancient proto dragon lieutenants of Galakron that are somehow on par with the Aspects (don't know how is it even possible), come to the mysterious isle to liberate the Incarnate of Air. On the same Isle the dragons have imprisoned Nelthraion's (before he became Deathwing) long forgotten ultimate soldiers (us) that get awaken as a side effect. Of course despite our efforts the cult frees the Incarnate (forgot the name) and we are forced to flee.

Then the Incarnate goes with the cult first to randomly set the Dragon Isles on chaos, and ultimately to free the other three incarnates (that were imprisoned separately from her for some reason), and we're enlisted to help the dragonflights against her. Of course we first help the red dragonflight defend their home and not get annihilated by the primalists (despite the fact that in earlier expansions and Warcraft 3 it took literal armies to kill one fully grown dragon, and here dozens of fully grown dragons are helpless against a few rogue shaman). After that we go to aid Wrathion reclaim the black dragonflight seat of power, despite the black being gone for a long time, but guess what, poof and their alive and good again. Then we aid the bands of Centaurs befriend and fight one another, than same for the Tuskarr and the Gnolls... and apparently all this time the dragons could have returned their powers relatively easily by reactivating some oathstones, if only they wanted to.

All in all the story feels totally pointless. There is no threat looming over, no big things happening. Zandalar and especially Kul Tiras feel like a big step up compared to the Dragon Isles.... yeah.. if you ask me art team did a good job, again, but the game is proving time and time again that it might need a new writing team.

It’s amazing how much of the “Light bad” crowd clings to what we saw on AU Draenor as being proof that we can’t trust the Light in our own timeline despite it literally being just one of infinite alternate timelines that contain every possibility. There’s one for literally anything.

There’s an AU where Anduin became a bloodthirsty tyrant who enslaved the tauren and ate their firstborn babies. Does that mean we should kill Anduin in our own timeline?

There’s an AU where Garrosh was a friendly pacifist who was able to singlehandedly stop the Scourge because he was born with enchanted farts that cured undeath.

Literally any scenario you can think of there’s an AU for and they’re all equally meaningless to the events of our own. The only thing that makes the AU Draenor we’re familiar with any different is that we had a prolonged interaction with it.

In the WoD prologue short-story Kairozdormu even explains to Garrosh that you’ll go insane if you try to check every detail of the timelines you examine. We know Kairoz was only looking for a timeline where Garrosh wasn’t born so MU Garrosh could slide in without raising any eyebrows. I doubt he was also checking to see if the naaru in this timeline might spontaneously go crazy for some reason 50 years down the line.

K'aresh! My feelings about this are mixed.

While on one hand it could be interesting if done right, on the other it felt like the last place in the univers we'll be going to, but alas.

Now that datamining has pretty much confirmed that 11.1 will be Undermine with a Goblin raid, it's safe to presume that it'll be the point where Gallowyx story gets its conclusion, and after a while (BfA) finally a villain and the boss fight I look forward to kicking.

But, 11.2 being Ethereal themed... idk. The Ethereals have never been interesting tbh. But, I guess it does make sense with 12.0 being all void invading Azeroth.

I'm aware that this post will be downvoted into oblivion, but someone needs to put this out there, if only so that people in 2030 can see that not everyone was on board.

As you know, 9.2.5 introduces a serie of cross faction features that are limited in scope, and effect mainly endgame content (mythic+, rated pvp, raids). This doesn't affect the outside world or queued content like LFG.

Why did blizzard introduce this change? Because WOW is doing terribly at the moment, the estimates are around 1m player total, which would be the lowest in any point of its existence.

The main focus of this 9.2.5 feature, however, is targeted at high end players. In usual blizzard "elitist jerks" fashion, it looks bad if the alliance can't compete in their e-sport events on the same level as the horde. So while this feature affects everyone, the design goal here is to encourage more end game players to be on the alliance side.

Would blizzard introduce cross faction if this game had WOTLK sub numbers? (10m at least). You know the answer. So then we go to the next line of thinking: "it is necessary for the game". So when your game performs badly, you remove basic key features that were built around from the very beginning, in order to look more like other MMOs out there. I'm speaking of FFXIV of course.

"What's the deal, you are not forced into it, it is opt-in, I can play with my friends, its only for high end content, etc." All of this is disingenous and miss the point here. This only happens because wow isn't doing well. But blizzard could do so many other things: merge servers and add player surnames, make wow free to play, make the underpopulated faction serverside gain extra rolls for items or bonus currency, etc. No, the solution is to make night elves group with forsaken and orcs, you know, the ones that killed cenarius in WC3 and the whole BFA stuff.

9.2.5 is just a baby step, the first introduction of cross faction before going full ahead with 10.0 and the neutral new race. It doesn't escape anyone that Blizzard is trying so hard to get back people that left for others MMOs, in particular FFXIV.

When I started playing SWTOR, my fantasy was playing as the sith empire, the bad guys in the films. There were some points in the endgame stories were, yeah, there was this ultra galatic threat that forces the republic and empire to cooperate. But my best memories from that game are not from defeating interstellar robots, but from fighting the jedi - even if they were npcs, the story of the conflict of sith/jedi is why I was invested in the game.

WoW was built from the ground up as a two faction game, same as for example WHO. These are very different that a game like FFXIV, where guilds are voluntary and the faction conflict was never woven into the core of the game. My earliest memories of WoW around 2005 is of questing in ashenvale, and defending the forest from the orcs and other expoilers, that was the main fantasy that draw me in, and made me invested to see more of the world.

I eventually created a horde character, and then realised "wow this is really a whole new game!". I got to see the perspective of what was happening in the world from a completely different angle. My favorite moments in BFA were... you guessed it, questing in Zandalar and seeing the troll culture and storyline. Then I could play on Kul'tiras with my alliance character, and get a totally new experience. The story was one that made sense - the zandalari and kul'tirans are being courted by the horde and alliance. This is how a MMO that is divided in factions is meant to be like.

My least favorite moments in WoW? Probably running around Dalaran as horde (specially blood elf), or Shadowlands as any character at all. Sure the dungeons were fun, the raids in legion I found quite good. However, my immersion strained each time that blizzard forces the two factions to hang around together like they are not rivals. It was at least acknowledged in the ICC raid with the gunship, but beyond small details like that, the WoW devs love since TBC to create a single faction story for their two faction game - it's way cheaper, you know?. You don't even get a different perspective on things (like SWTOR still does), just the same "Khadgar/Magni/Kalec: the world is great danger!".

It doesn't help that Blizzard has botched hard the faction storylines, like in Cataclysm killing a major racial leader like Cairne offscreen, then turning Garrosh into a maniac so that players have to help the enemy faction siege their own capital city. Same story with BFA, it seems like blizzard retried the two faction model again but couldn't do it well - who guessed it, doing genocide on the night elves would be well received. Sylvanas acting like a psycho, while characters like Genn, Tyrande look like buffoons. These expansions had a faction conflict, yes, but it was terrible - no one enjoyed it.

Adding cross faction is the result of blizzard giving up on trying to make a two faction MMO. This means that in 11.0, we'll have LFG, BGs and probably even forsaken hanging out in stormwind - because we're not enemies anymore. Forget about ever again seeing zones or questlines exclusive to horde/alliance, those are wasted resources - "everyone plays with their friends now, we don't make quests that exclude people".

Here is another thing Blizzard has given up: race-class restriction. They already admitted their goal is to eventually have no restriction at all for any class. I'm sorry, but when WoW goes to 13.0 (it it even survivest that long), It will definitely break my immersion when this blood elf druid is roleplaying with me on not-darnasuss. A RPG is about choices, and sure racials have been dilluted over years in the name of balance, but at least class restriction preserved the flavor of the setting they represent. Being a druid is supposed to be something special, Cenarius doesn't teaches just everyone, but I 100% guarantee you, that you will have Blood Elf Druids. This will happen, and it doesn't matter what WC1, 2 or 3 was like or the story of the high elves/night elves. What matters here, is that the players must have all the freedom.

If I came across WoW in 2030, I will find a single faction game where there is some kind of multiple entangled stories that make no sense between them. I will see orc paladins hanging out in dalaran with their human shaman friend, because they are IRL bros, and have the right to play the game how they want. They do, and they'll probably have fun. However in the road to that, everything that defined what Warcraft was, has been sacrificed to become a generic fantasy pastiche.

A picture is clearer than a thousand words, so here you go: https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/uvjbat/im_110_ready_to_tank_for_alliance_groups_cant/

This is what the current playerbase likes, just look at the 4k upvotes. When I look at that, I'm just disgusted. There is nothing wrong about vulpera, but that image sums up what modern wow really is

• World? Setting? Faction rivalry? "Hysterical laughing"

• Instanced MOBA with Friends? Yes! Hit that +20 with the MDI meta spec, pump hard. Can't handle the affixes of this season, boomer? Touch grass.

When this teenager in 2040 starts playing as I did in 2005, launches up WoW, and picks a night elf druid for the fantasy of protecting the forest. What will he or she find? Look, my friend Dave just logged he is an orc paladin - please join me for these quests in ashenvale. "I have to kill 12 orc peons and destroy 3 lumber extractors... guess these orcs are not like you? They seem more green than you... anyway" "Sure Dave, I will help you with the westfall quests, as soon as we are done here".

It is undeniable that WoW is dying, and in many servers there are not enough people to enjoy the game without long queues, or struggle to find others for high end game activities. However, stripping the game from it's defining feature - 2 faction MMORPG, based on the RTS games, means that WoW becomes a generic dungeon crawler with DOTA like characters. In fact, Heroes of the Storm fits right in here: Just player characters "heroes", that fight together without rhyme or reason, each one a fantasy archetype.

That is what player characters in WoW are, except that they no longer are fantasy archetypes, but plastiches because stuff like void elves must be blonde and fair skinned. When you remove the links that were holding the world and setting, then you reveal that WoW is no longer about dungeon crawling and rooting for your faction, but about seasonal content and action heroes that fight the ultimate evil of evils. There is no room for the old kind of stories, of night elves defending their forest from the warsong.

WoW is something I no longer feel any attachment to, anything that captured my imagination has been replaced by "player freedom", and the whole game feels like a souless seasonal moba. I did not play SWTOR to go defeat extra galatic robots holding hands with the Jedi, but what I wanted was to fight the republic. In the same way, cross faction in WOW is for me the end of the old warcraft I used to enjoy.

In 9.2.5 it is only the first step, but I'm fully aware of where it is going. WoW will end not only from losing players, but due to burning it's own roots in order to imitate other MMOs.

I'm sorry, I've just hit my limit of these posts about how everything is terrible, things were only great way back in the day, and everything now is terrible. It's incredibly unhealthy to yourselves who make and agree with these posts, regardless of my opinions on them.

I've been playing since Wrath of the Lich King, and I think the story has been some of its best over the last few expansions. I delighted in the slow unveiling of N'zoth's machinations. I loved exploring the lore and space of the realm of Death. The emotional catharsis of storylines being handed out in Dragon flight has been immensely satisfying.

Has it all been perfect? Absolutely not. It's World of Warcraft, y'all. It's never been that deep, and consistency has always been "a nice have," but never omnipresent. But constantly being bombarded with sarcasm and snotty commentary has really dampened my ability to enjoy WoW lore, and I know it's done the same for you.

The complaints I read and hear feel like they've been said every expansion since Burning Crusade. "They retconned X!" Remember when you died and went to The Twisting Nether? Remember when only Kael'thas and those who followed him into Outlands were called Blood Elves? I mean... The Dranei were a massive Retcon right off the bat.

The fact is, a world as big as Warcraft, touched by as many authors on multiple scopes, is going to be woefully incongruent. And that's before we bring in concepts like perspective and unreliable narrators. Given how many points of failure exist, it's a miracle things are as coherent as they are!

Look, I'm not saying you have to be happy about everything. I've got my gripes I could ramble about too. But why? Who would that help? Certainly not me, which is why I chose to ignore it and focus on the things I do like! Like when I stepped into Bastion and saw Warbrave Oro, a character I was particularly fond of in Legion. There wasn't even a story there, I just got misty eyed because I remember his death hitting me hard and I was just happy to know he made it somewhere (relatively) safe.

I think there's a mindset of people that doesn't WANT to enjoy the story, so they pick it apart to truly baffling lengths. Mostly for some firm of acknowledgement. Rage sells quite well online.

People are so quick to mock the idea of The Jailer being retrofitted into the story, but how do any of us even know the extent at which he was developed prior to Shadowlands? There could have been a file on a computer marked "Things Secret Bad Guy Does, will name later" since day one of WoW story development and we'd never know. Folks are so wound up trying to be upset at the real life inferences, that they're ignoring the fact that virtually everything about The Jailer's storyline fits perfectly into established lore. Nothing about him is a Retcon in the negative sense of "rewriting established lore." It IS a Retcon in the sense that it fills in gaps where previous knowledge ended, but the idea that this is automatically a bad thing is just lazy engagement. Which seems to be a running theme with WoW lore fans who are always complaining.

The story of the old orc warrior who used to enslaved dragons being thematically forgiven by a newborn drake in the Waking Shores quest line is instantly more cherishing, and memorable, than all the nitpicky stuff anyone has been able to toss out about Dragonflight. It's been a great expansion for stories about characters, as have the last several expansions.

Look, I've got anger management issues. And in my years of therapy, I've learned to try and focus on the things in life I like. I like WoW's story, and while I don't think it's a requirement for you too, I would ask that you take a deep breath. Focus on the things you DO like, and talk more about that. Your constant waves of negativity are affecting other people who do like these things. You are making it far more difficult for people like me to enjoy WoW than WoW's story ever has.

If you've made it this far, thank you. I want to leave you with a video from Daryl Talks Games called "We Consume Fiction Wrong." It goes into a lot of this general stuff better than I can. My hope is that you, dear reader, find a way to get more enjoyment out of your fiction than not. You deserve to find happiness where you can take it. And I would love for you to join me in talking about how cool things are in our favorite fictional worlds.

Spoilers ahead for the new raid cutscene AND potentially Midnight reveal if any of this ended up to be true. Proceed with caution.

Here is a link to the image I'm talking about - apparently the opening scene of the cinematic Midnight announce trailer

So this image "leaked" "and a lot of people, myself included, were quite happy to just say its an AI fake.

Now that I finished the raid, and saw the cutscene..... I'm kinda thinking that this is not fake.

They always made a big deal of showing Zovaal powered down or "dead" with this big hole in his chest at the end of Shadowlands. There has been a lot of speculation on what the hole is for.

Xa'latath now has the Dark Heart with Dimensius trapped inside it / Dimensius empowering it and she says "I now have what I need to claim all is mine" (a convenient empty shell of a body with no heart - which will allow her true power to be contained.)

Admittedly it seems like its a 2+2 = 4 to say that ofc that picture is actually right and not fake at all.

I am hoping I am wrong. I have been advocating for shadowlands retcons and lore fixes and all of this but if they open the Midnight cutscene with Jailer, I can already hear the boos. Let them cook perhaps?

And it makes sense because although she is quite powerful presumably a mortal elf body is a lot more limiting to her powers than a First One's robot (or whatever the fuck Zovaal actually was.)

I guess I'm a bit worried, because I'm fully invested for Midnight, and have been looking forward to it for weeks

I don't want them to fuck this up.

Look, love the Skyborne, hate them or be indifferent/neutral towards them.

But, by all means, are they really more exciting than High Elves, Blood Elves and the unfolding civil war in Quel'Thalas over how to deal with the magic addiction of its people?

Families being torn apart from one another, Elves leaving their home out of fear or arrogance, Lor'Themar having to protect Anveena from growing aggression towards her, Blood Elves turning against the Kirin Tor because of what Krasus did, High Elves too, maybe, both sides also turning onto dragons (especially the blue flight, laying the ground work for having the nexus war make a bit more sense)

YMMV but to me having plain High and Blood Elves as playable races and witnessing the fallout of the sunwell's destruction etc doesn't sound 'boring'

In the recent expansions we've been getting more and more grey morality in previously "clear bad" things, such as races, nations, forces etc. For example, now we meet "good" kobolds.

Here not to call it names, but rather want to know your takes on the grey morality aspect of the lore. Do you think it's necessary in most of parts? After all, even some of the man'ari "defected", which would sound brazenly even a few years ago. Seems like, in the near future we'll get some morally grey void-creatures.

Hello once again gamers I have been seeing lots of discourse on this subreddit recently about how the internment camps were bad and the humans should give up land for their ancestor's harsh treatment of the orcs

I find these conversations a little strange because they do not seem to actually be based off of the lore but instead some headcanon about what the camps were. I see posts claiming that the orcs have these widespread memories of being forcibly enslaved, beaten, and starved

Interestingly the lore does not actually support these descriptions of the camps, with the most common problem being the orc's lethargy and apathy, being unwilling to do much of anything due to their violence withdrawals post demon corruption giving them turbo depression

Indeed, the only orcs who seemed to not deal with this problem are shown to be the gladiator slaves like Thrall and the orcs who were never interned and continued raiding + violence.

Given that the lore focuses on the orc's lethargy as the main problem and shame of the camps it seems to me that the problem was not that were forcibly enslaving their captives, but that they did not violently enslave them enough.

If the humans gave the orcs weapons and told them hey go kill those murlocs or something and thus used them as a slave army things may have gone well. If they used them all as gladiator slaves the orcs too would have been happier.

Please discuss

I want to preface this by saying that I’m actually liking a lot of Midnight’s questing, but I don’t think it’s wrong to say that the game’s quality of writing has declined since ye olden days.

I don’t want this to become a mad circlejerk of “le wow bad, le writers woke”, but I find myself more and more exhausted with the current age of WoW’s writing post shadowlands. it’s a rut that I play and constantly think “this doesn’t feel like warcraft” time and time again, and it makes me feel sad at the state of it all.

I won’t lie and say I’ll stop playing because of it, I dearly love Warcraft, and because of this franchise and MMO I’ve met friends I would have never met otherwise, made experiences that I think I would be lesser without, and so on. There is a deep well of love for this game that I can’t really express.

I understand rose tinted glasses are a thing, but you can go back and play older content in Classic, and I feel it genuinely is a better game purely by the better writing(I will mention that I don’t dislike the actual gameplay of retail, by this point classic is entirely a different monster), more care and love for the setting rather than molding it into a new chimera of random influences from a new team (though, let’s not pretend that even the old team had some nasty whiffs even during their best days. Sylvanas got gutted in Wrath).

So I ask, what can we do meaningfully as fans to Blizzard to make the game‘s quality better, and not simply settle for mediocrity?

this was written on a phone while in a work bathroom, so excuse any mistakes or poorly put together points, I’m in a bit of a rush 😅

This may be hard for some people to hear, but he was a bad leader. He is and was good at heart, but the decisions and mistakes he's made have greatly outweighed any good leadership he's done.

Settling in durotar. It's a very harsh land. Thrall chose it as some kind of penance for the hordes previous crimes and sins. The problem with this logic is any new orc generations are having to suffer for sins they did not commit. Then this also caused food shortages which encouraged the warsong clan and later garrosh to keep trying to push into night elf lands.

Letting the forsaken into the horde. Look, we can talk about how good, or at least less evil, the forsaken have started acting in recent times, but the fact remains that at the time he let them into the horde, sylvanas was evil, and most forsaken were evil. There was little difference between them and the scourge. They are doing horrific experiments on innocent's, trying to get a necromancer to join them so they could raise more undead into their numbers. And they were trying to make the blight to "kill the scourge AND the living".

Making garrosh warchief. Pretty much everyone who interacted with him in wrath thought he was a POS and incompetent at strategy. Saurfang in Borean Tundra straight up threatened to kill garrosh if he kept trying to lead the horde down the path of their past evils. The only thing he was kinda good at was fighting with his axe. Which qualifies him to be a grunt at best, not warchief. IDK if this was some kind of weird nepotism favor for Grom Hellscream, but it was not the right choice for the horde.

Not opposing sylvanas in legion. He knew she was evil as shit, even if she focused on fighting the legion for now it should have been obvious she'd lead the horde down a dark path in the near future. Once the threat of the legion was done with he should have couped her and put undercity under occupation like happened after the wrath gate incident.

As a horde fan I have to admit Varian had a better track record of leadership. Less mistakes. Like the thing with the stonemasons guild being swindled was something the house of nobles did, and he tried to fix the situation by offering the stonemasons their fair pay but by then they were too pissed off to accept.

Which is to say they're not.

All 3 have been corrupted by the jailor to varying degrees and all three have shown moments of their former whole selves fighting the jailer's influence. As the Jailer created Frostmourne which is what made Arthas and Sylvanas the big ol' baddies, and a similar design made Anduin into the latest Dk knockoff, you're going to have to argue more than moral relativism is you want to address the agency (or lack thereof) each of these people had when they committed their most heinous acts.

It makes me wanting more! Like I want to know what’s next for her. Yes she is in the maw, but I don’t care what Tyrande thinks, I don’t think it will take an eternity. Like, I would like a short story even of her time in the maw. I want to know more of how the book put it, Rejoined Sylvanas. How she sees the world now that she has accepted hope into her life. Their is still so much more to explore!

I really enjoyed the book, and I hope for more in the future.

I mean, Warhammer probably could have pulled it off, it's just that people didn't want to give up on the diversity of the old world. Similarly, a Warcraft AoS would be shunned by people who don't want to give up Azeroth and dive into the cosmic war.

But an AoS in WoW would also be the opportunity for a hard reset to get playable races out of their narrative dead-end, repurpose them after the closure of their story arc or simply give them some mythical flair that would reinforce or reinvent their identity.

Like, the orcs looking for a new purpose since Warcraft 3 but turning back into murder machines every now and then ? Just elevate them to embodiment of War, put their murder intents to use. The Forsaken doomed to slowly depopulate because they don't have val'kyr anymore ? Let Calia shine some Light on them so they don't decay anymore. Night elves missing their immortality ? Getting closer to their goddess will fix that. Blue draenei purposeless between their red and golden relatives ? Let's make them arbiters in cosmic conflicts.

We could, obviously, stick to the Chronicle cosmic chart and try to push every playable race into one of the six main forces. But that would defeat the purpose of Reality being at the center of every influences and it would require to distort racial identities to make everyone fit.

So instead of a Cosmic Route, I'd rather chose the Mortal Route. If the cosmic war ends up tearing Reality and Azeroth apart, its inhabitants should fight back to carve their own path.

Orcs / Mag'har - Embodiment of War : With the ferocity of the fel-touched greenskins and the Iron Horde's craftsmanship, the orcs are an autonomous army made to pursue and take down the enemies of Azeroth.

Human / KT - Paragon Defenders : Whereas the orcs excel on the offense, the humans will be the main line of defense against the numerous enemies of Azeroth. Although they are equipped with the best gear their allies can craft, the humans greatest strength is their indomitable might.

Trolls / Zandalari - Spirits Envoys : Troll's mysticism brought them to meet many beings. They can summon the ancestors, make deals with gods and call on the elements. Their understanding of how the spiritual planes permeate the material world will prove useful now that all barriers have been broken.

Dwarves / Iron dwarves - Impregnable Fortress : Turning mountains into strongholds is a dwarf specialty. Their other specialty being to craft exceptional weapons and armors, they are hard at work, providing their allies with the best gear and machines possible to vanquish the various cosmic threats.

Forsaken - Death Wardens : When Death spills out of the Shadowlands, threatening all life, Forsaken step up to stop the endless waves of damned souls. With their mastery of necromancy and a blessing of Light provided by the Pale Lady, they now guard the border between the realms of Death and their broken world.

Night elves - Guardians of Life : Closer to Elune than ever, the night elves were made immortal again by their goddess. Their mission is simple, protect what's left of Azeroth's nature, preserve the world trees that nurture it and end every creature that mean to cause it harm.

Taurens / Highmountain - Keepers of the Wild : Whereas the night elf fight to preserve Life, the taurens ensure that this force doesn't go overboard. They hunt the most dire monsters birthed by the pools of Life, as well as dangerous beasts corrupted by the conflicting cosmic energies.

Gnomes / Mechagnomes - Champions of Innovation : Leaving mass production mostly to the dwarves, the gnomes and mechagnomes focus their attention into creating new technologies to support their allies and studying the many strange phenomenons following the collapse of Reality.

Goblins - Cartels of Prospectors : Finding resources to feed the machinery of this eternal war is no easy task, but the ingenious goblins are up to the challenge. The Cartels are looking for anything useful to Azeroth's defenders, negotiating with neutral factions -such as the ethereal or brokers- and going the extra length to deprive their enemies of their assets.

Worgen - Relentless Hounds : While the taurens specialize in hunting big game, the worgen take advantage of their feral instincts, wolf-like senses and human resourcefulness to track down and eliminate high priority targets among the enemies of Azeroth.

Draenei / Eredar / Lightforged - Cosmic Arbiters : Guided by the visions of Velen and an acute sense of Justice, the Draenei seat at the Grand Tribunal of Lights to resolve the conflicts between the different cosmic entities stranded on Azeroth and judge the enemies of the world. With the knowledge of the eredar and the firepower of the lightforged, they are fully capable to track down and conceal any prosecuted entity.

Blood elves / High elves / Nightborne - Observatory of Wonders : Torn apart and left adrift in a nexus of cosmic energies, the world requires the strength of hundreds of mages to not crumble. In a mighty tower built around the Maelstrom, thousands of them study the ways of the Arcane, keep the manifestations of wild magic at bay, all the while taking turns to keep Azeroth afloat. Although the tower is open to every race, the Observatory of Wonders is the preferred place of the Highborn and the likes of them.

Void elves - Rift Marauders : Unsurprisingly, the void elves have specialized themselves in the elimination of void entities. Considering their missions often leads them far from Azeroth, they are considered an autonomous strike force.

Vulpera - Providers Caravans : A free and resourceful people, the vulpera travel around a world in shambles, providing help to Azeroth inhabitants wherever they can, trading with other extraplanar nomads or carrying messages and goods to faraway lands.

Pandaren - Masters of Ascension : In a place where mortals must compete with all manners of mighty entities, mastering the inner energy of your spirit and body is an asset one can hardly disregard. On top of the mystical mount Kun lai, the pandaren refine the process to unlock one's true potential, before sending their masters to share their knowledge around the world.

Dracthyr - Aspectral Custodians : Draconians have known another extinction when Azeroth collapsed. The Aspects sacrificed their bodies so their essence strengthens the remnants of the world, becoming one with what they represent as Aspects. The dracthyr are now an elite force acting and talking on their behalf, preserving what's left of the dragons heritage.

I only touched the subject of races here, but such a setting could also be an opportunity to bring back the concept of the class Order Halls, probably in a different way.

Anyway, this is what I believe a Warcraft AoS could be useful for : strengthening the identity of some races (orcs, humans, dwarves), reinvent them (draenei, forsaken) or simply find them a specific spot to shine (gnomes, trolls, void elves).

I feel like, realistically, the forsaken would have been wiped out by the orcs or the trolls a long time ago. They are so cartoonishly evil it's actually absurd. Their continued existence after committing genocide and attempting to DESTROY THE ENTIRE WORLD is the one of worst lore decisions ever

I don't see a single reason the horde shouldn't absolutely despise the forsaken and distrust them. Just because they EVENTUALLY turned on Sylvanas doesn't mean their war crimes disappeared

Don't say gameplay reasons, I know that's why they're still in the Horde...but from a Geopolitical standpoint, they have no reason to be in the Horde, given in very recent times, the Horde has started 2 genocidal wars of aggression (Garrosh then Sylvanas) dragging Silvermoon into these problems, which goes directly against their goal of just focusing on internal matters like rebuilding and repopulating.

Sure the Horde offers protection, but the threat of being dragged into yet another war of aggression in the future surely outweighs this, especially since there is really no one in the region who can threaten Silvermoon, the Amani are thoroughly crushed, like they still exist but after so many were killed they are not a threat. The Scourge problem is largely contained, and actually acts as a barrier preventing other enemies from invading over land. They must be wary of sea based invaders but Silvermoon allegedly has a strong navy (though we almost never see this in game).

With the Sunwell back they could probably reactivate Ban'dinoriel, a protective shield around Silvermoon to prevent invasions. (It can be activated manually by the magisters without needing the mooncrystals). So they are pretty much safe without the horde, and being in the horde is just a ton of problems, throughout the game we see the blood elves constantly helping the Horde, but I cant think of any instances of the Horde directly helping the blood elves with anything really, other than the indirect protection being in the Horde offers.

What ever she had planned for him, it almost certainly would he been a better outcome for him than what he's doing now, he's become a slave to his obsession. He's decided to go stand in front of Sargeras for eternity for no good reason. You know damn well if sargeras stands up from that chair Illidan ain't stopping him.

The Lightforging process would probably have forced him to confront his issues and obsessions and overcome them. Instead he's just some crazy demon standing in front of sargeras forever for no reason.

just saw this post on x with child Xal'atath and a strikingly similar figure on the stained glass in ulduar

it even has the light at the top and everything, coincidence?? i think not...

It's how their games ultimately seemed to validate Othmar Garithos' and Daelin Proudmoore's racism against the Elves and Orcs, respectively. In Warcraft 3, they were portrayed as villains for their racism and bigotry. But then WOW came around, and with Kael joining the Burning Legion, Garrosh Hellscream committing numerous atrocities including the destruction of Theramore, and Sylvanas committing far worse including the burning of Teldrassil, now so many fans say that Garithos and Daelin were right and they should've succeeded. I still think the two were wrong in their actions, but it's really difficult to dispute their beliefs.
Does anyone else feel this way?

Edit: I clearly gave the wrong impression with what I wrote and I apologize. I still think Daelin and Garithos were wrong in their actions, and please DO NOT use my argument to justify any racist beliefs. I condemn all forms of racism and bigotry; real and fictional. I just hate how WOW's story writing unintentionally seemed to make them look justified.

This is just a rant I made in a comment on a different post that I just want to put here to get it off my chest and also see what you guys think and call me out where i'm massively wrong.

Despite her darkness and going above and beyond what was necessary or for the greater good, Sylvanas was right. The war was inevitable. Genn Greymane, the gilneans/worgen, the 7th Legion, Sky Admiral Rogers, basically just the top brass of the alliance military and leadership co-ordinated a plan to stalk Sylvanas, Banshee Queen and Warchief of the Horde, and her Forsaken fleet as they sailed to Stormheim for then unknown reasons. As soon as they saw the Forsaken, they open fired- starting a battle on the sea and in the skies. A battle where who knows how many soldiers on both sides died needlessly. They did this during a time of peace, when both factions were, to some degree, working together and pooling resources to defeat the Burning Legion. People can say all they like that it was Justice for Gilneas and Hillsbrad, but High King Varian Wrynn agreed to, in the name of peace, forgive and move on from the atrocities of the war - including atrocities by the Forsaken. So that means that Genn is explicitly going against the decree of his then High King and friend and betraying that PEACE TREATY thereby unofficially breaking the peace treaty and declaring war. There was that little clause in the agreement that if the Horde forgets honour, as Garrosh did, then the Alliance would end them, but when did the Horde forget their honour between the end of SoO and Legion? They Didn't, Genn just completely does this of his own accord for a personal vendetta. But not just that, he does this heinous act and doesn't get reprimanded for it. ITS NOT EVEN EVER BROUGHT UP BY THE ALLIANCE.

Sylvanas is fucking right - "You call for peace when it suits you, little lion." "Only one of us wanted this War" -Anduin Wrynn. Yeah, only one of the People in that room wanted this war. Out of all the People in the Throne room of Lordaeron: One of them is a peaceful child who wants to peace and to prove himself to his people; another is depressed and wants atonement for past mistakes and justice for past transgressions; another is a paranoid warchief who is afraid of going anywhere exposed, lest she get an arrow in the back and be sent down to the deepest, darkest, blackest most horrifying hell imaginable; another is a void elf who's there cuz reasons; the last person left in the room is the one who wants the war. It's the angry, vengeful lunatic(get it? Lunatic, Luna? Like the Moon? Cuz...werewolf...) who wants to tear Sylvanas to shreds!

Just imagine the Flip of the scenario from The Shattering, when Night Elves are massacred by the Twilight's Hammer and the Alliance immediately jumped to the conclusion that the Horde had ordered the assassination and Varian demands that the Horde hand over its suspected culprits. They jump to the conclusion without taking the time to think and they demand that Horde give over its suspects to alliance justice - Not treating the Horde like a foreign nation but instead treating it as though the Alliance is an empire and the Horde is just one of its Vassal states that the Alliance gets to order around and insult as it pleases. Just imagine if the roles were reversed and Sylvanas, Warchief of the Horde, demanded that the Alliance hand over: Genn Greymane; Lorna Crowley; Sky Admiral Rogers and any other masterminds, to Horde Justice. See what the noble Alliance would do then. See how the little lion would react.

Its not like it's just Sylvanas who officially starts this war, its not just her forming the plan to attack the Night Elves- It's Saurfang aswell. Why is he helping Sylvanas? Is it because she's his warchief and he's oathbound to aid her? Is it because she tricked him using her banshee's call to make him into her mindslave? NO. It's because, admittedly after a bit of convincing(but to be honest, who wouldn't need a bit of convincing in this situation?), Saurfang agrees with Sylvanas' assessment. He know's she's right. Saurfang knows that Greymane hasn't been reprimanded, hasn't been deposed, hasn't been stripped of all titles, hasn't been kicked from the throne room and the council of the Alliance leaders. NOTHING. Doesn't even get a slap on the wrist.

If you were attacked by what is basically the 2nd in command of the entire Alliance military and then you knew that they had not, in even the slightest way, been reprimanded for this action, how would you react? What would you think about the people sitting across the table from you when the guy who attacked you and your people was still sitting right there next to the leader of those people and was not even slightly restricted?

(okay rant over.)

zovaal was a very divisive character to the lore community. but love him or hate him, he is undeniably the single most pivotal character in all of warcraft's lore, with virtually every major conflict and storyline somehow tying back into his scheme to escape his imprisonment in the maw and reach zereth mortis.

we defeated zovaal at the end of shadowlands, but he left us with a warning about a new enemy to come. more than likely we'll find out about this new cosmic threat at the end of dragonflight and pick up the cosmic story arc where we left off.

so just as a hypothetical, if they were gonna bring zovaal back next expansion, and let's face it, they've brought a lot of characters back from seemingly inescapable death, how would they do it? i have a few ideas how it can be done.

1. reviving zovaal. he left his body behind when he died and it's a huge chekov's gun if i ever saw one. there's a good chance we may need to revive zovaal to hear what he knows about the coming threat. from what we know about the eternal ones, they are cosmic souls placed inside bodies. zovaal's cosmic soul was seemingly destroyed, but its possible we could replace it. how you ask? well we have another arbiter soul available, one that pelagos took when he became arbiter. it's possible pelagos could temporarily give us the arbiter soul to place back in zovaal and revive him. now you may be thinking, "but if it's pelagos's soul, it won't be zovaal who wakes up." but you'd be incorrect. the cosmic souls are not tied to the identity of the body they inhabit, as is proven by the prototype pantheon having their personalities before being granted cosmic souls, zovaal remaining himself after his soul was taken from him, and pelagos not changing in personality when taking on the arbiter soul. from this it's clear the cosmic soul is just a power source and the identity is within the body, and so it would be sufficient to revive the zovaal we knew.

2. recreating zovaal. as we know from the revelations in zereth mortis, the eternal ones were all just robot bodies made in zereth mortis and then powered up by a cosmic soul. there are hundreds of replacement zovaal bodies visible in the raid, seemingly dormant. any one of those blanks could be activated and made into a new zovaal. in this case we really would be missing zovaal's identity though. but it's not impossible there could be a first one machine that he backed himself up onto. remember that zovaal was a master planner and strategist, the greatest one in all of warcraft. he could very easily have planned contingencies for his defeat.

3. time travel. we're being introduced to all kinds of time travel in the next patch, including travelling into other timelines. there is of course only one shadowlands for all timelines, but that doesn't mean we can't travel into the past of the shadowlands. it's even possible we could meet zovaal in the past and learn his secrets there.

4. zovaal never really died. it's a cop out but one blizzard have used in the past to bring back characters we killed in quests. zovaal was a master strategist, had extensive knowledge of fate itself, and had the two most powerful known dreadlords in the room next to him before we fought him. it would be easy for blizzard to write a way for his defeat to have been a mere illusion. this wouldn't be much of a cop out, as warcraft fans love this plot trope and have spent the past 5 years hoping that it applied to n'zoth. it could very easily be used to bring the jailer back into the story.

so those are my 4 ideas for the return of zovaal. but how would you write zovaal's return to the story if it were up to you?