The Trial of Garrosh, idiots.

A trial for Garrosh was bloody stupid. Likewise was any attempt to make the process fair and legitimate. I’m finding it hard to want to read the new Warcraft novel because I think the end of the Mists story and setting was utter balderdash. I like the Warcraft novels and can forgive a lot when it provides more lore to consume – but in all seriousness the axe should have fallen on Garrosh as soon as it could. Too many times inaction has let to disaster in WoW lore.

Has Warcraft become so soft that the heroes can only dispatch a foe if they are corrupted by an old god? It takes pervasive corruption to allow an execution, but the “heroes” can murder hundreds of opponents in daily quests with impunity? C’mon.

I think some players like to rationalise the setting to their own morals and ethics, but I think the setting has lost it’s way when a figure like Garrosh wasn’t killed at the first opportunity. That would make the setting less PG13 than probably desired, but it is needed. This is (was) Warcraft folks, and the idea that one faction or race has more claim to judge Garrosh is missing the point.

Those factions should be arguing about the division of the trophy head, axe and body, not still trying to for a delegate sub-committee to investigate the correct division of voting rights, for the membership to the partisan review group, in order to make a recommendation to the yet to be confirmed leaders…

Garrosh didn’t ask for permission to destroy Theramore with a mana-bomb. I’ll see if somebody I know grabs the book and perhaps I can borrow it for a while in a few months. It makes me wonder if the end of the Iron Horde will see them all placed in work programs to rehabilitate them back into “normal” society.

Grumble.

What will be remembered about the Pandaren in the next expansion for WoW?

I expect that the Pandaren will become a side thought in the next expansion; as a race they do not have much to do with Draenor. Sure they will be present as adventurers at level 100, but I think they won’t dominate our screens at all. Orcs and Draenei will probably be the order of the day, with all sorts of new goodies for each race. I hope we see hooks for at least a few others races as well, as having a single race as the focus on each side of the faction war is thinner than I’d like. Lets see some lore based events.

Perhaps Sylvanas will emerge as an arm of the Horde with powerful and undesirable solutions to the fight against Garrosh’s “true horde”. She has provided a rather brutal solution to problems of her faction’s dwindling numbers and as a leader she has a lot of presence to draw from. The trolls must be pleased that they now have a strong presence in VolJin.

The humans get to watch our leading lady Mage rant and rave with the King, all the while the other Alliance races twiddle their thumbs and do very little in the main story. Where are the Gnomes, Dwarves, and Night Elves in all this? Did anyone even invite the Worgen to the party? The Tauren and Trolls had the guts to speak up and then usurp their leader after he made a screamingly evil set of choices, but the sub-races in the alliance just coast along.

Another thought I had was that the Pandaren might not keep to their faction choice. They’ve now seen far more about both the Alliance and the Horde than they did initially when their first choices were made, there could be stories about Pandaren soldiers switching between both sides based upon the outcome of the last expansion. The Vale was left in ruins and their culture has been shaken at it’s foundation, and a great leader lost. It has to leave some scars.

We (as the second class heroes in WoW) will need to deal with which ever agent allowed Garrosh to slip into time in the first place. And I’m not buying that the Black Prince is a good guy at all, and hopefully we get to see that little black whelp spread his wings. He’s made it really clear that he wanted one or other faction totally destroyed and we didn’t do his bidding well enough.

I also cannot imagine the Half Hill farm will be visited again by a level 100 player. The garrison is replacement and expansion on that concept. Good, there needs to be a more visceral hook from our characters into the game world. Traveling back in time is already enough of a step sideways in immersion, and anything which makes the character feel like it as a presence in the game world is a great addition.

Fun and games to come.

Quick Tides of War book review

I’ve posted a review for Tides of War (on the non-wow blog) now that I finished the book. TLDR = 13/20, and less if you don’t care for lore, or dislike pulpy fantasy. The first and last chapters and basically be skipped for all the value they have for characterisation.

Lore for the Fall of Theramore

Here is a great summary of the lost lore to do with the Fall of Theramore scenario, from the Wowinsider folks. Its a great summary that I’m going to read in detail a few more times. Kudos. I’m about 6 chapters into the book so far, and enjoying the lead up to what I know is about to happen to Theramore.

Banter about attunement

There are many blog posts at the moment about attunement; love it or hate it.

Like all things there is a benefit, and a cost to that choice – which changes as your playstyle and perspective changes. I like attunement as I can know that the player has at the very least done some content.

I dislike attunement as it means I cannot gracefully skip content to the stage my alt was/is at. There is no right answer, which is probably why attunements were removed. Too much of a grey area led to angst, which then absorbed far too much time.

Overall I like attunements more than I dislike them, and think that they could have a valuable place in world of warcraft.

While I agree that creating very large attunement paths is a barrier which is difficult for some, and could even be problematic for raiders who switch characters (or whatever) there was something great in the story aspects of the attunements.

eg. Getting the Karazhan key was interesting from a story perspective. It took a small amount of additional time and effort, but it was entertaining and interesting.

If the attunements were part of the general story, in content which was not repeat-gated (eg. one after another) then they could return with my support. Perhaps the attunement is for the 5man to raid step, rather than for each raid step?

Perhaps also start the stories and the attunement chains as the leveling experience (e.g. the Marshal Windsor UBRS key), and therefore the story plays through the experience, which leads into the raids.

Make it so that the players would be foolish not to take the opportunity (Wrath Gate questline, or the Battered Hilt quests) and you’ll see more game lovers than haters.

Related articles

• Attunements and why they must never return (wow.joystiq.com)
• Should Attunements Return To WoW? (mmomeltingpot.com)

Lore question: Why the Dragon Soul?

A long time ago I read the books where the Dragon Soul (later called the Demon soul) was used by Deathwing to fight and subjugate the other dragon aspects, the puny elves, and the hordes of the Burning Legion.Then after much heroic effort a human destroyed it using a scale from Blackwing.

What I remember was that Deathwing was immune to the dragon/demon-soul’s abilities, as he chose to not add his own power to it when it was forged, as he wanted to have the talisman for nefarious deeds. This is why it was his scale that was able to destroy the talisman.

Why then would Deathwing be vulnerable to the Dragon Soul now? I don’t get it.

New Legendary: Shard of the Demon Soul?

Larisa at Pink Pigtail Inn has a nice post about the drama and joy involved in Legendary items. Hmm Legendary items…..drool. At some stage I’d like to get something akin to that, even if it was just something uber rare. You know for bragging rights.

It got me thinking of what would be a good Legendary item around the DeathWing story. And it’s pretty clear to me that something called the Shard of the Demon Soul (or similar) would be great.

It sounds kick-arse to new players who don’t know the lore. If you know the lore, then even a shard or segment of it would be powerful, and it has all the aspects of a Legendary quest chain to boot. The caverns of time could get a great workout here as we jump back in time to when the Demon Soul was destroyed, so instead of it being totally unmade, the shard remains. And when we’re finally ready to dispatch DeathWing, we earn this little beauty to help complete the fight.

What about of Legendary items:

• Restored Dragon Soul?
• Essence of Sunwell?
• Tooth of Sagearas?
• Lost Eyes of Illidan?

We could even make it a little funny or odd, by way of pitching the stuff you know must have existed but is really supposed to be lost in time.