OH MY GOD
IT'S 2:30 AM ON DECEMBER 30TH 2023
AND AFTER THIRTEEN YEARS
THIRTEEN MOTHERFUCKING BITCH ASS YEARS
I GOT IT
I GOT THE ONE AND ONLY ZIN'ROKH DESTROYER OF WORLDS PROC
I WAS ABOUT TO GO TO BED
BUT NO
PRAISE AN'SHE
I do need everyone to understand that this kind of gamer doesn't care about AI for the same reason they don't care about labor rights, cultural/feminist/queer respect in worldbuilding, POC representation in design, etc, because they only want to consume without thought.
Pre-Emptive WoW Midnight Feedback regarding the Amani in the plot given the xpac is already stated to be a revamped North Eastern Kingdoms which inherently will involve the Amani
THE GRIMOIRE OF THE XOROTHIAN FELHUNTER WAS FOUND
I REPEAT IT WAS FOUND
Xmog the felpuppy staff from Illidan, go to Antorus, kill Portal Keeper Hasabel, channel the staff to the portal, and boom
So guess I'll get started on this.
I'll do the thread by breaking it up per theme
1. Genocide Survivor + Rape Allegory
2. Suicide Survivor + Spooky Antihero
3. Local Genocide Girlboss + Faustian Pact
tw: rape, genocide, suicide, intimate personal details, etc
I'm gonna do a Sylvanas thread on my WoW alt in a bit or soonish, covering her characterization of Genocide Survivor turned Rape Allegory turned Suicide Survivor turned Spooky Race-centric Anti-Hero turned Local Nihilistic Genocider with a Faustian Pact, and why this all sucks.
So a number of people in WoW Twitter have recently chosen to name Calia as a "White Savior" Trope, both Black and Non-Black members of the community alike, with everyone inclined to name her such *intuitively* but aren't sure if the term applies properly.
The answer is complex!
I have no issue with old rewards being made available, but rewards being trivialised to tenders for doing basic content is such a farce. AoTC mounts should be a highly prized reward for something like time-walking or reduced to 1% drop chances from any of the old raid bosses.
Preemptive Thread regarding opening all races to Paladins due to the Tyr Questline:
Blizzard cannot, must not, under any circumstances, do it via the Silver Hand.
Much like the fight we had with Orc Priests, they NEED to put in world building effort with class expansion.
Zovaal
How to permanently undermine your setting over two expansions in every regard such that your game henorrhages players due to broken fantasy destroying their commitment for the sake of Joe Rogan as Dollar Store Lucifer Thanos Sauron
He isn't hated enough really
RIP to the Content that was Totally Not Cut (According To Ion) and they 100% fully intended just two content patches for an entire expansion, almost a year between each, and the 8 pronged design of Oribos thereby being just aesthetic with no intent to use the final portal space
People unironically arguing that these two symbols are meant to represent the Moon and the Sun and that Night Elves as a whole have always been associated to the Sun are deeply ridiculous
So.. since I'm the voice of Kalecgos in
@warcraft
how do I use this power to bring Ghost of the Pridemother back so I can get it on my druid since I wasn't active during legion? I JUST WANT THIS GLOWY CAT
#justicefordruids
Please make a cultural competency team
@ChrisMetzen
Hire a team of historians, anthropologists, cultural experts, etc to assist devs and also have editorial purview over devs to shape depth and avoid things like "quashi" or racist caricatures making it into the game ever again.
Anyways because Blizzard never bothered to give us a name for the Primus and Winter Queen after two and a half years of expansion nor thereafter nor in the Shadowlands lore book
The Winter Queen is named Morigana
The Primus is named Nergash
It's funny cuz back during the Hakkar Blood Plague incident, epidemiologists globally concluded the data wouldn't be a good model because Normal People aren't as malicious and evil as gamers
And then COVID happened and there was a follow up like "we were wrong, WoW is accurate"
For Black History Month this year, Blizzard should add the Black hairstyles to the forsaken and publicly commit to adding these hairstyles to all the races :)
It's just banally dishonest when WoW players insist there isn't meant to be representation of peoples in-game.
Captain Garrick is inherently representing Black peoples physically in-game.
Baine is inherently representing Native culture in-game.
They're both signifying such.
A class skin system that could've been expanded upon for years that is purely cosmetic unlocked via questlines culminating in a cool encounter and doesn't impact gameplay mechanics would've been better
Green Fire Questline should've been the standard years ago
"Druids can only exist if they line up with the Cenarion Circle"
The Alliance centrism is getting insufferable
THERE ARE GOBLIN SHAMAN WHO DON'T LINE UP WITH THE TAUREN EARTHEN RING
This is ridiculous and pathetic
Calia was a mistake.
No matter what ham-fisted dialogue they have Sindane say.
No matter what self-appointed Walmart Sylvanas titles you give Calia while pushing Derek as somehow a "Forsaken Champion" whilst having done nothing.
There are ACTUAL Forsaken characters to use.
WoW would attract a not-insignificant amount of players by fixing the Scoliosis/Kyphosis of every single race in order to make them more suitable for Average Horny
NEW MODELS BY
@lisso_duarte
OF ANSHE!
PRAISE AN'SHE!
An'she who is Father of the Sun, Forger of the Naaru, King of the Sovaj Loa, and more!
🌞🔥🩸🐂🦅
cc
@mnevesart
he adapted your ideas from your most recent sketch into a model!!!!
cc
@that_kind_oforc
Unholy Death Knights can Summon Abomination in PvE on The War Within Alpha - a talent on the spec tree that replaces Army of the Dead and also summons your Four Horsemen if you choose Rider of the Apocalypse hero talents.
It's always funny to me that the Green Fire Questline is universally loved, and is purely a COSMETIC CHANGE with ZERO GAMEPLAY EFFECT OTHERWISE that you can simply toggle on and off like a proto-pseudo-class skin type thing
And the Devs absolutely refuse to do it again
In a Game Rant interview, Blizzard devs discuss how they're aware of feedback regarding Hero talents causing unwanted cosmetic changes. They're talking about it but as of right now, not working on any Glyph replacements or similar.
#warwithin
#warcraft
Forcing everyone to use Tauren aesthetic is fair and justice for forcing everyone to use Cenarius and Elune aesthetics for Druids
If they allow players to opt out of Tauren aesthetics, they NEED to allow players to opt out of Elune aesthetics.
But I'll always love Sylvanas for what she was to me and could have been.
A suicide survivor and rape survivor allegory who did not/could not return to her original home who found strength among other survivors.
Not the Survivor Becomes Abuser trope mixed with Dumb Minion.
I keep remembering how the production team of the Warcraft movie went on record to say Blizzard was an absolute trainwreck to work with because they needed canonical absolutes for the sake of set design, writing, etc, and Blizzard just sucked ass at being coherent about that
The person who posted that on the forum should summarily have their account blocked from the game and every single person who liked the post should be suspended
1.3k replies and the threads still going ijbol
@BlizzardCS
& ur twitter team is hardly better than ur forum mods bcz why tf do u not block bigots under ur own posts on this site like
So y'all accept anyone can be a mage because Dalaran exists and anyone can be a priest cuz religion exists but suddenly when Bob the Local Lightforged wants to pick up a Spooky Magic Book and abandon his people due to a crisis of faith cuz naaru suck it's unrealistic?
If the Horde made its own order for the Paladins, it'd be entirely led by women
Liadrin, Aponi, Rata
All three tied to solar themes
The Order of the Bleeding Sun
"We want blood elf edginess"
Okay maybe develop Blood Elf sanguimancy more? Maybe develop more Darkfallen Vampire Magic plots? Maybe have Blood Elves work with the oldest society using blood magic on Azeroth, the Trolls? Voodoo empowered blood golem vampire mech suit?
">:("
"Queen Calia"
I expect everyone RIDING MY DICK for the past two weeks that Blizzard wasn't trying to push Calia as the central leader with her Walmart Sylvanas title and some contrived throne of Lordaeron bullshit to apologize and clock this shit
You know what's funny
We aren't actually told what Zovaal actually did that led to the Eternals condemning him
Like we have 50% of his motivation, 0% of what he told Sylvanas and Devos, and 0% of what he actually materially explicitly DID
I do not think a quest where the player character canonically helps maintain Alexstrasza enslaved to be sexually abused is good tbh! Think it should be removed!
Perhaps we loosen the chains just before it's time to break out so she's able to break out instead!
I need whoever is doing the Troll heritage to
- respect African, African Diasporic, and South Native cultures
- have a genuine love/curiosity for those cultures
- recognize that Blizzard has historically fucked up eg the Quashi Slur
- recognize Zandalar was Walmart Wakanda
Elune! Goddess of *checks notes* LIFE, and SPOOKY HARVEST DECAY OF NATURE, and PHOENIXES, and THE SUN, and FIRE and also *squints* The Moon
I am worried about how Elune is consuming the entire setting that should otherwise be Horde-leaning or God forbid Anshe
I'm glad the WoW Twitter is hiding replies and presumably blocking bigots now
A few years late and I wish this extended in-game and to the forums but alas
I like the idea of magical diseases
Like how warlocks get fel corrupted over time, or too much shadow magic can induce psychosis, arcane is addictive and causes bodily atrophy etc
It is depressing that the second Metzen is announced to be returning, Queer and Nonwhite Gamers are suddenly attacked and blamed for the state of Warcraft even if we too are happy he's returning lmao
Me: hey Blizz so you know how we got the name of The Archon and we got the proper title of Denathrius? Kyrestia and The Redeemer?
Blizz: ye
Me: Will we ever get the Actual Name for The Winter Queen and The Primus since they're actually important for Azeroth?
Blizz: no✨
Anyways given Elune is said to love spiders, I think it would be cooler lore if instead of being some magic arcane tree bullshit, the Nightborne Spider Form was born of Nightborne praying to Elune for salvation during the sundering and upon exile from Suramar.
Lmao
So Alleria and Anduin are central characters in a cosmic plot
Jaina is OP single handedly stopping a giant destroyer robot
But Thrall is retreading a mid life crisis for the third time? The one Horde Hero NPC in the expansion?
This is pathetic
Spoilers (I guess?) for War Within:
Guys... Come on now. I know I said I wanted a storyline for Thrall but we're doing this AGAIN? Thrall got his mojo back when escaping the Jailer. Why is he struggling with it again?
In an ideal universe, Vyranoth is shown interacting and learning about the various mortal races now that she isn't Team World Ending and she realizes she deeply appreciates the shamanistic traditions of the Orcs, Tauren, and Trolls, especially Frostwolves, Taunka, Drakkari
Broke: Horde opposes the Light
Woke: An'she is real, created the Naaru to help cultures who refuse to have faith in the Light in their daily lives (the Sun) learn of the Light, and his favorite race are the Tauren and then tied for second Orcs/Trolls
I think the perfect direction to have with the Horde in this whole Cosmic War is to have them be opposed to the Light.
They already have plenty to be suspicious of it thanks to the Mag'har. It'd be great to focus on the Horde sussing out the Light & warning the Alliance.
"Stringent" is not an equal term to "savage" in any context but especially in worldbuilding
What happened to "imperial" Alliance from prior iterations?
What is going on with the worldbuilding?
You know what's so funny in retrosepct
They realized the community liked this guy so they kept him around
But they gave him a random new name
Instead of "revealing" that it was Vol'jin's canon son Yenniku that Blizzard forgot about that looked to Saurfang as a father figure
I still don't get why the let archaeology die in Shadowlands and now in DF
Two settings with "ancient history" and "eternity" bits and archaeology was abandoned
It was just casual fun with at least acceptable worldbuilding
A new WoW book has appeared on Amazon.
World of Warcraft: The Official Tarot Deck and Guidebook is set to release on November 5th and is now available for pre-order.
#Warcraft
The thing is, of course Elune loves the Night Elves the best; that is part of the Chosen Fantasy of the Night Elf Race the player chose.
But having that confirmed in the narrative needs to have consequences upon the other races that worship her that other players choose.
It makes more sense if Dark Ranger and Sentinel switch places
Sentinels literally usually shown with pet or animalistic motifs (Owls, Nightsabers, etc)
Dark Rangers are not.
"Games are escapism"
For whom?
Because when games like WoW use my culture and demonize them inside the game world in the exact same way my culture and my people are demonized in real life, that is not escapism.
That is not my idealized fantasy.
Do World of Warcraft Content Creators who follow Chrissy think this is acceptable? Is this what y'all stand for?
Ableism, homophobia, and racism all wrapped up together? Is this funny to y'all?
I just realized why the Primus wasn't shown in the cinematic
He's the only one that never got a proper cinematic model
The other three had both the lifelike and the normal prerendered models since launch
Primus did not
They really just cut costs lmao
Me: Blizzard should have an internal working group with historians, cultural experts, etc as part of the Historian and CS Team and give them EDITORIAL purview OVER devs and checking account actions
Ion & Leadership: We're gonna use AI to determine what's problematic :)
The AI:
What's funny about my haters is that my ideas about An'she are objectively cool as shit, and it's peak warcraft.
Shapeshifting sun god that is mainly a minotaur with phoenix wings whose horns hold the sun and whose tusks are golden, eyes of fire and light who loves the Horde?
It's wild how the Winter Queen, sister of Elune and auntie of Cenarius, cares more about the Night Elves than the Primus, father of necromancy of the cosmos and the root cause for why the Forsaken exist risen in undeath via Domination necromancy, cares about the Forsaken
It's silly most all the deserts in WoW are because of "Local Magical Catastrophe"
- Uldum because of Tolvir against Zulathra
- Tanaris and the Barrens because of the Nelf Sundering
- Desolace because of Tauren awakening Theradras
- etc
Just have deserts be natural ecosystems
small correction: the names are a mix of Spanish, Mayan, Nahuatl, and Quehcua derivatives
The x = sh thing is due to Nahuatl and Mayan elements
Urqopacha is Quechua derived
Etc
nobody had any trouble with the names in the expansions with east asian south asian latin or greek words all over the place but now all of a sudden just because you don't wanna look up 'how does x work in spanish' on quora all these names are just tooo crazy
High key, did we even need an Allied Race for TWW?
I personally would've been satisfied with opening the dam on customization: glowing eyes for all, removing all gear type limitations for xmog like the NPCs have it, black hairstyles for all the races, etc
For the WoW players who are politically ignorant, Henry Kissinger was like if Garrosh and Daelin had a baby and that baby was in charge of US foreign policy as a shadowy figure like Katrana Prestor (Onyxia) for the last 70 years
If Merithra can have branch horns as a dragon and nelf shit in her visage, and Kalecgos can have human clothes, EBONHORN should have antlers as a dragon and Highmountain regalia as Aspect
In much the same way the MANA'ARI EREDAR of all people have JOINED the DRAENEI on the ALLIANCE, whole ass Ex-Super-Genocidal-Immortal-Soldiers
It is not an unreasonable ask for the Former Villain Troll Tribes to join the Horde.
There is no excuse with Alliance Demon Allies
@MrGMYT
ABSOLUTELY NOT we LITERALLY just got through this fight about respecting cultural worldbuilding for Priests and Warlocks, and are CURRENTLY having this fight about Paladins
This game needs worldbuilding depth DESPERATELY
NOT more cultural homogeneization
I think what pisses me off the most about Ardenweald NPCs now that I think about it, besides the incoherence of why Malfurion had to be iced, is that they didn't do shit
All Moonberry did was give a few "haha trickster" quests. That could've easily been Jani.
Loa were shafted.
The dev that did the Troll Heritage did their research, and truly understood the assignment.
Good job :)
Small glimmer of hope that Blizzard won't decide to just do Evil Amani/Evil Drakkari for Midnight and TLT but rather think about a Troll Unity plot
All in all a good questline that fully understood the assignment at hand, and especially the task of understanding the IRL cultures invoked by the Darkspear Trolls/Baseline Trolls specifically, and the meta-narratives of Diaspora and the bilateral relationship in ATRs
"maybe blizzard shouldn't make races based on IRL cultures"
ALL FANTASY IS DERIVATIVE. EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF MEDIA YOU CONSUME IS DERIVATIVE. EVERYTHING HAS A BASIS, A GENEALOGY TO ITS AESTHETICS AND MOTIFS.
THERE ARE NO RACES IN-GAME THAT ARE MAGICALLY CULTURALLY NEUTRAL.
Blizzard do not kill any of the three black dragon heir brothers
There is no need
Do not do it
I know you're tempted
I know it's what you always do
But what you always do hasn't been working
Eg the last minute Ysera/Meritha pivot
Don't do it. Bad choice.
Blanchy being an animal in Revendreth confirms:
- they were above that of "normal animal" but below that of "Wild God"
- they were in the domain of the Forest Ward, so they instilled fear in others
Thus: it was NOT Vanessa who killed the Furlbrows; Blanchy murdered her masters.
All talk about how Shadowlands ruined Arthas but what about our good girl Blanchy...?
How the fuck could such a well-behaved horse commit secret evils and end up in Revendreth???