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So, this is announced for next year and up for preorder with a 'No later than December 31st, 2020 release date (often this ends up being August/September)

Cinematic: Sylvanas beats up the Lich King and tears a hole in the universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4gBChg6AII

Preordering and what it gets you

Tiered purchases, most interesting of which is the base version doesn't give you a level boost (to 120, so no level squish yet- except, see below because there IS actually a level squish when the expansion drops). $40

The level boost is reserved for the second tier (Heroic) as is the preorder mount and an outfit, for an extra $20. $60

For a further $20, you get 'Epic': game time, a pet, and some 'unique' effects for hearthstone travel and weapons. $80

Preordering any version gets you access to death knight class for Pandas and the various allied races that got spammed in the current expansion.

-------
Features:

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/shadowlands

video feature overview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QInBVzBJuU4

Basically, the new expansion is what various people have been saying in the WoW community- the Shadowlands, WoW's realm of death. There are five zones and four factions (covenants) you can ally with, and which give different abilities:

Ardeanweald- land of the dead fairy people, the 'Night Fae' and their Winter Queen. Lots of wood/natural themes and sprite like beings.
Maldraxxus- birthplace of necromancy, the critters look like fatter WoW demons
Revendreth- home of Vampire elves, the venthyr, 'harvesters of sin,' which isn't really a concept that I knew WoW had. You either worship the Light, Void or Demons. Mostly.
and
Bastion, the..uh... well, they're Stormcast, basically. Technically the race that lives there are called Kyrians, but they look like Sigmar slapped some armor and wings on some draenei and called it a day.

The last zone is 'the Maw,' which has some 'ancient evil' and something something, presumably final confrontation with Sylvanas, who in the cinematic went head to head with the current lich king and tore a hole to the Shadowlands to continue what passes for the plot.

Also not a zone, but a general hub is Oribos, the arrival point for the dead.

They've promised no more artifact power grind, but they're already mentioning some substance called anima that is both 'power and currency,' so enjoy that grind, I guess.


This is all super special and woo, impressive, but I can remember half-a-dozen or so quests that involve 'venturing into the shadowlands' and well. They're going to have to make it really, really interesting to keep people's attention.


-----
Other new feature: an 'infinite,' 'ever changing' dungeon. The 'Jailer,' has some dead heroes and blah, blah exposition. Defeat challenges and get abilities and items. Only decent thing this is solo OR group content, which is important, since its handing out abilities and legendary gear.

----
Last bit: there is indeed a level squish- 50 at the start of the expansion, which goes to 60 as the new level cap.
I know this feature will generate a lot of controversy (especially over level scaling), but they do point out that you can still out-level dungeons and 'crush them' for transmogs and stuff.
New system
1-10: new 'introductory voyage' with its own mini-dungeon. Sounds like actual new content to learn the ropes of a class. Sounds good, though potentially boring if all classes of both factions do the same stuff.

10-50: pick your era. Basically, time travelling gnome dragon will let you go to any content from any expansion, all scaled from 10-50. Thats pretty nice. For one thing, it smooths over the fact that the 'story' is a convoluted mess of time travel that doesn't make sense. The main world is from the cataclysm era, BC and Wrath are from before that, and the Pandaland content is accessed by talking to the dead king of stormwind to go rescue his son (the current king of stormwind) and is just generally terrible. Anyway, this is setup so you can level 10-50 even in the current BFA stuff, which is nice if you actually like the current content (I...really don't).

50-60 will be the new Shadowlands expansion.

10-50: pick your era. Basically, time travelling gnome dragon will let you go to any content from any expansion, all scaled from 10-50. Thats pretty nice. For one thing, it smooths over the fact that the 'story' is a convoluted mess of time travel that doesn't make sense. The main world is from the cataclysm era, BC and Wrath are from before that, and the Pandaland content is accessed by talking to the dead king of stormwind to go rescue his son (the current king of stormwind) and is just generally terrible. Anyway, this is setup so you can level 10-50 even in the current BFA stuff, which is nice if you actually like the current content (I...really don't).

That's actually a decent idea, given that the leveling grind in WoW is tedious as hell and really bland with its complete lack of focus beyond "get the next level." Sparsing the game's content out into "what flavor of leveling do you want" is probably one of the better ideas I've seen them put out in awhile. Might actually be nice for people who never played a particular expansion and didn't see a point because they leveled right past it without really trying.

Also provides an easy in/out for transfering WoW Classic characters into the main game and even integrating WoW Classic into WoW proper.

It is pretty good, yeah. I like leveling, but there are zones and entire expansions I just skip on alts. On the other hand, there are places where there are really tightly integrated stories that are very good, and actually fun to experience first hand. To do that without 120 levels of filler? That's pretty amazing.

The other big benefit to the scheme that I care about is character progression has been jack and squat since Warlords of Draenor, and that was a single talent point (for one of three options) at level 100. I don't know if they'll actually do it, but with 60 levels total (instead of 120), there's room to expand the talent tree (and class abilities) while keeping them under control.


That's a good idea about Classic. They already have a character copy feature (they use it for the public test realms). For player retention if nothing else, I'd think they'd want to let people take a copy of their Classic character to the 'live' game.

I thought they couldn't really get worse with the story than what they've done so far, but WOW (pun intended), just seeing the Lich King get punked like that, is like seeing the One Ring get destroyed by Frodo taking a shart on it. There's been no implications of Sylvanas ever having a power-up of this scale, and it's contradicted by how she ran from Arthas back in WoTLK. Either way, I'll just end off by what most people are saying at this point: "There must always be an expansion".

I actually found the weirdest thing at the start of the trailer when she's all like "a userper sits on the throne" and I'm like "btich didn't you hate the last guys guts so much you committed warcrimes against your allies on the off chance it would hurt him?"

 Grimskul wrote:
I thought they couldn't really get worse with the story than what they've done so far, but WOW (pun intended), just seeing the Lich King get punked like that, is like seeing the One Ring get destroyed by Frodo taking a shart on it. There's been no implications of Sylvanas ever having a power-up of this scale, and it's contradicted by how she ran from Arthas back in WoTLK. Either way, I'll just end off by what most people are saying at this point: "There must always be an expansion".

Eh. I don't like the BFA storyline (and especially not Sylvanas' role in it), but I don't agree. This is a direct continuation of the story elements introduced in Legion and hammered on and on in BFA.

The current Lich King hasn't been there long, and wasn't there for power- he was there as an act of self-sacrifice, to keep the undead from going berserk on everything living. And a lot of the power of the role seemed like it was getting pared off- Frost deathknights basically took Frostmourne and made two blades of its remnants, cutting the spirit of Ner'zhul out of the (crown/throne/Lich King gestalt entity) in the process.

On the Sylvanas front, she's been wandering around since at least Legion brokering deals with entities she shouldn't, trying desperately to get a power boost. She made some sort of (still unrevealed) deal with Helya, tried to subvert the entire order of living Val'kyr to her own ends, and made some sort of deal with Azshara that will come out in the as-yet-unreleased 8.3 patch. At the end of the War Campaign (8.25) she pulled out some power and killed Saurfang outright, and popped out, abandoning the Horde. Getting a power up has been very developed, even with Blizzards intermittent and weird attempts storytelling. It was even in game for once!

Plus there has been a fair amount of foreshadowing about Bolvar (the current Lich King) in the last two expansions.

But the Sylvanas vs Suarfang Mak'Gora cinematic for the end of the War Campaign is relevant. She shows off the power she's been building for the first time there... and the characters debate it afterwards in game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXkcZhSW3F8
The climax of the fight starts about 4:45 and the discussion just after 7. This is from about a month ago, the 8.25 patch and end of the 'war campaign.' (So we're back to the usual cross-faction team up for the end of the expansion whenever 8.3 launches.

 LordofHats wrote:
I actually found the weirdest thing at the start of the trailer when she's all like "a userper sits on the throne" and I'm like "btich didn't you hate the last guys guts so much you committed warcrimes against your allies on the off chance it would hurt him?"

Yep. And then killed herself afterwards by jumping off the combat zone at the pinnacle, because she lacked any purpose after Arthas was gone. That's actually when she realized death in Azeroth (and the Shadowlands) was dark and full of terrors.
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/story/short-story/leader-story/sylvanas-windrunner#tab=6


So... we get to go there and punch all the scary things in the face, which will make them far less scary and terrible. Especially with the off/on storytelling blizzard uses.

Me: Man that helmet is going to be uncomfortable on her ears.

Me 5 seconds later: Oh...

‘There must always be a Lich King’ ... until the plot says otherwise.

Yeah, I really hope the pre-launch event for Shadowlands is the undead Scourge going absolutely nuts.

The pre-Legion invasions were fun, and they could do something very similar with undead invading all over the place.

The pre-BFA event was terrible (burning the tree, and the terribly brief campaign that simply walked through the Alliance controlled parts of Kalimdor).

@Voss

Don't get me wrong, you're probably right in terms of how they want it to be seen that way. How they executed that however, was beyond awful, especially with how Sylvanas just waltzed into Icecrown Citadel with no resistance whatsover. I get the time constraints and cost for the trailers, but they could have shown Sylvanas with her loyalists sneaking in stealthily or coming in during the aftermath of a battle before confronting him. But as far as feats go, I don't remember anything prior to this hinting that she got power on this scale, to destroy the frickin' crown of domination with her bare hands. Were there any feats she did besides beat Saurfang? (which in of itself isn't really impressive IMO, especially given that she used magic vs. a non-magic user, which seems to be the case of all the mak'gora so far) Ashbringer had significantly more build-up and its origins as well made sense as to why it was the antithesis to Frostmourne. Either way, TL;DR, I don't think you need to try and explain it for the writers, its all fanfiction at this point.

Trailer looks great, as usual. Another expansion for me to buy, to max out my level, do a couple pugs, never get a good raid group, then get bored and cancel, as usual

Cinematic: Sylvanas beats up the Lich King and tears a hole in the universe.

When I first read that, I seriously thought you were joking.

Okay...

You either worship the Light, Void or Demons. Mostly.

The Night Elves have Elune... (whatever she is) But yeah, sin or repentance as concepts have never really come up in the game. It's occasionally hinted that paladins are supposed to have a code of conduct, though what that code is has never been laid out. And the Scarlet Crusade made a mockery of that idea, in any case.

 Grimskul wrote:
@Voss

Don't get me wrong, you're probably right in terms of how they want it to be seen that way. How they executed that however, was beyond awful, especially with how Sylvanas just waltzed into Icecrown Citadel with no resistance whatsover.

That... isn't actually weird though. Even if you don't play old content, people walk in and out of Icecrown with little resistance repeatedly. Offhand, a minimum of three classes had at least one artifact quest there in Legion, and getting in was a problem for no one.
There isn't any reason to watch her squash mooks (though from the crowd in front of the throne and then the bodies, she did exactly that)

I get the time constraints and cost for the trailers, but they could have shown Sylvanas with her loyalists sneaking in stealthily or coming in during the aftermath of a battle before confronting him. But as far as feats go, I don't remember anything prior to this hinting that she got power on this scale, to destroy the frickin' crown of domination with her bare hands. Were there any feats she did besides beat Saurfang?

Not much, but that's been a consistent element of her character. She doesn't show off unless she has to.
She did stun-lock the entire alliance leadership (and the players present in the scenario) at the end of the siege of Lordoraen at the beginning of the expansion. That was never really explained, but raid mechanics generally aren't.

But breaking the crown... eh? I'm not sure why that's impressive. Symbolically it works very well. Lorewise, it was a spirit trap for Ner'zhul and Arthas that some demon or other made, but WoW demons are just corrupted alien races.

Either way, TL;DR, I don't think you need to try and explain it for the writers, its all fanfiction at this point.

But you just asked a followup question...

And still, I've read quite good fanfics over the years, that isn't a mark of terrible quality.

And in terms of Blizzard writing, this is actually rather well done and coherent. I'm not explaining it for the writers- it seemed more like you legitimately missed the build up. Which is fair enough, since story in Blizz games tends to be scattered and elusive.

Eumerin wrote:

The Night Elves have Elune... (whatever she is) But yeah, sin or repentance as concepts have never really come up in the game. It's occasionally hinted that paladins are supposed to have a code of conduct, though what that code is has never been laid out. And the Scarlet Crusade made a mockery of that idea, in any case.

I tend to forget about Elune. Legion suggested she's maybe the mother of the Naaru. So I figure she's one of those tinkling light symbols that look like weird bells or fluorescent lights. Or Tinkerbell. Whichever.

Ironically, the lack of information on Elune is one of the reasons why I keep remembering that she's out there. At this point, she's conspicuous in the lack of information that we have on her. And iirc, a power rankings published a very long time ago (back during Vanilla, iirc) listed her as the single most powerful known being currently active in the setting (so Sargeras wasn't on it, iirc).

As for the idea that she's the mother of the Naaru -

I'm not familiar with the information on it (and not inclined to run it down). But if that were the case, I find it a bit odd that the mother of the Naaru would guide the evolution of a race that *does not* explicitly follow the light (the Night Elf pantheon is essentially Elune, and a lot of nature spirits), on a planet that doesn't have a single Naaru on it. But ,eh, whatever.

Voss wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
@Voss

Don't get me wrong, you're probably right in terms of how they want it to be seen that way. How they executed that however, was beyond awful, especially with how Sylvanas just waltzed into Icecrown Citadel with no resistance whatsover.

That... isn't actually weird though. Even if you don't play old content, people walk in and out of Icecrown with little resistance repeatedly. Offhand, a minimum of three classes had at least one artifact quest there in Legion, and getting in was a problem for no one.
There isn't any reason to watch her squash mooks (though from the crowd in front of the throne and then the bodies, she did exactly that)

I get the time constraints and cost for the trailers, but they could have shown Sylvanas with her loyalists sneaking in stealthily or coming in during the aftermath of a battle before confronting him. But as far as feats go, I don't remember anything prior to this hinting that she got power on this scale, to destroy the frickin' crown of domination with her bare hands. Were there any feats she did besides beat Saurfang?

Not much, but that's been a consistent element of her character. She doesn't show off unless she has to.
She did stun-lock the entire alliance leadership (and the players present in the scenario) at the end of the siege of Lordoraen at the beginning of the expansion. That was never really explained, but raid mechanics generally aren't.

But breaking the crown... eh? I'm not sure why that's impressive. Symbolically it works very well. Lorewise, it was a spirit trap for Ner'zhul and Arthas that some demon or other made, but WoW demons are just corrupted alien races.

Either way, TL;DR, I don't think you need to try and explain it for the writers, its all fanfiction at this point.

But you just asked a followup question...

And still, I've read quite good fanfics over the years, that isn't a mark of terrible quality.

And in terms of Blizzard writing, this is actually rather well done and coherent. I'm not explaining it for the writers- it seemed more like you legitimately missed the build up. Which is fair enough, since story in Blizz games tends to be scattered and elusive.

Eumerin wrote:

The Night Elves have Elune... (whatever she is) But yeah, sin or repentance as concepts have never really come up in the game. It's occasionally hinted that paladins are supposed to have a code of conduct, though what that code is has never been laid out. And the Scarlet Crusade made a mockery of that idea, in any case.

I tend to forget about Elune. Legion suggested she's maybe the mother of the Naaru. So I figure she's one of those tinkling light symbols that look like weird bells or fluorescent lights. Or Tinkerbell. Whichever.

I'll admit I haven't done due diligence in terms of looking at super specific details over the past few expansions regarding Sylvanas, but I figure the reason why you can kinda waltz into Icecrown as a character is a) for gameplay reasons b) they weren't literally walking into the front door of where the Lich King was like Sylvanas did and I believe at least for the DK quest you needed an audience with him, which is quite different from aggressively just popping on in menacingly.

And I don't think her being "consistently secretive" when it comes to her abilities really counts to covering up her power-up. We've been shown nothing to suggest it, and her bargaining with evil powers narratively speaking does more to establish her moving away from her role as Warchief and more her path towards becoming Garrosh 2.0. It's a big power jump from temporarily freezing people in place (which is the equivalent of using a flashbang grenade) to destroying a legendary magically forged helm that required Illidan having to initially use the Eye of Sargeras to try and tear apart Northrend to bring down the original Lich King. Remember that Frostmourne alongside the Helm and Plate of the Damned effectively were one set and Frostmourne famously broke several magical items until it came across Ashbringer. That sets an idea of how resistant to damage it is, and Sylvanas was never established to be either physically or magically potent at that level. Even from a physical point of view, WoW has been pretty consistent in showing the changes wrought by becoming stronger via outside forces, (i.e. Illidan's physical transformation after absorbing the Skull of Gul'dan and Arthas taking up Frostmourne, Grom when he redrank Mannoroth's blood and even Kael when he went full on Fel Blood Elf when he threw in his lot with Kil'jaeden). They more or less just worfed the Lich King, which baffles me that I just wrote that.

Eumerin wrote:

I'm not familiar with the information on it (and not inclined to run it down). But if that were the case, I find it a bit odd that the mother of the Naaru would guide the evolution of a race that *does not* explicitly follow the light (the Night Elf pantheon is essentially Elune, and a lot of nature spirits), on a planet that doesn't have a single Naaru on it. But ,eh, whatever.

Oh, she almost certainly wasn't initially (partly because they hadn't come up with Naaru yet), but the amount of retconning Blizzard has done to Warcraft is pretty amazing.

They put together the Chronicle books, starting a couple years back (2016). Volume 1 is already outdated thanks to some of the reveals in Legion.

They specifically set out to do a setting bible, then trashed parts of it in less than two years. And that doesn't even include the horrible hash the made of Illidan and trying to rationalize him as a hero all along.



@warboss- No, they 'worfed' Bolvar. A crispy fried almost-corpse with none of the toys, talent or desire to be a 'real' Lich King. The Lich King got punked by 25 randos years ago when he had both the Crown AND Frostmourne. His penitent replacement getting kicked around as prelude by the current big bad just isn't that shocking. Its a quick level check.

But you're also wrong. We've been shown a lot to suggest it- she's just been quiet about what she got out of the deals. Bargaining with evil powers and moving away from the role of Warchief is exactly the kind of thing that does signal she's working on something in the background. That's entirely the point. She's been brokering with powerful entities for her own ends, and after two expansions of it, this is the payoff.

Though she'll probably be the end boss of a dungeon or raid in 9.0 or 9.1, and then be superseded by whatever evil she's trying to unleash or destroy. Or get a 'redemption' arc like Kerrigan and Illidan, which... bleh.

Voss wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

I'm not familiar with the information on it (and not inclined to run it down). But if that were the case, I find it a bit odd that the mother of the Naaru would guide the evolution of a race that *does not* explicitly follow the light (the Night Elf pantheon is essentially Elune, and a lot of nature spirits), on a planet that doesn't have a single Naaru on it. But ,eh, whatever.

Oh, she almost certainly wasn't initially (partly because they hadn't come up with Naaru yet), but the amount of retconning Blizzard has done to Warcraft is pretty amazing.

They put together the Chronicle books, starting a couple years back (2016). Volume 1 is already outdated thanks to some of the reveals in Legion.

They specifically set out to do a setting bible, then trashed parts of it in less than two years. And that doesn't even include the horrible hash the made of Illidan and trying to rationalize him as a hero all along.



@warboss- No, they 'worfed' Bolvar. A crispy fried almost-corpse with none of the toys, talent or desire to be a 'real' Lich King. The Lich King got punked by 25 randos years ago when he had both the Crown AND Frostmourne. His penitent replacement getting kicked around as prelude by the current big bad just isn't that shocking. Its a quick level check.

But you're also wrong. We've been shown a lot to suggest it- she's just been quiet about what she got out of the deals. Bargaining with evil powers and moving away from the role of Warchief is exactly the kind of thing that does signal she's working on something in the background. That's entirely the point. She's been brokering with powerful entities for her own ends, and after two expansions of it, this is the payoff.

Though she'll probably be the end boss of a dungeon or raid in 9.0 or 9.1, and then be superseded by whatever evil she's trying to unleash or destroy. Or get a 'redemption' arc like Kerrigan and Illidan, which... bleh.

I think you're being disingenous when you bring up the Lich King being taken down by randos, that happened AFTER he had one shot the raid and revealed it was his plot to turn the world's own champions against them, before having Frostmourne shattered by Fordring via Ashbringer which left him at the mercy of all the souls he had reaped so the party could have the chance to finish him. If it wasn't for that deus ex machina, the world would have likely been screwed at that point. At the very least though, it requires a magical weapon of equal or greater potency to make that happen. Sylvanas in contrast...just is that strong? Like, let's not forget Kil'jaeden is what created the Lich King, you try to downplay it by just calling him and the other demons corrupted aliens but he was effectively second in command of the Legion, and this is pretty much saying Sylvanas is close to that level. Which just brings up those issues even more, why didn't she just annihilate the Alliance or the rebellious Horde leadership when she had the chance?

By the way, going by your logic regarding deals and keeping quiet, well Gallywix is pretty much a wild card at this point for most of what he does atm in the story and as a goblin he always finds the best deals around so he should be much stronger than Sylvanas, he probably even made the deal with Blizzard company itself to keep himself as a behind the scenes faction leader until its his turn to be a future expansion boss!

More proof that we should have taken care of Sylvanas via "Ashbringer to face" while we still could. Go after that with your death magic, why don't you??

Grumble, grumble...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
More proof that we should have taken care of Sylvanas via "Ashbringer to face" while we still could. Go after that with your death magic, why don't you??

Grumble, grumble...

The scarlet crusade did nothing wrong.

 Grimskul wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
More proof that we should have taken care of Sylvanas via "Ashbringer to face" while we still could. Go after that with your death magic, why don't you??

Grumble, grumble...

The scarlet crusade did nothing wrong.

Oh, I'm perfectly fine with the Forsaken existing. Post-Wrathgate we (read: both the Horde and the Alliance, with Tirion Fordring or, even better, Alexstrasza, leading the charge) really should've deleted Sylvanas out of existence though. Let the Forsaken pick someone who isn't a genocidal madwoman to lead them.

The amount of plot armour Sylvanas in particular has had to still be around is absolutely gob-smacking. People like ragging on Thrall for being Green Jesus, but Sylvanas is just...

GAH.

Whilst I'm starting to find her a bit annoying I'm really hoping Orky Jeebus doesn't return to save us

I'd like to think we get to see more of Vol'Jin. What really turned me off the Horde, and WoW in general, storytelling is how all the good characters keep dying with no one interesting to replace them.

Cairne died, and all we got was... Baine. Though he at least got some moments over the course of the last expansion, and they did finally remember that Lor'thermar (sp?) exists.

Vol'Jin though is criminally dead. His character had flair, and he basically went two expansions with nothing interesting going on and then he died, so I'd like to see more of Vol'Jin.

Of course, now who the hell is the lead undead going to be?

 LordofHats wrote:
I'd like to think we get to see more of Vol'Jin. What really turned me off the Horde, and WoW in general, storytelling is how all the good characters keep dying with no one interesting to replace them.

Cairne died, and all we got was... Baine. Though he at least got some moments over the course of the last expansion, and they did finally remember that Lor'thermar (sp?) exists.

Vol'Jin though is criminally dead. His character had flair, and he basically went two expansions with nothing interesting going on and then he died, so I'd like to see more of Vol'Jin.

Of course, now who the hell is the lead undead going to be?

Yeah, WoW has a pretty bad track record with keeping trolls alive. For a race that's all about regenerating lost limbs, they die a lot.

From what I can tell, Blizz had no idea of how to set up a narrative successor for Sylvanas within the actual Forsaken itself (given that Blightcaller is 100% behind Sylvanas) so it's heavily implied that they're outsourcing from undead that were once Alliance, Calia Menethil, Arthas' older sister. She's been MIA for several years and recently died and came back as an undead is now all ga-ga with Derek Proudmoore, another former-Alliance undead royal, and then is suddenly pressured by Jaina that the Forsaken could use her guidance...when she basically went AWOL and refused to claim her rightful place on the throne for how long? Who would recognize her claim now and when she hasn't even been undead for that long? (not to mention she's a light infused one at that....which IMO makes no sense, damn naaru hacks!)

 LordofHats wrote:
I'd like to think we get to see more of Vol'Jin. What really turned me off the Horde, and WoW in general, storytelling is how all the good characters keep dying with no one interesting to replace.

Of course, now who the hell is the lead undead going to be?

According to the BFA tie in novel, and dialogue from 8.3 (on the public test realm, or data mined from the files).. Caliia Menthil. Last 'surviving' member of the royal house of Lordaeron, Arthas' sister, undead, and then, during Before the Storm, killed by Sylvanas for trying to reunite living and undead family members. Then restored as a Lightforged undead, by the power of the Light. Because things weren't cheesy enough.

She and the undead Derek Proud ore are going to go off and lead them, and provide therapy for the undead sentinels (the night elf guards/soldiers)raised during Sylvanas' invasion.

And supposedly the Horde are going to forgo having another Warchief and have a council instead.

Rokhan (spelling?) is going to lead the Darkspear trolls. He's been the de facto rep anyway, so might as well make it official.

I'd be all behind a War Council. The whole War Chief thing keeps going south anyway.

 LordofHats wrote:
I'd be all behind a War Council. The whole War Chief thing keeps going south anyway.

I mean given the incredibly low life expectancy as well as abdication/overthrown rate we have so far, they need it. The Horde has the worse political stability of any faction I've seen in the game.

 LordofHats wrote:
I'd be all behind a War Council. The whole War Chief thing keeps going south anyway.

I told you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week...

There was an undead paladin during Vanilla. He was with the Argent Dawn at Light's Hope Chapel. So the idea of light-aligned Forsaken isn't *completely* out of left-field. Having said that, I still can't say the idea seems like a good one. Or a well-thought out one. That goes double given Blizzard's continual insistance that the Horde and Alliance are supposed to be fighting. So they're going to push that idea by making a bunch of Alliance people join the Horde?

Of course, the other option is, "Hey, everyone! We're going to the afterlife! Want us to bring someone back?"

After the promise of BFA so far has been... disappointing, this might be an expansion I skip until it's complete, at which point I'll sub for a month just so I can go and punch Sylvanas in the face at the end of it.

If I can't do that, no sale.

Eumerin wrote:
There was an undead paladin during Vanilla. He was with the Argent Dawn at Light's Hope Chapel. So the idea of light-aligned Forsaken isn't *completely* out of left-field.

It isn't even that. Its... well, its a lot of things.

1- She was a nonentity hidden in the background. Making her a racial leader seems weird, doubly so since she was nominally Alliance. (Even though she was the daughter of someone in the old Alliance... the current Alliance basically happened after she died, Lordaeron was destroyed, Gilneas barricaded itself, Kul Tiras noped out, and Stormwind was razed during the first war)

2- Despite having plenty of time to work her into game, they never did until just before pulling this crap in a book (which happens way too often with Blizz storytelling. Here are the events and here's side material that you'll never see unless you religiously buy a different format)

3- The 'heir of Lordaeron' doesn't really mean much. The Forsaken squatted in their ruins, but the forsaken have been led by an elf, and were from all over- they were the ones who shook off control, not the entire population of a dead country. Past that, in the Cataclysm era and beyond, Sylvanas was having Valkyr raise battlefield casualties regardless of their origin. The current population of Undead have no meaningful cultural identity beyond 'free willed undead'

4- The 'light-aligned' isn't really the issue. The took the standard resurrection spell (which is so ubiquitous that all character deaths are kind of... well, why'd you leave 'em dead?), and powered it up to make her basically a unique entity. She doesn't have the bones and decay look anymore- she's more like a perfect flesh golem with no flaws. Her ability to relate to (and effectively lead rotting corpses) seems hampered by her new perfection. And that's without the other side of Lightforging- the mag'har recruitment story for the allied race basically had the 'warlords of draenor' draenei going nuts about purity and force-ably lightforging (brainwashing) orcs into compliance with perfect order. And the naaru at the end of Legion took it the same way with her attempt at Illdan- lightforging came across as a means of control. There's a lot of terrible storytelling here, with a weird stab at 'the Light is just as bad as the evil Fel or Void' looming over the whole thing.

Here's some looks at the character model.
https://blizzardwatch.com/2019/09/26/calia-menethil-one-things-sylvanas-afraid/


Of course, the other part of the problem for Shadowlands is, a lot of players never bought into the new Sylvanas storyline, are baffled and/or enraged by it, and don't know how or why it could pay off. Partly because it has jack to do with them. That Sylvanas is facing a horrible afterlife is established, but it doesn't seem to apply to anyone else. And of course, the Shadowlands reveal is there are four different factions to welcome the dead according to their tastes, and what she faced isn't the normal order of things for most people. So her rage-on for 'what's coming' seems to be utterly meaningless, which jives with the shallow dives into the Shadowlands that we've had in past quests. Some of the Powers that rule there seem to be jerks (Helya, Bwomsamdi), but other people die and nothing terrible happens to them.

And of course, the other part of this is Blizzard has been crossing off Horde NPCs for multiple expansions, and never bothered to develop new ones or the remaining once. Baine is basically Cairn with a new model, Lorthemar was technically around, but hung out in the ERP capital of the Horde except for that Isle of Thunder stuff back in Pandaland, Rokhan was a quest guy in draenor, but I still don't even know what his class or abilities are, let alone what he cares about. The important orcs are basically old or dead (or Thrall, who is maybe powerless still?). Gallywix launched all the problems with Azerite and then vanished into the background. Hell, arguably the most important Horde character currently is Thalryssa, the head of the Nightborne allied race. She certainly gets more BFA storytime (along with Lorthemar), but Elf Horde wasn't the Horde people were looking for.

Yeah, I know politically it's a stupid idea. And I noted that overall the idea was a stupid one.

I wasn't aware of Lightforging, though. And having the WoD Draeni start lightforging their orc neighbors sounds like something that a bad fan-fic author with a grudge against religion would come up with.