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Old 04/19/09, 10:30 PM   #3061
Leviathon
Great Tiger
 
Worgen Druid
 
Blade's Edge
Garona being pregnant when she killed Llane isn't that big of a retcon thing. Sure he may seem he is near Anduins age but he could also age slowly due to the fact that Garona is half draenei. For example in Rise of the Horde Durotan noticed the young draenei female who was likely hundreds of years old.

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Old 04/20/09, 4:47 AM   #3062
Seelen
Glass Joe
 
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Human Warrior
 
Moon Guard
Originally Posted by Liebestod View Post
What's being retconned here? Honestly, I can understand Warcraft I and Warcraft II material being retconned to some extent to fit in the "expanded universe" that WoW is creating (it's a bit more uncomfortable when Warcraft III lore is retconned, though)... nothing seems too egregious to me in this story, though.
Well, just off the top of my head, Naxxramas. Not a big deal, but it is still a full retcon. What was originally the heroes of Azeroth joining together and burning the citadel to the ground becomes Darion leading a strike force inside to reclaim the Ashbringer, with Naxxramas warping out back to Northrend shortly afterwards. It could've been worse, but it really felt like more of an actual, depressing bummer than "RAGE" that the epic efforts put forth were 'toned down' and then played again shortly before Wrath's release. And to be honest, it was really bummer to see an instance that was once a veritable river of raiding tears reduced to sub-Kara level of difficulty and simplicity.

Garona's kid is another issue: Argument about bloodline aside, and timelines for her to be birthed by human and orc blood--this is assuming that Llane really truly was the father, and I heavily doubt this. Llane was a good friend, but a better man than to be sleeping around with a sleazy half-orc assassin/spy.

Mal'Ganis surviving is something else. I can understand Balnazzar, seeing how Varimathras was duping Sylvanas all along, but Arthas truly, purely desired nothing more than to end Mal'ganis. As consumed with vengeance as Arthas was? Frostmourne in hand? Nathrezim must carry ankhs around or something.

And it isn't so much the retconning as the stretching of things, beyond the growing pains of an expanding universe. Wrynn's whole story, for example, up to this point doesn't sit well with me, namely the slavery issue. I very much doubt that, even in a pure warrior society, the orcs would condone complete slavery, seeing as how they were once slaves to demons. And a shaman taking part in it? Not so much the virtuous man card in check here as what is expected of the shaman and his/her bond with the elements.

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Old 04/20/09, 11:13 AM   #3063
Douglas
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Night Elf Druid
 
Earthen Ring
(Delete, redundant.)

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Old 04/20/09, 11:21 AM   #3064
Bloo Driver
Von Kaiser
 
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Human Paladin
 
Blackhand
Originally Posted by Caspian View Post
I'm inclined to think obbity's idea has merit. It is quite possible that as powerful as the Titans are, removing the Old Gods would qualify as something like microsurgery, which they just weren't capable of doing without greatly harming or destroying Azeroth.
I have a really hard time with this analogy. The storyline has already established that the Titans aren't overwhelmingly more powerful than the Old Gods, and it's mentioned in the RPG books that the Titans can change their size to whatever suits them. Between these two facts, it's somewhat unreasonable to think the Titans' only option would be like taking a grenade to an ant - the amount of force they would have to bring to bear to destroy an Old God could easily be scaled to be no more and no less than what 10-25 extremely powerful mortals could also manage.

Last edited by Bloo Driver : 04/20/09 at 11:22 AM. Reason: the difference between are and aren't is pretty huge

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Old 04/20/09, 12:04 PM   #3065
• Melthu
Confused
 
Troll Druid
 
Alterac Mountains
At this point I think the Titans were simply wrong about Azeroth being destroyed if the Old Gods are killed. After you defeat Algalon he says something along the lines of "I can't trust my own calculations anymore, you mortals are capable of overcoming all cosmically calculated odds", etc. This would perfectly fit in with the theme in Blizzard's other games: the Zerg destroying their Xel'naga creators and the Nephalem growing more powerful than angels and demons if not constrained by the Worldstone. While there might be some negative repercussions for killing off the Old Gods, I don't think Azeroth's destruction is as guaranteed as the Titans thought it would be.

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Old 04/20/09, 1:30 PM   #3066
Liebestod
King Hippo
 
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Elune
Eh, although I wouldn't put it past Blizzard to just ignore that line and have us go around killing more Old Gods in every new Azeroth-based expansion, I imagine that at this point they do have a coherent idea of what the Old Gods are and how their nature will be revealed throughout the content. And we could imagine any number of stories where it turns out that killing the Old Gods does have catastrophic effects - maybe they're just relatively benign parasites that are holding back some more-problematic Really Old God, or maybe Azeroth will start dying and we'll have to find a way to fix whatever the Old Gods' presence had kept stable, or something or other.

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Old 04/20/09, 1:30 PM   #3067
Aildrik
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Draka
Melthu, I see your point, but it still feels cheesy. The Titans created the planet; they studied the curse of flesh. From a lore perspective, they have an insight into these things that no native creature (to Azeroth) could possibly have. I mean, unless Blizzard expands on the lore, we can postulate all day long as to why they (Titans) didn't kill the Old Gods themselves so its an almost pointless discussion.
The intro lore for Ulduar again laid the whole "titans refused to kill the old gods" spiel out on the table, so there has to be a twist somewhere. I really just hope at some point the loose story ends are tied up nicely with a bow, and its not just "oh hey, we left this dude locked up in our city/prison because you mortals needed the loot more than we did!"

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Old 04/20/09, 2:09 PM   #3068
Itzena
Von Kaiser
 
Undead Death Knight
 
Sporeggar (EU)
I'm not so sure...I think Caspian might be onto something there. We are, after all, talking about a species whose first, alternate, and ultimate response to corruption is Exterminatus! Is it really so unlikely that the titans simply didn't (or couldn't) find an alternate solution?

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Old 04/20/09, 2:28 PM   #3069
Exemplar
Bald Bull
 
Human Paladin
 
Scarlet Crusade
Blizzard could also use Old God death as a mechanic to wrap up WoW.

Simply model it so that killing one Old God (Darkshore) chops the life of Azeroth down to, say, a billion years (as opposed to "until the sun goes nova"). Acceptable to the Titans and detectable, so they stopped - further reduction risks their project. The second (C'thun) reduced it to a million. Unnoticeable to us, annoying to the Titans. A third (Yogg) chops it down to a thousand years. And so on. Only takes an Old God or two beyond Yogg to push to imminent Armageddon.

Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."

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Old 04/20/09, 2:46 PM   #3070
Aildrik
Von Kaiser
 
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Troll Mage
 
Draka
Just my take on it, but I have a feeling that since the Old Gods were responsible for the curse of flesh, it might be that if they all die, the curse itself is "lifted", but in a way that causes all life affected by it to basically just flop over dead or turn to lifeless stone (or something more gruesome..).
Again, hopefully it becomes a central theme to a future expansion!

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Old 04/20/09, 2:59 PM   #3071
ildon
Collateral Damage
 
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Undead Priest
 
Whisperwind
There's a new Blizzcast to pimp the Arthas book. Nothing new, but it has Metzen reading the introduction to the book, which is reason enough to download it in my opinion. He uses his "character" voice, which is great.

<Kalroth> ( . Y . )
<buttbot> ( . BUTT . )
<Kalroth> <3

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Old 04/20/09, 3:51 PM   #3072
Emeraude
Bald Bull
 
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Night Elf Warrior
 
Sargeras
Yeah I just picked it up from Barnes & Noble. It's pretty damn awesome, everyone reading this thread should be required to read it. :P

Required Reading:

Arthas: Rise of the Lich King.

Go go!

What is the most important thing to you? Won't you grant me the pleasure of taking it away.

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Old 04/20/09, 4:01 PM   #3073
Starfire
Honorary Toastr
 
Night Elf Priest
 
Dragonblight
Originally Posted by Seelen View Post
Well, just off the top of my head, Naxxramas. Not a big deal, but it is still a full retcon. What was originally the heroes of Azeroth joining together and burning the citadel to the ground becomes Darion leading a strike force inside to reclaim the Ashbringer, with Naxxramas warping out back to Northrend shortly afterwards. It could've been worse, but it really felt like more of an actual, depressing bummer than "RAGE" that the epic efforts put forth were 'toned down' and then played again shortly before Wrath's release. And to be honest, it was really bummer to see an instance that was once a veritable river of raiding tears reduced to sub-Kara level of difficulty and simplicity.

Garona's kid is another issue: Argument about bloodline aside, and timelines for her to be birthed by human and orc blood--this is assuming that Llane really truly was the father, and I heavily doubt this. Llane was a good friend, but a better man than to be sleeping around with a sleazy half-orc assassin/spy.

Mal'Ganis surviving is something else. I can understand Balnazzar, seeing how Varimathras was duping Sylvanas all along, but Arthas truly, purely desired nothing more than to end Mal'ganis. As consumed with vengeance as Arthas was? Frostmourne in hand? Nathrezim must carry ankhs around or something.

And it isn't so much the retconning as the stretching of things, beyond the growing pains of an expanding universe. Wrynn's whole story, for example, up to this point doesn't sit well with me, namely the slavery issue. I very much doubt that, even in a pure warrior society, the orcs would condone complete slavery, seeing as how they were once slaves to demons. And a shaman taking part in it? Not so much the virtuous man card in check here as what is expected of the shaman and his/her bond with the elements.
Wait, as been stated before. What's being retconned? We know Spacegoats (and orcs) age slower than humans. (And presumably Night-Elves would too, considering they were immortals.)

It's been repeatedly stated the Nathrezim don't die, they more or less just get banished back to the twisting nether. This is not a retcon at all.

And as far as your slavery card... All great societies in history was built on the backs of slaves or people of near slave-status. Some of these societies would be considered amongst the "most civilized". Samurai's had slaves. Romans had slaves. Americans had slaves. Maybe you should haven't heard of it too much.

Originally Posted by arison View Post
Everyone should start from the same place and rise based on their abilities, desires, and schedule. No one plays MMOs to *be* powerful, they play MMOs to *become* powerful. It's the journey, stupid. The rarer loot is, the more cherished it is when you get it, but only so long as there is a reasonable expectation to get it. The rarer loot is, the better it feels when you kill a boss or when $AWESOME_TRINKET drops.

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Old 04/20/09, 4:14 PM   #3074
Jishosan
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Druid
 
Archimonde
We have to wait for more lore to come forward, but I'm starting to suspect that there is a stronger connection between the titans and the Old Gods than possibly has been admitted. Perhaps the issue isn't that the Old Gods cannot be killed, but that the Titans cannot, for whatever reason, kill them. And the killing of them may bring the Titans attention on Azeroth, but not necessary for the apocalyptic reasons we envision.

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Old 04/20/09, 4:52 PM   #3075
Pandapwns
Glass Joe
 
Draenei Shaman
 
Cenarius
Originally Posted by Emeraude View Post
Yeah I just picked it up from Barnes & Noble. It's pretty damn awesome, everyone reading this thread should be required to read it. :P

Required Reading:

Arthas: Rise of the Lich King.

Go go!
I get the feeling that the Orc in the blizzcast reading is Nerzhul, The man is Arthas and the boy is Mathias from icecrown.
Am I horribly mistaken or what?

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