WoW: Warlords of Draenor

[Darmalus]

And I agree on how factions lose stuff. I get the feeling that Blizzard would really rather use the Horde as villains but can't since they aren't a NPC faction so they keep making knock-offs (Fel, True, Iron, pick your flavor).

Star Wars MMOs didn't have too much of an issue with it. SWTOR could get hella stupid with trying to play a Good character in a faction that was mostly Lawful to Chaotic Stupid (I mean Evil), but it is possible. But the Horde playerbase is way to entrenched in the current "misunderstood" view of the Horde to make that possible. It just makes it hard to take the Horde seriously as a relevant faction. Are there really so many loyal Orcs that the Horde can still stay relevant after large chunks of it's army just up and quit every year or so or worse: erupt into rebellion?

The theme of the Horde has drifted a lot from what made me pick them back in 2005. Back then they seemed to have a "wild west taming the land" vibe going, which made me pick them over the generic human fantasy kingdom that is not only in every single fantasy game ever, its often your only option.

And if the Horde did go full retard (Evil) I'd just drop WoW permanently. I didn't sign up to be the bad guy, which has made the last 2 expansions steadily more aggravating. Getting away from all that in MoP for a while and pretending the Horde and Alliance had just vanished was a nice breather.

[TheFeniX]

And if the Horde did go full retard (Evil) I'd just drop WoW permanently. I didn't sign up to be the bad guy, which has made the last 2 expansions steadily more aggravating. Getting away from all that in MoP for a while and pretending the Horde and Alliance had just vanished was a nice breather.

Are you talking about on a personal level? Because MoP for me has been all about Horde vs Horde and Horde vs Alliance (but not really). The Alliance has the idiot-ball in full-effect, but they aren't actually doing anything with it. Meanwhile, the Horde idiot-ball is clearing out whole areas of Azeroth.

I mean, every week I get to Nazgrim, it's all "FOR THE HORDE!" and it's only saving grace is that the voice actor doesn't sound like a mouthbreather unlike the tards at Blizzcon. While the Pandaland questing experience (outside of Jade Forrest and Kun-Lai) is very neutral and very well done, the end of expansion stuff is all Loktar Ogar and shit. Aside from that, we've got the Dungeons and Blizzard decided that, instead of creating new content, they'd just make challenge modes. So you burn the same ones over and over again, even though you out-gear it by 100 ilvls.

That doesn't lend itself to the (as you said) "generic fantasy kingdom" of the Alliance because Blizzard just beats those themes to death. We've had Horde intra-faction bickering for years and it seems if there's anything like that on the Alliance, it's due to outside intervention (evil people infiltrating, etc). I read one post about how "Blizzard can't write interesting stories for the Alliance because they are boring" and the irony was completely lost on him.

The only thing they could realistically do is to create a faction in the Alliance that does more than just bitch about wiping out the Horde and actually tries to accomplish it, leading to Varian putting them down to try and keep whatever peace there is and also deal with the Iron Horde (which is hilarious). But that wouldn't happen when the Horde story-arc can be milked for a few more years at least.

Hey, you guys remember when American Chopper was relevant like 8 years ago? Who wants a Warcraft Chopper? Bwahahahahaha!

[Darmalus]

And if the Horde did go full retard (Evil) I'd just drop WoW permanently. I didn't sign up to be the bad guy, which has made the last 2 expansions steadily more aggravating. Getting away from all that in MoP for a while and pretending the Horde and Alliance had just vanished was a nice breather.

Are you talking about on a personal level? Because MoP for me has been all about Horde vs Horde and Horde vs Alliance (but not really). The Alliance has the idiot-ball in full-effect, but they aren't actually doing anything with it. Meanwhile, the Horde idiot-ball is clearing out whole areas of Azeroth.

Yes, a personal level. Outside one quest hub in Kun-Lai and the starting zone, and a few quests from a single NPC in Kasarang, I didn't have to deal with the Horde or Alliance till 6.1, and even then that stayed in their little corner.

I mean, every week I get to Nazgrim, it's all "FOR THE HORDE!" and it's only saving grace is that the voice actor doesn't sound like a mouthbreather unlike the tards at Blizzcon. While the Pandaland questing experience (outside of Jade Forrest and Kun-Lai) is very neutral and very well done, the end of expansion stuff is all Loktar Ogar and shit. Aside from that, we've got the Dungeons and Blizzard decided that, instead of creating new content, they'd just make challenge modes. So you burn the same ones over and over again, even though you out-gear it by 100 ilvls.

We have very different focuses in WoW. For me, raiding with friends can be fun, but so can raking leaves with friends or shoveling snow. Raiding itself has no particular attraction, with LFR allowing me see the plot I would only go because some friends want me to join them. I haven't set foot inside SoO in months since attendance problems killed the weekend team.

That doesn't lend itself to the (as you said) "generic fantasy kingdom" of the Alliance because Blizzard just beats those themes to death. We've had Horde intra-faction bickering for years and it seems if there's anything like that on the Alliance, it's due to outside intervention (evil people infiltrating, etc). I read one post about how "Blizzard can't write interesting stories for the Alliance because they are boring" and the irony was completely lost on him.

The only thing they could realistically do is to create a faction in the Alliance that does more than just bitch about wiping out the Horde and actually tries to accomplish it, leading to Varian putting them down to try and keep whatever peace there is and also deal with the Iron Horde (which is hilarious). But that wouldn't happen when the Horde story-arc can be milked for a few more years at least.

The problem is that your idea STILL makes the Alliance plot revolve around the Horde. The Horde's advantage is that the Alliance could fall off the planet and it would still have multiple internal plot lines going. The Alliance really doesn't have anything that doesn't mention "Horde" as far as plots going.

I think what we need, ironically, is peace. Actual, lasting peace between the Horde and Alliance. Make it last long enough that Alliance members no longer feel the need to "hang together or hang separately". Then we can start to see the backstabbing and internal motivations come out. Have Moria seize control of the Dwarven kingdoms and go independent, have Greymane try to get ultimate power with another artifact, or take is loyal worgen and invade Kul Tiras like he's always wanted.

It's hard to come with good plots, since so many have been smothered in their cribs the moment they arrived. My hypothesis is that Blizzard writes the Horde like a place they want to read about, and the Alliance like a place they want to live. One is stable, prosperous and has a minimum of internal conflict. The other is unstable, desperate and it's own worst enemy.

[TheFeniX]

We have very different focuses in WoW. For me, raiding with friends can be fun, but so can raking leaves with friends or shoveling snow. Raiding itself has no particular attraction, with LFR allowing me see the plot I would only go because some friends want me to join them. I haven't set foot inside SoO in months since attendance problems killed the weekend team.

Outside of those things, many players would consider the other stuff "fluff." The real story progression is happening (as always as it seems with WoW) in instanced content. Dungeons are usually the culmination of questing content. Raids were the extension after that (such as Blackrock Spire vs Molten Core). Scenarios now seem to be filling the blanks in the middle (or just being blow-off content). I'm not deriding your gameplay decisions at all, but the central focus of this expansion is all about Garrosh's bid for complete domination. But I'm also likely biased as ToT was at it's death knell when I came back and I get to see the storyline for an endgame perspective. Even while all this Thunder King and Empress schtick was going on, Garrosh was always in the background bidding time, much as the LK was when there was Nax and all the Ulduar shenannigans going on.

Then we can start to see the backstabbing and internal motivations come out. Have Moria seize control of the Dwarven kingdoms and go independent, have Greymane try to get ultimate power with another artifact, or take is loyal worgen and invade Kul Tiras like he's always wanted.

If anything, even the "peaceful Alliance" might not deal well when there's no war left to fight. Azeroth has been at war with dozens, if not hundreds, of forces over the years jumping from one desperate war to the next with almost no time to breath. How exactly would they deal with a peace-time regime?

It's hard to come with good plots, since so many have been smothered in their cribs the moment they arrived. My hypothesis is that Blizzard writes the Horde like a place they want to read about, and the Alliance like a place they want to live. One is stable, prosperous and has a minimum of internal conflict. The other is unstable, desperate and it's own worst enemy.

I'd have to agree with you here. I honestly don't mind that there's so much emphasis on the Horde. My beef, and the beef of many other Alliance players to a much greater degree that I could be bothered to muster, is that there is so little content Alliance side that doesn't involve the Horde directly, isn't mirrored for the Horde, or doesn't involve the Alliance being completely reactionary.

Even just concerning Ally/Horde content, when confronted by the idea of Alliance taking something back, a lead dev's (I think it was Metzen, but can't recall) reaction was "Why would I create Alliance content at the expense of the Horde content" (or something to that effect). I think there's an on-going backlash against Alliance questing since it was so fleshed out in Vanilla when compared to the Horde counter-part. And by Alliance, I mean "Human Zones" as any Horde who bitched about leveling in the Barrens, obviously never levelled in the Nelf zones, Auberdine in particular. Dorfs zones weren't much better either, but at least they were pretty.

[Civil War Man]

The problem is that your idea STILL makes the Alliance plot revolve around the Horde. The Horde's advantage is that the Alliance could fall off the planet and it would still have multiple internal plot lines going. The Alliance really doesn't have anything that doesn't mention "Horde" as far as plots going.

I think what we need, ironically, is peace. Actual, lasting peace between the Horde and Alliance. Make it last long enough that Alliance members no longer feel the need to "hang together or hang separately". Then we can start to see the backstabbing and internal motivations come out. Have Moria seize control of the Dwarven kingdoms and go independent, have Greymane try to get ultimate power with another artifact, or take is loyal worgen and invade Kul Tiras like he's always wanted.

It's hard to come with good plots, since so many have been smothered in their cribs the moment they arrived. My hypothesis is that Blizzard writes the Horde like a place they want to read about, and the Alliance like a place they want to live. One is stable, prosperous and has a minimum of internal conflict. The other is unstable, desperate and it's own worst enemy.

Well, the Alliance's plot is so wrapped up in the Horde at the moment that you'll need to at least have to have a reference to the Horde at the start of an Alliance-only story, at least to kick things off.

For example, I could see an interesting Alliance-only story if the end of the Siege was used as a jumping off point. Have a faction of the Alliance disgruntled, not because Varian didn't destroy the Horde, but because they feel he overstepped his bounds as High King by unilaterally declaring peace with the Horde with no negotiations and no consulting with the other Alliance leaders. Greymane in particular should be furious that the Alliance army left Orgrimmar without any concessions from Sylvanas to abandon any attempts to claim land south of the Greymane Wall at the very least (and he'd probably prefer she revoke any claim of lands south of Shadowfang Keep). Varian talks about securing Gilneas at the end of the raid if you talk to him, but there shouldn't even be a need to secure it. It should be one of the first concessions the Horde makes in any negotiation. The post-raid dialogue also mentions that Varian convinced Tyrande to give up all claim to Azshara in exchange for the Horde leaving Ashenvale. You could have tension within the Night Elf hierarchy when it comes out that Tyrande gave up a chunk of their ancestral lands despite the fact that the Alliance was supposedly the victor. Or perhaps a revolt from the Kalimdor Alliance if it turns out that it was less "convinced" and more "strong-armed".

Moira could be the wild card in such a struggle, since she's one of Varian's biggest recent supporters. The way I see it, the main reason she supports him is that getting on the High King's good side is the most expedient way to secure the throne of Ironforge for her son. If support for Varian starts to be seriously eroded by discontent in the Alliance, she'd be perfectly positioned to stab him in the back.

[Darmalus]

We have very different focuses in WoW. For me, raiding with friends can be fun, but so can raking leaves with friends or shoveling snow. Raiding itself has no particular attraction, with LFR allowing me see the plot I would only go because some friends want me to join them. I haven't set foot inside SoO in months since attendance problems killed the weekend team.

Outside of those things, many players would consider the other stuff "fluff." The real story progression is happening (as always as it seems with WoW) in instanced content. Dungeons are usually the culmination of questing content. Raids were the extension after that (such as Blackrock Spire vs Molten Core). Scenarios now seem to be filling the blanks in the middle (or just being blow-off content). I'm not deriding your gameplay decisions at all, but the central focus of this expansion is all about Garrosh's bid for complete domination. But I'm also likely biased as ToT was at it's death knell when I came back and I get to see the storyline for an endgame perspective. Even while all this Thunder King and Empress schtick was going on, Garrosh was always in the background bidding time, much as the LK was when there was Nax and all the Ulduar shenannigans going on.

Oh, I know Blizzard wants me in those raids, the raids have been gorgeous and the fights, even in LFR, are interesting mechanically. I remember when entering Molten Core was a big deal. But in the end, WoW's actual gameplay is... mediocre. It's responsive and polished, but still mediocre and surpassed by many. It would make no difference to me if SoO was a quest hub, solo scenario, regular scenario or series of 5-mans as long as I got to see how the story came to an end.

What keeps me coming back are two things: the fluff and my friends.

Balance problems aside, WoW's fluff is generally enjoyable. If WoW was just a single player game like WC3, I'd happily pick the expansions off the shelves every 2 years and play the campaigns.

My friends are what keep me playing once I eat up the content, I've even met a number of them in real life. One of the reasons I have only 1 level 90 Alliance character and 13 Horde is because my Alliance friends left during Dragon Soul and never returned. I leveled that one character to see how things played out, then shelved her since I had no one to play with (and never bonded with anyone new while leveling).

On WoD:
I'm rather looking forward to LFR Tourist Mode. I raid for two reasons: see the story and transmog gear. The power boost is a nice bonus, but not required.

[TheFeniX]

Wowhead has a beta (alpha I guess) test sight were you can look at talents. Supposedly you can see how your character and his/her gear will scale to 100? Also, there's some kind of new perks system from 91-100. As you advance in level, you will get a random perk each level..... like, a Paladin will get Improved Crusader Strike (+20% damage). Um... ok.

DK's are getting their talents moved around, which needed to fucking happen because Corruption, Tap, and Empowerment and staples of the class you don't get till later, which makes leveling DKs feel slow and unresponsive.

Prot Paladins are going to have some kind of seal hopping going on since "Empowered Seals" is way to useful to not take. Just insight alone (Healing 1.5% HP per second for 20 seconds on a judgement) is overkill. Yea, it's no Second Wind, but that's on top of the already ridiculous healing Tankadins do.

Anyways, I boosted a mage to 80 and am currently enjoying the benefits of Frost Mages. Damage output is almost as easy as a DK and is likely higher. Figured I'd level it as another tailor since, combat bonuses are going away from profs, but people will always want bags.

[Darmalus]

The LFR sets and some of the raid sets are available for viewing.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/150 ... ts-Preview
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/150 ... tes-Update
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/392 ... uild-18164

Personally I like the LFR sets better. But then I've always preferred the appearance of understated armor. Tho that leather shoulder.. pfffttt, so silly. Like a misplaced tower shield.

[TheFeniX]

I personally liked the coloring (blue wings) of the pally LFR set this tier. A shame it's so hard to match to. The new pally tier looks decent, but basically it's updated BC armor. Honestly, I wish Blizzard would stick 1 or 2 modellers/skinners in a back room to update all the old stuff to bring it to 2014 graphics. I would kill for an updated plate armor set from classic. The stuff was a very understated, but the textures are just atrocious and will look even worse once the updated character models come out. Just updating them to high res textures, and fixing some UV mapping issues, would make a lot of old armors look great.

And for hilariously bad shoulder leather, look no further than boob pauldrons. It took me forever to find something else to finish out the, otherwise badass, set for my rogue. And even then, it isn't a perfect match. Even the mog app really can't show you exactly how something is going to look in game, at least none of the ones I've used.

Something interesting I saw from your link:

Movement Speed (New Section)
::snip::
If a bonus is self-only and passive, it now stacks additively with everything.
If a bonus is temporary or applies to other players, it's considered exclusive, and the character only gains the benefit of the highest exclusive bonus.

Additionally, restrictions that prevented a player with a temporary speed bonus from receiving or activating a second temporary speed bonus have been removed. Both bonuses will now apply to the character, but only the one with the highest magnitude will have any effect.

I see where they're going from here and I like it. Panda Step becomes useless if you run Pursuit of Justice, making it less viable. Same with Unholy Presence. Passives should stack: actives should override or stack at a much lower level. This will help alleviate some issue with certain melee mobility. I spam Burst of Speed on my rogue a lot, but sometimes I need glyphed sprint to catch a mob (or more likely a player) and can't use it until Burst of Speed is done, or I cancel it. "Better" buffs should override "less better" buffs, but not the other way around. Ex: trying to recast boneshield when it will give you less stacks. Trying to cast Inquisition (although, that's going away in WoD) when you'll be given less time. Honestly INQ should have been additive, up to 2 min, from the start.

[Darmalus]

Oh wow, I remember those. I remember rogue armor giving me a lot of laughs when I was hunting down mog sets. I wound up settling on this for my rogue (I dunno why it still shows me wearing my safari hat) and this for my mage.

Not showing off my ally hunter because I forgot to re-mog their upgrades.

I really miss being able to choose my armory pose. Even a neutral just-standing-there pose would be better than being all hunched over like that.

Yeah, my reaction to the speed boost change was simply: "Finally!"

[TheFeniX]

Oh wow, I remember those. I remember rogue armor giving me a lot of laughs when I was hunting down mog sets. I wound up settling on this for my rogue (I dunno why it still shows me wearing my safari hat) and this for my mage.

There's so much leather now that doesn't look like leather and/or is just straight up stripper gear on a female anything. I've also noticed cloth mog is so much easier. A lot of gear might not match color-wise, but you rarely end up looking like a clown like leveling plate wearers does. Gear from entirely separate expansions has little issue matching. Whoever does the bump and normal mapping for cloth gear also really knows what he/she is doing. Plate textures are routinely hit or miss.

But worst case has be to mogging a male Draenai DK. You're first off dealing with the "MOAR SKULLS" motif on any DK oriented gear, but also the ridiculously large upper body of the Dran will stretch any textures to the breaking point. The b.net armory has issues with some color gradations that don't seem to exist in game. Trying to match red plate is excruciating. I have a chest and belt from Ulduar that is just a shade of red a little too bright to match the ICC tier set. Also, fucking UV maps on Broken Promise.

The Lifeforge Breastplate is also pretty unique in that, when trying to convert it to stripper gear for females, the modeller completely fucked it up. I don't think it has a single texture map on it, whereas it looks pretty good on a male model.

My Pally was easy mode: Judgement set, all day every day. I don't care how overused it is, it's one of the coolest looking sets in the game. Still need to finish out my lightbringer set.

I really miss being able to choose my armory pose. Even a neutral just-standing-there pose would be better than being all hunched over like that.

Aw man, you haven't seen bad until you level a human female with a shield and want to see it on the armory. The shield pose covers most the body. For added hilarity, mog something like this and open the armory so you can see two feet and maybe a sword tip sticking out the side.

[Darmalus]

Here's hoping that the mog system improvements don't get cut. I vendored a lot of awesome quest rewards back in the day I'd like to have now.

Sadly the garrisons seem to be moving away from the original concept to just another phased quest hub.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/393 ... es-DLC-437

Blizz seems to be gunning hard to make Alliance really attractive this expansion. The Alliance get Shadowmoon, Karabor and basically the entire pre-genocide draenei population. Horde gets stuck with a cave, lame starting zone and a few worthless Frostwolf refugees. And yes, I am annoyed at having my garrison stuck in Frostfire forever.

[TheFeniX]

Here's hoping that the mog system improvements don't get cut. I vendored a lot of awesome quest rewards back in the day I'd like to have now.

I was bitching last night about how plate across expansions is hard to match and Ulduar comes clean with a lower set of armor that matches the Timeless Plate set pretty well for my warrior, even if the textures are a bit dated. Just need to find new pauldrons and a sword.

Sadly the garrisons seem to be moving away from the original concept to just another phased quest hub.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/393 ... es-DLC-437

The more I read about it, the less I care. About the only thing I want/expect at this point is anyone in my party to at least be visible to me in my garrison, even if they can't interact with it. Sort of like how Sunsong is phased and you can watch your buddy attack air because all you can see is him, not his crops.

Haha, more DK changes I missed:

Death Knight
We made several changes to compensate for abilities that have been removed by Ability Pruning. Blood Boil got removed and its effects were merged into Pestilence. This change in effect turned Roiling Blood into a passive ability; which we replaced with a new talent, Plaguebearer.

Blood Boil is kind of like consecration: it may not be the best ability out there, but it is pretty iconic to Blood DKs (previously, DKs in general). I really do miss the old effects though. Same with DnD.

There were also a few other miscellaneous changes. The Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable and balanced.

By standardized, they probably mean "gutted."

Desecrated Ground now also makes the Death Knight immune to Roots and Snares.

Ah, so I can't be rooted in this one easily visible circle. I mean, you take DGround in PvP because the other two options are even worse unless you're fighting a a lot of melee (and even then), but this is a pretty good joke on part of Blizzard to "fix" an anti-mobility class by just give it some "mobility."

[Civil War Man]

Plaguebearer is interesting in how niche it is. Blood can refresh diseases on multiple targets with one Blood rune thanks to Scarlet Fever. Unholy can apply both diseases to a target with one Unholy rune thanks to Ebon Plaguebringer. If a Frost DK specs Necrotic Plague at 100, then they only have to apply one disease, which can be done on multiple targets with Howling Blast for a single Frost rune.

It's basically a less bad version of the current Glyph of Outbreak, since it will also do damage and trigger the rune regen talent on account of being baking the effect into Frost Strike and Death Coil. But the specs have different ways to keep diseases on target that the list of people who would get the most use out of it is weirdly specific. It's pretty much for Frost DKs who want to reapply diseases without losing an Obliterate when Outbreak is on cooldown or PvP DKs who want to be able to easily reapply diseases if they don't take Enduring Infection for some reason.

[TheFeniX]

Plaguebearer is interesting in how niche it is. Blood can refresh diseases on multiple targets with one Blood rune thanks to Scarlet Fever. Unholy can apply both diseases to a target with one Unholy rune thanks to Ebon Plaguebringer. If a Frost DK specs Necrotic Plague at 100, then they only have to apply one disease, which can be done on multiple targets with Howling Blast for a single Frost rune.

That's only really an issue with 2h Frost unless Blizzard gives us a reason not to stack Mastery and pull OB back into our DW rotation. Right now, disease uptime is 100% because an extra 2 Howling Blasts and 2 lost GCDs throwing Plague Strikes/DnDs is worth more than throwing 2 OBs for less damage and likely wasting a Killing Machine Proc.

This whole thing reads as a way to make 2h frost as idiot proof as DW has become, because for any other spec it's fixing a problem that doesn't even exist.

The PvP angle might be correct though. Right now, Frost has serious mobility and anti-mobilty issues. If they are geared and lay hands on you, they can burst almost as hard as warriors. The problem is.. laying hands on you. Even against melee, they lack even less personal defensives than rets, so a rogue and warrior can mitigated better and burst-harder. And a kitty has better Dot's either way. And Monks are just.. .well, they're Monks: they laugh at most classes.

But with a buff to disease damage, Frost could perform in a manner similar to Unholy now. Get diseases up with one (usually useless) Death Coil, then kite with conversion and spam death siphons (or whatever healing talent you prefer). But this doesn't fix the problem with Frost DK being gimped by being in anything but Frost Presence, unlike Unholy.

[Highlord Laan]

Just read the spoilers for the War Crimes novel that's incoming. I now want to murder the celestials and burn all Pandaria to the ground, chasing them and their mealy-mouthed, eastern philosophical bullshit down with my DK's pack of hungry ghouls.

[Kuja]

I happened to catch some of the previews from a friend's blog and I've been laughing my ass off at what trash Warcraft lore has turned into.

[Grumman]

Just read the spoilers for the War Crimes novel that's incoming. I now want to murder the celestials and burn all Pandaria to the ground, chasing them and their mealy-mouthed, eastern philosophical bullshit down with my DK's pack of hungry ghouls.

What did they do?

[Darmalus]

I don't know why, but the non-game writing for WoW seems to range from below-average to just plain awful. I let other people torture themselves with that crap and just take the bullet points about what happened.

Blizzard just put out a long winded ramble with no real substance about the no-flying decision. I say they instead of Bashiok because this really reads like the kind of junk spit out by a comity.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/393 ... of-Draenor
I gotta laugh at their example. With the exception of Cata, we can't normally fly till max level. So the only way you could fly past those guards would be if you skipped the leveling experience and just used a grinding spot or chain ran dungeons. No amount of nailing people to the floor will make them experience content they want to avoid.

[Civil War Man]

Just read the spoilers for the War Crimes novel that's incoming. I now want to murder the celestials and burn all Pandaria to the ground, chasing them and their mealy-mouthed, eastern philosophical bullshit down with my DK's pack of hungry ghouls.

What did they do?

They revealed that, had Garrosh not escaped custody, they would have acquitted him because he can't learn to not be evil if he's executed.

[Highlord Laan]

Just read the spoilers for the War Crimes novel that's incoming. I now want to murder the celestials and burn all Pandaria to the ground, chasing them and their mealy-mouthed, eastern philosophical bullshit down with my DK's pack of hungry ghouls.

What did they do?

They revealed that, had Garrosh not escaped custody, they would have acquitted him because he can't learn to not be evil if he's executed.

But killing all those Mantid and Mogu was perfectly fine. Because reasons.

[Darmalus]

The WoW books are, as usual, not worth the paper they are printed on. I'd say it was the stupidest plot twist I've seen in years, but I just finished re-reading Crisis on Infinite Earths, so it only ranks in the top ten. Wonder Woman's murder sub-plot currently ranks as number 1.

I'd say the celestials were getting flanderized, but their purpose and motivations are so vague they could have always been this stupid. I mean, they did let the Horde into the Vale after the whole kidnapping children and demon summoning idiocy.

[Grumman]

They revealed that, had Garrosh not escaped custody, they would have acquitted him because he can't learn to not be evil if he's executed.

So this is a court that never, ever passes down a guilty verdict? Even if you have some objection to executing war criminals*, it would make more sense to lock him up instead of acquitting him - you can't learn not to be evil if your evil is literally a Get Out of Jail Free card, either.

* Such as the belief that he'd be just as bad in undeath if he dies an unrepentant war criminal.

[Civil War Man]

So this is a court that never, ever passes down a guilty verdict? Even if you have some objection to executing war criminals*, it would make more sense to lock him up instead of acquitting him - you can't learn not to be evil if your evil is literally a Get Out of Jail Free card, either.

* Such as the belief that he'd be just as bad in undeath if he dies an unrepentant war criminal.

Considering that Pandaria has not had a central government for the past several thousand years, I'm pretty sure this is a court that did not even exist until this trial. Of course, part of the verdict might also be blamed on Tyrande showing a breathtaking level of incompetence as the prosecutor from start to finish. It probably would have sparked some rage if it weren't for Tyrande showing breathtaking levels of incompetence in everything else she has done for the past few years.

Also, as insane as these words will sound, there is some disagreement over whether that is the stupidest part of this book. Other contenders include:
- Vereesa Windrunner seriously considering letting Sylvanas murder her and raise her into undeath so she can go live with her sister in the Undercity, only changing her mind when she sees Anduin and remembers that she'd be abandoning her kids.
- Alexstrasza forgiving the Dragonmaw for having her repeatedly raped during the Second War so she could give birth to enough dragons to serve as their mounts.
- Anduin purposefully foiling an attempt to poison Garrosh.
- A bizarre free-for-all melee that includes several alternate universe copies of different characters who are inexplicably bloodthirsty and violent because of reasons, including Warchief Baine Bloodhoof, King Anduin Wrynn, and a corrupted Kalecgos who is defeated when he is taught how to love or something.
- Anduin arguing that Garrosh can be redeemed because Varian's no longer a warmonger (which, as several posters pointed out, doesn't fit because calming Varian down required intervention from two separate deities).

[Darmalus]

- Vereesa Windrunner seriously considering letting Sylvanas murder her and raise her into undeath so she can go live with her sister in the Undercity, only changing her mind when she sees Anduin and remembers that she'd be abandoning her kids.

I'm sure you could convince your sister to, you know, tell the guards to let you in for tea you blithering ninny.

- Alexstrasza forgiving the Dragonmaw for having her repeatedly raped during the Second War so she could give birth to enough dragons to serve as their mounts.

Dumb, but since dragons pump out kids by the dozen normally anyway this may not be as horrible a crime to dragons as it would for humans. If Alex says it's OK, I'll believe her and drop the issue.

- Anduin purposefully foiling an attempt to poison Garrosh.

If he's a law and order type, I could buy that. You want him to die by official means, after all.

- A bizarre free-for-all melee that includes several alternate universe copies of different characters who are inexplicably bloodthirsty and violent because of reasons, including Warchief Baine Bloodhoof, King Anduin Wrynn, and a corrupted Kalecgos who is defeated when he is taught how to love or something.
- Anduin arguing that Garrosh can be redeemed because Varian's no longer a warmonger (which, as several posters pointed out, doesn't fit because calming Varian down required intervention from two separate deities).

I... just... wat.