WoW: Warlords of Draenor

[Darth Yan]

One thing I do appreciate is the blood elves and Draenei (Who have kind of been left alone) shine again.

[TheFeniX]

I play Alliance and Lor'themar stole the show in MoP. But Blizzard thinks being a stand-up person, instead of a raging asshole, is boring so he'll likely be pushed to the back again. I think the only Draenai I interacted with in any capacity was Mishka and aside from "hnnng" due to sexy voice, I wasn't exactly impressed.

[Darmalus]

I play Alliance and Lor'themar stole the show in MoP. But Blizzard thinks being a stand-up person, instead of a raging asshole, is boring so he'll likely be pushed to the back again. I think the only Draenai I interacted with in any capacity was Mishka and aside from "hnnng" due to sexy voice, I wasn't exactly impressed.

This is the real unfortunate thing. Lor'themar is really the ideal when I think of an NPC player faction leader. He has a clear and fairly logical narrative, a motivation most people can relate to (an injustice was done to me/my people and I'm going to do something about it), when he shows up he feels important without making the players feel pointless (he feels like a commander, busy with commander stuff depending on you the player to get shit done), not a raging asshole and topped off with a smattering of charisma.

And, as TheFeniX said, he will probably vanish into the nether and we'll sit through a bunch of orcs gargling gravel or yelling at the microphone until it shorts out from accumulated spittle.

I'm sure a Draenei will have a line or two during important plot points. Maybe.

[Darth Yan]

The blood elves have a heavy plot line, in that they come "full circle" in understanding the light. They also seem to be promoting the Yrel character

[TheFeniX]

Why didn't anyone tell me that after 15 years, Blizzard finally got off their lazy asses and released a B.net messenger stand-alone application along side some new lame-ass launcher for the whopping 3 (4 if you include Hearthstone, but that game is boring and Mages OP either way) IPs they have. Does this not update with the Wow launcher? I loaded up SC2 to see if any of my WoW buddies were online, and now there's this fancy stuff I can leave running without having SC2 up on my second monitor.

I have nothing really to add about WoW, just that it amazes me Blizzard finally did what they should have done... I don't know... like 3 weeks after Steam launched 11 years ago? It's not even bloated from what I can see, which is par for the course with Blizzard since their writers are shit but they have good coders. Now if only valve could quit fucking with Steam.

[Darth Yan]

Also, a Blizzard VIP did confirm that most orcs stood against Garrosh; I think it was because while they might not have liked humans they didn't like the fact that he was going after "one of them" (i.e. the tauren trolls forsaken and blood elves) even more. In short, they hate humans, but they care for their allies even more.

[TheFeniX]

The doesn't really add up. I don't recall really any Orcs dealing with the offensive on Orgrimmar, unless you play an Orc Player-character. Voljin's group was small enough to be considered "rebels" even if that was just hyperbole by Varian and further if 50+X% of Orcs were loyal to the Horde, even assuming they just sat the whole thing out, means that what was left had to fight pretty much every other race combined in the game, aside from the Goblins that sided with Garrosh.

Sure, the gameplay makes it so like 10-people can slay everyone in Org, but the backstory plays it up like this is a huge battle for control of Org taking pretty much everything the Alliance and Horde Rebels can spare. I have to ask: just how many fucking Orcs are there in Azeroth?

That comment from Mr. VP sounds like the same shit they tried with the Forsaken: "Nah, guys, they totally aren't evil. Now shut-up while you do quests where they murder everyone because..... I don't know, it's edgy?" SoO basically wrecked the Orcs as a race, but Blizzard will just continue to gloss-over it as if it were just a few bad eggs.

[Sinewmire]

Well, Saurfang's in there, he probably couldn't have got as close to Garrrosh as he did by himself...

Actually, scratch that, he could just have pretended loyalty.

[Darmalus]

I was under the impression that most of the orcs didn't pick a side, they just stood off to the side and declared they were always loyal to the winner once it was all over.

[Darth Yan]

According to the wiki, the grunts pretty much sided with vol'jin after Nazgrel died (i.e. they were loyal to nazgrel or the government even if they thought the war chief was a shitbag). It also states that a large reason that it was "a huge battle for control of Org taking pretty much everything the Alliance and Horde Rebels can spare" was because Garrosh had gained the loyalty of the Klaaxi (Y'Shaarj's followers, who are supposed to be extremely powerful and Deadly) as well as their followers among the mantid). Most of his followers among the orcs were from the kor'kron (the elite faction of the horde, which has gained power since garrosh ascended and expanded), and the powers of Y'Shaarj also helped.
Or it could have been 1/3 of the orcs sided with Garrosh, 2/3 rebelled. Or they retcon to say that a large part of it was the klaaxi forces he gained by harnessing Y'Shaarj's power that amplified his forces.

The Kor'kron were pretty much decimated (according to one of the books with the exception of a few defectors who left either at the onset of the rebellion or before most of them are in prison awaiting trial).

WoD I suspect will force the orcs to fully own up to their past (i.e. they admit that parts of their culture were pretty messed up, and that demons were only part of the problem). Part of the subplot with Thrall is learning that his father may or may not have been noble (i.e. was he noble BECAUSE of the circumstances or IN SPITE of the circumstances).

Also, the Blood Elves are also a major part of the horde offensive (their understanding of the light will come "full circle" apparently), while the Draenei also seem to finally be getting more focus.

[Sharp-kun]

WoD I suspect will force the orcs to fully own up to their past (i.e. they admit that parts of their culture were pretty messed up, and that demons were only part of the problem). Part of the subplot with Thrall is learning that his father may or may not have been noble (i.e. was he noble BECAUSE of the circumstances or IN SPITE of the circumstances).

Thats the impression I get with the Burning Legion being in the final raid with Grom. Even with Garrosh's attempt to change things and warn his father and race about the consequences, the Orcs still end up drinking demon blood or falling in some way.

[Kuja]

The doesn't really add up. I don't recall really any Orcs dealing with the offensive on Orgrimmar, unless you play an Orc Player-character. Voljin's group was small enough to be considered "rebels" even if that was just hyperbole by Varian and further if 50+X% of Orcs were loyal to the Horde, even assuming they just sat the whole thing out, means that what was left had to fight pretty much every other race combined in the game, aside from the Goblins that sided with Garrosh.

Sure, the gameplay makes it so like 10-people can slay everyone in Org, but the backstory plays it up like this is a huge battle for control of Org taking pretty much everything the Alliance and Horde Rebels can spare. I have to ask: just how many fucking Orcs are there in Azeroth?

That comment from Mr. VP sounds like the same shit they tried with the Forsaken: "Nah, guys, they totally aren't evil. Now shut-up while you do quests where they murder everyone because..... I don't know, it's edgy?" SoO basically wrecked the Orcs as a race, but Blizzard will just continue to gloss-over it as if it were just a few bad eggs.

When your entire plot runs on 'because shut up ' rule of cool' and 'wave a magic wand' any attempt to logically explain the shit that comes out just sounds like 'close your eyes and pretend real hard.'

Also Bashiok (the blue poster Yan is referring to) is full of shit in general.

[TheFeniX]

According to the wiki, the grunts pretty much sided with vol'jin after Nazgrel died (i.e. they were loyal to nazgrel or the government even if they thought the war chief was a shitbag). It also states that a large reason that it was "a huge battle for control of Org taking pretty much everything the Alliance and Horde Rebels can spare" was because Garrosh had gained the loyalty of the Klaaxi (Y'Shaarj's followers, who are supposed to be extremely powerful and Deadly) as well as their followers among the mantid). Most of his followers among the orcs were from the kor'kron (the elite faction of the horde, which has gained power since garrosh ascended and expanded), and the powers of Y'Shaarj also helped.

We don't even see the Klaxxi until after Thok. There's a few trash pulls then the Paragons fight and we're right back to Orcs. I would go as far to say the brunt of the assault didn't even see a Klaxxi. No Klaxxi adds in the streets, no bombers during the assault on the beach: nothing. That seems like wiki BS in action. I would assume that, even though your raid downs all the bosses, that was where you were assumed to (and actually did) fight along-side the army. The largest part of the assault was gaining access to the underhold. After that, the dialog suggests the Alliance/Horde Rebels will keep the rest of the Orcs... I mean, Horde loyalists, busy while your small team of heroes kicks Garrosh's teeth in.

WoD I suspect will force the orcs to fully own up to their past (i.e. they admit that parts of their culture were pretty messed up, and that demons were only part of the problem). Part of the subplot with Thrall is learning that his father may or may not have been noble (i.e. was he noble BECAUSE of the circumstances or IN SPITE of the circumstances).

Really doubt it, hope I'm wrong. There's to much invested by Blizzard in the Loktar Ogar and Orc Stronk line. They seem perfectly content with writing said "strong" as "being excessively brutal is cool, because the Alliance is just as bad.... except we won't show that because then we would have to write an Alliance victory storyline, also humans are boring. What do you mean there are non-humans in the Alliance?"

Even if it's true: it's still going to play out as another extremely Orc-centric expansion. Just like the Belfs got screen-time in MoP and Jaina goes postal: you have to dig for that shit. I had to do a fuck-load of... whatever that Karasang PvP shit was... quests that involved chasing ass-fuck Garrosh around Pandaria and listening to his master-plan, and running back and forth because of what he's doing, just to see any of that. That whole issue might mean a lot in the backstory: but it's a road-bump in actual gameplay, given a backseat to me spying on a Horde faction lead. Meanwhile, I can direct queue to watch Vol'jin get stabbed in the neck and play as a Goblin multiple fucking times to get more important (read: Horde) backstory.

This is a big-beef I have with Blizzard writers these days: they know the whole story, try and tell people how it is through blue-posts and lame interviews, but won't actually show anything in-game. So, Alliance is just as bad as the Horde? Not from the game I'm playing.

Honestly, I'm just waiting to roll my eyes at another hamfisted "Thrall, please let me have your babies" ending like we got in Cata and MoP. Letting Thralls hammer fall on Garrosh's head would have been a much better option than what we've been shown so far: Make Thrall deal with his utter failure as a leader first-hand, rather than through an entire other expansion.

When your entire plot runs on 'because shut up ' rule of cool' and 'wave a magic wand' any attempt to logically explain the shit that comes out just sounds like 'close your eyes and pretend real hard.'

Blizzard could probably save themselves a lot of ire if they just left it up to the individual to determine the motivations of the major players in WoW: show, don't tell. The writers seem to think that any criticism of the Orcs as a race and faction can be countered with "nuh uh, look at Jesu... I mean Thrall: he's awesome!" or whatever other shit-explanation they have at the moment.

[Civil War Man]

WoD I suspect will force the orcs to fully own up to their past (i.e. they admit that parts of their culture were pretty messed up, and that demons were only part of the problem). Part of the subplot with Thrall is learning that his father may or may not have been noble (i.e. was he noble BECAUSE of the circumstances or IN SPITE of the circumstances).

Thats the impression I get with the Burning Legion being in the final raid with Grom. Even with Garrosh's attempt to change things and warn his father and race about the consequences, the Orcs still end up drinking demon blood or falling in some way.

I am skeptical. Garrosh's reign as Warchief was the 4th time that the Orcs have openly attempted to commit genocide in just over 30 years (Rise of the Horde, the First and Second Wars, and Mists of Pandaria), and there has been no sign of introspection on their part yet. And that's with Doomhammer being one of the most violent warchiefs despite not drinking the demon blood, as well as Grom admitting in WCIII that he drank the blood willingly.

As an added bonus, apparently the Lords of War episode for Durotan shows that Orcs have always been prone to blood rages, so at this point all the demon blood did was turn their skin green and make them angry all of the time instead of just most of the time.

[TheFeniX]

I thought Orc's being blood-thirsty when in combat was pretty well-documented considering not just their racial, but even the original WoW cinematic had one smashing his weapon on the ground and thrashing about like an animal. Even the MoP cinematic has a pretty enraged Orc that doesn't calm down until he's fighting alongside a human, rather than against him.

And the older Warcraft games definitely had much more raging Orcs.

I'm probably biased since, as a person, I can't mimic a roaring bear, so a humanoid doing so is going to come off as a lot more animalistic to me. But also, it could just be that Orcs have so much pent up aggression towards humans/The Alliance, it immediately brings that side out of them.

[TheFeniX]

Ghetto Edit: I was thinking about this last night, because I'm a huge dork, but anyways: I think it's funny that the main consensus is that "Humans are boring" and this is repeated ad nauseum pretty much everywhere WRT to Warcraft. But by focusing so much on Orcs, Blizzard has basically simplified that race as a whole, even their golden-boy Thrall. The race is constantly just retreading old-wounds from the past. Sure, they get the lion's share of the content, but it's pretty boring story-wise.

I've leveled a few Horde alts, nothing to max, but pretty much every Horde race comes off as very specific stereotypes: Orc Strong, Forsaken shady, Tauren peacful and honorable, etc. Belfs tend to break this mold. They're mana addicts, but they come in all varieties. Pretty much every Alliance race ends up the same way, with a few exceptions. But Humans you meet across the game have a wide-range of biases and general demeanors. There's also shitloads of neutral humans out there.

Even boring old Varian has skated by with a few increasing dynamics: dealing with his son on multiple levels such as a protective father, but also as someone who is learning from his son. He's also dealing with his own issues concerning the Orcs and it's telling that even he couldn't let the epitome of his hatred toward Orcs (Garrosh) get killed.

In all the shitty writing, plot-holes, and general bullshit to continue to facilitate the gameplay: Humans end up getting the lions share of actual development as a race, even though it's all pushed by the Horde story. Just a thought (or two) on my part. I find it very amusing when I hear someone bitch (including Blizzard) about how boring Humans are, yet Humans are allowed to exist as an actual race, rather than a stereotype with a few outliers.

[Darmalus]

I'd say part of the problem is those stereotypes that define the other races were effectively removed from the human dynamic and amplified, making the human version milder by comparison. A shady human assassin, while interesting in their own right, becomes 'Forsaken-Lite" in a WoW context.

This is compounded with the problem that always pops up in these discussions, too much human story is in the books. From an in-game perspective human territory is fairly secure and prosperous compared to the other races with only the Forsaken being able to challenge them in post-Cata prosperity. It's hard to care about a character that doesn't feel threatened somehow unless they have a compelling hook, and those hooks were largely distributed to the other races.

[Darth Yan]

WoD I suspect will force the orcs to fully own up to their past (i.e. they admit that parts of their culture were pretty messed up, and that demons were only part of the problem). Part of the subplot with Thrall is learning that his father may or may not have been noble (i.e. was he noble BECAUSE of the circumstances or IN SPITE of the circumstances).

Thats the impression I get with the Burning Legion being in the final raid with Grom. Even with Garrosh's attempt to change things and warn his father and race about the consequences, the Orcs still end up drinking demon blood or falling in some way.

I am skeptical. Garrosh's reign as Warchief was the 4th time that the Orcs have openly attempted to commit genocide in just over 30 years (Rise of the Horde, the First and Second Wars, and Mists of Pandaria), and there has been no sign of introspection on their part yet. And that's with Doomhammer being one of the most violent warchiefs despite not drinking the demon blood, as well as Grom admitting in WCIII that he drank the blood willingly.

As an added bonus, apparently the Lords of War episode for Durotan shows that Orcs have always been prone to blood rages, so at this point all the demon blood did was turn their skin green and make them angry all of the time instead of just most of the time.

There was some introspection (Rise of the horde implies that many of the older veterans took their own lives because they couldn't live with what they'd done, Drek'thar is visibly weeping in disgust when recalling how awful he was, Saurfang Sr's speech to garrosh. Thrall also mentions how the orcs need to own up to the fact that the demon blood was only part of the problem) but there could have been more.

War Crimes does mention how when the orcs see the Telmor assault flashback via bronze dragon magic bullshit most of them are visibly disgusted at what they see. Which is something I guess.

Many members of Garrosh's secret police are also slated to stand trial as well

The blood rage thing was stupid though

[Lord Revan]

While it's probably not gonna happen it would nice if they said most of those who followed Garrosh were young ones that had never seen a battlefield before but instead had their heads filled with talk of glory and honor, also that most veteran commanders had their orders "lost in transit" (read:ignored) so they would not join Garrosh but could say they weren't disloyal.

[Civil War Man]

There was some introspection (Rise of the horde implies that many of the older veterans took their own lives because they couldn't live with what they'd done, Drek'thar is visibly weeping in disgust when recalling how awful he was, Saurfang Sr's speech to garrosh. Thrall also mentions how the orcs need to own up to the fact that the demon blood was only part of the problem) but there could have been more.

War Crimes does mention how when the orcs see the Telmor assault flashback via bronze dragon magic bullshit most of them are visibly disgusted at what they see. Which is something I guess.

Many members of Garrosh's secret police are also slated to stand trial as well

The blood rage thing was stupid though

There is introspection on the part of individual Orcs, but not from Orc society as a whole. And while Thrall mentions that Orcs need to realize that demon blood was only part of the problem, he is largely responsible for many of the Horde's current problems, seeing as how he has largely promoted the starry-eyed hero worship of many major Orc figures of the First and Second Wars. The Horde's capital city is even named after an Orc who was Warchief during a period where the Horde was so corrupt that one of Thrall's friends quit in disgust. Thrall even buys into it himself, seeing as how the first words out of his mouth in the post-Siege cutscene are "I am disappointed in you, Garrosh. You are not worthy of your father's legacy." Yes, Garrosh was not worthy of the legacy of a violent maniac who willingly drank demon blood twice and seemed to show little concern beyond what he would get to kill next. You could even argue that Garrosh was entirely a monster of Thrall's creation, since he was ashamed of his family's legacy until Thrall came in and convinced him that Grom was a hero worthy of reverence.

It's a bit like Founding Father hero worship in the US, only in some alternate universe where George Washington did a ton of steroids and then led an army that burned half of Europe to the ground.

I mean, all of that sounds like it could prompt some massive soul-searching with Warlords when the Orcs get to take a good long look at the people they built a pantheon around, warts and all. But I am not holding my breath, considering that everything that's happened in-game since Warcraft 3 has not caused that to happen, and many of the devs themselves seem to be taken in by the romanticized depiction of the Orcs.

[Darth Yan]

They do touch down on that. Thrall and cairne's final chat is cairne's saying "yes there were heroic aspects to grom hellscream, but he was also kind of an asshole too. " in lord of the clans he was pretty mellow actually and when pressed he did make the right choice in the end but thrall still whitewashed him too much

[TheFeniX]

I'd say part of the problem is those stereotypes that define the other races were effectively removed from the human dynamic and amplified, making the human version milder by comparison. A shady human assassin, while interesting in their own right, becomes 'Forsaken-Lite" in a WoW context.

That sounds like user error to me: if you have to be beaten over the head with stereotypes to view a character as strong, you need to broaden your horizons. Maybe Blizzard has cultivated this kind of player-base (the morons who think Blizzard was the first to come up with Orc = Not inherently evil are one of them, but also the guys on the forums who love to bag on Tolkien as not original: which always makes me laugh), but IMO saying stereotypes are awesome, but actual varied characters are boring because they aren't as X or Y as the stereotype, shows a lack of a maturity.

This is compounded with the problem that always pops up in these discussions, too much human story is in the books. From an in-game perspective human territory is fairly secure and prosperous compared to the other races with only the Forsaken being able to challenge them in post-Cata prosperity. It's hard to care about a character that doesn't feel threatened somehow unless they have a compelling hook, and those hooks were largely distributed to the other races.

Do what now?

Theramore is a smoking crater. There were plans to get Darnasses even more fucked up that Blizz backed out on.

In Cata: Gilneas got blowed up and the Gilneans are squatting in Stormwind. There's still a large section of Stormwind that is leveled. Westfall is in ruins with homeless and starving humans everywhere and this is a stones throw from the Human capital. Hell, there are twilight spies at the highest level of Stormwind's "government."

Going back even to classic and before: Lorderon and Stratholme are scourge strongholds and the surrounding areas are devastated.

There is nothing "secure and prosperous" about humans in Azeroth. They should be teetering on the brink of total collapse. This doesn't even count the other Alliance races. Aside from the Dorfs, every other Alliance race is either essentially homeless and/or their capitals are decaying. The Nelfs also have to contend with a devastated surrounding area.

The Alliance should be in a very bad way, but they aren't because "lol hoomans boring generic fancy fantasy race." So many missed opportunities for strife within just the human faction, but instead it's pissed away as leveling content.

After all that "BUT WE GAVE YOU BACK DALARAN." Sure are a lot of Horde and Sunreavers in Alliance controlled Dalaran.

While it's probably not gonna happen it would nice if they said most of those who followed Garrosh were young ones that had never seen a battlefield before but instead had their heads filled with talk of glory and honor, also that most veteran commanders had their orders "lost in transit" (read:ignored) so they would not join Garrosh but could say they weren't disloyal.

They wrote themselves into a tiny corner with SoO as far as I'm concerned. No matter how you slice it: either an extremely large portion of the Orcs were totally willing to side with a racist wanna-be genocider who would make second-class citizens (at best) of everyone "not-orc." Or, it was only a small group of them which leaves me to wonder, just why did we need 2 huge armies to take even a fortified Org once the gates fell?

This is a problem with making a playable faction the boss of an expansion: you have to do a shitload of mental gymnastics to have it make any sense and you're going to fuck it all up anyway.

[Darmalus]

That sounds like user error to me: if you have to be beaten over the head with stereotypes to view a character as strong, you need to broaden your horizons. Maybe Blizzard has cultivated this kind of player-base (the morons who think Blizzard was the first to come up with Orc = Not inherently evil are one of them, but also the guys on the forums who love to bag on Tolkien as not original: which always makes me laugh), but IMO saying stereotypes are awesome, but actual varied characters are boring because they aren't as X or Y as the stereotype, shows a lack of a maturity. [

In the end you meet your customer requirements, or you don't have customers. WoW is not like some status symbol car company that gets by on <1000 customers, it's the McDonalds of MMOs and goes for volume. If your customers come to you completely illiterate, you don't tell them to go to school, you put pictures on the menu.

Theramore is a smoking crater. There were plans to get Darnasses even more fucked up that Blizz backed out on.

In Cata: Gilneas got blowed up and the Gilneans are squatting in Stormwind. There's still a large section of Stormwind that is leveled. Westfall is in ruins with homeless and starving humans everywhere and this is a stones throw from the Human capital. Hell, there are twilight spies at the highest level of Stormwind's "government."

Going back even to classic and before: Lorderon and Stratholme are scourge strongholds and the surrounding areas are devastated.

There is nothing "secure and prosperous" about humans in Azeroth. They should be teetering on the brink of total collapse. This doesn't even count the other Alliance races. Aside from the Dorfs, every other Alliance race is either essentially homeless and/or their capitals are decaying. The Nelfs also have to contend with a devastated surrounding area.

You're trying to view the whole picture, current and historical. From the PoV of someone who just play's WoW, Lorderon was always Undead; Gilneans are werewolves, not humans; Human terrirory consists of Elwyn, Duskwood, Westfall and Redridge, which are almost pure human with a few orc quests (Rambo questline is pretty awesome though). This where the feeling that humans are boring come from, what exists and can be experienced by a player is pretty lackluster in terms of engagement.

Blizzard's writers, who should have the whole picture, also seem to fall into this category from what I can tell. It makes me wonder if the writers who did have first hand experience with WC 1,2 and 3 have all quietly left the building (or become outnumbered) by a generation of WoW-only writers.

The current Westfall situation was a real head-scratcher for me. The government being bankrupt does not make crops suddenly stop growing. I could understand it if the tornado caused a dustbowl type of catastophy, but all the NPCs talked like you had to pay plants to grow. My strongest emotion after completing the zone was bafflment.

The Alliance should be in a very bad way, but they aren't because "lol hoomans boring generic fancy fantasy race." So many missed opportunities for strife within just the human faction, but instead it's pissed away as leveling content.

Agreed.

[TheFeniX]

In the end you meet your customer requirements, or you don't have customers. WoW is not like some status symbol car company that gets by on <1000 customers, it's the McDonalds of MMOs and goes for volume. If your customers come to you completely illiterate, you don't tell them to go to school, you put pictures on the menu.

Are we talking about even the Horde players asking for less Orccraft? Or the millions of people who have quit the game? Obviously, the game could just be getting stale, but something is up and people are voting by closing their wallets.

And it's probably a combination of things leading to lost subs, but it's hard to ignore that the most popular expansions of WoW (BC and LK) dealt almost solely with content outside the scope of WoW.

You're trying to view the whole picture, current and historical. From the PoV of someone who just play's WoW, Lorderon was always Undead; Gilneans are werewolves, not humans; Human terrirory consists of Elwyn, Duskwood, Westfall and Redridge, which are almost pure human with a few orc quests (Rambo questline is pretty awesome though). This where the feeling that humans are boring come from, what exists and can be experienced by a player is pretty lackluster in terms of engagement.

That doesn't tell me anything. If the playerbase is too stupid to understand that Forsaken and Gilnears were/are humans: that's not my problem and does not attack my arguement that humans have been getting creamed in Azeroth since even before the game started. That Blizzard treats them as one happy family is their fault, not the informed/uninformed playerbase.

My point is there is nothing "stable" about the current Alliance or the humans, either in the story even though MoP were one of the largest Alliance settlements was wiped off the map with zero communpance for the perpetrators. The playerbase is also in agreement, merely waiting to see what the Alliance looses next.

As for the Gilneans (even accounting for just Cata): anyone who bothered with anything related to them knows exactly who and what they are. If they had been "just werewolves," Sylvanas wouldn't have bothered trying to gas them all. Once again, if the Horde playerbase (or whoever) thinks there's anything stable about the Alliance, it's because they eat up Blizzard's bullshit that basically amounts to "listen to what I'm saying, not the game you've actually been playing."

Even as an Alliance player that space-bars through most shit without reading it, it's blatantly obvious the Alliance isn't one big happy family, but there's a line of Blizzard writers telling me the Alliance is "The Brady Bunch" and would be too boring to write anything for, except in their god-like laziness, they've managed to prove themselves wrong.

[TheFeniX]

Man, the forums are in full troll mode right now, but that's to be expected. I did find this little gem though. The link to Blizzard's post is here.

For those looking to receive the free character boost now, but also want those sweet Collector’s Edition physical items, we’ve set up a process to ensure you can do both. Just follow these steps!

Pre-purchase a digital version of Warlords of Draenor now and begin using the included character boost immediately
Pick up your Collector’s Edition pre-order on 11.13.14
Open it up and get a little emotional because of how beautiful it is
Enter your Collector’s Edition key on your Battle.net Account Management page
Contact Blizzard Customer Support for a replacement of your original Standard Edition Key!
Give the digital key to a friend!

Check with your local retailers for Collector’s Edition pre-orders as inventory is limited.

Basically, if you pre-ordered the standard edition for the boost, Blizzard will upgrade your account, and just refund the standard edition key. Which you can.... pawn off on a friend? I am reading this correctly, right?