Valis

Excuse you?

Though I guess Valis isn't ginger. He's Fantasy Apple Red.

The Hallowfall expedition is hinted to have been chosen specifically, maybe they were seen as potential rebels back home. Largely of mixed blood descent (but not entirely, Great Kyron perhaps? The single remaining mage?), which may explain why they are less xenophobic than the rest of the Empire.

But due to an active policy of assimilation they are encouraged to all be Arathi? Ruled by a Emperor? This is a direct contrast to the Alliance, which is an alliance(!) of different peoples who do not assimilate with each other, ruled seperately and commanded in times of war by an elected leader?

What if the Arathi Empire is intended to be a dark (ironically) mirror of the original Alliance? Arathi aren't just half-elves, they're fullblooded elves, fullblooded humans and dwarves (native to Avaloren as hinted at).

Idle car thoughts whilst stuck in awful queues due to stupidly planned roadworks; I saw a dwarf and an outright elf in Arathi armour alongside an Arathi General who is NOT present in Hallowfall. I can only assume they are all from the Arathi Empire, teleported by the Sunwell like everyone else.

I made a Forsaken. He's called Archiben.

yeah. i've had valis make the mistake IC of saying to a lordaeronian RPer (all 12 of them to 1 of him) that stormwind's shed enough blood for lordaeron for this generation and maybe future ones. they should just settle in stormwind, where it's safer, where they can prosper. it didn't go well

fair? no. he'll be a dick saying that, but he's gonna say it

i know for a fact valis is ICly going to be going to the blood elves; "so can you stop falling over yourselves over your tragedy now you just magically fixed all your lands whilst lordaeron is still... that?"

yes. undermining the whole undead apocalypse thing is one of the biggest mistakes being made by these roleplayers

do i think they should succeed? no. they didn't. stormwind's shed an awful lot of blood for lordaeron - far more than lordaeron shed for it saving it from the horde during the second war

and yes, lordaeron's tragedy is the big bit of it, and the best part is that you can still have the "reclamation" aspect of it - from STORMWIND, you know, like all the quests are. All the attempts to reclaim it have come from Stormwind and Stormwindians, because they feel they owe Lordaeron a debt.

the argent dawn/argent crusade are GREAT. i hate that they're just forgotten. i definitely want to see some alliance/horde tension with the alliance, like, recognising the argents as the successor to lordaeron not the forsaken. doesn't need to lead to war or anything but it would be cool

hell you even have that quest in WotLK with the squad of soldiers all with guns that you escort up into the vrykul place.

YouTube video by Marius Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 music - How The West was Won (Allies)

genuinely you can do so much with it when you just sit back and accept that yes, stormwind is the idealised fantasy america of warcraft. do away with the feudal shit and embrace modern(ish) stuff in the trappings of knights and mages and footmen www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNk...

also, like you say, people going "stormwind has no lore/flavour" just 100% demonstrating they don't read the lore

lordaeronian RPers outnumbering stormwindian RPers will forever remain one of the most annoying things about human RP for me.

also because they will inevitably go "hrrr stormwind is stupid......"

Just in case you forgot she was 100% supportive of invading other peoples land and crafting a New Plague back then.

Who she is and who she was? A tragic villain that was a victim, yes, but she absolutely went out to her way to inflict that pain she suffered on others, as we’ve seen, without regrets. At some point the reasonings do not outweigh her bad deeds and Sylvanas passed that point back in Vanilla, even.

Her saying that paths will cross again is absolutely not a hint that she’s returning at some point, too, its just exactly what she says - paths will cross again, probably in a return to the Shadowlands, but it absolutely doesn’t mean for sure she’ll be returning to Azeroth.

It looks like she’s been handled well in this questline.

It’s not really in Sylvanas’s character to apologise to be fair but certainly it shouldn’t be something people go “yes queen” to. Sadly it’ll happen because in the eyes of some she can do no wrong (she can and has multiple times)

What was written still happened and without a complete rewrite it cannot be reconciled without destroying internal consistency. That you don’t recognise this is proof of your blinkered approach and poor understanding of writing.

The question is - is it meant to be Balor…

Trespassing aside, I am surprisingly chuffed with the Founder’s Point lore. It shows me that Blizzard knows what they’ve written before - Faldir mentioned, over 50 generations of settlement which easily puts it at the 1200 years mark of Stormwind’s founding. A+ lore references, good for the future.

🫄

no.... more.... house.... guilds

That’s my point, yes. I want the world to be perceived as big in actuality, not game world size, which this depiction leans into.

If they make it a coastal city like it actually is in canon then that's a good thing. Still doesn't take away that the perspective is even more skewed though which is why I think it's stylised and not an actual represensation of the geography.

It's good art but I hope it's stylised (I assume it is given there's absolutely no sign of Stratholme, Stromgarde, the positioning of Khaz Modan relative to Thoradin's Wall is completely off). I do not like the world being so small.