History DethroningMoment / Warcraft

* Kraas: My main problem with ''Warlords of Draenor'' is that it seemed to not move the storyline forward for the Horde. At the end of ''Mists of Pandaria'', this was the scene: the warmongering Garrosh Hellscream and his cronies have been deposed, and the Horde is poised to move into a new era of teamwork and prosperity under the leadership of Vol'jin, who has been shown to be just, competent, and not given to xenophobia like Garrosh. However, Garrosh is not executed, which would have been a fitting punishment, with Varian Wrynn nonsensically declaring "His punishment is not for you alone to decide!" What punishment would you have chosen, Your Highness? Seems to me that the Alliance has wanted Garrosh dead for a while. So he's extradited to Pandaria to face trial. Fine, no problem, but of course he escapes. So instead of seeing what our new leadership is capable of, we get pulled off into the Draenor sideshow which has Thrall and the Frostwolves getting the lion's share of character development, with little or none for the rest of the Horde. At least Vol'jin puts in an appearance at your garrison later in the expansion, but there's no word on what Lor'themar, Sylvanas, Baine or Gallywix are doing. What? Ji Firepaw? Who's that?

* cricri3007: The intro where Medivh's "warns" Terenas. Medivh knows the demons' plan, knows what this strange plague is, know what they want to do. Does he tell any of this to Terenas? No, just (paraphrased): "Your kingdom is already doomed! Your only hope is to abandon it and sail for a continent that may or may not exist." To make things worse, when Terenas (rightfully) calls him mad and asks him to either clarify what he's saying or GTFO, Madivh jut say "So you refused to listen, I'll find other who will." and leaves. No you asshole, they didn't "refuse to listen" your warning, they refused to listen a crazy old man who barged into the royal meeting saying "Doom is coming, hope is lost, flee for your lives!". Considering he wasn't clearer with any of them (not even Arthas, who he knows is going to be the demons' pawn), it's a wonder Jaina and Thrall listened at all to his ramblings. To make things worse, he later tell them that his "warning" is his atonement for bringing the orcs to Azeroth. And you couldn't be clearer because...?

* cricri3007: The intro where Medivh's "warns" Terenas. Medivh knows the demons' plan, knows what this strange plague is, know what they want to do. Does he tell any of this to Terenas? No, just (paraphrased): "Your kingdom is already doomed! Your only hope is to abandon it and sail for a continent that may or may not exist." To make things worse, when Terenas (rightfully) calls him mad and asks him to either clarify what he's saying or GTFO, Madivh jut say "So you refused to listen, I'll find other who will." and leaves. No you asshole, they didn't "refuse to listen" your warning, they refused to listen a crazy old man who barged into the royal meeting saying "Doom is coming, hope is lost, flee for your lives!". Considering he wasn't clearer with any of them (not even Arthas, who he knows is going to be the demons' pawn), it's a wonder Jaina and Thrall listened at all to his ramblings. To make things worse, eh later tell them that his "warning" is his atonement for bringing the orcs to Azeroth. And you couldn't be clearer because...?

* cricri3007: I honestly was fine with Garrosh being a humble guy. It was bad CharacterDevelopment, but it was CharacterDevelopment nonetheless, with him learning to be an honorable chief and whatnot. But what I couldn't stand was Sylvanas. For me, she was someone with a severe case of self-loathing whose only purpose in non-life was to have revenge on the Lich King and then die. But, since the Lich King is dead and we wouldn't want to be rid of her (while getting rid of Cairne was a-OK) she stays. And what does she do? Invade Gilneas. Okay, the Undead can't always be defensive so why not? For years Sylvanas struck me as someone who would never wish her fate on others and was loyal to the Horde. And then she used the new Plague, despite express order from Garrosh not to, and almost insulted him. But wait, it gets better. In Andorhal, she use Val'kyr to ressurect dead Alliance fighters to fight for her (thus proving that mind-control is in action since there's no way those people would fight for their former enemy minutes only after being dead). Imagine my surprise when the villain of the next expansion was revealed to be Garrosh (who, as I said before, had been undergoing poorly-handled CharacterDevelopment) and not the Lich King knockoff.

* Tropers/{{MiltiadesBooga}}: What in the sassy Francis with the derailing of Kael'thas and Illidan!? ''Wrath of the Lich King'' seduced me back to the fold (fist shaking goes here) but that little bit of WTF had me trying to throttle my keyboard. Blizzard, please don't let people who have never played WCIII write scenarios involving characters from WCIII.

* Tropers/{{MiltiadesBooga}}: Further to the ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' example above - what in the sassy Francis with the derailing of Kael'thas and Illidan in ''Burning Crusade''!? ''Wrath of the Lich King'' seduced me back to the fold (fist shaking goes here) but that little bit of WTF had me trying to throttle my keyboard. Blizzard, please don't let people who have never played WCIII write scenarios involving characters from WCIII.

** cricri3007: I honestly was fine with Garrosh being a humble guy. It was bad CharacterDevelopment, but it was CharacterDevelopment nonetheless, with him learning to be an honorable chief and whatnot. But what I couldn't stand was Sylvanas. For me, she was someone with a severe case of self-loathing whose only purpose in non-life was to have revenge on the Lich King and then die. But, since the Lich King is dead and we wouldn't want to be rid of her (while getting rid of Cairne was a-OK) she stays. And what does she do? Invade Gilneas. Okay, the Undead can't always be defensive so why not? For years Sylvanas struck me as someone who would never wish her fate on others and was loyal to the Horde. And then she used the new Plague, despite express order from Garrosh not to, and almost insulted him. But wait, it gets better. In Andorhal, she use Val'kyr to ressurect dead Alliance fighters to fight for her (thus proving that mind-control is in action since there's no way those people would fight for their former enemy minutes only after being dead). Imagine my surprise when the villain of the next expansion was revealed to be Garrosh (who, as I said before, had been undergoing poorly-handled CharacterDevelopment) and not the Lich King knockoff.

** Opalure: That's not even the worst of it. World content was almost completely disemboweled. Reputations were added as an afterthought by the devs' own admission in a no-holds barred Q&A, leading to the reputation vendors offering nothing of value but to the most obsessive of collectors. The reputations didn't even have their own mounts; the same handful of new mount models were strewn about willy-nilly between achievements, reputations, rares, and the Garrison. What did casual players have to entertain them after hitting level cap? A cynically-nerfed LFR that removed tier sets and raid weapons/trinkets, and instead recycled Honor gear models so painfully basic and low-res that they would have looked perfectly in place next to Sunwell drops from 2007, treasures and rares that only reward anything of value once, the lion's share of which were hidden behind awful jumping puzzles and other platforming that WoW's aging engine was never designed to handle, mindless mob grinds, and, just in case you were having too much fun, the majority of your endgame was spent clicking through menus in a minigame so "complex" browser-based games were doing it better fifteen years ago. Crafting was even nerfed into the ground, with buildings in your Garrison capable of crafting anything you needed and your character being arbitrarily locked into three slots of crafted items. Coming off of 5.2 and 5.4, where the pacing of dailies, rares, and treasures were spot-on, and crafting saw the return of the very popular TBC weaponsmithing recipes updated for level 90, ''Warlords of Draenor'' was a resounding disappointment for many casual players.

** Opalure: That's not even the worst of it. World content was almost completely disemboweled. Reputations were added as an afterthought by the devs' own admission in a no-holds barred Q&A, leading to the reputation vendors offering nothing of value but to the most obsessive of collectors. The reputations didn't even have their own mounts; the same handful of new mount models were strewn about willy-nilly between achievements, reputations, rares, and the Garrison. What did casual players have to entertain them after hitting level cap? A cynically-nerfed LFR that removed tier sets and raid weapons/trinkets, and instead recycled Honor gear models so painfully basic and low-res that they would have looked perfectly in place next to Sunwell drops from 2007, treasures and rares that only reward anything of value once, the lion's share of which were hidden behind awful jumping puzzles and other platforming that WoW's aging engine was never designed to handle, mindless mob grinds, and, just in case you were having too much fun, the majority of your endgame was spent clicking through menus in a minigame so "complex" browser-based games were doing it better fifteen years ago. Crafting was even nerfed into the ground, with buildings in your Garrison capable of crafting anything you needed and your character being arbitrarily locked into three slots of crafted items. Coming off of 5.2 and 5.4, where the pacing of dailies, rares, and treasures were spot-on, and crafting saw the return of the very popular TBC weaponsmithing recipes updated for level 90, ''Warlords of Draenor'' was a resounding disappointment for many casual players.

* Huffbuh: You thought ''Cataclysm'' was bad? You thought ''Mists'' was bad? Bah, said Blizzard, you ain't seen nothing yet! ''Warlords of Draenor'' started out so well, with some of the best leveling content the game has ever had. But after that? Just... nothing. Outside of raids, which not much of the playerbase actually does, all you have to entertain yourself are "Apexis Daily Zones", places in which you kill an arbitrary number of enemies until you are given Apexis Crystals, which can be traded in for rewards. Sure, Mists had too many dailies (or rather, required you to do too many at once by locking near-essential rewards behind countless different factions) but to have them taken out entirely and replaced with nothing but a mob grind has lead to one of the least replayable expansions yet. Not to mention the absence of any new Battlegrounds or Arenas, meaning PvP players have had no new content (outside of the highly broken Ashran) for over two years.

** cricri3007: I honestly was fine with Garrosh being a humble guy. It was bad CharacterDevelopment, but it was CharacterDevelopment nonetheless, with him learning to be an honorable chief and whatnot. But what I couldn't stand was Sylvanas. For me, she was someone with a severe case of self-loathing whose only purpose in non-life was to have revenge on the Lich King and then die. But, since the Lich King is dead and we wan't get rid of her (while getting rid of Cairne was a-OK) she stays. And what does she do ? Invade Gilneas. Okay, the Undead can't always being defensive so why not ? For years Sylvanas stroke me as someone who would never wish her fate on other and was loyal to the Horde. And then she use the new Plague, despite express order from Garrosh not to, and almost insult him. But wait, it gets better. In Andorhal, she use Val'kyr to ressurect dead Alliance fighters to fight for her (thus proving that mind-control is in action since there's no way those people would fight for their former enemy minutes only after being dead). Imagine my surprise when the vilain of the next expansion was revealed to be Garrosh (who, as i said before, had been undergoing bad handled CharacterDevelopment) and not the Lich King knockoff.

* Scaramouche: For me, the Pandaren starting area and quests were OK, if a bit on the cutesy side. But the thing that really irritated me about it was the amount of quests whose only purpose is to gather things for Jojo Ironbrow to shatter with his forehead. The first one was alright, just a neat little diversion, but it really should have ended there. We get it! He has a strong head! OK, they're not compulsory to move to the next level, but is it really necessary?

* Retloclive: In Night Elf mission five after Malfurion splits up with Tyrande, he goes off to wake up the Druids of the Claw. After finally reaching the area the Druids of the Claw are sleeping, but are actually sleepwalking, and will attack anything in sight be it friend or foe. Malfurion states that he can wake up the nearby Druids of the Claw, but chooses not to, because he wants to push to an area that would allow for him to be able to wake all the druids up at once... so why couldn't he just slow crawl with Cenarius' Horn to wake up a few of the Claw druids to safely reach the intended area? Malfurion made his objective unnecessarily a lot harder, and there's no justification for why he had to do it this specific way. It may seem like a very minor nitpick, but it's a highly annoying oversight for me nonetheless.

* Retloclive: In Night Elf mission five after Malfurion splits up with Tyrande, he goes off to wake up the Druids of the Claw. After finally reaching the area the Druids of the Claw are sleeping, Malfurion states that he can wake up the nearby Druids of the Claw, but chooses not to, because he wants to push to an area that would allow for him to be able to wake all the druids up at once... so why couldn't he just slow crawl with Cenarius' Horn to wake up a few of the Claw druids to safely reach the intended area? Malfurion made his objective unnecessarily a lot harder, and there's no justification for why he had to do it this specific way. It may seem like a very minor nitpick, but it's a highly annoying oversight for me nonetheless.

* Retloclive: In Night Elf mission five after Malfurion splits up with Tyrande, he goes off to wake up the Druids of the Claw. After finally reaching the area the Druids of the Claw are sleeping, Malfurion states that he can wake up the nearby Druids of the Claw, but chooses not to, because he wants to push to an area that would allow for him to be able to wake all the druids up at once... so why couldn't he just slow crawl with the horn to take up a few of the Claw druids to safely reach said intended area? Malfurion made his objective unnecessarily a lot harder, and there's no justification for why it had to occur this specific way. It may seem like a very minor nitpick, but it's a highly annoying oversight for me nonetheless.

* Kylenne: ''Cataclysm'' was a festival of suckage in general for all of the above reasons (and many, many more), but for me the absolute nadir was the Uldum zone. After years of fan speculation on what lay beyond the wall in Tanaris, and tantalizing hanging plot threads from vanilla involving the Titans, we finally got to see it. But when we get there, we get teased with an amazingly cool new race and lore, that promptly get shoved onto the backburner so that we can play sidekick to a minor recurring NPC for fully 3/4ths of the story in a ridiculous WholePlotReference to ''{{Raiders of the Lost Ark}}'' that doesn't even try to make sense within the context of the Deathwing storyline. Uldum to me is a microcosm of everything wrong with ''Cataclysm'' as a whole, being not just an incredible waste of potential and cool setup, but offensive (those damn sand pygmies), disjointed and nonsensical, and little more than a showcase for an NPC where the player is relegated to spectator status for cutscenes. The Harrison Jones nonsense is also a prime example of how Blizzard's tendency to make pop culture references got incredibly lazy and unfunny in ''Cataclysm'', turning from fun little puns and Easter Eggs to making entire zones into {{Parody Episode}}s with no pretense of caring about in-universe story cohesion, only the ShoutOut itself. About the only thing Uldum had going for it besides the badly underutilized Tol'vir was Thrall's merciful absence, though Harrison's not much better than him there, and similarly suffered a lot of player backlash.

** cricri3007: I honestly was fine with Garrosh being a humble guy. It was bad CharacterDevelopment, but it was CharacterDevelopment nonetheless, with him learning to be an honorable chief and whatnot. But what I couldn't stand was Sylvanas. For me, she was someone with a severe case of self-loathing whose only purpose in non-life was to have revenge on the Lich King and then die. But, since the Lich King is dead and we wan't get rid of her (was getting rid of Cairne was a-OK, she stays. And what does she do ? Invade Gilneas. Okay, the Undead can't always being defensive so why not ? For years Sylvanas stroke me as someone who would never wish her fate on other and was loyal to the Horde. And then she use the new Plague, despite express order from Garrosh not to, and almost insult him. But wait, it gets better. In Andorhal, she use Val'kyr to ressurect dead Alliance fighters to fight for her (thus proving that mind-control is in action since there's no way those people would fought for the former enemy minutes only after being dead. Imagine my surprise when the vilain of the next expansion was revealed to be Garrosh (who, as i said before, had been undergoing bad handled CharacterDevelopment) and not the Lich King knockoff.

Level 1 or Level 90. Casual Grinder or Hardcore Raider. RTS or MMO. It doesn't matter. You are not prepared for these moments!

* Kylenne: ''Cataclysm'' was a festival of suckage in general for all of the above reasons (and many, many more), but for me the absolute nadir was the Uldum zone. After years of fan speculation on what lay beyond the wall in Tanaris, and tantalizing hanging plot threads from vanilla involving the Titans, we finally got to see it. But when we get there, we get teased with an amazingly cool new race and lore, that promptly get shoved onto the backburner so that we can play sidekick to a minor recurring NPC for fully 3/4ths of the story in a ridiculous WholePlotReference to ''{{Raiders of the Lost Ark}}'' that doesn't even try to make sense within the context of the Deathwing storyline. Uldum to me is a microcosm of everything wrong with ''Cataclysm'' as a whole, being not just an incredible waste of potential and cool setup, but offensive (those damn sand pygmies), disjointed and nonsensical, and little more than a showcase for an NPC where the player is relegated to spectator status for cutscenes. The Harrison Jones nonsense is also a prime example of how Blizzard's tendency to make pop culture references got incredibly lazy and unfunny in ''Cataclysm'', turning from fun little puns and Easter Eggs to making entire zones into {{Parody Episode}}s with no pretense of caring about in-universe story cohesion, only the ShoutOut itself. About the only thing Uldum had going for it besides the badly underutilized Tol'vir was Thrall's merciful absence, though Harrison's not much better than him there, and similarly suffered a lot of player backlash.

* Kylenne: ''Cataclysm'' was a festival of suckage in general for all of the above reasons (and many, many more), but for me the absolute nadir was the Uldum zone. After years of fan speculation on what lay beyond the wall in Tanaris, and tantalizing hanging plot threads from vanilla involving the Titans, we finally got to see it. But when we get there, we get teased with an amazingly cool new race and lore, that promptly get shoved onto the backburner so that we can play sidekick to a minor recurring NPC for fully 3/4ths of the story in a ridiculous WholePlotReference to ''{{Raiders of the Lost Ark}}'' that doesn't even ''try'' to make sense within the context of the Deathwing storyline. Uldum to me is a microcosm of everything wrong with ''Cataclysm'' as a whole, being not just an incredible waste of potential and cool setup, but offensive (those damn sand pygmies), disjointed and nonsensical, and little more than a showcase for an NPC where the player is relegated to spectator status for cutscenes. The Harrison Jones nonsense is also a prime example of how Blizzard's tendency to make pop culture references got incredibly lazy and unfunny in ''Cataclysm'', turning from fun little puns and Easter Eggs to making ''entire zones'' into {{Parody Episode}}s with no pretense of caring about in-universe story cohesion and only the pop culture reference itself. About the only thing Uldum had going for it besides the badly underutilized Tol'vir was Thrall's merciful absence, though Harrison's not much better than him there, and similarly suffered a lot of player backlash.

* [[{{Tropers/PyroWildcat}} PyroWildcat]]: The "Elemental Bonds" questline, full stop. This thing takes one of the longer-running plotlines in Warcraft lore, the festering hatred Fandral Staghelm had for both Malfurion Stormrage and the Dragon Aspects, one that had been ongoing for several years in real time, and a few millenia in-game, and completely shunts it aside to give Thrall center stage. And then both Alliance and Horde are "treated" to a long, obnoxious, overblown, irritating, and downright nauseating love letter from the developers to how "awesome" [[CreatorsPet Thrall]] is. And, since Chris Metzen is so butthurt over the FanPreferredPairing for his little Thrall, we also get to hear over and over again about how awesome the utterly [[FlatCharacter one-note character]] [[{{Tsundere}} Aggra]] is, and how she and Thrall luurve each other so much. Oh, and the player is brought into this travesty under the pretext that they were going to witness the Cenarion Circle, the Earthen Ring, and the Dragon Aspects working together to restore the World Tree. What comes of this? Nothing! Apparently, the developers thought that Thrall's wedding was more important. To get an idea of how bad this was, this quest line was enough that even many of Thrall's own fans were sick of him afterwards.

!World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm

* Tropers/Loekman3: I like the original Warcraft 3 campaign because of its GreyAndGreyMorality and good characterisation, however one moment I cannot tolerate is the ending of the second to last night elf campaign of reign of chaos. After Illidan has killed Tichondrius, saving Felwood and Malfurion realised who Illidan is, [[TemptingFate do you think he will be grateful or at least make Illidan a member but keep an eye out on him in case he did anything irrational]]? Nope he instead [[UngratefulBastard says that Illidan is a demon and deserved to be banished out of Felwood]]. [[WhatTheHellHero WTF Malfurion]], its as if [[StrawmanHasAPoint Tyrande is completely wrong in releasing Illidan when in truth is a very good decision, even if it makes a jailor angry. Had Malfurion not soften his treatment of Illidan at the end of the night elf campaign when he is truly grateful for rescuing Tyrande, that moment would have made me lost all my respect for the nature's prophet.

** Tropers/{{MiltiadesBooga}}: Further to the ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' example above - what in the sassy Francis with the derailing of Kael'thas and Illidan in ''Burning Crusade''!? ''Wrath of the Lich King'' seduced me back to the fold (fist shaking goes here) but that little bit of WTF had me trying to throttle my keyboard. Blizzard, please don't let people who have never played WCIII write scenarios involving characters from WCIII.
** Tropers/{{CombatLibrarian}}: I found the entirety of the Goblin starter area to be a dethroning moment of suck. Let's see...for the first time ever in [=WoW=], your character is given a canonical sexual orientation (straight). I tried to engage in some proactive suspension of disbelief ("Um...okay, my character is culturally being forced towards having a relationship with a guy but she doesn't like! Yeah, that's it...") Only to find that after the game-appointed S.O. leaves my character, my character is so overcome with jealous rage that she killed him, ripped the still-beating heart from his chest (I'm quoting), and then killed the goblin woman he left me for. It's worth noting that unlike all previous races, the Goblin and Worgen starter zones are completely unskippable and MUST be completed to progress to the rest of the game. Combined with the bizarre FanonDiscontinuity of making every single goblin player character the previous "next up and coming trade princess/prince", the entire goblin starter area was a [=WallBanger=] that I decided was a hallucination brought on by Kaja-Cola overdose.
** Tropers/{{Valkir}}: Another one from Cataclysm. Not the overall appointment of Garrosh Hellscream, but rather the precise moment they show it in the pre-event. He's suddenly a humble guy that wants what's best for the Horde and is being respectful to everyone. He says things and acts in ways that are radically inconsistent with his previous characterization in Wrath purely for the sake of revisionist history so Blizzard can force him down the player's throat. This moment specifically sets the tone for all future encounters with Garrosh, because it's nothing but shilling the CreatorsPet from there on out, with him suddenly being a competent badass due to events in Northrend that we as a player never got to see. Garrosh Hellscream, you made me, a fan of Warcraft for over 10 years and a hardcore raider, quit the god damn game.
** Tropers/{{Regu}}: A minor one from Cataclysm, but one that still made me mad. In the expansion, the Deadmines were completely re-done and even had a storyline in Westfall to explain. After discovering that the daughter of the former end boss has been reviving the Defias Brotherhood, you are sent in to defeat them. After running through an entire dungeon with completely new bosses, you fight the end boss. Oh but's not who you think it is, it's Cookie, you know that murloc who wasn't even required to down for completion. You can only fight Vanessa in the Heroic version. It's a complete and utter waste of time, and a crappy "twist" to boot.
** [[{{Tropers/PyroWildcat}} PyroWildcat]]: The "Elemental Bonds" questline, full stop. This thing takes one of the longer-running plotlines in Warcraft lore, the festering hatred Fandral Staghelm had for both Malfurion Stormrage and the Dragon Aspects, one that had been ongoing for several years in real time, and a few millenia in-game, and completely shunts it aside to give Thrall center stage. And then both Alliance and Horde are "treated" to a long, obnoxious, overblown, irritating, and downright nauseating love letter from the developers to how "awesome" [[CreatorsPet Thrall]] is. And, since Chris Metzen is so butthurt over the FanPreferredPairing for his little Thrall, we also get to hear over and over again about how awesome the utterly [[FlatCharacter one-note character]] [[{{Tsundere}} Aggra]] is, and how she and Thrall luurve each other so much. Oh, and the player is brought into this travesty under the pretext that they were going to witness the Cenarion Circle, the Earthen Ring, and the Dragon Aspects working together to restore the World Tree. What comes of this? Nothing! Apparently, the developers thought that Thrall's wedding was more important. To get an idea of how bad this was, this quest line was enough that even many of Thrall's own fans were sick of him afterwards.