World Of Warcraft

The troops at the front lines didn't get masks. That was just the second wave, that players participate in. (I elected not to take a plague sprayer, by the way.)

Edit: On reviewing the encounter, Horde players help defend the Azerite tank, and after it's destroyed, Sylvanas unleashes the plague. Horde troops are caught in the blast. I guess we're special because we get called back and given masks? Gameplay and Story Segregation.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 8th 2018 at 8:52:51 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

We're "The Champions" (tm), the adventurers who killed deathwing, who led the siege of Orgrimmar, who broke the Iron Horde, Who terrified guldan into compliance over his terror of fighting us alone, who took the legion's masters apart, repelled a hopeless invasion, and killed a Titan

Whats a piddly little blight gonna do vs our plot armor?

Edited by Midgetsnowman on Aug 8th 2018 at 6:17:04 AM

More to the point, the player base wouldn't look kindly to having all their Horde toons arbitrarily murdered and raised as mindless undead... although that would be an amusing way to resolve the faction conflict. Maybe if we could somehow isolate all the "undead waifu" Sylvanas fans and just permakill their toons...

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 8th 2018 at 9:18:48 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Only if all the dwarf and gnome players (they have to exist somewhere, right?) are locked from doing any quests that are plot-important.

Along with, canonically, the Tauren.

It's been fun.

I'm not sure how that follows, but my post was intended as a joke.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

x3 I thought the Plague the Forsaken has kills everything, living and undead? IE, no bringing them back from the dead, just killing it all and leaving it to rot? Like, Sylvanas would have to get the Vrykul to pick and choose who to bring back afterwards.

Edited by DingoWalley1 on Aug 8th 2018 at 9:47:54 AM

During the scenario, Sylvanas raises the plague victims as mindless undead, like the Lich King with the Scourge.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Now here is the question, why not? We have done it before, vs Gorefiend in TBC for example we HAD to die and become a ghost to beat him. The Lich King actually kills the alliance player just for the lutz and basically tells him to level up more foretelling his eventual goal. The amount of times the player has had to die to accomplish something is a very long list.

Also what if we did die and just got rezed at the spirit healer? Honestly it would have been great if they showed that actually.

Edited by Memers on Aug 8th 2018 at 7:23:32 AM

I think she has a new recipe, because previously Putress' blight was intended to destroy its victims so Arthas couldn't raise them. "New" in that I think she's had it since Cataclysm.

Edited by Rotpar on Aug 8th 2018 at 7:20:56 AM

"But don't give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you." - O'Brien, 1984

Yeah, this plague isn't meant to allow its victims to rez at the spirit healer, however dubious that may be in terms of story canonicity.

I have to admit that I considered the possibility of Horde players all being killed and forced to rez in the Blight attack, but I don't know if that would have sat well... not unless Alliance players also suffer a similar fate. That said, standing in the Blight is a quick way to death during the scenario for Alliance. It does massive damage. But you can rez afterwards, so I have no idea. Just roll with it.

Edited to add: During the Horde scenario, the battle in the courtyard, you can actively fight the Alliance heroes. Has anyone found out if it's possible to "kill" them there, or does the cutscene get forced if you try?

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 8th 2018 at 10:33:47 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

You can put them down, my Horde group downed Mekkatorque and Alleria with ease.

Ah. I tried to get our group to focus the Alliance leaders but people just wanted to flex their AoE DPS muscles. My Fire Mage doesn't have enough gear to place well on the meters, but Flamestrike/Ignite does result in lots of pretty numbers floating over the mobs' heads as it spreads.

By contrast, my Balance Druid was #1 on the scenario damage meters by a long shot thanks to Starfall and DoT spam. It was glorious.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 8th 2018 at 10:48:08 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

@Fighteer: Ah, just a joke about Gameplay and Story Segregation. Everyone knows the Alliance is only humans and Night Elves, or at least, they're the only ones who do anything storywise. Likewise, the Tauren, whose most significant lore contribution is that our leader died back in Cata.

It's been fun.

Well, in all seriousness, Battle for Lordaeron features appearances by Humans, Night Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Worgen, Draenei, and Void Elves. I didn't specifically see if the Lightforged Draenei were there, but they may have been mixed in with their brethren. I think that's all of them.

Horde-side, we also get just about every race represented as I recall. Most are visible in cutscenes, too, so it isn't just gameplay.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 8th 2018 at 12:37:20 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

There's certainly been a lot of story focus on the humans and Night Elves as of late given the overall story of BfA, but I think trying to go down the road of them being the only ones ever being focused on requiers a short memory and/or being really selective about what counts as "story involvement".

That isn't to say there aren't Alliance races that can use more story involvement, just that there isn't a lot to gain by overstating the issue.

Ironically one of the races that need more involvement are the Night Elves. Not because of a lack of screentime in recent events, but to prevent their story from languishing in the wake of the Buning of Teldrassil.

Not really. Did not see any Trolls, Nightborne, or High Mountain Tauren in it. You see Zappi Boi in the C Gs but he wasnt actually there in game. The Nightborne would have been the ones who could have actually countered 'the hero' Jaina.

There were some Lightforged in with the Alliance, you destroy one of their siege weapons as horde. All alliance races were there but not all horde.

Edited by Memers on Aug 8th 2018 at 10:05:58 AM

The Nightborne and Highmountain Tauren are part of the Horde opening scenario where you infiltrate the Stockades. Your getaway driver is Skyhorn, and Thalyssra helps with the infiltration.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

If that counts then, for the trolls, Rokhan is part of that operation too.

Huh? Troll Shamans are all over the place during the scenario, and there's both a Shaman and a Warrior in the cinematic trailer. I was looking specifically for Zappy Boi while we were waiting to charge out into the fray as Horde, but all of the Shamans there had red hair so I couldn't tell.

Also, I don't know if Blizzard should be expected to represent all the allied races evenly; they're apparently going to be a thing that pops out whenever the art design team whips them up. Integrating them with the main story is going to be a bit problematic, although each is undoubtedly going to have specific content related to their recruitment.

The four we have now are slightly different in that each was prominently featured in game content before Blizzard had come up with the Allied Races thing, or at least before we knew they were working on it.

Edited to add: You shut your trap about Jaina. She's my Alliance waifu.

Seriously, though, it's not reasonable to compare Jaina with Sylvanas at this point. We haven't seen how far she's going to go and she has certain built in moral advantages over the Banshee Queen, such as, you know, being alive and not being infused with the dark power of the Lich King. That said, Arcane magic has a long history of driving people mad, especially if they start seeking power with it.

As strong as the cutscenes portray Jaina to be, I wouldn't be surprised if she starts getting drawn deeper in to the Dark Side. After all, she's one of the Warbringers, which conveys very strong implications given that she's juxtaposed with Sylvanas and Azshara, both of whom are villains. Will she be strong enough to resist that temptation or will she become an enemy every bit as dangerous as the others?

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 8th 2018 at 2:07:15 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

On the subject of Jaina, I think we need to keep in mind that the worst thing she actually did (ie not tried to do, or wanted to do, actually did) by far was the Purge of Dalaran.

And while the purge of Dalaran was really bad, even the most uncharitable interpretation of the event puts it leagues and leagues below the Burning of Teldrassil in terms of how horrific of an event it was.

Agreed. My concern is that she's surrendered to her father's ideology and is now willing to bring some comparable atrocities to the Horde.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Considering she has spent the last 3 xpacs being an unrepentant warmonger and racist over something that was her own damn fault, I am sorry but no.

Her Karmic Houdini this xpac is something absolutely in excusable and this whole plot line with that ship is making it even worse. The fact that she is being treated as 'the hero' and The Calvary is appalling.

The Horde hates Sylvanas is the lead but the Alliance doesnt care about Jaina... ok so its ok to be racist.

Edited by Memers on Aug 8th 2018 at 1:48:05 AM

You keep telling yourself that. What atrocity, exactly, did she commit, other than ... you know, having her home bombed? Do we live in a Opposite Day world in which trying to bring peace is a horrifying mistake? Are you suggesting she should have let Daelin Proudmoore destroy the Horde on Kalimdor? That would have simplified things, certainly: no Horde means no faction conflict.

Edit: I can't quite tell whether you are RP'ing or actually mean what you're saying. What in the world did Jaina do to piss you off?

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 8th 2018 at 4:50:56 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Jaina's slide into villainy, specifically the Purge of Dalaran, was still pretty bad. Jaina specifically was targeting, imprisoning, and killing blood elf civilians (unless there is an disconnect between the game and some books) that likely had next to nothing to do with Garrosh blowing up Theramore.

On top of that while she never actually did it I do recall in one of the books in the past Jaina came very close to doing something similar to the Burning of Teldrassil aka she was considering flooding Orgimmar even with all the civvies in it but Kalecgos stopped her.

She is not that much better than Sylvanas. Infact I very much recall people speculating in Legion that Jaina would of returned as a villain, likely via losing her shit to old gods.

Every other word out of her mouth for the past 3 xpacs is 'horde filth this horde filth that, they do not deserve to live' etc. Don't need actions, although Dalaran is a huge one, the hate speech alone is enough.

Edited by Memers on Aug 8th 2018 at 1:56:03 AM