quote:I have decided that I will be going full disaster lesbian with Isidora. Brilliant military leader. Probably not the best judgment regarding women. 
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Jun 1, 2022 03:42
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Cythereal posted:I will be going full disaster lesbian with Isidora Finally.... I am represented in a video game...
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Jun 1, 2022 05:35
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Disaster lesbians are the best kind. 
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Jun 1, 2022 06:16
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Cythereal posted:And after consulting with a few people, in light of this thread enjoying the narrative I've been doing for the human campaign, I have decided that I will be going full disaster lesbian with Isidora. Brilliant military leader. Probably not the best judgment regarding women. I'm pretty sure you do this in every narrative LP you do, except maybe the Anno one. 
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Jun 1, 2022 17:23
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Can there ever be too many disaster lesbian/gay/queer characters?? I think not!
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Jun 1, 2022 17:26
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StillFullyTerrible posted:I'm pretty sure you do this in every narrative LP you do, except maybe the Anno one. Arshia Kishk and Aurora van de Velde were happily and not dysfunctionally married, thank you very much. And I wrote Lena Ebner as asexual.  I'll give you T'Kara, though.
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Jun 1, 2022 17:53
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So, I figured out how Warcraft 1's scoring system works thanks to the wiki, and it actually has nothing to do with resource harvesting, losses, or the time it takes to complete a map. Instead, you are awarded points for every unit and building you destroy. Different units and different buildings are worth different amounts of points, and you get a bonus if you beat the mission or win the multiplayer match. So even though I killed more total units in Human 5 than Orc 5, they weren't as valuable as the units I killed in Orc 5 - when I post Human 5, you'll see that the orcs in the map mainly attack with squads of infantry, where in Orc 5 the humans constantly dribbled knights into the base.
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Jun 2, 2022 14:54
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Pretty sure the campaign score is also cumulative. If you lose a mission without killing anything you have the same score as when you finished the last scenario. Also, while confirming this I remembered it is possible to drag-select in Warcraft I - but for some reason it requires you to hold down the Ctrl key while doing it.
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Jun 2, 2022 16:44
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How long is the Warcraft 1 campaign canonically? Because there are some parts of the Warcraft timeline that strongly seem like either someone went over it afterwards, stretching and compacting periods of time, or orcs and humans in the world live notably longer lives than you'd expect.
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Jun 2, 2022 16:53
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PurpleXVI posted:How long is the Warcraft 1 campaign canonically? Because there are some parts of the Warcraft timeline that strongly seem like either someone went over it afterwards, stretching and compacting periods of time, or orcs and humans in the world live notably longer lives than you'd expect. Canonically, the entire First War, from the moment the orcs hit dirt on Azeroth to the fall of Stormwind, was five years. We don't have a clear point for where Warcraft 1's campaign happens exactly, only that the three big bullet points - the deaths of Medivh (Human 8), King Llane (Human 9/10), and Blackhand (Orc 7/8) - all happened in the third year of the war. The entire Warcraft RTS saga, 1, 2, and 3, takes place over just twenty years.
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Jun 2, 2022 16:59
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Cythereal posted:Canonically, the entire First War, from the moment the orcs hit dirt on Azeroth to the fall of Stormwind, was five years. We don't have a clear point for where Warcraft 1's campaign happens exactly, only that the three big bullet points - the deaths of Medivh (Human 8), King Llane (Human 9/10), and Blackhand (Orc 7/8) - all happened in the third year of the war. Effectively, the First War is canonically five years long, but how it actually plays out is two years of minor skirmishes, then tons of activity in Year 3, then the last couple years are mostly clean-up - both sides knows the Orcs are going to win, it's just a matter of when the final hammer falls and how much the Humans can salvage/evacuate before fleeing.
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Jun 2, 2022 17:13
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   https://archive.org/details/Warcraft_I_-_Manual_-_PC/mode/2up I'm sure the reason for these canon changes are Sensible And Well Intentioned and don't screw up the backstories of two upcoming characters. But don't worry, they kept all the sexual violence intact in the retcons.
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Jun 2, 2022 19:10
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Human 5: Shoot the Messenger  With Sir Lothar's return to Stormwind and need to convalesce, Llane retained your position as Regent and authorized you to direct Stormwind's armies as you see fit. The next step to me was clear. From the intelligence we gained at Kyross and the Dead Mines, we knew that a major portion of the orcs' strength had been deployed primarily to Stranglethorn Vale. Chieftain Kilrogg Deadeye and his Bleeding Hollow clan obeyed Blackhand's commands only grudgingly, and more importantly almost all supplies and communication between the Bleeding Hollow and the rest of the horde went through a single mountain pass at the southern edge of Elwynn Forest. If we could seize control of this pass and establish a strong defensive line, we would sever the Bleeding Hollow clan from the main horde, isolating a significant amount of the orcs' strength in the Vale, where we also knew they were under attack by the Gurubashi.  Anduin called it an excellent strategic choice, and Llane agreed to send the Brotherhood of the Horse to your command. High praise from Commander Lothar. Before the Dead Mines, we hadn't parted on the best of terms, last we met. You know my brother. He wouldn't commend you if you hadn't earned it. Saving Grand Hamlet, then the raid on Kyross, then you found Blackhand's daughter and treated her with respect, and now this. To be perfectly honest, I'm pretty sure Anduin thought you would have charged to your death and probably taken a lot of good men and women with him during his imprisonment. The 3D map thing that I still can't get looking right shows us moving east/southeast, so I now think that this southern forest is also considered part of Elwynn on this map. As for where we are specifically, my best guess is that we're at Raven Hill in modern day Duskwood. This battle doesn't seem to be canon so there's no way to tell, but the position seems right.  Surprisingly, not actually a mirror of Orc 5's starting situation! The knight mentioned in the briefing is also here, but he's just a generic knight and works like the raiders we saw in Orc 5. We didn't have much to work with at Raven Hill, but at this point the routine was beginning to feel familiar. I still didn't know what to make of you at this time. Your reputation for behavior not befitting a noble was known, of course, but Llane and Lothar were starting to say around this point that you'd matured into a real leader. I wasn't thinking about that. I felt that politics were the king's business and I had enough to worry about on the front. It took a bit to find a gold mine, a short hike to the north. Rather further away than mines have been. Actually, I'm genuinely curious. Forgive me for my assumption I made about you, Validormi. But, Isidora, your preferences are no secret. Are you planning to move anyone else into the castle? Out of respect for Llane I won't answer that in the way I want to. The answer is no. I don't have anyone I'm attached to like that. I have received one expression of interest, but I haven't had much time to seriously contemplate it. I have to say, I'm curious who that is. Countess Katrana Prestor. Rather than just send raiders, ala Orc 5's AI, the AI in this mission prefers to send 2-3 infantry at a time, some mix of grunts, spearmen, and necrolytes. That's interesting. House Prestor has never been anything but loyal to House Wrynn, but Llane once told me that he's never been entirely sure what to make of Katrana or her father. They would be very good friends to have, but I have to wonder if Katrana's actually that interested in you as a person. I know. But I'm the last of House Turan, and I know enough to realize that Llane's favor and my success in the war will only go so far. I do need friends at court, whatever their reasons. Mine does not seem to be the privilege of searching for my ideal consort on the throne. True enough, and Katrana is a very sharp woman. That family has a long history of choosing the right friends, so I suppose it's a good sign that she's making an overture to you. Now that I've gotten to know you a little, I do rather wish you'd have the chance to fall in love yourself. I've had that chance. I wasted it, like I wasted almost every other chance in my life before the war. Having thoroughly blown my chances to be myself and decide my own fate, what's left is not mine to choose. I'm not sure whether this raider was an actual attack or just a stationary guard in the woods, but I was looking at building my base and by the time I realized it wasn't just a grunt or necrolyte it was too late. Katrana Prestor. Interesting. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You know her? By reputation, as it were. She plays a notable role in Stormwind's history in most timelines. In a good way...? She has her own ambitions, but most nobles in human kingdoms do. She did at least take it gracefully when Llane's father rejected her father's suggestion of a marital alliance, and wished us the very best. Aside from the UI struggles, the most primitive part of how this game feels is how slow it is to start producing combat units. I wonder what multiplayer is like in this game, and yes there's options in the main menu for such. It seems to be 1v1 exclusively, which fits how I haven't seen any maps yet that are anything but 1v1. The Prestors rule Redridge and part of the Steppes, so I am familiar with the family.* I never met Katrana, though, until she brought her house's troops to reinforce us near the end of the war. She's in and out of Stormwind frequently, attending to family business. I would have thought you two would be very well acquainted. Katrana told me she'd been sent to Lordaeron and Dalaran for schooling. She's a very accomplished mage. Hmmm. Did you ever meet Lord Daval? Once. I don't know what it was about him, but that man scared me. I felt like he could make people burst into flame with a look. No wonder Katrana felt a little intense, given her father. There's a lot of necrolytes lurking in the woods.  And they do have Raise Dead researched. Interesting. Do you like Katrana? Anyone who can conjure a luxurious field tent and a delicious banquet in the middle of the mountains has a certain admiration from me. That kind of conjured food isn't actually good for you, by the way. It will give you energy, but it's not filling or nutritious. Noted. Katrana is an incredibly beautiful woman of course, but she's also the most interesting dinner companion I've ever had. The only time I've ever left Stormwind was as an honor guard on that voyage to Kul Tiras, but Katrana's traveled all over the place. She doesn't have much of a sense of humor, but I felt like we could have talked for hours without discussing the same topic twice. Huh. Follow the road southwest from your base and there's a gold mine very close to where you start. I do this eventually, but assigning a peasant to chop the trees in the way opens up a nice shortcut. Katrana pledged the Prestors' support for my rule over dinner, and at the end asked me much the same question you did about my marital status. It is a highly relevant question given your position. And she told me that her father was prepared to make a more permanent alliance with my house, if I accepted her as an offering. That was forward of them. I don't fault them, really. I know very well that they see me as an opportunity. Another gold mine, on the western edge of the map.  I get a church up before the other advanced buildings because I want healing. Conveniently, clerics on this map come with healing already researched and have a new spell available that I do not research this mission. Let me put it this way, Taria. Everyone in the House of Nobles knows that I like women. If they didn't before Llane chose me as his heir, they learned shortly afterwards. So unless I marry a man for the sake of politics and consummate a loveless marriage, the whole question of who I might marry and who would succeed me is an open and messy question. I've been irresponsible in the past, but I like to think that I've never been stupid. Of course the Prestors see me as an opportunity. I strongly suspect that I'll receive many similar offers in the days to come. Further scouting reveals that this passage in the woods leading north, in around the middle of the map, serves as a chokepoint. Once you clear out a few scattered orcs in the south half of the map, all future attacks come through this break in the trees. I'm mostly skipping over the base building and upgrade research, y'all have seen that before. The lawmaster has already given me the gist of it. When we have the formal coronation ceremony, I will become King, not Queen, of Stormwind. As a woman I am allowed to hold the throne, and I am permitted to wed another woman as my queen. Given that I have no living family, the crown would pass to my wife's nearest male relative. It's all been very well established since the Two Kings.** This will be a helpful shortcut.  Just like the orc version, the human blacksmith has durability and melee damage upgrades. One non-obvious detail I learned from the wiki, durability upgrades from the blacksmith apply to buildings, too. So no, Taria, I don't expect to marry for love. If I do marry a woman, I doubt she'll even be inclined to share my bed. Your husband turned me into an uncommon prostitute. That's... one way to look at it. Honestly, if you're already this astoundingly cynical you might actually like Katrana. Per the orc version, stables have research to make knights faster, and unlock producing knights in combination with the blacksmith. Ambition aside, I do genuinely like what I've seen of Katrana. I suppose I'm very fortunate I never had to contemplate that whole question. Llane and I were close as children and it felt completely natural to go from friends to lovers. It was a diplomatic marriage, but also a marriage of love. Knights and archers, with a few clerics in back for healing. It's not a complicated strategy, but it seems to work. This whole conversation has been fascinating to me. Courtship is very different among my kind, when you can both see the past and future. I strongly suspect that this is a pre-positioned group of guards further up in the chokepoint. What a world we live in that there are such beings as your kind. You have no idea, Taria. About twenty years from now, in most timelines, the horizons of your human kingdoms will start to expand more than you can imagine. Clerics are not a panacea, I discovered. They regenerate their magic meter slowly enough that while they can seriously extend the longevity of my forces, they can't keep up with a steady rolling offensive like this. I'm not just talking about Kalimdor, either. I hope you both live long enough to see it. You don't think we will? There's a lot that can go wrong over the next twenty years. For all that I did this mission faster than Orc 5, in practice it actually felt slower. Waiting on gold for upgrades, and then researching them, takes a while. But there's also nothing to gain by pushing up past the chokepoint until you're ready to take out the orc base.  It's definitely a longer way past the choke to the Horde base than in Orc 5, though, for all that this time there's only one chokepoint.  I do suffer a handful of losses here and there, between clerics running out of magic and me being slow with my fingers without hotkey control groups.  But at this point the mission is effectively over.  With the barracks destroyed, this base is doomed. We're not yet at the point of the AI making multiple barracks, and while they do manage to train another necrolyte during the clean-up it's decidedly not enough.  For some reason, the AI in this mission keeps trying to build more farms rather than repairing existing structures.   It does them no good.  If your father was still alive, I wonder if he would have supported your title as Regent. Perhaps. I believe he would have supported anyone who could retake our family lands. Even a daughter who became a knight against his wishes? Oh, please. I'd been a disappointment to my father long before then. Families among the Bronze Dragonflight, with how we see time... Your idea of family is not something I'm familiar with. I must confess that I still don't understand the dynamic. I don't, either. But when I was a child, my parents read me bedtime stories about valiant knights rescuing noble ladies and riding off to live happily ever after. You didn't like those stories? I wanted to be a valiant knight rescuing a noble lady and riding off to live happily ever after with her. Hmmm. Mortal concepts love don't readily apply to my kind, when we see through time. I hear emotions in your voice I have no context for. There's regret. There's hope. My parents made the best of the daughter they got when they wound up never having a son, but that doesn't mean the hurts never happened. You do sound like you loved your parents despite these differences. I did, and I do. Life wasn't what they expected and they struggled with it. I hated them for years, don't mistake me. I think they tried to do the right thing in the end, though, and I respect their memory for that. I don't think I'll ever understand mortals. I don't think I will, either.* There's been a couple different accounts given for where the Prestors are from and what lands they hold. I've picked one. And yes, I will discuss who the Prestors are in WC2. Those who know who the Prestors are, you know why. Please don't spoil that for the thread. ** There is not, of course, anything saying that women can actually rule in Stormwind in their own right, that gay marriage is legal in Stormwind, or that any of this has a legal precedent in-setting, so I indulged myself. If you don't like it, stop reading the human updates. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 11:53
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All's Fair in Love and Warcraft So, since I established this update that Isidora is gay - which I'd always planned, as people familiar with my previous LPs probably guessed - I figure it's time to address Warcraft and LGBT representation. Let's address the elekk in the room first: homophobia and transphobia are rife in Blizzard's fanbases, especially World of Warcraft, and Blizzard as a company has often egged it on. There is a long, unhappy history of Blizzard encouraging homophobia and transphobia in the player base and condemning efforts by players to create safe spaces for LGBT players. Documenting all of this would be exhausting and make me very angry. And contrary to popular belief in some circles of SA, I do not in fact enjoy being mad all the time. Fortunately, someone else already compiled a sampler of many such incidents, click that link if you're interested. Ultimately, Blizzard was forced to weigh in. https://twitter.com/tricycle_clown/status/1281260746182201346?s=21 I'd be more impressed if this statement had been made before 2020, but I will note one important thing right now: while there have never been any LGBT major characters in Warcraft, there have also never been any incidents of in-setting homophobia or transphobia in Warcraft, either. Nowhere in Warcraft has it ever been stated that homosexuality is illegal or frowned upon, being transgender or non-binary has never been said to be unacceptable or illegal, and for that matter by all indication it's never been stated that women don't have equal rights to men in most nations and cultures in Warcraft (exception: orcs). By the present in World of Warcraft, women have directly ruled several world powers and no one's even hinted at this being unorthodox.  Who was expecting an out of the way pandaren to be Warcraft's first LGBT character? So let's talk about actual representation in Warcraft. From the beginning in vanilla WoW, there have been some very quiet hints that there are LGBT people in Azeroth. Two women with the same last name selling ranged weapons and ammunition in a town, possibly sisters but possibly married. A man moving heaven and earth to save a man he's close to but whose relationship is never specifically stated - perhaps friends, perhaps lovers. A woman 'waggles her eyebrows suggestively' at another woman in a town, causing the other woman to blush. Two guys from cultures that are normally mortal enemies form a suspiciously close buddy cop duo. Two partners in a forward strike group talk constantly about how they'd do anything for each other and how they're looking forward to relaxing at the tavern together when the mission's done. Then in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's fourth expansion, the first official LGBT character was put into the game: Kama the Beast Tamer. Never heard of her? Most WoW fans haven't. She's the stable master - an NPC that only hunters ever have a reason to talk to - at the Tavern in the Mists. There's nothing special about her at all, except that there's an in-game book players can find that tells a little story at the Tavern. One character says he'd like to meet her life-mate, and Kama says that she wouldn't think much of him. As representation goes, it was a very, very small thing, but it was a starting point. Mists of Pandaria was released in 2012, beating That Other MMO to the punch for having a canon LGBT character by a year (added in A Realm Reborn, 2013).  This isn't fanart. A short story anthology published in 2021, all of them in-setting fairy tales and folk stories from Azeroth, included a love story between a Kul Tiran priestess and a mermaid. By the way, Warcraft has mermaids. Each successive expansion after Mists of Pandaria, and most of the comics and books, have steadily added more and more same-sex couples to Warcraft, some explicit and official, some not. Some even play notable story roles: Alliance players are almost certainly familiar with good-hearted scoundrel Flynn Fairwind (an Errol Flynn homage with more than a dash of Jack Sparrow) and Stormwind spymaster Matthias Shaw, and a recent novel confirmed that they weren't just idly flirting in Battle for Azeroth. Likewise, players who ally with the Night Fae in Shadowlands prominently deal with a former Night Warrior of Elune and his husband. There still haven't - officially - been any LGBT characters among the ranks of returning characters from the RTS games, or among the major cast original to World of Warcraft, but that hasn't stopped fan imaginations and the list of LGBT characters in Warcraft grows every year.  One other gay couple (well, sort of not really) to discuss because of the sheer impact it has on the fandom: Anduin and Wrathion. These two characters are not a gay couple, as far as we know. Then again, there's just as much evidence for them not being a gay couple. Just one problem: in Mists of Pandaria, when this ship took off like a rocket to become far and away Warcraft's most popular ship in fanart and fanfic, Anduin was 15 years old. Wrathion was 3. Wrathion, you see, is a dragon. Players watched his birth in the previous expansion. I'm not even going to try to address the issues here. As for Anduin, he was the son of Varian Wrynn, King of Stormwind (for those keeping track, Varian is the son of King Llane in Warcraft 1, and Varian named his own son after Anduin Lothar). He spent all of WoW previous to Pandaria as a nothing character standing around in the throne room, until author Christie Golden featured him heavily in a book, characterizing him as a shy, sensitive, idealistic young man attracted to the calling of a priest rather than anything warlike. The fanbase reaction was immediate and strong, especially since by this time Jaina Proudmoore's character had been thoroughly butchered, complete with an edgy makeover, and been turned into a warmongering zealot screaming for the Horde's blood (she got over it a few expansions later without committing anything more than a small war crime or two along the way). So, Anduin was put into Mists of Pandaria as one of the focal characters of the Alliance story in the expansion, and had a rather adorable enemies-to-friends story arc with the cynical and ruthless Wrathion. There is so, so much smut of Anduin and Wrathion, and while Wrathion then disappeared from the story for a while, he came back near the end of a later expansion all grown up, matching Anduin's own growth. And the fanficcers and fanartists rejoiced. I'm serious. Last I checked the usual fanfic sites, Anduin/Wrathion was a more popular subject than every other Warcraft ship combined. Oh, and despite WoW constantly seeming poised to give Anduin an official [heterosexual] love interest - in a strange event both main candidates being the daughters of Anduin's other father figures - it's never quite happened, to the point that I'm not completely convinced that it's not intentional.  On to the subject of transgender characters, easily the best known and most controversial is Chromie, known formally as Chronormu. These two names, and her appearance above, tell the story. Bronze dragons almost universally keep to a rigid gendered nomenclature. Male names end with -u, female names end with -i. See the [male] Aspect, Nozdormu, and the [female] character Validormi I've been writing. Chromie has been around World of Warcraft since vanilla, with a masculine name but choosing to appear as a gnome woman. This seeming discrepancy was the subject of fan debate, and occasional jokes from Blizzard, for a long time. Some players speculated that Chromie was transgender, others speculated that Chromie's parents just gave her a boy's name, or perhaps the gendered naming conventions of bronze dragons weren't as absolute as they seemed. Chromie has throughout World of Warcraft been the Bronze Dragonflight's primary representative to the players, so she's always been around in players' minds. In 2021, Steve Danuser decided to settle this debate by officially making Chromie a transwoman who kept her masculine birth name in a short story. This decision was controversial, and not just because of chuds. Some players asserted that Chromie had 'obviously' never been intended to be transgender, others held that it was a sign of contempt given how Blizzard had previously joked about Chromie's name occasionally with an undercurrent of mocking players who took the name thing too seriously. Other people, frankly, just wanted to stop hearing about dragons' sex lives and sexual politics.  World of Warcraft is, to my knowledge, the only MMO out there where an explicitly acknowledged transgender character plays an important role in the main story. That character is named Pelagos, and he appeared in the Shadowlands expansion. Shadowlands, for those unaware, was an expansion set purely in Warcraft's afterlife, and one of the first new characters players met is an aspiring young Kyrian (a fantasy Buddhist monk for current purposes of discussion) named Pelagos. Pelagos would, for the most part, not have been a remarkable character. In the wuxia flick parade that is the story of the Kyrians in Shadowlands, Pelagos is the young aspirant who has immense potential but is unsure of himself and frequently tries to tackle challenges he's not emotionally or spiritually ready for, leading other, more experienced characters to bail him out even as they commend his idealism and courage. Pelagos was a nice guy and played his part in the story competently enough, but his voice actor struggled to put emotion into his voice and the character in general just didn't go anywhere until he was abruptly made into the new judge of the dead at the end for no particular reason despite the entire story of Shadowlands seeming to build towards the idea that having a single judge of the dead was a bad idea. There's one detail, beyond his baffling part in Shadowlands' ending, that makes Pelagos a noteworthy character: in life, he had had a feminine body and identity, and according to him his life never felt quite right for reasons he lived his whole life never understanding. Then when he arrived in the Shadowlands after his death, his soul took on a male form that immediately felt right in ways he struggled to understand. Blizzard's first ever transgender character was here, and they even hired a trans man to voice Pelagos. He was a rather dull character, but he mattered significantly to the story, especially if the player sided with the Kyrians in Shadowlands. I am not transgender, so I do not feel qualified to discuss how well Pelagos was characterized and written as a transgender character, but I've heard both praise and criticism for Pelagos' writing. The praise I've heard has often talked about how he's portrayed as one of the most empathic, caring, and idealistic people in an afterlife that rubs an awful lot of real-world players the wrong way. Criticism I've heard usually addresses how Pelagos, as written, lived his entire life without understanding his gender identity and being affirmed for it.  This book has one last addition worth discussing in this post: another one of the short stories involved another transgender character, and this one tackled the concept of being transgender in a society with particularly rigid gender roles (the night elves). Honestly, speaking as an LGBT individual myself, despite all my problems with Blizzard, I recognize and appreciate that their franchises in general (well, the living ones, rest in peace Starcraft) and Warcraft in particular has seen a steady flourishing of LGBT representation over the past ten years. Almost every character I've listed here has been scrubbed for the Chinese client, of course, but them's the breaks. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 11:56
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Cythereal posted:
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Jun 3, 2022 12:20
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Yeah that line had me doing an immediate 
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Jun 3, 2022 12:26
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It may be worth noting that Pelagos, while indeed a solid dude, had the unfortunate problem of only being a notable character in one of the four semi-exclusive plotlines of the early Shadowlands expansion, meaning that for roughly ¾ of players, he — much like the gay night elf couple encountered by Night Fae players — was super forgettable at best and near-invisible at worst. Then blizzard decided to make him the new arbiter (basically a mail sorting machine but for souls), which set off a small firestorm between people confused as to who the heck he was, people happy at the prominent rep (but fairly confused at the selection), and, uh, the usual crowd of people incandescently furious at the temerity of queer people to exist.
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Jun 3, 2022 12:30
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DoubleNegative posted:Yeah that line had me doing an immediate  , but I won’t say any more because spoilers.
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Jun 3, 2022 12:40
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Jen X posted:It may be worth noting that Pelagos, while indeed a solid dude, had the unfortunate problem of only being a notable character in one of the four semi-exclusive plotlines of the early Shadowlands expansion, meaning that for roughly ¾ of players, he — much like the gay night elf couple encountered by Night Fae players — was super forgettable at best and near-invisible at worst. Yeah, my main was a Kyrian, and I was definitely happy about Pelagos getting the job, even though it's not quite clear why he was selected for it. I especially enjoyed that there was no huge advertising by Blizz, like "Look at us, we put this trans character into an important position, praise us!" Instead, they just added a trans character and made us (Kyrian players) get to know him pretty well, where we find out that he's trans. Then he's constantly around for out adventures, and gets made into one of the five most important people of the afterlife. I quite liked that. The Anduin/Wrathion thing is weird. The age thing is... difficult. That said, show a newcomer to WoW that BfA cutscene with Anduin punching Wrathion, and ask them whether they think Wrathion is an adult. Most would probably answer with yes. But I never understood why that ship is so overwhelmingly popular. That said, this sentence caught my eye: Cythereal posted:I'm serious. Last I checked the usual fanfic sites, Anduin/Wrathion was a more popular subject than every other Warcraft ship combined. Oh, and despite WoW constantly seeming poised to give Anduin an official [heterosexual] love interest - in a strange event both main candidates being the daughters of Anduin's other father figures - it's never quite happened, to the point that I'm not completely convinced that it's not intentional. Gasp! Saurfang has a daughter?? That the writers were about to pair Anduin with??? Joke aside, which two characters are we talking about? I assume Tess Greymane is one, who's the other one? To go back to the game itself, it's amazing how far the UI progressed between the three games. Taking the example of healing, in game one you have no hotkey to facilitate in any way, in game two you can create groups and use hotkeys to select the healing spell, and in game three you can have your priests heal units automatically. What a difference.
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Jun 3, 2022 12:48
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Cythereal posted:
Oh Oh no
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Jun 3, 2022 13:03
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Rarity posted:Oh GhostStalker posted:
DoubleNegative posted:Yeah that line had me doing an immediate girl dick energy posted:You weren't kidding when you said she'd be a disaster lesbian. My, my. Such reactions to Isidora considering the merits of a big titty goth gf. I'd actually vaguely planned for Isidora and Taria to find love, until one morning I had a thought while groggy and showering: I don't want this narrative timeline to be flat out better for everyone than the canon timeline, and Isidora is in my mind still supposed to be a bit of a fuckup and a very flawed character. Wait, I have an idea... Torrannor posted:Joke aside, which two characters are we talking about? I assume Tess Greymane is one, who's the other one? Taelia Fordragon.
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Jun 3, 2022 13:07
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Well, Countess Preston is a perky Goth, right? Those Goths are fun. [reads up on her at the Warcraft wiki] Oh dear. I’ll have more to say when the character is further discussed. But props for setting this up early and at a certain moment.
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Jun 3, 2022 14:21
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I just read the Reddit post and ffs Blizzard 
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Jun 3, 2022 14:47
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For me it kinda reads there's no homophobia or misogyny in Warcraft because they just didn't think it had to be explicit, given that reddit post it wasn't for a lack of belief jfc. Honestly there wasn't really a big push in LGTBI+ representation in media till the last decade. At the same time I'm surprised at having open trans representation of a character involved in the plot of a global MMO, given how homophobic countries usually lead to that stuff getting downplayed or censored (like how FFXIV calls its weddings "Eternal Bonding", or how (FFXIV Shadowbringer spoilers)Ryne and Gaia aren't explicitly a couple despite having a scene lifted from the Squall/Rinoa romance from FF8 ft. a giant rainbow crystal. Edit: Also lol at reading Katrana's wiki entry and the first line telling me how bad it's going to end for our protagonist.
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Jun 3, 2022 14:58
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GiantRockFromSpace posted:For me it kinda reads there's no homophobia or misogyny in Warcraft because they just didn't think it had to be explicit, given that reddit post it wasn't for a lack of belief jfc. Honestly there wasn't really a big push in LGTBI+ representation in media till the last decade. I get the strong impression that Blizzard isn't particularly unified about representation. The writers/artists seemed to take it pretty seriously, the community managers clearly didn't. It's also definitely retconned the way their societies were presented back in the time of this game - even in Warcraft 3 the night elves' warrior women were called out in-story as unusual, while nowadays WoW wants to present their world as being egalitarian at all levels (at least when it comes to real-life issues like gender). I don't think retconning that is a bad thing, mind. You're better off just discarding what a bunch of fantasy nerd dudes in the 90's wrote into the setting if it gets in the way of making something inclusive today.
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Jun 3, 2022 15:15
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What reddit post??
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Jun 3, 2022 17:25
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Cythereal posted:Let's address the elekk in the room first: homophobia and transphobia are rife in Blizzard's fanbases, especially World of Warcraft, and Blizzard as a company has often egged it on. There is a long, unhappy history of Blizzard encouraging homophobia and transphobia in the player base and condemning efforts by players to create safe spaces for LGBT players. Documenting all of this would be exhausting and make me very angry. And contrary to popular belief in some circles of SA, I do not in fact enjoy being mad all the time. Fortunately, someone else already compiled a sampler of many such incidents, click that link if you're interested. This one here, I assume. It's wild.
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Jun 3, 2022 17:35
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e:f;b
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Jun 3, 2022 17:36
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While not related to Blizzard or Warcraft, this discussion does remind me of a charming incident with KOTOR (and/or TOR) where one of the community managers thought they could nip this issue in the bud by simply proclaiming that non-het people don't exist in Star Wars. I'll let you take a guess at how that went over.
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Jun 3, 2022 18:46
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SirPhoebos posted:While not related to Blizzard or Warcraft, this discussion does remind me of a charming incident with KOTOR (and/or TOR) where one of the community managers thought they could nip this issue in the bud by simply proclaiming that non-het people don't exist in Star Wars. The sad thing is that that wasn't a community manager but a legit writer at Bioware, and what they said was that cultures in Star Wars don't have a concept of homosexuality or heterosexuality. Love is simply accepted as love in Star Wars, and gender is not an issue when it comes to love in society. Tenebrais posted:I get the strong impression that Blizzard isn't particularly unified about representation. The writers/artists seemed to take it pretty seriously, the community managers clearly didn't. This all accords with my impressions as well. I'm personally skeptical that we'll ever see a really big name character in Warcraft established as LGBT given that by all accounts the A-plots are consistently subjected to intense scrutiny by upper management committees, but I do think it's important to credit representation where it happens, and I actually think of WoW as far more LGBT friendly than its great rival for all that the community and managers thereof have a self-explanatory record.
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Jun 3, 2022 18:50
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I thought that had been old Georgie boy
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Jun 3, 2022 18:51
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I'm halfway into the Mists of Pandaria section of the Reddit posts about the drama sagas and...
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Jun 3, 2022 19:52
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girl dick energy posted:I'm halfway into the Mists of Pandaria section of the Reddit posts about the drama sagas and... May as well post a proper table of contents for all that if anyone's interested. Link is to a redditor who did a thorough review of all of World of Warcraft's strange dramas and controversies from vanilla through Shadowlands. Many of the strange lore bits, I will talk about in this thread in due time, but I generally won't touch on player-created drama. As for Isidora's prospective wife she talked about in this update? I made a conscious decision that I want Isidora to be a deeply flawed person, and for this new timeline to not be 'and then everything was perfect forever unlike the canon timeline that Blizzard made.' Isidora might be a gifted military leader, once she buckled down and started taking her responsibilities seriously, but she probably is not a great judge of character. And the utter dearth of female characters of a suitable age in the official lore meant either another OC or doing something unorthodox anyway.
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Jun 3, 2022 20:07
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On one hand, Jesus loving Christ Blizzard. on the other hand, I read up a bit about Big Titty Goth GF and Jesus Christ Cythereal.
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Jun 4, 2022 02:22
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Jen X posted:It may be worth noting that Pelagos, while indeed a solid dude, had the unfortunate problem of only being a notable character in one of the four semi-exclusive plotlines of the early Shadowlands expansion, meaning that for roughly ¾ of players, he — much like the gay night elf couple encountered by Night Fae players — was super forgettable at best and near-invisible at worst. Actually I don't recall there being anything specifying the former race(s?) of the Night Fae couple, certainly nothing tying them to Azeroth in life. And well, they certainly aren't Night elves now. EDIT: Started reading through that reddit megathread, and loving ow: quote:While we’re on the topic of books, we need to remember that Blizzard released a novel accompaniment to every expansion. Sometimes they were decent, and sometimes they were written by Richard A Knaak. Moktaro fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Jun 4, 2022 |
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Jun 4, 2022 02:29
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Moktaro posted:Actually I don't recall there being anything specifying the former race(s?) of the Night Fae couple, certainly nothing tying them to Azeroth in life. And well, they certainly aren't Night elves now. Not from azeroth, let alone night elves.
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Jun 4, 2022 04:02
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Fivemarks posted:on the other hand, I read up a bit about Big Titty Goth GF and Jesus Christ Cythereal. I just want to say, comments like this have been making my day.  Attempts to record Orc 6 early (because the first tropical storm of the season is inbound this weekend) have not.
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Jun 4, 2022 04:05
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Ah, good old death wagons
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Jun 4, 2022 08:29
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I thought the name Katrana Preston sounded familiar but it took me a while before I recalled who she was. While I only really remember one thing I feel it is quite important. At least Isidora won't be bored.
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Jun 4, 2022 11:38
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FoolyCharged posted:Ah, good old death wagons Don’t you mean catapults? [An Orc in a top hat glares at AN] Death wagons is correct. My bad! 
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Jun 4, 2022 11:48
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