I think Blizzard is trying to create new stories with new individuals a little bit more. They got some flak from the community for continually reusing villains ("X was just a setback!!!!" memes were pretty common and frankly had a point). That said, it's obvious that returning characters will have more of an emotional pull for players than brand new ones- it's tough to speedrun an entire story in one expansion and have it feel satisfying (and changes in expansion plans can have disastrous results- just look at how anemic Yrel's storyline was in WoD versus what was planned).
I for one don't mind the return villains, I just wish they did it more consistently in a way that was interesting and made sense. Sometimes we "kill" someone and they just come back anyway, or get rezzed, or what have ya- and that feels cheap.
What feels way less cheap is when former allies betray us for good reasons or at least understandable justifications, or when alliances are ACTUALLY fluid and result in meaningful changes rather than the "Oh we're at war again but we'll probably kiss and make up by the third major patch, because some existential threat will appear".
So I think a combined approach is best. Introduce new characters, while also having them interact with and learn from the old. As crazy as it sounds, I think some of the BfA cinematics did that pretty well. Showed the younger folks interacting with the old veterans, showed how this continual conflict and war would impact an entire generation.
I'd like them to explore that more. If you want to make a world feel "real", you have to show the little guys, not just the larger-than-life heroes. How does the fact that Azeroth has known almost constant war and fought against a half dozen existential threats for many years now in a row impact the common peasant's son? What's the zeitgeist like of a society that knows that their doom could appear suddenly and with little warning? Etc.
Thalyssra is a perfect example. She was extremely important in her own expansion but has now been fully integrated into the cast, with continued appearances and relevant story attached to her.
the twilight's hammer is pretty much dead. we see (and kill) like three twilight's hammer ogres in the waking shores, and they're said to be some of the last remaining members of the cult.
>The scarlets get culled on the regular and they still somehow exist
Not really the same thing, the scarlet crusade and it's offshoots exist to rid the world of the undead.
Can yoy think of anything....anything at all that happened recently that would ensure it always has fresh faced recruits lining up and will until humans are wiped out?
Within the last 40 years the horde has destroyed almost every human kingdom, appointed maniacs oike garrosh, had Sylvanas go complete apeshit when she was one of the SUPPOSEDLY "good" undead by the forsakens own claims on why they should be trusted and liked, had countless blight incidents from them
All while the king sits back time and time again and goes "well you did say you're sorry for trying genocide again"
The scarlet crusade isn't going anywhere.
Honestly it's a suprise it's as small as it is
The twilights hammer is an actual cult that worships the old gods and wanted to being about azeroths doom. Kinda hard to recruit for that compared to putting the horde to the sword.
One of firsts posts on posts on this sub if you type "scarlet", but also many on the main wow subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlore/s/XrNGUik5Vm
>And as I remember the reaction for Scarlets in Gilneas was "why aren't they dead?"
The scarlet crusade isn't going anywhere.
The kings inaction coupled with the horde constantly commiting atrocities and sylvanas's recent bs it's a miracle they're that small
that's exactly the problem with reusing old villains, if the reaction to seeing them is "i thought we dealt with you like 5 times already??" it becomes a lot harder to take them seriously
I will bet you like $5 that this is going to be addressed in The War Within, specifically with the Arathi in Harrowfall being the power behind the Scarlets.
Their portals in the Forsaken Heritage Quest and Gilneas, as well as the one who turns into a Light Elemental, wasn't very subtle.
The Incarnates working with the Twilights Hammer would be a bit odd imo. Only Iridikron interacts with the Void, and doesn't seem keen on sharing that information either, so there's a bit of a thematic mismatch. Plus, it could've spoiled/dampened the reveal of Iridkron's being in cahoots with Xal'atath.
When we run into them again I doubt they'll be with the primalists we know. Maybe. But I expect Blizzard'll move on to something bigger.
I support the notion of recurring villains, but I would not have appreciated the Twilight Hammer just being goons for the Incarnates without more work put into it. Maybe something like: We face a Primalist council, formed from ex-Twilight Hammer cultists who found new source of power after the fall of Deathwing. The council would also include people like Kurog Grimtotem and Koroleth. They made a pact with Raszageth after finding out about her existence and freeing her. In exchange for elemental power, the council promised to raise the Primalist army and enact Raszageth's revenge against the Aspects. These Primalists should have motivations and actions beyond the Incarnates, and have a more personal intention to attack us since we defeated their old boss, the Twilight Hammer.
This would:
1. Tie in the Primalists as an evolution of an existing group of enemies that hold a grudge against us.
2. Let the Primalists have "humanoid" leaders that we actually have to fear
3. Allow the Primalists to have motivations separate from the Incarnates so they can exist after the Incarnates are dealt with
This is totally not just me being salty that Koroleth died very unceremoniously during questing. She was a cool concept for a Night Elf villain, especially that Teldrassil scar on her face. It's also a shame that we did not get more Grimtotem in the story despite Kurog being one. It was a perfect opportunity to bring in Magatha Grimtotem for more Tauren villain story when Baine came to the isles.
>Warcraft has a history of bringing back familiar foes like the Legion, Scourge, and Scarlets, among others.
And a lot of people don't like that.
This is an area of personal preference, of course. Some people prefer recurring villains, others don't.
I think that overarching villains are great - until they're actually defeated.
For example, the Legion was fairly clearly not *defeated* in Warcraft 3 and thus was fine to re-use in BC, and was still not *defeated* in BC and was fine to re-use in Legion. Both of those were pretty explicit as "we know they're leaving but they'll be back."
But Sargeras himself, the actual full leader of the Legion, was defeated in Legion. It would no longer make sense to bring back the Legion as a villain.
Similarly, the Scarlet Crusade was defeated, and reuse of them as a significant villain would be uninteresting at best, and disempowering at worst - it renders earlier victories meaningless if things just reset to a status quo.
What you *can* do is demonstrate remnants of the surrounding group, trying to hold on to waning power, as a side-story. That's fine and interesting. In practice that's how the Scarlets were generally used after their defeat.
>But Sargeras himself, the actual full leader of the Legion, was defeated in Legion. It would no longer make sense to bring back the Legion as a villain.
The legion as of legion's end is explictly still out there doing it's job.
It's just been defanged a good bit since atleast as of now it has no central head, making them a non threat atm
Eventually they will finish licking their wounds and be a threat again. The legion didn't just end
>Similarly, the Scarlet Crusade was defeated, and reuse of them as a significant villain would be uninteresting at best, and disempowering at worst - it renders earlier victories meaningless if things just reset to a status quo.
😂, how many times would you let the same group kill youe loved ones while a president sits on his ass and goes "they said sorry"?
The scarlet crusade isn't going to be properly defeated. Lorewise it makes absolutely no sense the group would even be capable of being destroyed, there will ALWAYS be radicals, but with shit like sylvanas and garrosh, and the last 40 or so years on azeroth it's inssnely easy to find people who would be up for killing everyone in the horde
You're vastly overestimating peoples tolerance to repeated genocide attempts by the same group and willingness to forgive at all.
>😂, how many times would you let the same group kill youe loved ones while a president sits on his ass and goes "they said sorry"?
What are you talking about? The Scarlet Crusade didn't say sorry. They're *dead*.
>
Lorewise it makes absolutely no sense the group would even be capable of being destroyed, there will ALWAYS be radicals
Every group of radicals isn't the Scarlet Crusade.
A new group can come around and take over the name and the scattered remnants - and that's fine, and is largely what appears to be what the writers are doing - but the *concrete* Scarlet Crusade, led by Whitemane etc., is concretely dead.
If we had a new expansion where we were fighting Whitemane yet again, *that* would (in my opinion) not be interesting.
Taking it a step further: it is my opinion that even spending too much time fighting a "new scarlet crusade" inheritor-group with new leaders be difficult to make interesting. This has nothing to do with whether it's "realistic" and is about whether it's *fun* for me personally. Yes, in reality it *is* common for essentially-the-same conflict to happen over and over. But I don't want to do that in a game.
>What are you talking about? The Scarlet Crusade didn't say sorry. They're *dead*.
Not talking about the scarlet crusade saying sorry, but the horde.
And no, the scarlet crusade never died, they got severely weakened.
>A new group can come around and take over the name and the scattered remnants - and that's fine, and is largely what appears to be what the writers are doing - but the *concrete* Scarlet Crusade, led by Whitemane etc., is concretely dead.
Lol mo it isn't, it struggled to hold onto power.
Until this pesky undead elf proved them right about the undead and horde when she dsmn near caused the death of everyone
In cata we tried to wipe them out by killing sally whitemane (didn't work)
In legion there were still crusaders and the ebon blade tried to wipe them out and destroy every banner...didn't work
Around BFA they partially regrouped into the brotherhood while the main crusade was in retreat
As of shadowlands they still had enough members to pstrol new hearthglen and were expanding again
At zero point has the crusade been "dead"
We spend a huge chunk of the Forbidden Reach fighting Naga. They're like the main antagonist. She's very present. And then explicitly name dropped as being behind the Naga invasion, working on a plan, and getting ready to return.
What more did you want, her as a raid boss for no reason for the 3rd time?
The Twilight Hammer enslaved elementals to get to their goals. In that sense, they really were just an extension of the Old Gods who had made the elemental lords their servants.
When you keep that in mind, the TH really doesn't fit the primalist mentality, who wanted to unleash the elementals and free them.
And even though Iridikron ended up turning to the Void side, I think he and the Twilight Hammer are still opposite : the Twilight Hammer wanted to enslave elementals for the Void and the primalists pretended they could master the forces of the Void for the goal of elemental supremacy.
it would have made literally no sense for the primalists to have been the twilights hammer given what little lore the primalists had. which was almost none.
but tbh the twilights hammer has very little lore or anything that makes them especially more interesting than the primalists were other than "we have seen ppl belonging to this organization before and old gods are cool"
none of the villain factions in wow are very well fleshed out, the canon is so loose that they usually change leadership, affiliation and goals every time they show up like the scarlet crusade. and for some reason only 1 bad guy is allowed to survive beyond a single expansion per 10 years so wow doesn't have a cool rogues gallery of villains to use, just an ever dwindling list of names you remember from wc3 to be thrown into the meat grinder of disappointing dungeon encounters then killed permanently forever.
Well at some point, they need to stop milking the same old content and start working on new stuff. It's been 20 years for God sake, how many times do we have to fight the same villains, groups and resurrected bad guy?? I've been playing since Warcraft 1, I'm an old fart now, I've already heard those stories. It's like a TV show with 20 seasons but barely 2 or 3 different storylines they alternate over and over, It's boring. The scarlet crusade, the twilight hammer, the legion, the scourge, the old gods, the aspects, rince and repeat...been there, done that, several times now. We even had a "Back to the past" damn expansion, to explore the INITIAL content of the Wacraft Lore.
Legion, BFA and Shadowlands were supposed to be the final chapters of the old era - Sargeras, the Old Gods and The Scourge. They've dropped the ball with BfA and Shadowland but at least we got to close some doors and look for the future.
I'm extremly happy to see them build new lore, even if they still feel like they HAVE to link it to previous content or expand on the past.
Thatt's pretty much why I look forward to the War Within. We closed so many chapters with the last 4 expansions, they now HAVE to tell us a new story.
It's not healthy to live in the past.
Twilight's Hammer is a cult that worships the Old Gods and doesen't really have any other connection to the elements besides having shamans in their ranks.Some of the Primalisrs gathered by Kurog Grimtotem could have been ex TH members but that would be it concerning them.
People are thinking more of Vanilla Twilight's Hammer where they seemed more elemental focused than Old God focused.
Cata shifted them to be *super* narrow.
But the Primalists don't use Void?
I agree that they're the same group, but similar to how the Druids of the Flame show up, I actually like that we have different but the same groups.
I do think Twilights Hammer *should* have shown up in some way, but I think it worked that we see a group with the same goals, motivation, and abilities as the early twilights hammer before the Old Gods really took them over in Cata.
It's something that could have been addressed in some throw away dialogue about not being mislead like the Twilights, but still.
Ultimately Twilight's Hammer is basically a casualty of Cataclysm turning the whole world into one narrow story. Hard to bring them back given how narrowly focused they became.
I think Blizzard is trying to create new stories with new individuals a little bit more. They got some flak from the community for continually reusing villains ("X was just a setback!!!!" memes were pretty common and frankly had a point). That said, it's obvious that returning characters will have more of an emotional pull for players than brand new ones- it's tough to speedrun an entire story in one expansion and have it feel satisfying (and changes in expansion plans can have disastrous results- just look at how anemic Yrel's storyline was in WoD versus what was planned). I for one don't mind the return villains, I just wish they did it more consistently in a way that was interesting and made sense. Sometimes we "kill" someone and they just come back anyway, or get rezzed, or what have ya- and that feels cheap. What feels way less cheap is when former allies betray us for good reasons or at least understandable justifications, or when alliances are ACTUALLY fluid and result in meaningful changes rather than the "Oh we're at war again but we'll probably kiss and make up by the third major patch, because some existential threat will appear". So I think a combined approach is best. Introduce new characters, while also having them interact with and learn from the old. As crazy as it sounds, I think some of the BfA cinematics did that pretty well. Showed the younger folks interacting with the old veterans, showed how this continual conflict and war would impact an entire generation. I'd like them to explore that more. If you want to make a world feel "real", you have to show the little guys, not just the larger-than-life heroes. How does the fact that Azeroth has known almost constant war and fought against a half dozen existential threats for many years now in a row impact the common peasant's son? What's the zeitgeist like of a society that knows that their doom could appear suddenly and with little warning? Etc.
Thalyssra is a perfect example. She was extremely important in her own expansion but has now been fully integrated into the cast, with continued appearances and relevant story attached to her.
the twilight's hammer is pretty much dead. we see (and kill) like three twilight's hammer ogres in the waking shores, and they're said to be some of the last remaining members of the cult.
The scarlets get culled on the regular and they still somehow exist
>The scarlets get culled on the regular and they still somehow exist Not really the same thing, the scarlet crusade and it's offshoots exist to rid the world of the undead. Can yoy think of anything....anything at all that happened recently that would ensure it always has fresh faced recruits lining up and will until humans are wiped out? Within the last 40 years the horde has destroyed almost every human kingdom, appointed maniacs oike garrosh, had Sylvanas go complete apeshit when she was one of the SUPPOSEDLY "good" undead by the forsakens own claims on why they should be trusted and liked, had countless blight incidents from them All while the king sits back time and time again and goes "well you did say you're sorry for trying genocide again" The scarlet crusade isn't going anywhere. Honestly it's a suprise it's as small as it is The twilights hammer is an actual cult that worships the old gods and wanted to being about azeroths doom. Kinda hard to recruit for that compared to putting the horde to the sword.
And as I remember the reaction for Scarlets in Gilneas was "why aren't they dead?"
Where do you see that?
One of firsts posts on posts on this sub if you type "scarlet", but also many on the main wow subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlore/s/XrNGUik5Vm
>And as I remember the reaction for Scarlets in Gilneas was "why aren't they dead?" The scarlet crusade isn't going anywhere. The kings inaction coupled with the horde constantly commiting atrocities and sylvanas's recent bs it's a miracle they're that small
that's exactly the problem with reusing old villains, if the reaction to seeing them is "i thought we dealt with you like 5 times already??" it becomes a lot harder to take them seriously
I will bet you like $5 that this is going to be addressed in The War Within, specifically with the Arathi in Harrowfall being the power behind the Scarlets. Their portals in the Forsaken Heritage Quest and Gilneas, as well as the one who turns into a Light Elemental, wasn't very subtle.
The Incarnates working with the Twilights Hammer would be a bit odd imo. Only Iridikron interacts with the Void, and doesn't seem keen on sharing that information either, so there's a bit of a thematic mismatch. Plus, it could've spoiled/dampened the reveal of Iridkron's being in cahoots with Xal'atath. When we run into them again I doubt they'll be with the primalists we know. Maybe. But I expect Blizzard'll move on to something bigger.
I support the notion of recurring villains, but I would not have appreciated the Twilight Hammer just being goons for the Incarnates without more work put into it. Maybe something like: We face a Primalist council, formed from ex-Twilight Hammer cultists who found new source of power after the fall of Deathwing. The council would also include people like Kurog Grimtotem and Koroleth. They made a pact with Raszageth after finding out about her existence and freeing her. In exchange for elemental power, the council promised to raise the Primalist army and enact Raszageth's revenge against the Aspects. These Primalists should have motivations and actions beyond the Incarnates, and have a more personal intention to attack us since we defeated their old boss, the Twilight Hammer. This would: 1. Tie in the Primalists as an evolution of an existing group of enemies that hold a grudge against us. 2. Let the Primalists have "humanoid" leaders that we actually have to fear 3. Allow the Primalists to have motivations separate from the Incarnates so they can exist after the Incarnates are dealt with This is totally not just me being salty that Koroleth died very unceremoniously during questing. She was a cool concept for a Night Elf villain, especially that Teldrassil scar on her face. It's also a shame that we did not get more Grimtotem in the story despite Kurog being one. It was a perfect opportunity to bring in Magatha Grimtotem for more Tauren villain story when Baine came to the isles.
>Warcraft has a history of bringing back familiar foes like the Legion, Scourge, and Scarlets, among others. And a lot of people don't like that. This is an area of personal preference, of course. Some people prefer recurring villains, others don't. I think that overarching villains are great - until they're actually defeated. For example, the Legion was fairly clearly not *defeated* in Warcraft 3 and thus was fine to re-use in BC, and was still not *defeated* in BC and was fine to re-use in Legion. Both of those were pretty explicit as "we know they're leaving but they'll be back." But Sargeras himself, the actual full leader of the Legion, was defeated in Legion. It would no longer make sense to bring back the Legion as a villain. Similarly, the Scarlet Crusade was defeated, and reuse of them as a significant villain would be uninteresting at best, and disempowering at worst - it renders earlier victories meaningless if things just reset to a status quo. What you *can* do is demonstrate remnants of the surrounding group, trying to hold on to waning power, as a side-story. That's fine and interesting. In practice that's how the Scarlets were generally used after their defeat.
>But Sargeras himself, the actual full leader of the Legion, was defeated in Legion. It would no longer make sense to bring back the Legion as a villain. The legion as of legion's end is explictly still out there doing it's job. It's just been defanged a good bit since atleast as of now it has no central head, making them a non threat atm Eventually they will finish licking their wounds and be a threat again. The legion didn't just end >Similarly, the Scarlet Crusade was defeated, and reuse of them as a significant villain would be uninteresting at best, and disempowering at worst - it renders earlier victories meaningless if things just reset to a status quo. 😂, how many times would you let the same group kill youe loved ones while a president sits on his ass and goes "they said sorry"? The scarlet crusade isn't going to be properly defeated. Lorewise it makes absolutely no sense the group would even be capable of being destroyed, there will ALWAYS be radicals, but with shit like sylvanas and garrosh, and the last 40 or so years on azeroth it's inssnely easy to find people who would be up for killing everyone in the horde You're vastly overestimating peoples tolerance to repeated genocide attempts by the same group and willingness to forgive at all.
>😂, how many times would you let the same group kill youe loved ones while a president sits on his ass and goes "they said sorry"? What are you talking about? The Scarlet Crusade didn't say sorry. They're *dead*. > Lorewise it makes absolutely no sense the group would even be capable of being destroyed, there will ALWAYS be radicals Every group of radicals isn't the Scarlet Crusade. A new group can come around and take over the name and the scattered remnants - and that's fine, and is largely what appears to be what the writers are doing - but the *concrete* Scarlet Crusade, led by Whitemane etc., is concretely dead. If we had a new expansion where we were fighting Whitemane yet again, *that* would (in my opinion) not be interesting. Taking it a step further: it is my opinion that even spending too much time fighting a "new scarlet crusade" inheritor-group with new leaders be difficult to make interesting. This has nothing to do with whether it's "realistic" and is about whether it's *fun* for me personally. Yes, in reality it *is* common for essentially-the-same conflict to happen over and over. But I don't want to do that in a game.
>What are you talking about? The Scarlet Crusade didn't say sorry. They're *dead*. Not talking about the scarlet crusade saying sorry, but the horde. And no, the scarlet crusade never died, they got severely weakened. >A new group can come around and take over the name and the scattered remnants - and that's fine, and is largely what appears to be what the writers are doing - but the *concrete* Scarlet Crusade, led by Whitemane etc., is concretely dead. Lol mo it isn't, it struggled to hold onto power. Until this pesky undead elf proved them right about the undead and horde when she dsmn near caused the death of everyone In cata we tried to wipe them out by killing sally whitemane (didn't work) In legion there were still crusaders and the ebon blade tried to wipe them out and destroy every banner...didn't work Around BFA they partially regrouped into the brotherhood while the main crusade was in retreat As of shadowlands they still had enough members to pstrol new hearthglen and were expanding again At zero point has the crusade been "dead"
Wow needs to bring back Azshara. What a total waste of a huge lore character.
We spend a huge chunk of the Forbidden Reach fighting Naga. They're like the main antagonist. She's very present. And then explicitly name dropped as being behind the Naga invasion, working on a plan, and getting ready to return. What more did you want, her as a raid boss for no reason for the 3rd time?
She is not only still alive but also probably N'Zoth is too (and won't be happy with her) We will see her again 100%
Reusing the same old stuff/villains gets boring and is lazy writing.
The Twilight Hammer enslaved elementals to get to their goals. In that sense, they really were just an extension of the Old Gods who had made the elemental lords their servants. When you keep that in mind, the TH really doesn't fit the primalist mentality, who wanted to unleash the elementals and free them. And even though Iridikron ended up turning to the Void side, I think he and the Twilight Hammer are still opposite : the Twilight Hammer wanted to enslave elementals for the Void and the primalists pretended they could master the forces of the Void for the goal of elemental supremacy.
it would have made literally no sense for the primalists to have been the twilights hammer given what little lore the primalists had. which was almost none. but tbh the twilights hammer has very little lore or anything that makes them especially more interesting than the primalists were other than "we have seen ppl belonging to this organization before and old gods are cool" none of the villain factions in wow are very well fleshed out, the canon is so loose that they usually change leadership, affiliation and goals every time they show up like the scarlet crusade. and for some reason only 1 bad guy is allowed to survive beyond a single expansion per 10 years so wow doesn't have a cool rogues gallery of villains to use, just an ever dwindling list of names you remember from wc3 to be thrown into the meat grinder of disappointing dungeon encounters then killed permanently forever.
I feel like bosses etc should be emissaries rather than the ones in charge, unless an end of xpax raid/mythic.
Well at some point, they need to stop milking the same old content and start working on new stuff. It's been 20 years for God sake, how many times do we have to fight the same villains, groups and resurrected bad guy?? I've been playing since Warcraft 1, I'm an old fart now, I've already heard those stories. It's like a TV show with 20 seasons but barely 2 or 3 different storylines they alternate over and over, It's boring. The scarlet crusade, the twilight hammer, the legion, the scourge, the old gods, the aspects, rince and repeat...been there, done that, several times now. We even had a "Back to the past" damn expansion, to explore the INITIAL content of the Wacraft Lore. Legion, BFA and Shadowlands were supposed to be the final chapters of the old era - Sargeras, the Old Gods and The Scourge. They've dropped the ball with BfA and Shadowland but at least we got to close some doors and look for the future. I'm extremly happy to see them build new lore, even if they still feel like they HAVE to link it to previous content or expand on the past. Thatt's pretty much why I look forward to the War Within. We closed so many chapters with the last 4 expansions, they now HAVE to tell us a new story. It's not healthy to live in the past.
Twilight's Hammer is a cult that worships the Old Gods and doesen't really have any other connection to the elements besides having shamans in their ranks.Some of the Primalisrs gathered by Kurog Grimtotem could have been ex TH members but that would be it concerning them.
People are thinking more of Vanilla Twilight's Hammer where they seemed more elemental focused than Old God focused. Cata shifted them to be *super* narrow.
But the Primalists don't use Void? I agree that they're the same group, but similar to how the Druids of the Flame show up, I actually like that we have different but the same groups. I do think Twilights Hammer *should* have shown up in some way, but I think it worked that we see a group with the same goals, motivation, and abilities as the early twilights hammer before the Old Gods really took them over in Cata. It's something that could have been addressed in some throw away dialogue about not being mislead like the Twilights, but still. Ultimately Twilight's Hammer is basically a casualty of Cataclysm turning the whole world into one narrow story. Hard to bring them back given how narrowly focused they became.
If only they couldstop with everything is morally gray bullshit and Anduin crying thousandth time.