[HotS] Lore of the Nexus: Yrel's Redemption Text by TL.net ESPORTS



Lore of the Nexus

The Redemption of Yrel



Written by: Midseasons



Table of Contents

Informed Attributes



Pacing and Development



The Draenor Problem



Conclusion



Can Heroes of the Storm give a character new life? The game features beloved characters from Blizzard’s decades-long history, but the arrival of Yrel into the Nexus has raised some eyebrows. A new addition to the Warcraft universe, Yrel was introduced in 2014 as a central character of the much-maligned Warlords of Draenor expansion. Among the World of Warcraft community, Yrel is a controversial figure; she has her fans, certainly, but she’s inseparable from a campaign many would rather forget.



So her inclusion in the game at all is an interesting decision, but what’s even more intriguing is that Yrel is the first new hero to arrive since Blizzard began their “lore of the Nexus” initiative in May. The Heroes of the Storm team is committed to exploring the story-telling opportunities of the game, and out of the hundreds of possible characters that could have spearheaded this initiative, they chose Yrel. It’s a bold move—and a brilliant one—because it shows the team understands what the Nexus can add to the rest of the Blizzard multiverse. Heroes of the Storm isn’t limited to nostalgic celebration, it’s also a game where characters have a fresh shot at connecting with an audience. Yrel has come to the Nexus to pay back her debt to the Alliance, and the Nexus might just end up saving Yrel too.







This isn’t the the first time that Heroes of the Storm has given a second chance to a misfit character either. Given how expansive Blizzard’s lore is, it’s impossible for every story to land with the audience, but the more we learn about the Nexus, the more we see it has an intelligence all of its own and that it has always been adept at choosing its heroes at their most iconic moments.



Over the course of World of Warcraft, popular figures like Thrall, Jaina, Tyrande, and Illidan have all been involved in stories that were less than well-received. Heroes of the Storm’s answer was to roll those characters back to their more familiar and beloved Warcraft 3 incarnations to satisfy both the frustrated WoW players and the WC3 veterans who never got into the MMO.



Outside of Warcraft, Azmodan is another example of a character who was rescued by the Nexus. Diablo 3 tried to present Azmodan as a feared General of Hell, but that portrayal fell flat for most players. The story built Azmodan up to be a threat, but few actually found him intimidating, making his entire chapter regarded as an anti-climactic time sink before the arrival of Diablo. In Heroes of the Storm, Azmodan has certainly had his triumphs and failures, falling in and out of the meta over the years. But Heroes of the Storm gave Azmodan something Diablo 3 never did: a fanbase. There have been times when Azmodan has been a power pick and times when he’s been a meme. But wherever Azmodan lies in the range of buffs and nerfs, he’s become a recognized icon throughout the Heroes of the Storm community, even becoming the mascot for Heroes of the Dorm.



So redeeming characters is nothing new for Heroes of the Storm, but Yrel represents a new level of challenge. There’s no nostalgic version of her to return to, so she’s forced to stand as her most recent (and only) incarnation. More than that, the challenges to accepting Yrel are bigger than a single character.







Yrel’s individual storyline appealed to some players and alienated others, but for better or worse, she was part of an overarching story that the community wasn’t interested in hearing. The problems with Yrel’s storyline was never Yrel herself, but the mediocre Warlords campaign as a whole. Even if Yrel didn’t exist at all, Warlords of Draenor would still have been hated. Even more painful for Yrel, the response to the Warlords story was so poor Blizzard abandoned it midway, quickly shoveling out a hasty plot twist in a new patch and then moving on to a new story instead. This left Yrel herself completely stranded as a character, with a plot that was never resolved and a build-up that was never satisfied.



The deck is stacked against Yrel, but the situation isn’t dire. Heroes of the Storm can be a fresh start for the character, and the team at Blizzard has good reason to be confident in her. Many of the problems that Yrel’s story faced are solved by the game’s format. Let’s talk about three of those, specifically, and see how Heroes of the Storm rescues Yrel from obscurity.





Informed Attributes



There are many ways bad writing can weaken a character, but informed attributes can be the fastest road to rejection. If the audience don’t believe in the character’s personal traits, they can’t invest in the arc either. In Diablo 3, other characters constantly describe Azmodan as a brilliant tactician and strategist, but Azmodan himself never demonstrates any of that alleged brilliance. It’s a violation of one of writing’s most basic principles “show, don’t tell,” and it’s an easy pitfall for quest-driven narrative games like Diablo or WoW.



Heroes of the Storm doesn’t have this problem. MOBA characters, by their inherent design, put direct control of their attributes in the hands of the player. Rather than being told narratively that Azmodan is supposed to be a general, a player controlling Azmodan is given the tools to become one. A solid hero design will infuse the character’s personality and style into their abilities, immersing the player in the avatar. And this is something the HotS team has proven they can do very well. Players don’t need to be told that Garrosh is aggressive or that Johanna is courageous, that Lúcio prefers to be close to his team or that Murky is persistently annoying. They play out those traits directly and gravitate towards heroes who fit their own mindset as players.



Throughout Yrel’s story arc in Warlords of Draenor, other draenei expressed their confidence in her ability to inspire, lead, and become a bastion of the Light. In Heroes of the Storm, players controlling Yrel get to bring those traits to life. If Yrel’s hero design is successful, then players won’t need to be told that Yrel is a badass. Her kit will speak for itself and empower the player to feel like a badass playing her.





Pacing and Development



When WoW players first met Yrel, she was a young and untrained woman, shaken by her very first combat experience. Over the next few zones, she is brought forcefully into a leadership role before she’s prepared but rises to the occasion after finding her will to fight. By the end, she’s uniting her people like no leader ever has before. It’s a standard coming of age tale, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it—except that the whole plot can be done in just a handful of hours, and depending on the player’s preferred game modes, whole sections of the story can be skipped or seen out of order.



Role-playing games can deliver satisfying character arcs, but the flow of time between quests can easily become vague. MMO games have it even worse, as players are frequently left wondering how much time passes in the game’s story between zones or balance patches. The vagueness of Yrel’s time frame, coupled with the individual pace each player would experience her quests, makes it a daunting task for WoW’s story to convey Yrel’s development in a believable way.



But heroes in a MOBA don’t have to deal with character arcs at all. The nature of the genre makes each single match an isolated event of gameplay, with no continuity for the heroes in between matches. Being placed on the red side in one Towers of Doom game has no impact on your next Cursed Hollow skirmish, and there’s no plot significance to the forts in Blackheart’s Bay being destroyed over and over again every day. There’s no need for a story that develops your hero as a person over the course of level 1 to 20, because that story would simply be reset when the match ended and the next one began. MOBA heroes can have extensive backstories, carry pre-existing relationships with other characters, and brim with personality, but once the game is launched they represent frozen moments in time.



This phenomenon makes the Nexus a land of rich opportunity. Heroes present themselves to the player as fully realized figures distilled to their purest essence and are judged solely on the qualities they express. Heroes of the Storm isn’t affected by the current storylines of heroes like Tyrael or Jaina, nor does it need to concern itself with what might happen to those characters in future expansions. The only important thing in the Nexus is the unchanging essence of those heroes, the elements that remain constant about them even across alternate timelines and reinterpretations.







Looking back to Yrel, it’s clear that the HotS team decided that her essence doesn’t lie in her storyline’s journey, but in who she became at the end of it. The Yrel portrayed in the Nexus shows her fully embracing her role as Exarch. She is smiling, bold, confident, secure in her faith, and she doesn’t hesitate to wield her powers for her allies and against her enemies. This Yrel didn’t have room to be explored in Warlords of Draenor, but the Nexus gives her an entirely new game in which to live, breathe, and stretch her wings. Whatever unsatisfying storylines might involve Yrel, past or future, the HotS team has made it clear that this is the vision of Yrel that matters to Blizzard. And as she becomes a fixture within Heroes of the Storm, it will be the version of Yrel that is constantly reinforced and presented daily to the community.





The Draenor Problem



One of the biggest obstacles to Yrel’s acceptance is her connection to Warlords of Draenor itself. The WoW community responded to Warlords with



WoW’s next expansion, Battle for Azeroth, is releasing in a few short months, and fans watching the expansion’s news noticed that details from the Draenor campaign diverged from the story that had actually been portrayed in Warlords. This came to a head when Blizzard added Draenor’s orcs to the Warlords was scrapped in the rush to push out the new expansion, and now Battle for Azeroth implies that the the story we did experience didn't happen either.



While the expansion hasn’t been explicitly declared non-canonical, the current direction of the lore is pushing what happened further and further under a rug. This new version of the Mag’har history also means that Yrel’s entire storyline couldn’t have happened either.





...Yeah, it didn’t go like that.



Whether intentional or not, bringing Yrel into the Nexus pushes Warlords into even more irrelevance. With the expansion’s original story being disowned by Blizzard, Yrel becomes a figure without a clear history. Heroes of the Storm fills her blank slate, especially since many HotS players were never familiar with Warlords of Draenor in the first place. Without that baggage, Yrel can be portrayed the way Blizzard intends her to be remembered, virtually making her a new character. If that gambit is successful, it helps both Blizzard and the community act like Warlords of Draenor never happened.









The Nexus has opened its arms and accepted characters that were rejected by their original games since the beginning, but Yrel represents a larger challenge than most as a gambit with potentially great rewards. If Heroes of the Storm can successfully rehabilitate Yrel’s reputation, it benefits all parties involved. It would prove to Blizzard that the Nexus can handle risky characters and expand the range of possible stories and worlds the HotS team could create. That’s still an if, though. Only time will tell whether the community embraces Yrel as a new fixture, or if her light will simply burn out.











Fern “Midseasons” Rojas writes (and fights!) for the Alliance. Fern’s garrison back in Shadowmoon Valley is still decorated for Winter Veil all year long. Both Alliance and Horde are welcome to follow Fern and watch together to see how Yrel develops, though.







Cangive a character new life? The game features beloved characters from Blizzard’s decades-long history, but the arrival of Yrel into the Nexus has raised some eyebrows. A new addition to theuniverse, Yrel was introduced in 2014 as a central character of the much-malignedexpansion. Among thecommunity, Yrel is a controversial figure; she has her fans, certainly, but she’s inseparable from a campaign many would rather forget.So her inclusion in the game at all is an interesting decision, but what’s even more intriguing is that Yrel is the first new hero to arrive since Blizzard began their “lore of the Nexus” initiative in May. Theteam is committed to exploring the story-telling opportunities of the game, and out of the hundreds of possible characters that could have spearheaded this initiative, they chose Yrel. It’s a bold move—and a brilliant one—because it shows the team understands what the Nexus can add to the rest of the Blizzard multiverse.isn’t limited to nostalgic celebration, it’s also a game where characters have a fresh shot at connecting with an audience. Yrel has come to the Nexus to pay back her debt to the Alliance, and the Nexus might just end up saving Yrel too.This isn’t the the first time thathas given a second chance to a misfit character either. Given how expansive Blizzard’s lore is, it’s impossible for every story to land with the audience, but the more we learn about the Nexus, the more we see it has an intelligence all of its own and that it has always been adept at choosing its heroes at their most iconic moments.Over the course of, popular figures like Thrall, Jaina, Tyrande, and Illidan have all been involved in stories that were less than well-received.’s answer was to roll those characters back to their more familiar and belovedincarnations to satisfy both the frustratedplayers and theveterans who never got into the MMO.Outside of, Azmodan is another example of a character who was rescued by the Nexus.tried to present Azmodan as a feared General of Hell, but that portrayal fell flat for most players. The story built Azmodan up to be a threat, but few actually found him intimidating, making his entire chapter regarded as an anti-climactic time sink before the arrival of Diablo. In, Azmodan has certainly had his triumphs and failures, falling in and out of the meta over the years. Butgave Azmodan something Diablo 3 never did: a fanbase. There have been times when Azmodan has been a power pick and times when he’s been a meme. But wherever Azmodan lies in the range of buffs and nerfs, he’s become a recognized icon throughout thecommunity, even becoming the mascot for Heroes of the Dorm.So redeeming characters is nothing new for, but Yrel represents a new level of challenge. There’s no nostalgic version of her to return to, so she’s forced to stand as her most recent (and only) incarnation. More than that, the challenges to accepting Yrel are bigger than a single character.Yrel’s individual storyline appealed to some players and alienated others, but for better or worse, she was part of an overarching story that the community wasn’t interested in hearing. The problems with Yrel’s storyline was never Yrel herself, but the mediocrecampaign as a whole. Even if Yrel didn’t exist at all,would still have been hated. Even more painful for Yrel, the response to thestory was so poor Blizzard abandoned it midway, quickly shoveling out a hasty plot twist in a new patch and then moving on to a new story instead. This left Yrel herself completely stranded as a character, with a plot that was never resolved and a build-up that was never satisfied.The deck is stacked against Yrel, but the situation isn’t dire.can be a fresh start for the character, and the team at Blizzard has good reason to be confident in her. Many of the problems that Yrel’s story faced are solved by the game’s format. Let’s talk about three of those, specifically, and see howrescues Yrel from obscurity.There are many ways bad writing can weaken a character, but informed attributes can be the fastest road to rejection. If the audience don’t believe in the character’s personal traits, they can’t invest in the arc either. In Diablo 3, other characters constantly describe Azmodan as a brilliant tactician and strategist, but Azmodan himself never demonstrates any of that alleged brilliance. It’s a violation of one of writing’s most basic principles “show, don’t tell,” and it’s an easy pitfall for quest-driven narrative games like Diablo or WoW.doesn’t have this problem. MOBA characters, by their inherent design, put direct control of their attributes in the hands of the player. Rather than being told narratively that Azmodan is supposed to be a general, a player controlling Azmodan is given the tools to become one. A solid hero design will infuse the character’s personality and style into their abilities, immersing the player in the avatar. And this is something theteam has proven they can do very well. Players don’t need to be told that Garrosh is aggressive or that Johanna is courageous, that Lúcio prefers to be close to his team or that Murky is persistently annoying. They play out those traits directly and gravitate towards heroes who fit their own mindset as players.Throughout Yrel’s story arc in, other draenei expressed their confidence in her ability to inspire, lead, and become a bastion of the Light. In, players controlling Yrel get to bring those traits to life. If Yrel’s hero design is successful, then players won’t need to be told that Yrel is a badass. Her kit will speak for itself and empower the player to feel like a badass playing her.Whenplayers first met Yrel, she was a young and untrained woman, shaken by her very first combat experience. Over the next few zones, she is brought forcefully into a leadership role before she’s prepared but rises to the occasion after finding her will to fight. By the end, she’s uniting her people like no leader ever has before. It’s a standard coming of age tale, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it—except that the whole plot can be done in just a handful of hours, and depending on the player’s preferred game modes, whole sections of the story can be skipped or seen out of order.Role-playing games can deliver satisfying character arcs, but the flow of time between quests can easily become vague. MMO games have it even worse, as players are frequently left wondering how much time passes in the game’s story between zones or balance patches. The vagueness of Yrel’s time frame, coupled with the individual pace each player would experience her quests, makes it a daunting task for WoW’s story to convey Yrel’s development in a believable way.But heroes in a MOBA don’t have to deal with character arcs at all. The nature of the genre makes each single match an isolated event of gameplay, with no continuity for the heroes in between matches. Being placed on the red side in one Towers of Doom game has no impact on your next Cursed Hollow skirmish, and there’s no plot significance to the forts in Blackheart’s Bay being destroyed over and over again every day. There’s no need for a story that develops your hero as a person over the course of level 1 to 20, because that story would simply be reset when the match ended and the next one began. MOBA heroes can have extensive backstories, carry pre-existing relationships with other characters, and brim with personality, but once the game is launched they represent frozen moments in time.This phenomenon makes the Nexus a land of rich opportunity. Heroes present themselves to the player as fully realized figures distilled to their purest essence and are judged solely on the qualities they express.isn’t affected by the current storylines of heroes like Tyrael or Jaina, nor does it need to concern itself with what might happen to those characters in future expansions. The only important thing in the Nexus is the unchanging essence of those heroes, the elements that remain constant about them even across alternate timelines and reinterpretations.Looking back to Yrel, it’s clear that theteam decided that her essence doesn’t lie in her storyline’s journey, but in who she became at the end of it. The Yrel portrayed in the Nexus shows her fully embracing her role as Exarch. She is smiling, bold, confident, secure in her faith, and she doesn’t hesitate to wield her powers for her allies and against her enemies. This Yrel didn’t have room to be explored in, but the Nexus gives her an entirely new game in which to live, breathe, and stretch her wings. Whatever unsatisfying storylines might involve Yrel, past or future, theteam has made it clear that this is the vision of Yrel that matters to Blizzard. And as she becomes a fixture within, it will be the version of Yrel that is constantly reinforced and presented daily to the community.One of the biggest obstacles to Yrel’s acceptance is her connection toitself. Thecommunity responded towith the sharpest decline of subscriptions in the game’s history , so the expansion’s failure is one that both sides would rather forget, and it seems Blizzard is happy to help that forgetfulness along.WoW’s next expansion,, is releasing in a few short months, and fans watching the expansion’s news noticed that details from the Draenor campaign diverged from the story that had actually been portrayed in. This came to a head when Blizzard added Draenor’s orcs to the Battle for Azeroth preview site and confirmed them as a playable race, and the official Blizzard summary of their history—while brief—presents a total retcon of the events. The original plot ofwas scrapped in the rush to push out the new expansion, and nowimplies that the the story we did experience didn't happen either.While the expansion hasn’t been explicitly declared non-canonical, the current direction of the lore is pushing what happened further and further under a rug. This new version of the Mag’har history also means that Yrel’s entire storyline couldn’t have happened either.Whether intentional or not, bringing Yrel into the Nexus pushesinto even more irrelevance. With the expansion’s original story being disowned by Blizzard, Yrel becomes a figure without a clear history.fills her blank slate, especially since manyplayers were never familiar within the first place. Without that baggage, Yrel can be portrayed the way Blizzard intends her to be remembered, virtually making her a new character. If that gambit is successful, it helps both Blizzard and the community act likenever happened.The Nexus has opened its arms and accepted characters that were rejected by their original games since the beginning, but Yrel represents a larger challenge than most as a gambit with potentially great rewards. Ifcan successfully rehabilitate Yrel’s reputation, it benefits all parties involved. It would prove to Blizzard that the Nexus can handle risky characters and expand the range of possible stories and worlds theteam could create. That’s still an if, though. Only time will tell whether the community embraces Yrel as a new fixture, or if her light will simply burn out.



TheDougler Profile Joined April 2010 Canada 8173 Posts #3 I'm out of the loop on WoW lore since Mists of Pandaria. What's the deal with the Yrel retcon? I root for Euro Zergs, NA Protoss* and Korean Terrans. (Any North American who has beat a Korean Pro as Protoss counts as NA Toss)

Amestir Profile Blog Joined May 2010 Netherlands 2124 Posts Last Edited: 2018-06-21 18:44:25 #4 Nice article, fun to read something different. We know nothing.

Midseasons Profile Joined February 2017 United States 48 Posts #5 On June 22 2018 01:43 TheDougler wrote:

I'm out of the loop on WoW lore since Mists of Pandaria. What's the deal with the Yrel retcon?



Okay, SO.



In Warlords of Draenor, Garrosh went back in time and united the orc clans with future tech. They called themselves the Iron Horde, and their plan was to invade the future (or "present," from the player's perspective) and conquer it all, with a younger version of Grommash as the main villain.



The Alliance and Horde teamed up and went back in time together, and with the help of the independent Frostwolf clan of orcs, rallied the past-draenei together into an army under Yrel. The idea was that a combined force of Alliance, Horde, Frostwolf orcs led by Durotan, and draenei led by Yrel, would all band together, defeat the Iron Horde, and save the future.



No one liked that storyline, so in 6.2 suddenly demons invaded and imprisoned both the draenei and the Iron Horde, and the players "saved" both. The final cutscene is Grommash and Yrel celebrating together, and the fact that Grommash had been the main villain who was planning to invade the future was simply never brought up again. 6.2 completely dropped the idea of the Iron Horde as bad guys, even though both the Alliance and the Horde worked together to fight them.





The retconned story being told in Battle for Azeroth now acts as though it was a demon invasion from the very beginning. Blizzard is saying that the orcs in the past banded together to fight the demonic legion and sent out a distress call, and that the Horde from the future answered the distress call and went back in time to save the orcs from the demons. No mention is made of the orcs trying to conquer Draenor or Azeroth, or using their stolen technology to try and invade the future. It's being told to us as though they were always allies and that the Draenor campaign was the players coming to their aid. Okay, SO.In Warlords of Draenor, Garrosh went back in time and united the orc clans with future tech. They called themselves the Iron Horde, and their plan was to invade the future (or "present," from the player's perspective) and conquer it all, with a younger version of Grommash as the main villain.The Alliance and Horde teamed up and went back in time together, and with the help of the independent Frostwolf clan of orcs, rallied the past-draenei together into an army under Yrel. The idea was that a combined force of Alliance, Horde, Frostwolf orcs led by Durotan, and draenei led by Yrel, would all band together, defeat the Iron Horde, and save the future.No one liked that storyline, so in 6.2 suddenly demons invaded and imprisoned both the draenei and the Iron Horde, and the players "saved" both. The final cutscene is Grommash and Yrel celebrating together, and the fact that Grommash had been the main villain who was planning to invade the future was simply never brought up again. 6.2 completely dropped the idea of the Iron Horde as bad guys, even though both the Alliance and the Horde worked together to fight them.The retconned story being told in Battle for Azeroth now acts as though it was a demon invasion from the very beginning. Blizzard is saying that the orcs in the past banded together to fight the demonic legion and sent out a distress call, and that the Horde from the future answered the distress call and went back in time to save the orcs from the demons. No mention is made of the orcs trying to conquer Draenor or Azeroth, or using their stolen technology to try and invade the future. It's being told to us as though they were always allies and that the Draenor campaign was the players coming to their aid.

Fanatic-Templar Profile Joined February 2010 Canada 4374 Posts #6 On June 22 2018 06:16 Midseasons wrote:

The final cutscene is Grommash and Yrel celebrating together, and the fact that Grommash had been the main villain who was planning to invade the future was simply never brought up again.



Wow, how does this keep happening to Grom? I'm still astounded that he came out of Reign of Chaos as a "hero". Wow, how does this keep happening to Grom? I'm still astounded that he came out ofas a "hero". I bear this sig to commemorate the loss of the team icon that commemorated Oversky's 2008-2009 Proleague Round 1 performance.

Ryzel Profile Joined December 2012 United States 353 Posts #7 Right? I remember him most clearly in his War2 incarnation, where he looks and sounds like a homicidal maniac. Hakuna Matata B*tches

EsportsJohn Profile Blog Joined June 2012 United States 4833 Posts #8 I like to remember Grom as his WC3 incarnation, driven by bloodlust but stuck in a feedback loop because of his relationship with Thrall. I think Blizz did a good job of capturing him as a "great warrior" who had many many many character defects he couldn't quite overcome. Strategy

Fanatic-Templar Profile Joined February 2010 Canada 4374 Posts #9 On June 23 2018 03:03 EsportsJohn wrote:

I like to remember Grom as his WC3 incarnation, driven by bloodlust but stuck in a feedback loop because of his relationship with Thrall. I think Blizz did a good job of capturing him as a "great warrior" who had many many many character defects he couldn't quite overcome.



I mean, I agree with "great warrior" in that he was great at killing things, I just don't see that as balancing out - let alone superceding - his many character flaws, which include selling out his entire people to the demons twice. I can feel sympathy for an alcoholic incapable of quitting, but that sympathy goes out the window long before the number of victims of his drunk driving hit quadruple digits . I mean, I agree with "great warrior" in that he was great at killing things, I just don't see that as balancing out - let alone superceding - his many character flaws, which include selling out his entire people to the demons. I can feel sympathy for an alcoholic incapable of quitting, but that sympathy goes out the window long before the number of victims of his drunk driving hit quadruple digits I bear this sig to commemorate the loss of the team icon that commemorated Oversky's 2008-2009 Proleague Round 1 performance.

arb Profile Blog Joined April 2008 Noobville 14610 Posts Last Edited: 2018-06-24 04:31:51 #10 On June 23 2018 03:03 EsportsJohn wrote:

I like to remember Grom as his WC3 incarnation, driven by bloodlust but stuck in a feedback loop because of his relationship with Thrall. I think Blizz did a good job of capturing him as a "great warrior" who had many many many character defects he couldn't quite overcome.

I always saw him as sort of drinking the blood to become strong to make the horde great, but then since he drank the blood he was bound to mannoroth, but when he died it was like a redemption thing. Actually thinking about it, they were basically tricked by Guldan, but grom was the first to drink since he considered himself the leader of the horde or whatever i think



they originally wanted him as the last boss in Wod but i think they scrapped it cause no one wanted him to die. hard to say, always been a favorite character of mine at any rate



I always saw him as sort of drinking the blood to become strong to make the horde great, but then since he drank the blood he was bound to mannoroth, but when he died it was like a redemption thing. Actually thinking about it, they were basically tricked by Guldan, but grom was the first to drink since he considered himself the leader of the horde or whatever i thinkthey originally wanted him as the last boss in Wod but i think they scrapped it cause no one wanted him to die. hard to say, always been a favorite character of mine at any rate



but damn that was a good cinematic but damn that was a good cinematic Artillery spawned from the forges of Hell

Fanatic-Templar Profile Joined February 2010 Canada 4374 Posts Last Edited: 2018-06-24 14:01:08 #11 On June 24 2018 13:28 arb wrote:

Actually thinking about it, they were basically tricked by Guldan



That's not what I get from WarCraft III:



Grom: "Ah, Thrall. You always believed that the Demons corrupted our race, but that's only half true. We gave ourselves up willingly on Draenor! The other chieftains and I... we drank Mannoroth's blood, Thrall. We brought this curse upon ourselves!"

Thrall: "You did this... to our people... knowingly? *Ragescream*"



And even after that, after Thrall creates the new Horde and and the orcs decide they maybe shouldn't be demonpawns anymore, the very moment Grom finds something he's not able to kill, he goes right back to the demon blood. There's even a random Grunt telling him what a terrible plan that is, but he just goes right for it.



That's not what I get from WarCraft III:And even after that, after Thrall creates the new Horde and and the orcs decide they maybe shouldn't be demonpawns anymore, the very moment Grom finds something he's not able to kill, he goes right back to the demon blood. There's even a random Grunt telling him what a terrible plan that is, but he just goes right for it. On June 24 2018 13:28 arb wrote:

but when he died it was like a redemption thing.



The problem is that redemption requires change on the character's part, and none of that happened. Grom's entire character is killing things, and the fact that in his last moment, that single character trait was directed at something more evil than he was is not so much redemption as it is irony. Nothing changed for Grom. Just because the psychopathic killing machine was pointed at Mannoroth instead of Cenarius does not demonstrate character growth. He killed it because it was there. The problem is that redemption requires change on the character's part, and none of that happened. Grom's entire character is killing things, and the fact that in his last moment, that single character trait was directed at something more evil than he was is not so much redemption as it is irony. Nothing changed for Grom. Just because the psychopathic killing machine was pointed at Mannoroth instead of Cenarius does not demonstrate character growth. He killed it because it was there. I bear this sig to commemorate the loss of the team icon that commemorated Oversky's 2008-2009 Proleague Round 1 performance.

arb Profile Blog Joined April 2008 Noobville 14610 Posts #12 On June 24 2018 23:00 Fanatic-Templar wrote:

Show nested quote +

On June 24 2018 13:28 arb wrote:

Actually thinking about it, they were basically tricked by Guldan



That's not what I get from WarCraft III:



Grom: "Ah, Thrall. You always believed that the Demons corrupted our race, but that's only half true. We gave ourselves up willingly on Draenor! The other chieftains and I... we drank Mannoroth's blood, Thrall. We brought this curse upon ourselves!"

Thrall: "You did this... to our people... knowingly? *Ragescream*"



And even after that, after Thrall creates the new Horde and and the orcs decide they maybe shouldn't be demonpawns anymore, the very moment Grom finds something he's not able to kill, he goes right back to the demon blood. There's even a random Grunt telling him what a terrible plan that is, but he just goes right for it.



Show nested quote +

On June 24 2018 13:28 arb wrote:

but when he died it was like a redemption thing.



The problem is that redemption requires change on the character's part, and none of that happened. Grom's entire character is killing things, and the fact that in his last moment, that single character trait was directed at something more evil than he was is not so much redemption as it is irony. Nothing changed for Grom. Just because the psychopathic killing machine was pointed at Mannoroth instead of Cenarius does not demonstrate character growth. He killed it because it was there. That's not what I get from WarCraft III:And even after that, after Thrall creates the new Horde and and the orcs decide they maybe shouldn't be demonpawns anymore, the very moment Grom finds something he's not able to kill, he goes right back to the demon blood. There's even a random Grunt telling him what a terrible plan that is, but he just goes right for it.The problem is that redemption requires change on the character's part, and none of that happened. Grom's entire character is killing things, and the fact that in his last moment, that single character trait was directed at something more evil than he was is not so much redemption as it is irony. Nothing changed for Grom. Just because the psychopathic killing machine was pointed at Mannoroth instead of Cenarius does not demonstrate character growth. He killed it because it was there.

According to the wiki anyway Guldan had persuaded all of them to drink the blood to gain power and what have you but didnt tell them the part where they would be bound to Mannoroth for drinking it.



Either way i guess the lore is kind of confusing in this aspect. Since in the beginning of WoD when Grom asks Guldan what they must give in return he does say everything, but not the part about being enslaved by the legion.



So who knows According to the wiki anyway Guldan had persuaded all of them to drink the blood to gain power and what have you but didnt tell them the part where they would be bound to Mannoroth for drinking it.Either way i guess the lore is kind of confusing in this aspect. Since in the beginning of WoD when Grom asks Guldan what they must give in return he does say everything, but not the part about being enslaved by the legion.So who knows Artillery spawned from the forges of Hell

Fanatic-Templar Profile Joined February 2010 Canada 4374 Posts #13



This isn't even recent either - in WarCraft 2 Orgrim Doomhammer was a cunning, backstabbing villain who betrayed his chieftain Blackhand to usurp control over the Horde, tortured Garona to learn about the Shadow Council then slaughtered all of the Horde's Warlocks while Gul'dan was unconscious to secure his power. When Anduin Lothar goes to parlay with him, Doomhammer ambushes and kills him. In the leadup to WarCraft 3, Doomhammer takes the role of mentor figure for Thrall, so he gets retconned into an 'honourable warrior' who was a friend of Durotan's, only became Warchief to free the Horde from Gul'dan's control and defeated Anduin in a one-on-one duel.



So whatever the wiki says is probably the current canon, but that's not how it was back then . Yeah, I'm speaking from a limited perspective, since I've only ever played WarCraft 3 and vanilla WarCraft 2. Hell, I've seen cutscenes of Illidan from the last WoW expansion and I haven't the foggiest idea what's happening there. Blizzard frequently retcons existing stories into a shape they like better.This isn't even recent either - in WarCraft 2 Orgrim Doomhammer was a cunning, backstabbing villain who betrayed his chieftain Blackhand to usurp control over the Horde, tortured Garona to learn about the Shadow Council then slaughtered all of the Horde's Warlocks while Gul'dan was unconscious to secure his power. When Anduin Lothar goes to parlay with him, Doomhammer ambushes and kills him. In the leadup to WarCraft 3, Doomhammer takes the role of mentor figure for Thrall, so he gets retconned into an 'honourable warrior' who was a friend of Durotan's, only became Warchief to free the Horde from Gul'dan's control and defeated Anduin in a one-on-one duel.So whatever the wiki says is probably the current canon, but that's not how it was back then I bear this sig to commemorate the loss of the team icon that commemorated Oversky's 2008-2009 Proleague Round 1 performance.

EsportsJohn Profile Blog Joined June 2012 United States 4833 Posts #14 I honestly feel like the original plot for Warcraft was basically just lots of orcs and humans fighting against each other in some endless struggle. It wasn't until WC3 when Blizz started introducing the "end of the world" concepts to drive it up to an epic scale, and I feel that, to some degree, that ramp up of drama naturally drowned out the previous cannon. And then apparently WoW went off the deep end by WoD (I never played them, just heard about how terrible the stories were).



I would say that even StarCraft follows this sort of model as well; we had missions that were entirely "Oh hey, these guys are threats, let's eliminate them" mixed with a bunch of cerebrates and judicators and military officers arguing with each other. Though there was an epic background plot about the Overmind taking over everything and ending all life as we know it, the key points that moved the story forward were everyday struggles. Fast forward to SC2, and the campaign is filled with an almost sickening obsession with preventing the end of the world.



In other words, I don't think Blizzard envisioned how far they would go in this universe at the time, and with their first couple of games, they were more than willing to just let tribal politics and objective-based bloodshed be primary motivators in the storyline. The increasingly dramatic vision for Blizzard more or less forced them to retcon or redeem characters who might have been seen as power-hungry, bloodlusted, or otherwise unlikeable in the past to create a better storyline. Strategy

Fanatic-Templar Profile Joined February 2010 Canada 4374 Posts Last Edited: 2018-06-27 22:42:28 #15 On June 27 2018 15:27 EsportsJohn wrote:

I would say that even StarCraft follows this sort of model as well; we had missions that were entirely "Oh hey, these guys are threats, let's eliminate them" mixed with a bunch of cerebrates and judicators and military officers arguing with each other. Though there was an epic background plot about the Overmind taking over everything and ending all life as we know it, the key points that moved the story forward were everyday struggles. Fast forward to SC2, and the campaign is filled with an almost sickening obsession with preventing the end of the world.



I agree, which is also why I think Legacy of the Void is the worst campaign by far. Even with the threat of the Zerg wiping out all life in the original, they were never the actual focus in the Terran and Protoss campaigns, instead their arrival was the disrupting event that caused the status quo to change, and the story was actually about how the Terrans and Protoss dealt with it. Slaying the Overmind in The Fall is just cleanup, the dramatic stakes are resolved when Aldaris admits the failures of the Conclave and pledges their support for Tassadar's cause. It's important that in The Fall, the conflict between the Judicator and the Dark Templar happen despite the existential threat of the Zerg, because it shows how important that division is to them, and how much of an achievement it is to bridge it. By contrast, in Legacy of the Void all conflicts are merely set aside because the omnicidal threat takes precedence over everything. Nothing else matters. And since the omnicidal threat was created for SC2, once it gets taken care of, you realise that since nothing else mattered, nothing else really happened.



EDIT: I'm getting way off topic, I'm sorry . I agree, which is also why I thinkis the worst campaign by far. Even with the threat of the Zerg wiping out all life in the original, they were never the actual focus in the Terran and Protoss campaigns, instead their arrival was the disrupting event that caused the status quo to change, and the story was actually about how the Terrans and Protoss dealt with it. Slaying the Overmind inis just cleanup, the dramatic stakes are resolved when Aldaris admits the failures of the Conclave and pledges their support for Tassadar's cause. It's important that in, the conflict between the Judicator and the Dark Templar happenthe existential threat of the Zerg, because it shows how important that division is to them, and how much of an achievement it is to bridge it. By contrast, inall conflicts are merelybecause the omnicidal threat takes precedence over everything. Nothing else matters. And since the omnicidal threat was createdSC2, once it gets taken care of, you realise that since nothing else mattered, nothing else really happened.I'm getting way off topic, I'm sorry I bear this sig to commemorate the loss of the team icon that commemorated Oversky's 2008-2009 Proleague Round 1 performance.

arb Profile Blog Joined April 2008 Noobville 14610 Posts #16 On June 28 2018 06:57 Fanatic-Templar wrote:

Show nested quote +

On June 27 2018 15:27 EsportsJohn wrote:

I would say that even StarCraft follows this sort of model as well; we had missions that were entirely "Oh hey, these guys are threats, let's eliminate them" mixed with a bunch of cerebrates and judicators and military officers arguing with each other. Though there was an epic background plot about the Overmind taking over everything and ending all life as we know it, the key points that moved the story forward were everyday struggles. Fast forward to SC2, and the campaign is filled with an almost sickening obsession with preventing the end of the world.



I agree, which is also why I think Legacy of the Void is the worst campaign by far. Even with the threat of the Zerg wiping out all life in the original, they were never the actual focus in the Terran and Protoss campaigns, instead their arrival was the disrupting event that caused the status quo to change, and the story was actually about how the Terrans and Protoss dealt with it. Slaying the Overmind in The Fall is just cleanup, the dramatic stakes are resolved when Aldaris admits the failures of the Conclave and pledges their support for Tassadar's cause. It's important that in The Fall, the conflict between the Judicator and the Dark Templar happen despite the existential threat of the Zerg, because it shows how important that division is to them, and how much of an achievement it is to bridge it. By contrast, in Legacy of the Void all conflicts are merely set aside because the omnicidal threat takes precedence over everything. Nothing else matters. And since the omnicidal threat was created for SC2, once it gets taken care of, you realise that since nothing else mattered, nothing else really happened.



EDIT: I'm getting way off topic, I'm sorry . I agree, which is also why I thinkis the worst campaign by far. Even with the threat of the Zerg wiping out all life in the original, they were never the actual focus in the Terran and Protoss campaigns, instead their arrival was the disrupting event that caused the status quo to change, and the story was actually about how the Terrans and Protoss dealt with it. Slaying the Overmind inis just cleanup, the dramatic stakes are resolved when Aldaris admits the failures of the Conclave and pledges their support for Tassadar's cause. It's important that in, the conflict between the Judicator and the Dark Templar happenthe existential threat of the Zerg, because it shows how important that division is to them, and how much of an achievement it is to bridge it. By contrast, inall conflicts are merelybecause the omnicidal threat takes precedence over everything. Nothing else matters. And since the omnicidal threat was createdSC2, once it gets taken care of, you realise that since nothing else mattered, nothing else really happened.I'm getting way off topic, I'm sorry

The worst part of the SC2 story was twisting Raynor/Kerrigan into a love story(zerg episode 4 i believe in the original proves that wouldnt be the case) Or somehow making the overminds entire goal to be a righteous one to save the galaxy? like okay The worst part of the SC2 story was twisting Raynor/Kerrigan into a love story(zerg episode 4 i believe in the original proves that wouldnt be the case) Or somehow making the overminds entire goal to be a righteous one to save the galaxy? like okay Artillery spawned from the forges of Hell

RaiKageRyu Profile Joined August 2009 Canada 4726 Posts #17 Nice article. Learned a lot about Yrel and how the community reacted. Someone call down the Thunder?