World of Warcraft - Cataclysm - Mount Hyjal

And welcome once again to Ramses Reviews, this time featuring another good ol' warcraft review. Specifically, we're going to be taking a look at Mount Hyjal, crown jewel of the night elf civilization, and the site of the most legendary battle in the franchise.

The Summit of Hyjal

Before we talk about the zone, let's take a minute to talk about zone design. Some zones are designed to feel like an environment. The great plains of the barrens, the forests of Elwynn, the giant cave that is Deepholm. These zones give the player a wide-open space to move around in as he wishes, giving the feeling of a large and free world. Other zones are designed linearly, rather than wide-open, with only a few limited paths available to the player. If done well, this gives the zone a feeling of escalation, turning it into a single grand adventure as the true scope and shape of the zone slowly becomes clear. Icecrown, Storm Peaks and Blade's Edge Mountains are examples of this being done well. If done poorly, like in vanilla stonetalon, it will feel arbitrary and restricting, with long underdeveloped 'corridors' connecting unfulfilling globules of concentrated content. Mount Hyjal, sadly, fits into the latter category.

Whenever I enter this zone, I don't see an environment. I just see 'location designed for quests X through Y'. Even before I started over-analyzing video games, these kind of zones always took me out of my immersion. Which is a real damn shame, because the environment they created for mount hyjal is quite beautiful.

Sure, it's not the most breathtaking sight in the world, but it works at being this pretty, sorta fairy-ish environment, and it has this definite air of enchantment over everything. Which works really well to contrast it against the domains touched by the invading fire elementals.

Clean and crisp contrast. Good work, art team. Well, I think. I'll admit that I'm not exactly up to date with how blizzard organizes its design teams, so I'm not sure whether art asset design and zone design are two teams, or one. Because I do have some issues with the zone design.

Back in The Burning Crusade, we got our first look at Mount Hyjal in a Cavern of Time instance called The Battle of Mount Hyjal. While it wasn't exactly a good raid lorewise (really scaling down the scope of the battle, removing furbolg, goblin and dark trolls, badly translating the mechanics from that mission, not translating the NPCs well, etc.), it did give us a preview of what the zone looked like. Mount Hyjal copies most of the landscape design from the raid (which in turn took it from the unreleased Mount Hyjal zone that was supposed to be in vanilla), so there is a direct translation from that version to this one.

And yet, there are a lot of things missing from the zone, despite the situation being almost exactly the same. The alliance and horde military encampments, the largest of their kind seen in world of warcraft to date, are gone. Sure, they got destroyed in the battle of mount hyjal, but there is literally not a single trace left of them. I could kinda buy that, what with druidic magic absorbing the ruins or something. However, in their place, there are now suddenly ancient night elf shrines and holdings. Where the hell were they during the battle and how did they survive it? Actually, that's a question that I'm going to be asking a lot throughout the review.

Aside from that, there is also the issue of the night elf base. In the Battle of Mount Hyjal instance, the designers were clearly just winging it by this point, as it was far smaller than the alliance and horde bases, with large tracts of undeveloped land. Still, there was some evidence that the night elves had bothered fortifying, with a handful of buildings, ancients and iconic night elf units (minus keepers of the grove, faerie drakes, hippogryphs, chimaeras, treants, owls, etc, since, as I said, the designers were obviously just winging it by this point).

In the Mount Hyjal zone though, there's not even that. In the ten years since the battle of mount hyjal, knowing demons and arcane-addicted idiots drool at the very thought of the well of eternity, the night elves have rebuilt none of the defenses except a single token hunter's hall, located on the side furthest from the entrance. There are no towers, no glaive throwers, no druid trees, not even any ancients. The weak point of the entire planet, left completely undefended. Even better, the night elves did apparently construct some new fortifications... they're just further down the mountain, where they'd be little use even if they weren't already on fire. Throughout this zone, it's going to be hilarious just how completely incompetent the defense here is.

Luckily for the defenders, the attackers are even worse. In the introduction to this zone, we're carried in by Aronus, a green drake. Apparently, Deathwing's minions have started their assault on mount hyjal, and are trying to summon Ragnaros. By the time Aronus actually gets you to the zone though, the new fortifications I mentioned have already been destroyed, and Deathwing himself has arrived, completing the summoning ritual and calling forth Ragnaros.

Yes, Deathwing and Ragnaros, together, attacking mount hyjal! How can the defenders of mount hyjal possibly survive this? By doing absolutely nothing. Yup, Deathwing just flies away from the completely undefended Mount Hyjal for no reason, and Ragnaros will spend the entire zone doing absolutely nothing except for a single quest where the player confronts him. That's some brilliant writing right there.

Actually, the phrase "does absolutely nothing except for a single quest" is another one that's going to be showing up in this review a lot. For example, when you have seen this, Aronus carries you to the top of Mount Hyjal, where you report to Ysera, the green dragon aspect. Ysera is one of the most powerful creatures on Azeroth, as well as being the ruler of the emerald dream and having an entire army of dragonkin at her command. She will do absolutely nothing herself, serving only to give you quests.

Further down the mountain, we meet Malfurion, the first and most powerful of the night elf druids, who has recently started merging with his animal spirits. He is currently a contender for most powerful mortal on Azeroth. He will also do absolutely nothing, except for a single quest.

Instead, everything is left up the player. Sure, it usually is, but most zones at the very least pretend to have other people doing things. This zone doesn't give a damn about that. It's not exactly subtle about it either. Ysera outright says that while she's busy wasting time (okay, seeking answers from the emerald dream, which is pretty much the same thing), you're going to have to be one to defend the world tree. Mind you, this is the very first quest in the zone. She's really just dumping responsibility on the first guy she sees and running home.

Okay, so it's the players job to do everything. Job one: defend the world tree from the attacking lava elementals and twilight's hammer spies. Naturally, being weak and disorganized, the elementals have reached the summit of Mount Hyjal and are laying siege to the world tree itself. Having spent the last ten thousand years of history preparing to defend this tree, the night elves naturally aren't capable of fielding anything more than a bunch of guys with hammers.

But what about the other allies of nature, you ask? Well, Ysera is in the tree, and the green dragonflight is present, but they're not actually bothering defending the tree because of reasons. The faerie drakes are also present. It's around this time that we got a very crude and poorly executed retcon that the faerie drakes, chimaeras and mountain giants seen in warcraft III only joined with the night elf forces to help defend mount hyjal (despite, y'know, faerie drakes and mountain giants only being added in the expansion that took place after the battle there, and chimaeras never being shown as possessing any more than animal intelligence). However, since that retcon was done in this expansion, you'd think that that would mean we'd actually get to see those guys defend mount hyjal, like their entire purpose in the previous game has now been revealed to be, right?

HAH! Dream on, little reader. The mountain giants are sitting this battle out, chilling around in Azshara and Winterspring. Chimaeras are as ignored a species as ever. The only ones present are faerie drakes, because they actually live on the mountain. So they'd have to help, right? Well, only if you bribe them with candy, and then only to help find a single guy. Thanks for nothing there, you little freaks of nature.

So, the player, without any help from the so-called guardians of Hyjal, saves the well of eternity, and therefore, the world (though, given that the twilight's hammer was so incompetent that they never thought of approaching the well from the three undefended sides, I'm not sure the world was in much danger to begin with). Huzzah, medals for the player and on to the next... what do you mean, we've only done four quests? Man, am I even slower than usual today.

Fact is, the guardians of hyjal aren't just incompetent enough to have let enemy elementals within ten feet of the I WIN button, they are so incompement that they failed to do anything anywhere on the mountain and they desperately need the player to go solve EVERYTHING. I mean, that usually is the case to some degree, but here it's just ridiculous. Every single threat is too much for the people here to handle. We're no longer adventurers. We're a one man army that apparently surpasses the night elf empire, the green dragonflight and the cenarion circle at the same time. Yeah, this zone is pretty much the killing blow for the dignity of the warcraft III night elf faction.

Let's do a quick contrast with the battle for Wintergarde in the last expansion to demonstrate what I mean. There, the scourge fortress of Naxxramas assaulted the alliance base of Wintergarde, raising a massive army of undead from the old catacombs beneath the city. The entire lower half of the city has already been lost to the undead by the time the player arrives. Now, the situation in wintergarde and on hyjal is roughly the same for most of the questing, though the latter is obviously more large-scale. Yet, Wintergarde was one of the most memorable battles in the game, and Mount Hyjal is hilariously silly. What did the former do right that the latter do wrong?

1. Wintergarde is an actual siegeIn Wintergarde, the defenders were behind thick fortress walls, entrances thoroughly guarded. This fortress served as a large safe haven, giving the defenders a place to store troops, supplies, siege weapons, prisoners, etc. In addition, it gave the defenders some wiggle room. Had the scourge broken through the outer perimeter, the defenders could have tried to drive the invaders back, set up a new defense perimeter slightly further into the fortress, or even retreated into the buildings themselves. Had the player not shown up, the defenders may not have been able to achieve victory, but they would have held out for quite a while.
In Mount Hyjal on the other hand, there are no defensive fortifications whatsoever. No towers, no real fortress-like structures and certainly no walls. I may have mocked the fact that the only thing defending the world tree was a single hunter's hall, but that's actually one of the largest and most elaborate defensive structures in the zone. What does the average night elf base look like?

That's right, it's a bunch of ruins surrounded by pretty flowers. That's seriously what you're going for? These bases have no room for retreat, manuevring, no place to store resources or extra soldiers. The second the enemy breaks through your line, that's it. There is no sense that the guys here could have hanged on for even a few hours had the player not arrived.

2. Wintergarde was an organized battle

In Wintergarde, there was a clear sense of direction for the ongoing fight. A handful of guards held the defensive perimeter. Small strike teams infiltrated the enemy compound with specific tasks. Other soldiers were held back inside the base, resting, preparing for an attack, etc. Smiths were forging weapons, generals were forging plans, a few individuals pursued other plans of their own. This didn't just go for the alliance base either, as the scourge did the same thing in their own base.

In Hyjal, everybody is either fighting for their lives, or doing absolutely nothing. There are no soldiers back in the base because, well, you see the entirety of the base in the picture above. Every single soldier is on the battlefield. Had this been an actual fight, it should have been over in a manner of minutes. Commanders do exist (you see malfurion and some random tauren in the picture above), but they don't do anything. Malfurion isn't making plans, he isn't observing the enemy, he isn't giving orders. He's just standing there, probably wishing he'd brought a book to pass the time. Strike teams have the same problem. They're there, but they aren't actually doing anything, except for maybe one or two guards. The majority of the team just stands there dead-eyed and slack-jawed, without any greater purpose in the world than serving as a quest dispenser.

3. The twilight's hammer are no scourge

The scourge and the twilight's hammer are both forces based around the usage of dark magics, occultism and the service of rather poorly developed dark lords. However, what differentiates the scourge from the twilight's hammer is that the former is also a war machine. Massive mines and forges churning out an endless stream of horrid, cursed weaponry. Great fortresses dotting the landscape, armies of thousands of soldiers ready to strike. Siege weaponry and massive flesh giants shattering walls as the please. Subservient states offering the service of their best and brightest. Massive flying fortresses to carry the undead hordes into battle. Even if you removed all the advantages undeath gave the scourge, they could still have matched the alliance and horde in battle by virtue of being a true army.

The twilight's hammer on the other hand, are a cult. They are deadly sorcerors and assassins, aided in battle by creatures summoned from beyond this world. They are very much not an army. As such, it's kinda silly that they keep trying to act as if they're an army.

And that's if you buy into what the twilight's hammer were supposed to be. What they actually are (even before cataclysm) is saturday morning cartoon villains. Every time we see them, they've come up with a different crazy plot that will totally win them the day and which, after we beat them, will never be used again. They've got poorly defined motivations, a bunch of anonymous mooks that have no reason existing and are in no way to be taken seriously as a villain. The only thing they're missing is the memorable characters, meaning that they don't even have the only good part of being saturday morning cartoon villains down. Suddenly having that silly villain waltz over a supposedly well-organized and serious army without any of their usual crazy schemes is just wrong.

Okay, the battles are pretty bad. How about the story? Well, it's kinda lazy. Ysera sends you to a few different night elf bases spread across the mountainside to help out with the trouble. The first is Malfurion's 'base', where his 'army' is fighting with Baron Geddon (seen previously in the Molten Core)'s 'army'. Of course, neither Malfurion nor Geddon do anything except for a single quest. In a demonstration of the saturday morning cartoon principles employed by the twilight's hammer, they've bonded armies of small elementals together into a few massive ones, to act as super-heavy troops that counter the night elf ancients. It's a cool idea, which makes a lot of sense in a twilight army. Of course, that means we never see them again. Seriously guys, what the hell happened in-between the last expansion and this one? There, you had plot threads, even small and obscure ones, that spanned the entire continent.

The player also helps out Alysra of the green dragonflight, who is apparently commanding the green dragonflight forces here. Which amazes me, because there are no green dragons other then her present. It's really weird; both the faction description and the zone make a big deal about how the guardians of hyjal is the united force of the cenarion circle and the emerald dragonflight, but that dragonflight is almost completely absent from the zone itself. Where are the flights of drakes? The armies of drakonids and dragonkin? The great armies of the emerald dream? Nowhere, because that would be conductive to the setting and story.

It turns out that the armies of the twilight's hammer aren't out to defeat the night elf army here at all, but are trying to retrieve Fandral Staghelm, the old arch druid of the night elves who went a little evil in the Stormrage novel. Considering that they only want Fandral Staghelm to help their armies reach the world tree, and the only thing standing between them and the world tree is that one night elf army, this makes absolutely no sense, but whatever.

So, the player goes to help out the wardens. Now, you may be noticing that this plot structure of going past all the leaders and assisting them is basically the same as the part of Deepholm with the stone lords, which I really liked. So why am I being so harsh on it here? Well, in Deepholm, we actually got to know the stone lords and how their factions worked and differed from one another. The characters had different personalities, had you go on different adventures, and gave you a bit of an insight in different aspects of earth elemental culture. Basically, it was your chance to get to acclimated to the actual world of warcraft. In Mount Hyjal on the other hand, the quests focus entirely on fighting the twilight's hammer, and it doesn't even really develop them. We don't get any insight into the world and we don't get any insight into the characters. Which, considering we've been waiting for ages to get see more of the wardens, the green dragonflight and all the other factions we encounter in this zone, is more than a little frustrating.

The Return

After escorting Fandral to Alysra, who takes him to the emerald dream, we return to Ysera, who gives us our next set of instructions. Apparently, the ancient guardians are returning. Now, let's be fair. The idea that the dead ancient guardians were simply banished back to the emerald dream on death and could, in time, return to Azeroth is one that has been seeded for a very long time. On the other hand, considering that this plot has been seeded for several years by this point, are you sure you want to waste it on a single zone in an expansion that is in no way related to the ancient guardians or the emerald dream? Especially if you don't have anything for those guardians to do? Any of these beings should have been able to single-handedly turn the battle, yet they never do anything, except for a single quest. You could cut the ancient guardians out of the plot pretty much entirely, and all you'd need to to do is replace their single-quest appearance by some artifact of theirs. Given that the ancient guardians went toe-to-toe with the strongest of the legion, and they're now facing some fire elementals that don't appear to be particularly strong, that would make a lot more sense storywise as well.

Plus, the explanation for how they're coming back is weak and a bit inconsistent. Ysera says that she learned that they're coming back because the barrier between dimensions was weakened, but that doesn't make any sense. It was the barrier between the elemental realm and the material plane that was weakened. Of course, this would support my long-standing theory that the emerald dream is the elemental plane of life, but even then it doesn't make sense. There never was any real barrier between the emerald dream and the material plane, at least not in the same sense as with the elemental plane. People hop back between the emerald dream and Azeroth (also, somehow, outland) all the time. There's no less than four wide-open gates between the planes, green dragons have the ability to freely shift between them and druids can just drop into a coma any given time they want to walk through the dream. Most importantly, the living ancient guardians are able to freely travel between the emerald dream and the material plane, so the problem clearly isn't getting from one plane to the other.

In addition, the resurrections themselves are all wildly different from one another, and don't really seem to fit Ysera's explanation. The first is Goldrinn, the wolf ancient that empowered Varian. He's technically already been resurrected, with the twilight hammer summoning a corrupted version of him called lycanthoth. First of all, that name is awesome. Second, this entire principle of corrupted ancients is never really explained, and they don't really seem as impressive in battle as you'd think. The player simply beats up his corrupted worgen (which only appear here, because, again, the twilight's hammer are saturday morning cartoon villains and can't have any influence of their plans extend beyond a single episode), and then lycanthoth himself, goldrinn being reborn immediately afterwards. He slaps his followers (which includes a lot of non-gilnean humans and two orcs, making me feel like I missed a bit of lore. Aren't these guys druids?) free and proceeds to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the zone until the player calls for him by the end. Again, what's the point of rezzing the guy?

After Goldrinn, it's Aviana's turn. Since the twilight's hammer can't repeat their plot because of reasons, it's instead about some weird prophecy, with Aviana being reborn in egg form. However, the twilight hammer steals the egg and the player has to get it back with the help of the druids of the talon. Wait, weren't those guys mentioned as dissolved in TBC? Ah well, the entire "merging all druid orders into one" thing was stupid anyway. At least these quests are kinda tied to the druids of the talon and aviana, so they aren't as bad as the other examples (plus, we get the memorable personality of Thisalee Crow), but you still don't really get a feel for what the druids of the talon are and how they tie into the world. Plus, the druids still don't do anything (not even a badly executed perpetual battle) until you call for them. Hell, the quest actually points out that they refuse to do it by themselves. They're really completely helpless without you. With the egg secure, Aviana is reborn... and will proceed to do absolutely nothing until you call for her.

During this time, the player also makes two brief excursions into the elemental plane. To be precise, the firelands. As plots for two of their episodes, the hammer cultists have started breeding evil fire buzzards and forging evil cursed weaponry in the firelands, and the player uses their portal to access the facilities and destroy them. And, just to repeat myself until I get boring, we never see either of these again. Actually a bit of a shame. Evil Fire Buzzards have the potential to be iconic.

After that, we move on to the shrine of aessina. The story here briefly stops making sense. The shrine of Aessina is further down the mountain than the shrine of Goldrinn, lying on the same path to the top. We know that the twilight's hammer armies used that path, since the shrine of goldrinn was overrun, and twilight supply slaves (who are all orcs and jungle trolls for some reason) carry supplies from there to the battle near the top. However, when you are sent to the shrine of aessina, everyone acts as if the twilight and fire armies have only just reached the shrine. The entire shrine is still intact (and has hilariously inadequate as a base as any other), with everyone concerned about the newly arrived elementals.

Actually, forget the twilight's hammer. Where the hell was this shrine back during the battle of mount hyjal? It's in the same spot as the alliance base was in that raid. You'd think that'd deserve at least a little mention. At least, the shrine of Goldrinn was abandoned during that time period, so it'd make some sense that it didn't have any effect. In addition, where the hell was Aessina during the battle of Mount Hyjal anyway? She not only survived the war of the ancients, but we've also been given every indication that she's been active in night elf territory since, multiple shrines dedicated to her, and even a new species in the form of the grell. The same goes for Tortolla, who's slightly further down the mountain, and who we help out after ridding the world of the nasty fire elementals near the shrine of aessina and saving the cute widdle cwitters.

Like with Goldrinn earlier, the twilight's hammer is making a dark copy of Tortolla. However, like you see when a saturday morning cartoon villain finally reuses a plot, all the details have changed. Unlike Goldrinn, Tortolla was never dead, so they haven't actually resurrected a false version or whatever the hell backstory of Lycanthoth was supposed to be, but they're instead draining Tortolla (considering all he resisted during the war of the ancients, I'm not quite sure how they actually managed to capture him though). His dark counterpart, Nemesis (also a cool name, though a bit generic) is also notably a lot more powerful. You aren't actually able to defeat him when you first see him, instead you first free Tortolla. With help of Tortie's adorable little turtle babies, you chase Nemesis into the firelands and slay him, restoring Tortolla to full strength.

Aessina has also come to Mount Hyjal by now, casting a spell to restore a lot of the damage caused by the fire elementals. The spell is actually really cool with Aessina giving an awesome speech that really taps into the power and mystery that is supposed to be linked to the ancient guardians, yet is absent from the rest of the zone. Very impressive. Though it does make me wonder about Aessina's exact position in the pantheon of the ancient guardians, since she seems to place herself above them. If the emerald dream is the elemental realm of life, would that make her its lord? I'm not saying yes, I'm just saying it makes perfect sense.

Infiltrating the Twilight's Ha... wait

What do you mean the ancient guardians segment is already over? Okay, Cenarius and Malorne get resurrected later on, but what about the rest? Where are Ursoc and Ursol? Agamaggan? Omen? All the unnamed ones? Where are the other druid orders?

Well, the answer to that all comes back to the single big problem of the zone: Mount Hyjal contains an entire expansion's worth of story. The thing it is trying to do is basically too big for an entire zone. The story here is basically the culmination of the long vigil, a gathering of all the guardians of mount hyjal both past and present to not only ward off an attack from the firelands, but to launch a devestating attack into the realm of the firelord himself and end his threat for good. The problem is that there's simply too many defenders of hyjal. You've got all the different ancient guardians, the druid orders, the sentinels, the wardens, the dryads, the keepers of the grove, the priestesses of elune, the furbolg, all the different types of ancients, the stone giants and three (bronze, red, green) of the dragonflights. And, frankly, that's being a bit stingy. Freyr, the blue dragonflight, the worgen, the grell and the nymphs of northrend should probably be included as well. Remember, this isn't like in warcraft III, where the world tree was attacked while most of its guardians were still sleeping. This is the night elves primed and ready for war, expecting an attack, without any emerald nightmare preventing people from coming to their aid. There is no reason for anyone not to be here.

However, you simply can't fit all those people in a single zone. I've mocked the hilariously tiny and inadequate night elf bases throughout this review, but had they been adequately sized, there simply wouldn't have been enough room left for any questing content. Even with the sub-minimal (not a word I get to use very often) amount of factions present, military bases as tiny ruins and quests shoved into an extra-dimensional realm, the zone design still gets cramped at times (though that isn't helped by the designers not utilizing the various nooks and crannies of the zone). Even if this concept had had an entire expansion devoted to it, you'd probably still have to make some painful choices about what to put in. A single zone in an expansion that's not related to this? Yeah, that's not going to work out. However, even if we were to accept that, it doesn't excuse things like this:

That's the night elf army facing the fire elemental legions near the shrine of Aessina. All of it. You sure you don't wanna stick some dryads in there, designers? Some ancients? Maybe another sentinel or forty? Because this is kinda pathetic.

And there's another thing. We're spending this entire zone helping out local leaders. We've helped out the watchers, the wardens, the druids of the talon, the cenarion forces under Malfurion, the emerald dragonflight and the cults of Aessina, Malorne and Goldrinn. Shouldn't we have an army following us as we progress? I'm almost wondering if the original plan was to do that in phasing, since the army actually does seem to be written into the plot. We weaken the twilight's hammer army near the top of the mountain, and destroy the bases that are providing them with supplies. This should allow Malfurion's forces to push all the way down the mountain... until they are stopped at the shrine of Aessina in the exact spot that pathetic lonely saber-rider is occupying in the picture above. There, they would be in a stalemate with the fire elemental armies, the player preventing the hammer from summoning Pero'tharn, who would be able to break that stalemate. Still, the fire elemental armies keep pouring forth, so the cenarion armies can't advance. However, the player goes further down the mountain and strikes at the flamewake, preventing the hammer from fully empowering Nemesis and giving Aessina the power to perform her super-cure miracle, which drives out the fire elementals and allows the cenarion armies to advance. And where would they end up?

That's right, the next area with a hilariously tiny night elf detachment. There, the army would be stopped by the twilight's hammer forces at the scorched plain, the remnants of the original night elf base that was destroyed before we even got here. The player assists the remaining wardens (who have nothing to do with the watcher wardens, but appear to be a cenarion counterpart to the sentinels. At least, that's my guess. It would be nice if the zone occasionally stated its own lore), turning the battle there in their favor. After that, the player goes into the firelands for a few quests to deal with Nemesis, which would give the army a nice chance to finish off the remaining twilight forces in the scorched plain off-screen.

You not only wouldn't need to alter a single quest in any way for this to work, but a lot of the quests would actually make more sense if there was an advancing night elf army. Why are people acting like the enemy armies at the shrine of Aessina are a new thing? Because the fire elemental armies there only came to counter the newly arrived cenarion forces. Why are the twilights holding back their armies while summoning Pero'tharn and empowering Nemesis? Because there is an army in their way and they need that extra little bit to push through it. Most importantly, you spend the final leg of the zone securing a leader to lead the army, which is kinda silly if there is no army.

Infiltrating the Twilight's Hammer

You return to Ysera, who says that there is only one person on the planet who has shown himself able to lead an army of mortals and demi-gods alike. A general of ten thousand years, whose experiences date back to the war of the ancients. SHANDRIS FEATHERMOON! Nah, just kidding, that would allow a female character to act independently. Instead, it's Jarod Shadowsong, which makes no sense. Okay, yeah, he led the night elf/ancient armies during the war of the ancients, but a few things have changed since then:

1. Jarod deliberately faded into the background to allow the new night elf government to take full control of its people. He doesn't want to lead the army, and instead left that duty to the sentinels.

2. While Jarod was the perfect neutral commander during the war of the ancients, that wasn't the case afterwards. In particular, he grew disenfranchised with the druids, who he thought were more concerned with the forests than with their own people (which is actually pretty damn accurate). This actually went so far that he went on a self-imposed exile that lasted several thousand years. Now he's suddenly decided as the perfect guy to lead the exact same people who caused him to abandon his society altogether.

3. The army here is nothing like in the war of the ancients. There, the defending armies were actually divided between multiple groups that had trouble working together. The tauren, the earthen, the night elf rebels, the ancient guardians. Their leadership was divided, and the only person in a position to lead them as a united force was Jarod. However, here, the forces are already united. The night elves and the tauren are a completely integrated army, having dedicated themselves to following the teachings of the ancient guardians and Ysera. There is no need for a leader that unites the disparate groups, because there are none.

4. Jarod Shadowsong hasn't led a battle in ten thousand years. The guy was pretty much done with fighting by the end of the war of the ancients, and has only served as a civil administrator since. After ten thousand years, there is a good chance he's more than a little rusty, and he has no experience with modern threats.

What makes it even sillier is that Jarod Shadowsong isn't even available. He's been kidnapped by the twilight's hammer. Apparently, they also thought only Jarod could lead the defense against them... which is why they thought only Malfurion could lead the defense against them in Darkshore? Yeah, that plot point is pretty much dropped entirely. Also, I'm a bit confused about how they got their hands on Jarod. Last we saw, he was the commander of the new watchers in Darnassus (which of course aren't seen in this expansion at all). That's not exactly an easy place for the twilight's hammer to infiltrate.

To get Jarod back, the player has to infiltrate the twilight's hammer. When I first saw this, I was very excited, because it would mean we finally get to learn more about the hammer. What drives an individual to want to annihilate everything. How its armies are organized. What its philosophies are. How its people live.

Unfortunately, this isn't Mists of Pandaria, so we don't actually learn that. We get almost no insight on the nature and motivations of the twilights hammer. Most of the questline is instead devoted to silliness, though thankfully not to the same painful degree as Uldum. The few aspects that we do learn don't seem to make much sense in the greater scheme of things either. For example, if twilight training is so brutal that only a handful of recruits make it to even the lowest rungs, where does their massive army come from? The members of the hammer don't really seem to be all-hating or nihilistic either, so I don't get why they wanna blow up the planet.

However, we do finally learn a single interesting thing about the twilight's hammer, and one that makes sense to boot. Namely, there is something of a divide between all the new-fangled modern cultists, and the old guard of ogres. Good idea, and one that makes sense considering how much the hammer changed in a short period of time. It's also one of the few ideas that's consistent throughout the expansion, with ogres almost always having bases or roles of their own. Though I do have to wonder why this old guard solely consists of ogres, and not some of the old orc members as well. Still, considering the rest of the expansion, that's a minor issue.

Eventually, the player manages to incite a war between the ogres and non-ogres, which you use as cover to take back Jarod, taking him to a nearby portal into the emerald dream. We finally get some dragonflight presence, with Ysera and three drakes opening the portal to let Cenarius through. You, riding one of the drakes (which reminds me, the guardians of hyjal rep really should have a green drake mount), hold off the twilight's hammer long enough for old mossy-locks to be summoned. With Cenarius on their side, the rest of the cenarion army follows. Yes, I said army.

Not exactly anything to write home about (seriously, where's the diversity?), but at least it's a start.

Or it would have been, had the army actually done anything. No, instead they just sit on that one island, until the one quest where you call for them. Also, you may notice that the ancient guardians, except Cenarius, aren't on the island. Apparently, they're doing their own thing (which, as far as I've been able to figure out, means that they're doing nothing until you call for them). What exactly was the point of getting Shadowsong to lead the armies again?

And it's finally time for the all the one quests where you call for the people who don't do anything. The cenarion armies and Goldrinn help you take down Azralon the Gatekeeper, the gatekeeper of the large portal to the firelands found here. And no, I don't mean they help you with the assault ot reach Azralon. They only help you fight the single NPC. The entire rest of the twilight army is left up to the player. And, of course, the one time the army does something, Jarod Shadowsong doesn't even show up. Really glad we wasted twenty quests on saving you. It's not like every single other aspect of the zone could have used more development or anything. Aviana and Aronus help you against Desperonia, the first viable broodmother in the twilight dragonflight. Tortolla helps you against King Moltron, monarch of the magma giants. And Aessina and Ysera can apparently just suck it, since they don't get to do anything. Again, there is this weird thing about the female characters not doing anything. Even Aviana didn't engage in the fighting, just hovering nearby which caused some nasty affect that aggravated damage.

We go through the final flamegate in the zone, to confront Ragnaros in the firelands, alongside Cenarius, Hamuul and Malfurion. It's actually a really well-executed battle, with cool voice acting and interesting mechanics and it's very satisfying to face a raid boss alongside some of the strongest characters in WoW, finally killing that bastard for good.

Wait, what? What do you mean we've driven him back to the firelands? This is the firelands. He dies here, he dies foreve... what do you mean this isn't the firelands? I've been through these flamegates before. They lead to the firelands. That's why they're called flamegates. The first one was used to access a place called the firelands forgeworks, the second to access a place called the firelands hatchery and in the third one, the guy at the entrance explicitly said that we're in the firelands. This place looks no difference from any of those. If anything, it looks a little more flamey.

Apparently, either the encounter design team, or the environment design team missed a memo in this regard. Remember, the opening of the quest had Deathwing summon Ragnaros into our world. It was what raised the stakes. The fact that we went through a flamegate to fight Ragnaros didn't make any sense in the first place. We should have fought him in the big Azeroth-based fire fortress. The fact that such a blatant error made it into the game is just saddening, especially since it's supposed to be the big climax of the zone.

General Thoughts

We've already covered the central problem of the zone, but I do have another observation to make; As you may have noticed, this is a fairly self-contained story. Ragnaros' forces don't show up in an organized fashion anywhere else in the expansion and the way the Twilight's Hammer is active in this zone outright contradicts the story for the Twilight Highlands. It's like this zone is from an entirely different expansion, awkwardly shoved into Cataclysm and having one of its main villains replaced by the twilight's hammer. And it's not like this is the only zone with that problem.

Deepholm revolved around the shattered worldstone, which could have been done by any villain (especially since all the material before this hinted that Deathwing was in Grim Batol, not Deepholm). Al'akir barely appeared in Uldum, the conflict between the Ramkahen and the Neferset predated the coming of Deathwing and the Harrison Jones storyline would actually make more sense if Schnottz was only working for himself. Kezan and the Lost Isles weren't even supposed to feature Deathwing in the original plans, and the cataclysm really didn't end up being that significant to Gilneas (had there been no earthquakes, the forsaken would probably still have driven the gilneans off to Stormglen). Vashj'ir, which we haven't looked at yet, has a story so insignificant to the overall expansion that they didn't even bother finishing it. Only the Twilight Highlands will end up fitting into the expansion. The others simply don't belong in it. They're from three or four entirely different ones. Just for funzies, I threw in my own example of such an expansion in the addendum.

It's not just the fact that the zones are unrelated that gives it that feeling though. It's also that most zones feel like they're continuations of something. In Vashj'ir, the zone seems to assume that we would already know why the earthen ring was there, despite us never getting such an explanation in-game. Last time we saw Thrall before Deepholm, he was stuck on an island without a ship and leading a small squadron of orcs. Now he's suddenly the leader of the earthen ring, and standing on a bunch of isolated rocks with nobundo and that tauren guy we never remember. Did we miss anything in-between? Mount Hyjal is probably the worst in this regard, with about a dozen moments where I just feel like I've somehow skipped over a piece of lore.

Finally, there's the ending. Cataclysm, especially the horde-alliance war, seems to be built around not having a sequel. By the end of the expansion, there are no major threats left active on the planet. Everybody in the horde wants Garrosh gone, everybody outside the horde wants Garrosh and Sylvanas gone and Thrall has nothing stopping him from just going back and taking the mantle of warchief again (with crazy world shaman powers, four dragonflights, the tauren and the jungle trolls on his side if anyone raises a fuss). And really, do you think he's going to be kind against the people who developed weaponry to exterminate everyone, used the cataclysm to commit untold amounts of slaughter and poisoned the land? Especially since he's besties with the druids and the faction that allied with those slaughtered folks now? Yeah, from all appearances, this expansion should end with Thrall getting back his throne, the forsaken getting labeled as 'not our problem' by the rest of the horde, Thrall and Furion doing their healing ritual on the world tree and the wailing caverns, and all the factions in the world becoming one happy alliance. Except the forsaken of course.

Really, most of the problems of cataclysm make a lot more sense if you assume it was the last expansion of WoW. Getting rid of Deathwing, the infinite dragonflight, the elemental lords and doing the war of the ancients in a single expansion? Well, players always wanted to participate in those fights, and this is the last chance we could do it. Same goes for seeing Uldum, Mount Hyjal and the Elemental Realms. Perfect set-up for a long-term peace? Means we're free to do a timeskip for the next installment of warcraft. Quest design that's inconsistent, sloppy and buggy? Hell, it's our last expansion, let's just play around with the system. I could almost respect Cataclysm as the last expansion to world of warcraft.

Of course, Cataclysm isn't the last expansion, so what the hell were they thinking?

Addendum 1

The nightmare of the depths

The defenders of Azeroth have been victorious over the mighty Lich King, though the cost has been great. Tens of thousands of soldiers lie dead on the battlefields of Northrend, and relations between the horde and the alliance have been shattered. However, from the depths of the ocean rises a new threat. Azshara has used the distractions of the legion and the scourge to strengthen her hold over the south seas, and now turns her eyes towards the rest of the world.

Level limit raised to 85

New races:

Goblins – With their power over the oceans, the naga have struck against the goblin homeland of Kezan, using dark magics to make mount Kajaro erupt. Only a handfull of goblin enclaves survive, spread over the south seas. Seeking protection against their ancient trading rivals, Kul Tiras, these goblins have joined the horde, lending their technological and alchemical mastery to its war machine.

Merfolk – The human kingdom of Kul Tiras' mighty navies were among the first targets of Queen Azshara, as she sent endless armies of her serpent-men to crush the kingdom. The humans, outnumbered and cornered, turned to the ancient titan machinery found beneath their island kingdom, allowing them to transform into the long-extinct merfolk. Now, they have joined the alliance, seeking to better understand their new form with the aid of the explorers' league and to take the fight to the naga.

As both of these races join the alliance and the horde during the events of The Burning Crusade, several new questgivers have been added to earliers quest hubs.

New zones:

Bilgewater Harbor (1-6): Phased version of Kezan, used as the goblin starting zone. Note: takes place near the beginning of the Burning Crusade.

Lost Isles (7-12): Fleeing from Kezan, one troupe of goblins crashes into uncharted isles. Natives, naga and a tirasian expedition beset them, and internal conflict drives them apart. However, with help from the player and the orcish warchief, they are able to overcome this, and establish a new city for themselves. Note: takes place near the beginning of The Burning Crusade.

Boralus (1-6): Phased version of Kul Tiras, used as the merfolk starting zone. Note: takes place near the beginning of The Burning Crusade.

Kul Tiras (7-15): The newly reborn merfolk, yet to gain control over their transformation, have sent messengers to call for the aid of the alliance. Until that help can arrive, the tirasians are forced to fight a desperate battle for survival, the player at the front lines. When help from Soutshore and Menethil Harbor arrives, the assembled alliance armies manage to retake Boralus from the attacking Naga, restoring the tirasian capital and using the recaptured titan machine to give the new merfolk control over their transformation (which, yes, is a blatant copout to have the tails work with mounts). Note: takes place near the beginning of The Burning Crusade.

The Undermine (80-82): While the surface of Kezan has been turned to ash, foul magics protected the undermine. Here, the naga have enslaved goblin alchemists, using them to perform twisted experiments on their kin. The cenarion circle and the earthen ring, sensing the nagas' defilement of nature, both send expeditions to stop them. They are later joined by the goblins, aided by forsaken, and the gnomes, aided by draenei, the former seeking to free their remaining brethren and recover the alchemical formulas of the tinkers' union, the latter seeking to steal goblin technology and smite the demons summoned by goblin warlocks to serve as expendable soldiers and cheap labors.

Vashj'ir (80-82): As the human and orc fleets clash over the isle of Balor, the naga ambush them from below, dragging their ships into the depths. It is up to the player and a small group of other survivors to free their people from the ocean floor and stop the naga plans.

The Broken Isles (81-83): As the threat of the naga becomes clear, both the horde and the alliance seek more information on the nature of the threat. Jaina Proudmoore and Grand Magister Rommath both launch expeditions to investigate the ancient library of Izal-Shurah, hoping to uncover the secrets of the highborne. The night elves have a presence in this zone as well, looking to retake their ancient city. The forsaken seek to recruit the undead remnants of the stormreaver, twilight's hammer and blackrock clans.

Tel Abim (82-84): An old tirasian colony, famed for its banana export. Having stolen several titan devices during their raid on Boralus, the naga started experimenting with these on the people of Tel Abim, hoping to turn them into an army of loyal merfolk. Tirasians seek to free their oppressed kin and recover the stolen titan artifacts, in which they are aided by the explorers' league. The goblins and orcs of the horde are trying to take the island for themselves, because of its tactical and material value.

Plunder Isle (83-84): Plunder Isle is the home of the southsea freebooters, legendary pirates whose fleets are feared accross the face of the planet. Now, their home lies under siege from the naga, and the freebooters seek the aid of mercenaries. Treasure, fame and even territory awaits those who choose to aid the freebooters.

Zandalar (84-85): The isle of Zandalar is torn in a civil war. While the majority of the race still serves king Rastakhan, a small cult of naga worshippers has taken to forcibly transforming zandalari in naga-like creatures themselves. With their island slowly falling to this curse, two more hidden zandalari cults have called on outside aid. The traditionalists, who seek a return to more tribal ways, have called upon the help of the darkspear trolls of the horde. The luminists, an old cult of moonshippers that started among the dark trolls, have called upon the night elves of the alliance.

The Maelstrom (83-85): Their new undersea fleets prepared, the horde and the alliance turn their eye towards Nazjatar itself. A temporary cease-fire in place, both forces seek to destroy the dark queen of the naga and shatter her remaining strongholds. The alliance arrives by means of a gnomish submarine fleet, with merfolk and druids of the flipper acting as vanguards. The horde arrives by means of giant turtles, with goblin divers and tauren wavebinders acting as the vanguards.

Raids

Tomb of Sargeras: In this ancient highborne vault lies the shattered body of Sargeras, killed by Aegwynn when he tried to enter this world through an avatar. Horrors, both ancient and recent, stalk these forgotten halls, feeding on the energies of any who dare enter. However, the tomb is also a place of untold treasures. And it seems that the naga have gotten that impression as well.

Palace of Rastakhan: The naga worshippers have made their final push, infiltrating the palace of Rastakhan himself. It is up to the traditionalists, the luminists and their allies to stop nagified zandalari.

The Abyssal Maw (4.1): Queen Azshara and her forces invade the abyssal maw, looking to enslave great Neptulon himself. It is up to the players to fight their way through the elemental plane of water and stop Azshara's forces.

Nyalotha (4.2): With the horde and the alliance lying waste to her armies, Azshara turns to darker and darker secrets, opening the ancient tomb of Nyalotha to unleash its horrors on the alliance and horde forces.

Heart of Nazjatar (4.3): Finally, the players move against Nazjatar, hoping to end the reign of the dark queen Azshara forever

World of Warcraft - Cataclysm - Worgen and Goblins

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's finally time to talk about the worgen and the goblins. Two absolutely awesome races that I was thrilled to see added to World of Warcraft, but whose execution I was less than pleased with, albeit for two very different reasons.

Now both of these races stand out in that they don't really have a connection to the main plot of the expansion, unlike blood elves and draenei of TBC, or the death knights of WotLK. Sure, the goblins and Deathwing had some connection, but it was positively miniscule and hadn't appeared for several years. And the worgen? Well, before cataclysm they seemed to be connected to the emerald nightmare, which is connected to Cataclysm in the same way as you and Rebecca, the intestinal parasite: Sure, the connection is small, but the damage is big. However, that aspect of their backstory was cut, so the worgen are left without a connection to the main plot entirely.

But lets start our stories at the beginning, shall we?

The Isle of Kezan

For once, cataclysm decides to actually give players the relevant lore in a convenient way, with a quick and short explanation of goblin history and culture on the character creation screen: They were once slaves of the jungle trolls on Kezan, kaja'mite made them smart, they overthrew the trolls, and now they're powerful traders. Quick, efficient and very good to have for all the new players cataclysm attracted.

However, there's one line that I would like to draw attention to: “Goblins and their global trade conglomerates dominate all trade across Azeroth”. I'm going to address it later, but lets first just start playing for a while. Unlike with the other playable races in WoW, the goblin character actually exists as a single in-universe character. Specifically, you're the executive of the kaja'cola trading company, making you the second most powerful goblin in your cartel. And you're on your way to becoming the single most powerful, with you replacing the trade prince treated as all but inevitable.

While Uldum was the testing ground for the environment design that would eventually become standard in Mists of Pandaria, Kezan set the standard for quest design. Rather than having unique questgivers at every hub, Kezan introduces a cast of colorful characters early on, which will follow you through a prolonged experience. Some other cataclysm zones do something similar, but generally only for characters that are in high positions in-universe or characters meant exclusively as comic relief, which has the result of feeling a bit detached from the setting. However, in Kezan, most of the recurring characters are people you'd actually see walking the streets. The result is a far more personal connection to the ongoing events.

Another important aspect is that all characters that you're supposed to pay attention to are immediately given a distinguishing characteristic, making them stand out from their surroundings. Sassy Hardwrench, your executive assistant, wears a fancy chinese dress. Sister Goldskimmer, the local priest trainer, stands on a pile of riches from her 'tithes' and blesses the player when he walks by. Megs Dreadshredder, your marketing rep, wears a business suit and sits on a snazzy white tiger futon. Evol Fingers, the warlock trainer, and Fizz Lighter, the mage training, are having a magical fight, while Maxx Avalance, the shaman trainer, watches on without involving himself (on a related note, I wonder if goblins change their name after picking their career). Bamm Megabomb, the hunter trainer, and Slinky Sharpshiv, the rogue trainer and your masseur, are practicing their respective crafts, shooting targets (while standing on a megabomb) and sneaking around (while wielding sharp shivs). In the corner of your headquarters, Hobart Grapplehammer is doing mad experiments, while Assistant Greely is watching on and acting as the voice of reason. Finally, there are the sultry dressed Chip Endale and Candy Cane, one of which acts as boyfriend/girlfriend of the player, depending on the chosen character gender. Not exactly sure what exactly the non-relationship character's role in the company is though. Company stripper maybe? By the way, the warrior trainer is a mechanized cardboard cut-out. Most appropriate (and hilarious) commentary on class lore I have ever seen.

I'd like to stress that I haven't even done a single quest in the zone at this point, and I already feel more connected to the characters than I have in any other zone prior to this. Blizzard, you did a good job. Have a cookie.

The first few quests just feature the player being an executive, allowing for players to get acclimated to goblin culture, as well as just being a ton of fun. You start out by securing the kaja'mite mines, electro-shocking defiant troll slaves and killing some tunneling elementals that are eating up your resources. Again, I have to praise blizzard, as these quests also act as introductions for other bits of relevant information. Most notably, there's kaja'cola, your company's product, which temporarily boosts brainpower to come up with a brilliant/insane scheme. The writers even fill in the obvious plot holes, with characters pointing out that the trolls, for some reason, aren't affected by the kaja'mite.

After dealing with the mines, you start preparing your party that evening. The marketing rep gives you a sweet ride (no seriously, that ride is sweet. So sad that it isn't available as a mount) to go pick up your friends: Gobber the hogboblin, Ace the super-model and Izzy the token girl. However, if you're like me, you're just going to use the car to explore the island. And, my god, does the island look... honestly, the island looks rather crappy. Oh, don't get me wrong, the place is well-designed, with tons of fun little details (including a brief shot of the undermine no less). However, it's also a dump. Let me try to put it in pictures. This is booty bay, the largest goblin town prior to this expansion:

It's a tropical paradise, reminiscent of a 17^th century pirate cove. Now, here's Kezan:

Yeah, quite a difference, isn't there? The entire 17^th century pirates and explorers theme is now gone, replaced by some weird dieselpunk dystopia. The tropical paradise vibe is gone, replaced with that of a polluted hell-hole, with massive factories spilling out poisonous gasses, pipes across the island leaking black goo, piles of trash everywhere, sickly-looking vegetation (that bright green you see isn't grass, it's AstroTurf) and automatons replacing much of the animal life. Considering that the goblins who did stuff like this in previous expansions, the venture co., were the villains, it's more than a bit disconcerting.

Basically, the goblins have become caricatures of themselves. Sure, they weren't exactly serious even before this, but all of their traits are now even more exaggerated. Being an enterprising species was turned into full-blown modern consumerism, with references to anachronistic human resource departments, mandated training seminars and bling. Being a race of traders was turned into being the ones that control all the trade in the world, contradicting all the earlier games. A rather reckless disregard for personal safety became a complete and utter disregard for everything and everyone, and a love for explosions became a love for all kinds of destructive behavior, resulting in a mess so polluted I can't help but wonder where they are supposed to be getting their food.

Now, to be fair, this could actually make some sense. After all, the goblins we've interacted with up till now have pretty much exclusively been steamwheedle cartel. Having the different cartels have different cultures is a great way to differentiate between them, and it could lead to some interesting contrasts down the line. In that sense, having the bilgewater cartel (which is the one we interact with exclusively on Kezan) be more modern makes sense, since they're the ones in control of the kaja'mite, which may make you smarter, but also appears to be partially responsible for making the goblins as unhinged as they are.

However, that's not what we see in-game. At no point is a contrast made between the bilgewater and steamwheedle cartels. And, while the steamwheedle still use their old architecture, a lot of their new quests have shifted towards the same parodies of 21^st century consumerist culture. It's really disappointing to see the game so close to making perfect sense in-universe with an interesting idea, and yet not using it.

Anyway, back the awesome questing. You go to the local shanty-town and beat up some people who owe you money, grab yourself some bling for the party, play in a professional footbomb match and wait what? Footbomb player? But... I thought we were the executive of a coca-cola parody. When did we suddenly become sports players? Even by the standards of this zone, this is weird. Seriously, are these remnants of an old questline or something?

Actually, we know they are, though in a different way. Specifically, the original intent for this quest was to show the goblins as being the source of their own doom, with the player kicking the footbomb into the volcano at the heart of the isle, which would eventually lead to the volcano erupting, destroying Kezan. However, because forcing a quest on the player where he kills most of his species by accident isn't very nice (and to better fit the expansion), it was instead changed to Deathwing arriving during the game, and doing something to the volcano.

Still, extinction is still some time away, and while some of your employees start panicking and preparing for a possible evacuation, the player has a party to run. After all, you're a goblin. Living a life of extravagant decadence while on the brink of death is pretty much your dream and... wait, you call this extravagant decadence?

Seriously, we're the second most powerful goblin in the entire cartel, and this is the best we can do? This place looks like the filthiest corner of Pittsburgh. Hell, with the walls around this place, it looks more like a prison than it does like a billionaire's private swimming pool. This is a a recurring problem of the zone. Despite all the goblin money-grubbing, the only luxuries on the island seems to be fancy clothes and cushions.

Anyway, after the party, trade prince Gallywix comes to your headquarters. By this point, it's abundantly clear that Kezan is doomed, and the player is desperate to get off the isle. However, Gallywix has the only way off the isle, and will only give the player access in return for massive amounts of cash (and considering you're the second most powerful person in the cartel and you still can't afford it, that's really impressive). At this point though, I have to once again begin scratching my head. There is no indication whatsoever that Gallywix has stopped other boats from leaving, or bought up all the ships on the island or something. He literally just has a single, solitary ship. And yet the game tells us that this single ship is the only way off the island despite that island being the trading capital of the entire world. Are you telling me that none of the other cartels have any ships on the isle? That there isn't a single zeppelin? Or just an air-balloon? What happened to that kaja'cola advertising balloon that we saw earlier in the zone? It's a blatant gaping plot hole, and one that will return with a vengeance by the time we get to Azshara.

Still, the questing is thoroughly enjoyable, with the player doing all sorts of ridiculous things to get the money. He commits insurance scam on his own headquarters, grabs the last few chunks of kaja'mite from the rebelling slave miners, loots looters hired by the trade prince, breaks into the trade prince's villa (which looks just as crappy as your place, if not worse) and even stages a bank heist. However, when you make your way on board the trade prince's crappy yacht, and hand over your life savings, he decides to just enslave you and the rest of your company. Well, damn. Also, your boy/girlfriend leaves you for the company stripper and they both work for Gallywix now.

Gallywix is planning to go to Azshara, have his slaves build a fancy palace, and spend the rest of his days as the richest goblin who ever lived. Not a bad plan, certainly. Unfortunately for him, he sailed right in the middle of a naval battle, with alliance ships attacking an orc vessel, trying to get at a specific target. Even more unfortunately, they are under orders to leave no witnesses, which means that they also open fire on the goblin yacht. Fortunately, the alliance really, really sucks at killing small amounts of green people, so not only do the goblins survive with minimal casualties, we later learn that the orcs survived as well.

Lost Isles

The goblins of the bilgewater cartel are now stranded on the lost isles, which look a lot more like the tropical paradise I imagined Kezan to be like, though obviously a lot less civilized. And I think I'm not the only one, since blizzard made the lost isles the background in the character selection screen for all goblin chars, rather than their actual homeland. While Kezan was mostly about the player looking out for his own interests, the Lost Isles are where he really becomes a hero. As Gallywix sits on his ass doing nothing, the other goblins barely holding out, the player becomes a key instrument in everyone's survival, saving goblins from drowning, recovering supplies stolen by the local monkeys and dealing with dangerous animals.

While you're out saving everyone's life, one of your former employees discovers that the lost isles contain a massive amount of kaja'mite (which is a rather convenient coincidence, isn't it?), and that the local monkeys are being affected by it. They aren't quite on the level of goblins yet, but the fact that they're using mining picks and making cave paintings says they're getting there. Investigating a local monkey cave, you discover that they are being led by... goddamnit... a pygmy witch doctor.

I've already commented on the pygmies quite a lot in my Uldum review. Basically, they're a racist caricature that equal the old minstrel shows in their sheer offensiveness, and the fact that they somehow made it into the game is utterly baffling to me. The lost isles pygmies are a little better than the uldum pygmies, since these ones at least have some degree of culture rather than just existing to serve the villain, but it's not much better.

In addition, I'm wondering why the pygmies even exist, what with the shortage of models that plagued the rest of the expansion. Each and every one of their appearances could have easily been replaced by a tribe of local trolls, and made just as much, if not more, sense. It's especially notable with the lost isles pygmies though. They worship a wild jungle god, have witch doctors, practice human (or in this case, goblin) sacrifice, can create voodoo zombies and would be connected to the kaja'mite. It'd be a perfect fit. Yet instead, we get racist caricatures! Bah.

Anyway, near the witch doctor, we find a dead orc, along with his journal, which I'd like you to keep in mind because it's going to important in one of my later points. You make your way to the orcish camp described in the journal, and meet Aggra. Aggra was introduced in The Shattering as Thrall's new love interest. In-game, she is a cloud of boring and exists only as a satellite character for her hubby.

Actually, come to think of it, TBC, WotLK and Cata all have a rather disturbing undertone in that regard, with almost all important female characters trivialized or becoming a satellite character. Malfurion is the one making all the leadership decisions for the night elves while Tyrande sits at home and does nothing (or, when she does something, fail utterly), Jarod gets the position of commanding the night elf forces while Shandris is stuck in some forgotten corner of the world, Liadrin vanishes from lore after a man shows her the error of her ways, Jaina only acts as Varian's personal assistant rather than a monarch, Ishanah is just there because Velen isn't available, Modera gets passed over for leadership of the Kirin Tor in favor of Rhonin and I could go on like this for a really long time. I very much doubt that this was intentional, but it's really not reflecting favorably, especially not after warcraft III did it so well.

Also, Aggra has really annoying voice acting. The actress doing her voice doesn't seem to have any idea that's she's supposed to be playing an orc, her voice lacking the growl that's so typical for that race. Instead, thanks to the actress having a bit of an east-European accent, she sounds much closer to a draenei.

You help Aggra's group of orcs out for a while, securing the path from both native flora and alliance assassins so they can explore the isle looking for the 'precious cargo' the alliance soldiers were after. One odd aspect here is that the alliance assassins are all members of SI:7. SI:7 is the stormwind intelligence service (similar in role to the CIA), so having them act as an army of assassins in foreign lands is a bit weird. Also, they wield giant honkin' katanas, which I can't imagine being all that good for stealth either.

The player makes his way across the alliance encampment, the orcs covering him, and steals a gnomish flying machine, using it to get on board the alliance fleet. Apparently, this is a multi-national operation, as all the sailors on the ships are wearing Theramore tabards. The player makes his way into the cargo hold and discovers that the 'special cargo' is in fact none other than Thrall himself.

That... really doesn't make any sense. Okay, first, the journal made it clear that the orcish forces Thrall has with him were taken from Orgrimmar, and that the war with the alliance had already begun. That means that Thrall visited Orgrimmar at some point after Garrosh invaded Ashenvale, ordered the forsaken to invade Gilneas, got Cairne worried enough that he saw a duel to the death as his only choice and almost got the darkspear trolls to leave the horde, and yet, for some reason, left Garrosh in charge of the horde. The guy was ruining every hope of the peace Thrall had been trying to attain, tearing the horde apart in his wake, yet Thrall did absolutely nothing? Garrosh was blatantly betraying the trust thrall had placed in him, ignoring the council he was supposed to listen to, and acting to satisfy his own ego, and Thrall leaves him in charge? What in the ninety-three thousand seven hundred and thirty six hells is wrong with him?

However, this isn't just out of character on Thrall's part. Remember, Thrall had been neutral for quite a while by this point, coordinating forces to fight the cataclysm. And yet the alliance sent a task-force specifically to capture him. From the perspective of most nations in the alliance, that makes sense. However, the soldiers here are wearing Theramore tabards. That means that Jaina, one of Thrall's closest friends, has ordered her soldiers to capture him and eliminate his companions, despite her knowing that Thrall is trying to stop the world from blowing up. Again: What the hell?

Worse, no one ever mentions this incident again, despite the dozens of times this should come up. Hell, Jaina actually shows up for Thrall's wedding, with no mention of the fact that less than a year ago, she ordered the groom jailed and the bride killed. And you'd think that this entire affair would get at least a token mention in Tides of War, but nope. Thrall just kills all the alliance sailors using the elemental spirits, and the entire affair never gets mentioned again beyond this zone.

On the other hand, there is something really odd about Thrall here. Namely, both the game and the characters refer to him as if he were still the warchief of the horde, a title which he had given up by this point, and there is zero mention of the earthen ring (indeed, Thrall's entire group consists exclusively of orcs) or any greater shamanistic organization. There's not even any shamans other than Thrall and Aggra present, with the other orcs being normal soldiers.

Whenever the focus of the questline is on the goblins, and their quest for survival in this new wilderness, it's an amazing experience. Whenever Thrall and his group show up, the entire thing goes off the rails, which we will see later on. Luckily, we're shifting back to the goblins for a while now, with the player deploying a 'town-in-a-box' on the next island over. Basically, it's a super-compressed town, fitted into a tiny box and sealed so thoroughly that you need a massive pile of explosives to open it. It's useful, straight-forward and hilariously dangerous. In short, it's a typical goblin device. BOOM!

However, the town is a bit smaller than the creator expected. While all the minor buildings are present, the docks and the oil refinery are missing, along with the trade prince. Yeah, you guessed it, the trade prince has run off with these essential resources, taking the goblins loyal to him along, and leaving the player and the characters he's grown to like to die. Of course, the player is a hero, so he stays and helps people survive, securing several sources of food using good ol' goblin mad science.

With food secured, you start moving to safety issues. First, you deal with the naga of nearby Vashj'elan and the other minions of the old gods that aid them. For once, the old god related stuff actually feels a bit creepy. I think this can be traced back to the players mostly dealing with down-to-earth stuff up till now. Sure, there's been magic, but, with the exception of Thrall's storm (which was supposed to feel big and impressive), it's been relatively mundane. There's been no random faceless ones and tentacles stomping around, no magic items that you're casually tossing around, no cultists constantly shouting cultist things. Even the naga themselves are treated less like an unknowable evil force, and are instead humanized, refusing to attack the player when he has surrounded himself with naga babies. Instead, there is just a single powerful dark being, hidden away at the heart of the naga compound, with a few tentacles in practical locations to block off the heart of the compound. The result is indeed very effective.

Unfortunately for the goblins, the naga weren't the real threat. Instead, it's the pygmies, who attack the town-in-a-box. While the player arrives in time to fight them off and save the town, a lot of goblins have already been taken away, and the player goes to the pygmy village to get them back.

Now, here's the reason why I'm slightly more forgiving of the Lost Isles pygmies than the Uldum pygmies. They're not just stooges for the actual bad guys. Instead, they have cultural traits of their own (turtle motif, shamans with volcano hats, dark magic), act as an independent power and actually influence the story. They're still racist caricatures, sure, but at least they're interesting beyond that.

While the player defeats the pygmies of Oomlot Village, the shamans from higher up the volcano retaliate, sending an army of zombified goblin captives against the town-in-a-box. After you brutally slaughter the shamans and burn most of the goblin zombies, you turn your eye to the heart of the volcano, where Volcanoth, a fire turtle worshiped by the pygmies, lives. Naturally, since you're the goddamn player, you kill volcanoth. And, since you're a goblin, you do it using improvised explosives.

Did I mention this was in the heart of a volcano? Yeah, this is not ending well. The volcano erupts, destroying most of the southern half of the isle, including the town-in-a-box. Oops. The player escapes the volcano on a plane, which heads for Thrall's current hiding place. Yes, that means that the entire questline is about to take a massive nosedive once again. For one, rather than actually helping out your nearly extinct people, you spend the next few quests once again fighting alliance forces. Sure, you eventually learn that Thrall has promised to help 'rescue the goblins and deal with gallywix', but you don't actually know that Gallywix has captured your fellow goblins when that's revealed, so it just serves to confuse.

This is also the first appearance of aggresionitis hominum, an odd disease that causes orcs to act like it was humans who started the local conflict while the orcs did nothing to provoke them. Every time it appears, I get taken out of the game instantly, as it feels so out-of-place. The appearances of aggresionitis hominum are really sparse and often come from characters that are supposed to know better, so it's pretty unlikely that it's supposed to serve as commentary on orcish ignorance or something. Instead, I suspect it's just stuff from an old draft that accidentally got left in.

This time, Theramore isn't involved in the attack. Instead, it's SI:7 and a squadron of Ironforge paratroopers. Just... don't ask me how they're paratrooping from one-man planes. Or where the planes suddenly came from. Or why they're landing in their own compound and the ocean, rather than behind enemy lines. Or why they don't drop loot. Or why there's a worgen and a night elf serving as Stormwind Intelligence commanders. In fact, avoid any questions at all.

Finally, we return to the goblin plot, as we're finally given the sort of crucial information that Gallywix has captured our people. Of course, the orcs don't come with you to help free your people, meaning that at least half of Thrall's promise was worthless.

Turns out, Gallywix has started a massive kaja'mite mining operation beneath the volcano. Even with the volcano growing more and more unstable, the sheer value of the stuff makes that totally worth it. Small sidenote, but it's good to see characters still act when out of their element. One of the people holding the line amongst the free goblins is sister goldskimmer, the priest trainer, who stands at the front line and is ready to whack anyone who crosses her field of vision.

So you enter the mines and it's quite an impressive operation. I was initially ready to call nonsense on just how many people Gallywix has working for him (even the amount of goblin zombies seen earlier was already stretching my suspension of disbelief), despite only having a single yacht. However,

blizzard was again one step ahead of me, and the characters actually comment on Gallywix having people they never saw on the yacht. It's likely that he somehow managed to get reinforcements or stashed away a large amount of soldiers in the parts of the town-in-a-box he obtained.

The player fights his way through the mines, freeing all the goblins, and even getting his gang of friends from Kezan back together. With the mining slaves freed, you start moving against Gallywix, destroying his soldiers, sabotaging his oil platform and killing your old boy/girlfriend. Finally, the orcs show up, working with Sassy Hardwrench and the player to free the slave pits. Well, when I say working with, I mean they let the player do all the work. There's not even the token never-ending battle that's usually done to portray NPCs fighting (and which has already been used several times in this very zone no less). Despite the orcish incompetence, the player manages to free the last few captured goblins and kills the company stripper.

Well, at least now it seems the orcs are finally doing something useful. Thrall and his forces are attacking Gallywix's compound, soon joined by the player in an awesome shredder armor. Finally, you bring Gallywix to his knees and then... Gallywix tells Thrall that he'll totally reform his ways, be a good guy, and do whatever Thrall says. And Thrall buys it. WHAT THE HELL?

Seriously, this is just unbelievable. Thrall not only lets the guy go, but he actually supports him as the leader of the steamwheedle cartel. The guy who he only met twice, first insulting the orcs and betraying his people, the second time actually trying to kill Thrall. This is... this has to be a hallucination or something. From a storytelling perspective, this is just impossible. There is no way either the player or Thrall is trusting Gallywix ever again, right? Please tell me the writers are joking? I mean, sure, if Gallywix was killed, the player would be the most likely to succeed him, which can't work from a gameplay perspective, but there's alternatives. Why not put Sassy Hardwrench in charge? She's the one that's been doing most of the leadership throughout the last two zones, and the one who worked closest with Thrall.

Still, despite that horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible writing screw-up, this is a somewhat happy ending. The yacht has all the goblins you got to know over the past two zones, ecstatic that they're finally out of trouble. It really was fulfilling to have helped all these guys. Sure, they're not exactly good people, but they're your people, you know. Thrall has invited the goblins into the horde. Sure, that's not very neutral of him, but between not stopping Garrosh and being attacked by alliance soldiers, he's not exactly credible as a neutral character anyway.

So, you head to Orgrimmar, carrying a package Thrall gave you to deliver to the new warchief. In the city, you discover that the package is an SI:7 emblem, which Thrall sent to Garrosh to let him know the alliance tried to assassinate him. Well, I guess the questline is finally ov...

What?

WHAT?

Okay, we're meeting with Garrosh now. First, he tells you that goblins aren't welcome in Grommash Hold. Considering Grommash Hold was built by goblins... go **** yourself, jackass. Then Garrosh says that he's already put the goblin cartel to work and that we now serve him...

/leave horde

/LEAVE HORDE

WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING? This is the single worst ending to the zone you could possibly have. Despite assisting Thrall throughout the Lost Isles, he breaks his promises to the player. He doesn't help free your race. He puts Gallywix back in charge when you finally have him on the ropes. And then, when you have managed to free your people by yourself, he ropes you into the horde and sends your people to someone so he can re-enslave them? He betrayed every single goblin (well, except gallywix) in the horde, who players have grown quite a personal connection to by this point, mind you, and the writers are expecting the players to just blindly accept this and consider it a happy ending/beginning? The hell are they on, and where can I get some?

Aside from that idiocy, I can't figure out the significance of the SI:7 symbol you're handing over to Garrosh. He's apparently visibly taken aback by the thing, but I don't know why that would be the case. The horde and alliance are at war, and Thrall was technically flying the horde flag at the time. Sure, if we'd told him they were specifically after Thrall, it would be shocking, but all you do is hand over the insignia without any explanation. Well, after long and hard thinking, I arrived at two possibilities: One, Garrosh can smell plot-points, which would be consistent with the rest of the expansion. Two, this is once again a remnant of an older version of the story, and this was originally the event that set off the alliance-horde war. Though that would make the involvement of Theramore soldiers even more questionable (though fitting with some of the timeline oddities seen in the southern barrens).

Azshara

The transition from the lost isles to Azshara is not a smooth one. Back in the Deepholm article, I mentioned that Cataclysm was essentially an abomination, sown together from the dead remains of three entirely different storylines. Both the lost isles and Kezan were part of the survival plot, where the focus was on desperate survival after a world-shattering cataclysm wrecked most of the planet. As such, it focuses on a small group of people building an existence in a world where everything is trying to kill them. It's the small scale that makes it personal, and drives home just how close the entire bilgewater cartel is to total annihilation. It's a new world, where the former global powers are now weakened enough that every hostile group, no matter how insignificant before (see: Pygmies), is a credible threat. We are titans brought low, trying to work ourselves up from the mud.

However, Azshara is part of the war storyline, which focuses on the clashing of two titanic super-powers with all their might and resources. These are the champions of the planet, rivaled by none, forced into battle for the sake of survival, global supremacy and to appease the daddy issues of their respective tyrants. To destroy each other, they field the most massive armies on the face of the planet, grasp at every dirty trick in the book and even reshape the very face of the world in order to achieve supremacy.

You might notice that those two storylines are pretty much diametric opposites of one another and couldn't possibly be going at the same time. And you're right. So whenever the game switches from one to the other, you can almost hear the setting breaking itself apart when everyone's suspension of disbelief snaps. And while it happens frequently throughout the expansion, nowhere is it more severe than right here. Last zone, the entire bilgewater cartel was reduced to a handful of refugees on a single boat. Now, the bilgewater cartel, made up solely of the survivors of that single boat (which must have suffered pretty epic losses throughout the lost isles), is a global superpower, capable of going toe-to-toe with the ancient night elf empire, the naga and the furbolg at the same time, while still having enough resources left to casually reshape the entire zone, build a new capital, assemble a fleet and launch expeditions to every corner of the planet. It reeks of an utter apathy regarding the setting on the part of the writers, and results in a setting where even the most dedicated lore fan has no idea regarding the status of anyone in the world.

Adding to that is a really weird timeskip. Note that you arrive in Orgrimmar at the same time as the rest of the goblin population, since you're all traveling on the same boat. However, by the time you finished talking to Hellscream, the first thing you do after getting off the boat, Azshara has already been entirely reshaped by the goblins. That has to be a timeskip of at least a few months, happening in the middle of a conversation (seriously, it starts with Hellscream saying goblins aren't welcome, and it ends with him saying goblins have already been put to work reshaping Azshara). Jarring is what it is. Still, while its place in the story is utterly jarring, the questing experience of Azshara is still pretty enjoyable (though by no means as good as the previous two zones).

As I said, you start out after an oddly long time-skip, with goblins firmly entrenched in the zone. They even took time out of their busy schedules to reshape the entire place into a horde sigil. What a cute and completely implausible waste of resources that could have gone to a million better uses (like shaping Teldrassil into the shape of a burning teldrassil). However, the goblins have run into a slew of problems that they need you to help out with, and your orcish masters want you to do some stuff for them too.

First, you gotta bring order to a woodcutting operation. The goblins made some programming errors with their automatic shredders causing them to go berserk, and the night elves have entrenched themselves in the trees. Killing two birds with one stone, the player takes control of the shredder, and uses it to beat back the night elf forces, even killing a powerful ancient of war. Having secured a source of wood right at the gates of Orgrimmar, you move on to the massive nearby quarry, created by goblins having moved an entire mountain range. Again, these are the guys who were near extinction last zone. Apparently, there's been some problems with basilisks moving into the area and turning all the workers to stone. Naturally, the player fixes the problem, and the quarry resumes work.

Which lead to a question. Remember, the entire reason for the war between the horde and the alliance is because the orcs of Durotar need the resources of Ashenvale. However, thanks to goblin ingenuity, those orcs now have a massive quarry just north of Orgrimmar (which also produces large amounts of iron, and unspecified valuable minerals), as well as access to large amounts of wood (azshara isn't exactly as forested as ashenvale, but the lone trees are still really damn big). Food is also less of an issue, with large amounts of game in Azshara, goblins mass-producing cheap fast food (we see beverage cans, patties and take-away noodles everywhere) and the fishing done by the goblins.

So why are we still waging a war for resources? I mean, I understand why the war would continue (cycle of revenge and daddy issues), but why are all the members of the horde still acting like the war is waged for resources? You're exploiting the planet on a scale and to a degree never before seen on the face of the planet. Then again, the horde controls an area roughly the size of all the seven kingdoms thrown together, and consists solely of endangered species. I think your problem is more with resource management than resource acquisition, garry-cakes. Ugh, this war is getting stupider by the second.

To secure their new facilities, the goblins have sent the bilgewater battalion to deal with the naga. Of course, the battalion recruits the player, and he spends a while playing around with explosives to deal with the naga. Now here's part of the reason why Azshara is still fun to play through: It's creative. While it doesn't have the atmosphere of the goblin starter areas, it does replicate the memorability of the quests. For example, the player here has to traverse an actual minefield to loot the corpses of goblins who didn't survive the minefield. When he touches a mine, it doesn't just do damage, but it also knocks the player back, possibly into another mine. It's actually quite fun to let yourself get knocked around like this. Plus, it also works on enemies, so pulling one into the minefield is bound to have fun effects.

Despite Azshara sticking out as a sore thumb in the goblin storyline, it is actually rather effective in the world-building department. You get a real feel for goblin culture throughout the entire experience, or at least the rather caricatured version of it the goblins now follow. There's tons of fun little details that make the world feel more complete. My personal favorite is the presence of the airborne priest, expensive mercenaries that drop into hostile situations to perform exorcisms and heal the injured. It's just so... goblin. Though I will admit that making them Light worshipers feels a bit out of place.

However, it's not just the goblins that get expanded upon, but also the other people in the region (which is nice, because vanilla azshara was so underdeveloped its not even worth doing this zone in my comparison format). You even play through a vision of the war of the ancients at one point, discovering where rebel-aligned highborne mages hid a powerful magical artifact when their city was under siege. There's even a nice contrast between goblin and blood elf culture. When a blood elf discovers that this group of highborne possibly saved the world, only to be forgotten by history, her plan is to make sure their legacy is honored. The goblin on the other hand doesn't care about that, just continuing his planned destruction of the site to be replaced by a fuel depot. On the other hand, it would have been nice if the powerful highborne artifact you discovered was ever mentioned again.

After your little time-travel, you take the rocket-way for the first time. The rocket-way is a highway for rocket travel that spans the entire rim of the azshara crater, AND IT IS GLORIOUS. And I finally get to see some of my mates from the lost isles again, having been sent to meet up with Assistant Greely. Cool. And... Hello, Greely? Don't you remember me? Seriously? Well that was weird. Maybe Hobart grapplehammer remembers me? Not him either.

Ugh, another really disconcerting disconnect from goblin starter zones. Despite the fact that I spent over two zones with these characters, saving their buttocks on multiple occasions, they don't even acknowledge that they recognize the goblin player. Considering how little trouble it would be to add some alternate dialogue, it's a real damn shame that the personal connection with these characters, which was a big part in what made the last two zones so enjoyable, is just severed instead. The most positive thing I can say is that at least blizzard learned from its fault here, and made sure that didn't happen next expansion.

Naturally, Greely and Grapplehammer have been working on insane experiments, and all hell has broken loose, with the player needing to save everyone, put out the fires, secure the rare materials, kill the mutant hordes, discover the secret behind azsharite, shrink down and ride a mouse and launch a family of super-intelligent raptors into space. No, really. Gloriously silly, but so totally forgivable. By this point, I think the player is like a cosmic force, created specifically to balance out the insanity of the rest of the goblin race.

To offset the fact that I forgave this, the game casually decides to give the player a bomb that can level entire cities, which is then loaded in the hilariously giant cannon in bilgewater harbor, the new goblin capital. Sure, just give one faction in the middle of a global war a superweapon and never mention it again, that makes perfect sense. Doesn't anyone on the writing team keep track of threads left hanging or something?

Bilgewater Harbor is awesome by the way. Placed on an artificial island in the middle of Azshara, it's a cross between an incredibly well-defended fortress and a haven for debauchery, popular with soldiers on leave. It's a lot of fun to walk around. On the other hand, there's again the problem of recurring characters not recognizing you. Oddly enough, the characters from the slums in Kezan who you beat up are also present. How the hell did they get on Gallywix's yacht?

However, those aren't the people who raised my eyebrow the most. Hiding near the local slums is none other than Kalecgos (the dragon that essentially took over leadership of the blue dragonflight after the death of Malygos, eventually even becoming the new blue dragon aspect), hidden in his human form! Not entirely sure why anyone is allowing a human to just freely walk around a horde town though...

Nor am I entirely sure why Kalecgos is even here. Sure, he needs help, but you'd think that the night elves or the kirin tor would be more receptive to that sort of thing. The Kalecgos questline is one of the obligatory “oh right, the old gods exist” questline of which one or two can be found in pretty much every zone that doesn't feature minions of the old gods as a main plot.

We already saw an example of such a questline with the naga back in the lost isles. Despite the fact that they were pretty much pointless to the lost isles experience, and could be left out without anyone even noticing, the naga quests still rank amongst the best of the obligatory old god questlines, because they were genuinely creepy and didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

The others were not so lucky. They fail utterly at being creepy (or evoking any emotion whatsoever) and they don't fit into the overall plot. Most notably, no one in the zones outside a handful of unimportant mooks ever seems to care about the presence of old god forces, despite the fact that those forces are trying to blow up the world. We've already seen a really blatant example of this in stonetalon mountains, where the player is sent to old god-infested stonetalon peak, stumbles around for a few quests, and then goes away. Despite the fact that the entire mountaintop is still a nexus of dark magical powers spreading tendrils of corruption across the land, every person in the zone just forgets about it. Same deal for the shrine of Aessina in Ashenvale.

Oddly enough, you can even have the obligatory old god questline in a zone that's all about the old gods. In that case, it's a different part of the old god forces that shows up and is promptly forgotten about afterward. This is usually limited to emerald nightmare stuff though, one example of which we saw back in Darkshore, and which we will discuss extensively when we get to Mount Hyjal.

The Kalecgos questline isn't too bad though in that regard though, mostly because you don't actually end up interacting with the old god forces a lot. The basic idea here is that the black dragonflight is now hunting the members of the blue dragonflight, and Kalecgos wants the player to convince Azuregos to get to safety. A bit questionable that the black dragonflight has enough manpower (drakepower?) to pull this off, but otherwise a decent idea for a plot.

However, Azuregos is a bit loopy, due to having died a good number of times (a shout-out to vanilla, where he was the only interesting feature in the entire zone). While his loopiness certainly makes the quests memorable, what with him befriending a murloc, falling in love with a spirit healer, etc, it's a massive, massive plot hole that they have apparently canonized spirit healers constantly rezzing everyone. For the sake of my own personal sanity, I'm just going to pretend the entire questline is non-canon because I fear my mind might implode. Writers, look up gameplay and story segregation, and please don't do this again. Thank you.

However, that doesn't mean the questline isn't enjoyable. If the problems of fitting into the universe were addressed, this might well have been one of my favorite questlines, because of the quests you do for archmage Xylem. He gives you several tests and trials that barely involve combat, but instead focus on movement. While I'm kinda wondering why Xylem decided to set up his school in Azshara, the experience is a lot of fun nonetheless. On the other hand, it's kinda stretching my suspension of disbelief that I'm an apprentice to archmage Xylem while playing on a rogue, shaman, or any other non-mage class. Doing this entire thing as a mage only questline in Winterspring (which would tie in well to the blue dragons) seems a lot more logical.

You do actually end up interacting with the old god forces once, near the end of the questline, when you, Azuregos and Kalecgos assault a black dragon encampment. This again leads to the question of why everyone in the zone is so casual about these guys being present, and why they haven't had the horde shove axes into their every orifice yet. Hell, Bilgewater Harbor has an army specifically assembled to fight the forces of the old gods. Again, a reason why this quest feels more than a little out of place in Azshara.

We move back to bilgewater harbor, where we temporarily join the bilgewater batallion (which, for some reason, also has orc and forsaken members). This group of soldiers is now tasked with taking the shattered strand, an ancient night elf ruin now inhabited by the naga, and recovering an artifact we spotted during an earlier quest, which allowed the naga to enslave sea giants. In addition to the bilgewater batallion and the return of the airborne priests, we also meet two other arms of the goblin military in the form of gob squad, a small group of elites, and the goblin army merging and acquisition team, which is a really complicated way of saying they get people stuff. Always good to see a diverse military. Of course, the player resolves the entire situation in time for tea, bringing back the powerful artifact, which we will never see again. Seriously, that's like the third one this zone.

With all the other threats dealt with, it's time to go back to the night elves. In the north, the night elves have set up an encampment where they practice arcane magic, which they newly started doing this expansion. The entire new classes deal is something we'll address another time. However, because the night elves are new at arcane stuff, they haven't really covered some of the basic safety lessons yet. Of course, that'd make more sense if there weren't also said to be highborne at the camp, and those guys are supposed to be better at magic than even the high and blood elves. Of course, that doesn't make any sense either, because the blood/high elves are highborne who spent ten thousand extra years studying magic, while the highborne that joined the night elves all come from a single complex where they haven't exactly been doing much research. Of course, that doesn't make much sense either, since why would those highborne stay in Dire Maul and not have any impact outside of it and why is my head starting to hurt? Ugh, stupid plot hole pile-up. Long story short, you screw over the night elves with some basic magic. Minor thing, but I do really like the name of the night elf mages: illuminators. Fits perfectly.

The night elves are also teaming up with the local blackmaw furbolg. Originally a part of the timbermaw tribe, they split off when the horde started blowing up Azshara. A shamanistic species like the furbolg can't exactly sit by and let that happen, can they? Of course, that just puts a bowtie on the elephant in the room: Where the hell are all the orcish and tauren shamans, and why aren't they trying to stop the goblins or any of the dozen others environmenticides committed under the rule of Garrosh? You'd think they'd at least speak up, but nope. It also puts a top hat on the other elephant in the room: Where in the nine hells are all the alliance furbolg? They've got like three tribes as their allies, yet we never see them as part of the alliance armies. With the aid of the player, the horde manages to prevent yet another tribe from joining the alliance, using a night elf disguise to play the two factions against each other.

Finally, the player moves to the western front, known for its lack of quietness. Supposedly, the player is dropped in by an airborne priest, but that quest was broken for me, so I had to walk. Stupid cataclysm bugs. Aside from that though, the questing is pretty good, feeling like a suitably big battle to end the zone with and having a really cool assassination quest alongside your old masseur, Slinky Sharpshiv (though, of course, she doesn't remember you).

One thing that does bug me, and which lends more credence to my theory that the war was originally kicked off by a different event, is that this conflict doesn't fit in the cataclysm timeline. The war with the alliance, which started with the horde pushing into ashenvale, obviously started before this. However, the purpose of these quests is to get the night elf outposts out of the way so the horde can start pushing into Ashenvale.

General thoughts on Goblins

The goblins are a really good fit for the new horde race. While they're culturally distinct from the core of the horde, their race had already integrated with the horde to the point that you could probably already consider them a horde race back in WotLK (where goblins were members of the warsong offensive). Considering that, I'm a bit disappointed that it's the bilgewater cartel that's joining the horde, rather than the steamwheedle goblins that have become more and more associated with the horde as time went on. Though, for the record, I would be incredibly pissed at the writers if I saw the steamwheedle goblins doing some of the more destructive things.

In a way, the goblins and worgen perfectly encapsulate the way their factions have been handled this expansion. On the plus side, that means that the goblins get fun quests, a large in-game presence and a large cast of characters they get to interact with. On the down side, it also means that the goblins are turned into unsympathetic caricatures of their former selves, derived of the things that made the horde so unique.

Think back to when world of warcraft first came out. Some friend asks you to name anything unique about the warcraft story. How many of you would have told him some variation of 'the usual generic villain races are treated as actual people, often good people at that'? It was one of warcraft III and world of warcraft's most distinguishing features, making a rather large impact on the fantasy genre. While warcraft definitely wasn't the first franchise that did this, it was the one that did it most notably and influentially, and didn't just do a cheap complete role reversal.

And then cataclysm came out, and threw all of that away. Since this post is supposed to be about goblins, I'll keep to them, but trust me: the other races will get their turn as well.

The goblins of warcraft III and World of Warcraft were basically idealized capitalists. They lived in an environment where everything was for sale, to the point that goblin suicide bombers were a rather cheap commodity. However, an often overlooked part of that is that the goblins were also individualists and legitimate entrepreneurs, all qualities that were lost in cataclysm.

Individualists: While some larger organizations existed, they were benign entities that were necessary for goblin society to function (tinker's union, banks, trade fleet, town guards), and were usually not concerned with making profit. Actual businesses tended to be small, individual stores. Mass-production was a concept entirely unknown to the goblins, and something that would not fit in their culture at all. Goblins were individuals, always trying to discover the next best thing, or cornering a market niche.

On the flipside, that also meant that goblins had individual responsibility. Union regulations, insurances, safety standards and words like that shouldn't appear in their vocabulary. Those things are for gnomes, dammit! Speaking of races other than goblins, the old goblins were also a lot less... goblin. Okay, that came out nonsensical. What I mean is that while the majority of goblin society was made up of goblins, you could find plenty of exceptions, and not just at the lowest rungs of society either.

Legitimate Entrepreneurs: While most goblins certainly weren't above pulling a fast one, they did actually try to develop legitimate businesses and innovative products. In fact, I would argue that the old goblins weren't even all that money-focused, and more focused on creating a business. Remember the old raptor horns quest from the barrens? One goblin thought that raptors got their intelligence from their horns, so he asked the player to get a few to make smart drinks from them. However, when that didn't work, he didn't try to sell his drink anyway. He instead switched gears to a different ingredient, asking you to get wailing essence from the wailing caverns.

And there's tons of examples of that throughout old questing. Sure, making globs of cash was still a goal for many goblins, but they weren't mono-maniacs about it. The race-cart track in Tanaris is a good example of this, with goblins racing and tinkering for the glory of defeating the gnomes. There was no large public, no real market, and yet these goblins gave it their all.

In fact, if I were to look solely at the culture, I'd argue that the in-game goblins are closer to a dark twist on the gnomes. The gnomes are the 'modern' race, with a culture based extensively around anachronistic concepts, with wacky engineering as a centerpiece. The goblins, at least how they were before this expansion, were anachronistic, sure, but it was to a far lesser degree, and wasn't the central theme in their culture. Even if you removed every single bit of technology from goblin society, it would have still been recognizable. This is partially because wacky engineering was not what their culture revolved around. Sure, they had some cool technology, but it was just another business of theirs. In fact, the iconic goblin technologies were rarely even seen used in goblin towns, instead being mostly tools for the horde.

Which leads to my final point: Goblins have become crutches for the orcs. That means that the goblins get constantly slammed in the ground by the big green guys, but those very same green guys would crumple hilariously without them. Without the goblins, the cataclysm orcs would be nothing. Orgrimmar was built by goblins, goblins are doing the exploitation of ashenvale, goblins are responsible for constructing the orcish fleet (both naval and aerial), goblins build the siege weapons, etc. Goblins are involved in every single orcish offensive in the game, plus a few of their own. It's something that reflects very poorly on both races, as orcs are no longer allowed to do anything other than obsess over battle, while the goblins never receive recognition for either victories or atrocities. I've heard cataclysm criticized for being too much about humans versus orcs, but frankly, it's closer to humans versus goblins.

Gilneas City

Well, we've got the goblins down, that means that about three-quarters of the work is done. The worgen experience is not exactly prolonged, with only a single zone dedicated to them, compared to three for the goblins (though it covers the same level range as the first two of those). However, there's a pretty clean dividing line in there, so we're going to do it in two segments anyway.

We start as a human in Gilneas City somewhere in the past, though it's unclear when. The opening narration is clearly taking place during the events of warcraft III, with the undead scourge besieging all of Lordaeron and the worgen a mysterious new threat whose existence is only rumored about. However, that's contradicted by the first thing you see when you start walking around, which is Prince Liam Greymane stating that the scourge have been fought off somewhere in the past, and large portions of the nation have been overrun by the worgen. Really sloppy there, writers. And it won't be the last time either.

We start out with the capital city under siege by rampaging worgen. Liam Greymane leads a defensive force in the hopes of holding off the attackers long enough for the civilians to escape. The player, one of these civilians, decides to help out. A second civilian, Gwen Armstead, is also still hanging around, securing supplies. With the aid of the player, and cover from Liam, the civilians of the merchant square manage to escape, retreating to the still-secured military district.

Like happened in the goblin starter zone, you're quickly introduced to a cast of characters that will stay with you throughout the leveling experience. However, while it is by no means badly done, it doesn't hold up as well as the goblin experience either. The main difference is that you never get the chance to connect with most of the characters, especially the class trainers. They're just generic members of their class who follow your questing hubs. The only ones who stand out are your own class trainer (who you interact with in a quest, and has some history with you, which is a really nice touch) and Celestine of the Harvest, the druid trainer, whose (relatively) bright clothes set her apart. I love the Gilnean setting, but man, is it not good at giving characters unique appearances.

We then meet two other high-ranking members of society. First, there's king Genn Greymane. He's the king, easy enough. There's also Lord Godfrey, a ruthless and slightly dickish noble. King Greymane asks you to go to the prison and get someone called Lord Crowley out. Crowley was an old friend of Greymane, but participated in an insurrection. With the worgen threat, Greymane thinks Crowley will be necessary to achieve survival. Having played through the zone several times, I'm still not entirely sure why he thinks Crowley would be useful, since he's later surprised when Crowley reveals that he had weaponry stashed away.

By this point, something has really started to bug me: I have no idea what's going on. Okay, that's a lie. I know what's going on, but only because I'm a complete and total warcraft geek. However, let's use our imagination for a moment and pretend we're new players. We've been hearing lots of excitement about this world of warcraft thing and its cool world, and our friends have told us that cataclysm will be a good jumping on point. Okay, let's start.

We do get some basic info on the character creation screen. The worgen were created by some guy called archmage Arugal, to fight in something called the third war against something called the scourge. However, the people who fought alongside the worgen got infected and became worgen themselves. The curse spread quickly throughout Gilneas, and most people are dead. Those who survived the curse now seek a new destiny for themselves.

Okay, that's clear enough, and gives a good amount of starting info. However, we also get constant references to the northgate rebellion (though it takes a while to figure out that everyone is referring to the same thing, since they don't use the same terms). Liam says his soldiers managed to beat it, Genn says Crowley took part in it. However, no one ever explains what exactly this northgate rebellion is, the reasons behind it and how it was stopped. All we get is the word 'politics', which is not a satisfactory answer for something that will act as an important divide between the important characters, and will be constantly referenced.

Anyway, we go free Lord Crowley and his people. For some reason, they're on the prison rooftop from which they easily have escaped, rather than an actual prison. Seriously, designers, what's the deal with that? Crowley gives us the location of a nearby arsenal, which we give to greymane. Greymane then tells us to go to the arsenal and meet up with the guy he already sent there. Wait, what? But he didn't know about it until we told him. How could he already have a guy there?

When we walk up to that guy, he suddenly turns into a worgen and smacks us! Oh n0ez! Luckily, some girl comes in and shoots the thing. She's called Lorna Crowley, and says she's the daughter of Lord Crowley. So... why did she pick this exact moment to walk in? And how does she know that the worgen she shot was the guy king greymane sent? She only walked in after he transformed, and there's no indication she knew the guy (so she couldn't have told by his clothing).

Genn now has enough firepower at his command to level half the military district, but before he can open wild fire on the worgen hordes, he needs you to get an important alchemist to safety. You do so, and Godfrey gives the order to open fire. Sure enough, the multitude of cannons are now one cannon, it shoots once, and everyone immediately retreats because the worgen might come back in force. That's not exactly living up to Genn's earlier statements.

And the sloppy writing keeps coming. When Godfrey sends you to Greymane Court, he says that it's because it's the only place left in the city where they could defend themselves without being boxed in. However, when you arrive at the court, it turns out that the reason we're going to Greymane Court is that the civilians can escape through the city gate there and reach the safety of Duskhaven. Nothing to do with not getting boxed in while defending. It's not like these are huge writing flaws or something, but they do kinda add up after a while.

While the civilians make their way to duskhaven, Crowley volunteers to stay behind and lead a group of soldiers to distract the worgen, making their last stand in the cathedral with no chance of survival. Crowley gives the player the choice to join him. And by gives the player a choice I mean that his text acts like you have a choice, but the game won't allow you to do anything other than accepting.

Small note, but the music here really doesn't fit. Gilneas city is essentially zombie apocalypse (featuring werewolves) meets survival horror. However, the music seems to have been written for a mystery horror, with a slow, eerie build-up. Which really doesn't fit if there's already a thousand werewolves trying to eat your face. Speaking of sounds, most of the accents of the generic Gilnean NPCs, both male and female, sound really fake. And it would have been nice if Crowley's rebels didn't say “for Greymane!” as a generic quote, and royalists didn't say “we've been walled up for far too long.”

Finally, its time to make your last stand at the cathedral. For some reason, the only people there are members of the northgate rebellion. Seriously, no royalists willing to make the ultimate sacrifice?

Cutscene time! It's a rather jumbled telling of what happened to the player, which really confused me the first time I watched it. Back in Gilneas City, you were bitten by that guy who transformed before your eyes. As anyone who knows werewolves realizes, that's what's responsible for changing the player into a werewolf himself. However, the cutscene shows the worgen breaking into the light's dawn cathedral, followed by horrific screaming by everyone inside, then the player getting captured by fellow Gilneans again.

So, my obvious question: How did the player and the others in the cathedral survive? The player was bitten quite a while before the cathedral, so we know that the transformation process takes some time. Worgen attack with intent to kill, as seen on both the player, and an NPC all the way at the beginning of the questing experience. We also know that they still attack people who are infected, since that's what's been going on in the last few quests with the player. So why didn't the worgen, y'know, kill everyone?

Gilneas

In my opinion, the worgen starting experience should have either been twice as long, or half as long. As it is now, we start in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, with little to no idea what's going on and little investment in our surroundings. To make Gilneas City feel like a worthwhile and tense battle, you need to first make us care about the setting. Give us a few quests where Gilneas is still in an intact state, to get us to know the people and their ways. Show us why the northgate rebellion is significant, what the deal is with those weird druids and introduce the characters more properly. Basically, a worgen version of Kezan.

Alternatively, just leave out the battle for the city entirely and start after it, where we are now. Really, the entire questing up to now can be summed up in two lines: “Gilneas City fell” and “You became a worgen”. Sure, there was also the re-acceptance of the northgate rebels, but you're never actually told what the northgate rebels are. In addition, we chose to create a worgen character, so why not actually have us start out as one? As a bonus, it would prevent the major disconnect between the city and post-city questing. Remember how the worgen were a force akin to the zombie apocalypse that had taken over most of Gilneas and outnumbered the Gilneans dozens upon dozens to one? Well, I'm glad you do, because blizzard apparently didn't. From this point onwards, the feral worgen barely show up, even in areas that we'd been told they controlled. There actually is sort of an explanation for this, but when you run across it, it feels anti-climactic.

Anyway, back to the story. The player is now a worgen. He ran wild for a while (and by while I mean about six or seven years, not that anyone in the game bothers to tell you), before stepping into a bear trap and being dragged to Duskhaven. Using a potion created by Krennan Aranas, you have regained your human mind, though not the body.

When Krennan asks you to get a few potions for him from a nearby shack, you are ambushed by one of the forsaken, who got past the reefs that protect the shores of Gilneas when they were destroyed by the cataclysm. From this point onward, the forsaken are the main villains of the zone. Liam Greymane, while wounded, leads a defense against a small group of aggressive forsaken, which for some reason includes abominations with oddly deep, sexy voices. It's really disconcerting, and is gonna give me nightmares for weeks to come.

After helping Liam for a while, the player goes to help Lord Godfrey, who is leading a militia force to attack the forsaken landing (y'know, everyone in duskhaven seems awfully casual about both the attack by the undead and the fact that you're a werewolf.). I actually really enjoy the character of Lord Godfrey. While he initially argued that the player should be put to death because the potion had never worked on people who had been worgen for so long, your actions have at the very least convinced him that you're on his side. While he is mistrusting by nature, the guy is by no means dumb, and seems plenty willing to reconsider his stance. And really, much of his doubt comes off as perfectly reasonable. Particularly, he isn't fond of the idea of worgen in his ranks because he's afraid Krennan's potion might wear off after time, which is a sensible concern. Still, he doesn't have much of a choice, so he chooses to unleash you on his enemies, giving you a tactical mission to take out the forsaken catapults and cannons, along with just asking you to slaughter some enemies.

Also, for some reason everyone in Gilneas seems to be oddly knowledgeable about the forsaken, despite the fact that they locked themselves off from all outsiders before the forsaken even came in existence. For example, one of the local farmers who asks you to save her children states that the forsaken know no mercy. Godfrey states that the dark rangers are hand-picked by Sylvanas herself. The fact that they even recognize a dark ranger should already raise an eyebrow. Hell, the fact that they know the difference between the scourge and the forsaken is already a stretch. But now they know the internal workings of the forsaken army? HOW?

When you complete the dark ranger-killing quest, the camera shakes wildly for half a second, indicating a large earthshake. So you walk outside to look at the damage and HOLY ****. That's.... quite a lot more damage than I expected from a half-second earthshake. Half of the region around Duskhaven has now sunk beneath the seas. All the buildings have taken oddly little damage though. Farm-houses tend not to be built to withstand this sort of thing.

Because the player is a goddamn werewolf, he jumps in the water to save the lives of some of Godfrey's men, but it's not enough. There were way too many soldiers in the collapsed area, and the destroyed area keeps expanding. The Gilneans now have to leave the safety of duskhaven behind. During the evacuation, you also see a recurring enemy for the first time: Koroth the Hillbreaker, an ettin. I'm going to have to do a long talk about the ettins some other time, but for now its sufficed to say that you're never given any explanation what they are in-game.

All the duskhaven villagers flee to greymane manor, soon followed by the player. We also meet two more members of the greymane family here: Queen Mia and Princess Tess. They tell the player to head to the observatory where the king is waiting. From here, the player can see the now-flooded duskhaven, and that the forsaken invasion isn't over yet, with a small fleet of forsaken ships and an orcish gunship heading for the coast. That is, if you can stand the 'camera'-work in the cutscene. Seriously, the zooming and the shaky camera are not nice on the eyes.

With the continuing collapse, the populace has to move further inland. Traveling by stagecoach, you travel to the coastal village of Stormglen (though not without taking a moment to help Liam Greymane on the way there, again engaging Koroth). From there, you travel north to figure out what caused the worgen to stop attacking.

The answer?

NIGHT ELVES! Yes, night elves. Why? Hell if I know. We're given some basic explanation about the worgen (there used to be some druids who let the power of the beast overtake them, turning into wolves. They were banished, but not before the curse started spreading. Which actually has nothing to do with the worgen in Gilneas, but the night elves apparently don't think we would want to know our own backstory), but it's all short. In addition, no explanation is given why the night elves suddenly showed up out of nowhere. As I said, we've been roaming around in worgen form for six or seven years by this point.

However, the night elves have now managed to make the feral worgen, including lord crowley, non-feral! Huzzah! Wait a minute, since when can they do that? The worgen have been a threat (albeit minor) since all the way back in vanilla. They were in ashenvale, duskwood and silverpine forest, with the scourge creating some more in the grizzly hills. Why is this technique only being pulled out now?

At this point, the forsaken are also mentioned to be after the scythe of elune. Crowley states that his men have been moving the scythe around ever since the forsaken invaded. Apparently, the forsaken want to use the scythe to turn all of humanity into worgen. Wait, when and why did the scythe get here? Wasn't that thing lost in Duskwood? And how do the forsaken know it was here? And didn't that thing just summon worgen, rather than turn people into worgen? Plus, why do the forsaken think turning humans into a race that is both stronger and less susceptible to the plague is a good idea?

Okay, okay, I'll be fair for a moment. Some of these questions were actually answered in the Curse of the Worgen comic books. Of course, curse of the worgen was only on its first of five issues when cataclysm came out, meaning that even if you were willing to shill out money to pay for something that should have been in the game, you would have to wait four months.

Though the forsaken get their hands on the scythe of elune, the player quickly steals it back. For some odd reason, the game doesn't actually call the item 'scythe of elune' though, just 'mysterious artifact', with a tooltip that looks nothing like a scythe. I was expecting a twist, but nope, it's the actual scythe. Using the scythe, the player undergoes a ritual that will permanently keep him non-feral (turns out Godfrey's worries about the potion running out were right), and also allows him to transform between human and worgen form.

When Genn comes in to meet with Godfrey, the king suddenly reveals that he too is a worgen and can change between shapes! Wait, what? But... when did the king get infected? He was surrounded by soldiers at all times during the battle for Gilneas city, and stayed in his observatory afterwards. Nowhere in that time frame could he have gotten infected. And when did he undergo the ritual? And why didn't he tell the player about it?

...You just put that in as a reference to the british royal family, didn't you?

Godfrey's character then gets assassinated. And no, I don't mean by an assassin. I mean by the writer. Up till now, while he's been distrustful, it was a tempered form of distrust, offset by a good mind and a need to protect his nation. He grew a downright respectful relation with the player, despite that player being a worgen, and was actually trying to recruit Crowley and the other formerly feral worgen.

I could even understand it if Godfrey was just attempting to start a revolution against the king because he doesn't trust the guy whose been turned into a werewolf and didn't say anything about it. But no, he kidnaps the king and tries to sell him to Sylvanas to save the life of himself and a few fellows. He's not just betraying his country, but he's also being really, really stupid about it. And when he fails, he just kills himself because he doesn't want a worgen king. What makes this even more of a disappointment is that Godfrey was the only distinct personality amongst the Gilneans. From what we see in the game, there is no real difference between Lord Crowley, Genn and Liam, with Lorna only standing out because she's a badass, not because of any difference of personality.

To pad out the zone, the player then frees the mining town of Emberstone from forsaken occupation, before moving on to Gilneas itself. The only thing it does for the story is make me smack my head that the forsaken didn't actually kill and raise the populace of the town, just so we have someone to rescue. Also, the Gilneans somehow know the name of all the forsaken commanders in the town.

However, now, it's time for the centerpiece of the zone! The battle for Gilneas City! WOO! Yes, it's time to take back the town from the feral worge... wait, the forsaken? When did they conquer it? Ah well, regardless, the battle is gloriously awesome. It starts with prince Liam Greymane, epic warspeech and sword in hand, leading a massive army of every able-bodied non-cursed Gilnean into the city, right into the merchant square. FOR GilneaS!! CHAAAARGE!

Seriously, I love this part. It's an actual large-scale NPC battle in WoW, and one that actually works, though the Gilneans seem a bit too inclined to target individual enemies en masse. With the merchant square conquered, Lorna brings in cannons from Emberstone, which the player uses to gun down the abominations of the military district. Meanwhile, Crowley's worgen have begun their assault, which the player supports using stolen forsaken catapults, bringing down a massively powerful undead. Finally, you team up with Genn Greymane and attack none other than Sylvanas herself.

Sylvanas is defeated. However, she fires a single, poisoned arrow at Genn. The only thing that saves him is Liam, jumping to intercept. However, it wasn't for nothing. Gilneas is ours again! Glorious battle, everyone. Okay, except the music guys. When Liam and his soldiers charge, this epic, perfectly-fitting battle music starts. However, it's soon replaced by the rather dreary standard zone music. Darn it. Still, it was an awesome victory.

Well, for a few minutes. The player and Tobias Mistmantle follow Sylvanas into the cathedral district, where we overhear that she's planning to use the plague against Garrosh' orders, something that would melt the bodies of everyone in the city into putty. Genn evacuates the city again, rather than risking every Gilnean's life against a weapon of unknown power. It's a dark moment, sure, but a perfectly justified one. As he does such, he asks the player to hold off the plague catapults for a while, using a stolen forsaken bat to bomb the bajeezus out of them.

The Gilneans escape, though there is a small problem with ghosts in the local graveyard attacking them. The player of course lays the ghosts to rest, and Liam is buried, his father vowing that he will return. But for now, the people must leave Gilneas, the elves having sent several ships to evacuate them, and help buy the Gilneans enough time to do so. The player rides into battle on a glaive thrower, slaughtering wave after wave of orcish soldiers. The player even even goes aboard the orcish gunship with Lorna Crowley to crash it into the forsaken encampment. AWESOME. With the gunship down, the night elves evacuate the worgen, bringing them to Teldrassil, which will act as their new home.

Yeah, we're going to have to talk about that...

General thoughts on the Worgen

Like I said, the worgen and goblins perfectly represent what happens to their factions this expansion. On the plus side, that means that the worgen get/retain an interesting culture, and have interesting developments that you want to see explored. On the downside, that means that the worgen get a rather shoddy story, distinct characters dropping off the map completely, lackluster in-game representation and a very notable lack of direction, meaning that those interesting developments never get explored.

The worgen are probably the most excessive example of both the plus sides and the down sides. While the starting zone is sloppily written, the Gilneans are well-developed, with a distinct tone and style in their stories. Note that I used the word Gilneans there, not worgen. That's because the worgen aspect of the worgen barely gets any exploration at all. For the vast, vast majority of the starting zone (all but about five quests), the player interacts only with the Gilneans who weren't afflicted with the curse. Of the eight notable Gilnean characters in the zone (Lorna Crowley, Liam Greymane, Genn Greymane, Lord Crowley, Lord Godfrey, Krennan Aranas, Gwen Armstead and Tobias Mistmantle), only three are cursed, and all three of those had more screentime before they were cursed than after. If you look in the howling oak, the Gilnean district in Darnassus, you'll notice that there isn't a single named worgen to be found. Even Genn Greymane stays in his human form. Basically, what I'm saying is that, based on the starting zone, the player will be a Gilnean first, and a worgen second.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, because the Gilneans are awesome. However, like I said, the alliance races all have a very notable lack of direction, so the Gilnean-before-worgen thing won't be consistent at all. Particularly, after the starting zones, the worgen race seems to shift to a worgen-before-Gilnean mentality.

Well, sort of. Remember, the worgen have barely gotten any development in the game, so players who don't read the books and aren't familiar with vanilla won't actually recognize it as worgen mentality. Instead, it looks more like the Gilneans have randomly turned into furry night elves. After the Gilneas zone, there will only be six quest hubs where the worgen have a notable presence. There is farwatcher's glen, which is a night elf town. There is the shrine of goldrinn, which is a druid shrine dedicated to one of the night elf ancients. There is Talonbranch Glade, another night elf town. There's feathermoon stronghold, a night elf military outpost. There's Raven Hill, a Stormwind town. And finally, there's Durwich, which is the only actual Gilnean town. Yes, there is only one truly Gilnean city, and it's not only on the other side of the planet, but it's also still based entirely around druidism. The Gilnean identity that we fell in love with? Nowhere to be found.

Something you may be saying: That just sounds like the direction randomly switched, not that they don't have any. Well, that's indeed somewhat the case. However, the furry night elf worgen don't actually have any role in the story either. Mostly, they just stand there. Farwatcher's Glen seems to be missing a few quests, and the few quests that are there have no relevance to the questgivers being worgen. Same deal for feathermoon stronghold, where the worgen presence basically amounts to “oh, there's worgen sentinels now”. It's something, I guess, but not much. In the other cases, the worgen present don't actually represent a direction for the worgen as a whole. The worgen of talonbranch glade are actually transformed night elves, the cultists at the shrine of Goldrinn are never given any backstory, the worgen in Raven Hill are a small group of travelers and, like the worgen of Durwich, they're at the other side of the planet compared to the majority of their populace.

Actually, I'm still not sure where the majority of their populace is supposed to be living. The 'worgen district' in Darnassus consists of a single large tree. There's some other Gilneans in the town, but the majority are at the tree. So... do they all just live in a single tree without toilets, heating, running water, beds or any privacy whatsoever? Must be cramped in there. Is there an actual Gilnean district we're not seeing? Do the Gilneans actually live in the rest of Darnassus and do they just gather at the tree? I hate to draw a comparison with the goblins again, because I actually like it when the factions are handled differently, but the Gilneans did really need their own equivalent of Bilgewater Harbor.

So, long story short. I enjoyed both the goblin and Gilnean starter zones, the former more than the latter, though the massive difference in quality between the zone endings is almost enough to close the gap. However, when it actually came to the way they were represented in the world as a whole, I was incredibly disappointed. Next up, we'll be extending our gazes at either mount hyjal or the orcish zones, depending on which I finish writing first.