Blizzard announced "Classic" World of Warcraft

[Absinthe]

Honestly, I think dumbfuck changes really are the spirit of vanilla WoW. Like, there is some rage going on from Paladin players that Blizzard stealth nerfed (some of them consider this new change a bug) Divine Shield to no longer block damage from the Gnomish Death Ray and no matter how much they complain it stays that way without ever hearing anything back. And when I read about it, I thought to myself that this really was the vanilla WoW experience. Stealth changes, especially stupid stealth changes, and bizarre nerfs that made the game worse where the playerbase gets no explanation or answer were a big part of the vanilla WoW experience. All it's missing are retarded Community Managers like Eyonix and Caydiem who pretend to be there to facilitate communication while in reality making it more their job to stonewall serious feedback, engage with random shit, and act like they know better to make the forums a proper shitshow of one-way communication.

People act like the private server community "discovered" deeper mechanics and strategies of vanilla WoW but in reality most of that shit was known during the vanilla days except nobody openly talked about it because they all strongly suspected Blizzard would stealth nerf these things. Instead it was talked about in private chat or Google Groups or private forums or mailing lists. Elitist Jerks was actually one of the most public sources of information on this shit and even there there were a ton of people who knew not to publicly mention a lot of more esoteric interactions that they figured Blizzard would just nerf simply because it looked like something you weren't supposed to do, regardless of game balance.

 

[Caim]

TL;DR: ex-Blizzard designer of the Culling of Stratholme chews out a streamer for believing that Arthas' decision to cull Stratholme was the correct one and was "a decision only a king could make", with said designer believing that the streamer in question and everyone who believes the same should be tested for psychopathy.

Also the dev compares the fuckmothering plague of undeath to the coof and that the correct decision to deal with the tireless, functionally immortal and extremely contagious zombies is to... run away from them.



He's one of the "old Blizzard" people, by the way.

 

[Absinthe]

Honestly a more reasonable moral approach would be to try to quarantine and cure the plague with the help of Uther's paladins. "Fleeing to starve the undead" is hilariously stupid as there are already giant graveyards everywhere populated with the dead of the previous wars and it's obvious they would get raised. No doubt there are more dead bodies than living ones, and mass excavations and cremations are not practical.

 

[Alienman]

Didn't know Covid turned people into zombies.

Maybe NPCs however...

 

[Ravielsk]

He's one of the "old Blizzard" people, by the way.

Blizzard or Blizzard North? Its an important distinction because the North studio was pretty much responsible for all the classics(including WoW) with the main studio just kind of appropriating their work. Even Chris Metzen basically stole a good chunk of the writing from someone over at North.

 

[gamerguy]

I'm bored, thinking of a resub if anyone is into pvp...

 

[gamerguy]

holy shit a lot of people are playing... SM is a bloodbath

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Honestly a more reasonable moral approach would be to try to quarantine and cure the plague with the help of Uther's paladins.

That would ideally be my option, but it's difficult to tell how viable it is. The First and Second Wars against the Horde devastated humanity. Even if we assume there was a baby boom after the Horde's defeat, it has only been 10 years since the Orcs were interned, not enough time for a new wave of kids to be old enough to be used as competent soldiers. I am not sure if Arthas could muster enough soldiers from local garrisons to surround a "city" and prevent the spread in time.

On a related note, I find it funny how Shadowlands' narrative says that Uther did wrong by treating Arthas as evil, after having murdered his father and destroyed his kingdom.

 

[gamerguy]

mwahahahaha... i'd feel bad if there weren't so many 60s here running people for cash... sorry i beat you up in front of your frends hehe




I was just gonna grind some gold and finally get my epic mount, but wtf, this is too fun.

 

[Arbiter]

He's one of the "old Blizzard" people, by the way.

Blizzard or Blizzard North? Its an important distinction because the North studio was pretty much responsible for all the classics(including WoW) with the main studio just kind of appropriating their work. Even Chris Metzen basically stole a good chunk of the writing from someone over at North.

Blizzard North, acquired as Condor Games, only developed Diablo games up to the original cancelled Diablo 3. WarCraft and StarCraft games were created by Blizzard's main studio in Irvine.

 

[Arbiter]

Honestly a more reasonable moral approach would be to try to quarantine and cure the plague with the help of Uther's paladins. "Fleeing to starve the undead" is hilariously stupid as there are already giant graveyards everywhere populated with the dead of the previous wars and it's obvious they would get raised. No doubt there are more dead bodies than living ones, and mass excavations and cremations are not practical.

It was a copy paste of StarCraft plot: a hero of the good guys succumbs to the evil side and yet another Metzen's corruption story after Medivh, Leoric, Lazarus and Kerrigan. The culling scene only exits because it was a step in Arthas'es descent into madness. Blizzard has never been known for good writing.

 

[Absinthe]

Honestly a more reasonable moral approach would be to try to quarantine and cure the plague with the help of Uther's paladins.

That would ideally be my option, but it's difficult to tell how viable it is. The First and Second Wars against the Horde devastated humanity. Even if we assume there was a baby boom after the Horde's defeat, it has only been 10 years since the Orcs were interned, not enough time for a new wave of kids to be old enough to be used as competent soldiers. I am not sure if Arthas could muster enough soldiers from local garrisons to surround a "city" and prevent the spread in time.

On a related note, I find it funny how Shadowlands' narrative says that Uther did wrong by treating Arthas as evil, after having murdered his father and destroyed his kingdom.

Well, Stratholme has walls so you don't need a giant garrison of men. You can just block off entrances and exits and set up proper barricades, kill zones, and patrols. Between Jaina and the paladins, the idea that a magical necromantic plague could be cured (or that some other form of progress could be made against it for containment/detection/etc. purposes) is not too unreasonable.

Honestly a more reasonable moral approach would be to try to quarantine and cure the plague with the help of Uther's paladins. "Fleeing to starve the undead" is hilariously stupid as there are already giant graveyards everywhere populated with the dead of the previous wars and it's obvious they would get raised. No doubt there are more dead bodies than living ones, and mass excavations and cremations are not practical.

It was a copy paste of StarCraft plot: a hero of the good guys succumbs to the evil side and yet another Metzen's corruption story after Medivh, Leoric, Lazarus and Kerrigan. The culling scene was an important step in Arthas'es descent into madness. Blizzard has never been known for good writing.

Honestly it still works for that purpose. Even if it's justified, it's still Arthas ruthlessly committing himself to kill his own people. There is a threshold being crossed there, and the narrative of Arthas being increasingly willing to murder, deceive, and betray his own men for his purposes as a form of moral descent is still serviceable even if there are solid reasons for doing what he did.

 

[pickmeister]

Having the story progress with our heroes, after the destruction of Stratholme, arrive to another town, where local military went with the Raccoon City route, by setting up baricades and quarantining the entire town, and Arthas, thinking of the tremendous amount of work he and his men put into slaughtering every single civilian, just go "You can do that?" would be comedy gold.

"Our prince didn't go insane. He's just dumdum."

 

[Absinthe]

I dunno. There might be some sanity loss when he realizes that.

 

[Tyrr]

Blizzard has never been known for good writing.

Blizzard never cared about good writing. That's why they so easily retconed their older stories and later outsourced most of the games stories to books and other media.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Arthas was abandoned by his mentor and his fuck buddy for doing what needed to be done, of course he went a bit screwy.

Jaina was a stupid bitch that betrayed her own father.

 

[Ravielsk]

Arthas was abandoned by his mentor and his fuck buddy for doing what needed to be done, of course he went a bit screwy.

Jaina was a stupid bitch that betrayed her own father.

To be fair to Jaina she at least had the decency to feel bad about both and paid dearly for both. Uther meanwhile became WoW equivalent of Jesus and nobody even dares to give him shit for basically failing across the board.

 

[Ravielsk]

Honestly a more reasonable moral approach would be to try to quarantine and cure the plague with the help of Uther's paladins.

A quarantine was never a option. The citizens were not sick but killed by the plague and the re-animated as zombies(or at the very least would be by the necromancers). Whatever Arthas could put forward they would break through by sheer numbers and when coordinated by Mal'ganis or any of the necromancers they would not even need the numbers advantage. Besides its not like you can cure undeath anyway.

That is what made the whole scheme so devilishly clever. If Arthas does not purge the city he doomed and the kingdom and allowed a army of undead to spawn in the middle of it. If he purges it he morally compromises himself and most likely becomes a pariah. Its a no win situation where every move is a losing one.

 

[Absinthe]

A lot of it really depends on the timeframe and manpower they have, which is a bit ambiguous, and if that happens then it's Arthas, Jaina, Uther, and Arthas's men and Uther's paladins fighting against the undead and Mal'Ganis from fortified defensive positions. At any rate, it's reasonably a more moral first approach than what Arthas did.

 

[Larianshill]

Arthas' decision was the correct one, but he arrived to it in a retarded way. There was no thought process behind it, he didn't stop even for a second to consider other options, he didn't try to explain his reasoning to his allies. He decided that the entirety of the city's population needs to be put to sword a second after arriving to it, and damn anyone who hesitates. That was the character flaw that eventually led him to Northrend with a token force, on a crusade against a vastly superior opponent he had no chance against without a cursed sword.
I'm sure that if Arthas did not act like a total fucking raving loon, he could get Uther and Jaina on board with the purging within 5 minutes, especially if he at least pretended to feel bad about it. Furthermore, if instead of following Mal'ganis to an obvious trap, Arthas took the time to rally the Alliance against Scourge, Ner'zhul would not stand a chance. We know from the undead campaign that Dalaran, Stromgarde and Gilneas are more than willing to jump into the conflict, and Quel'Thalas is already involved in some way. We know that they can put up a good fight too. If Garithos could take Dalaran back from the Scourge when the Alliance was at its last legs, Arthas could win long before things got this bad. He was just too much of a hothead.

 

[Delterius]

From what I remember the cutscenes after the culling of stratholme show that not everyone in the city was killed. There are peasants around to burn the bodies when Jaina and Medivh have their convo. So odds are Arthas' contingent probably killed a lot of uninfected people instead of saving them.

Really if you think about it, without that sort of despair associated with the Culling (killing everyone before they turn into ghouls, even if some of them aren't going to), then Jaina and Uther just come across as dumb or weak-willed. Which Uther shouldn't be. Sure, the map simplifies things and make it so every peasant you run across is infected. But the overall plotline and the Culling dungeon in WoW paint a better, more compelling story.

I say that especially when you think Arthas is in the right. He's willing to go farther than just terrorizing the nearly dead, but to kill the few that might have survived otherwise together with them. It's all part of his fall from grace. The conflict between being a romanticized WoW Paladin, and being a feudal lord who has to make the hard decisions. Stratholme should be a hard decision. One where the prince of Lordaeron went full Albigensian Crusade on his subjects.

 

[Delterius]

Man it was nostalgia bait but I really liked this dungeon

 

[ItsChon]

I say that especially when you think Arthas is in the right. He's willing to go farther than just terrorizing the nearly dead, but to kill the few that might have survived otherwise together with them. It's all part of his fall from grace. The conflict between being a romanticized WoW Paladin, and being a feudal lord who has to make the hard decisions. Stratholme should be a hard decision. One where the prince of Lordaeron went full Albigensian Crusade on his subjects.

I mean, when the stakes are so high, I'd kill everyone too even if there is a chance they're unaffected, it just has to be done. That being said, the argument that Arthas came to that solution extremely quickly is a fair one.

 

[Delterius]

I say that especially when you think Arthas is in the right. He's willing to go farther than just terrorizing the nearly dead, but to kill the few that might have survived otherwise together with them. It's all part of his fall from grace. The conflict between being a romanticized WoW Paladin, and being a feudal lord who has to make the hard decisions. Stratholme should be a hard decision. One where the prince of Lordaeron went full Albigensian Crusade on his subjects.

I mean, when the stakes are so high, I'd kill everyone too even if there is a chance they're unaffected, it just has to be done. That being said, the argument that Arthas came to that solution extremely quickly is a fair one.

I don't disagree either. Even hindsight vindicates Arthas. Becoming undead is traumatizing, being undead is torture, curing the undead plague with arcane magic is impossible, and people were turning into undead imminently rather than in a couple of days. They really were that late. But this being pre Scarlet Crusade, a Proper Paladin has to be a romantic warrior who saves the weak anyways, somehow. Arthas instead was acting as a callous King. Doing what was necessary.

What I say is that the story should have moral stakes on both sides, and the decision shouldn't have been easy. I find enough clues within WC3 itself to imagine a lordaeron footman killing a peasant's family even though only the dad had eaten from the new grain stock. It adds to the story. Whereas if we take the simpler perspective we are even cheapening not only Uther's character but Arthas' decision as well.

 

[janior]

I started having my doubts about arthas after this cinematic tbqh

even burning the boats was the right move worthy of a king

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Arthas' flaw is that he ignored the warnings of his trusted friends. First he ignored his childhood friend and his mentor. Then he ignored his uncle Muradin, who warned him about the sword being cursed. Then he usurps his father, a good and wise man who formed the Alliance and defeated the Horde and brought peace to the continent. Who does he listen to? The voice of a sword he was warned about, an evil wizard, and a spider he just met. You have to wonder why he was not well known for foolishness before the game began.