Oh, Am I Blocking Your Shot?

I saw these BElves trying to get a good picture of themselves in Dazar'alor so I thought I'd jump in and give them a hand. They seemed really grateful for the help. It sounded to me like an appreciative /sigh, anyway.

Excuse Me, Curiously Attractive Stranger, Do You Know Where My Quest Objective Is?

I ran into this room for a quest and wandered around trying to figure out what I was supposed to be looking at. When I saw this Goblin in the corner, I was trying to figure out how to interact with her when I realized she was wearing my character's transmog, which then led to the realization that I was supposed to be standing where she was standing to trigger the quest progression. LOL. At least I didn't do the Trial of Style before I went here, or I probably wouldn't have recognized my outfit.

I'd Rather Bee Fishing

Or actually, doing anything other than fishing, except that I got this Honey Bee pet and had to immediately use my pet mirror and take screenshots. I'll get to 120 eventually, I'm sure.

Headhunter

Nice.

Just Being Nitpicky

This quest kill in Tiragarde Sound is hanging out by a coffin, and there's no way the Kul Tiran models are going to fit in these coffins. I'll have to go back and get a screenshot of my goblin lying in it to see if that works, but I did edit my screenshot to demonstrate that the guy here definitely does not fit.

Busy Taking Screenshots..Not Listening

Dammit. I didn't notice the comment until I looked at the screenshots later, so I didn't keep clicking to try on different pirate garb. I hope they add it in as a tailoring toy item or something. I did enjoy the whole pirate quest line in Tiragarde Sound, though, especially the quest text for Marking Our Territory:

Addie Is the BEST!

For multiple reasons, I just adore her. But upon assigning her as my Gnome Hunter's combat ally, I found out that when you take out the S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera (because of course), Addie immediately starts posing!

Has Genn Lost His Damn Mind?

"Uhh..Anduin's in his place, right there on the throne. Beside you. You and Velen need to quit talking like this before my squirrel attacks, 'cuz you guys are nuts."

JUST BUSY DOING IMPORTANT STUFF

My son was doing an impression of Toad's voice from the Super Mario Bros. Super Show while AC/DC was on the radio and I was struck by the similarity. He suggested Hells Bells was perfect for Toad in the Toad Warrior episode, so I made this. I feel like I could have done a better job matching up the lip sync at the end, but I'm so incredibly lazy. BUSY. Busy, I mean. Ahem.

Too Soon? Probably Too Soon.

I got my Teldrassil Hippogryph from the War of Thorns event!

Oh, wait. This is actually the Flameward Hippogryph from the Molten Front. I have several hippogryphs, it was kind of confusing trying to find the new one.

Twinsies!

I finally have a bat like Vivianne, except mine's a plauguebat which I'm guessing's why it has extra arms? Still, though, my first bat! It's exciting! Until I begin endlessly farming multiple recolors of the mount from various rares. (I'm looking at you, Blistermaw.)

SOMETHING'S NOT QUITE RIGHT...

The thing is, I hate being manipulated emotionally. I am typically cynical and skeptical of most things, particularly when it’s meant to evoke an emotional reaction. I’ve already been evaluating what both sides are doing and why, and I feel like motivations are weak on both sides but more believable on Sylvanas’ part thus far. I don’t know why Anduin makes the uncharacteristic move to interfere and sabotage the Horde’s mining operation in Silithus or why he acts like it represents an open declaration of war on the part of the Horde. But then, I don’t really care about Anduin in particular. Maybe he’s working though his daddy issues, it’s just not my concern or interest.  Sylvanas anticipating Anduin’s rush to aggression seemed odd, but I don’t really know the timeline. Maybe my character talked to her after she discovered Anduin had sent spies and saboteurs. Blizzard likes to pit the factions in conflicting storylines (airship attack in ICC, anyone?) so it’s difficult to parse out canonically what is happening when.

The Warbringers: Sylvanas cinematic was upsetting. Mainly because I felt the intent was to make me angry at Sylvanas, and at the same time her action (reaction, even more stupidly) was such a ridiculously stupid move militarily that I felt like the entire cinematic was inexplicable. The consensus of people upset with the cinematic seems to be that it represents shitty writing on Blizzard’s part. That is such an amazingly unsatisfying answer to me, and I sincerely hope and choose to believe that a more complete picture will emerge as the story progresses to launch.

Here is what I know:

    NElf:  “You can kill us, but you cannot kill hope.”

                Sylvanas: “Can’t I?”

By burning their tree? Uh…no? No, you can’t. I know this, there is absolutely no way that Sylvanas does not know this. As a matter of fact, she acknowledges it in a subsequent quest later: “The Alliance will retaliate. They will come for us. For me. For you.”

EXACTLY. Burning Teldrassil won’t kill hope, but it will galvanize and unify your enemies against you, so there’s that. 

She then attempts to rationalize the attack: “But they ARE bleeding. Their anger will prove a weakness, not a strength, in the war to come.”

Uh, no. Just… no. The entire theme of Warcraft from the beginning has been “Unite, or die”. The Orc clans had to band together, different races formed the Alliance, both sides worked together to defeat the Lich King and the Burning Legion. It’s just ridiculous to imagine that THIS time, the Alliance will actually be weaker as a united group who now has one clear purpose. 

Here is what I think:

                This is not Sylvanas. I know that sounds like a hypothesis crafted by Ancient Azerothian Theorists, and I am usually the first person to answer those hypothetical questions “Could it be possible that…” with “No. No, it couldn’t. Just no.” I am, again, cynical and skeptical and if the actions taken by Sylvanas in that cinematic made any damn sense at all, I wouldn’t be grasping at straws. Honestly, though, I kind of have no choice, because there aren’t clues being dispersed to discover what is actually going on, or some group of insane super-sleuths like the Lucid Nightmare group would already have figured it out. Seriously, the puzzle that led to that mount involved using the damage of three pet battle attacks. I pet battle all the time and I couldn’t tell you the amount of a single hit. Or most of the names. Really, it’s kind of frustrating that these people aren’t working on solving climate change or something because holy shit.

Or:

                Sylvanas is being controlled by something or someone else. Mind control is a priest thing, yeah? It doesn’t seem like Anduin’s style, but then again, neither did the spying/sabotaging in Silithus, so maybe? Maybe someone not involved, though, that just wants the two sides to fight. Velen? I don’t really see what would be in it for him. Is Wrathion still wanting a war after Legion? Or is he satisfied with the way everything turned out? He definitely wouldn’t have a problem with meddling, though. 

 

That’s all I've got. I really hope it doesn’t turn out to be another “Hush, Tyrande” or “I’m just proud of my king *sob*” because I wasn’t prepared to like BfA but that doesn’t mean I want to hate it, either.

Unfinished Questlines

I'm planning on writing about this week's prepatch quest (as soon as I finish doing the quests and get a good screenshot), but in the meantime I thought this was funny:

On my way over to the this week's new quest I noticed this old quest along the way that my Shaman had apparently never completed. Better late than never, I guess? Assuming I ever get around to it, anyway.