didnt we get the loot from a cache?

his jaw.

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This is the perfect example of why one should remove armor from a hero before eating them. That shit gets stuck right between your teeth.

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"The true horrors of the universe lie within humanity itself" - Satoshi Kon

http://cargocollective.com/deadletter
My dark designs

Bu that's what makes us crunchy and good with ketchup!

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I'd rather have more faction quests and less random filler in zones. It might make them feel a touch smaller, but I feel like anything over 80 quests starts to feel like a slog anyways.

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Head Canon: The Deathwing Gambit

Deathwing was only crappy because Cataclysm completely changed his character.

Honestly, though, only Deathwing wound up being a sub-par final villain. Kil'Jaeden, Arthas, and Garrosh have all been decent. Their lead-ups could have been better (Kil'Jaeden's "SURPRISE, HEROES! I was the villain ALL ALONG!" twist, Arthas' "Let's hold back the Scourge to force all of these heroes to follow the same path of damnation I did!" scheme, and Garrosh's half-baked war), but they all worked in that everyone wanted to take them down. I don't think anyone really cared about DW by the time Dragon Soul was released simply because he was lolinsane.

They sort of wrote themselves into a corner with Deathwing. In order to him to have enough super-power to trigger the Shattering, Blizzard decided that he needed to be insane, because if he was in control of himself AND had that much power at his command, there's no way he would have lost.

I think they might have also taken the feedback that Arthas ended up being a little too mustache-twirling during Wrath and decided to pull back on the villain focus, and like everything else in Cataclysm it just got away from them.

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Expect nothing and anything will surprise you.

They never did. They were very careful, in all of the public statements that I have seen, to say that we are going to "dethrone" Garrosh. "We are going to remove the mantle of leadership from his shoulders."

I can't recall a single instance, except for one, but they quickly backtracked after saying kill, that they ever said that Garrosh was going to die. I'm talking about the CDevs on this one.

Which we did. We removed Garrosh as the Warchief of the Horde. Well, actually if you think about it, Garrosh either removed himself and became Warchief of the True Horde, or Vol'jin removed the mantle when he created the Rebel Horde and got the other Horde leaders to follow him instead of Garrosh.

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Blizzard also made Deathwing fairly autonomous from the Hammer and the Old Gods, which made him feel disconnected from other aspects of the expansion (a running theme in Cata, really).

And really, Deathwing can be both insane and intelligent. That's a great recipe for a villain, really. We could have seen him manipulating the Hammer, giving orders to the Black flight, making deals with the elemental lords, just doing everything he could to keep Azeroth in a state of panic and chaos. Because he.. I dunno, has to take breaks from the burninates because his unstable body would blow to pieces? Or he was plotting to avoid the End Time scenario and working to getting rid of the Old Gods themselves, even unto the breaking of Azeroth, so he could have everything to himself? Actually, Deathwing as a villain trying to bring about his own apotheosis as the Mad God of a dead Azeroth is more compelling than "crazy dragon wants to blow everything up 'cause of the VOICES."

Some of that is alluded to off screen, like the goblins in Uldum, but it's just... a point Blizzard never actually got around to making in-game.

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Head Canon: The Deathwing Gambit

Yeah, I think we're on the same page here. /fistbump

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Expect nothing and anything will surprise you.

Agreed with all of this. Or Deathwing could of wanted to destroy Azeroth because it's a corrupted rock full of war and chaos. Maybe he could have tried to annihilate all life on the planet and the old gods within it with a second, more powerful Cataclysm.

Agreed, this would have been a lot more compelling. Even to just show a hint of the old Neltharion, at least in the sense that at the peak of his madness, he'd rather see his charge (the physical planet) destroyed than exist as a corrupted version of its old self under the Old Gods' control. Kind of like Deathwing himself. A darker version of the Titan outlook expressed by Algalon.

I don't feel they did a great job explaining how exactly destroying all life on the planet was good for the Old Gods. Maybe the initial Cataclysm loosened their bonds within Azeroth, but we were shown the End Time as the Old Gods' ultimate goal. They kind of seem to thrive on chaos and conflict rather than utter annihilation. The latter seems more in line with the Legion to me.

Also would have been nice to get some of the Deathwing characterization from that short story, about the tremendous burden of being Earthwarder.

Actually, I just thought about it. The scenario I laid out above... all the pieces were already there. Think about how it could've gone down:

• We see Deathwing order Cho'gall to take out Orgrimmar and Stormwind before the Cataclysm. Why? Couldn't Deathwing himself just take out the cities on his own? Why DID he spare them? I guess he really is just insane.
• Deathwing breaks out of Deepholm. That does cause a lot of chaos. But why destroy the World Stone? Collateral damage?
• We seem him make a deal with Ragnaros: he lets Ragnaros out of the Plane, Rag burns down the World Tree. That would cause a lot of destruction, right?
• Huh, he's the one who told Azshara about Neptulon's Trident. Well they're both on the same team, that isn't too revealing.
• He lets Al'Akir loose on the promise of power and revenge against the Titans... but simultaneously sends his own forces in to secure the reorigination device. Well, hedging his bets I'm sure.
• Garona tortures a black dragon, who reveals Cho'gall's location. Well that makes sense. (another addition)
• Blackwing Descent. Why is Nefarian working on draconic necromancy? Is Deathwing so twisted that he wants to augment his forces with this? Maybe he hasn't abandoned his dream of a perfect flight, and the chromatics were unstable. He does have one of each flight in here. There's even an Infinite (more on this addition later) here, surrounded by cruel devices, the power-hungry bastard.

And then on we go through the expansion. Seeing more and more of his tampering, but all the while just assuming that Deathwing is just crazy. But then, with the End Time, it hits like an atom bomb. Deathwing knew from the start that the Old Gods intended for him to die. Holy shit, he was torturing that Infinite dragon for information on the timeways.

Everything he was doing was just part of his plans to backstab the freaking Old Gods. He wanted the Horde and Alliance alive to keep the Hammer weakened so they couldn't turn against him. That black dragon deliberately betrayed Cho'gall, since his death would keep the Hammer disorganized and focused on the mortals. By blowing up the World Tree, Ragnaros would've also destroyed the Well... which the Old Gods tried to use in the WotA trilogy to break out of their prisons. Sparking a conflict between Neptulon and the naga would further distract the Old God forces. Using the reorigination device would be a surefire way to get rid of the Old Gods... oh, but wouldn't that kill him as well? Fuck, but by destroying the World Stone Deathwing ensured that the door to Deepholm would stay open. He could retreat to Deepholm, fire off the device, then claim the ashes. Hell even if he died he'd just use Nefarian's technology and magic to bring himself back to life. That was his fallback.

But we screwed up that plan. Yet Deathwing, that magnificent bastard, had a backup. He could always trigger a second Cataclysm himself at the Maelstrom, which is still quite likely to destroy the Old Gods. So why didn't he just do that right away? Because for all his insanity, he was still a dragon. And he liked dragons. He wanted the other aspects under his control - he wanted to repopulate Azeroth solely with his superior brood. He wanted to remake Azeroth in his own image, all the while laughing at the Titans and their "flawed" plans. Standing on the corpses of the Old Gods themselves. So he waited, trying to claim as many dragons as possible, building up forces that were loyal to him. Besides, that image of the End Time left him with an obsessive paranoia - he didn't want to go anywhere near Wyrmrest, lest he trigger the events leading to his death.

But there was one thing he didn't count on - a surrogate earth warder empowering the Dragon Soul. He didn't think Thrall's plan would work, and that he had lots of time to build up his power. It's not until the first volley fires that Deathwing realizes that time is up. He needs to trigger the Final Cataclysm NOW, and just work with the resources he has. But he doesn't make it... we beat him in the end. For all his scheming, Deathwing failed. But Azeroth paid a price.

Tell me that wouldn't have been an awesome narrative for Cataclysm. And it was so close to happening too. All the pieces were set. All that was missing was the binding thread that never came.

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Head Canon: The Deathwing Gambit

That would have been much better than what we got. Plus points for giving Deathwing some personality too.

My own version would have involved some Christianity elements too, related to the End Times. Stuff like the four horsemen being some really strong elemental lords, maybe Ragnaros could have been one of them, and Deathwing throwing the world into full chaos/Armageddon till the Hour of Twilight arrives and all life ends.

It would've been awesome.

But the problem is that it would've worked better in the books because having a intelligent and manipulative villian really doesn't work in WoW not only because of the medium, you would have to have a lot of flashbacks and long explainations so people can enjoy the whole story instead of getting in little easily forgotten bits.

But then also because most of the WoW players don't care about story. They just want to know where the big bad is at so they can kill it for purples.

So you get things like Cho'galls big sinister uber-plan was to build a giant hammer to smash people with. That was it.

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Whoa. I'm overwhelmed with good stuff.

Agreed. It would have been the good ol' scheeming Deathwing.

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Say no to genocide!
Save the Nightborne!

oh this old shit again. "I can't find it because I'm not looking for it so it doesn't exist" garbage. In one of the recent interviews either in korea or china, one of the developers said to us, when a direct question was popped to them about if we kill Garrosh in SoO, they outright said yes we will.

J allan Brack said some time ago we'd also be fighting to reinstate Thrall as warchief, and fucking metzen himself said this in one of the comicon interviews.

The developers change the mind at the drop of a hat and break promises even when made direction based purely on what they think will work at that moment in time.

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Someone force this to be cannon. All we need to do is get another quest like the one on the timeless isles where we could watch Deathwing in Deepholme and have hi mention something about it.

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No, it exists. Go look at the Blizzard interviews they did when Garrosh was announced as the Big Bad of the expansion. They very carefully choose their words when referring to how Garrosh was going to end. Go through YouTube. It's all there.

The Korean/Chinese interview that was full of mistranslations? I wouldn't be using that as your singular source.

So J. Allen Brack saying that we would be fighting to reinstate Thrall as Warchief means that he said Garrosh was going to die?

Yeah, I know that Metzen said that Thrall would be coming back as Warchief. But I don't recall him ever saying that Garrosh's death was going to be a result of that.

Do developers change their minds? Yeah, of course. But show me the intereviews, not mistranlations, but actually interviews with the developers where they state "Garrosh will die at the end of SoO or we are going there to kill Garrosh."

I do think a lot of this seems to be driven by you wanting Garrosh to die...

And it's the Rule of Cool, man. It's always been the Rule of Cool. They want to save Garrosh for something else rather then just kill him and throw him in the pile of every other guy that we have killed.

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This is what he was talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...BR_zaAKXk#t=61 (edit: I can't do the code for it to just show up here)

Tom Chilton and Cory Stockton both outright saying "Yes" to "Garrosh Hellscream dies during the Siege of Orgrimmar?"

We were also told that Path of the Titans would be a feature of Cataclysm. That's not a promise, though. That's just a statement reflecting what was planned, at the time. Plans change, and expecting them not to is somewhat naive.

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I'll watch it when I get home since it's not displaying properly here.

If they are saying Garrosh will die, then all you need to do is tweet them and find out why they lied about it. Since I've seen interviews where they say differently.

Unless this is the one where they had to do a mea culpa and say that they misunderstood the question. I'll have to dig that one up when I get home.

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I don't believe this is that one, though I have not watched the video all the way through (don't have enough time to do so, I'm late as is), but if it is, kind of weird to misunderstand the question since it was pretty clear (exactly what I posted in quotation marks).

Having said that, I'm not surprised that they may outright lie given the question. Better to have kept us in the dark.

edit: As for "plans change," keep in mind this was at Gamescom, this past August. While plans change, I have a very hard time imagining them changing it that close to it going live.

This...

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I am handclaw and this is my favorite thread on Scrolls of Lore!... oh wait, nope... Just another bitching thread.