The Horde and its Politics (part 2)

Naralie went on a brief quest on behalf of Tarren Mill that piqued my curiosity:

She was sent to Alterac Valley (the entrance anyway) for a meeting with Drek'thar about bringing the Frostwolf clan to the defense of Tarren Mill. The conversation that followed was very interesting.

Drek'thar refused to come defend the Forsaken, saying that for all the terible things he has done, he faces remorse and recrimination, but that the Forsaken feel nothing and that the atrocities they bring to the world are far worse than anything the old Horde could have done.

This is an orc who had done horrible things under the leadership of Gul'dan, was ostracized be the old Horde but became significant again, having reconnected with the elemental spirits as a shaman, and as one of the first mentors of Thrall.

Today, he does not speak for the ruling elite of the Horde. I bet that he and Garrosh would come to blows over issues of honor pretty darn quickly. But refusing to aid the Forsaken like this is a pretty severe rebuke of the Horde's status quo.

It's kind of exciting. Every clue I find about how the Horde is doing points to massive unrest if not a flat out civil war between the races of the Horde. I'm dying to see where this is all going to lead.

As a side note: It's been a little while since I was last in Alterac Valley, but I don't remember Drek'thar being blind or riding a wheelchair. In fact, I think he was pretty healthy and tried to murder me with a large stick.  Is this story progressing too?

Snapshots from Betaland

Naralie had an encounter with the Kirin Tor recently.  There were many of the sorts of mobs there that you might expect: warders who carry shield and sword, watchers who are offensive casters. And witchaloks. Witchaloks?  What is a witchalok? There is clearly meant to be a reference to "warlock" with a name like that. And these mobs are all female.  I wasn't really paying attention at first to whatever I was ganking and then the witchalok started talking:

"Tremble in fear as I call forth the mighty Doomskull!" she said. And sure enough, a large yappy skull with pink particle highlights appeared and started circling around. Not attacking anything, much less me, just circling around. "Behold the sheer size of it! Are you not afraid, mortal? Have you ever witnessed doom of this magnitude?"

Say hi to Naralie!

Hi, everybody!

Over in Betaland, there has been some shaking up going on.

A new build was released last week and it apparently became clear that something was wrong, because the presence of any goblin character in the realm caused the entire server to  crash.

As a result, all goblin characters have been "disabled."  There are some calling this The Great Goblin Wipe of Last Thursday, but since I can read and understand English, I know that "disabled" is not the same as "deleted." I'm taking a wait-and-see approach to this before I write Winklestien's obituary.

In the meantime, I decided to go visit the Eastern Kingdom a bit with Naralie the undead rogue here. I can say that Tirisfal Glades is not particularly special. There is a combination of some old quests with a few new ones, but it is sort of ambling. Silverpine Forest on the other hand... has gotten a complete and utter remake. The Banshee Queen Sylvanas is on the warpath against Gilneas and she is making face time with her loyal subjects.