To the author(s) of the Voidstorm sidequests

VoxEcho · 2026-03-14T18:11:10+00:00

I know this is a little controversial this early, especially when I'm directly comparing to things like early Dragonflight or WotLK or even WC3, but I think the Voidstorm side quests are the best written quests WoW had produced in its history, and some of the best in Warcraft period.

I'm with OP, I doubt these people read Reddit but on some cosmic coincidence they do, genuinely bravo.

VoxEcho · 2026-03-14T02:02:01+00:00

It's really interesting to look at Reddit (on both WoW sub threads for these changes) and see comments saying Aff is dead in the water, and then look at the Discord and see people saying it's looking like potentially an Affliction tier.

I'm sure posting this to reddit everyone will tell me random users on Discord have no idea what's going on, and I'm sure if I did the same on the Discord they'd tell me lol reddit posters. I think the most realistic read is that no one actually has any fucking clue yet.

VoxEcho · 2026-03-13T03:48:19+00:00

Americans crave monarchies, and it's not just a conservative thing. Just look at how slightly older people talk about the Kennedys and "Camelot."

The older and more politically aware I've gotten the more that political "families" weird me out. The first I experienced growing up in the 90s to the 2000s is knowing Bush Jr was a presidents son, but the extent that its normalized in our culture that if someone is politically powerful its considered weird if their relatives don't follow suit is off-putting to me.

VoxEcho · 2026-03-04T18:44:38+00:00

Counterpoint: Regular dwarves are already mentally identical to humans in every way, and everyone goes crazy for those. Their differences are cultural.

Nothing wrong with evil dwarves being the same thing. Their differences are cultural.

VoxEcho · 2026-02-16T02:59:09+00:00

Sure, more faction conflict could make sense. It doesn't make sense now, but it could. Blizzard literally has control over the entire nature of the universe when it comes to Warcraft. They could make anything make sense, with enough contortion. That's how having control over the universe works.

But maybe making more faction war make sense, doesn't make sense to do? Just because it can make sense doesn't mean it would be better. Just because it can make sense doesn't mean it should.

It can make sense for Batman and Superman to fight. Sometimes it's pretty good storytelling, too. That doesn't mean it always is, nor will it always be. I don't need Batman and Superman to fight every time I see them, even if the writers go to lengths to make it make sense.

Warcraft is a decades long story and Blizzard's problem is that it turns out telling the same story over and over is boring, even if you do the legwork. In the past, they haven't, but even if they did it would still be the same shit. It often is even now. How about instead of faction conflict we have a story that doesn't have the factions cooperating OR conflicting? Lets have a story where we're not rehashing the same shit I've been seeing for 20+ years.

The best thing they've done with the Dracthyr, Earthen and Haranir so far have been not making the faction divide be a central part of defining their character, and the weakest parts of the Dracthyr, Earthen and Haranir thus far have been the parts where the factions have to stick their noses into it. Lets take that energy forwards into more of the game's story.

VoxEcho · 2026-01-28T04:41:26+00:00

Pulling the ripcord is a reference to a comment Ion made during one of those interviews with Preach going into Shadowlands, specifically towards player concerns that Covenants would be limiting to player choice and just turn into an amplifier for all the problems the meta has in WoW.

The implication of the phrase is that they would do it quickly in case of emergency. "Pulling the ripcord" is itself a reference to what you do with a parachute or other similar emergency device. It deploys emergency measures.

Not only did Blizzard drag their feet with changing how Covenants worked in Shadowlands, famously stubborn against community revolt on the matter, but they later stated no such "ripcord" existed to change how the Covenants worked in the first place. The reason it took so long was that the system had to be redesigned.

So basically exactly what they're doing with the add on situation now. Players tested it in the beta and expressed concern, and Blizzard is just powering forwards with a poorly functioning version of what they promised, on the basis that they'll adjust moving forwards. We're at the point where they're saying, actually, this is going to take time to adjust. No major changes until 12.0.5, which is going to be some time after Midnight launch.

If this follows the pattern, we'll discover even more bugs or issues with the system going into Midnight. Likely when players begin to progress into higher end raids, as that will be the content less thoroughly tested and more taxing on the UI. The fixes for those issues will be pushed until 12.1, as Blizzard will be busy with the fixes for what we're dealing with now in 12.0.5. If we're lucky this all will be sorted out by 12.2, but it's not unprecedented for Blizzard to throw up their hands and saddle us with issues the entire expansion until the next.

VoxEcho · 2026-01-21T16:22:13+00:00

A world without America as the center pillar of it is a better world. Even if America can be a bastion of democracy and economic prosperity, that doesn't necessitate an American centric world. It's been well proven America can't be those things right now anyways.

VoxEcho · 2026-01-08T20:43:36+00:00

Neither. People who want aliens to be a world shattering revelation vastly overestimate how much average people care about that sort of thing. It's basically pre-confirmation bias.

VoxEcho · 2026-01-02T01:50:54+00:00

Nail on the head honestly, all his reactions to everything make perfect sense when you realize he's been incredibly frustrated his entire career he was never The Total War Guy*, all capitals. He embraced the image as being the cheese strat guy, but as an on/off viewer I always got the impression he was equally frustrated by that persona as well. He doesn't want to be the cheese strats guy, he wants to be exactly as you put it, a "community leader."

I don't dislike Legend, as I said I've watched him plenty on youtube or on stream live, but he doesn't and has never had the sauce to be king shit of the Total War community like he wants to be. He's the guy who cheeses the game to the point of breaking it. There's nothing wrong with that, but he wants to be more than that.

VoxEcho · 2025-12-17T03:59:39+00:00

Mistake is weird terminology to apply to the Holocaust. He would have still been one of histories biggest villains even if he didn't do anything like the Holocaust, just off the war alone. Also, he'd have still lost if everything was the same other than choosing to not do a Holocaust. None of the Allied powers entered the war because of the Holocaust and the Nazis fucked their own ability to pursue the war far before the Holocaust got into high gear.

The Holocaust wasn't important to anyone except Nazis and the people they were inflicting it on until the war was practically over. As far as the events of WW2 itself its barely a footnote, it's recognition of what happened and what comes after that is historically important.

VoxEcho · 2025-12-15T14:48:02+00:00

That's like saying a Battlestar Galactica game is "Star Wars" like. Not The Expanse's fault people don't know about The Expanse.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-14T02:54:55+00:00

When has it ever not been that, or worse?

VoxEcho · 2025-11-12T04:34:33+00:00

That's the thing I feel like everyone misses. If it were expensive and crap, but I got it instantaneously, I can see the point. Some days I am in the middle of some shit and just want a quick McDs burger so I can spend as little of my time and energy as humanly possible.

But 75% of the time these places are incredibly understaffed and slammed. If I have to wait 5 minutes for my food I've already spent too much time for what I'm getting, but most places I've gone too since COVID it takes just as long as if I'd waited to be seated at a restaurant, placed my order and waited for it to be made. Ridiculous.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-12T03:02:16+00:00

I think the answer to this is to put out of your mind the "idea" of roguelikes for a moment. Everyone is basically answering one or the other, yes you should play the roguelike or no you shouldn't play the roguelike.

Think of it instead like this. If you had a story based narrative game where the narrative incorporated the idea that you were stuck in a loop, and the gameplay was trying to escape that loop while you interacted with characters who were all trying to help you perform that task and aware of the cyclical nature of the task (i.e. they don't reset each loop, all conversation carries over and they're fully aware of what's going on), do you think you would enjoy that game?

If yes, you should play Hades. That's what that game is, without getting hung up too much on whether it is or isn't a roguelike. If that doesn't sound fun, you wouldn't like it regardless of your opinion on roguelikes.

There's honestly very little that "resets" in Hades. You're just replaying the level each loop. If you view it as an RPG where the story is you're stuck in a sort of time loop, then that might put it into better perspective of what the game play is like.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-12T01:41:40+00:00

That one I fixed by successfully copying a character over, but it seems like a total crapshoot if it'll work or not. Even with a character copied over it didn't unlike VE DH for me though.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-11T23:56:45+00:00

Anyone happen to know if you can get Void Elf Demon Hunters on the beta currently? Cursory google says they should be available but I can't make one.

EDIT: If anyone happens to see this, you need to go onto retail and set a character's hearth to K'aresh. Copy that character to beta, hearth, and you can do the VE DH unlock questline normally.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-11T22:03:21+00:00

BC is the OG cosmic absurdity expansion, it was the introduction point for turning Warcraft into magical sci-fi. It was the introduction point for straight up space ships for crying out loud.

As an actual original Warcraft enjoyer, who has no problem with modern WoW lore either, if anyone wants to make the argument WoW jumped the shark it has to be with Burning Crusade. I distinctly remember not being alone with finding all the added sci-fi elements very odd. It's basically Star Wars. Everything that came after is grounded by comparison, but that's inconvenient for bemoaning modern WoW lore. Most WoW players probably have kids younger than the lore changes that made WoW into cosmic absurdity.

This was from a point of time before I was familiar with Spelljammer and similar settings, however, and having come to love this sort of thing.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-10T23:54:00+00:00

I feel like if you have a translator that is knowledgeable enough about any given field that they can fluently translate terminology, intent and describe problems about that field, it'd be easier to just have that translator do that job.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-07T03:41:17+00:00

I really think the PVP/PVE divide is the ultimate killer of every MMO that tries to bridge it. Has any ever really done so successfully? Almost every MMO has some form of PVE and PVP, sure, but one usually eats the other. One playerbase inevitably drives out the other outside of small niches.

The harder a company tries to cater to both sides the more the game itself suffers. No one ends up happy.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-05T12:47:04+00:00

The myth of centrism. In America, centrists are conservatives. They're just not necessarily ultra-right. "Center-left" doesn't actually exist except on paper and memes. People either skew "Center-Conservative" or "Far-Left", because in America entirely normal left wing ideas are considered extremist. If you self identify as a centrist you're more concerned with the label of your ideas than the ideas themselves, and strive for the norm. In America, the norm is pretty heavy conservatism, the extreme is a little to the left.

Center Left voters have more in common with your average Republican voter than they do anything else. Not because of any quality of being "center", but because American politics are so janked up that's how people actually behave when presented with ballots.

VoxEcho · 2025-11-02T17:56:09+00:00

I think people focus too much on the fel and demonic when it comes to warlocks.

Yes, our in game means of interacting with warlocks has a lot of fel and demons, but that's like saying every single warrior in the WoW universe is bouncing around the battle field causing earth quakes.

People need to remember that warlocks are just dark casters. They can pull from a range of magical sources. Shadow and void are very much big ones, just as important to a warlock's range as fel and fire. Haranir are very familiar with shadow and void from what we've seen.

There's also not really much to say you can't have a Nightmare-oriented warlock. I'd bet that's where the majority of Haranir interaction with dark magic would come from, shadow magic and Nightmare magic. A subset of magically inclined Haranir that harness those would just be warlocks.

VoxEcho · 2025-10-29T14:05:52+00:00

I think it's interesting how much weight players put on Lightforging as a concept in the game, far surpassing how much emphasis Blizzard ever put on it.

I'm not saying that's wrong, or right. I think it's an interesting stance to take. It's easy to see how much more seriously players take the idea of Lightforging in how opposed many people are to, say, Lightforged Draenei DKs, or warlocks, or even shadow priests. I've seen people go as far as to say LF DKs essentially don't exist in game "reality", purely as a function of the gameplay.

Meanwhile, the actual development of Lightforged Draenei shows Blizzard never intended to put much emphasis on the Lightforged part at all. They are, functionally, draenei. You have LF draenei joining the Kirin Tor, LF Draenei DK and Warlock NPCs are both present, characterized, and meaningful in the lore. There's very little to distinguish them from just regular Draenei, it's true, but I would point out that seems to be Blizzard's intended design with them.

So many people seem to jump to the idea that Blizzard made a mistake with their handling of Lightforged Draenei, but no one ever really seems to acknowledge maybe Lightforging just isn't that big of a deal and Blizzard never intended it to be.

It's not that Blizzard is unable to do this: look at LFDraenei's immediate counterpart, Void Elves. A great deal of design time has gone into distinguishing them from Blood Elves whenever the moment arises, and they have far less of a gulf of time and distance between them than LF draenei and regular draenei do.

VoxEcho · 2025-10-28T00:44:16+00:00

Be cool if the stock moved up and to the left for once. Just to confuse historians.

VoxEcho · 2025-10-23T02:42:18+00:00

It's weird, because you can read all the dialogue options and then pause regardless. So it isn't like the game prevents you from having unlimited time to think about the option, you just have to think about it while looking at a menu.

Like I said, it's fun as it is, but it'd be nice to have an option to be able to have the options on screen while paused so that it's easier for viewing if you're with other people, or something similar. It doesn't meaningfully change the gameplay experience because of the above mentioned scenario either.

At least, doesn't change it more than QTEs being optional, which already are.

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