MMO Week in Review: Hour of Twilight

@JuliusSeizure

Since giant sea horses became mounts and breathing underwater commonplace.

@(Unverified)

I'm not complaining, I'm curious about what it portends.

@(Unverified)

Idle curiosity. Is that forbidden somehow? Sheesh.

I used to RP a lot in the game and followed the lore quite closely. I still look into story developments from time to time because I'm just plain curious to see where they take things that are already established and what new things they'll add.

@(Unverified)
Why the hostility, JuliusSeizure was asking a question. They didn't imply being upset, only curious.
Not once were they complaining about WoW or bashing it. You are the one showing contempt. In this case contempt for any question that you perceive as bashing a game you may love. As such, the problem seems to be on your end.

@(Unverified)

Wow. You really have a chip on your shoulder.

As a matter of fact, you are entirely wrong about my motivations, and your proposed methods don't mesh with my personality nor produced results. I happen to like asking in comment threads about things because it promotes conversation. I was hoping for a much more positive one than this, sadly.

Additionally, I did try Google and got a bunch of results for characters and guilds named 'Merfolk'. Searched Wowpedia and the closest I could get was some ingame references to the Little Mermaid. Combed through a bunch of other sources while waiting for replies here, and still found nothing.

I said I used to follow the lore closely, by the way. Even so, I always ignored stuff from the D20 RPGs as I neither owned any of them nor was convinced of their complete canonicity. So it's entirely possible they were mentioned there somewhere and Blizzard decided to make them canon. It's happened with some things, while others were totally contradicted. It's also possible there's some tiny bit of lore in the latest patch connected to these windows that explains them. Any answer someone could supply here would both help me and might interest someone else who reads these comments.

So yeah. Chill out.

@JuliusSeizure (This is a different but also woefully Unverified person, by the way)

To actually attempt to answer your question: I don't think Azerothians have discovered merfolk in the lore currently, but I have yet to complete the story line for the underwater zone, Vashj'ir. My guess is that IF merfolk were planned for WoW, or more specifically Cataclysm, they were scrapped along with the idea of the water elemental themed raid, much to my chagrin. Future possibilities for merfolk in the lore could arise if they ever choose to actually make that raid on the plane of water, or if heroes ever finally go after Azshara.

@(Unverified)

It's okay! My email notification tells me you are Pheydra (and that other person is trionix11), so hi there and thanks for the exposition!

I had been wondering something along those lines, but I have completed Vashj'ir and didn't see any kind of hint of merfolk. I don't even know where that screenshot was taken, but I didn't do much other than complete all the solo content just once when Cat launched before quitting.

@JuliusSeizure Neptulon has always been depicted like this, for almost ten years now.

@(Unverified) Fanboy alert. 'nuff said.

@Halfcentaur

Citation needed!

http://www.wowpedia.org/Neptulon Less blithely, not seeing anything like that here, and even if that is the case, it doesn't explain the lady. That said, I am willing to accept it's a likeness created by someone working from imagination, especially if you've got proof. :)

@(Unverified)

I know JuliusSeizure answered the more particulars over this, but...

"People will find ANYTHING to complain about World of Warcraft."

...and yes, people will find ANYTHING to complain about ANY game here. This is what this site is for inpart. So put a SOCK in it and go back to WoW Insider if you don't like it.

@Utakata

He is right, even Unverified/Trionix11 is finding something to complain about WoW! Woo-hoo! ;P

@JuliusSeizure

How do you set-up that email notification thingie? Kinda curious since it seems like a good workaround calling people "Unverified#1" and "Unverified#2".

@Space Cobra

There's a little checkbox under the box I am now typing into that says 'E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment'. Just make sure it's checked and that your account is tied to an email address you still monitor.

You also used to be able to click on the '(Unverified)' to see what their name was supposed to be, but that doesn't work anymore for some reason.

@MtthwRddl I wondered that as well until I read up more on Diablo 3 and the other titles under Blizzard's stable. It's pretty obvious where the real talent have gone at this point. Their other games have more polish and user friendly refinements than what's being brought in play for WoW these days.

@MtthwRddl

My best guess is they wanted something they could weave some little bit of lore around, rather than make it a pure game mechanic kludge? I know they've gotten a lot of complaints in the past about certain game mechanics not making lore sense and giving RPers headaches. Since this is such a strongly RP-angled function, it might have made them think twice.

Of course, that kinda backfired. The lore they created for it isn't exactly sparkling, and the mechanic is being used to cover up mechanics that don't reflect the lore very well anyway. I mean, the vast discrepancy between the stats of, say, Tier 2 raid gear and Tier whatever-the-Hell-they're-up-to makes no sense at all. Sure, it's no problem for it to be a bit better, but so many orders of magnitude? Ehn.

The alternative is that their engine somehow won't allow for a neater solution, which is frighteningly plausible for a game made before appearance slots were a prominent idea.

@MtthwRddl

I never thought I'd see the day where an MMO gets bashed for implementing a system being asked for constantly in just about single every title within the genre.

@Vgk Maybe it's getting bashed because the system isn't what the beggars asked for? Players asked for appearance tabs, not a gold sink...