Warcraft Rumble… Lore?

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Gnome Heroes, Uncategorized, Warcraft Rumble , , , , , , ,

Warcraft Arclight Rumble is an in-character arcade game created by gnomes. The machines are present in major cities. It makes me wonder if any lore can be teased from the mobile game.

Gnomelia Gearheart is the ‘face’ of the game. She guides players through the tutorial and makes all the announcements. I think it’s safe to say that she is the inventor of the machines, and her unit is a self-insert. She’s the only ‘real’ character we meet. So what can we learn about her from the game?

What we can tell about Gnomilia from her appearance. She has pink pigtails, a mechanical hand, and a missing tooth. We see her lose a tooth from a crash in the opening cinematic. Gnome flying machines were used in the 2nd war, so possibly she was a pilot who was shot down in action.

So, when is the world represented by Rumble set? I think the clues here are in the heroes. There are Night Elves, and Undead from the 3rd war. It must be after the discovery (by the eastern kingdoms) of Kalimdor and the betrayal of Arthas. Grom Hellscream and Cenarius are present, which implies that they are alive, putting the time during Reign of Chaos, before The Frozen Throne. The only thing that sticks out is Sneed. He’s listed as a Horde hero. That might have been true during the Second War, but it isn’t at the beginning of the 3rd.

One of the things I find interesting about Rumble is the factions. It’s a cool shake-up on the typical Alliance/Horde dichotomy. Blackrock and Undead are present. The undead have Baron Rivendare and Sylvanas as heroes. Even though the Forsaken are in the Horde, Sylvanas was not Horde when the game was released. This is another clue that the game is set during the 3rd war.

One of the first Dungeons in-game was Gnomeregan. There are lepers, but Gnomeia is not one. She must have been an escapee when Gnomeregan fell.

The Blackrock faction shows that Gnomelia is familiar with the goings on in Blackrock Mountain. It’s a cool faction that represents a wide variety of groups within Blackrock Mountain.

My theory for Gnomie is this. She was a pilot during the Second War. She retreated into Gnomeregan when the Horde pushed through Dun Morogh. When Gnomeregan fell, she escaped and fled to Blackrock Mountain. There she became a Weapon Technician who worked in the Manufactory under Golem Lord Argelmach. Plugger is a leper, so some gnomes from Gnomeregan made it to Blackrock after the fall. In Blackrock Mountain, Gnomeia was cut off from news of the outside world until the Dark Irons joined the Alliance. Warcraft Rumble machines are not set during the 3rd war intentionally; that was the last time she knew what was happening in the outside world.

Now out and about in the Alliance again, she has updated the machines. She’s added Anub’arak (who was added during the Frozen Throne) and the Headless Horseman. She’s made Sylvanas both Undead and Horde.

We have a Gnomelia battle pet, but it’s a toy, not really her. I hope that we might get her as an NPC in WoW someday.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Gnomelia_Gearheart

Warcraft Rumble Lore

Theory: Azeroth Quarantine Protocol

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Lore, Theory , , , ,

The fact that there are storms in a ring around Kalimdor is suspicious, to say the least. What would cause unending storms in such a large area?

My theory is that the Sundering of the Well of Eternity triggered a Titan Quarantine Protocol, isolating the damaged portion of the Manifold from larger Azeroth.

This also means that Azeroth will be MUCH larger than we think.

Languages of Azeroth: Afterthoughts

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Languages of Azeroth , , , ,

I started writing these in spring of 2023 when patch 10.0.7 was announced. Since then, I’ve accumulated a lot of other random thoughts related to the topic of communication on Azeroth.

[Common] – As much as I hate to admit it. I thought of a good use for [Common]. Making [Common] the default language for /say in cross faction dungeons and raids would be useful, and match the existing fantasy and lore of that language better than it being the official language of the Alliance.

I have a bunch of ideas for language names, some of which I’ve put in previous blogs, but I’ve also learned that when WoW Devs see fan ideas in the wild, they then have to avoid using them, so I’m not going to be putting out more ideas despite the fact I really, REALLY want to, lol.

Dialects System – In my head I came up with a crazy complex system for dialects. I was going to outline it, but I’ve decided not to. In addition to the reason listed above, I also honestly do not think that there’s any chance of us getting an ingame system that’s deep enough to capture dialects.

I want every PC language to be a good language. There were several things that made languages more intriguing.

An Alphabet – Some languages get an official ‘font’ representing the written language’s appearance.

Translations – Not a full dictionary, but some common words and culturally relevant ones are nice.

Visibility – The language needs to appear in game. Books that can only be read when you speak the language and visible writing the community can decode are great things. I would love to see more of both.

If you did enjoy, here are a list of links you might find useful or interesting:

The Warcraft Wiki and WoWHead Language Pages

An Addon for In Game Languages:

Academic papers related in Language in World of Warcraft:

Some random old forum posts about languages:

Why Gnomes Stand Out in Warcraft Lore

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Out Of Character , , , , , ,

Let’s be honest for a second.  Gnome fans are a vocal minority.  Gnomes are the least popular race in the game (second to goblins), BUT people that play gnomes are invested in the lore.  Despite gnomes being one of the least developed races in the game, there is something about them that resonates with their fans.  What could that relatable thing be?

Size: Some people might relate to gnomes simply because they are also short, and it feels good to play in a world where your height is not a hindrance to doing anything physically. Gnomes’ diminutive stature implies that they have a non-physical edge to keep up with the larger races of Azeroth. A power fantasy where we are exactly the same as we are, and it doesn’t hold us back.

Appearance: Gnomes are built very differently from other races. Representing lots of body types is good. Gnomes aren’t skinny or jacked like other characters are in fantasy art.

Intelligence: All the lore descriptions of gnomes generously professes their genius. Some people would rather be smart than strong.  Outwitting your opponent instead of trying to beat them through attrition.  I think this might be the strongest aspect of gnomes and the reason most people are drawn to them.  I see a lot of Draenei fans also like gnomes , and intelligence is the strongest link between the two races.

Care-free: Because of the Gnomes’ childlike appearance and role as comic relief, they are allowed to be silly and fun, and that’s okay! Gnomes in Warcraft have a tragic backstory, but individually, they don’t seem to be dark or brooding.  There are a lot of sad stories in Warcraft, and sometimes you want a break from that.  Gnomes are often light-hearted and upbeat.  They laugh a lot and don’t take themselves too seriously.  (Which is good because no one else seems to take them too seriously.)  It’s nice to keep things upbeat.  We can appreciate the dark and sad moments but don’t want to ‘live’ there.  I think this is one of the reasons reclaiming Gnomeregan is such a big deal.  Gnome players would like to see this aspect of the lore brought more in line with gnomish personality.

Underdogs:  Who doesn’t enjoy an underdog?  Gnomes start at a level of disadvantage that few other race in Azeroth currently endure.  Their home is a toxic wasteland, their closest allies in Ironforge rescinded sanctuary and exiled them AGAIN.  Their first major attempt to reclaim their homeland after 10 years failed.  If you like having the odds stacked against you then gnome is the way to go.

Outsiders: The hate they get from other players may drive a certain kind of person towards gnomes.   Loners who don’t like to socialize as much, or people that feel personally ostracized for one reason or another and relate to that.  Even the occasional agitator who enjoys annoying others, and rolls a gnome to gank horde and make them rage at getting killed by a pipsqueak.

Agnostic: In fantasy, there are many religions, and for the most part, they all tend to be true. Gnomes still do not believe in anything despite the powers flexed by priests, druids, shamans, and paladins.  Gnomes remain agnostic in their belief.  It’s something that you rarely see in a fantasy setting.  Atheists are a minority in most places, so seeing some representation is unexpected and refreshing.  When they added priests, they did not abandon this aspect of the race. I have a lot of respect for that.

Gnomes fill niches traditionally ignored in fantasy and that’s great, I love it.  Transgender dragon?  Bring it on. Gnomeregan can be a home for anybody!

Immersion and NPC Representation

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Immersion is an interesting psychological effect. It’s one of the big selling points of an MMO. We are on the ground in this expansive world. We as players have agency to determine who we want our characters to be. The game encourages us to customize and personalize our characters so we feel connected to them. Investment in our avatars is a large part of our investment in the game as a whole.

Things that spoil immersion put distance between us and our investment in our character, and the game as a whole. The most obvious immersion breaks are non-diegetic things, fourth wall breaks, pop culture references, etc. Those things can be fun in game, but they have to be rare and removed from the action. Easter eggs that would not be encountered during normal gameplay.

With The War Within, we are hitting a subtler problem that breaks the immersion, acting “out of character”. NPCs and actions required by some PCs feel weird for Horde characters. It seems weird that all these Alliance characters would be seeking out a champion from the Horde to help with their quests. For many of those Horde characters, helping these Alliance folk feels out of character for their character.

I think the roll NPCs play in immersion is big. Unfortunately it is also underestimated or misunderstood by many people. If your character is in a space, and there are no NPCs of the same faction, race, class as the player’s character, it makes them look out of place. When your character looks incongruous in the setting it damages immersion, and make the choices made in personalizing a character feel less valid. The War Within did pull a brilliant move is blowing up Dalaran and scattering the survivors all over. It gives a plot plausible and plot relevant reason for a lot of classic races are all over a recently discovered island.

The story of Warcraft is largely told through NPCs, we are there with them, but the main stories of the game cannot revolve around us by nature of the medium. That makes the NPCs a secondary self insert for the player. Yes, I have my character, but when I take a quest from an NPC, my character becomes a surrogate for that NPC. I’m acting in accordance with the motives and goals of the NPC I am running the quest for. When I am doing a quest for Anduin, in a way, I’m playing the game as Anduin. His story and personality are dictating my characters actions.

This is the reason that players are always begging for more representation of their character’s race in the game. It’s easier to believe my character’s motivations are inline with and NPCs the more my character has in common with that NPC. Quests feel better when the quest giver is the same faction, race, class as the player character. The more congruent my character is with the quest NPC, the easier it is to mentally ‘close the gap’ between the surrogate NPC whose story I’m playing out, and the story I imagine for my character.

When the Legion expansion was announced, I misunderstood an announcement about the questing zones. The Storm Peaks featured a Genn VS Sylvanas plot line. Somehow when that information came to me, I thought it meant that every zone would have a faction leader side quest line. Across all the zones all the leaders would be represented. For example: Tyrande and Rokhan would both be in Val’sharah, Mekkatorque and Lilian Voss in Stormheim, Anduin and Lor’themar in Azsuna, Moria and Baine in High Mountain. In each of these zones these leaders would be interacting, either cooperating, competing, or contending with their counterparts.

Parity across the factions and races is necessary, it just is. Warcraft has a handful of Main Characters, Thrall, Anduin, Jaina, Sylvanas (RIP) who represent the main factions. These are the characters we follow through the overarching story of the expansion. On top of that, we need the groups within the faction represented as well.

I know that the response to this is, “We could not find a place for this race to fit”. And I think the real problem is some of the races are too “small”. (I don’t mean literally short like goblins and gnomes.) I mean the concepts for those races are so narrow that they never fit anywhere. When writing the new stories, these races need to be expanded to fit. Embracing the challenge of inclusion is an opportunity to develop them. How hard it is to fit each group into the story is a good indicator of which groups are the most in need of development.

It sucks when I’m playing my gnome and there are no gnomes in the main story, no gnomes in the side quests, no gnomes anywhere. I used to be on board with “wait your turn”, but It’s much harder for me to accept that. I started playing my gnome in Vanilla in 2004. Mechagon was the first time gnomes got a major content update, and it was in 2019. 15 years is not a reasonable time, and has soured me on the entire concept of “wait your turn”.

The worst is the feeling of being ignored out of game. I love the story of Warcraft. There are a few people that craft that story that I think are really awesome people on a personal level. But it doesn’t feel like these requests for inclusion are not being absorbed. Part of that is probably because it sounds very whiny. Some of it is the perceived challenge of implementing. I also think it’s easy to downplay the impact. Now here we are with the War Within, and the problem is probably the worst it’s ever been. Ironically, not for me. My gnome feels more at home than ever. I think that’s largely due to Dagran. He has some gnomish qualities. I 100% understand where Horde players are coming from though. I hope that in the future no one will feel left out.

Collection Tabs and Clutter

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Out Of Character, Wish List ,

I was looking through my mounts the other day. I could not find the mount I was looking for. It was one of those mounts that has a proper name instead of a descriptor. You can’t search “horse” or “wolf” and track those down.

As I looked I scrolled passed these two in my collection, the Frostwolf Howler, and the Horn of the Frostwolf Snarler. In that moment I was annoyed. I do love to collect things. Numbers go up make feel good. These guys though…

I realized there were a lot of mounts I was happy to get, but now that I have them, they are making the mount collection tab increasingly harder to use.

There are lots of possible solutions. For the Frostwolf Howlers, the Hi Rez one could replace the Low Rez one entirely. They could add “hide” as an option like favorite, and players could control which mounts the see in their lists by default. They could create families like battle pets; “horse”, “wolf”, “ram”, “kodo”. I think that would be good.

I LOVE the UI for the Dragon Riding mounts from DF. Having that are the interface for old mounts would be the best!

But… we have seen the customization UI applied to older customizations and not work out so well. I have the Dreadfire Imp and Trickster Fel Imp customizations for my warlock. When I look at my customization options, it shows I can select between Normal or Fel Imp, and I can select between Yellow or Red imp, however, there are not 4 combinations I can make. If I pick Fel Imp, then try to make it red, the Fel Imp selection is undone. Same thing if I try to make my normal Imp yellow, it becomes a Fel Imp. There’s no indication of what is or is not going to change one of your other selections. This happens with some character customization too. I’m sure everyone who has unlocked the Dark Ranger customizations has encounter this forced customization pairings.

I hope that this gets cleaned up a little, either making something 100% available once it’s unlocked, or at the least indicating when customization options are grouped together, so you know going into a selection that it’s going to limit your other choices.

Languages of Azeroth: Winners and Losers

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Languages of Azeroth ,

Thank you for reading my series! If you like any of these ideas, the best thing you can do to support these ideas is, learn [Furbolg]!

The Devs see how many people interact with a system. Learn [Furbolg] and speak it. It’s the most direct way to show your interest. Below is the WoWHead guide to the Winterpelt Furbolg. There are more rewards than just the language to collect.

After looking through all the languages of the playable character of Warcraft, I think I’ve come up with a list of things that makes a language good.

  • Regional Name – Geography is the largest determining faction in what language someone speaks. The name of a language should representing the culture of a place, not the race of the speaker.
  • Canon Translations – The more words the players know, the more we can ‘play’ with the language in our character names, guild names, and RP interactions.
  • An Alphabet – Having a canon alphabet give a language tons of personality. [Furbolg] goes the extra mile, and uses its alphabet in the in game chat. It’s nothing more than a unique font, but it’s so much cooler than just scrambled nonsense. Having an official alphabet also would allow players to decipher text on in game books that can’t be read.
  • Encounters – When I made a Drakthyr, I went back to places where NPCs spoke [Draconic] to find out what was said. I was excited to go back to those places and redo quests. This can be done with any race in the game… except humans and orcs.
  • Not [Common] – Humans and orcs only speak the default language, so it’s as if they have no language at all. Languages are more fun when you have more than one.
  • Family Groups – When two groups have similar languages, it strengthens the sense that they are related.
  • Accents – A few races in game have canon accents and speech patterns. This adds to their roleplay ability, and makes it easier to tell when they are speaking in and out of character.
  • Small Overlaps – Letting a small group of players that otherwise would not be able to communicate. Who doesn’t love playing telephone!
  • Dialects – Currently there are no dialects in Warcraft. There are only full languages, and accents. There are several ways that dialects could be added that would be fun and interesting.

I can’t imagine that many of these will happen. In fact, it’s unlikely we will get any changes to existing languages outside the occasional new official translation. The Devs did clearly think about language for Dragonflight, and experimented with adding a system to learn a new language. That makes me hopeful for the future.

Languages of Azeroth: Factions vs Allied Races

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Languages of Azeroth , ,

It’s great to see a roleplay feature get priority over gameplay. Allied races that can be the same faction speaking the same language has turned out to be a great decision. Along with allowing us to learn [Furbolg].

Of all the Allied Races only nightborne and vulpera have their own language. If ever a system for dialects were added, Allied Races is where they would shine. All Allied Races would benefit from the roleplay flavor that would come with the addition.

I personally had a great interaction while doing the “Secrets of Azeroth” event. The stage in Stranglethorn Vale where you need three people, I showed up, and there was a member of the opposite faction there. Then another one showed up. I spoke [Furbolg], but only one of the Horde members did. It was a fun and interesting interaction, completely between players. It was short, but I’ll remember it as of my favorite RP scenes ever.

I do remember playing in the WoW BETA, when Forsaken could speak and understand [Common]. A group of max level human paladins gathered outside of Brill and harassed the low level Forsaken players. It was not fun, and in the long run, I’m glad they removed [Common] from Forsaken characters. A clear issue with this set-up was participation. I chose to learn [Furbolg], and I know that only a limited number of other players are going to do the same, and no one knows if I understand it unless I initiate or reply to conversation. When Forsaken could speak and understand [Common], every Alliance player could talk to them, and they new it. Funny enough, humans only had [Common] so there was no way for them to speak and the Forsaken NOT know what they were saying. The dynamic was drastically different.

hopefully we will see more of these small in roads to communication come up in the future.

Languages of Azeroth: Darnassian vs Thalassian

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Languages of Azeroth , , , ,

[Darnassian] and [Thalasssian] are chef’s kiss perfect.

We have a lot of official translations from them.

They get regionality right.

The substitution of letters with similar sounds.

The linguist relationship is immediately clear. Take for example kaldorei vs quel’dorei. Kaldorei = “Children of the stars”. Quel’dorei = “High borne”. Two compound words with similar pronunciation and the root words are conceptually close. One word related to upwardness, high and stars. The second related to things that are brought up, children and borne.

I have no notes here. Like the troll language, these are solid supports for immersion and roleplay.

Languages of Azeroth: Draenei vs Eredar

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg Languages of Azeroth , ,

Language changes are generational, what does that mean for an immortal race? The language the Draenei speak today is basically the same one they spoke on Argus 25,000 years ago. The Man’ari Eredar’s too would be the same because there are living members of the race that still speak the original language, and they are (were) powerful leaders in the Burning Legion. [Draenei], [Eredun], and [Demonic] are all the same language… maybe.

[Demonic] could be a new language that is based on [Eredun] with words and changes incorporated from all the various groups the Legion has subsumed over millennia. Except it’s not, because the Eredar commanded that [Eredun] be the official language of the Burning Legion, and it’s explicitly stated that [Eredun] and [Demonic] are the same language.

Based on the names for draenei give things they appear to have a syllabary writing system. This means that each character in their writing system represents an entire syllabus. When translating spoken [Eredun] into an alphabetic system, each symbol would require 2 or more letters to write.

The first hint that gives this away is how frequently [Eredun] words have an apostrophe or hyphen. Apostrophes can mean a lot of things. In [Orchis] they show a word has been shortened. [Zandali] uses them to indicate compound words, or the addition of a prefix/suffix. These alone don’t prove the point.

Our second clue is how vowel rich [Eredun] is. Most syllables are constructed with a consonant+vowel sound. They also include tone, which is not something that the English alphabet can represent. The doubled vowels we commonly see in [Eredun] most likely exist to show these tonal changes of the same letter.

Third, we do not see a lot of [Eredun] writing in the world, but the little we do see show compound characters. Languages with alphabets use very simple symbols for writing, because it’s the writing system that requires the most symbols to represent a word. Syllabary languages use half as many characters, and tend to use twice as many lines in their characters because the vowel sounds get ‘baked in’ to the symbol for the consonant.

For example, these symbols might represent these sounds:

ʫclaa
ʣdraa
ʤdrae
ʥder

You can see the overlap where repeated consonant and vowel sounds are represented.

All these factors are strong indicators of a syllabary writing system for the draenei. maybe someday in the future we will see more of it in action, or get a replacement cyber that allows us to translate words from the books we find around Azeroth.