User talk:Aeleas/Archive II

Join the Bookkeepers (Lore) team?
You seems to be quite knowledgeable and concerned about Warcraft lore. You might want to throw your name on the Bookkeepers join page. I left a note with Ragestorm, the current leader of the group that you would be a good candidate. The group is kind of large and motley, but perhaps the more the merrier? --Fandyllic 3:15 PM PDT 14 Apr 2006


 * User:Theron the Just has recently applied for membership in the Bookkeepers. Since you have discussed with him in the past, and your knowledge of lore is extensive, I was wondering what you would have to say about the subject. --Ragestorm 07:00, 22 August 2006 (EDT)


 * My contact with him has been brief so far, but he seemed to be quite in-tune with the collaborative nature one looks for in a wikian.

Add vandals to list after you revert
Hey, every so often when scanning the Recent changes, I notice you cleaning spam or vandalism. If you add the user to the Known vandals list, I can block them. Just add  in the appropriate month table and I'll see it and block them. This template automatically adds a contribs and Block user link. Regardless, thanks for the vandalism cleaning efforts. --Fandyllic 4:16 PM PDT 12 Apr 2006

Alternate Stories within WOW
Out of curiosity is there any articles about alternate storylines in World of Warcraft between Horde storylines, and Alliance storylines in World of Warcraft contradict each other? For example two different quest chains that have similar requirements but different lore.

For example, Onyxia has two very different quest chains for both horde and alliance that ultimately end with her defeat. There is also a couple of quests related to one jewler in IF, to find his lost ring, and later a necklace. Apparently horde have a different requirement for that ring and necklace leading them to a goblin in Orgrimmar?

I think there are a few examples where you can decide the direction of quest storylines even on your same faction. For example one of the storylines in Mauradon after you find a certain item, you can either choose to do a quest for the wandering Centaur Seer, or you can do a quest for the ghost of Zaeter. You can only choose to do one or the other but not both.

Of course the storyline of choosing which centaur clan to side with, that both lead to destruction of the leaders of the opposing clan.

If no one has started one I think it might make for an interesting article. --Baggins 18:00, 9 April 2006 (EDT)


 * It definitely would. Even if it were just limited to major players and events, like Onyxia, it would be quite large in scope.  The question of just how the entirety of WoW's storyline will be treated by the next game in the series is definitely an open one.


 * I believe that it was a bug that prevented completing both the Centaur Pariah's quest and the Seed of Life quest in Maraudon; it was changed in a later patch so that both can be completed.--Aeleas 19:10, 9 April 2006 (EDT)

Oh so can I go back and find another seed, and complete the other quest? Still storyline wise it seems like they both can't occur in the same timeline, unless there is supposed to be more than one of those items.Baggins 19:20, 9 April 2006 (EDT)


 * The one quest involves a Seed of Life that Zaetar gives to you to take to Remulos, the other involves the centaur Amulet of Union. --Aeleas 20:05, 9 April 2006 (EDT)


 * You could make a Category:Alternate Lore or Category:Conflicting Lore or something and start adding articles about conflicting lore to those new categories. You could have an article like "The many deaths of Onyxia" and add that to this new category. At some point we could add this new category (but not its members) as a subcategory of Category:Lore, since by your description these storylines come from WoW mostly (which is a source for Warcraft lore), but these can't both be true (unless we get into some awful alternate universes thing). You might also consider moving this discussion to Talk:Lore or Category talk:Lore. --Fandyllic 4:24 PM PDT 12 Apr 2006

Categorization Advice
In manual of monsters I'm coming across a categorization of species as "Goblinoids" which include everyone's favorite Goblins, Orcs, and apparently even Ogres, along with several other little known species that it lists(Coal Goblins, Ogrillon, Half-Ogres, Mites, etc).

I'm not sure if I should create a new category called "Goblinoids" to show which creatures fall into that category, or if I should create an article entitled "Goblinoids". Any Advice?Baggins 20:51, 9 April 2006 (EDT)


 * I think a simple article explaining the term would suffice.--Aeleas 21:05, 9 April 2006 (EDT)

Great Dark
Good article, but during my research through Manual of Monsters I'm finding times where it seems that Great Dark gets used to describe Twisting Nether as well... or at least Burning Legion has found some of its minions in the Great Dark...

"They are not undead but fueled by the power of the "Great Dark"-from an article about creatures known as "Despair;

Its all kind of confusing :-p...

BTW great editing work on the Celestial, Northshire abbey, and Dark Below articles.Baggins 20:00, 10 April 2006 (EDT)

RPG, Novels, Comics, vs. WOW
While i'm all for listing differences between the various sources.

Actually I personally don't see every everything as a complete retcon as in meant to be thrown out in all entirety (as writers have made attempts to reconcile many things things). I understand that there are many things that cannot be entirely reconcilled, especially since Metzen is still reimagining things.

I've read interviews were designers have said that the game has limititations in certain ways that prevent it from showing the true scope of the world, its culture, its race etcetera, or the scope of the cultures of its people. Somes things have been altered mainly due to gampeplay mechanics, and some things cannot be shown to full scale. Metzen has stated that all sources are sources of Canon. The RPG's lists pretty much every official source in their list of canon material. Metzen apparently doesn't see the various sources as being about seperate "worlds" named azeroth but all sources that add lore to his personal vision of the what makes up the world. He mentions this viewpoint on one of the DVDs.

Gutterspeak for instance is still a language in the RPG, however it is just one dialect of several. On a similar note with languages there are refrences from NPCs in WOW that imply that they can and are still in communication with Horde/Alliance races even though your PC is prevented from doing so. The language barrier is only limited to Player characters(who aren't likely canon anyways). The forsaken shown in Sunwell Trilogy for example are still quite capable of speaking Common. Designers have already said that the language barrier was to prevent smack talk. To take it further Blood Elves will not simply "forget" High Elf Thallasian, Common and other langues that they know, to speak the new Blood Elf language Sindarin. Again its another gameplay mechanic to prevent High Elves from "talking smack" over alliance channels.

Another issue designers have brought up is the size of the world in WOW is much smaller than it actually is because no computer could handle the real size of the world, and no one would want to travel weeks to get between the various lands. So refrences by Thrall for example mentioning that it took a few weeks to reach Kalimdor are actually more accurate as far as lore is concerned(taking into account he stopped at some islands along the way and spent some time there). Now that they have direct travel paths Kalimdor we know that it takes about "a week" to get to Kalimdor, as per lore from the opening of the Ahn Qiraj quests. There have been a few articles from designers discussing this scale factor as well, that I've read.

I'm not saying one source is more valid than another (Metzen doesn't appear to think one source outweighs another as per one of the DVD interviews, just that he might change his ideas from time to time, and its those ideas that can outweigh another, though). Metzen has also said that in many cases races have different legends and explanations for the same events and about different things, only one can be true usually, but that doesn't mean the previous legend ceases to exist in cultural records of the world(this was also stated in one of the DVDs as I recall). An example would be Cenarious "Bastard" childhood issue, Warcraft III's manual actually left the issue open saying, that they don't know "Whether it was true or not", allowing the legend to exist within the universe, but not necessarily be the true explanation. Its quite similar to the whole NE from Elune, or NE from Trolls legends that are alluded in various sources including WOW. Only one is likely the truth, but both seemed to be believed in the world.

I'm just saying that in some cases we don't have to think about things too hard, or entirely thrown things out, especially where a real world explanation from designers should suffice. Cause if we get too nitpicky we can poke holes WOW's own logic and limitations( I.E. Undead apparently still able to speak common as long as they are NPC Questgivers, or neutral Civilians, :p).

Ultimately one has to strive to be neutral on the issue, especially when writing for wikipedia format, and I take all sources from a neutral stance. The information exists, so I post it, I point out where it differs if needs be, but still consider it existing source of information.

Now if this site is for WOW only, can you point me to a more Warcraft Universe oriented site? If not I will continue to list the source of anything that originates from sources other than WOW within the articles.Baggins 12:32, 11 April 2006 (EDT)


 * I think our viewpoints are quite similar on this. My main concern is that the lore, as presented in the wiki, be accessible to someone coming from World of Warcraft without access to the RPGs.  While Azeroth may exist in its perfect state within Chris Metzen's head, we are only given different represenations of it to work with.  I view them rather like different tellings of the same story.  As you say, a game in which it takes a week to travel across the Barrens would be as ridiculous as a novel in which the trip takes 5 minutes.


 * There is an important functional distinction between the version of lore represented in the World of Warcraft and the version represented in other works. This isn't a WoW-only site, but that is currently the primary incarnation of the Warcraft universe and the one that most readers and users of the wiki will be concerned with.  While things like the Eastern Kingdom Centaur may exist in the RPGs, they simply aren't a part of WoW, which is the focus of the wiki, and this should be made explicit in real-world terms, not within lore terms, which can be less clear.  That isn't to say that their existence is necessarily contradicted by WoW, just that users of the wiki should be given a clear explanation as to why they haven't seen any Centaur wandering around Elwynn.


 * With Gutterspeak, I don't think we can rule out the possibility of a lore-based explanation that applies within the game as to why a player character can no longer understand Common-speaking PCs and NPCs. It isn't as if game mechanics automatically mean that the WoW version is unofficial; the Sunwell Trilogy has logistical concerns as well in requiring that the undead speak Common, since otherwise the characters couldn't interact.  There is no objective truth to the matter, and all sources can be reflected, but they should be clearly distinguished, and if they don't fit, there is no need to try and reconcile them.--Aeleas 13:19, 11 April 2006 (EDT)

When you say RPG, do you mean the D&D-type game, or WC1-WC3x? if the former, those muset be taken with a grain of salt- there's a bit of contradiction. If the latter, those are official. -- Ragestorm 18:45, 11 April 2006 (EDT)


 * I was referring to the D&D-type books.--Aeleas 19:06, 11 April 2006 (EDT)

Actually the RPG is official as well, and Metzen refers to them in several interviews. He's listed as being in charge of their creation as well. Like any source mistakes can still arise though, RPG isn't the only source for mistakes.

Additionally I've created a topic discussing the concept of Flavor Lore, which is connected to this subject of differences between stories, many times even intentional.Baggins 13:47, 14 April 2006 (EDT)

Azeroth, Stormwind, etc
I don't know if you brought it up or not, but Stormwind as it exists at the time of World of Warcraft seems to only refers to the Human City zone, as most of the kingdom has fallen apart. As wars, and attacks by brigands, undead, and orcs have split up many of the former parts of Azeroth continent into smaller alliance nations ruled by local politicians, as Stormwind is no longer sending troops to guard those lands, Duskwood, Redridge, and Westfall for example. Even the lands most closely connected to Stormwind, is listed under its own zone name, "Elwynn Forest".Baggins 22:37, 16 April 2006 (EDT)


 * The local governors are coping with the deliberate mismanagement by the king's counselors, but Lakshire, Darkshire, and Sentinel Hill still consider themselves part of the kingdom. In the note that you are given by the magistrate of Lakeshire, for example, it specifically refers to Lakeshire as a part of the Kingdom of Stormwind.  There are also Stormwind guards in and around Lakeshire.--Aeleas 23:08, 16 April 2006 (EDT)

Fanfic guidlines
Hahaha. Nice catch there with the missing "not" :-)  -- Mikk  (T) 07:47, 25 September 2006 (EDT)

Galen Trollbane
Hello there. I'd be thankful if you would check that article's discussion page. Regards, --Theron the Just 10:20, 8 November 2006 (EST)

High Elven Druidism
I don't know if you are interested or not, but Horde Player's Guide, 2006, makes refrence to high elven druidism in the Dark Rangers article. In that druidism was practiced by former high elven rangers of quel'thalas.Baggins 18:51, 24 November 2006 (EST)

Note to be careful
In reference to the trollbane article I must warn you that the editor you RV commonly causes/continues edit wars, and removes information from articles if he doesn't like the information and feels it doesn't fit in his interpretation of the universe. So if he tries to do that again, just don't fall for his trap, take it up with one of the admins. I recommend Kirkburn, who has had previous experience with the issue. He has been given warnings several times.Baggins 13:36, 1 January 2007 (EST)

White Kodo Clan Page Move
--Khandivya 18:31, 2 January 2007 (EST)

Apologies if this isn't the correct place to put this, I'm very new to Wiki in general and this site in specific.

I'm working with Tatimitzi on putting some of the WKC stories on this wiki and we had a question. A day or two ago you moved a page we were working on from "White Kodo Clan Story Archive" to "User:Tatimitzi/White Kodo Clan Story Archive". The question is that this page really belongs to the entire guild, not just Tati, although she has done most of the changes on it. Is this the correct place to put it? Is there somewhere better?

Thanks.


 * Articles which are located in the main namespace can be be freely edited by anyone. With fan fiction, this presents something of a problem, because you presumably want to retain creative control over the content and not have it replaced by a stranger who decides that he wants to write his version of WKC stories.  Placing it as a subpage of someone's user page gives you that control, marking it as a personal article.--Aeleas 19:56, 2 January 2007 (EST)


 * The problem isn't the stories (which we moved as soon as we figured out what a subpage was :P), it's the "summary page", which lists all of the guild members who have written stories, and then links to their personal story pages (which finally lists all of their stories). You moved something that Tati and I (who are the story movers right now...) believe is a "Guild page", not hers or mine, so it doesn't belong under either of our user pages. It feels like a mistake to have moved it where it is, but I'm afraid I don't know enough about wiki culture to know if I'm wrong or not :). Thanks. Khandivya 22:21, 2 January 2007 (EST)

Move it to a page under your guild name?Baggins 22:25, 2 January 2007 (EST)


 * Sounds like a good solution. White Kodo Clan/Story Archive.--Aeleas 23:41, 2 January 2007 (EST)


 * Ok. Thanks for your time. Khandivya 13:31, 3 January 2007 (EST)