Warcraft Retrospective 33: Somehow, Draenor Returned

Last time, we left Kael, Vashj, and their blood elves and naga as they leapt into a portal to the unknown. Now, on the other side, they behold…

The Dusts of Outland

So they marched for hours before Kael decided to ask Vashj where the hell they were.

Our heroes are transported to some kind of red barren realm full of floating islands, and Kael asks Vashj what this desolate place is. It turns out that…

Admittedly, it looks cool.

Wow. That’s quite a bombshell the writers have dropped on us here. There’s a lot to untangle.

Previously, in Tides of Darkness, the Dark Portal was closed. Then in Beyond the Dark Portal, Khadgar not just re-closed it, but sealed it beyond all reasonable doubt. Then the Alliance Expedition left Draenor through one of the dimensional rifts just before Draenor exploded. And now we’re learning that a good chunk of it actually survived?

I remember how, when news surfaced that The Frozen Throne would return to Draenor, the community I was in began speculating how it would be possible. Were we going to time travel into the past? Did we find a duplicate of it? Or perhaps it only mostly exploded, but a shard survived? It’s funny how, in the end, Blizzard used all three of these ideas — two of them, much later, in the same WoW expansion.

Blizzard just can’t let go of Draenor, which brings into question the point of blowing it up in the first place. Of course, they might have simply regretted it.

We’re not even going to do anything particularly Draenor-y here. Here in Outland, we’re concerned with finding Illidan (Vashj knows that he’s here, but not why). We’re not dealing with orcs (much) nor with the Alliance Expedition (which definitely isn’t even here, right?). This place could just as easily have been any Legion-occupied world, and all the map designers would have to do would be replacing the orc models with demon ones.

More importantly, how does Vashj know all this? As a naga, she shouldn’t know about Draenor and its history. In the night elf campaign, Illidan crossed the portal to Outland immediately after rescuing Tyrande, so he had no opening to tell Vashj about his plan. We’re now forced to surmise that he told her offscreen right before heading through, and we weren’t shown because it would spoil the surprise. I can easily think of less clunky ways to achieve this without sacrificing continuity.

But wait, it gets even worse. It turns out that at the end of the night elf campaign, Illidan opened not just any portal, but a cross-world portal. Previously, this feat was only accomplished twice. Once it required a cooperation between Medivh and Gul’dan from different ends, and the other time it required a powerful lich (Kel’Thuzad), the Book of Medivh, and a nexus of magical energies (Dalaran), and both times it was a very taxing and arduous task. Is Illidan just that good that he can just open cross-world portals at leisure?

How I’d Do It

Simply have the night elves return to Dalaran after Tyrande’s rescue is complete, and establish the portal used by Kael and Vashj during the night elf campaign — perhaps show it in an inaccessible part of the “The Ruins of Dalaran” map. This way, it will be a Chekhov’s Gun rather than a last-minute contrivance. Maybe have the characters question where it leads. In the final cutscene, have Illidan approach Vashj for a couple of parting words, while cutting away from them so we don’t hear what they’re talking about. Finally, have Illidan and Maiev enter the same portal that Kael and Vashj will use later.

Whatever. Let’s begin…

The Search for Illidan

It took them three days. Let’s remember that.

After three days of fruitlessly searching for Illidan, Kael and Vashj stumble upon… a night elf base!

It’s impressive that they managed to grow all that on what’s basically dead rock’.

It turns out that these are Maiev’s Watchers. She has captured Illidan and is taking him to her stronghold in a cage. Our goal is to free him.

Apparently they put that cage on the base of a glaive thrower.

This is all fine and good, except the premise of this mission makes no sense.

When we last saw Maiev, she barely managed to move herself and a few of her warriors through the portal before it closed. Definitely not the large force we’re seeing here, and definitely not one big enough to garrison a base, even if we grant that wisps have been rapidly constructing all these buildings magically. (On Outland’s barren soil?)

Even more importantly, this kind of behavior — putting Illidan in a cage and transporting him to her base — is extremely out of character for Maiev at this point, given everything she did in the night elf campaign.

In the forum thread for this series, reader Jai’are noted a pattern in Maiev’s behavior:

Either because this quarry of hers has escaped, or she’s just on a timer somehow because if you take a look at all her Wc3 quotes they all denote a sense of urgency. And that’s odd in itself, because you’d think a huntress (something that Illidan himself even calls her) would know patience and when to apply it.

But she’s the opposite of that, at every turn, which is surprisingly consistent in the campaign. This governing feeling explains her words and choices from when they depart the still burning shores of Nendis (no burials, no mourning, no nothing); or when Naisha and the others get buried in the tomb, there’s absolutely no time to mourn and she makes sure there’s not even a soul who wants to, instead laying it all on Illidan and using this heavy moment to reiterate and double-down on how imperative it is that they finish the hunt; even when Tyrande gets swept by the river and she tells a half-truth or outright lie depending on how you want to interpret the way she says it as well as the words “torn apart” – for what likely is the end goal of urgency. She didn’t want Malfurion to waste time in mounting some misguided rescue efforts, but when the truth comes out it ends up costing her all the same. <…> Then, at the end… she again rushes – maintaining the same level of misguided hurry – through the portal to Outland and pursue Illidan through this final frontier. <…>

And years later, having gone over this campaign with a fine comb for RP reasons, Maiev’s behavior in Wc3 is the dictionary definition of hasty – fast and typically superficial.

Which is not at all what you’d expect of a huntress or a lawman.

By the time of “The Ruins of Dalaran”, this hasty, impulsive Warden was no longer content with simply recapturing Illidan; she wanted to execute him on the spot, and in fact that was what she was about to do before Malfurion stopped her. So now that she has finally captured Illidan and has free reign over him with nobody to tell her what to do, what does she do?

…She puts him in a cage. When she could have simply killed him on the spot.

Sure, it’s possible that he’s too strong for her to kill him right away, and this is some kind of anti-magic cage that neutralizes his power or whatever. But if the Watchers managed to put him in an anti-magic cage, they still don’t need to transport him. Logically, now that he’s powerless, all it would take to kill him is a blade through the bars.

This massively contrived setup is basically an excuse to play tug-of-war over Illidan’s cage.

Oh, hello again. Remember when we were on the same side? I kind of miss that.

The map is basically symmetric; there are two bases here, ours and Maiev’s. We control the two heroes only¹ while our regular troops automatically engage the night elves. Illidan’s cage rolls ssssslooooowly towards the base of whichever side controls it at the moment. To claim the cage, a side needs to bring its hero to it without an enemy hero being nearby.

This means that to claim the cage, all we need to do is kill Maiev and approach it. She quickly respawns at the base (as do our heroes, automatically), but since only Maiev can claim the cage back, all we have to do is keep focus-killing her while avoiding the night elf army. The mission is thus very quick, lasting maybe five minutes; it’s easy on normal difficulty and reportedly not difficult on hard either.

Once the cage reaches our base, Illidan is freed. He asks Vashj who her allies are, and… she apparently decides it for Kael.

Pledge is too strong a word. More like a mutually beneficial partnership.

Illidan’s Task

Former demon hunter? I’d say he’s still a demon hunter. After all, this is what he’s going to do in this campaign: hunt demons.

Kael asks Illidan to cure his people’s hunger for magic.

Kael is promised one thing, and has to settle for another. Just hope that this magic doesn’t come from icky demons or something.

Illidan reveals what he came here to Outland to do.

Also, I’m not looking at you. That’s how I establish dominance.

Turns out that after the Battle of Mount Hyjal, he was visited by none other than Kil’jaeden, who offered him a second chance to serve the Legion. Illidan asked what the demon lord would have him do, and…

Those camera angles. Ow.

I have no idea why Illidan jumped at the chance to serve the Burning Legion after previously opposing it. It’s not like Kil’jaeden can actually physically do anything to him; since he’s translucent here, I assume he’s some kind of projection, and at any rate he was not summoned to Azeroth alongside Archimonde. Physically he’s still somewhere out there in the Twisting Nether.

Regardless, as we know from the previous campaign, Illidan tried to use the Eye of Sargeras to melt the polar icecaps surrounding the Icecrown Citadel, but the night elves intervened and ruined his ritual. Illidan fled to Outland to evade Kil’jaeden’s wrath, and the trio needs to make sure that this land is cleansed of Kil’jaeden’s agents.

Now, I’m not sure why Illidan would be safer from Kil’jaeden’s wrath here rather than back on Azeroth. I mean, what can he do back on Azeroth, send Illidan a strongly-worded letter? Meanwhile, Outland is apparently crawling with his agents, and Illidan departed to it completely alone before an army conveniently fell into his lap. What was he going to fight said agents with, his bare hands?

Also, while I’m asking questions… what happened to Maiev?

Gates of the Abyss

These Alliance logos on the loading screens look more and more out of place as the campaign goes on.

Illidan outlines what we’ll need to do. Long ago, a pit lord named Magtheridon rallied the surviving orcs and took control of Outland. While most of the orcs were killed by Draenor’s explosion, Magtheridon turned to a different kind of reinforcements: demons.

Ner’zhul apparently took time to decorate them with the same kind of statues that adorned the original Dark Portal.

To cut Magtheridon off from reinforcements, Illidan now intends to seal these gates permanently. We will seek them out, one by one, and protect Illidan as he closes them.

All right. I have questions.

Forget Kil’jaeden’s nebulous “agents”; Outland is an outright Legion-controlled world. It’s ruled by a pit lord of the Burning Legion, whose army consists of demons of the Burning Legion. Out of all places, why did Illidan choose to flee here, and why did he think he would be safer here than on Azeroth?

This also means that a portal to a Legion-controlled world stayed open in Dalaran for months, and after Garithos retook the city, he just left it open? And no demons tried to cross through? This is especially puzzling because, if “The Crossing” is to be believed, all it would have taken to close the portal would be good old explosives. Then again, that mission is dubiously canon.

We start the mission with Illidan already closing the first dimensional gate, so for three minutes, we’re going to endure an assault by waves of demons while having nothing but squishy spell breakers and a few even squishier support units!

Next time give us an advance warning!

Eventually, Illidan closes the gate, and we gain control of him. Now, let’s wait and do things methodically.

There are three gates left to close. There are also three fel orc bases on the map. Fel orcs are what was known as chaos orcs in Reign of Chaos; they’re bigger, stronger and meaner than normal orcs, and they deal Chaos damage. They’re also at war with these guys:

How are you so sure? There are some who believe the enemy of their enemy is still their enemy.

These are the draenei² — the race that, according to the Warcraft 2 manual, the orcs subjugated before beginning their conquest of Azeroth. We finally see them, and apparently they’re lanky and agile.

Good grief, I think this is the single wordiest dialogue blurb in the game.

There are three fel orc bases on the map. The southern one is attacking the draenei, and once we defeat them, the draenei ally with us. We don’t get control of them, but like Grom in Thrall’s campaign, they periodically attack enemy bases on their own, allowing us to join them. The second fel orc base also falls easily enough, but the third is guarded by red dragons. No, I have no idea how red dragons got here or why they let fel orcs ride them.

Like some missions in Beyond the Dark Portal, this mission is easy if you know the trick — and the trick is to mostly ignore the blood elf tech tree and look at the naga one instead. We can now build both blood elf and naga units, and units of similar cost in this campaign are not made equal.

In this mission, I built mostly myrmidons, who are strong, meaty frontliners and yet unreasonably cheap, and couatls, who are an absolutely overpowered flying unit. On normal difficulty, with such a setup, closing the dimensional gates became a complete cakewalk, with demons dying almost as soon as they emerged from the gates.

Poor blood elves. They get overshadowed by naga in their own campaign.

Feel the fearsome fury of the feisty flying fiends!

Now that the dimensional gates are sealed, an assault on Magtheridon’s Black Citadel can begin.

Lord of Outland

They barely had time to rest, apparently!

Illidan and his forces are moving to assault the Black Citadel.

Your overconfidence is your weakness.

Genius military commander that he is, Kael just keeps sending his spell breakers to pointlessly die at the fortifications as they keep being torn to shreds atop the corpses of their comrades.

The definition of madness is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result.

Suddenly, Akama and the draenei appear.

But the orcs didn’t even serve the demons for generations! It was a recent development!

They destroy the generator powering the gate defenses, allowing the blood elves to cross through.

This is an unusual mission. We have whopping four heroes at our disposal: Illidan, Kael, Vashj, and Akama. They have some of the best items in the game.³ It’s a bit of a middle ground between a dungeon crawl and base gameplay: we can’t construct buildings, but we can build units at existing buildings, with gold coins looted in the dungeon being our only source of income.

Our enemies are mostly demons, plus three fel orc bases. First, we need to kill two of Magtheridon’s demon lieutenants — the Master of Pain and the Mistress of Torment. The path to them is blocked by very strong towers and turrets, but we have our draenei troops, who are permanently stealthed, to destroy the generators powering them.

There’s a Maim, too.

The Master of Pain is served by two blademasters called Rend and Maim. Clearly, they’re supposed to be the sons of Blackhand, and clearly, they’re supposed to die here.

There are also some fun side encounters, like a strong unique abomination called “The Butcher”, who guards an item called “Wirt’s Other Leg”. Both are a reference to Diablo.

Illidan, Kael, and the blood elves clear the Black Citadel by land. Meanwhile, Vashj and her naga join the assault by water, fighting… orc juggernauts?

But do their orc crews have pirate accents like in Warcraft 2?

Whatever. It’s fun. We have overpowered heroes and their overpowered armies pretty much roflstomping all resistance. Halfway through, we can raise two platforms that allow the two armies to join, and we can throw our full upkeep’s worth of troops on the pit lord and his cohorts.

Magtheridon is no slouch, but we’re stronger, still.

Magtheridon is slain, and Illidan proclaims his rule over Outland…

The Lord of the Glaives.

…but of course, nothing is ever simple.

An ominous cloud appears, heading towards the rise.

“I swear, it’s not me! I didn’t eat any beans today!”

It materializes into an absolutely towering figure of Kil’jaeden.

In hindsight, maybe it was obvious that Kil’jaeden would have easier access to a Legion-controlled world than to Azeroth.

Illidan claims that he was merely set back (thus starting a proud tradition). The guy who was just now boasting about REIGNING SUPREME has suddenly been reduced to groveling and begging. He promises to destroy the Lich King, and Kil’jaeden, thinking that these “servitors” he gathered show some promise, gives Illidan one last chance to destroy the Frozen Throne or to suffer his eternal wrath.

Both Vashj and Kael now, in earnest, pledge themselves to Illidan’s service.

But first, they’ll have to get from Outland to Northrend, which I’m sure will be a long and arduous task that will definitely be shown on screen.

Thoughts on the Campaign

This campaign is okay. It’s not my favorite, but it’s short and sweet and of consistently good quality, having no missions that utterly blow my mind, but also none that I dislike.

I’m still a bit peeved that we didn’t get a proper Alliance campaign, and even calling this the blood elf campaign is only half true, because the naga units steal the show so frequently. In hindsight, this could be called the Illidari campaign.

Kael’s journey, in a sense, echoes Arthas’s. We see a man put in a no-win situation, resorting to increasingly desperate measures to save his people. However, Arthas was lured into a deliberate trap laid by the Lich King, and became his soulless puppet. Kael simply ended up between a rock and a hard place. Vashj may have nudged him by feeding him information selectively, but at the end he made all the decisions himself, of his own free will, and voluntarily pledged his allegiance to Illidan. By the end of the story, he’s still himself — only a hardened version of the Kael we saw in the night elf campaign.

This campaign introduced the concept of magic addiction, which became important to overall Warcraft lore, and more importantly, in a rather questionable moment, retconned a shard of Draenor into having survived the planet’s explosion. In addition, it gave us the anti-hero trio of Illidan, Kael and Vashj, with good chemistry between them. I sure hope that in the next game they appear in, they will be portrayed as complex characters driven by believable motivations!

Next up is the undead campaign, which concludes the main storyline of The Frozen Throne. Because of its sheer length, I’ll likely split it into three posts rather than the usual two. Arthas is back in the game, and we’re going to see the fallout of Illidan’s failed attempt to destroy the Lich King.

…But seriously, what happened to Maiev?

1. Plus a third hero, a pandaren brewmaster, if we managed to win the secret mission. ↩

2. They look nothing like the draenei the Warcraft Wiki article is about, and there’s a reason for this: those draenei were retconned in. We’re looking at the pre-retcon version of the race. ↩

3. Illidan’s inventory carries over from the previous campaign, so it’s possible to load him full of top tier items, including the Shadow Orb originally assembled by Maiev. ↩