Tour #12: War of the Shifting Sands

We’ve taken all of the printed and in-game material and arranged it into a roughly thematic order within each expansion and we plan to go through the story using a number of thematically appropriate toons. We’ll be discussion our impressions here. Be warned: our discussions will contain spoilers for all currently published Warcraft material. This isn’t meant for first timers, but for old timers like us to experience it in a new way.You can find our tentative list here.

Sonaira says:

I thought I had read this, but while I remember the events, I couldn’t have said where I first learned it. It might not have been until we discovered we’d been complicit in poisoning Malfurion, but it’s hard to say. At any rate, I found the flashback parts of this story to be a little weak and rushed, with one exception. In Chapter 2, we get this nice bit of possible foreshadowing.

Shiromar watched as Fandral stood guard, looking out from Fire Plume Ridge, the steam of the volcanic vents rising behind him, the orange lava glow illuminating his face[…]

I just finished reading Before the Storm and I feel like there’s an interesting discussion that could have happened between Fandral and Velen and tragically dead sons.

Overall, I actually liked the framing chapters a bit better. I wasn’t playing during the Scarab Lord race, but it was nice to see the nods to it here. I thought it was also a nice choice to have the POV character be a night elf who would have been here for the original conflict. The Opening of Ahn’Qiraj is actually one of the things I’m most looking forward to in Classic WoW.

Also, there are too many Warcraft characters who (1) are willing to believe their dead loved ones are speaking to them, and (2) have suddenly become evil. (See also, Ner’zhul)

Shoryl says:

It took me a little bit to realize that this is a story framed to explain the players’ perspective of the opening of the gates. I remember when this happened on my server, and feverishly trying to stay connected because the entire server population was in Silithus.

On my list of characters that I dislike because of their shallow reasons for being evil is Fandral Staghelm. In this one moment, his grief is reasonable. But 1,000 years later, he could give it a rest.