Leader Profile: Lady Sylvanas Windrunner

 

 

Welcome Ladies and Gents to the first Leader Profile. In these blogs I'll be going through various leaders in the World of Warcraft Universe and giving my opinions on them and what makes these leaders tick. Today we take a look at woman who is very unique in the simple fake that she has seen what happens when you die. And what hell awaits her at the end of her undead life.

 

 

The Dark Lady, for those who do not play WOW, is undead. Yes. Despite her sexy costume and armor she is actually a former ranger risen from the grave. Her striking appearance in wow itself was quite a memorable one as she made her debut back in Warcraft 3 when she tried to stop the Death Knight Arthas from destroying the city of Silvermoon. Because of her constant annoyance Arthas took no pity on her and raised her as a banshee to serve the Lich King.

 

Eventually she broke free from control and her life was a miserable thing. As she often said "What joy is there in this curse" And with those words she set forth to free others from the Lich Kings control. She was able to form the Forsaken and group of Undead who were freed from Ner'zhuls grasp and establish themselves in the world of Azeroth.

 

But revenge fueled her and she sought retribution against Arthas for the state of her life. So her goals were like a pulled back bowstring. And her arrow was set on piercing the heart of Arthas's cold chest with pure hatred.

 

 But once the Lich King was dead, what would the fallen warrior do then? What filled her life then. She was still undead, and could not contemplate what to make of her unlife. She made a journey to Northrend to seek out death and met the val'kyr instead. Who offered her a chance to live instead.

 

She took it.

 

 

 

 

From there the Banshee Queen became something different. Her people would not be squandered for the sake of Garrosh's war. She chose to use her people wisely and began to expand the horizon in which the Forsaken controlled. With her guidance her people were able to conquer a good portion of the former kingdom of Lorderon and fortify it so that they would have a home of their own.

 

 

But in the wake of these changes there came about a new aggression in the Queen. Her tactics in war became different. She used the plague that had caused ruin to her allies, The Horde, and the Alliance back in Northrend. Despite being told by both Garrrosh and Thrall that the production of the plague was not to be done. They still used it regardless. She took actions against the Death Knight Koltira when he made a truce with the Alliance and took him beneath the Undercity to turn him into an agent for the Forsaken. Her pact with the Val'kyr made it so she could raise the dead like Arthas had and she began to "recruit" new forms of Forsaken from corpses. Even to the point of going after her allies fallen during the Siege of Orgrimar.

 

These new tactics bring to mind what exactly the Dark Lady is cooking in her mind. Surely the events of death are a great reason to change ones life, but this seems very strange for the Queen. Often I saw her as a character that despite the rage that consumed her whole she had a solid mind for military matters and the like.

 

But as time goes on her actions in creating a new Undead army do raise eyebrows amongst many in the Azeroth. From what has been hinted her actions are being looked upon by the Argent Crusade and the Knights of the Ebon Blade, but no actions have been shown otherwise. That makes me wonder if they fear Sylvanas? Or perhaps they wait for proof of her being corrupted in some way.

 

The fact that her goals seem to be expanding the Forsakens home only brings more ideas to the fact that maybe the Lich King had more influence in her then we thought.

 

But whether she is a Savior or a Harold of Damnation is to be seen. The future and expansions of Warcraft could very well bring a swift end to the former Ranger-General and that she may end up in the same boots as the one who brought her back to life. If that's to be, then she will face the eternal darkness that Arthas now resides in. Where no one will hear her wails and sorrows.

 

Ahead of the Game: My thoughts on transmog helmets in Blizzstore

Transmog in of itself is quite a welcome tool into the world of Warcraft. Lets face it, for a long time the idea of having gear that looked like it had come from a bargain bin was never fun. Back in the day I had tons of screenshots that depicted me in mismatching armor of various sets, shapes and sizes (sadly I lost them during a recent computer update. Sad  face)

But with the transmog comes great...er, transmognifigy...(hey it was worth a shot.) Responsibility. There are many facets of the system that while they cane be really cool, can be exploited in some way.

That's where my gripe with the Tranmogs helms in the Blizz store come into play

You see, when I first saw the helmets my initial reaction wasn't that of uber bliss. I find they are quite nifty but they aren't in my menu of wants. But knowing that and some of the knowledge I've read up on the helmets there are people out there who in fact do like these helms and for some reason chose to buy them.

But each of the helms shown above (minus the horse of course) are $15 a pop. They don't come in a set of 3 or any sort of deal where you buy all three at a discount. 15 dollars...I think that's too much.

Given that this is Blizzards first time to offer something like this before, lets take a look at another game that has an established game shop. Guild Wars 2.

When you look at GW2 you can see how they have a ton of various items, ranging from weapon skins, to full armor sets. The range of prices is quite different, but the one thing to note is that there are full sets of armor that are priced at $10. These armor sets are actually quite interesting to look at and again are purely cosmetic just like the helms from blizzard.

But with that being said, its hard to look at the $15 benchmark from blizzard and ask what were you thinking? Because none of the helms have any special procs or any other sort of changes too them that make the $15 mark worth it. So it's hard to look at them and see how the pricetag is worth the helm.

I can't even think of any logical reasons why the pricetag is what it is. You can pay for several months of subscription for the amount you use for all three helms.

To sum this up, the helms are not priced currectly. Even though this is Blizzards first attempt to make transmogs on there store, they will need to seriously need to rethink the prices they intend on putting on the store. Because if the wave of $15 helms continue they will never make any sort of profit from them.