Board 8 > Anagram Ranks Anything Blizzard Entertainment-related

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yes, folks, it's time for another one. In order, we've done: Star Wars, Star Trek, Final Fantasy, Flags, Visual Designs, Metal Gear, Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mario, and Mystery Games, and now it's time for this.

I was originally going to do Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo, but I have played more Blizzard games than those, though not them all. I think we've probably all played at least two or three, right? Starcraft and WoW are definitely formative games for people born in a certain era. I don't know, maybe this topic'll be a big bust, we'll see.

Rules are the same as last time: you can nominate anything so long as it some kind of relationship with Blizzard Entertainment, and then I'll write too many words about it and put it into a tier list. That said, I can veto things I don't know enough about, so if you get cute and nominate some obscure game from 1991 no one has ever heard of, you'll get what you deserve.

Roadhog (Overwatch)

Thrall

Zeratul

Jason Schreiers new book, Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment.

Lost Vikings

The Corrupted Blood Incident

Dinoflask Jeff Kaplan videos

If you are unfamiliar with them, here's one

https://youtu.be/LbDv7imglLI?si=wZYP2oGy-81zx6nm

Mass Carriers

The Lost Vikings II: Norse by Norsewest

Rock & Roll Racing

The Shadowlands

Suramar questlines in WoW Legion

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROYYYYYYY nnJENNKINNNSSSS!

User map settings

Mercy (Witch)

The Hybrid Proleague season

Power Overwhelming
User Map Settings: This is alone gave StarCraft infinite life as a game. God, we all remember going into some weird games completely blind and being blown away or annoyed. WC3 also includes this, of course, and it also gained infinite life as a result. This is what gave us DOTA! An entire genre of game that helped to kill its parent genre (when's the last big-name RTS release?). And it's funny how Blizzard was clearly upset that it didn't own MOBAs as a concept, and added some crazy disclaimer to SC2 so they can own any user maps, only for no one to play SC2 because it sucks.
Leroy Jenkins: I remember thinking this was real when I was a kid, even though I understood that it didn't make sense because the lingo and math in the video doesn't make any sense. But I just WANTED it to be real, you know? Leroy Jenkins truly made his mark in WoW, to the point where Blizzard even made him into a Hearthstone card. The entire concept of him just refusing to listen to directions, aggroing an entire room full of mobs, and his teammates desperately trying to salvage the situation is so funny and so relatable. The idea that he was AFK and didn't listen to the plan, and the start where they're discussing if they even should even do this at all but want to because there's a small chance of some useful shoulders dropping, is just so funny. "I WILL use intimidating shout." The plan not making any sense is even funnier. "I'm coming up with a 32.33%, uh repeating of course, chance of survival." The shitty ventrillo audio quality just makes this even more perfect. "I can't move, am I lagging guys?!" I love how the PoV warrior just spends the whole time running around and being completely useless, but everyone complains about Leroy. "We do have a soulstone up, don't we?" Even though it's obviously fake, everything in this video is something that every WoW player had seen a million times, which makes it so perfect. "At least I have chicken." Then again, I played WoW in that era, and we all know that if you saw someone do what Leroy did, you just let him die and rez from a distance.

Jacked Up and Good to Go
Corrupted Blood Incident: God, I remember this. What an amazing screw-up. The fact that it could only spread by hunters getting their animal companions infected on purpose, then taking them out in cities to instantly kill low-level characters, is just so insanely funny, and the fact that Blizzard had to take WoW down after a few weeks to hard reset everything is even funnier. This is one of those things that just can't be replicated. Blizzard referenced it again later with an intentional plague in the leadup to WotLK, but what made this memorable is the individual human responses (helping people, spreading it on purpose, etc), which can't be recaptured. It's also way funnier than other programming oversights in WoW history. Remember when that one paladin intentionally got crit thousands of times by low level mobs, then used his "return crit damage" ability on a world boss and one-shot it, and Blizzard immediately patched the paladin ability to stop that from ever happening again? The only other comparison to Corrupted Blood is when people aggroed world bosses and then chained them into Orgrimmar, which was always hilarious.
Witch Skin (Mercy): Everyone likes being pretty, and Mercy has the best skins in the game. No one else even comes close to her. It's such a fun concept, to give her a classical witch skin for her "evil" mode, and it's used so well in the Halloween mode. It's such a good skin that they later added a recolor of it to be white and angelic... but they were too lazy to fix the scraps of cloth or holes in it that were supposed to be indicative of her being evil. Anyway, yeah, I used this skin for years, sue me. I used to know a girl who played Overwatch and exclusively played Witch Mercy, and wouldn't touch any other character.
Zeratul: Everyone loves Zeratul. An older, experienced invisible psychic ninja. That's all the Dark Templar are, of course, just invisible Jedis. But you know what? Jedi are cool, and invisibility is cool. It's fun how Zeratul spends zero time ruminating about what the right thing to do is, does he fight the existential threat of the Zerg and bury the hatchet with the Templars, or does he leave them to die? He doesn't even hesitate. Along with Tassadar, Zeratul is probably the most innately good-aligned character in the series, which makes it a shame that he dies at the start of SC2's protoss campaign, and we have to play as "Zero Charisma" Artanis. I can't think of any SC character I care less about than Artanis who has as much screen time as he does. Sure, I get that Artanis is meant to represent the younger generation of protoss, but he is orders of magnitude less cool than Zeratul. God, even the unit portrait of Zeratul, where his face is half-hidden by shadows of like a vent or barred window or something, is cool.

Stay a While and Listen
Roadhog: I was hoping not to talk about Concord, but the very first nomination forces me to. When Overwatch first came out, I thought the characters weren't well-designed, because I was comparing it to TF2, where every character is perfect. Roadhog is very clearly intended to be the visually unappealing character in the roster, a big fat ugly guy, and because he was designed with that in mind as his design goal, he fits right into a roster of attractive people. I hate saying this, but you compare this to Concord, where the aesthetics of the characters were clearly designed with a "representation first" mindset, and every single character just looks hideous. It helps that Roadhog's game is more cartoony, of course, but even then, later characters snuck in who look like crap (looking at you, Junker Queen). God, I don't want to complain about how Concord's characters all looked hilariously bad, but some of them (especially Bazz, the tank girl, and the healer) are just so atrocious. Oh wait, did you want me to talk about his abilities? No one likes getting hooked, but that's his entire purpose. His entire purpose is to be a punisher of people who get out of position. Yeah, it's annoying when you get hooked over a pit and instantly die, but that's the entire purpose of the character, so what do you want me to tell you?

Systems Functional
Mass Carriers: = instant win, right? It's sort of true, because if you have the resources to blow on this, you've probably already won, but the carriers themselves aren't why. Carriers suck. Their damage is a series of weak strikes, so by the late game when everything has armor, each strike is 1 damage. They're also one of the few protoss units with no special ability? Very odd design choice. I do like their design, though, it is very alien and powerful-looking.
Thrall: Thrall was great... in WC3. He is functionally the anti-Arthas: a prince born into squalor who has to raise himself up, attain his birthright, and lead his people to safety and glory. He even has an older advisor, just like Arthas, is targeted by evil forces for corruption, just like Arthas, resists corruption and helps redeem his mentor who fell to darkness, unlike Arthas, listens to Medivh's advice, unlike Arthas. It's insane that they never actually meet. By the way, when I was thirteen or whatever when the game came out, I thought "You're no oracle, you're the prophet!" was the funniest line ever. Thrall is the perfect encapsulation of the different direction WC3 takes the orcs, even if he doesn't make complete sense ("My people were peaceful before the demons, we all had last names like Hellscream and Bloodfist!"). Too bad that WoW ruins him, but that's the way it goes.

Fifty DKP Minus
Lost Vikings II: Norse by Norsewest: This game looks much better, it has that DKC-look to it (I don't know the name), and it's not as slow and floaty, but it's still really slow and really floaty. And I appreciate that the Vikings are now voiced, although one of them inexplicably just has an American accent instead of a Swedish one. I mean, what do you want me to say, there's a reason why no one on Earth cares about the Lost Vikings. The games just aren't very good. It's weird that the game even lets you continue playing a level after losing a character you need to progress, I have no idea what's up with that. I guess I do appreciate the Albert Hitchcock reference in the title, but honestly, who cares? And the game has time travel elements now, is that another reference to Dragon's Lair 2? If so, wow. How did this even get made in the PS1 era?
Jeff Kaplan Videos: Back when I played Overwatch, I watched all of these videos, and I've got to say: this man has no charisma at all. He is such a boring nerd. And I have nothing against boring nerds, I am one, but how do you make THIS guy the face of Overwatch? Completely bizarre. But at least the information he gives us in these videos is useful, so I can't rank them too low.
Lost Vikings: I remember watching my friend play this on an emulator in high school. Look, man, even by 1993 standards, this is not a great platformer. It's way too slow, too floaty, and too ugly. The game's only real selling point is that you can play as three different characters who all have unique skills, and you need to use all of them to complete each level. When did Castlevania III come out? 1989? Mm, okay. I don't know, man, there's a reason why this game is talked more about as a piece of trivia than as a game. I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone, either. I'll tell you this, though: you have three characters who are all dwarf Vikings, sure. Obviously, you make one a brunette, one a blond, and the last a redhead, and instead we've got two blonds and a redhead. Completely inexplicable decision.

An Ancient Evil Returns
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands: Has there ever been a clearer degeneration of ideas and perceived need of increasing scale of danger than WoW expansions? First you fight the Burning Crusade, then the Scourge, then Deathwing, which were at least all things established in Warcraft lore, then it's suddenly that the Horde is evil again, then it's the Horde from the past that's evil, then it's the Horde again, then it's the afterlife, then it's dragons, and I don't even know what War Within is about. An underground continent? That's not how underground works, dammit. God. I remember reading someone's description on B8, possibly red13n's, of the plot of Shadowlands, and it makes no sense. WoW has this bad habit of introducing new villains and saying "actually, all of the previous villains worked for this guy," but nowhere is it more obvious than Shadowlands. The Jailor makes no sense at all. The idea of having to join one of four factions isn't terrible, but honestly, we should just not have any interaction with the afterlife at all beyond talking to the resurrection ghosts at graveyards. It cheapens the concept of death when every character is just hanging out in the afterlife, except now they're blue or vampires.

Veto
Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment: Gotta veto this, I've never read it, sorry. It doesn't even have a Wikipedia page to browse the summary of.
Rock & Roll Racing: Never played it. Doesn't look that interesting.
Suramar Questline (WoW): Bro, I quit WoW WAY before Legion, what are you smoking, referencing something post-Wrath?
Hybrid Proleague: No idea what this is, and looking it up briefly, I couldn't find anything.

Nazeebo

Nukes

Anagram posted...

Jeff Kaplan Videos: Back when I played Overwatch, I watched all of these videos, and I've got to say: this man has no charisma at all. He is such a boring nerd. And I have nothing against boring nerds, I am one, but how do you make THIS guy the face of Overwatch? Completely bizarre. But at least the information he gives us in these videos is useful, so I can't rank them too low.

I'm not sure we're on the same page here. I meant the remixes of the developer updates where Jeff is made to say funny things. This gives the impression you're ranking the regular update videos

Guess I misunderstood, I'll rank the specific video you linked there.

Sylvanas Windrunner

StarCraft: Brood War Episode VI mission "True Colors"

Anagram posted...

Suramar Questline (WoW): Bro, I quit WoW WAY before Legion, what are you smoking, referencing something post-Wrath?

Sorry, it was the first "awesome thing" I remembered that wouldn't be obvious from most people.

Let's try... Edmond Duke

Well, this topic will be a dozer.

Reaper's ult

Warcraft movie

If you havent seen it, just the trailer is good.

https://youtu.be/2Rxoz13Bthc?si=uoEKmMJmXlqsn-Zf

Galvadon theme song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iV9Ipe1MIk

"Do you guys not have phones?"

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans

That time they fired the Hearthstone commentators who hid below the table when the match winner said free Hong Kong

Wait leeroy Jenkins is fake? Damn

The bottomless pit in Ilios

Anagram posted...

Hybrid Proleague: No idea what this is, and looking it up briefly, I couldn't find anything.

It was this: https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/2011-2012_Proleague_Season_2

For a more Warcrafty nomination maybe Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker.

Sombra (Overwatch)

Warcraft III: Reforged

Tyrael

The secret cow level

Activision

The book literally came out last week so its no surprise you havent read it, but if you care enough about Blizzard to make this topic Id highly recommend it as it seems like youd be into it.

Anyway, nominate the Wrath of the Lich King opening cinematic.

Diablo 4 only being playable on their servers

I played this game for about 5 hours and just quit completely. Nothing I did had any permanence.

Murky

Bobby Kotick

I want a Sarah Kerrigan write-up but I want it to be seperated between her character in Starcraft 1+Brood War and how she appears in Starcraft 2

How do I nominate this

"The character assassination of Sarah Kerrigan between the two games"?

Suramar questline basically got the Horde flavor of night elves that went all-in on the arcane and fel Kool-aid (because failing to do so got you exiled and turned into a mana-hungry zombie.)

Also: re: War Within- the Void's the initial antagonist this time.
Classic: an Old God did it.
TBC: The Burning Legion did it.
Wrath: The Scourge and another Old God did it.
Cata: Deathwing and the Void did it.
Pandaria: Garrosh and a dead Old God did it.
WoD: A bronze dragon and their timefuckery did it along with the Burning Legion.
Legion: The Burning Legion and a corrupted Titan did it for the final (?) time.
BfA: One and a half Old Gods, plus Azshara, did it.
ShL: The Dreadlords did it. We are ignoring Sylvanas in this house.
Dragonflight: Shamans and Druids did it, but so did the Void.
WarWi: The Void is doing it (at the moment, but an Old God is whispering at us again).

Anyways.

Javelin Amazon.

Ana (Overwatch)