The Opposite of Orc Fatigue

Shortly after the announcement of Warlords of Draenor, I wrote an article called "Orc Fatigue." Warlords of Draenor was an expansion that I was still excited for (I like WoW, after all, even if for me personally it has always struggled to be good as it was during Wrath,) but I was kind of baffled that after so many complaints about the constant focus on Orc characters and Orc problems and the way that Orcs seemed to be the only driving force behind any of the plot in World of Warcraft, they would make an expansion whose main appeal was "look at all these Orcs!"

My excitement was tempered in a way that I hadn't felt during the announcements of Wrath-through-Mists (BC had already been announced by the time I started playing.)

Legion looks truly amazing, with several features that bring be a huge amount of excitement.

Really, when I break it all down, the only disappointment is that I won't be able to make a Worgen Demon Hunter. And that's a bit of a shame (my quasi-catch phrase when talking about Demon Hunters for the past few years was "mine will be a Worgen.")

I guess the only other potentially negative emotion is really more just a sense of awe that Blizzard is willing to pull this trigger. Granted, we might not totally annihilate the Burning Legion (though if they aren't going to let us do that in an expansion called "Legion," I don't know when they will,) and there will still be the Old Gods and potentially even Azshara left (in the "major characters" section of the Legion website, Azshara herself is not listed, and instead there's a new female Naga who serves her.)

But I think Blizzard realizes that WoW needs to go big or go home. WoW will only have a last expansion when they really feel it's not profitable anymore, and the risk of waiting until the very end to do the big Burning Legion expansion is that by then, the playerbase will have shrunk to unsustainable sizes. There's an ethos in writing that I like to call "Get to the Fireworks Factory," (inspired by that episode of the Simpsons with Poochie, where Homer's new character on the Itchy and Scratchy Show spends his entire debut cartoon introducing himself, and the characters never get to the Fireworks Factory they were heading toward, which is clearly what all the kids wanted.) You obviously want to build up to and earn big moments in your story, but a lot of series fall into the trap of drawing out that build up far longer than they need to, and as a result things start to feel bloated and draggy (it's why I really hope George R. R. Martin starts the inevitable zombie war and has Daenerys arrive in Westeros in Winds of Winter.)

They're pulling a lot of triggers here. Hell, Turalyon and Alleria are apparently going to finally arrive (where the hell have they been?!) We might even finally meet the Titans themselves! It even looks like a lot of really major lore figures - potentially Thrall, Varian Wrynn, and Tirion Fordring, might actually die at the beginning of the expansion, that we might take up their weapons (notably, Anduin is listed as a key character, but not Varian. Long Live the King?)

Warlords of Draenor - as much as I loved hanging out with the Draenei - ultimately felt like it was stalling for time. It recycled old characters (I'm giving Illidan a pass, as it's both justified in that he's a demon, and he also didn't get nearly enough screen time in BC) and then didn't even do much with them.

I'm eager to find out what Illidan is up to - his loyalties have always been to himself, but I wonder if we'll be killing him again or, like his Illidari who will become champions of Azeroth, perhaps he will attain some kind of redemption.

Anyway, Legion is the opposite of stalling for time. We're getting the inevitable Legion invasion. We're getting Demon Hunters. We're pushing forward more boldly into the future of Warcraft lore than ever before.

So is the opposite of Orc Fatigue Elf Energy?