The pants-less haranir have been hotfixed! They're now wearing loincloths.

I know it was already pretty obvious that Harandar was originally intended for TWW and not Midnight, but some of the world quest dialogue makes it *really* obvious lol

I'm surprised details as important as "what actually IS the Voidstorm" are hidden behind a random side quest-chain most people will miss. Especially if you subscribe to the "Voidstorm was Xal'atath's homeworld" theory, which this doesn't confirm or deny, but has some big implications for if correct.

being able to feel the tension and chaos in silvermoon as the storyline goes on has been one of my favorite bits of writing in midnight. it's so, so good! exactly what you'd expect when you mash so many different groups of heroes together amidst a world-ending event like this.

it's the same thing demon hunters have atm, transmog hidden pants and it'll be there. unequip and they won't have it

There was probably a much better story here in that Umbric doesn't come. But we discover the terrace is crawling with twilight cultists that Rommath completely missed because hes so laser focused on Umbric. Which leads much more naturally to him softening up on him later.

He didn't have to come. Like at all. But he insisted on being there which activated all the defenses put in place and then because hes chemically reactive the moment he touches that wand it spawns a thousand horrors to eat everyone in sight. Its all his fault! But its fine, he did what he had to

Literally no reason for Magisters Terrace to go down the way it did and the way the story constantly excuses him when things constantly go wrong and get people killed is driving me bananas

It's an especially weird choice to make Teldrassil such a big deal for the haranir because that should make them being neutral a huge problem, yet they just ignore it like a massive elephant in the room, which they wouldn't even need to do if they didn't keep bringing it up in the first place.

Also on Quel'Danas you can visit the area where you fight Belo'ren, complete with guards explaining what's going with him.

There are so many empty but fully designed and big areas around the Sunwell. I wonder if maybe it was planned to have a player hub of some sort at one point? For example, I found a whole two floor school.

I love how Silvermoon gradually gets more chaotic as you progress through the MSQ. Having just finished Harandar yesterday and starting Arator's journey today (I am both a slow leveler and also fighting a bad cold), I found the portral room is now full of blood elves evacuating the city.

ingame my Haranir does have the loincloth, but didn't in character creation. The vines sit right where the gaps in the cloth are. (I kind of prefer the underwear in this case, even with the gaps - it matches the non-3D version of the top way better)

A ton of haranir NPCs aren't wearing pants. Some are wearing underwear, but others are completely bottomless. Haranir originally had 3D underwear like demon hunters, but it was removed on live. I think the pants-less NPCs were supposed to be wearing the removed loincloths. @support.blizzard.com

I've just finished Zul'Aman's MSQ... Absolutely peak. This is the best zone of the expansion so far, for so, so many reasons. It feels like it was written and crafted with love, for both the Loa, the Amani Trolls and the characters. The dynamic between Zul'jarra, Liadrin and Zul'jan was great.

I can live without the green demon eyed crystals in Silvermoon City. But I do think and wish we had the Anima Golems somewhere in the city. It'd be such a nice call back to MoP and would be cool to see the bigger ones with the smaller ones patrol parts of the city.

Also why do they have golden eyes?

Btw for those who haven't seen it or want to rewatch it, the MST3K episode for Mac and Me is now on Youtube. Perhaps my fav of the revival seasons.

If only we knew a dragon with deep experience in combatting the Void, who left the Dragon Isles on an active quest to uncover their plots. Perhaps a dragon with investment in the Sunwell, who oversees magic on Azeroth and might help with its biggest leyline conflux. Shame there's nobody like that.

If the third one is made the canon explanation, I assume they would explain it/make it make sense by retconning that elves aren't descended from trolls at all, but that trolls and elves are branching evolutions of haranir. But 100% they should just be dark trolls who went underground.

It's unfortunate that the third one is the one shown most explicitly to players in the main story via the memory visions, because it makes the least sense by far lol Dark trolls who went below the surface instead of to the Well of Eternity is the simplest choice, if they ever decide to clarify.

I love the little silly hidden characters you can find just hanging about in Midnight zones.

Haranir origins are so confusing. The CE art book says haranir are descended from nelves In game lore tablet says nelves are descended from haranir Other quests imply haranir are older than nelves AND trolls, and thus would have been the ancestors of both. ???

I'm calling it now: these guys will turn out to the be the box legendaries in disguise.

The Pokemon teraleak showed Winds and Waves were originally planned to release on November 19th, 2026. Between the time of that document and now, Grand Theft Auto VI announced it would release on that date. Now WiWa is coming out in 2027. There is a non-zero chance Pokemon blinked. =P

I really like the aesthetics and colors for Windrunner Spire. They did a very good job of capturing that "Ghostland Aesthetic" that is basically lost. I wish we had more areas that felt like that in New Quel'thelas but at least we've got this haunted spot.

One thing I will say, I think this is the first time anyone in-universe has actually acknowledged the haranir's relation to elves and trolls.

The Leeroy Jenkins cameo in the intro quests was really cute.

Staying away from social media for a bit so I can go into Midnight fresh (as fresh as possible given what I've seen from the beta and datamining coverage, lol). Thoughts will come later but so far I'm liking it a lot!

LET ME INNNNNN!!!

Praying that we get to finally see Giramar and Galadin all grown up in game with Vereesa's story in Midnight, it's the last chance Blizzard has before I can safely assume the game team has simply forgotten they exist lol

Also I just realized that Vereesa was pregnant with her twins DURING the fall of Dalaran here... but they were born during classic WoW Either her twins are even older than we thought now, or elf pregnancies take 5 years lmao

This definitely helped clarify Arator's timeline (with Vereesa *also* being in Silvermoon), but it still makes things SO squashed lol Based on the *years* Arator spent there, it seems like the blood elves didn't even repaint the city red or exile the high elves until Vanilla?

More context: there was an old forum, Scrolls of Lore, which is long gone. Sometimes we got real inside information. I recall during Cata's beta someone was talking about that statue asset (at the time not used anywhere in game) and said it was from the original tauren sunwalker plot in Uldum. (1)

We've gotten short stories about the void elves and Amani, and videos about Liadrin, Arator, and Xal'atath. The only thing missing is something about the haranir. I wonder if that means there's another video or story coming?

I only just noticed the little figurines on the table in the housing ads, I *need* these as housing decor ASAP

All of the house themes are modeled after ones available in game, even down to replicating actual in game decor. Human, orc, blood elf, night elf, but then there's Mortimer's undead house. Could it be a cheeky sign that Forsaken house style is coming next perhaps? www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Le...

Keep thinking back to this. But I really hope we get a texture/model update with this specific rig an animations for the Hydras. Love how the three heads fight and aren't static. Never jived with the one added in WoD and I hope they give us an update to this model someday.

Serebii Note: The details listing Pokémon HOME connectivity have been removed from the listings. We're currently unclear on the reason but will provide full details as they come

It is a shame that such a fascinating discovery (unicorn spinosaurus!) will be forever tied to one of the most horrific crimes of the modern age. And that he's not even the only paleontologist in the Epstein files. Just awful.

In which I provide a few thoughts on the new Spinosaurus species, S. mirabilis. www.newscientist.com/article/2516... I also stressed the deep connections between one of the study authors - Nathan Myhrvold - and Geoffrey Epstein to New Scientist. They didn't mention it, neither has anyone else.

I wonder if they wanted the Amani to be the only like "Troll Face" for the expansion. So they pushed for the Harranir to be more elven. Could also just be that they wanted a reason to include them into the "Unite the Elven Tribes" story we're getting.

It's also weird because even during the Midnight Deep Dive they were described as "not quite elves, not quite trolls" so them being troll connected was intentional until very late in development it seems.

It reminds me how during Midnight's beta, references to them being trolls were gradually removed (Chimaerus in the Dreamrift was referred to as a loa in the files, and a lore object where they refer to themselves as being part of "trollkind" got changed).

So why its own thing and not in Nintendo Classics? It's simple Save Data Cloud & Rewind. Game Freak have routinely not wanted these so you can't scum encounters/releases/trades Plus HOME connectivity would need its own save file too

Serebii Note: Pokémon HOME connectivity has been confirmed to come soon to Pokémon FireRed & Pokémon LeafGreen on Nintendo Switch & Nintendo Switch 2 www.serebii.net

Please, please have the event for Deoxys included, it's the last mythical pokemon I don't have.

Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen coming to Switch on Feb 27th ($19.99 each). Listed on Switch eShop in coming soon section

Speaking of 12.2, it's pretty cool how there are multiple potential hints for where it could be that don't match, so we're really left guessing compared to TWW. (1)