FFXIV Player Reacts to WoW "Old Soldier" Cinematic

[@bloodmight8490]

"Who is his son?" me: *takes a deep breath* where to begin?

[@BearsDenGaming]

We named him Dranosh. It means "Heart of Draenor" in orcish. I would not let the warlocks take him. My boy would be safe, hidden away by the elders of Garadar.

[@Lyko5]

oooh dear, the day where the Gates were stormed...

[@TheBlaert]

@@BearsDenGaming We named him Dranosh. It means 19 minute long cut-scene in Orcish

[@IamtheLexx]

Varok Saurfang is a veteran of the orcs and of the Horde. He's been through all the big battles. He's seen some shit, and he's done some shit. Some of it quite horrific, like killing innocent Draenei women and children while high on demon blood. He's still haunted by what he's done, and at that point in the story he' having a big identity crisis. The Horde, and especially the orcs, swear by honor. However, in the recent history of the Horde, honor ispretty much nowhere to be found. Sylvanas Windrunner being named warchief of the Horde and burning Teldrassil (which was full of civilians, the Night Elf army was drawn elsewhere so the tree would be left vulnerable, although the original plan was to occupy Teldrassil not burn it) was the last straw for Saurfang. Sylvanas doesn't care about honor, she fights dirty and Saurfang is not a fan. Some info about Saurfang's son, Dranosh: he was killed by the Lich King and turned into a Death Knight (if you ever watch the in-game cinematic called "the Wrathgate", he's the orc charging the Lich King), and then the players. I'm not sure what happens Horde side, but if you play Alliance, once Dranosh is dead, Saurfang arrives to claim his son's body. Keep in mind that both factions are at war as usual and an orc just shows up in a group of Alliance characters. The leader of the Alliance (at the time), king Varian Wrynn recognizes Saurfang as an honorable orc, and allows him to take the body of his son. That's good context to be aware of if you end up watching the "Lost Honor" cinematic.

[@SampoPaalanen]

Just to put all this into prespective it's strongly implied if not outright stated that Varok Saurfang was the second of command for Orgrim Doomhammer (a major leader in the Horde during that time) rather then just a random grunt so Saurfang has oceans worth of blood on his hands and he knows it. There's a nice set of lines from Saurfang in Wrath that tell us how he sees himself at least partly, in those lines he essentially says he can't eat pork since the sound of the pigs being slaughtered reminds him of the sound the Draenei children he killed, to say he is haunted by his past actions is such a massive understatement that I should be thrown to the maw for that.

[@B.Scruby]

Bit more context on Dranosh. He was a commander of the forces sent to Northrend to attack the Scourge. There was a separate force sent by the Alliance, led by Bolvar Fordragon. Now tensions were high between the Alliance and Scourge during this time but the two commanders put the petty squabbles aside as they understood that it wasn't Alliance vs Horde in Northrend, because it was them vs the entire Scourge. Or alive vs dead if you prefer. Both the commanders forces began to subtly coordinate their attacks with each other and had mutual respect for one another. Until the Lich King himself had to show up to end them. Varok died and was raised to be the strongest Death Knight. Until he was defeated by the Ashen Verdict, a combined force of the Argen Crusade and The Ebon Blade. Even Tyrion Fordring knew Dranosh was honorable. So when they finally defeated him, they collected his body so that Varok could reclaim his son. Varian had to arrive so that the guards would let Varok through to the encampment, because they didn't let him in at first. Both Varian and Tyrion knew of Varok and Dranosh's honorbound ways and their heroism, and they also knew of the things Dranosh did for the Alliance soldiers stationed in Northrend. So they were also honorbound to let Varok retrieve him, out of respect.

[@Lyko5]

The Path of Glory...

[@BigMikey1776]

Even more info : When Varok wants his Warriors death it’s not only an orc thing but his Son Dranosh AND Varok’s older brother Broxigar both had an epic warriors death. Dranosh being killed by the Lich King Arthas. Broxigar the only mortal to wound the leader of the burning legion, Sargeras. Brox died being crushed to death by Sargeras on a mountain of dead demons he killed with his enchanted wooden axe. Brox’s wooden axe was then given to his and Varok’s niece Thura.

[@justin5002]

Garrosh: what do you do? Varok: I don’t eat pork.

[@-Miasimon]

No matter what the state of the game is, everyone can agree on one thing: The cinematics are a solid 10/10. Seriously, if Blizz ever dies as a company, I desperately hope the cinematic teams form their own animation studio and make full on movies.

[@Tijuanabill]

Let the people that make these for Blizzard, make a whole movie PLEASE. =)

[@rhojak7798]

"Do the roar. Do it!" Welp, that's the moment I knew this chick is awesome xD

[@patdog37]

Dranosh was Varok Saurfangs son who was killed at the wrath gate and then resurrected as a Death Knight to serve the Lich King. The players encounter Dranosh in the raid Icecrown Citadel and we kill him, but Varok is never the same after that. He’s been looking for a way to die since that event but orcs believe that if they are to die they must die with honour. That wish isn’t easy to come by for Varok, hence why he looks to have given up hope in that cut scene. Very powerful cut scene, can’t wait for the next one

[@Shiftry87]

I think its even harder then u describe as he could throw himself on the frontline in every minor and major battle and if he would to fall he would get hes warriors death (die with honor) But here is what i think is the real problem, Who can actully take him down. At the time of this cinematic Varok Saurfang is probadly among the most hardened and most experianced war veterans on both sides of this war. If he really wants he´s warriors death he knows that he cant go easy on he´s opponents. Jaina could definatly take him out but dying from magic is not how saurfang would want to go so that leaves imo only Sylvanas. Although she used magic for the killing blow there was no way he was gonna win a close combat fight with her, both he and Thrall know it.

[@MegaCuddlesworth]

"He grumpy. Or is he sad?" No, he is Saur.

[@saschahecker8886]

"Ba Dum Tss"

[@zac0918]

just his fangs

[@TheHeartlessFour]

Saurfang is disillusioned with the Horde, seeing it go down the same dark path over, and over. So he went to go get his honorable warrior’s death. But that young troll shaman, Zekhan convinced him the the Horde he loves is still worth saving.

[@Jessethoth]

Whenever you hear First War, Second War or Third War and see it spelled all proper like that it is referring to Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 which is a trilogy of RTS games from the 90s and 2002/2003. 3 games, 2 expansions. Saurfang here has survivor's guilt big-time. His son tried to fight the Lich King way back in 2008 and was killed. His soul was stolen by the runeblade Frostmourne and he was made into a death knight and we had to kill him as the fourth boss in Icecrown Citadel 10/25 man raid in 2010 at the end of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

[@noppornwongrassamee8941]

I just realized something. If the events of BfA are called the Fourth War, then what was all the open warfare between Horde and Alliance that started in Wrath and ended in MoP called? Because the two surely weren't officially at "peace".

[@Jessethoth]

@@noppornwongrassamee8941 Those events are called bad writing from the new story team. (Not to say all the work they do is bad) I miss Metzen and Mickey Neilson. :( But yeah totally good point. I said that when the Blood War ending cinematic dropped as well. Though to be fair the problem with making Warcraft into an MMORPG in the first place in 2004 that Warcraft fans had was to do with this. Warcraft 3 as I'm sure you know, saw them uniting to beat an army of Scourge and Legion demons and stopping Archimonde from corrupting the World Tree Nordrassil. It was implied that from that point forward AT LEAST the humans following Jaina, the Horde following Thrall and the Night Elves would be besties from then on. That they had learned to co-exist. Literally the ONLY REASON any Horde/Alliance aggression was writting back in was so the MMO could have faction based PvP as a throwback to Warcraft 1 and 2 at the cost of poorly writing in a resurgence of hostilities. I think they should have worked harder on splinter factions in original WoW. Maybe had the Scarlet Crusade and the leftovers from Stromgarde consider themselves the "True Alliance" while Stormwind's army took it's old name from Warcraft 1 "the Army of Azeroth". In vanilla we already had the Dark Horde lead by Dal'Rend Blackhand but it was used as a mainly PvE faction. Instead we could have had it be a PvP faction that never dies. I thought because Thrall and Jaina made nice at the end of WC3 that the PvP factions would be based around guilds. They just didn't do enough with factions vs the SCALE of the world. Still love the game and I even have things I like about some of the less popular expansions. I dunno there's lots of hindsight with WoW. Like the continents not matching in scale to real continents which in the RTS instruction manuals and in game maps and novels they seem to. Honestly we're lucky we got the game at all. It went through development hell while they were still working on WC3 Reign of Chaos even. Anyways, cheers. :D

[@JakO_Ob]

This was fifth war... You even get title in game veteran of the 5th war if im not mistaken...

[@noppornwongrassamee8941]

@@JakO_Ob The Title is Veteran of the Fourth War.

[@Jessethoth]

@@noppornwongrassamee8941 Yeah, in the story the smaller conflicts in each expansion didn't theoretically last as long. It's hard to pin down what time Horde and Alliance are killing each other in story canon VS in gameplay. Ideally, all the questing you did up to Dragonblight/Wrathgate for example in STORY they weren't harming one another. But then for gameplay's sake to have PvP you had the dailies that were small skirmish PvP between specific detachments and commanders of their forces. Like the Gunship Battle boss encounter in Icecrown Citadel was sort of a "don't get in our way, WE are bringing the Lich King down" type of thing.

[@Komikazie]

"Who is he?" The only person Chuck Norris fears, that's fucking who.

[@GradyBroyles]

Poor Varok. RIP Lord Saurfang. Long live Zappy Boi (Zekhan)

[@sirgideonofnir6840]

Saurofang was the remnants of the old horde, of honor. He shall always be with the horde.

[@CooperZ2]

Saurfang also led the Might of Kalimdor, which was a strike force of the Horde and Alliance that was led against the Ahn'Qiraji in the original vanilla WoW raids AQ 20 and AQ 40. So, he's pretty important lore wise.

[@Kikkia2018]

zappyboi is best boi! i remember watching this for the first time, before i saw the troll and saurfang together in the questlines in-game. everyone loved "zappyboi" (what the troll was called before we knew his name) and im so glad he was saurfang's right hand man in the in-game story cause it shows their father and son bond

[@Drudenfusz]

The Orcs are the reason why I eventually switched rom being an Alliance main to be a Horde player.

[@Gray-soul_81]

The ladies love zappy boi! Something that I haven't heard anyone comment on is when Zekhan uttered the words "The Horde is all we have." Those words were something that Saurfang himself said in the past. That's why the "old soldier" said, "So...you think you know me." A little something that for me, got deep. The lore.

[@eugene4637]

3:10 That story is true. I was there. He wiped a whole alliance raid of 40 men with a single Cleave. It was 15 years ago.

[@onizgr77]

Hahahhahahhahah Saurfang adamdır

[@eugene4637]

@@onizgr77 :)))

[@cmmcfielful]

his son was drannosh saurfang. In the wrath of the lich king expansion drannosh was killed by Arthas the lich king and had his soul taken and resurrected as a death knight. In that expansion as we attack ice crown citadel we actually fight drannosh and finally kill him from there Varok comes to claim his sons body

[@Tijuanabill]

His son was the orc that charged The Lich King in the Wrathgate cinematic. He was immediately owned, had is soul stolen, and then was raised as an undead, that the players had to fight in the Icecrown Citadel raid. What you see in the snow, is Saurfang's reaction after him and the players killed his undead zombie son, to defeat the Lich King. When the son charges, he says, "Enough talk, let it be finished!" Later in the Sylvanis showdown cinematic, Saurfang says, "Let it be finished", a great call back from like 10 years earlier.

[@PixelatedTwix]

I love watching reactions to WoW cinematic videos from the perspective of non or new players. A great lore guide would be Nobbel here on YT or watching Taliesen’s cinematic breakdowns. Welcome to WoW!

[@MathiasE80]

Blizzards animation team is top tier as you can see. :) For more info on Saurfang, Nobbel87 has 1 hour of lore of just Saurfang in 2 parts on his channel, if you want to watch it don't do it until you're done with the BFA videos though since it contains clips from coming videos.

[@Tzarcastic]

Great reaction, the rest of the cinematics are great you’ll like them

[@GalaxyAUS]

Thank you! I appreciate it :)

[@agamersinsanity]

Saurfangs son died at the wrathgate but ressurrected by the Lich King (Arthas) and you fight him in the ICC raid.

[@xzeke666x]

all varok saurfang have wanted for a long time is a warriors death, to die in battle with honour. and alot of it comes from all of the torment he has within himself. from all he has seen and done.

[@stanleyho8009]

Saurfang is the first/oldest orc general (High Overlord) from what I know, ever since I played wow since I was like 6 (I had gaps between years when I have played but I tried it when I was 6 but didn’t understand much obviously) he has ALWAYS been there. Saurfang was always next the Warchief and was there for every big war leading parts of battles. It’s one of the first real characters in the horde I knew.

[@Tijuanabill]

Blizzard has always made crazy high quality cinematics. They individually animated every falling snow flake in the Wrath of the Lich King trailer, as an example of their insanity.

[@seantodd8875]

I'm so excited for you! I've played WoW for 16 years, and I played FFXIV for a few months. It's great to see someone in the reverse situation getting into the game for the first time. Welcome to Azeroth! FOR GNOMEREGAN :)

[@emiliohidalgo5927]

His son was Dranosh Saurfang, who was killed by the Lich King at the Wrathgate, only to be reanimated as a death knight under the Lich King's control. He was the fourth boss in the Icecrown Citadel raid

[@Judymoe]

As a long time member of the Horde, I am horrified by Sylvana's actions. I stand with Saurfang.

[@RngmonsterX]

Still, to this day, this cinematic kicks really hard..

[@xujenvoxith360]

The story telling for WoW is a different beast than the MSQ of FFXIV. Kinda have to do some book reading and sifting through what is cannon still or retconned. It's "good" but I haven't been invested in it since pandalandaria. Still... I haven't forgotten my roots..."For the Horde!"

[@Querenciatv]

Awesome Work ✌️

[@raver377]

WoW mainly uses 3 different styles of "cutscenes" for story telling, you have realistic cinematic cutscenes/trailers like this one which are mainly used for expansion trailers and other cutscenes which you cant find in the game directly then you have the highly stylised cutscenes like the sylvanas one which are so far only used for short series which lead up to the release of an expansion to get the hype going as well as deliver some background to important characters/events, most of these are also not found in the game itself and thirdly you have cutscenes which are rendered with the ingame engine, they are often used for cinematic events that happen at the end of epic endgame questlines and similiar stuff and are almost always found in the game intself which is the reason why they are rendered in the games engine

[@TheGenMex]

his son, dranosh saurfang, was killed by the lich king during the 'wrath of the lich king' wow expansion.... also if you watch dranosh's death cinematic, you will see bolvar fordragon as a human, he is now the current lich king in the shadowlands cinematic

[@Tijuanabill]

"He told me how you could cut down ten enemies, with a single blow." Look troll...every warrior gets Bladestorm. It's not unique to Saurfang.

[@astralrefuge9430]

You need to do the full wow history

[@reaperblade777]

Shoulders off for Saurfang!

[@dcchapman78]

Zappy Boy!!

[@Rornix]

It will be a huge commitment but Nobbel87 is a guy who has posted almost everything there is on WoW lore but since he explains everything along the way his videos are super long.

[@JekyViews]

But that doesn’t matter, since he has a voice you can listen to for days. :)

[@danielchristensen4780]

To understand this scene, you need to watch the Wrathgate in-game cut-scene. Here's a remastered version: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqjRmHl7fsxrgdk Then, to understand what the Lich King did to his son: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gXWXhambfdlrpNU about a 10 minute time commitment total between the 2 videos.

[@dwarfminerwillie]

The horde are a very divided people, many of their races have wildly different cultures and ideologies, and in the beginning their banding together was mostly as a way to to protect themselves from the other forces in the world. Once they got big enough they began to show their major problems, there has already been a major civil war with a faction of the orcs and goblins attempting world domination.

[@matt2d2007]

i remember all of us horde players removed our shoulder armor after watching this.

[@Rizso1]

Watch the Wrathgate ingame cinematic and you will learn a bit more of Saurfangs son.

[@WarriorNewb]

i think one thing blizz was trying to convey with this Old Soldier cinematic is us veteran players be nice to the newcomers lmao

[@stevedash5339]

Check out the lore of the Shadowmoon Orcs and you ll see why he marked his face with the ashes

[@Voidwatcher]

"Was his son important?" Fucking hell...

[@Drake844221]

I haven't been able to bring myself to touch BFA, sadly. Legion, I loved, but BFA... I just couldn't. I play a shaman on Alliance side, and at release, all of the early word was that they had completely screwed up both. As the expansion went on, my friends who still played... oh, I could just feel their frustration with it all. The things that were frustrating for them just weren't going away, as much as Shaman regained some survivability. I'll play through the BFA content eventually... but not having it as the cutting edge of things will make it more manageable. If I'm invested in it, great, if I'm not... I won't waste any tears at having been enjoying games during BFA.

[@tangerinesky1293]

I dont know if anyone has let u know, specially since this vid is 2 years old, but if u want to know about the lore go check out kzbin.info . He is our unofficial lore master lol. He knows everything and makes vids going into obsessive detail. Us in the community absolutely love him and although Ive been playing the game for 15 years I still learn things watching his vids. Oh, and welcome to Azeroth =)

[@Gostek1991]

Damn that girl is just beyond cute...like...breathtaking...and she watched it during my birthday :D Yay :D Also - Saurfang was the true warrior of the horde !

[@OriginalPuro]

You seem to be new to Blizzard cinematics, you are in for a treat. Watch all of it, all the way from the first Warcraft to the last wow cinematic. Skip the kid ones, though, like cod, hearthstone and such.

[@-Miasimon]

The Starcraft ones are pretty fantastic, too. If you're into Sci-fi, that is.

[@iLLustx]

#noshouldersforsaurfang

[@michaelkpate]

They should have told you to watch the Wrathgate Cinematic before this one - it would make more sense.

[@emiliohidalgo5927]

Yeah Saurfang just wanted to die at that point, but Orcs don't commit suicide as it is seen as dishonorable and cowardly, so Saurfang was planning to Leeroy Jenkins his way into the Alliance army and die swinging.

[@ToneyCrimson]

zappy boi is the best

[@timothybaker4091]

Unfortunate that you are introduced to Saurfang for Shadowlands as he made his mark in Wrath when WoW was at it´s best.

[@Tetsuoo]

You need to watch ALL cinematics in the correct order to understand the lore a little xD

[@uli713]

is this the 2nd video shes watched? why is she watching this one 2nd? chronological order seems like the obvious way to go.

[@Kang2112]

You should watch all the expansion cinematics from vanilla wow to Shadowlands so you may have a better idea of the games history.

[@paullowe8437]

Blizzard doesnt get everything correct! but there cinematics are on another level!

[@MuriloMielke]

You say the quality is good. It's been "this good" since the first one (the vanilla cinematic), back at fricking 2004 (you should check all them!)

[@0nowztar495]

1 tip.. stop talking through the conversations in the video.. what is the point of reaction video if you are going to miss everything ?

[@praegaming4040]

This is no fault of your own, assuming that you are a new player to the franchise. But there is a ton of lore that you, and now many others, have and will miss out on especially with the release of Shadowlands and it just glossing over one small part of the WoW history. If you care about the lore, go onto a Wiki and ready up. It won't be practical to play through it anymore, lot of lore behind raids that likely won't see any more time played on them really except for people running for xmogs. But the story is great, hope you go through it

[@Kang2112]

His son was important to him to his father.

[@greatshaman0724]

ur rewaction is good, u seeem tom grasp thinks prettty fasst

[@danaos4120]

Was his son important? I mean, he was his son, i dont know

[@Legatium]

9 minute video. 3 Minutes of it is original content, your reaction if you will, and even that is barebones. So in the end the only content was the video you watched. What's the point of this video? Not trying to be an ass, but these reaction videos are getting worse and worse by the hour.