I wonder if we’re beginning to head toward a point where racial leaders are just not a thing anymore. If the write-ups were still in there by Shadowlands it would be chaotic as hell. Especially since many leaders in SL are temporary, like Mayla and Turalyon. Also I guess Gazlowe heads the entire Bilgewater Cartel now and is a Trade Prince? …Is he?
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Maybe they’re slated for a rewrite so they pulled them all down. It’d make sense especially if there’s going to be some more roster changes in Shadowlands.
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I’d love for them to move away from the story revolving around faction leaders and more on each of the individual races themselves. Let’s develop all the races and their characters, not just their leaders.
There is so much room to expand on the lore and story of all the races beyond just their leaders.
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I’d like to believe this, especially with half of them having new models that weren’t reflected in those pages. The pessimist in me says they’ve acknowledged the embarrassingly high turnover of faction leaders and decided to just leave those sections empty though.
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While I know that Turalyon is regent for the missing Anduin, I didn’t hear anything about Mayla taking over for leadership for the missing Baine.
Yes, he is. The Warchief of the Horde quest has Thrall turn to him to take over the Bilgewater Cartel and became it’s Trade Prince after Gallywix splits from the Horde. And Shadows Rising further also refers to him as Trade Prince.
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Honestly I’d consider this a win.
The main aspect of Classic that held up for me was that the narrative was about the world and your adventures in it. Characters like Thrall and Tyrande were there and involved in some quests now and again but the story wasn’t about them it merely contained them.
Now though BFA was more about Saurfang than Dazar’Alor and Kul Tiras. Neither of those zones, or even so much as a Zandalari or Kul Tiran ever appear in a cinematic.
Take the Vanilla and BC cinematics. Vanilla is entirely about introducing the factions and having them fight. While Illidain narrates and stars in the BC one, it’s mostly about the new factions and characters having adventures in these exciting new locations. From there onward it’s just been showing off big lore characters doing stuff with the exception of Mists.
WoW’s main characters can be interesting and fun but lets be real here the narrative never gets on a better level than above average comic book or anime. The world and the adventures we have in it are the selling point here, and I think the story focusing more on presenting that rather than a monster soap opera would be extremely beneficial.
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I don’t see how just knowing who your race leader even is equates to the monopolizing the story.
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And then that adventure sort of stopped beyond head-cannon after a certain point. Once you’ve explored anything there really isn’t any other direction to go but to just constantly make more places to explore out of nowhere. It is also very difficult to drive a long term narrative with just “sandbox exploration” in mind, and even then the storytelling in Classic is … not … great. Especially at later levels for the Horde, which can best be described as “Why are you here in our Alliance stories? Get back to your dirt farm you primitive”.
I think Blizzard has certainly overdone it, but I also do understand the shift to a more character driven storytelling style. It is just plain easier to do, and far more sustainable over a longer period of time. However, I do think its time for the pendulum to swing the other way for a while and find a nice middle ground. Where we get to work cooperatively with these characters, but more within the realms of smaller more race/faction intimate stories. They also need to get better at juggling their large roster, so stories don’t need to feel so dominated by a select few.
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I guess but my favorite moments by far from BFA were the adventures in Zuldazar. In particular I really adored the Nazmir questline between the horror, colorful Loa and dramatic climax where you fight a blood witch atop a doom pyramid.
All of that stuff was so much more intriguing than the actual war storyline. That ended in a “Too be continued” non climax before throwing a squid in our face from left field because apparently this was about the Old Gods and Black Dragonflight redemption the whole time.
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Somewhat off-topic, but is Blizzard just going to ignore forever that Gazlowe was a member of the Steamwheedle cartel? Did he officially resign? Did he turn over Ratchet, or take it with him?
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I mean, this all officially happened in like 8.2.5 and we haven’t gotten to see much from him since then. I would assume that since Ratchet is his town, he’d probably keep it. As for him being a member of the Steamwheedle … welcome to Goblin economics and politics. Trade Princes aren’t born, they’re made. And Cartels are run more like companies than tribes or civilizations. During the Cartel Wars I suspect that many cartels rose, fell, and changed hands like this.
Its to this end that I do sort of suspect Wix will take charge of the Venture Co. down the road. The only other real “Cartel” of note outside the Steamwheedle and Bilgewater, and far more his moral speed. He was already working cooperatively with them during BfA on Crapopolis/Motherlode.
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The conversation between Thrall and Gazlowe:
Thrall says: Gallywix has fled the city along with the rest of Sylvanas’ inner circle. That leaves the Bilgewater Cartel without its trade prince.
Thrall says: Gazlowe, it was your cleverness and ingenuity that built the walls of Orgrimmar. I cannot think of anyone I would trust more to take over as leader.
Gazlowe says: A cartel ain’t a clan or a tribe, Thrall. Steamwheedle, Bilgewater… it don’t matter who supplies the cash–so long as the pay’s good.
Gazlowe says: “Under new management” is just another way of sayin’ ““opportunity’s knockin’””. So, sure… you got yourself a deal!
Thrall says: Can you be sure that none of the goblins here are still being funded by Gallywix?
Gazlowe says: Oh, I guarantee they are. That’s why I’m gonna pay 'em more than that cheapskate.
Blizzard is very much aware that Gazlowe was a member of the Steamwheedle cartel before they decided to officially make the shift for him becoming the Trade Prince of the Bilgewater cartel.
I just assumed that Gazlowe either moved to Orgrimmar or to Bilgewater Harbor, with the Steamwheedle figuring out how to handle the new leadership of Ratchet as Gazlowe secured his position.
Though if Gazlowe did take Ratchet with him, it raises further raises the question of how the Steamwheedle cartel has reacted or will react to Gazlowe’s defection.
Well, think on this. The Zandalari and even Kul Tiras Questing experiences really do hit the right mix between an overarching Character driven narrative and exploration. The supporting quests of the zone allow for both the people and place to given a life of their own, but the overall characters allow the story to have a more natural flow to it. Plus, part of good world building IMO is making sure you develop characters of the world sufficiently enough to make sure you care about the places you visit. The Loa, Talanji, and Rastakhan help you care about Zandalar.
The fundamental issue with BfA was that the overarching META-Narratives were … god, just all over the place. Disjointed. Lackluster. And downright confusing or contradictory at times. Its clear that the expansion started out at an end destination of some sort (setting up SLs) and then attempted to work its way backwards to reach that end point. Really haphazardly. But, the individual locals were very well done IMO. It wasn’t the character driven narratives that were the core problem, but rather their execution (in the case of the overarching meta narrative) that was.
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i never tire of quoting to that comment from the lies thread that pellex made.
problem is they totally missed the mark with genociding the night elves, it turned everything black and the goodwill of both fanbases is at an all time low, this is not healthy so theyre backpedaling hard but things arent going smoothly as they should, i fear they will find this uninteresting and move on with the next genocide.
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The Horde didn’t need purging. We already had two vacant spots for racial leaders.
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I feel like a big reason for that is that it didn’t have enough focus on characters.
We never found out Sylvanas’ motivations or even what she had been up to throughout BFA so her position as antagonist was a wash. There were a lot of questions about “What did Baine even do in this expansion except get kidnapped?” which suggests not enough was done with his character to give him a worthwhile arc. Saurfang and Anduin received a lot of screentime and lip service was paid to their beliefs but we didn’t get much in the way of how or why they came to their positions, like why Anduin thinks the Horde is worth saving and protecting when his father did not. “He’s a different person” only goes so far.
I think aside from Jaina and Talanji’s arc, the one piece of excellent characterization we had in regards to the meta arc was Old Soldier. That very clearly established that:
- The Horde is in dire straits after Teldrassil in regards to morale, before the Battle of Lordaeron even started,
- Saurfang found no purpose in the Horde anymore or his own life due to the weight of his sins,
and importantly - Zekhan’s existence and optimism, divorced from the Horde’s bloody history, is very obviously worth preserving and thus Saurfang’s attitude turned around. There was a clear cause and effect. After that, though, Saurfang just kind of…does stuff mostly in the background and his exact machinations are also kept from the playerbase in order to preserve the Thrall “twist.”
Anduin and the Alliance at large, meanwhile, don’t really have an arc. They just keep doing what they’re doing. Whenever their characters pop up in the meta narrative it’s to re-affirm that they’re going to do essentially what is expected. They never ruminate on the worthiness of justice vs mercy as concepts and they never come to a conclusion about why they shouldn’t erase the Horde from existence the moment they recover enough. There’s many, many holes in characterization throughout BFA.
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This was done on purpose to keep her mysterious, then come shadowlands she is going to do an info dump on us, you can tell that is a big brain move because instead of showing us theyll just tell us…
can you feel that “plot twist” coming in now? because i surely feel im going to be sorely dissapointed.
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Well, I’m Scared to see what the Forsaken one is.
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Hoping it isn’t something with Calia, but know it will be.
calia is so dumb…it looks like she died and didnt learn squat, godamnit this is exactly the reason silvanas used her as target practice.
i secretly hope tyrande kills her just like illidan blasted xera, i just cant stand her she has been like 5 minutes on the council and already feels like moralizing tyrande? what the… we already have enough of that with jaina and anduin.
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