Remember Faction pride was the Staple of this expansion.
Remember the TV ad’s of Horde and alliance players sitting away from each other on the bus.
Boy did Blizzard subvert our expectations with that. I mean they have basically told Horde players they are bad guys and the only good guy was the Tauren Pacifist who was ready to bend the knee to the Alliance at the start of the expansion.
A More accurate ad campaign would have had the Horde players sitting alone or asking to cuddle up to the Alliance players because they really don’t know whose side they are on.
Maybe you didn’t quest as Horde during Vanilla then? That would be a good reason to not recall it since it was heavily implied during his quest chain in EPL.
Dev Team: “So we’re going to build an expansion about showing why the faction war is actually terrible for everyone involved and the only road to Azeroth surviving the future is peace-”
Marketing Team: “Faction war expansion you say???”
Problem is the early draft including the cinematic was written years ago by Metzen and was one of the last things he did when he was still attached to Wow.
He was shocked that Sylvanas burned the tree he had not written it that way so somewhere along the line his vision was thrown out but they kept things like the cinematic.
He was not pleased calling it “sensationalist, shock value writing”.
I mean I’m memeing more about the broad marketing campaign then the cinematic specifically. The commercials, the Youtubes ads, etc… Stuff that the developers and writers have no say in.
And yeah of course they kept the cinematic. That 4:30 cost tens of millions of dollars and hundreds to thousands of man-hours to create, easily. You don’t throw something like that out because someone comes up and says they changed the story. You tell that person to change the story again so it fits your absurdly expensive piece of marketing.
Metzen wrote all this before the cinematic entered production it had nothing to do with production costs of the cinematic cause they hadn’t made it yet. They just used it with no regard for the tone Metzen was setting.
Thats why the stuff he didn’t write like Sylvanas’ BBQ and the Civil War feel completely wrong with the set up.
He wrote a first draft/early version, at least going by your post.
I don’t know if you have written things before but a first draft is usually pretty different from what the final version is. The broad “shape” of what you’re going for might remain intact but it’s the later version that solidify events, character arcs, dialogue and development etc…
So to hear that the early draft got radically changed after Metzen left is… entirely expected? Not that these changes worked out for the best in the end but, there it is.
I don’t get why people keep saying Baine is an Alliance lover, he’s not. Baine has barely shown any care for the Alliance until he realizes that the mechanisms he’s helped put into play are going to roll over him and the tauren, too.
He’s okay with Garrosh up until it’s clear Garrosh is going to turn on the rest of the Horde. Sure he warned about Theramore, but did he stop it? Was there a breaking point when it happened? Nope. All the stuff Garrosh did to the night elves in Cata, practically in the tauren’s backyard, Baine didn’t step up.
If Sylvanas hadn’t raised Derek, and revealed she was willing to compromise her own morals, and could turn on the Horde too, Baine would have done nothing. The Burning wasn’t a snapping point, Sylvanas leaving Saurfang to die wasn’t either.
Baine doesn’t care about the Alliance at all, except to maybe conquer them more gently.
Obey Thrall, not Sylvanas who was the one pushing the issue.
Of course, just like the Alliance, this means the elves are free to withdraw their support from Sylvanas, which clearly Lother’mar plan to, at whatever time they want! No hard feeling eh?
Just look at Star Wars. Too many writers/directors with too many conflicting different visions that dont line up with the original.
This is why having a Horde writer and Alliance writer is a terrible idea. Specially since its clear the Horde writer has no idea what hes doing.
Wow has always had issues with writing and they should put more care into making a cohesive story instead of “rule of cool” but its never been this pronounced.
If they obey Thrall, they are doing what Sylvanas is telling them.
Say you agree to do a job for someone and they start paying you. Then you say you aren’t going to do the job anymore. So they say if that is the case, they won’t pay you more. Do you consider that blackmail?
They can, just doesn’t mean that action is free of consequences. Hard feelings can ensue.
Again, they were never told they would be payment later. Shocking, that Lother’mar thought Sylvanas might actually have a heart still left in her dead body, but apparently they were wrong. Lastly, I am not the only one who call it blackmail:
" “This is blackmail!” Rommath continued, the knuckles of his fists paling as he clenched them around his staff. “It was you who pleaded to aid us in the first place! We never asked for your assistance; you gave it of your own free will! How can you call yourselves our allies in one breath and hold our lands for ransom in the next?”
Sylvanas was not at the time their warchief. At best Thrall at the said he was gathering his forces, nothing about what Sylvanas stated Thrall order them to go/they were unable to refuse.
Lastly, one of the meriam webster dictionary of blackmail: extortion or coercion by often written threats especially of public exposure, physical harm, or criminal prosecution
So Blackmail has two components. coercion or extortion(in this case coercing Loth to send forces to Northrend) and a threat, in this case physical harm to the blood elven people.
The Forsaken aid was initially sent not because of anything Horde related. If anything joining the Horde came AFTER said aid happened.
As a rule, I dont like defending the Horde, but Rommath has always been the type to say what he thinks is on his mind. And he saw Sylvanas’ actions for what it was, a form of coercion.
She said it was not a request and then promptly threaten Lother’mar, a threat that I dont think Thrall had any hand in. Do you really think Thrall would simply abandon the blood elves just like that? If Sylvanas was truly enforcing Thrall’s will then Thrall is as heartless and calculating as Sylvanas, either answers works for me.
Clearly it was a threat and used as bargaining chip to making Lother’mar do something he did not want to do.
Then why does he only remember his moral compass when the Horde starts losing? Or when the people he’s followed up until now show signs of turning on him, too?