BfA: What went wrong

Lore Story Forum
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Funnily enough you can still hear Horde-warfront-music playing in the Southern Barrens at several spots. Here’s a video (as a sidenote the music makes the entire zone even more epic, considering that it’s already one of the best “battlefield”-zones between Horde and Alliance in the entire game):

The BfA-trailer also has a completely different tone when compared to the ingame-events. Sylvanas is able to actually rally the Horde behind her, Greymane talks about how Lordaeron will be theirs. Funnily enough the trailer also works better with statements made by Blizzard before the BfA-release. One of such statements was that Anduin launched the attack in order to “prove himself”. Well, that is not really the case ingame as the entire attack is more a counteroffensive to remove Sylvanas from power.

Something must have gone horribly wrong behind the scenes, because you cannot tell me that everyone was completely fine and cool with a complete rehash of Mists of Pandaria. This could also be the reason why Aszhara and N’zoth feel so tacked on.

And if we look at some of the datamining: Nearly all warfronts after the initial ones took place in Horde zones. Quel’Thalas, the Barrens, Aszhara. It really feels like originally the Alliance would have been far more aggressive and pro-active in their approach against the Horde. This can be tracked be even further to 7.3.5 with SI:7 openly attacking goblin miners in Silithus or even Stormheim where its the Alliance who shoots first. A somewhat unique move from the usually defensive and passive Alliance.

Continuing the thought and now speculating: Maybe one of the original ideas was growing militarism and warmongering tendencies within the Alliance. Maybe with things like the Alliance military becoming a state in a state and overruling Anduin, launching offensive actions against the Horde. And for one the Alliance would stand at a crossroads having to choose between a more peaceful or militarisic approach. The Horde meanwhile would, for probably the first time ever, be in a defensive role.

Funnily enough both factions would probably be far more happy with such a scenario: The Horde has finally good reasons to fight, while the Alliance would be happy that they can finally go to town against the Horde and smash some faces in.

Edit: The more I think about it the more things start to fall into place all throughout Legion and even in some moments in BfA. I’m gonna have to write a complete post about this.

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It’s long been speculation of mine, but this scenario is where my money falls - there was one storyline leading up to BfA and even coded a good way into Alpha, and then for some reason a wholesale tearing up of and redoing of the story at the last minute.

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It feels like Blizz created concept zones for both a N’Zoth invasion expansion and a Shadowlands expansion, tested them, then the more popular one was turned into an expac while the other was relegated to a patch. So if N’Zoth had won out we’d have an 8.3 where we chase down Sylvanas into the Shadowlands.

I want to say the same happened for Legion with Argus vs. faction war/maybe G’Huun? but I can’t make that fit quite as nicely (after all South Seas faction war is definitely XPac material), and really only makes sense because Argus, like N’Zoth invading Azeroth, seems like something more for an entire XPac than late-in-life patch.

That being said, wrt Sylvanas I personally didn’t have any vertigo in the story direction, it always seemed clear to me she was gonna get hit with the raid boss stick. Not compared to the difference between Cata and MoP, where its clear whatever they originally envisioned, imo Sylvanas being the end game boss, was flipped to make Gary an Orc Supremacist who HATED demon blood but was A-OK with Old God goop.

I will say BfA made me appreciate how MoP and Cata went out of its way to give each individual Horde leader personal hangups with Garrosh that explained why they turned on him, because here it seems like the Horde leadership suddenly realized they were the baddies. Which seems more in line with speculation Blizz is planning to end the faction divide in the face of a dwindling playerbase.

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lol planned one line of text isnt planned, mine while darkshore was reamped before 8.1 it had a weird phase at 120 where nothing spawned, where it seemed it was a base for something and guess what it was. like lol you think game devoplment is so easy they can just wip up a whole warfront in two months.

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Could anyone link me to Metzen’s commentary on being surprised about the burning? I’m not calling anyone out I just am genuinely intrigued in what he has to say.

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About thirty-five minutes in:

Though Metzen also explained how the idea to burn Teldrassil and make Sylvanas dastardly came from up top from the game team, and then later they came to the story team to ask them to express these ideas that the game team had decided on.

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https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-11-08-world-of-warcraft-and-the-masterplan-for-sylvanas

Afrasiabi apparently claims he is a big fan of Sylvanas(to the point where being a mere Raid Boss would feel like a letdown) and has been writing her as he always had(“Nothing lasts!” “This world is a prison and I will set us all free!”).

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sylvanas%27_Vengeance

Interesting how Sylvanas hints at those shackled to their mortal coils… How similar to her words to Bolvar of the world being a prison and how she will set us all free!

Game Team made Sylvanas burn Teldrassil and burn Teldrassil she did while Afrasiabi and Danuser had to scramble to make sense of it all(writing Short Stories, Novels and putting in Loyalists when Players mentioned that she’d have some) while putting Afrasiabi’s old plan in place!

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The scrapped Warfronts are probably just that - cut gameplay features. The gameplay of Warfronts and Islands wasn’t that well received for the effort that went into them. I highly doubt the general plot was ever that different. A plot like what you mentioned is way too complicated to change part way and would probably have required more patches and different cinematics.

That said, there were definitely dropped story aspects and things that never showed up. There was something surrounding Jaina. Rexxar’s dialogue even in the final release mentions she has “gone too far” and there were hints about her along with Anduin that you already mentioned. But I think these were probably just sub plots.

If I could guess, they probably wanted more heroism for the Alliance. Like Jaina might have died in Dazar’alor(she was final boss after all) after going “too far” attacking the Horde or something. This matches the cinematic where Anduin is conscripting farmers and running out of troops. Sylvanas was trying to kill Malfurion in the prepatch. In the final version then, Alliance got canon victories they sorely needed instead of just losing more characters and making another truce at the end of the expansion. (Notice no faction leaders even died in BfA? Kind of weird in retrospect).

There was definitely internal disagreements, even Ion mentioned as such. There’s the “negativity in the dojo” comment and the “some people didn’t agree with the direction”(or something to that effect) line.

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Garrosh is the better pick for Mists’ story. From an in world perspective it probably makes more sense to attack Sylvanas at the time. However the expansion’s themes were suited towards Garrosh. It even fits with the new class.

  • Monk Mystics vs Warrior Brute.
  • Angry foreigner vs calm and civilized asian society
  • Imperialists who ignore the warnings from the natives about ancient artifacts like the Heart
  • Lighthearted fighting where Garrosh ultimately doesn’t die

Sylvanas is darker and suited to BfA’s “war is hell”. From an in world perspective, yeah we should’ve attacked Sylvanas and much of the Forsaken years ago, from a meta story perspective Garrosh fits in with Mists though.

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Ah so it was a case of the guys who were not writers demanding the writers to rewrite the entire expansion?

Word of the wise, even if i dislike the current writing team in general, let the people you pay to write write, at worst veto some of their ideas.

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So, really, the issue was the higher ups in the development team feeling the need to jump the shark with an even like War of Thorns, and making the man antagonist Sylvanas.

Okay, I think even with that criteria strangulating the writing teams creativity, BfA was pretty bad.

It all starts with War of Thorns, so lets consider for a moment, how do we make War of Thorns good from a story perspective. As a writer, you need to know your audience, and the issue is you have with War of Thorns two sides of the player base who want to come out feeling invested, not defeated, beaten down and disgraced, which is how everyone felt about War of Thorns on both sides.

It’s not that I am saying a good story requires a positive message or should always make you feel good. However, a feel-good story isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. It doesn’t even require the heroes winning… Mei, in her Rise and Shine cinematic, surly didn’t. She lost all her friends and was forced to hike out of Antarctica. The Victories she does have in the cinematic were minor. Yet, uplifting. Even Lord of the Rings is an incredibly sad story, yet those sad moments always bring you around to a feeling of empowerment. I just got Halo, the Master Chief Edition, and I played through Halo:Reach for the first time in a decade. That is yet another story that is incredibly sad. You suffer a significant defeat, but the point is the game doesn’t leave you feeling defeated.

I feel like this should have been the focus for the Night Elf side of that story. Perhaps Blizzard intended that with the Night Warrior, but the issue with some of their “Wait and see” philosophy is, for things like War of Thorns, that’s months of the lingering feeling of loss and defeat that we have to carry for a resolution that is most likely not going to be very satisfying. If the Night Warrior part of the story happened immediately, rather than months later, people probably would have enjoyed it more, and it was paired with so many other losses that it really lost its bite.

War of Thorns should have been this. First, it should have been a naval campaign. The idea the Horde could Blitz all the way through Ashenvale and Darkshore before the Navy would sail up from Silithus, is just too much. The Horde should have marched a skeleton-crew army south of the Crossroads while sending the Navy up and around Winterspring (Maybe Nightborne and Blood Elf mages using mirror images to make the army seem larger than it was).

Night Elves run interference with the encroaching navy, consolidating what little power they had off the coast of Rut’theran and Lor’danel. Air raids on Horde ships, druids of the Fin breaching hulls with their Orca forms, air-lead boarding parties on ships, assassinating Horde commanders in an attempt to disrupt their chain of command. All the while, defenses are being prepared, Teldrassil is being evacuated. You know what would be cool? A Druid only quest, regardless of faction, where the Cenarian Circle sends you to gather a seed or branch of Teldrassil, so to preserve the blessing of the Aspects in a neutral location.

Have the defenses at Rut’theran and Lor’danel succeed. Let the Alliance PC succeed in buying enough time for Teldrassil to be evacuated, and the defenses be prepared, and in the face of that and Malfurion, forces the Horde Navy to run aground in Darkshore.

Now, the Horde player is seeing this unfold, what might appear as a mission failure. They have little time to salvage their plan before the Kaldorei navy returns from Silithus. The goal is to capture Lor’danel, seize not only the siege equipment there, but also live captives (Necessary as a bargaining chip with the Alliance). The Horde PC takes a situation of certain defeat and turns it around completely, and maybe the same thing happens with Malfurion being rescued by Tyrande or whatever. Now the Horde rests on the coast of Darkshore with siege equipment and living captives, ready to besiege Teldrassil. Then, you have Warbringers kind of happen the same way, except Delaryn is executed by Sylvanas at the end.

I mean, that’s literally just off the top of my head, so… It can be tweaked, but I feel like that would be better. You have both sides both overcome significant challenges. You have enough minor defeats and enough minor victories, yet ultimately the same result. But with the druid-only quest, there is still hope left.

Really though, I guess it can only be “Kinda okay”, because the entire premise of the Burning of Teldassil is pretty dumb.

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So even Metzen confirmed that basically Ion’s “rule of cool” game design trumps a cohesive story.

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There’s one big problem with BfA, but it’s not unique to BFA; in fact it started in pandaria.

The scope of the “story” is vastly impersonal. Remember back in Vanilla, where it felt like only you could finish Linkin’s quest? Where you were instrumental in helping Mankrik find closure? When you were collecting murlock tongues simply because mmmm boy murlock tongue pie sounded really yummy and you wanted the recipe?

That’s all gone. Now, you are a cog in a machine. So replaceable that you actually ARE replaced even i nthe in-game cutscenes… You’re an errand boy for Nathanos or Shaw or Genn or Saurfang, and what you do is just busywork. You have no personal stake in the events of the “story” the quests serve only as unlocks for you to see the next stage of predetermined events. You’re collecting murlock tongues not because you’re a weirdo who wants the secret recipe for pie, but because htey need ot be turned into chamois so that you cna polish hte airship’s cannons so they look nice the next time they’re fired, so that you can progress towards stacking cannonballs,. so that you can progress to getting a letter to take to a guy standing over there…

Blizzard desperately wants the War craft to feel “EPIC!!!” but that just does not work in the context of the game. We’re all approaching this stuff from a first-person view as a participant, not a third-person view as an audience member in the theater. And the impersonality of it all, and the total lack of agency, it’s awful and unfun.

Pandaria, at least, gave you some personal engagement. I never felt like I was FOR THE HORDE!" or “IN THE NAME OF THE KING!” when I wash doing stuff in Valley of the Four Winds, for instance.

But everythign, EVERYTHING in Warlords, legion, and BfA has you as an inconqequential footsoldier in a greater conflict that you have no say in or control over at all. Despite begin called "champion’ by every NPC, you’re relegated to messenger boy, grunt, and stooge. You have no descisions to make despite your supposedly vaunted status.

I’ve seen it described a few times as “like playing D&D with a very bad DM’ and, being a fairly okay DM myself, I have to concur. WoW’s problem - currently peaked at its worst in BfA - is that it’s railroaded to hell and back, player agency is nonexistence, there’s no reward for engaging or penalty for not engaging, the “story” being told is derivative and relies heavily on Shyalaman-level twistiness, and most of the 'action” is just tedium and busy work, while the DMPC’s - the “maint characters” liek Baine, Sylvanas, Anduin, Wrathion, etc - alone have any impact or meaning to the outcome.

For me, WoW is literally just me paying $16/mo for a pokemon ripoff and paperdoll simulator.

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Totally agree. I’ve said it before in other threads that Blizzard needs to stop focusing on their comic book superhero characters and place the focus on us, the PC. I play RPGs to be the main character, not the side-kick.

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