Compilation - Blizzard's Lies 2

Lore Story Forum
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The first thread had a formatting seizure with the new forums, so I had to remake it here following the new rules.

Over the years, Blizzard has a habit of lying directly to the playerbase about their intent behind the Horde’s new Warchief’s purpose and direction. It happened with Garrosh, and it’s currently, seemingly happening with Sylvanas.

To preface this compilation; yes, they are lies. The alternative explanation is that Blizzard’s individual writers, community representatives and numerous other employees simply never communicate about the direction of their narrative, which has been squashed numerous times by Blizzard themselves. So they’re either lying about their character’s direction, or they’re incredibly, unbelievably disorganized, and lying to us about that instead.

Additional credit for this thread idea / concept goes to Pellex, who’s been keeping a similar list starting here:

In regards to Garrosh not becoming a villain:

Garrosh is a character with a lot to prove. I realize there’s a great deal of consternation out there concerning the tales of what’s to come, but I want to reassure you that we understand that concern. We know where you’re coming from. Why are we still going this route? With all respect, you haven’t seen the entirety of who Garrosh is. You’ve seen a great deal of his faults, certainly, but people grow over time, and you may find, come Cataclysm, that he is not quite the disaster you portend.

  • Kisirani, former World Event Designer

ht tps://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2706-why-garrosh/

Garrosh has so much to prove. It’s no secret lots of people are concerned that Garrosh has so far displayed a wide variety of negative and faulted traits, and it’s to be expected that folks will be worried should an Orc with a temper as hot as the one Garrosh has shown so far take lead of the Horde. With that said, what’s to say that in time, or given certain events that his temperament won’t be altered?

  • Ancilorn, former Online Community Representative for the EU Forums

ht tps://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/3627-garrosh-warchief-wtf-name-saurfang/

Credit to Caith for logging.

I’m confident that, in due time, you may better understand the many tribulations facing both Garrosh and Varian. You might not agree with all of their actions, but their ideals might not end up seeming to you so unforgivably malicious, or even misguided.

  • Zarhym, former Community Manager for the US Forums

ht tp://urbad.net/blue/us/26435394652-You_know_what_Stuff_Garrosh_and_Varian

Credit to Arazlok for logging.

While many of the iconic villains in WoW over the years were first established in the RTS games (Illidan, Arthas, etc.), WoW has been introducing new characters and threats since its earliest days (such as Onyxia or the Defias). We’re keenly aware of the need to begin building up future threats even as we confront existing ones. A major villain shouldn’t come out of nowhere and be a surprise. We plan our expansions out far in advance, so that we can begin foreshadowing and weaving narrative threads to connect them. Garrosh Hellscream is an example of a character born within WoW and built up to eventually become a major villain and then a catalyst that led directly to Azeroth’s confrontation with the Burning Legion. If you look carefully, there are seeds that have been planted and clues that point to who central foes might be in the future.

  • Blizzard

ht tps://www.wowhead.com/news=288702/blizzcon-2018-q-a-additional-questions-faster-azerite-respec-cost-decay

In regards to Sylvanas not becoming a villain:

Credit to Yagarr for logging.

Because Sylvanas is not evil. In the story for her, it’s much more. She’s definitely aggressive, and she definitely believes in having power and control, but I also think that she does take seriously the representation of the Horde. She has a different perspective which is that the Horde will never be safe until the Alliance is wiped out. But, is she acting in a cruel, mustache-twirling evil way? Not really, she’s just trying to defend her people.

  • Travis Day, former Game Designer

ht tps://www.invenglobal.com/articles/4755/explore-claim-resources-and-battle-for-your-faction-world-of-warcraft-interview

Credit to Pellex for logging.

Concerns were mostly aimed at the fact that the current Horde Warchief, Sylvanas, was following too closely in the footsteps of previous leader, Garrosh, by very clearly putting forward the Horde as the bad guys, yet again. According to Bybee, however, those fears are unfounded. … “We’re super excited with where it’s going to go, and I can just say that we’re not going to do to Sylvanas what happened with Garrosh,” Bybee says. That should help to alleviate the concerns of Horde players who were worried that the unfortunate matter of that genocide would cast them as the baddies. It also more or less confirms that Sylvanas won’t follow in the footsteps of Garrosh in acting as the final raid boss for the expansion as well.

  • Michael Bybee, current Senior Game Producer

ht tps://www.pcgamesn.com/world-of-warcraft/sylvanas-garrosh

A sentiment I’ve seen echoed while researching this, is that many are beginning to believe Sylvanas will not become a villain, but rather Blizzard will pull another Kerrigan and have her do a single, large-scale good thing that’s mostly out-of-character for her, and yet somehow excuses all previous sins. Sort of like what they did with Grom, where he yells “Draenor is free!” and everyone forgets pretty much all of what just happened was his fault.

I’m not sure what I think, but I believe this compilation will at least provide some insight into how Blizzard is operating with all of this, and how out of touch with their lore-loving playerbase they are.

If you’ve found any additional quotes, let me know below.

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Have fun with your forum suspension. These kind of threads aren’t tolerated under the new regime.

But if it does last longer, are we keeping it to BFA related lies, or all of them?

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Code of Conduct hasn’t changed and nothing in my post violates it.

Anything related to them telling us one thing while they do another, though the general topic is faction leaders.

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all lies. they must be exposed

also the mods never come to the story forums

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If it gets taken down, it will get re-posted. This does need preserving.

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As far as I can tell, they actually haven’t lied in any of those statements.

Misleading?

Absolutely.

But every single one is either subjective, a technical truth, or includes wiggle words like “may” or “might” that turns the comment into a hypothetical.

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Like I stated, Blizzard should just honestly stop talking about Lore details in regards to Q&A. Frankly lying about a character and potentials for characters is really a low blow to the fans of the character and to Blizzard itself.

I don’t know how can you say Deceit is not lying. If I willingly allow you to think a certain way, by give you false information, that’s lying. What they did with Garrosh is straight up lie about his character.

It’s one thing if it’s purely fan theory, but Blizzard it self said to us just wait with Garrosh, yeah you see his bad side right now, but he can grow and you may seem he’s not quite the bad guy you thought he was. They were right about one thing, he wasn’t as bad as we thought he was worse and he never grew.

But the company leads you on to think there hope for these characters that people have come to enjoy and want to see the best of.

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None of that information is actually false.

It’s spin.

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Spin is deception and deception is lying.

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If I give you sht and I know it’s sht and you think it might be sh*t as well, but you’re hopeful, but I say well you don’t know if actually is, it might taste good and it may not be as bad as you think.

I haven’t told you it’s not sh*t, but I know it is I’m choosing to guide you in the wrong direction to think something differently. To me this still constitutes as lying as to me deceit is lying.

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Or you may find he is.

Not a lie.

Hypothetical.

It could happen that way or it could not.

Entirely dependent on the views of the individual player.

This one is still true even if they didn’t originally intend for him to be a pure villain.

I don’t know why it’s here.

He came from WoW.

Check.

He was built up to eventually become a major villain etc.

Check.

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Well no wonder why you can’t comprehend deceit, the last thing at the bottom isn’t a lie, it goes against what they previously stated.

I honestly believe you’re trolling here, because you can’t comprehend the difference that Blizzard purposefully leads you into a direction that they know is wrong. Giving the hope that this may not be the case is still a lie when the person who’s giving the hope knows there is none.

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In a universe where the strictest technicalities are all that matters, I’d agree with you.

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place your bets guys, what is going to ignite the community more, sylvanas being randomly redeemed or sylvanas becoming garrosh?

This one is rich:

*proceeds to force a dying sentinel to watch as her home burns, what purpose did that had exactly ? did that protected “her people?”

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Except it doesn’t.

Which is why I said “even if they didn’t originally intend for him to be a pure villain.”

It doesn’t belong on the list period.

What they are doing is saying “if you want to find out what happens next tune in”

Honestly, reading those interviews I would have immediately noticed all the wriggling and recognized the hype for what it was. I would never have expected anything that includes “mays” and “mights” to be a fact.

Just something that could be a fact.

Maybe.

Tune in next week to find out!

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I think the blizzard writer’s for the horde went method. They wanted to write a story about deception and they had to go all in to make it work.

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So, they aren’t LYING, they are just being like Satan or the owner of the Monkey Paw giftshop. Purposefully misleading with weasel words and half-truths that won’t be found out until 1 patch later.

That’s a muuuuuuch better plan when dealing with customers with a monthly subscription that you have to keep the trust of.

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Before I post this, I want to make clear that I attribute this to several factors. 1) Blizzard has demonstrated multiple times through different media that they view the morality of an action to be relative. It depends more on the intent behind this action. Examples of this include but are not limited to: WC1 being considered a nuanced war, the Sandwalker Vakaara (sp) quest for the Alliance in the Vol’Dun incursion, and others. Why is this this important? Because I am going to explain how each of these could be considered to be true, though in my opinion, somewhat disturbing statements.

Ok this first quote that was bolded: Garrosh is infact motivated, as shown in questing and in the novels, in part, by a care for his people and the Horde. He takes land because he feels that it is necessary for the Horde to expand. As a result, the Horde from a Watsonian perspective do gain significant amounts of territory. We as players know it is due to balancing the factions, but the narrative still gives him his due. Additionally, I contend that Blizzard wrote Garrosh to be a tragic figure from the start, this can be seen in my opinion through the Shattering book, where he, and everyone else, recognizes how ill prepared he is for the job. Still, he attempts, but imo he was doomed to failure.

This is couched as a question, a leading one, but a question none the less. I contend that MoP Did show an alteration, though it was him giving into despair for not being able to defeat the Alliance, and seeking ever more extreme methods of securing the imagined victory and glory he thought he could obtain.

The use of might here is key, because Blizzard operates from what I can tell on a moral relativistic view, they care about the intent of Garrosh’s actions not the act themselves. As such, Garrosh’s intention, from the Horde’s point of view, and the Orcish point of view even more specifically, is to secure the Horde’s power and position. This makes him a tragic villain, not unlike a certain other former Warchief of the Horde who sought to carve out his people’s place on Azeroth.

We return once again to intention. BtS and A Good War establish that Sylvanas does care for the Horde, and particularly the Forsaken, if even only as abstract concepts. To Blizzard, who cares about intention rather than action, this makes her motivations relatable, and indeed from a certain point of view positive.

This I think is them being literal.

I post this not to say this is not important, or that these statements are not frustrating, but to highlight once again how Different the mindset of Blizzard’s writers are from the playing community.

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The alternative is to say “You know what guys? You probably are going to hate everything we do with Garrosh, but you might like it so keep buying our stuff plz.”

They aren’t going to deliberately set low expectations, that’s unreasonable. They also aren’t going to ruin the story for people who might enjoy it when they see it actually play out.

Not answering causes it’s own set of problems.

Instead, they promise nothing while trying to keep people invested in the narrative. It’s a small minority of the player base that actually reads these interviews, even smaller number that posts on forums to discuss them.

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Oh, I’d forgotten that they cut out Varian’s Trials of the High King or whatever it was called.

The Alliance intro to Twilight Highlands in Cata, Varian’s Trials, the draenei raid in WoD, any semblance of a story for why Alliance is going into Uldir…

Hmm. I’m sensing a pattern.

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