not to mention that Rhastakhan and Zul were basically a side story, despite the heavy build up for them in Cata and MoP and the much lighter references in vanilla and wrath. I was sad that the whole zandalari story turned into subplot just to have something extra for Sylvanas to fight over. Like they didn’t even bother to try and connect the blood troll/G’huun story to any of the naga or n’zoth stuff despite it both involving Old Gods/
You could completely pull out all the Zandalar and Blood Troll stuff and it’d have almost 0 impact on the overall xpac story.
They tried to fit way to many different stories in BfA and it makes things very incoherent IMO.
When things are more equal it goes well. People were actually excited at the start of BFA (the horde was more mad for being evil) because it seemed 2 capitals would fall. Then blizz made it so the Alliance lost twice and of course people got mad. If blizz would’ve made it so there were some victories one patch for one side, then the other, etc… they could craft a more interesting story. As it was however it pretty much ended up being just the attack on Zandalar and then Sylvanas being super powerful for x reason and deposed to lead to SL. Wasn’t a good war.
Oh yeah? What about in a fantasy setting where the afterlife is an actual physical space where souls are currency and power and where one of the major themes of one of the factions in said fantasy setting is literally returning the souls of creatures heavily affiliated with Night Elven culture back to life in never-ending cycle of death and rebirth (coughArdenwealdcough).
Their plan to include N’Zoth was apparent from the very beginning.
Foreshadowing happened both in Legion and the Alliance intro to BFA.
Going near the Shrine of the Storm island at the wrong place resulted in Old God stuff casting you out for not being worthy. Hell, a vast majority of that entire zone is just a love letter to N’Zoth.
Then we have the Crucible of Storms raid, and its quest chain.
Nazjatar and the Palace raid definitely included N’Zoth.
I mean… yeah, she has. The only real difference between Sylvanas in BFA and Sylvanas in Cataclysm post-suicide is how much authority and attention she wielded.
The Alliance was mad for the two cities but the Horde didn’t really come out the winner of Undercity. She sacked the city to cripple the leadership, but that couldn’t happen because people play Alliance. Be one of the largest slaps in the face they could ever give.
Then the Horde lose during every questing zone, lose both warfronts, lose the war campaign, and have Zandalar attacked. The Horde got destroyed by the writing, the Alliance can gladly take the spotlight.
Ion said in a interview that the team usually writes story developments two expansions ahead of whatever is current; so it may be some time before we see the full scope of Sylvanas’s crazy.
Blizzard are going to completely undo the events of Teldrassil in Shadowlands. And I don’t mean in the “remove all reference to Teldrassil” kind of way like with the new player experience.
I mean that it’s going to end up being shown to have been necessary. And we will help Tyrande rescue the Night Elven souls from the Maw. And the deaths in the BfA war were necessary to fuel the Jailor’s power to fight back against the evil and corrupt Arbiter.
That’s the overwhelming sense I get from everything we know about the lore of Shadowlands so far.
That corrects the lore abomination that was the War of Thorns, it preserves Sylvanas as a pragmatic but ruthless character, it lets the Horde be the good guys again. It fixes the Night Elven problem. It just makes sense to me on every level.
Even in WC3 she was treacherous and cruel. The Arthas book make it 100% clear she’s evil. At most one could argue that she wasn’t evil when alive.
I mean, even Ion said the Alliance lost there. And yeah I get what you mean that’s why I said they could’ve done a much better balanced back and forth. Though admitedly that’s way harder when you have a clear villain as the leader of one side.
They kinda do, but they also definitely make tweaks during an expac. WoD is a big example.
I feel like it’s exactly that way though, hiding Teld from new players is a very red flag.
The rest of what you suggested doesn’t fix any of the Night Elves problems. First of all we don’t know if we free or destroy those souls. Then Night Elves would still be near extinct, shown as weak and incompetent, have their lands destroyed and occupied by the Horde - and the faction who did all of that including their leader (Sylvanas) will be shown as noble heroes.
I can hardly see a more insulting way to end this, also it looks like Tyrande is going to die.
Genn didn’t start anything! He just prevented Syl from doing something that went against the interests of the war against the Legion. She wasn’t doing anything there to help stop Legion.
And before anyone speaks Stromhiem, what happened there has nothing to do with what happened in Darkshore and Teldrassil.