We’ve defeated world ending cosmic threat after threat. Time and time again, some of the threats we face are supposed to be these big bad gods that countless worlds tremble before. Yet it is very evident that no cosmic force stands a chance against the most deadly force the cosmos has ever seen → Loot hungry players.
Personally. I think we should have many situations where we actually canonically loose. Even if it means Azeroth gets taken over or our entire reality gets threatened. Just because we end up loosing doesn’t mean we can’t have player rewards and you can always use the time dragons to get back to old locations. It would be interesting if we can actually speculate whether or not we might prevail rather then knowing we are destined to win.
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We’ve never been alone in doing this. And it’s oftentimes been with majorly powerful, cosmic-originated MacGuffins.
But… we might possibly lose at the end of Midnight. Metzen said, “Things may not go to plan. Things may just spiral wildly out of control.”
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Canonically there’s no telling if it’s the same adventurers every time or what the casualty rate is. The same bunch of murder hobos saving Azeroth 25 years running would be a little outlandish.
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That’s how I’ve always seen it. Plot-wise the “adventurers” that aided in all of these events are likely many different people. Some have been lost, others have “retired,” but they are typically just minions of the main lore characters that have helped in one situation or another as the story has progressed.
I disagree with your cosmetic choice, I think RuPaul can do some make up on us and many would be very happy, this would be a fomo thing right? 
If you meant “Yet it is very evident no COSMIC force…etc. etc. etc,” then I disagree again, the most giant cosmic force keeping loot hungry players at bay is Ion.
personally, I look forward to losing in the next couple of patches (11.2, 11.3) and next expansion (Midnight)
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And yet I will most likely be here still in 5 years making it not seem outlandish at all
Canonically I’m pretty sure all the important characters we serve drinks to and whose trash we pick up are actually the ones credited with stopping all these threats and we’re just nameless “champions” doing their bidding.
I’ve never actually been involved in any of those big legendary fights, I just sort of cosplay as a hero around town for the entertainment of locals as a break from my day job of skinning beasts and tanning leather.
You people are wrong that we’re nobodies. We’re on first name status with all of the prominent lore characters and they absolutely acknowledge our heroics and deeds. We’re the ones on speed dial when problems come up that need solving via violence.
Canonically it may be the prominent lore characters who do the deed but that’s just so there can be a definitive narrative.
I do think the writers wrote themselves in a narrative hole making us on a power level on par with gods. I think truthfully Blizzard never expected to have 20+ years worth of games so they put their established and powerful people out early instead of having filler expansions/arcs. They tried to dial us back in DF because really where can you go from dealing with a god with the tools and capabilities to literally destroy the universe and the fundamental laws of the universe itself as a next powerful threat and it just doesn’t work.
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Now I wish I had kept track of my first death on all my “adventurers” so I knew their canonical death.
This could have happened if the horde and alliance were still enemies.
One side could win or lose territories. Gain ground, lose ground. Capture leaders…
Unfortunately the my little pony gang is running the show so all we get are bickering insane women.
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I disagree with your cosmetic choice, I think RuPaul can do some make up on us and many would be very happy, this would be a fomo thing right?
If you meant “Yet it is very evident no COSMIC force…etc. etc. etc,” then I disagree again, the most giant cosmic force keeping loot hungry players at bay is Ion.
personally, I look forward to losing in the next couple of patches (11.2, 11.3) and next expansion (Midnight)
Lol. Loot hungry players like cosmetics too.
This could have happened if the horde and alliance were still enemies.
One side could win or lose territories. Gain ground, lose ground. Capture leaders…
Unfortunately the my little pony gang is running the show so all we get are bickering insane women.
Are they not still enemies to some degree?
You’re entitled to your opinion, and I respect that. What I want to say in response to it is that by very definition of the genre we aren’t given enough choice to canonically lose.
If “trusting dubious plot person A” turns out to be “wrong to the destruction of the world,” and we had no choice, that is like… the worst Dungeons and Dragons storytelling trope ever. In D&D, no DM gets a next session that says “MWAHAHA YOU FOOLS! YOU TOOK THE ONLY PATH I GAVE YOU AND THE WORLD IS DOOMED!” I know this because I did it to my highschool D&D group 30 years ago. They never forgave me. I’m lucky I kept the timeline intact to have a better run in the same continuity with my current group today.
But WoW isn’t D&D, it doesn’t have even the freedom to ask “do you trust Emet Sel’atath?” No, we are written to trust, and what happens happens, but there isn’t enough choice for us to just… lose completely. The main character is the world, not us, but they do want us to subscribe for the next expansion and “MWAHAHA! YOU FOOLS, you took the only path you were offered” is not a “win the majority back” move.
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You’d think the world ending forces would do their homework and see that Azeroth has a murder hobo squad capable of killing gods and simply attack somewhere else.
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You make a good point, but I still think that having us loose occasionally would leave us wondering if we actually might loose or win adding more suspense and mystery. Every time a major threat shows up its like"When I do get to loot this guy?"
Though one thing did to occur to me. We did kinda loose in a few places. Battle for Daz and in the Sanctum of Domination.
Battle for Daz. The Zandalari lost their leader and many soliders in battle. Mekkatorque and Jaina both got away.
Sanctum of Domination. Not a complete loss. We did destroy just about every major character there, but Jailer got what he wanted. If he had killed us right there he probably wouldn’t have been stopped.
There has also been a lot of times we’ve lost important characters or valuable assets. But I was thinking more of an expansion level loss. Like Nzoth or the Legion wins and we have no choice, but to flee.
There are ways to do “a loss,” but it does have to be done carefully. Blizzard should absolutely try to avoid “mwahaha, no choice, you lose, completely and utterly, way to go bigtime hero loser” as I mentioned above.
A “retreat” is one of the only ways to pull that off on an “end of expansion” front, but like… then you have months until midnight. You could do it as “preparing for the inevitable invasion by the void that just kicked our butt,” but again, it has to be done carefully. There isn’t enough choice in the game to truly rub our noses in a “loss” that we had no say in.
Ultimately, the “plot armor” is us having no say as to the plot, and them wanting us to continue subscribing.
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Playing since vanilla with tons of alts, my fanfic headcanon definitely has different characters interacting with different raids/zones/expansions
There’s literally only one canonical “guild” in-universe that actually exists, and it is the guild that took down Illidan… despite ironically, it being that guild that Illidan actually “defeated.”
Us as players doesn’t really exist in-universe, and only really exist as a sort of “gameplay tokens.” So… we could have an infinite amount of plot armour, but infinite times nothing is still gonna be… nothing.
We lose every time, canonically, whenever Baine shows up
In WoW’s Story, I always prefer us as the foot soldiers as to the main heroes. We take part in these events. We contribute. But, ultimately we get the equivalent of a leader’s thanks as they stand on a hill or wall, looking over a large gathering of their troops.
We can still be a well equipped soldier in that army, and can be excellent fighters, but we are not the heroes. We help the heroes.
As for losing, it is tricky. But, I think The Last Titan will be us losing. Or at least I would like so. Where there will be a timeline where we can experience everything before The Last Titian. Then there is what WoW will be come after.
I would like to see something along the lines of, a pitched battle to both save Azeroth and preventing Azeroth from hatching, as hatching would destroy us. Then exhausting all of its power Azeroth destroys the void, and in doing so destroys itself, but also sends us to a distant world far away from anything the void, or the legion or the titans or anything from WoW’s lore. And we arrive on this hostile and wild world, and have to unite the factions to survive, starting from basically nothing. All we have is our characters and what they brought with them.
And the future neighborhoods of WoW housing can reflect this.
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