A great end to a great expansion. At the end we see Bolvar take up the mantle of lich king knowing we truly didn’t defeat our enemy. Until slyvanas but that’s gonna be a thing https://youtu.be/qAIrj_Vqdfc. But seriously it was haunting
God, this posts just makes me realize just how god awful the story of Shadowlands really is.
11 Likes
Just arthas words I see only darkness made me realize that his suffering had only begun and I think Terenas knew it too
1 Like
The absolute copium about this whole thing blows my mind to be honest. This idea that it is all Afrasabi’s fault simply does not add up and does not pass the sniff test. 10.0 lore is probably still going to be awful… the best we can and should hope for is simply a return to class flavor and a less cosmic setting, and hopefully a setting that is visually pleasing and creates proper justification for us to fight big spooky monsters. I don’t expect the new writers to create anything in the vein of WC3 Arthas or WC3 Illidan, and while that’s a bummer, that doesn’t have to be the end of the world, as long as the writers know their place and let their bad writing take a back seat to fantasy adventure.
5 Likes
Actually it really does, when you care to think about it.
Alex Afrasiabi was the creative director leading all the way up to his firing in 2021. He’s gone on record to state that he’s ‘personally’ written Sylvanas for years, even stating that she was responsible for the Wrathgate, despite the fact that the story being told at the time was that she wasn’t responsible.
Steve Danuser took over as narrative lead in May 2019. Prior to that he was a senior game designer focusing on developing quests. So all the BFA 9.0, 9.1 and most of the 9.2 content had already been developed and was ready to go before he got in a position to actually change the narrative.
The damage was pretty much done to Sylvanas’s character at that point, so he had to pick up the pieces while Alex got quietly tossed to the curb for his behaviour.
1 Like
The problem with Sylvanas isn’t that she’s bad. The problem with Sylvanas is this ham-fisted attempt to redeem her which is certainly Danuser’s doing. Characters can be good, characters can be bad, we’re fine with it either way - the problem is having a character do something bad, and then a new writer coming in and insisting she’s good (and wasting the majority of an expansion’s narrative budget to do so). Danuser needed to just swallow the pill and accept what Afrasabi had written and built off on it. The Last Jedi happened, you do not, YOU DO NOT try to Rise of Skywalker it.
3 Likes
She’s not getting redeemed, so like, can we stop repeating that BS? Thanks.
She’s literally stated that she must be held accountable for her actions, that her crimes are unforgivable, and we have datamined voice lines which state that she will ‘face the judgement of Tyrande Whisperwind’ so no, she’s not ‘being redeemed’ in any way, shape or form.
1 Like
I agree with all this for reasons I stated in another thread.
It’s pretty damn obvious to me that the people responsible for this cinematic and this one were not in agreeance. When you watch them back to back they make zero sense.
1 Like
Steve danseur is lead narrative writer so yes he’s at fault. No I still hate Afansbi but it’s blatantly obvious that Steve danseur was not right person for job. Oh don’t spew your lie that you study game design either. Also explained why wowhead an official source is calling this model https://youtu.be/SNQ1wogzdVo a redeemed slyvanas. Oh and we all know what blizzard did sneaking this in with elune saying choose vengeance or forgiveness
3 Likes
We largely know that Danuser is forcing Tyrande to let Sylvanas go to wander the Maw searching for Nathanos. Letting her freely roam the Maw is not the same as punishing her, Sylvanas is doing that by choice.
Danuser is subverting the ‘will of the character’ so to speak to force his way on her to get what he wants. It’s pretty awful, and if we’re mad at Afrasabi for doing what he wants with Sylvanas (even though Afrasabi was authentic to the character), we should be more mad at Danuser because Tyrande has no in-universe reason to forgive Sylvanas prior to this expansion attempting to retcon Tyrande into a pacifist.
Side-note: Even if you want to “call it even” with Sylvanas/Tyrande and accept that poor writing, Zovaal is pretty much objectively garbage and he’s pretty fully in the hands of Danuser.
2 Likes
Don’t bother caraghen is a known troll. He knows damn well people were speculating all the way back in wrath if slyvanas really did the wrathgate
1 Like
Seriously though. Like aside from them retconning the great lore by forcefully jamming the Jailor behind so much of it, like an angry toddler in denial about it not fitting – they also ‘corrupted’ Anduin with undeath crap which somewhat ruins the foreshadowing they’d been building up on him by being taken in by the void.
I think the thing I hate the most about the Shadowlands though, is how entropic it all is, and somewhat also how robotic & synthetic it all is too.
- Robotic & Synthetic: There’s a lot of robot / automaton / synthetically created creatue stuff for a place that’s meant to be the afterlife and beyond all that stuff…
. - Entropic: Ghosts and the undead are meant to be eternal and not require sustenance (Which has also been referenced quite a lot of times by ghosts in WoW) yet the Shadowlands expansion is taking an extra-spicy-burrito dump on all of that - and saying not only are they not eternal but souls also feed on anima like the land of the Shadowlands does.
I mean why bother calling the denizens of Azeroth ‘Mortals’ when they’re all essentially long-lived mortals themselves. The entropic design of the Shadowlands removed a colossally high mystical wonder away from the game for many others & myself.
Only way I see that being redeemed is if the Jailor pulls a 'Souls don’t die in the Shadowlands, they’re reincarnated or are claimed by ‘the spirit vault’ - I seek to claim the sigils and unleash the vault!’ in which case it’d make stuff so much more understandable, along with kind of respecting him more as a villain too - especially the motives to why Sylvanas joined him in the first place. Then just have the covenant leaders oppose against it via explaining “The souls unleashed from the spirit vault may not just reemerge whole in the Shadowlands - but across all realms - including yours!” (Big reset button for many villains and new storylines too). I’d be ecstatic with that.
1 Like
I still have a hard time believing that folks can feel genuinely invested in any portion of WoW’s story or cast. Now excuse me, I have to go watch my stories.
Not Saying it’s really good like ff14 but the story was enjoyable enough that people enjoyed it and there was a community for it
Again, Steve Danuser is picking up the pieces, attempting, as best as he can, to correct the massive mistakes Afrasiabi signed off on while he was still a quest designer.
And yes, I did study game design, for several years in fact. It’s not a lie and it never has been, so get over yourself and your ego.
Look at the date that video went live genius.
We don’t know anything about that actually, nothing has been datamined with respect to what is going to happen between Sylvanas and Tyrande.
Yeah I did look at the date why is it called redeem slyvanas genius.
If you had, you’d know it was released on April 1st.
As in it’s a bloody April Fools joke.
Wowhead literally puts out a bunch of stuff like this every year, on April 1st, to mess with the fans.
There is an animation added in 9.2 of Sylvanas jumping into the Maw. Hard to imagine any reason for that other than her jumping into the Maw for Nathanos.
Yes April fools day looks aligned with this model. Doesn’t help that the story has been leading up to tyrande forgiving slyvanas or did you forget that too in your genius wisdom carhagen
Again, it’s an April fools joke. There is no ‘redeemed Sylvanas model’.
And we already know the model that Sylvanas is using in 9.2, it’s this one:
You’re wrong. Try again.