Hope for the story

[Karserd-ragnaros (Karserd)]

I was reading about interviews that had to do with how they make their story and i found this interview.

WoW’s game director responds to Battle for Azeroth’s night elf genocide drama and rocky pre-patch

(sry you will have to google, i cant post links if anyone can please do)

it talks about the burning of teldrassil and the old soldier cinematic, it seems they had plans for the old soldier cinematic to be a gotcha moment and was supposed to make the horde feel different (better?) about teldrassil providing some context, that THAT was not the horde, personally i was still angry about teldrassil and getting a cinematic about how an orc felt was offensive but perhaps the larger portion of the playerbase really felt reassured? honestly this makes me feel im not the target audience.

Is there any concensus in that? did most of the horde felt reassured with that cinematic? and do we have a way to know?

they also spoke about this.

Speaking of tricks, one thing I noticed is how many people felt like the Burning of Teldrassil was supposed to be this big mystery. People expected a twist and felt like Blizzard set it up that way. Going back and watching some older developer Q&As, though, I couldn’t find much evidence of that. What happened there, from your perspective?

Hazzikostaks: On the internet, as this giant game of telephone to some extent, things can definitely take on a life of their own. At Blizzcon 2017, I remember Alex Afrasiabi teed up the question of who struck first: The Burning of [Teldrassil] or the assault on Lordaeron? But that was before alpha. That was at the very initial announcement of Battle for Azeroth. From the time the game was in alpha, beta, and beyond, the order of events was manifestly clear through the contents within the game.

At the same time, it ties back to a little bit of potential cognitive dissonance. People have an emotional attachment and you don’t want to think the worst. You want to think there might be some other explanation than one that you find personally unappealing because it’s uncomfortable. But sometimes storytelling is uncomfortable.

Personally i was practically praying that it wasnt the obvious…so it falls in line with what they said but… it wasnt a big mistery for me it and after the fact it was more like they were lying to my face about it.

perhaps i just want to know about other players reactions so i can either have a little bit of hope for the story or just discard it all together.

[Jellex-wyrmrest-accord (Jellex)]

Pretty much every interview they’ve done on the state of the BfA story has been PR damage control.

I don’t believe a bit of it.

[Sarm-malganis (Sarm)]

It actually further embittered me. Saurfang was someone that already had an implied arc of “never again will I do this” by the time he became a real character, and he already looked kinda bad by not doing more during MoP. BFA doing this by having him play the part of “repentant war criminal” made me wish Saurfang had just gone off and killed himself after all.

The Stormwind Extraction scenario just made it worse, because I felt like the game was telling the player that you’re worse than him despite never having a real option in the story to disassociate with it.

[Droité-black-dragonflight]

I never take Dev interviews seriously, its all damage control or obfuscation. Like, truly, even if it wouldn’t have created a more enjoyable Horde player experience … how easy would it have been to simply shift the lens on the BfA story to one of Entrapment? One where the WoT as an independent event was justified due to the Alliance actions proceeding it, but Teldrassil was not … and rather a tool to trap the Horde into following her as long as she could use them?

Frankly, very easily. Still not a great experience to be in as a Horde player, but it would have created a better story overall; using largely many of the same story beats that already existed. However, Blizz, as afraid as they were about the backlash from MoP2.0 … decided to throw even this bare minimum “out” away to ensure the “surprise” of Sylvie’s betrayal remained a surprise. This story absolutely was MoP/Garrosh 2.0, they just lied about it for two years.

Any “optimism” I might have in the story moving forward comes from what they do with Thrall, Baine, and Vol’jin in Shadowlands. If we Horde players are stuck only these three as our reps, then Blizz better give them all the long, long overdue growth all of them need. If they’re just there to be token Horde characters that are easy to write, to give off the impression that a story not written to be inclusive to the Horde faction is actually inclusive … yeah … screw it.

[Anyaceltica-llane (Anyaceltica)]

Dev interviews have only validated that they are clueless about what their fans want and are merely shooting from the hip to see what sticks.

[Karserd-ragnaros (Karserd)]

i read on an interview that they want to cross the line of “too awesome” with big moments then reel back in, i dont think this approach is working, but then im just 1 person… for all i know everyone else is eating this story like a lay’s bag on a birthday party.

[Pellex-hyjal (Pellex)]

Here’s the link, by the way–not clickable, but you can cut and paste:

https://www.pcgamer.com/wows-game-director-responds-to-battle-for-azeroths-elf-genocide-drama-and-rocky-pre-patch/

(Just put a ` symbol on each side of the link to make it show up in a post like this.)

This interview annoyed the heck out of me at the time.

Ion blaming all the speculation on players strikes me as a little bit disingenuous. If they didn’t want that to happen, it was in their power to steer people away from the idea. I mean, in that infamous interview from April 2018, Travis Day danced around not saying “Yeah, Sylvanas did it,” in such a way that it seemed deliberate:

@Pellex-hyjal

I remember there being discussion at the time about his little cheat of saying “You’ll come to the conclusion that Sylvanas burned the tree.” It seemed like a very deliberate hint that things wouldn’t be the way they appeared, especially since he preceded that by saying it would be “open to debate.” So this was part of what stoked the theories about anyone but Sylvanas being responsible, although as I recall, those theories had been going strong since Blizzcon.

What were they afraid would happen if they just came out and said “Sylvanas did it, but you’ll have to wait to see why”? Why were they more afraid of that than of what would happen if they sprung it on players as a surprise?

[Jellex-wyrmrest-accord (Jellex)]

@Karserd-ragnaros

You want to think there might be some other explanation than one that you find personally unappealing because it’s uncomfortable. But sometimes storytelling is uncomfortable.

Also, grabbing this because it makes me laugh.

Blizzard has clearly shown they’re only willing to make certain groups of players uncomfortable, and not others.

[Xamantul-ragnaros]

@Anyaceltica-llane

Dev interviews have only validated that they are clueless about what their fans want and are merely shooting from the hip to see what sticks.

They’re clueless about what the guy right next to them is writing because questing vs overall arc is really day and night levels of difference and if we take account stupid things like shoe-horning titan stuff everywhere.

[Marrth-illidan]

@Karserd-ragnaros

it talks about the burning of teldrassil and the old soldier cinematic, it seems they had plans for the old soldier cinematic to be a gotcha moment and was supposed to make the horde feel different (better?) about teldrassil providing some context,

The arc of the story for Horde, based purely on what was done via cinematic and speculation would thus be: 1) Win a victory (player feels smug). 2) Get slapped down a peg and realize that was a bad thing to do. (Old soldier) 3) Come together as players to right the initial wrong. (“Horde is nothing”). Would have been an emotional rollercoaster on the order of ATLA Zuko.

Except…the players that pay attention to the story skipped step one and knew they were in the wrong. So instead of one slap, the devs used double slap…and it hit multiple times…

[Karserd-ragnaros (Karserd)]

Yea well… for some reason they’re acting as if all the playerbase was dumbfounded and amazed when they watched old soldier.

it looks really bad as if theyre just posturing for the sake of not losing face… or maybe we’re the only ones that give a damn about the story.

[Pellex-hyjal (Pellex)]

@Marrth-illidan

The arc of the story for Horde, based purely on what was done via cinematic and speculation would thus be: 1) Win a victory (player feels smug). 2) Get slapped down a peg and realize that was a bad thing to do. (Old soldier) 3) Come together as players to right the initial wrong. (“Horde is nothing”).

Honestly, if that was their intent, I feel like that’s a really dangerous (as in extremely likely to backfire) storyline for a video game. Assuming you can direct a large playerbase through some pretty subtle reactions is arrogant at best.

[Borcan-gurubashi]

Although i haven’t convinced anyone here. My interpretation of the cinematic is that there was a mystery and Sylvanas didn’t burned the tree. I am waiting 2 years to see if I am correct.

[Faranoth-nordrassil]

You’re right, you’ve convinced noone.

[Borcan-gurubashi]

You are wrong. I have convinced one in the European forums. Not much but its a start.

[Marrth-illidan]

@Karserd-ragnaros

Yea well… for some reason they’re acting as if all the playerbase was dumbfounded and amazed when they watched old soldier.

Honestly its probably a bit of confirmation bias. A lot on this forum recognized it being MoP 2.0, however there are probably a number of people that truly thought this story was revolutionary. I’m trying to be nice, but these are also the ones that don’t understand some Sylvanas supporters did it out of pure spite for the story. Wouldn’t be surprised if those were the people catered to after the initial backlash.

@Pellex-hyjal

I feel like that’s a really dangerous (as in extremely likely to backfire) storyline for a video game.

Especially for an MMORPG. You could probably do it easier with it in a different genre. I’m not mad they tried though. Just disappointed that I see the same…issues…happening again.