I wouldn’t call this a lie but the initial presentation of the expansion seemed extremely misleading. The way I interpreted the teaser and trailer for BFA, I thought they were splitting the continents with Alliance claiming the Eastern Kingdoms and the Horde getting Kalimdor and that the faction war would be a war between factions not a MOP rehash. Although I sure this way of marketing was intentional as they were trying to surprise the player-base and I just found the pay off for that surprise disappointing.
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I’ve been working on finding exact quotes of what the devs said about the burning of Teldrassil, especially in the time before they let slip that Teldrassil happened first, and as part of that, I noticed that there was quite a lot of talk at Blizzcon 2017 about the idea of one continent per faction. I don’t know if they ever were going to actually do it or not, but they definitely were deliberately creating the expectation that it would happen.
EDIT: Look at some of the quotes below:
It kinda sounds like they had bigger plans for warfronts that didn’t happen.
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I’m presuming you’re referring to the trailers and such? Metzen has an interview up on Soundcloud where he talks about how someone came and told the story team that they were going to change things. Sylvanas was going to burn the tree for a Game of Thrones moment. So, the trailers, the preamble a year before while metzen was there, was all essentially wasted.
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Here’s a direct transcript (made by me) of a part of the developer Q&A from April 26, 2018.
http://www.wowhead.com/news=283905/liveblog-of-the-april-26-battle-for-azeroth-beta-q-a-with-ion-hazzikostas
Video only: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/254739285
Starts at 1:13:17
Q. “The intro quests on the beta are painting the Horde in a negative light. Should I be worried about my faction turning evil?”
Ion: Evil’s, you know, it’s a matter of perspective.
Josh: There’s probably a ton of Alliance players that are like, “What are you even talking about? You’ve been evil the whole time.”
Ion: No one told you? “Are we the bad guys?”* So, some have said—I think the attribution of the quote is all over the place, but—“All that is needed for evil to prosper is for the good men of the world to do nothing.” The Horde has many facets to it, and there are aspects of what the Forsaken have represented for a long time that have not necessarily been directly in line with what the Tauren represent, for example. I mean, compare the events at the Wrathgate to what you know about Tauren culture. Yet there’s been this uneasy partnership between these groups for some time. And, you know, there are similar tensions and similar discordance that we see throughout the other factions. These entities aren’t monolithic.
That said, evil—again, it’s–there’s a lot of harsh things that happen in war in general. You know, when groups are fighting for survival, at the end of the day, they resort to desperate measures when it, you know, when it comes to the choice between that and extinction. There’s a lot of story to tell going forward. I don’t want to dig too far into this, but—
Josh: Sure.
Ion: Both sides should be worried about this. I think it’s—Azeroth is a world of grey. It’s never been a world of “black or white.” I think that’s one of the things that was a defining aspect of the franchise from its earliest days, right? You looked at “Warcraft: Orcs and Humans” and the stories told in that world, and you looked at, you know, these noble, recognizable folks who look like us and these giant, green, brutish monsters and naturally might assume, “Well, okay, right, humans are are the good guys and orcs are evil because they look like monsters.” But that’s not what Warcraft is about. There’s more nuance, and that’s not changing any time soon.
*Almost certainly a reference to this comedy sketch:
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The way they consistently weasel out of answering so many questions is making me seethe. I would be fine if they just said “we don’t want to spoil the story”, even if a straight answer would be preferred.
If I wanted to be tossed sweet, incredibly vague nothings then I would turn on the news.
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Moving back to Blizzcon 2017, here are Alex Afrasiabi’s remarks from when they were still keeping some mystery about the order of Teldrassil and Undercity.
https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/blizzcon-2017-world-warcraft-battle-azeroth-panel-transcript
Alex: We are here today to talk about the Battle for Azeroth and prepare you for the coming war. Right now, we have all seen that incredible cinematic. We are from the get-go: battle lines are drawn, and what I like best about that cinematic (and it does so many things, so well) is that it reinforces the foundations of Warcraft; because whether we are fighting the Burning Legion, the Scourge, Old gods, Dragon Aspects, Elemental Lords, or yes… timetraveling Orcs, our hearts and minds are with our factions. We do what we do in this worlds, first and foremost, for the HORDE! … and for the ALLIANCE! — and that makes us the champions of Azeroth. The greatest hope the world has ever known, and also its biggest threat. But this is WoW. We don’t just get to watch awesome cinematics. We get to live them. Because to get to the Battle for Azeroth, you are going to have to go through the battle for Lordaeron.
Like the Broken Shore, we will pick up where the cinematic left off; and what goes down that day will change Warcraft history forever. Now some of you might be asking: Hey, Alex. Why would the Alliance attack the Undercity? It is a good question. It is a good question. Here is a better question: why would the Horde burn down Teldrassil?
Did Teldrassil fall first, and lead to the attack of Undercity; or was the burning of Teldrassil a response to the bold Alliance attack on Lordaeron? You will find out. Think about this: the stage is set for an Alliance-controlled Eastern Kingdoms, and a Horde-controlled Kalimdor with one great big sea separating the two continents — which leads us to our search for allies. In our quest for victory, we will seek out the Kul’Tirans as the Alliance, and the Zandalari as the Horde. Coincidentally, both of these nations have extremely powerful navies, which we are going to need to span that great sea. Let me leave you with this thought: no matter who fired the first shot, we are in an all-out war. It is our duty as Alliance, as Horde, to defend our people, our families, and our homes. This is the Battle for Azeroth.
So to recap: the Alliance and the Horde are in an all-out war. All hatreds have reignited. It is both factions strike at each other’s hearts. Now with the world divided, we seek out lost territories, and new powerful resources; and with no external threats, we turn our fury to each other. We fight for our faction’s survival, and our place in this world.
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This stuff is pretty bad. It honestly reads like they were promoting a very different xpac than what we actually got.
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Lord, what a trainwreck BFA was ROFL. This is awful to relive.
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From August 21, 2018 (about a week after BfA’s release):
https://www.pcgamesn.com/world-of-warcraft/sylvanas-garrosh
Blizzard has addressed concerns voiced by World of Warcraft players in the run up to the release of Battle for Azeroth, saying that it has no plans to repeat story beats that have been seen in previous expansions. In a presentation at Gamescom, producer Micheal Bybee says that “there are definitely other plans in store,” for both the Alliance and the Horde…
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. He says that “the key thing is that it’s all part of a story thread that we’ve had planned out for a long time. The Sylvanas burning of the tree was maybe a low moment for the Horde, and the Saurfang piece was maybe a high moment, but those are just the first couple of drum beats of a very long story that we’re telling in Battle for Azeroth.”
“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.
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Maybe they just genuinely think that the Horde and/or Sylvanas wasn’t evil in BfA?
Maybe it’s just their view of the whole situation? I’ve seen them mention it quite a lot that the Horde and Sylvanas aren’t evil, so maybe they just have a different definition of evil than most people (which obviously doesn’t make it any better, but still).
I personally feel like it’s kind of weird to have a faction start a war and commit genocide and then come out and say that they aren’t evil when they spent an entire expansion showing us the opposite, but with Shadowlands we learn that not only did they commit genocide, they also sent everyone to hell which makes their actions even worse instead of better.
Waiting for the story to play out has proven them wrong even further.
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Some tidbits from the Blizzcon 2017 fan Q&A session. Most of the questions were about gameplay, but there were a few interesting lore nuggets mixed in. All the quoted bits are from pages 2 and 3.
https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/blizzcon-2017-world-warcraft-qa-panel-transcript
https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/blizzcon-2017-world-warcraft-qa-panel-transcript
https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/blizzcon-2017-world-warcraft-qa-panel-transcript/3
(Note: I’m putting in the question about Jaina not because it feels like a lie to me, but for comparison and contrast with how they talk about Sylvanas. Also, I think it’s interesting that the questioner used the G word with regard to her and the devs didn’t correct it. Not that I think they think it’s accurate, but I think it shows that they’re happy to have players hate characters on the “other side,” even irrationally. And also, what’s that bit about “responsible for what the Horde is today”??)
Participant 14 : In the Battle of Azeroth, is Jaina actually a good guy? I mean, are we just supposed to forget the whole genocide of Dalaran?
Alex : Jaina is complicated, just like any of the other characters. She’s as evil as I am. Bad example.
Jenny : How evil are you?
Alex : As these guys. So look… if I am Jaina… as a character, Jaina is racked with regrets… looking over her past decisions and the things that she’s done, responsible for the death of her father, potentially responsible for what the Horde is today as a result of that.
What could she have done differently at Stratholme? Could she have saved Arthas? What about the Battle for Undercity? So if you could have unpacked all that, break all of those things apart, it has left a character that has some damage (and then not even speaking about Theramore). So one of the things we are going to do is explore that damage, explore those decisions with Jaina, and try to understand how she got to be the way she is, and hopefully pull her out of it.
So… no, she’s not evil. She’s conflicted, and it is something we absolutely want to explore.
Participant 17 : Hi there my name is Grant. With the Horde attacking Teldrassil, and the Alliance attacking Lordaeron, what are your plans for the starting zones in those areas, and also just some of the other leveling zones in the Eastern Kingdoms?
Alex : Starting zones are not going to change. In order to appreciate the burning of Teldrassil, you kind of have to understand what Teldrassil is first; and the wait time works in our game is that it flows by level. So you’ll still be able to start in Shadowglen, go to Dolanaar, Darnassus, Darkshore, go through all of that and then when you hit 110 — we will burn it all down.
The same thing for Lordaeron, and what happens there. You’ll still make a character in Deathknell, and go through all those cool experiences, and get to the place of a questgiver, and all the other fun stuff; and then we’ll see what happens; but once you do get to that point in Battle for Azeroth — where these events have occurred, the land around you will (of course) change; and potentially more. You know we have got a Warfront in Arathi that who knows what’ll happen there.
Jenny : Alright, another viewer would like to know: are the continents of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms completely split between the factions; and what does that mean for places like Silvermoon city and the Exodar?
Alex : Well, Silvermoon and Exodar are still Alliance and Horde respectively. Those zone boundaries are very tricky for NPCs to cross. We will have a fiction in place, obviously.
Those two are kinda the last bastions of their factions, and maybe a way in for those factions as well, and we will be sure to use them in this battle.
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Why did they feel the need to mislead us like this?I saw no sign of “gray” in this expansion’s story line.Just the Horde once again starting another pointless war after committing yet another atrocity against the Alliance before turning on itself with another pointless civil war with an evil Warchief with the Alliance helping out the “Good Horde” once again.Meanwhile the Alliance takes it’s place on it’s golden light-infused high horse to defend itself against the “unwashed savages” of the Horde.How boring.Does Blizzard truly think the Alliance is capable of doing no wrong so they have to hit the horde with the villain bat each time they fill the need to drum up faction conflict?
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lol the purge was genocide why do horde players have to make stuff up
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That’s probably a reference to the Edge of night. At least they didn’t lie about that.
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So umm Classic is looking real good after reading this. 15 years of content before hitting BFA and BFA part 2:Shadowlands
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The PR Team must of realised the expansion would be massively unpopular, but in classic Corperate fashion the guys making the crap refused to admit they might be wrong, forcing PR to work overtime.
I tend to get on most companies backs for giving PR and Marketing to much creative control, but this is a time when you really needed to listen to what they were saying. If PR is forcing you to lie about every single aspect of an expansion in order to keep hype, maybe you should rewrite it.
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This always seems to preclude really, really bad story decisions in recent shows.
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Movies, comics and games too.
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You mean the desire to get a “Game of Thrones” moment is what drives bad story? If so, I definitely agree.
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“So BFA WON’T end up with a Horde Civil War between ‘honorable’ and ‘dishonorable’ factions, the Alliance joining forces with the ‘Honorable Horde’ in attacking an Ogrimmar held by the ‘Dishonorable Horde’ that results in the Evil Warchief being overthrown, who then retreats to an alternate reality where, in the hunt for the Evil Warchief and their new allies, we’ll encounter old characters who were killed off in past games/expansions? Good to know!”
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