I think I just have this mental image of someone going “you think YOU have problems? I was compared to gay people!” without realizing what they’re saying and it resulting in a total thread meltdown. After what we’ve seen with the gay threads that have been punted into this forum, I don’t exactly have high expectations. 
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The rampant homophobia that Blizz could have chosen not to air still steams me to this day, yeah.
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Yeah, I understand. Would never be my intention.
I feel like the entire BFA announcement was settled in a full on faction war an I wanted it to be like for almost the entire of it
But as time goes on after launch, we have strayed away from this Faction war after Battle of Dazar’alor with us fighting Azshara and N’zoth and during Blizzcon of 2017 I heard it was purely advertised as this faction war, nothing else.
And now we get this MoP rehash, One of the Horde characters doesn’t like what Sylvanas was doing, they seek help to the alliance to try to form a rebellion, after BoD the rest of the horde leaders learned what Sylvanas is doing and eventually we get this one sided story again, Alliance didn’t do anything questionable while the horde did something questionable which is similar how it went in MoP. After that we just teamed up to kill a most powerful mage and an old god.
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The only thing that makes me hesitate on that theory is that these interviews are from a time when most of this stuff should have been firmed up already. Christie Golden has said that the Warbringers shorts were “well into production” by May of 2017, when started working for Blizzard. (Source: Tweet of July 31, 2018, screenshotted here: https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/38795-christie-golden-didnt-write-warbringers/).
Now, the possibility should be considered that whatever version of Warbringers was in production in May 2017 was scrapped and heavily rewritten before it was actually released at the end of July 2018. It’s possible. If so, though, why didn’t they have her work on the new version? She was responding to someone who wanted to congratulate her if she did write it, so she was being encouraged to publicize her involvement if she did have some. (Frankly, I suspected her of having a hand in the dialogue at the time because Sylvanas in the video sounded so much like Sylvanas of the novels, but Golden denies it.)
I can’t see how to square Warbringers: Sylvanas, at least the one we have, with the April 5, 2018, comments about how she’s supposedly not evil. By the time they were making the rounds and talking up this morally grey faction war, they were less than four months away from dropping the reveal that yep, she did burn the tree, and it wasn’t for any sort of understandable or even misguided reason. We know that communication behind the scenes at Blizzard isn’t all that great, but that would be a pretty spectacular fail. (Which doesn’t mean it’s impossible, I admit.)
The only other explanation I can think of is … rather nastily manipulative. In November 2018, Alex Afrasiabi gave the “masterplan” interview, in which he talked quite a lot about Sylvanas. (This was the one where he implied that Sylvanas planned the Wrathgate, a statement which has not been completely walked back since then.)
https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2018-11-08-world-of-warcraft-and-the-masterplan-for-sylvanas
Among other things, he said this:
“That was really our goal with Sylvanas, to create enough plausible deniability in the actions she’s committed where she can still have a fanbase, where she could still have people supporting her actions and saying, ‘Well of course she’s doing that for the Horde.’”
I don’t like to think that they just sent people out on interview tours to lie about Sylvanas’s motivations, but that quote about creating plausible deniability does, unfortunately, raise the possibility in my mind.
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Here’s a thought, though.
Why are they called “Warbringers” at all? Jaina’s short reads like it tracks exactly with what we are saying about how the story was supposed to be closer to morally grey. Indeed, its contents are seeming to shape up how Jaina might come to be an antagonist to the Horde and has a hand in starting things up - that she’s learned from her father’s (warmongering) legacy and is ready to take it up herself. In fact, I think it supports our claim, Pellex - Warbringers: Jaina is an artifact of the “original” storyline, and Golden says it was far along in development when she joined. Too far along, then, to change.
Now let’s say we’re Blizzard and have made the decision to do this complete storyline change. Now we’re pretty close to a deadline crunch, and we’re changing everything around to support this storyline change. To make all-new Warbringers animations is impossible, so we cut our losses and work as efficiently as possible. If we can only change one of the cinematics, we’ll change Sylvanas’, because she’s going to be the key figure going forward. In addition, Sylvanas’ animated short has a place in the story that neither of the other two do, like it replaced something that was meant to be a different scene or cinematic and ended up serving double duty. Jaina and Azshara’s cinematics were used as “hype” shorts - Sylvanas’ was used in the game.
I’d say that Sylvanas’ Warbringers short was the one that got rewritten and the others were left as-is. I still think my theory adds up.
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Jaina’s also probably the one that had the most concrete work put into it.
If you want to rewrite Sylvanas’s short, you repaint some new frames and record some new spoken lines, and maybe plunk in some more snippets from the expansion’s soundtrack.
If you want to rewrite Jaina’s short, you need to get the orchestra back in the concert hall to record a new featured song all over again.
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I find it odd when people say it’s just that we ‘feel’ lied to. But it’s not that we feel lied to. It’s that we were lied to. It’s not a potential feeling, but an actual fact.
My thoughts on the following on the moreorless statements made by Blizzard:
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"Sylvanas won’t be evil, and definately won’t be a Garrosh 2.0" - Welp, that was a load of Kodo dung aye?
.
.
. - "This expansion for both factions, will definitely be morally grey." Again, yet another lie. It wasn’t morally grey at all! - It was so charcoal black, the Black Empire were asking for their colours back and had to squeeze in the last patch of the expansion to make a statement.
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What a positive and necessary thread!
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It is 100% necessary. Blizzard lied to us and took advantage of our good natured will. “Wait and see.” We waited. We saw. And it was worse than what we had expected from what we had already seen.
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Sadly, I agree with the OP. When the cinematic released I was excited. It seemed to show exactly what players wanted. Those who were more Horde leaning would finally have a powerful Warchief and characters that they could be proud of while having a chance to fight the Alliance without being the villain (at long last). Those who favored the Alliance (myself among them) would have the chance to see our faction go on the offensive for a change and do so honorably. Unfortunately, the expansion that was show cased in the opening cinematic was not the one players experienced.
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That was the expansion Chris Metzen envisioned. I think there is a very real chance Afrasiabi and Danuser were jealous at how positive and exciting the reaction to Metzen’s trailer was, that they decided they could do even better and re-wrote the entire expansion.
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I hope Sylvanas gets a redemption arc so that all her haters will be seething with agony.
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Nobody, absolutely nobody:
Forum troll:
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Unfortunately, he’s right. Blizzard hasn’t once said she’s the enemy. They’ve implied she’s the leader of the Maw Covenant. They also said we’d understand her motives.
She’s Kerrigan. She’s going to replace the Arbiter. Bolvar or Nathanos will replace the Jailer. probably Bolvar, but I’m hopeful it’s Natty Ice because I like Bolvar more.
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They can redeem her all they want, a general rule is still that ends don’t justify the means. If that was the case, why even kill villains off in the end? I mean most of them are heroes in their own story.
Redeeming Sylvanas would probably an all time low point in wow writing considering how much effort they put into making her evil, how many characters they killed off, humiliated or destroyed just for her. Same with zones and cities.
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Preaching to the choir. Sylvanas has achieved more evil than Arthas and Sargeras by damning the entire universe to hell.
They did it with Illidan. They did it with Kerrigan. They are doing it on the beta servers with Kael’thas. Everything is possible with Blizzard.
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It won’t be a redemption it will be a “Shadowlands is free!” moment.
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Tell me more about juvenile behavior.
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