"I Feel Lied To," Post-BfA Version

Lore Story Forum
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I can kinda see the in-character argument that if the Horde stayed there, even if they kept taking horrendous losses, for long enough for the Alliance to finish off Gul’dan and seal the portal, then the Horde and the whole world (of Warcraft) would have had less losses overall. (And that’s why the Alliance is angry, because they feel they could have finished it there if the Horde stayed.)

Buuuuut, since Legion didn’t showcase that the rest of the world was in danger and limited the “biggest invasion ever” to some never-before-seen-but-actually-contains-active-night-elf-holdings-for-some-reason islands in the middle of the ocean, it really doesn’t feel like the failure at the Broken Shore was catastrophic, and therefore doesn’t make the Horde’s retreat seem that impactful one way or another.

For me, personally, I didn’t even think it could be seen as a betrayal until some Blizzard even later when the spokesperson walked on stage and went “Alliance, you didn’t forget that betrayal at the Broken Shore” and my reaction was “Wait, did I miss something? What’s he talking about?”

Like someone else in this thread mentioned, this situation feels like one where Blizz is talking about the complete story that they planned, rather than the expansion-mechanics-limited story that was actually presented to players.

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In-character, absolutely, I can see how that was set up, and it makes sense. My question was more directed at Arlifrex, who said that even after seeing the Horde’s side of the Broken Shore that it doesn’t change the “betrayal” argument, which is honestly very confusing to me. That’s not an in-character perspective, that’s a “meta” player’s perspective of having complete information.

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There are players who felt the horde should’ve stood their ground, or found a way to signal a retreat to the alliance. It’s not what I believe, but those are the arguments I’ve seen.

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Some of it does get weird when factoring in the meta arguments, and deciding how deep down the rabbit hole to go with them.

Did the Horde think that the Alliance could finish Gul’dan and close the portal, or that this was useless? When Vol’jin told Sylvanas not to let “the Horde die here”, was it meant to imply that he thinks the whole battle is fruitless and to stop throwing troops into the grinder for nothing (a big stretch to call a betrayal), or was it intentionally leaving the possible interpretation of to “yeah, we could stop the demon invasion here and now even if it requires sacrificing ourselves, but the Horde faction wouldn’t do well, so let’s get out of here and let everyone else take the hit on the nose, too” (not a stretch to call a betrayal).

And then, deeper into the meta: We as players know the Alliance can’t win (defeat Gul’dan and close the portal) at that battle, because the expansion has to happen or players will complain about a lack of content, but does that by itself mean we can or can’t make the argument that they could have won if the Horde covered them for just a bit longer?

Can we argue about all the destruction the Legion caused across the world, and whether the loss at the Broken Shore (which may or may not be blamed on the Horde depending on earlier argument outcomes) caused all that, when the only information we have about non-Broken Isles invasions are a post-content comic about missing-in-Legion-Jaina fighting some demons elsewhere?

And, of course, even further into the meta: How much can/should we even speculate about events when Blizzard contorts, deletes, or rewrites whole sections of the universe’s underlying logic, events, characterizations, etc on a whim? How much can we trust post-facto dev comments of “the Horde betrayed the Alliance at the Broken Shore” vs the in-game experience which is more of “the Horde were not team players, sure, but betrayers”? If the two contradict each other, do we throw the whole in-game event out, or try to adapt it to fit the new-canon/retcon overview?

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From Before the Storm, Sylvanas and Anduin meeting shortly before the Gathering:

" Do not let da Horde die dis day.

It was a direct command from her warchief. And it was the right one. The Alliance effort below, valiant as it was, was dependent on Horde’s assistance. If the Horde would retreat now, Varian’s army would fall.
But if the Horde stayed and fought, then both armies would fall.

Sylvanas had closed her eyes, each option unacceptable for her, but she made the only choice she could: obeying the will of the warchief, who later would die from the poisoned spear and, to everyone’s astonishment, appoint Sylvanas Windrunner as leader of the Horde.

She lifted the horn to her lips and sounded the retreat. She had told no one of the regret she had felt when, standing on the stern of her ship, she beheld the green smoke of the explosion below, where Varian had fallen, and wondered if she was watching the final, excrutiating moments of a mighty warrior.

Sylvanas would tell no one of that now, either.
But as she stood before the young king, she could see traces of his father in him that had come with the last few years. Not just physically, in Anduin’s increased height and more muscled physique, or even in the strong line of a determined jaw. She saw Varian in his bearing.

Did you betray my father?

Later, she would question her choice in responding. But in this moment she had no desire to offer falsehood.
“Varian Wrynn’s destiny was set in stone, Little Lion. The Legion’s numbers would have seen to that whatever choice I made that day.”

His blue eyes searched hers for the lie. He found none. Something about him relaxed ever so slightly. He nodded."

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Gah, why is this stuff always stuffed away in books?

A few optional NPC lines of dialogue in-game wouldn’t be too much work to add, would it?

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Because only the book authors can tell a coherent story most of the time.

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No, but it’s easier for them to sell us all the retcons when it’s only in the books which most people don’t read anyway…

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Vol’jin dying was at least part of hers and the Jailer’s plan…somehow. Even though she herself said she didn’t even want to be Warchuef in Before the Storm, but- hey look at the shiny new zones!

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Agreed, especially the part where these two admittedly Alliance-leaning devs characterize Horde players as saying “To hell with [the Alliance], let them die.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Horde player say that; I won’t say no one ever has, but I wouldn’t call it the dominant attitude of Horde players as a group. It’s been more like “We had to get out of there or get slaughtered, and in a couple more minutes, they were going to realize that too.”

Yeah, I’ve definitely seen both “The Horde should have stayed on the ridge until the last man [woman, orc, troll, etc.] was slaughtered” and “The Horde should have sent a messenger to inform the Alliance that they were retreating (and why) before they blew the horn to announce that they were retreating.”

I thought the point was that the Legion had only part of their forces visible, so they would look like a beatable target, and then they let the Alliance think they were winning so they’d charge forward. Then the Legion brought in the rest of their army that had been lying in wait and showed their true numbers/power.

That’s fair, but I think it’s also fair to say that the story achieved a basic minimum level of coherence in the Metzen era that it doesn’t have now.

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I wonder if Anduin relayed that to the rest of the Alliance. And if he did, how many even believed it. “I looked into the mass murderer’s eyes and knew she was telling the truth” isn’t the most persuadable argument for people not named Anduin Wrynn.

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Well, Anduin had also Baine’s description of the situation which he did believe as well.
As for Sylvanas words, of course he could not know for sure, but the way it was written, including her inner thoughts, it was definitely not a lie on her part.

Then again, they retconned almost all of her inner monologue in BTS so there’s that.

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I’m not doubting the truthfulness of the situation. I played both sides of the Broken Shore when it first went live, and retcon-happy dev comments aside, I agree entirely with Sylvanas’ description of it. Both sides were doomed from the get go. I’m just wondering how many people in-universe would believe her as easily as Anduin did, IF Anduin relayed the story.

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Reading some of these interviews is difficult. My eyes take in the words but my brain goes to sleep from the non-answers.

I think this is a bit interesting:

Asked what players think, he responds with a polite version of the devs reactions.

And that last bit, essentially:

So it’s going to be Horde vs Alliance again?

No. It’s Alliance vs Horde.

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Good question, we’ll never know now. He told it to Genn right afterwards and Genn did not believe it, and apparently he refrained from telling anyone else, especially after what happened at the Gathering.

What just makes me so angry is that some players still believe that she lied ( or want to believe it ) and that Blizzard plays right into their hands with statements like “Has the alliance forgotten about the betrayal at the Broken Shore?” or the big revelation at the Shadowlands announcement that it was seemingly Sylvanas’ and the Jailer’s plan all along and made perfect sense in retrospect, instead of just being a shameless retcon on their part.

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I mean, how can you really believe her words or thoughts? She was already working for an extra-dimensional monster at this point, but that never comes into her mind. As players, how do you make sense of stuff that is ambiguous at the time but then is turned into something else years later. The storytelling is getting offensive at this point.

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The second I found out that Sylvanas had lied in her thought bubbles, I decided I’d never buy an out of game piece of Blizzard merchandise again.

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Then yeah, I guess the only question that remains is who did Anduin share this fact with. I assume he let the leaders of the Alliance know. But I’m not sure this really changed anything at all since shortly after, Sylvanas would go on to burn down Teldrassil, erasing any ounce of goodwill she may have built up.

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When Delaryn said “You made life your enemy” they told us that its a war against the living and placed Alliance and Horde in the same camp.

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Next up is an interview that isn’t exactly a feels-like-a-lie, but is interesting nonetheless. This is from Blizzcon 2019, and I could only find this Reddit summary link for it (thanks again to Etheldald):

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/9usbtb/rwow_blizzcon_interview/

  • The big picture arc is definitely laid out well in advance (months/years)
  • [Re: Tides of Vengeance cinematic] “…Horde players will have a questline where they are tracking down what became of Saurfang, and Alliance players will learn his mysterious escape from – one of the Horde heroes right in their midst. And try to understand how that happened, how does…the Horde escape from under the nose of the Alliance…”
  • “As creators of the story, there’s more than paying attention to what the community thinks of the story you’re telling and what is effective and what isn’t, what resonates emotionally. I think–Alex Afrasiabi, our creative director, has spoken on this a number of times in the last couple months and a part of telling a story involves invoking emotional highs and lows and there are some things that are deliberately meant to be a little bit frustrating - a little bit upsetting to some.”
  • Goes on to reference Game of Thrones, regarding emotional response and people saying “I’m never watching this again” after certain episodes - that emotional response is something they look for, but they have to balance highs and lows.
  • When they release content on the PTR and players are confused about storylines, that’s when they’re more likely to take feedback in real time and change things. Ultimately they feel that they need to trust creative impulses within the team and be story-focused, but they do listen to feedback.

My takeaways:

  • The “big picture” is laid out well in advance, but that might be something as simple as “Sylvanas goes big evil.”
  • Whatever happened to that bit about Alliance players learning of Saurfang’s escape? Did that ever actually happen? It kind of sounds like they were supposed to learn about it as a result of the Horde PC trying to track him down (i.e., the Horde PC would be the “Horde hero in their midst”).
  • DId they seriously think the events of BfA would only be a little bit frustrating or upsetting? The downplay is breathtaking.
  • The desire to be Game of Thrones is veeeeeery strong. And this was after the widely-hated last season. Is that why they decided to make Sylvanas “big evil”? Were they thinking, “Hey, everyone loves to hate Cersei Lannister, so let’s make Sylvanas our Cersei”–without taking into account the fact that longtime players had already formed opinions about Sylvanas that didn’t necessarily line up with how they felt about Cersei?
  • DId they actually believe the highs and lows of BfA were balanced?
  • I notice they only talk about changing things on the PTR when players are confused, not when players hate a storyline.
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