If you were Dictator at Blizzard

Lore Story Forum
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I can’t tell you how bummed I felt hoping for the battle for taurajo/siege of mulgore warfront. They had already placed the warfront music files there and everything. I just don’t get why BFA had to veer off into nagas and then old gods. Why couldn’t they just stick to a horde vs alliance war.

If I had a time machine and dictatorship over blizzard, BFA would have been one giant world war with sylvanas causing as much death and destruction all over azeroth as she possibly could. Using cunning, manipulation, false flags etc to drag the horde and the alliance into a war of annihilation. With minor story arcs about war, retaliation, refugees, war effort missions, etc for the whole patch cycle. Battle for Azeroth is kinda funny. You would think it would have been a global war all over azeroth and not just on 2 islands. And certainly not switch over to nagas and then old gods. This is why hard core raiders shouldn’t be your lead creative team. Its obvious they screwed the whole expansion up because they wanted different raids other than horde v alliance.

And then instead of shadowlands, Rise of the Lich Queen where she puts on the helmet instead of breaking it, and raises all the death she caused into a giant army and takes over a winterized lordaeron, plaguelands, Quelthalas, blood elf zones etc. A redo of all of those zones with a massively changed climate. And, since the undead have comitted such treason against the horde, a third playable evil faction including all of the races of the horde/alliance as risen undead. Horde, Alliance, and Undead as the factions going forward. And at the end of the expansion, we don’t defeat them. She stays as the faction leader of the rogue and evil undead faction, with borders drawn up and an armistace declared.

That would be real player choice. Do undead players stick with their race, or perhaps they are given a choice to heal their ailment and revert back to humans of the alliance. The horde certainly wouldnt allow any undead or humans in their ranks after these events.

Would have been so much cooler than the mess we got in shadowlands.

So…How would you change wow if you were in Big Bobby’s shoes. You have final authority for everything. Post your daydreams here.

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Lich Queen Sylvanas was the direction I thought they were going in BFA too. I had thought that since the end of WoLK when Afrasabi told the audience at Blizzcon she had the shards of Frostmourne. So much wasted potential.

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Yea, instead they blew up their whole lore and messed with the cosmology of the Wow universe. Any attempt at dealing with the afterlife is a mistake and they should have been smart enough to not go near it.

Lich Queen would have been a much better direction. AND they could have had an echo of Arthas in the helmet to play out that storyline in a better way too.

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If I had the say, I’d have probably vetoed the Sylvanas villain path. Refocus BfA as being more of a natural rather then manufactured conflict (or just make it N’zoth to tie the whole story together) no burning of teldrassil either, since that whole thing was largely a waste from the word go.
Shadowlands without the focus on Anduin and Sylvanas, forcing them to give Zovaal an actually interesting character rather then the deep voiced generic super evil. Probably constrain Shadowlands as well so it just takes place largely in a more varied patchwork realms-style Maw (since the idea that Zovaal formed it from pieces of other realms falling in is kinda interesting if it wasn’t all dull grey and brown). No need to really explain how death works fully outside the Maw, so we don’t quite have the same level of contradiction that we currently have.

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If I had a time machine…

You would have started as an adventurer affiliated with your racial capital, but you could change your affiliation over the course of leveling up. Only by flagging for World PvP would cities become auto-hostile to you (or if you took a lot of quests that dropped your reputation with those cities).

The Alliance would only be in Azeroth the continent: Stormwind, Ironforge, Gnomeregan Exiles, and Quel’Danas Exiles.

The Horde would only be Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Darkspear, and Bilgewater.

There would be a third playable faction of the Forsaken, consisting of Lordaeron, Silvermoon, Worgen, and the Draenei Exiles that we now call the Broken.

And a fourth playable faction of the Kal’dorei and their allies, consisting of the Hyjal Exodus, rethought Centaurs (Maraudon), rethought Quilboar (Razorfen), and the scattered Furbolg.

World PvP would essentially be AvF in the EK and HvK in Kalimdor, with both of those pairings having expeditionary bases to function as a third “wildcard” faction in the other continent, e.g.

Ex 1: Tanaris would have an EK neutral Thalassian Elf outpost that would be the basis for a Thalassian Expedition looking to colonize new “unclaimed land” to replace their devastated homeland, and while on that continent, EK players participating in world PvP would be treated as part of the Thalassian Expedition.

Ex 2: STV and Zul’Aman would both have Kalimdor-neutral Zandalar outposts that would welcome both Darkspear and Night Elves (and their allies) to push back against the humans.

Factional fighting would allow some cities to flip control like Halaa (except capitals) but not really be the driving plot of any expansion, only strong patch plots where one disaster or another leads to factional dynamic expansion.

I’d probably order the rough plot of the expansions to be something more like:

  1. South Seas
  2. Broken Isles
  3. Northrend
  4. Outland

I would only use time travel, the Legion, or the Shadowlands as one-patch content where you don’t fix everything, you just do an expedition into very hostile and unfamiliar territory and get out of dodge as soon as possible after securing a temporary but real peace for Azeroth.

I suppose the unspoken premise of this thread was “how would you do BFA”, but I just think BFA was the nth layer of some bad premises, and I wouldn’t really want to start from there if I had a time machine.

If I was specifically focusing on BFA, Lich Queen Sylvanas, maybe, but I’d rather go back to Legion and just not kill Vol’jin.

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I would keep factions however I would slowly introduce lore so that any race could be on any faction giving both actual identities.

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I would reintroduce felblood and san’layn to the blood elves so the belf and velf threads will end.

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This would have been cool. Than I could have moved my worgen to the horde :dracthyr_hehe:

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I actually got bored one day and wrote out all the potential reasons for each race. I have to look through my Google docs to find what I said for Worgen

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I’d love to see the reasons and story you came up with

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First the alliance gets deleted. Then Forsaken take all of Lordaeron. After that Gurubashi join the Horde and get the lands formerly known as Stormwind. Drakkari rebuild Zul Drak. Humans and dwarf survivors will be turned into slaves for the ruling elite of the Horde. Then we take to the south seas in the next expansion where Undermine is discovered anad becomes the actual goblin capital it was always meant to be.

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If I was a dictator at Blizzard? I’d turn it into the dictatorship of the proletariat of course!

In more seriousness, whats the starting point? Today?

The mass firings of directors is top on the list. We’re clearing house. We’re bringing on real writers, historians, anthropologists, and others who can truly put in the work and care to reinvigorate the races and nations of Azeroth through the story. We’re removing major borrowed power mechanics that place people at an unnecessary disadvantage if they cant or dont log in every day for their 1-3 hours to keep up.

Dragonflight will probably go as planned. No real shocker there. We have so little information to go on and so far most data leaked info has been overwhelmingly positive. I’d reverse the potential Ysera choice and actually make her daughter or some other mildly known dragon become the new Green Aspect much like they have with the Blue and probably will with the Black.

Going forward were doing an old world revamp, thats the next expansion. Whatever is next on the docket that isnt that, scrapped or pushed back. We’re making Cata look small. Every major city is getting the Suramar/Boralas/Dazar’alor treatment - half lived in useful player city, half leveling/questing/thematic area. We’re solving local/nation wide issues. No world ending events, no new planets, its relatively small fry stuff. The story will be brought up to speed the world around and be placed in a relative state of stability where we avoid the issues of Cata insofar that we dont have new troll players still seeing one dead Warchief threatening to kill another dead Warchief because another former Warchief made a very poor choice. We’re fixing some narrative flaws or gaps made within the past 10-12 years. Gilneas actually embracing more of their curse but in a way that is also apart of their human history. Night Elves getting some teeth back and rebuilding. Allied race stories and fleshing out. Dreanei getting some Azeroth story. Forsaken narratives in rebuilding. Diversifying taruen, orcs, and trolls. Give the story has some staying power until such a large undertaking needs to happen again.

Apart of that revamp, we’re doing more character stories big and small. Faction and nation leaders are getting their deserved spot lights, we’re nerfing some and buffing others, giving them nuance and personalities, highs and lows. We’re creating more minor leaders and characters. Grand Marshalls, High Warlords, Executors, Exarchs, crime bosses, the list goes on. We’re giving them other media spot lights as we’ve seen in past expansions like the short stories in Cata, the Lords of War series, whole books, start a whole Black Library-esc effort around these stories that don’t involved the major narrative plots of expansions. We’re doing a Chronicles 2.0 to establish some word of God lore consistencies where needed, scratching others, and reestablishing some narrative trust. The story of Shadowlands will likely be a huge narrative to fix.

We’re taking some of the abandoned themes of BFA and giving them real expansions down the way. Primarily around Azshara, a South Seas/Pirate thing, squeeze an Old God/Titan thing, and also take some of the faction war themes into one or all without making a whole faction war expansion that no one will be happy with.

Personally, Im in favor of keeping the two factions more separate. I think it was a good base to build this world on and Im not in favor of removing that thematic base for player ease. I am, however, for long, arduous, meaningful, story and player driven archs, campaigns, and quests, that will allow you as a initial Horde or Alliance player to become a full member of the other - to become a traitor to your faction - and allow those who wish to play on the other faction the opportunity to do so in a more meaningful way. Just off the top of my head, the Uncrowned may be a good medium to go through this or some of the factions involved in the Insane title achievement (Ravenholt, Syndicate, Steamwheedle, Darkmoon). We can theorycraft this.

A personal (though unpopular) want, we’re revamping flying in the old world too. Where to fly, how long, under what conditions. In city flying? Done for. We’re making it feel like a lived world again with people around. We’re starting there and testing the waters going forward.

And there we have it. May day one dictates to go forward with.

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There should obviously no world revamp. All that would do is feeding alliance players greed of owning more land which they have no rights to claim.

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I like the cut of your jib. Got a place open in your regime for a second in command?

I was going to post something but after reading what you wrote, I’d be down for just going along with your plan.

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Okay so I was scrolling through my files and I think I deleted it all my wow fanfiction to make room for my own story when I unsubbed.
From what I remember however the factions were vastly different and the events that Define them were as well. Horde was especially changed as i really (really) don’t like how they are written.

Basically how I had it set up where that the factions ideologies revolved around benefiting individuals like a union rather than global superpower. Massive conflict would have been at a standstill with both sides understanding mutually assured destruction.
I think I also put in something about the economic structure and government systems of each that would interest the player more than just one nation being forced to one side or the other.

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Sounds super interesting. Kind of sad when the players put more thought into improving WoWs storytelling than the people who get paid to do it for a living

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Thank you, I used to be super passionate about this game story…that was a long time ago

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As a dictator?

I’d concoct a mirror server for WoW where the Horde and Alliance didn’t exist but instead there were Humans from the real world medieval era that have been transported into Azeroth and are going on a crusade of manifest destiny to plant a flag in every piece of land.

I’d then make it so any time Erevien logged into the game he could get into was this version of WoW. No one else could.

He’d get his head canon but the Horde would be gone, too.

Real big monkey’s paw situation.

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I have been running a Warcraft DnD game for the last few years. Really, it was my first attempt at DMing, so I wanted a World I was familiar with.

I have frustrated my party quite a bit with Sylvanas. As they all like her OOCly, but they are all playing Alliance races. In this setting, Sylvanas has made the most of an inexperienced Anduin. Kind of goading the likes of Genn and Jaina, while being “cooperative in the pursuit of peace” with Anduin. Which drove wedges between Anduin and his allies.

In this setting, the Alliance has splintered. The races have become more independent while the Horde races have become more united. This uneasy political atmosphere, I thought, was realistic for Sylvanas, as well as I thought it served the Lovecraftian Horror story I wanted to tell with the Old Gods.

Tbh, that is what BfA should have been. Sylvanas is a deceiver, not the blunt object that Garrosh was. Her goals should have been devious and self serving, but the means in which she tries to achieved those goals should have been more sophisticated.

BFA should have been a lot more subtle, not with devastating war but with the slow, steady decline of civilization. The dissolution of long standing alliances. The slow drifting friendships, the most heartbreaking kind. Not big fights or arguments, but just subtle moving of people until the person you once knew feels like someone else.

Every chapter everything becoming more distant, more tired and broken down. All serving one uniting theme, existential dread. That our time on this world is finite, that Warcraft is finite, that one day this is all going to end and there is nothing we can do to stop the steady march of time, the incessant constant ticking of the clock.

I would want to see that before we saw N’zoth. By the time we had to face him, it would seem like there was nothing worth fighting for. Azeroth is dying in more ways than just her World Soul. Maybe, at least, through the corruption of the Old Gods… At least there would be -something- left? And that is it. The Madness. The Corruption of the Void. A way for us to empathize with the insane cultist who is too far gone.

The hardest thing about that is, how do you win? How would a victory feel satisfying under those circumstances?

I don’t have an answer for that, but killing N’zoth wasn’t satisfying anyway soooooo? And that sense of existential dread and the finite nature of time really plays into the theme of death with the Shadowlands expansion to follow. And suddenly, Sylvanas’ goal to “save” us from this slow march of time suddenly makes sense. “This world is a Prison and I will set us all free” suddenly makes a lot more sense.

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hmm, I don’t think I have the proper dictator’s mentality. I’d probably just push through my own expansion idea I’ve had rolling around in my head, forcing it to be as close as possible. I’d still ask if they have any specific plans for the villainous characters I’d be killing off and reasonably have them ‘merely defeated’ instead of dying at the end of their raids.