Just A Waste

Lore Story Forum
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Honestly what a completely unnecessary and ultimately pointless use of the Banshee Queen.

I was genuinely really curious what they were going to do with her as Warchief. That was a pretty different choice. She be can be cruel, but is typically more cold and calculating.

They really tried to make her look heroic in the cinematic and art of Legion. The loading screen is her and Varian fighting in hero stances. Yeah Stormheim was a bit sketch but as someone for who Silverpine was weeks ago it felt like an immediate sequel. And that’s a pretty morally gray story already.

My mind was adrift with possibilities. I could picture Sylvanas being a pretty solid leader. Cold, cruel even, but in a calculated way. She’d never had a supremacist mindset as Nathanos proved. Even if she had no love for them, she knew the Horde to be reliable allies, and she’d always known the use of those. Perhaps as ruthless as Garrosh but not as angry and certainly not as messy. A silent step and an arrow from the dark. Deliberate. Clinical. Sensible.

Boy oh boy. Did I regret that last choice of word.

Also man. Screw that BFA cinematic. That was such an earnest For The Horde. I was getting bored and thinking about quitting but nope, that sold me. The Banshee Queen leading the Horde in defense of the Undercity? Woooo, sign me the hell up for that. Man. Either they’re lying about planning this that far ahead, or they genuinely do not understand their fanbase and how insultingly misleading that was. Both, most likely.

So then Before the Storm came out, and she was pretty much a shrieking killing machine from then on. But they gave us the option to be a loyalist. There was this N’Zoth business as well.

So maybe this could still make sense? Maybe there’s some grand reveal that all of Sylvanas’s erratic and psychotic behavior was to outfox N’Zoth or something?

Nah. Turns out she was working with the Dull Devil. She instigated a world war with a genocide to feed him souls. So he could go invade Castelvania, Pandora, Iron Maiden and Alita: Battle Angel to get the keys to turn off the universe. He succeeds and at the last moment she realizes - ya know this Dull Devil guy kinda sucks. So she helps us stop him. Turns out he was a crash test dummy.

Anyway now she’s gotta go to God’s trash folder and sort out all the souls she deliberately had flagged as spam.

So - yeah why?

This was the best use of the character they could think of? We went through all that - for this?

Genuinely I’m not angry. Just completely perplexed. What a baffling product and utterly needless tossing of a character with tremendous potential.

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I wasn’t. I think part of me knew she was doomed to some disaster or other the moment they shafted Vol’jin to give her the big seat.

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I hated this. It was them sweeping all the horrible stuff she had done under the rug and just hoping we’d forget about stuff like Hillsbrad and Gilneas.

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I don’t recall leaving any witnesses.

As I said. Clinical.

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What we are seeing is the aftermath of a tug of war between different factions within the larger creative team that didn’t end until the prior creative director was forced out. Compounded on that are what appear to be significant cuts to the scope and budget of the expansion—hasty patch work to cover gaping holes left behind by slashing an entire major content patch are bluntly visible all over Shadowlands. From what I have heard they early on realized this expansion was going to be awful and sort of abandoned it to focus their efforts into the next one instead in hopes of having an interest rebound.

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I mean. I recall hearing the exact same thing with BFA.

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Those hopes were never going to work out in the BFA era given the morale loss with all the crap that was about to blow wide open with the court cases, combined with aftershocks of high profile departures and the pandemic really eating their intended schedule for lunch. At this point the boil has finally been lanced, and the worst of the pandemic has seemingly passed… so perhaps itll go better this time?

But hey, I am also prone to excessive optimism.

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Same thing happened with BfA as Metzen left which led to the Burning of Teldrassil.

Same for Legion as that was where Kosak left which of course led to the demise of Vol’jin.

The Kosak/Chilton Factions got removed first(during Legion) followed by the Metzen Faction(during BfA) followed by the Afrasiabi Faction(during Shadowlands) leaving only the Danuser Faction.

It’s a string of upheavals that cause constant problems!

Interestingly enough Cataclysm was also caused by an upheaval: Kosak just joined as an important guy for writing Lore and Metzen was having emotional issues.

WoD was of course caused by the upheaval of Tom Chilton who is not a Lore Writer overruling everyone. He got booted out of WoW during Legion.

Every time an Expansion goes wrong it’s caused by an upheaval and the Writers not rolling with the results like a good DM.

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9

I can be appreciate that.

But for me, story kept me disinterested. But mechanics and content are what broke me.

The Covenant system were a cool idea. But seeing as the Covenant’s were aligned, having switching being such a miserable experience was a bad idea for such powerful spells that could be vital in competitive play. At least for PvP not picking the BiS put you at an immediate and glaring disadvantage even at the earliest tiers of rated arena.

Top that off with Torghast that while initially promising, quickly got old as the lack of any real variety in environments or enemies became clear. Getting a powerful artifact for this toon and a just decent one for one alt made me never want to think about it again. Couple that with the daily trudges through the Maw and I’d started to log in, stare at my character select screen, think of the chores ahead then exit to do something else.

I didn’t want to play my other two characters to just finish the other Covenant’s stories. If I started really taking a shine to that class, the climb up Torghast would be too much to bare. And I was effectively done with my other two outside waiting in PvP ques and RP. So why play?

Then the patch came out. The content looked awful. More Maw. The uninspired Broker’s thing. More Maw.

Even if it had a truly amazing story I don’t think that would’ve saved it. That being completely incomprehensible was just the cherry on top that confirmed nobody seemed to be sure what this product was or who it was for.

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If we’re being honest, All Horde Warchiefs (except arguably Thrall) have been wasted. Thrall says ‘eff this’ and decides to become Orc Jesus, Garrosh was a time traveling mess, Vol’jin was the only one who made sense but gets one-shot by a nameless demon, and Sylvanas’… well, we all know how that’s going.

Sylvanas may have had the story potential to grow as a leader, but as it stood in the moment of her being named Warchief, she was aloof (at best) and barely cared for any other race outside the Forsaken (and even then was sometimes repulsed by them.) I just remember watching that cinematic and audibly saying ‘WTF’ because in my mind, it would only mean bad things. Not to mention, looking back (and knowing now what we know about loa) it made Vol’jin look like a dying idiot.

I’m cautiously optimistic that the Horde war council will be for the betterment of the Horde story, and will offer more views of the Horde races as a whole rather than propping us up as patsys for the newest maniacal Warchief and antagonists for Alliance who are like ‘We just want to be friends!’

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Benedikt, if you haven’t read these threads yet, I think you’ll find they explain a lot:

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This may be a hot take but; Sylvanas had no potential to grow into a leader of the Horde on her own. She was only ever going to attain such character development with the help of Vol’jin’s influence.

Which is both indicated by her beginning to chafe with him at the end of SoO and Warcrimes as well as Vol’jin’s overall characterization being established as a unitive figure who’s main shtick was to bridge the gaps between the Hordes’ races to produce a stronger unit.

-She’s not remotely inclined to shift her ideology on her own when she’s already at the top of the food chain.
-She’s not going to be influenced by Baine whom she sees as an Alliance bootlicker.
-She’s not going to be influenced by a zug zug McHonor Orc, like Saurfang.
-She’s not going to be influenced by a nobody like Rokhan.
-She’s not going to be influenced by her former deputy, Lor’themar.
-And she sure as hell wasn’t going to influenced by a clown like Gallywixx.

There was only ever one viable route to take her character in that would’ve made any sense and would result in desirable characterization, but the writers(Afrasiabi) threw it away explicitly to set her up as a villain.

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I mean I guess but man. I can’t think of a more bizarre and less interesting place to take this character.

I don’t speak hyperbole when I say having her immediately step down to open up a chain of Banshee Scream pun themed frozen yogurt shops would’ve been a better decision.

That wouldn’t have made any less sense. We wouldn’t have had to bulldoze two beloved player hubs for a marketing stunt. And honestly from what I’ve read so far about her book, one where we read about the ice cold and cutthroat world of competitive confectionery in Azeroth sounds way more interesting.

Really just any other direction seems like less of a mistake than whatever the hell this was.

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Just the way Blizzard writes, they’d somehow find a way to have her burn down any business selling Tigule’s Strawberry Ice Cream and have her stooges kill every vendor.

But, now that I read that back that WOULD be a better direction.

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See? Even the dumbest idea sounds at least more entertaining.

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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. He goals should have been devious and self serving, but the means in which she tries to achieved those goals should have been more sophisticated.

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That sure would have made for a far more interesting faction war during BfA. With real, potentially long lasting consequences for the alliance, one that fractured because what the more militant minded leaders like Genn and the Night elves, couldn’t reconcile their differences with a boy king who wanted nothing but peace.

It’s sad when your average person can put more thought into the story than the people who actually get paid to come up with the dumpster fires they thing are engaging. :wolf:

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Erevien saying I have Alliance Bias
Me side eyeing my DnD game where Stormwind and Ironforge has been taken over by Old God cults, and the Alliance needs Horde help to take them back

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What I would’ve done while changing as little as possible;

Teldrassil is instead engulfed while the Horde is occupying it. So they also lose a bunch of men and believe the Alliance did it. Sink it so the enemy can’t have it. The Alliance of course believe the Horde did it.

Nobody actually knows who did it though.

So we go to the Battle of Lordaeron. Plays out similarly only now it being a big land mine makes a bit more sense as the Horde still believes the Alliance did that to Teldrassil.

Story proceeds more or less as it did. But in the end we find out N’Zoth’s chains were weakened by Sargeras’s sword. He’s been influencing everything. His agents, made to be perceived as Horde or Alliance by his magics, were responsible for every atrocity we saw. He was encouraging brutality to let the Alliance and Horde kill eachother and make way for his reign.

But he wasn’t putting thoughts into anyone’s heads. The fear, the paranoria, the prejudice - that weren’t his doing. That was already there. He didn’t push anyone. Just more gave them a gentle and reassuring pat on the back and whispered

“You’re right about them. They’re coming. Get them before they get you”

I think that would’ve been more interesting. Because you’d have wrongdoing by both factions but not of the unforgivable atrocity kind.

But they’re not off the hook either. N’Zoth didn’t drive anyone insane. We were doing that ourselves. We already had one foot of the ledge, he just said jump.

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Honestly, I REALLY wanted BFA to go in that direction. I recall some datamined dialogue in which Tyrande and Genn were pressing the defense of Darkshore and causing a bit of tension with Anduin’s choices RE: Zuldazar, but sadly they were removed once live hit.

I so desperately want friction within the Alliance because there are SO many opportunities for that to develop organically in the story but the writers just want it to be ‘Happy friends forever time’ while the Horde gets to see failed leadership and internal rifts over and over.

In my mind, all of my Night Elves are bitter in the Alliance because it has offered them nothing for their service.

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