Since Veliina is being reasonable, I want to say I generally agree with this post of Veliina’s.
Though, obviously, I still want Sylvanas dead.
Though, I do have one technical nitpick:
I still don’t see this shortage of characters that people keep talking about. There are Horde characters. The people claiming a shortage of Horde characters just don’t seem to like some of them is all. Rokhan has gotten more screen time than ever before despite his not being made the official Darkspear leader. Vol’jin’s back. Talanji is queen. Baine’s been rescued again. The Blood Elves and Nightborne aren’t short any amount of characters. Thrall’s back. And Saurfang is actually a character now:
Alex Afrasiabi: And you look at characters like Saurfang. Saurfang's a character I put in the game literally for one purpose back in the day - I needed someone for player's returning with Onyxia's head to talk to.
He became that NPC that was just this prototypical, hard-as-nails orc that was all about honor and duty.
It was, like, three in the morning or something when I wrote out his, what we call his gossip text, which is when you click on an NPC and you have a pane of information that gives you some kind of dialog.
I wrote that and it was pretty serious. I wrote that, and people read that and were like “Damn, this guy’s no joke!” And interestingly enough that little thing, that little snippet became the mythos of what Saurfang is today. After all these years his roots are still held in that one statement.
Well, perhaps its more accurate to say that the Horde just doesn’t have as much of a cushion for character loss as the Alliance. We have quite a few characters, but many of even our core races are pretty destitute on representation (although they DO have it).
The Orcs have Saurfang, Eitrigg (and now Rexxar and Thrall maybe)?
The Darkspear have Rokhan (Loa’Jin and Zekhan maybe)?
The Tauren have Baine, Humuul, and Muln (but the latter two are offscreened so often they are shockingly underdeveloped).
The Forsaken have Sylvanas, Nathanos (and Voss maybe)?
The Bilgewater have Gallywix (and MAYBE Gazlowe)?
The Sin’dorei are in pretty good shape.
There are PLENTY of great characters Blizz COULD be developing: Jorin; Thura; Jevan; Mida; Etc … but so few of them get even the slightest mention they’re little more than NPCs with names a lot of the time. Unfortunately … this is likely partially due to the lack of Horde importance in NON-Faction Conflict expansions (where the Alliance sees a TON of its personal character growth).
Hamuul is very well developed. He is a great character, and, if anything, I’m glad they’re keeping him out of the faction nonsense this time instead of burying him under a pile of skinned bodies like last time.
I would point up at the interview about Saurfang again. A character can get a sudden influx of screen time at any given point.
And he healed and came back to save Malfurion and us from the very person who had torched him.
Hamuul is the reason the Forsaken are in the Horde. Hamuul is the reason Tauren have Druids. Hamuul has indeed saved the world alongside Malfurion quite a few times. And even most recently he had some good scenes in Before the Storm as well.
To be frank, I just want this xpac over and done with. Let the Kaldorei have their homes back, and have a cinematic scene where they can be shown driving the Horde out of Darkshore and Ashenvale (rather than it being mentioned in a tweet) and we can call it square.
Honestly that works for me, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if we can kill her and her minions then put her head on a spit and mount it in Alliance territory.
And even then that last part is open to negotiation.
I’m done dealing with the Horde. Lets see the Alliance take the lead for the rest of the expac. Have us hunt Sylvanas alongside Genn, tyrande and Malfurion. Lets have some inner conflict where we get to tear Anduin down a bit for forcing us accept his Peace with the Horde.
Lets get rid of the High king and bring back a proper Alliance story where we aren’t forced to follow a 18 year old and his stupid ideals for a bit. Have the Horde forced to forgive the Alliance after we destroy something precious of theirs.
Let the Alliance find out she is hiding in Silvermoon and let us attack after the horde refuse to let us enter their territory. (get a nice cinematic of the Tyrande and malfurion beating her).
If you must have her head mounted on a stake, mount it on a stake in Gilneas. We just got Stormwind cleaned up and I don’t want that nasty germy thing stinking up the place.