Im sorry you’re okay with the notion that Sylvanas was the only proactive and informed leader on Azeroth, and everyone else fell into line and played their part in getting her goals achieved. Including dumbing down Horde leaders and its entire military to go ahead with her plans, even after an expansion of working together against the Burning Legion itself.
I know right? God forbid one of the game’s most popular characters be moved in a direction that reflects that people like her rather than into The Biggest Villain Since Arthas.
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I think she really could’ve made for a ruthlessly pragmatic leader. Sylvanas did seem the type who would believe “If it’s a fair fight you’ve already screwed up”.
But going from ‘the ends justify the means’ to ‘end as much life on Azeroth as elvenly possible’ is a pretty big lurch. And we still don’t know why.
How nuts is that? It’s been almost 3 years and we still only have a vague idea of what the villain’s motivation is.
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The core of the design is different. Having a class with specializations (it’s possible to go rather deep in more than 1 branch), rather than almost 3 disctict half-classes stitched together. Approach to i-lvl growth. Some interesting, although with flawed execution, ideas about incorporation raids as experience into other parts of the game. Some dislike attunements, but having a clear narrative build up for a story told through a raid / dungeon is not a bad concept IMO.
With some QOL changes (calendar, fast main mail to alts, improved UI) even Classic might be an interesting experience. Plus some experiments with odd items and talent choices might lead to interesting results. A lot more weight on professions (maybe too much though).
There are things that attract people there, and there is no alternative in “what’s the current patch” retail version.
I can’t agree with that. Do we see how events reflect in their participants? I gave the example with draenei.
One could think that ragnari and their experience would be useful, say, in Nazmir, or some places of Broken Isles or even Shadowlands. But no.
That is what I personally would call “the world is the main character”. Where we see how the world changes, adapts, different races sharing differnt opinions on the events, learning something, being sometimes happy, sometimes disappointed, etc.
And sorry, I am not seeing that. I just see forcus on selected characters, and all the rest are just a kind of extension of them.
It’s not the concepts where blizz struggles IMO. (and their art team is consistently good).
It’s the question of “and how those places will reflect what is to come”.
IMO it’s not easy at all, because that requires different mentality.
Suddenly, the idea of “Anduin is a very important character” can no longer be. Because characters are just windows into some corners / aspect of the_world™. Not every developer can abandon one’s biases and wishes to re-focus on something like that. Where ideologies are coming and going, and any character, however much you like one, is nothing more but a character in vast world.
Despite not agreeing with all the points (agree with the not mentioned ones 
), I appreciate the feedback.
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The factions were not working together. Individuals from the order halls were. There is a important distinction.
I’d like to think people gave Sylvanas the benefit of the doubt and she simply abused everyone’s trust. Its not like people could have guessed she was literally working for one of the cosmic forces of death.
Saurfang and Baine clearly didnt fall in line. And Anduin’s decision to free Saurfang royally screwed her lets have as many people die goal. Sylvanas also probably didnt predict the night elves would turn her victory into a quagmire.
The problem is “show, don’t tell”.
Whatever is the “lore” behind the events, at least mage order hall is all about “just take a look at how stupid factions are because only together…”
Whatever the intention of the devs was, the result is that many players asked “do factions even make sense after that point”.
That is why the feedback might be crucial: to be sure that what ther devs wanted to tell is what the player saw.
Aye, totally did not fought for Sylvanas at Undercity.
I did the 8.0 story content. Not a single time Baine expressed any concerns about the event that started the war.
The only mention I saw was from a nightborne who said “let it be clear on which side we stand”.
gl hf
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Baine expressed concern about starting the war to Saurfang in “A Good War,” who reassured him what was going on was happening for the right reasons. Baine took the old man at his word. Saurfang obviously regretted that he’d gone along with Sylvanas’ reasoning pretty quickly when she did Teldrassil, which was not in line with anything he’d agreed to be part of. At Undercity the die was already cast, it was a fight for existential survival at that point, which we now know is exactly what Sylvanas wanted.
Nah, it never was. With Anduin it was just about Sylvanas. If they would turn around and go “wtf?”, Anduin would support them way earlier.
Now, that would not allow the devs to justify turning the horde “into something new”, as they wanted. But I am not talking about their wishes here, but about the players.
Which is nice and all, but it’s not a part of the game. And in the game he did not care one bit until the plot convenient moment.
gl hf
I could kinda make a similar argument in reverse. The conflict was essentially localized, not so much factions as two powers within the factions, and frankly easily ignored especially considering the entire rogue questline reveals that it was heavily based on legion infiltration.
Also it was the cringiest questline in Broken Isles and doesn’t even cover half a zone, and it’s happening while two member states of both factions are running joint operations (in case the tensions nonsense is brought up: most of the quests about those are explicit that these are being exacerbated by Elisande’s spies).
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See though there isn’t any room for experimentation. Either you go with the best meta layout, or you’re worse than everyone else.
In Live it varies from class to class. But Priest is in a good spot. At least in Arena I’ve to seriously weigh my options before the gates open. Some choices are based on what classes / specs the enemies are, of course. But it’s more trying to predict the enemy’s strategy. It’s practically a pre fight mini game.
I mean - that’s not really in Classic either. When I first came back in Legion having not played since the end of Wrath, I foolishly mistook Cata content for gradual progression. I legitimately thought Azeroth had been updated piecemeal here and there to move certain storylines along. Imagine my disappointment when I strode into Outland, excited to see how it had changed in my absence, only to discover it hadn’t at all.
Everything’s just sort of unstuck in time. Silverpine is a prime example of this. Where you can see two armies marching out of now ruined kingdoms, fighting over ash. It’s weirdly sad.
I suppose. The thing is all the hero characters would remain important. They just wouldn’t be the stars of the show anymore. I think that would actually work better for them.
Because in Classic it actually feels like an achievement when Sylvanas has a quest for you. You’ve slowly worked up the ranks of the Forsaken. From Executors to High Apothecaries to Varimathras. And now you’ve finally proven yourself so capable that the Banshee Queen herself has a mission for you.
Compare that to Cata. Where Sylvanas is going on exposition horse rides and calling you an extra special boy before you’ve hit level 30. It just feels cheap and unearned.
I mean, I played since the release till AQ release. There are some expectation to what is brought into the raid if the goal of a raid to do a speed run attempt. But that’s about it.
Over those 11 months I played, I managed to get about 3 functional builds for a feral, and 4 for resto roles. Not too bad I would say, for a game where “everything is solved”.
Sure is. Some are nice. Some are… well, I am no expert. I’ll stop it on that polite note.
We do learn different opinions about the events that happened in the time between the games. I am not going to claim that it was the finished golden way of such approach, but it was a good first step. And after what I saw since the Shadowlands pre-patch, the game went in a different direction rather than evolving that one.
Yup. I can imagine that.
Also iirc the switch to “hero” stuff started around WotLK, but was in full swing since Cata.
Focus on world over following selected characters is a common feedback I see about WoW direction (youtube comments, reddit, these forums, some discord discussions). But the devs talk about how relevant the story of Sylvanas and Anduin for the Shadowlands. Which is… IMO incompatible directions.
That was a better done introduction to a “big” character IMO.
gl hf
At this rate it’ll be the Light villain-batted next. Then after we defeat the Light these new “First Ones” will get the villain bat. Then after the villain-batted First Ones get defeated, it’ll be THEIR godly boss (the “Clockmaker” according to discussions with devs) who we’ll go after like it was a Phillip Pullman book or the last season of the TV show Supernatural (this “edgy”, subversive stuff is getting old).
Even worse, this constant escalation of stakes relies on shoehorned retcons. Sylvanas has overstayed her welcome imo.
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