"Perhaps now the Horde will see that, too."

You realize if she stays on Blizzard has to excuse it somehow and Blizzard has to explain why a genocidal maniac is still a faction leader.
I can already see the gamer magazines headlines “Blizzard supports a child murderer!” or “Blizzard’s blod move to excuse genocide!” and so on.

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Why not? Sylvanas has done wonderful things for the Horde. Kalimdor mostly safe and FOUR new races have joined. That’s as much as Thrall’s and twice as much as Garrosh’s Taunka and Pandaren.

It looks like you need to stop reading click bait kotaku post.

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Pretty sure OP is that’s Blizzard intention. They want the Horde playerbase to rally against Sylvanas to either
A) make the villain bat easier
B) show us the “twist” in her getting Kerrigan’d at the end

Both scenarios showing the flaws of Blizzard’s contemporary piss poor writing.

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Yep, nightmare scenario with the plot. I really don’t want that, nor would I want Sylvanas be chopping block fodder. This doesn’t bode well.

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Sylvanas as a plot point is as old as WoW now. It is clear her story is gonna end this expansion one way or another. If the Horde truly wants to stop being villian batted then I say resolve one of the biggest darkness in their orgnization.

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Because everything the Horde has must be villain batted to “end the darkness”. Sylvanas is not the cause for the Horde’s “darkness” you realize this yes? Blizzard writes this crap. We had the same issue with Garrosh. Garrosh didn’t “need” to be villain batted. Sylvanas doesn’t “need” to be villain batted.

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Garrosh was a 50-50 as far villain batting goes. Hell, in an alternate timeline I could see Varian being turned into the final boss of MoP. As for Sylvanas, she has always been a villian since she was killed by Arthas. As Jaina herself mentioned, you could pity her but she had no right to do what she did after.

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You know that there are different levels of villainy. A crime boss doesn’t have to be a serial killer. A person who conquers small areas doesn’t have to take over the world. Blizzard has chosen to escalate this in a way that makes the Horde either incompetent or supporters for not stopping her.

Why are you happy with this expansion?

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Because Sylvanas will be dealt with, one way or the other(one of the main reasons I continue playing WoW is to one day see her get her just deserts). More importantly, unlike many of you guys I have nothing against the faction conflict.
Hell, at this point the Alliance has gotten back Kul Tiras, the elves of Silvermoon(some of them at least) are part of the Alliance again.

If nothing else, Blizzard has mentioned this expansion will have a more “permanent” end to the faction conflict. I at least expect it means no Faction conflict centric expansion for probable 10 years after this, give or take. I personally will enjoy the ride, where ever it may take me.

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No. Unless you want to put out that the Forsaken race were villains at the conception of WoW since Sylvanas’s death and formation of the Forsaken are intrinsically linked in both timeline and thematics. Do you want to make that claim?

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Sylvanas first act of “freedom” is to betray Garithos. Yes he was a racist jerk but that still means Sylvanas end up pretty evil. And yes, to a certain extent the Forsakens were always villains in WoW(notice how whenever we needed a reason for a faction conflict, they and the orcs got top billing).

I expect the death or whatever that finally puts Sylvanas out of commission will transform the Forsaken, hopefully for the better.

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You’re happy as an alliance poster that the conflict is going the way you want it to. You are satisfied with the Horde being aggressors, the Alliance fighting without losing the moral high ground, and having peace with a faction that is either incompetent or evil.

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Then I’ll have to disagree (again) with you in the Forsaken being villains at conception because, newsflash, if you play Forsaken questing the concept of being the big baddies of the game was never a thing in either Vanilla or Cata questing.

Edit: Orcs were never marketed to be villains either at the start of WoW either (this can be traced to WC3).

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Because “dont trust the living” and “we are secretly developing a plague that can wipe out both Scourge and the living” didn’t scream big bad material to you? I guess you also didnt expect that shocker Sylvanas dreadlord pet would betray her?

No they weren’t but considering how they kept encroaching on Ashenvale it was only a matter of time before that flashpoint blew up in all our faces.

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No it didn’t. Typically how villain narratives are played in video games is that its either made explicit in the beginning or used as a subversion during the end of a story. If we go by the former I point you to such games like Warhammer (which Warcraft was inspired off of go figure) or even the Warcraft RTS games where revelry, conventionally evil, atrocities, etc. are emphasized heavily. This isn’t the case for the Forsaken as I can link you a myriad of quests stating otherwise. Need I do so? As for the latter example, see the likes of BioShock, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and the like for subversion. As WoW is an MMO without an “end” this type of storytelling is impossible for Blizzard to even attempt.

That doesn’t negate my point. Why do you insist on bringing up useless information irrelevant to any sort of counter argument?

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One of the Horde Vanilla quest has you poisoning a human who was trying to warn the Horde forsaken was up to no good. If that wasnt forshadowing I dont what is.

It is not useless and considering BfA is basically the Ashenvale conflict turned up to 11 is important in my view. The Ashenvale(and to a lesse extent Arathi and AV) conflict has been one of the most hotly debate things in WoW. Of course we are now seeing take the forefront.

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One of the Horde Forsaken Vanilla questing also has the Forsaken player collect dusk bat pelts to care for a Forsaken woman on the edge of insanity. Also another quest exists that involves in a Forsaken widow having the Forsaken player take her momento to cast it aside. If the Forsaken were meant to be villains at conception, these quests I’ve listed wouldn’t have existed. If we were intended to be villains why are we made not only playable in the game but able to sympathize with atop that?

It is useless in the context of this discussion as we are discussing your claims of the Forsaken/Orcs being intended villains right from the getgo. Not the faction war. If the orcs were intended villains from the start of WoW… y’know really do I have to explain this?

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Orcs being a source of villainy has been part of WoW since Vanilla. If nothing else they were always a core villain to the Alliance. Of the mentioned battlegrounds AV and WG were orcs. Arathi was Forsaken.

The Forsaken were as far as I can tell meant to be sympathetic villians(at least some of them). And the sort of villians that might someday redeem itself. The culture of the Forsaken was always something that either had to change or will always be a source of villain fodder.

Way to state the obvious, the Horde are villains for the Alliance, the Alliance are villains for the Horde. This is not the discussion. We are discussing your claims that the Orcs/Forsaken were the all-around objective villains at the start of WoW.

That’s not how intended villains work. Players didn’t roll Forsaken being told they were the main villains for the game. We have playable quests involving the race being sympathetic and shoved into a protagonist role. It’s almost like some morally gray meme that’s been repeated as of late.

Take the Legion for example. Sargeras and Kil’jaeden, they are villains. Hell you might be able to empathize with them. However, are they playable? Can you roll a Burning Legion toon?

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judging how BtS and BfA is going…
the intro of LF undead; Calia Menethil is to soften the undead narrative…likely to take over the undead racial leadership once Sylvanas is gone…