Raid cinematic is out

Lore Story Forum
748

Don’t be so cocky, as they say he who laughs last laughs best. I personally didn’t think they would kill her, my annoyance is the lack of anything solid actually materializing for this cinematic. We still don’t know what Zovaal or Sylvanas even wants to do.

Not to mention, we are still missing the epilogue with the compass and one other cinematic for Tyrande. I doubt Sylvanas will truly get out of all this unscathed but what happens to her now is the big mystery. And no, I doubt we are having another Warcrimes considering how the last one went.

1 Like
749

I remember when WotLK released a lot of people I played with just skipped the quest texts. And their reasoning was simple, yet rather true: “Why waste time, if even after reading all the qeust texts I would not know the story”.

I can only assume that the original intent was. Maybe the devs wanted to have “cool” moments in the game, and expected the side media to make it all fit together. Maybe it was a plan for expanded universe and extra revenue streams.

Either way it backfired badly, and served as a foundation for a disintirest for the story, which later got also the extra difficulty in getting into the lore side of thing.

Chronicles could’ve been this 1st step into the story, but then the “PoV” stuff happened and we’re back in “dark ages”.

gl hf

1 Like
750

Part of it did, but since I didn’t participate in the thread you referred to I went with giving a general reply instead of dissecting your post.

751

Look man, if you’re gonna quote me, at least get the full quote.

You even said yourself, people that wanted her to survive and open the door to be redeemed would be upset. I’ll just call them “Sylvanas Fans” for short, and… There’s no small shortage of those fans. Not a majority, but, in absolute numbers, enough to qualify as “a lot”. And they would, assumedly, hate it, because that’s how Blizzard had constructed the story. They pitted Sylvanas fans against other fans in such a starch contrast that neither side could be mutually satisfied.

752

My point was, moreoever, that while there were people who wanted to see the best possible outcome for Sylvanas, a lot more people - as evident by this entire thread - wanted a negative outcome for her. Blizzard chose to appeal to those who wanted a good outcome for Sylvanas rather than the larger portion of the community who were upset due to all the things Sylvanas did to their race/faction/character.

753

I don’t think the creation of threads on a forum, or downvotes on a YouTube video, are the only barometers of the fan base.

We may never know the numbers of those who chose the Loyalist Path. Actual on the ground Players. They may have been overwhelming, even though the Traitors were incentivized with gifts and toys.

I think perhaps that those who are Sylvanas fans - as well as those who are OK with her even existing - are just less prone to outbursts. They suffer in near silence, while they are ignored, or portrayed as villainous for agreeing with the Horde’s rationale described in A Good War.

It may be the case of a silent majority being OK with Sylvanas being part of the Story. As opposed to those who are quite loud about wishing to RP as Arthas and violate her all over again.

3 Likes
754

The Horde’s rationale was “capture Teldrassil”.

Sticking with Sylvanas after genocide is the problem.

You’re right, though. All we have is data on those who have spoken. I will say, I know several people who do like the 9.1 cinematics and beats. But, for each one who likes them, I know someone else that doesn’t. The most optimistic… I guess about 50% of the playerbase. That’s my most optimistic, which implies that, really, it’s likely over half, more than one out of two, of the playerbase didn’t like 9.1’s story.

Or, at the least, perhaps this qualification has merit: of those who care most about the story, the story has not been well received. I’m sure most of Warcraft’s playerbase is simply happy to get some video detailing story elements. However, just as I don’t personally care about how fun the next raid is, they probably don’t personally care what happens next in the story. To me, WoW is a story with a game attached, to them, WoW is a game with a story attached.

Regardless and either way, we don’t have data to support either claim, so it’s a moot point. All I can say is that, of the vocal fanbase, the reception has largely favored the negative than the positive. It’s worth taking that with a grain of salt - giving it big error bars -, but… At least directionally indicative.

EDIT: Additionally, a good story doesn’t have an optimistically 1:1 Like:Dislike ratio, which is what’d you expect of a “half the fanbase liked it”. The fact that we have to have elongated discussions on “is this good” is at least indicative that it isn’t that great.

5 Likes
755

This is objectively not true, the diehard Sylvanas fanbase has been the most trigger happy group of slavering lunatics I’ve ever had the misfortune of encountering. Daring to say anything critical about Sylvanas is taken as a personal offense to them.

You might be less prone to outbursts, but the greater part of her fanbase is absolutely not.

5 Likes
756

It’s also less easy to be prone to outbursts when the narrative is reinforcing their favored outcome :joy:

757

The folks who supported the Horde and the Warchief- which happened to be Sylvanas - is the camp I put myself in. And we were chastened as fools.

Even in the Loyalist ending, she says she cared nothing for the living, and could only muster pity for the Forsaken.

I think our favored outcome was some honest heroism in defense of the Horde and the Forsaken - and we got the opposite ever since she dueled Saurfang. We were pretty much clown shows. Loyalists were being rooted out in the lore.

Even the casual Loyalist was chastened and chastised all the while.

1 Like
758

I know there’s no way to ever know, but I wonder what portion of the loyalist choices were made as a “screw this story” protest. I remember that being a rather vocal feeling on the forum at the time.

5 Likes
759

Much the same way BFA basically left everyone unhappy.

Sith Empire-wannabe and ruthless pragmatism Horde Fans weren’t allowed to have fun because they didn’t get to wage much (especially successful past the pre patch) war against the Alliance and Sylvanas was made into a villain over doing so.

More idealistic Horde fans were made a villain’s henchmen and their faction lost the last of it’s moral footing.

Hawkish Alliance fans didn’t get their hits in, especially bad for Night Elf fans.

Idealistic Alliance fans probably didn’t like the Horde being made stupid evil either.

12 Likes
760

So, everyone who isn’t

  1. A human fan
  2. A Sylvanas fan who cares nothing about the Horde (which exist, because yes there are people who like Sylvanas for the sake of liking Sylvanas regardless of their or her allegiance to the Horde)

Got screwed?

1 Like
761

I wouldn’t put it that way.

Did Players suffer losses of things they genuinely cared for? Was their faith in the aspects of the story that initially drew them in shaken? Were people on all sides riled? Sure.

Were we “screwed” ? Idk. It depends how you take it.

I have already worked with Genn and Jaina in Nazjatar - and Tyrande in Valsharah, while she yells at me, even before I helped burn Teldrassil.

So… helping some ditzy dame who bailed on the Horde stings a little less than what I have already suffered through as a Horde Player.

762

Which part?

763

BFA doesn’t contradict her characterization much besides her abandoning the Forsaken. Sylvanas continued to do what she had been, the difference is that everyone had to see it because she became the focus of the story while before players could ignore any content involving her. BFA is sometimes used as a scapegoat for those trying to defend her.

People who use this as a defense ignore that being undead comes with major consequences. When someone is made undead they can’t just go back to what they were doing before. Undeath takes away the ability to biologically have children. Someone undead can’t go back to their family or home so easily. I’m sure Zelling wasn’t the only one who had family react that way.

Undeath prevented Sylvanas from being able to visit Vereesa. That was a family member. No one undead can reasonably go back to their living family. Making someone undead ensures they can’t go back to their family, making them go through what she did. Bye Vereesa.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/863689478299713560/863689638173343744/stsmall507x507-pad600x600f8f8f8.u76.jpg

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/863689478299713560/863689673763061830/Thomas_Zelling.png

764

Just like we may never know if the people did it because they like Sylvanas’s story, out of spite to the blizz decision to push the re-master of Varok story, or just to see different story options.

We’ll see what happens to sub number (or whatever metrics might allow to estimate the level of interest in the game going forward).

The number of players who supported the game by the end of BfA, if we take reports around Classic release, would be something like 3,5 mln players. How much is it? Will the number go down? Hard to say. And it’s also hard to extract the impact of the story on the player decision. There is “I don’t like the story” option now during the unsub process though.

gl hf

765

Ah, I think I see what happened. This is a side effect of me putting the post into a different thread, since the old one was locked. We had been talking about why some people saw Sylvanas as a survivor of abuse. Someone else had said that seeing her that way made sense until BfA, and someone else said no, it stopped making sense in Cata because that was when she went on the campaign to start raising more undead.

My point was that the Cata version of Sylvanas still had elements that were consistent with the idea of her as a survivor. It’s not about whether she’s good or justified, just about whether it’s consistent with something that had been presented as an important part of her characterization in earlier expansions.

Again: I’m not presenting it as a defense or saying that it makes her good. I’m just saying that it’s not completely inconsistent for her to hate what Arthas did to her and yet still create more undead—especially when you consider that her own viewpoint has been warped by undeath. Because there are lots of ways of being undead, and the worst part for her, the part she didn’t want to repeat, was being forced to serve him against her will.

I don’t think that’s the part she cared about preventing people from going through. She did, once upon a time, care about not taking away their free will and forcing them to do things they hated—even in Cata. But then that was tossed aside in BfA.

If you think her depiction has been consistent all this time, well, all I can say is that I disagree. To me, there are clear points where her characterization takes a different turn. Cata is one, and mid-Legion/BfA is another.

766

Oh, Long John Silver. I would have threw my hat in earlier, but I was unsubbed. I’m not enraged, mad or even disappointed. This is what I expected from Blizzard.

The current writers are just, I can’t even describe, but it feels like they don’t even bother to look at what was written 3 patches before. Shadowlands Sylvanas is not BfA Sylvanas… physically even.

Okay, I will admit, I’m not Sylvanas fan numero uno. I mean we played bumper cars together, held hands as we rode the ferris wheel. So it took me a while to realize what was off with her. “What’s wrong with your face?” They changed her face, from war paint to victim paint. I always noticed she looked like a vulnerable teenage girl, that was tricked by some older man to do something illegal, but gosh, I didn’t realize it was that on the nose.

I could rant for 26 days, but at this point, it’s pretty clear that Danuser and Golden wish they had their own IP to write, but since they don’t, they’ll just drag Warcraft’s story so down into the ground even dinosaurs don’t want it.

6 Likes
767

Well whoopie. Guess everything she ever did had no stakes or depth at all in the end when you can just hand wave away her evil version or whatever. After shes redeemed can she just go away to never be seen again please. So tired of this hack writing.