I just think it is quite a leap to go from ‘she was more partisan, less Horde friendly in MoP’ therefore the writers wrote her to kill a bunch of Horde in a pervious draft of BfA.
It is much more likely that Jaina, who was still angry at the Horde was seen as a good way to motivate certain Horde characters to actually get into the fight. Think about Rexxar as an example. How much sense does it make for him to join the war at all. Given his comments it is pretty clear that originally they were going to give him motivation via Jaina. The most likely explanation for those comments is they were written as part of the Horde story. Then, later on they worked on the Alliance story and decided it made no sense for Jaina to do it. But Rexxar was already in the game, he already had those comments.
I still argue it was an artifact of the Horde story that was written first. Not a full draft of both sides. Especially since we have seen time and time again, Blizzard doesn’t do both sides at the same time. When there are two narratives they write one in its entirety and then write the other. This looks to just be that. They wrote the Horde campaign first, then when some of that caused obvious issues with the Alliance story they were writing second things had to change. But some artifacts of the original Horde story stayed in.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on why the faction conflict seems so dead and why people are so down about anything around it.
Low Player Morale (Horde): Over the Game’s lifetime the Horde has lost 2 wars and have been the villain’s both times. As a consequence the entire leadership structure and hero roster has been gutted. Right now it feels like the Horde Council is the Washington Wizards, just a collection of nobody’s filling a role. This combined with modern neutral question gives a sense of not being present and being unimportant in the story. It’s hard to get hyped for your faction when all you have is a legacy of losing and villain moments.
Stagnant World: Azeroth in game is around 15-20 years behind the present day in the story. Each factions core zones, where any story would take place that explores the day to day life and local threats have largely been left to rot. This forces any narrative progression to be done within the confines of each expansion narratives or as much smaller patches/ questlines that leave a lot to be desired. The poster children for this are Bel’ameth which is in the Dragon Isles because it is tied to Dragonflight and importantly not on Kalimdor as well as the smaller reclamations of Gilneas and Lordaeron which were short questlines that resulted in a few friendly NPC’s in the area not a fully functional city or an updated zone with quests. In addition to this, much of the current state of affairs in the world is left ambiguous. It’s unclear after the end of BFA: like where the borders are at, or how certain races are rebuilding, what does the trade situation look like, and are there any lingering points of friction after the armistice?
No Narrative Momentum: Right now peace rules the day and there’s nothing pointing to that changing any time soon. The faction war heated up quite well in WOTLK because they took the time to throw in some inciting incidents before the war really kicked off in Cata. This would be because of the Wrathgate, Battle of UC and the Broken Front where everyone could tell things were starting to spiral. You could tell they were trying to do something similar in Legion with the Broken shore and Stormheim but it went down the drain when Metzin left and Afrisabi took the reigns. If we want to bring it back we need a spark to drum up some pride and controversy and let that simmer for a bit before beating the drums of war
Well, I think “They originally planned for Jaina to do something huge, as has been foreshadowed by the ‘Warbringers’ short and clearly something the writers have been pulling for since MoP, but then ultimately scrapped that storyline” is a much smaller leap than “The people who wrote the Horde story unilaterally decided to have Jaina commit mass murder and went ahead with that assumption.”
So I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m not convinced by your version of things, and you’re clearly not convinced by mine, so we may as well accept that we’ve failed to persuade each other and leave it there.
Here is the thing: The people who wrote the Horde story are the same people who wrote the Alliance story. This is not a a case of some people taking unilateral action. I was never suggesting that Horde writers chose to do something bad. Because their aren’t ‘Horde writers.’ They wrote both sides.
And bottom line: Whether you think it is an old MoP idea or not, the fact remains when they implemented the Horde story they envisioned Jaina motivating Rexxar to join the war. It is there because that story was written and implemented when they put the Horde story in. It is most logical to believe that was part of the design when it was implemented and plans changed afterward. Such as when the Alliance story was being written and implemented.
Nope, we were explicitly told that they had two separate teams writing the faction stories in BfA. Probably to avoid the “running out of time for both factions” problem that cropped up in Cata.
I agree with this part.
I disagree with this part. I don’t think we can reliably conclude that the Alliance story was unwritten at the time that bit of dialogue was inserted. You get the same result if the Alliance story had been written, or at least sketched, and the change of plans involved rewriting Jaina’s part in the story.
I would believe that of zone quest designers. But not the campaign and overall story.
Because, here is the thing: The campaigns were VERY much put in sequentially. I was in the beta. When it first started the entire Horde campaign was playable. The zones were done, NPCs were in. The story was set. The Alliance side was not remotely close. You couldn’t even start the campaign, and even as it was added the story was still being changed. I just do not believe that both stories were written at the same time when there was that much disparity of implementation. And story elements did change as the Alliance campaign was put in.
While the situation was not nearly as bad as Cata, the same problem crept up. Alliance content was done WELL after the Horde.
Except that content was in the game before the Alliance story was even finalized.
I cannot stress to you enough how VERY different the Horde and Alliance stages of development were. That does not happen unless one is started WELL before the other. And NPC lines of dialog do not go over to be implemented unless they were part of the story at the time.
You really don’t have different drafts of the full game getting NPC lines. That was part of the story at the time they were sent to be added. That can only mean the Horde story already had that set enough to send to programmers. Then while that was being put in the game they changed directions because the writing of the Alliance story made it not work.
Again, I cannot stress to you enough the difference in the state of both factions in the Beta. One side was basically complete and the other was barely started. That does not happen if the writing team did not also do it in that order. Rexxar’s line would have had to be in for the Horde story well before the Alliance story was set, or it would not have been put into the game.
Has it occurred to you that maybe the reason the Alliance story was later in being implemented was because it was being rewritten, as opposed to created from scratch? The fact that it came in later does not prove that they went straight from a blank space labeled “ALLIANCE STORY HERE” to a playable game.
In fact, the fact that it was changing on the beta actually suggests the opposite to me: that the coding folks started work on it, then were told to hold off because the story was going to be changed, and then replaced their original work with the revised version.
I don’t expect you to agree with me, though, so again … let’s accept that we’re not persuading each other.
Yeah, I mostly agree. I think the current framework makes a “nuanced” faction war hard. I also think that Blizzard has shown zero ability to do it all, even if we’re easy.
I wouldn’t be that hard to adjust things. Simply spitting things to go to a third faction would go a long way. (Two factions fundamentally leads to a “them” v. “us" situation). They could also add a human race to the Horde’s side.
But you still have the problem that Blizzard shows zero ability to do a faction war that isn’t a dumpster fire. (Though perhaps a more “ESO like” situation would help them see what they can’t seem to see.)
The problem that, again, the character is presented as being morally grey, but then divorced from consequences of this moral greyness. You have a character who thinks the other side “dangerous” and you need to fight to stop them, but then you have to expect they will fight back. You are responsible for what you did.
In the end, these are reasons why Blizzard is incapable for writing a decent faction conflict plot. It still remains that they can’t do it and shouldn’t try.
I get it. I do. I just find myself caring less and less these days. All we do is argue lore thats either 10+ yrs old or not relevant anymore.
I apologize if I don’t as much effort into my responses as I normally do. I just argued Stormheim a million times by this point and it’s stale to be honest
Faction war not bad, bad writing bad, faction cold war best, Metzen Warcraft > post-Metzen Warcraft, yada yada.
Best pizza joint of all time.
Sales decrease as they experiment with toppings.
“There’s just no appetite for pepperoni pizzas anymore.”
No, genius, it is the matted dog hair and used chewing gum you’re hiding in the pepperoni pizza that people hate.
“We will now exclusively sell oatmeal.” internal screaming, Scanners head explode
I used to think there was a shred of decency in you, maybe just as a Human being…. but you have proven you are truly a monster!
( I kid - I love pizza and hate spaghetti. I am not a big fan of pasta in general. I can take super thin noodles at the most, like some of those clear Asian rice noodles…, but spaghetti is kinda gross to me)