*Spoilers* Sabellian, Wrathion, and Alexstraza

Lore Story Forum
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We’re not talking about SWTOR or ESO, though; WoW has been around longer than both and the devs have shown no interest in providing us anything close to genuine choices. This is just how it is with WoW.

BFA was the nail in the coffin for me as well, but here I am, not working to antagonize people on the forums on the regular for which faction they enjoy playing. I try to keep objective and open minded here as best as I can.

Rastakhan was a really interesting case, I think - and a huge disappointment as well. I think there was a lot of potential to explore the character, regardless of whether he was neutral or pro-horde. While the Zandalari have a long history of being antagonists to both factions (as well as allies from time to time), the justification used for the Alliance as to why Rastakhan needed to die was flimsy at best.

Same goes for Bwonsamdi; a hugely wasted opportunity for a really cool character.

BFA was a really great opportunity to build something deeper with troll lore, and they used it as a doormat for Sylvanas’ story-destroying narrative.

This is a pretty big element as to why (IMO) WoW has lost a lot of its heart.

Way back when, in Vanilla, and even BC, (and Wrath to a small degree), the player characters were the drivers of action and story in both a meta and a narrative sort of way. It was our characters who went into AQ, Naxx, BWL, etc, and kicked the villain’s teeth in; we didn’t have NPCs stealing all the glory and relegating us to card board cutouts in the background.

When Blizzard decided it wanted to streamline the story, a lot of the agency that came with WoW started to fizzle away. Now, granted, WoTLK had a thrilling story, but I think that was largely due to a nostalgia factor for a lot of us who played RoC: TFT. Nonetheless, more and more with every expansion, we’re in the side car; there’s no more truly unique experiences, because everyone is assured the opportunity to complete every dungeon and raid, and complete all the same quests as everyone else, etc. etc.

Our characters don’t have a chance to take part in something unique to just them because, again - going back to this…

If Blizzard genuinely wanted to take the “player/character agency” approach, there are ways to do it. A larger, more diverse world with a plethora of varied stories that are loosely connected, instead of these super narrow, finely focused narratives that touch on only a scant few topics.

If I had a choice between adventuring on Azeroth and going to the Shadowlands to explore ghost stuff? Easy choice; Azeroth. I want my characters to pursue the stories I have interest in. I play WoW because I enjoy exploring Azeroth. Having had no opportunity to do so, I avoided Shadowlands until the very end. I played through some of the quests just to get to 60 for Dragonflight, and I haven’t touched it since.

I know other folks felt the same about BFA and the faction war. And I know others who are skipping Dragonflight because it doesn’t appeal to them. Giving us choices is what makes games truly memorable; not playing through repeats of what everyone else is doing mindlessly.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s canon or not; sometimes it’s fun to just get to have agency and power. Many people play games to escape a rough, calloused world that is making them feel more and more powerless every day; finding that “escape” place full of disappointment and frustration certainly isn’t a positive.

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Bwonsamdi briefley returned in Shadowlands. Even if it was just for a cameo.

What does Sylvanas have to do with the Zandalari. She wasn’t the reason why alliance attacked them. That was because the alliance wanted to get rid of the fleet before it could turn into a problem and gain naval superiority.

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I have currently 4 characters on 60. And no active sub on my EU account. The entire thing seems boring beyond measure. Dragon lore never seemd interesting to me.

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I’d really love it if they would get the player characters more involved in the story, a more central figure that the original Warcraft characters turned to and relied on as “The Champion”.

It feels like some of the quest dialogue is trying to create that feeling but it always seems to be broken when cutscenes happen, and it’s always the Jaina or the Thrall or Anduin at the center speaking and our character’s nowhere to be found or pushed off to the side.

Would love it if they fixed this in some manner.

Nah, it’s important to let all players enjoy all the content. Many say a lot of players quit the game because getting to and completing the raids became a lot easier than it was in Vanilla or BC. True but it’s also true that a lot of players quit because they threw up their hands in frustration when they were locked out of participating in those raids because “they weren’t meta enough” or they couldn’t find a guild.

It’s better to be more inclusive. The hardcore guilds are fine with Mythic level content.

Then why are folks complaining about their choices “not mattering”? :confused:

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I mean … Sabellian’s right. :dracthyr_shrug:
Sab is the one who saved his flight and without him there would’ve even BE any eggs, whatsoever — and Wrathion tries to act like he’s creditable for their existence too? Wrathion, bless you’re cool and all but NO – Don’t take credit for others hard labours. lol

Also on the fact he tries to shun Sabellian for their ‘harm’ – he can’t hold a candle for ‘saving’ his flight (Well, maybe Ebyssian) let alone any eggs so he should really just hush. :roll_eyes:

The one singular good point Wrathion made was he upheld his father’s former righteous legacy which was the safeguarding of Azeroth.

However my prime reason for siding with Sabellian would have to be this:

One of the black drakes that follow Sabellian, made a statement of which summed it up very, very nicely and essentially what I’d been thinking & saying loudly to myself the whole time (So I’m glad they put it in game / felt like they did me a fan service lol) which is:

Baskilan:

“Sabellian rallied us on Outland, not only saving us from death, but also from the corruption that befell our kin — All the rest of the other flights and the glory starved mortals, even that pretentious ‘prince’ (Wrathion) – chose to murder the afflicted, rather than try and aid us.”

And he’s 100% right. :dracthyr_blob_dance_animated:

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That’s why I am voting for Sabellian! People forget that Sabellian was always a good soldier, but when given the opportunity to break from his father he did. He chose to save and work with the afflicted and I would love to see him as their aspect. More so, I want Rexxar cheering him on as he was close friends with old Sabellian. Along with Netherflight dragons all flying in circles around their hero.

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(Dumb mobile website posted prematurely)

We’ve been referred to as champions for many expansions now. After years of this, I can confidently say I dislike it. Every time a character says “thanks to our champion here” or “I’m sure you’re more than capable of handling yourself” or some other quip about how great I am, I feel annoyed and patronized. I wonder how many people feel the same as you vs I. That would be interesting to know.

They can’t exactly have our characters do the speaking unless they forgo the voice acting and have us just /say, which would be very weird. For scripted events, I’d be on board with no voice acting at all and our characters getting to speak. But during cutscenes, obviously not.

Vanilla, TBC, and Wrath all gained subscriptions with the exclusive raid model. Wrath was the peak. The raid finder was added during Cataclysm, which marked the decline in subs, and it’s been downhill ever since.

But this decline in Cataclysm started before raid finder was added. Some players like having something epic to always strive for; others get demoralized. But it’s really not the raiding that made the difference. It’s the whole shift in design philosophy toward more streamlined, more accessible, more easy, less RPG, less adventure.

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i would don´t like this, in my eyes…i want to play and enjoy the warcraft story…not “heroes travel”…if i want my heroes journey, i will play in my dnd campaign. :wink:

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OOOOH! :scream:

I forgot about that!! — That’d be so neat. :grin:
Horde & Alliance needs more notable classes in their list of active characters again too. Blizz kept killing them off, or making them submissive pushovers or handicapped. :pensive:

It should also be noted that the Twilight’s Hammer kept going to Outland to take Netherwing drakes for their experiments (in creating Twilight Drakes) – so it wouldn’t be too far fetched to say the Netherwing teamed up with Sabellian to protect their kind and play whackamole on the Twilight, then stay allied to survive and thrive in Outland. :slight_smile:

Having Netherwing Drakes under the wing and boon of the Black Dragonflight would be cool too, because it gives them a trump card that’s fitting to their famed power & diverse thinking of safeguarding Azeroth by various means.

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See, this is a perfect example. We have Zahirwrite saying he just wants to play and enjoy the story as it is and doesn’t care about being the big hero, vs other posters who’ve said they wanted their actions and choices to have effects on the world.

Two different viewpoints.

There are so many different opinions on what this game “should be” that it’s impossible to please everyone. That’s why they shouldn’t try and just make the story and content that they want to do rather than what a bunch of goofs on the forums say they should do.

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These aren’t actually at odds. You can want to have actions and choices matter without being the big hero.

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K then, for all you villains, side kicks, minions, or common slurms who also want to change the world too…I guess. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Honestly I feel ‘Chroncles’ gave it good homage to events, dungeons & raids to who did what (Horde defeated X, Alliance defeated Y – Both banded together & did Z).

I like being significant as a mass, and a key-figure to important characters as like part of their support group & council.

I like the warcraft universe as a story without some singular random murderhobo being a central core figure in the story, so much so that it rotates around them specifically, because I don’t think it suits … Especially if you’re to read books, or have a show series on it later. “Ah yes, (removed) you’re my hero! – I shall name my first child after you!”

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I can see where they are coming from. But one of the reasons why Sebellian was able to save those from the Old Gods corruption was simply putting distance between them and N’zoth. By the time Wrathion had the Ravenholdt guild do the assassinations, Deathwing was about to unleash the Hour of Twilight. Reducing the number of soldiers in Deathwings army was the correct call in the long term. With that immediate threat dealt with, Wrathion then focused on other things. Which included finding a long time solution to the N’zoth problem. And we know it worked since it enabled Ebonhorn to leave Highmountain without falling to corruption. As seen in the Highmountain recruit quest chain. It is probably why Sabellian and his brood only returned to Azeroth AFTER N’zoth was killed.

Alexstrasza ordered the death of the Black Dragonflight as a last resort. Just like she did with Malygos. She hates having to kill her own kin. Even if they are insane to the point of being absolutely sane (Malygos) or corrupted by the Old Gods. It’s why she tried to use words to convince Neltharion to abandon the path he was on in the Twilight Highlands story line. Much to her sons objections.

I don’t think LFR was the sole reason for the decline in subs. Wrath’s 10 man normal raids were basically the LFR of their day. Intentionally tuned raids for casuals who just want to experience the raid. I would say a large factor to the decline of subs was the end of Arthas’ story. MoP’s theme was all about adventure and it still saw a decline in subs.

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Malygos did nothing wrong. Denying mortals the access to magic was the right call. They can’t be trusted with it.

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Unfortunately beings like Sargeras and the Void Lords would be a problem even with Magic taken away. Even more so infact considering how many times we needed it to defeat them!

Taking Magic away kills the World Soul so the Legion has no reason to spare Azeroth and so Sargeras would just have the Legion bombard it from orbit.

Not to mention Malygos’s methods have torn a rift into the Twisting Nether that the Void through Nexus-Prince Bilaal would later use in an attempt to breach Azeroth without the Old Gods.

If Malygos was allowed to continue the Twisting Nether’s Rift into the Nexus would have gotten large enough that removing Magic would have become impossible due to the Nether spewing out Magic just as quickly as Malygos was firing it out into the Great Dark Beyond!

Malygos in the end was inexperienced despite his position and knew nothing about how to deal with Magic and was on the path to causing his efforts to get rid of it to be wasted. Furthermore the Immortals who have their own Magic that Malygos can’t even touch would simply steamroll him if his plan did work!

Hoarding Magic of course would have been an idea but impossible to execute due to how much Magic both Azeroth and the Twisting Nether(which would be spewing Magic into the growing Rift into Azeroth) has.

Malygos was a naive idealist who had no idea how things worked.

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The theme was good (although many disliked the panda part), but it still suffered from the shift in design philosophy. I remember thinking it at the time. Much good, and yet much bad.

I agree the sub decline was partly due to the end of Arthas’ story.

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If anything Sabellian is THE neutral choice as he has no ties to either faction. Wrathion through his friendship with Anduin has a tie to the Alliance and Ebonhorn obviously has a tie to the Horde (and Wrathion and Ebornhorn in fact are the Dracthyrs’ envoy to the Alliance and Horde respectively). Since the leader of a dragonflight should be truly neutral, that’s another point in Sabellian’s favor.

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Tho to be clear I am absolutely rejecting Wrathion because he is 150% Alliance.

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And he is not alone with that. Just look at those clowns on twitter who still think they can take Lordaeron.