I actually would not mind this, and would like it if it turned out that Sylvanas’s soul did in fact remain in the Maw after Edge of Night, and one of the Jailer’s Val’kyr is inhabiting Sylvanas’s body. This would explain her sudden change from pre-Cata being somewhat morally grey and not full on evil, to Cata Sylvanas who is just straight up evil and raising people against their will, killing people willy nilly, etc.
I think this would be a good way to “redeem” Sylvanas as it was not the real one.
I do actually agree that this would be the one way to salvage Sylvanas’s character, which I wish they hadn’t take this direction with in the first place.
I wouldn’t mind this change, although it’d sorta be weird just because thats 10 years of character development thrown out the window for “sike, that wasn’t the real Sylvanas, y’all just got pranked!”.
Though this did make me think of the theory they had with Garrosh back in the day. To explain the somewhat sudden shift from “Alliance bad but we must have honor” to “Hurr durr mana-bomb time” people were saying that the real Garrosh was kidnapped by the Twilight’s Hammer back in Twilight Highlands, and replaced with a twilight agent and that the real Garrosh was either still imprisoned or dead. Though Blizz later debunked this theory so I’d be surprised if the possessed Sylvanas one was in-fact what they’ve been doing this whole time.
I really want to see Lirath Windrunner make an appearance and be all, sis wtf? Though not sure she cares about what her family thinks of her any longer…
I think they’re sort of going for a sympathetic villain thing with Sylvanas. The intent isn’t to “redeem” her any more than it is to make her a random Dark Lord-type who is a baddy just because.
My best guess is that Sylvanas and the Jailer Squad are trying to make the afterlife better than it is (with themselves in charge, of course.) They see themselves as pursuing the “greater good” in enforcing their will onto the Shadowlands (and indeed, perhaps some of their changes may be for the better, overall, for the average soul. The Kyrian storyline seems to suggest this.)
I don’t think they’re trying to redeem her, I think they’re kind of going for a sort of “Thanos”-type vibe where no one denies they’re a villain, but they’re sympathetic to many to at least some degree and make 1 or 2 semi-compelling arguments along the way.
This also fits with Blizzard’s sort of relativistic grim-dark universe they’ve been building, as well.
I think it not only salvage’s Sylvanas as a character, it keeps her alive for the fans that like her, and if we can bring her back from the Maw to Azeroth she could continue to lead the Forsaken instead of Calia which many do not like.
And then for people, like me, who would want to see retribution for the stuff Sylvanas has done since Cata we get to take out the fake Sylvanas and Jailer.
It’s a win-win situation which is why I think Blizzard might be going this route. But then again this is Blizzard and we never know what they are thinking…
The success of classic could have taught the devs that the endgame doesn’t need 20 different complicated time consuming systems for gaining power to be fun, but I guess it didn’t
Yeah, like I already enjoy the aspect of not having to toss a fish into a river to get access to flying. So if Renown isn’t tied to world quests and the like, I’ll be happy.
It’s not about fun. It’s about keeping people online for the greatest amount of time because that’s the metric data by which WoW gets its allocations of funds from the Activision CEO’s Scrooge McDuck style money bin.
That metric was never a big deal in ye olden tymes because we were all young and had a lot more free time on our hands. Now the WoW player base has aged (Seriously, we’re almost 4 years out from WoW’s 20th) and we’re not spending as much time in the game as we used to. And that’s a problem for a game like WoW that long ago stopped reporting subscription numbers (Meaning those numbers are no longer just making back development costs like they used to). Because if people aren’t in WoW, then they aren’t playing WoW. And why should Activision’s CEO drop the level of the money bin by a centimeter in that case?
WoW Classic is kind of its own bailiwick in that regard. They’ve got nothing to prove because everything over there is pure profit margin because it’s not like Classic-specific content is being developed.
I understand that motivation, but I’ve never really felt like… it works?
Like, how many players actually remained subbed through all of BfA because they just needed to do their islands every week to keep their necklace ahead of everyone else? Do the layered grinds really ensnare anyone but the most unhinged 1% of minmaxers? How much of your market share is that?
I guess Blizz has the numbers and they must think these systems are a good business practice for keeping people subbed, but I just don’t get it.