[Spoilers] Shadowlands Alpha Thread

Notice how her biggest problem with Sylvanas is that she’s not an Orc, implying that if she was, it would be fine.

Because the Horde story is terrible in its own unique and horrible way.

I think that lesson would have a better impact if this wasn’t the second time the entire Horde had fallen for this exact same ploy.

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blizzard writing… bad ?!?

blizzard no can… write ?!

this shocking discovery for me smooth orc brain

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me so sorry you had find out this way

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Maybe I didn’t do enough of the Horde story stuff, but what seemed to me in particular to be an issue is that they tried to sell conflict within the Horde at the end, specifically through a division between Sylvanas (the leadership) and the boots on the ground.

Blizzard doesn’t really characterize boots-on-the-ground characters very often anymore, and maybe never did, I feel. Every faction or group gets one representative–their leader, and that’s how you know about what that group is like.

They tried to split the Horde up with Saurfang, and Sylvanas, and Baine, and Gallywix, and that was a nice idea, with spotty execution.

But you can’t represent the boots on the ground with a big leader. That’s not how that works. So when Blizz tried to call it in and say, “See, but these soldiers that have been working for her are upset by that! Because that’s what they’re like!”

And it makes no sense. The only characterization they get is that we know they did what Sylvanas told them to do (or at least some of them did) because people were clearly there to fight besides her and the Forsaken.

I think a faction war plot just involves a lot of plates to juggle (on top of the issues they already have with faction war plots), and they should either simplify them (and commit to fixing the previously mentioned issues) or drop them altogether.

I wouldn’t mind if we focused on one or two sections of the Alliance/Horde going at it at a time, with the Big Big Leaders like Anduin coming in every once in a while.

EDIT: To clarify, this seemed to be an issue in particular with how the entire Horde turned on Sylvanas at the end.

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That definitely strikes me as the intent, but it is so botched that taking her words at face-value, it comes off like the only problem with anything that happened was Sylvanas doing it all for some secret agenda of her own. Which carries a pretty dark implication that Geya’rah would find everything that Sylvanas did 100% peachy otherwise.

And the fact that she never gets the screentime to have some moment of conflict; it goes directly from her being 100% Sylvanas to the aftermath of Sylvanas abandoning the Horde, where she is suddenly singing Saurfang praises despite his own treason. She doesn’t even have to reckon with the concept of Saurfang’s disloyalty being in service of the Horde as an ideal, it just jumps right to “he died with honor” without any introspection.

In a more competent story where that was intentionally placed within such a context, it would make her seem like a moral coward trying to cloak herself in his redemption.

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I don’t get why that’s surprising, though. That is literally what Orcish Honor is: support something until it’s inconvenient, declare it dishonorable, pretend you never did it.

Damn near every Orc character does this because they are the center of an extremely stupid dynamic.

I don’t think it is surprising as much as it is deeply disappointing. Even when she was a full-throated Sylvanas supporter, I had some respect for her as a character: that she had grown so used to total war against Yrel’s Lightbound that her sense of “honor” had been deeply warped to justify anything in service of survival. Not a sympathetic character, but one that would make sense.

Instead, it just turns out that she’s yet another generic Orc “good guy” (something told directly to us instead of being shown) whose only defining character trait was accidental.

I need more new hair

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Right? Teasing us with all that human customization.

I mean, Gey’arah essentially hero worships Grommash Hellscream who only failed at his own attempt at genocide because he was the single worst leader the Orcs had ever seen.

and gnome and night elf. at least as far as hair goes. then all the skins and tattoos and facepaints and body paints. gonna make soooo many alts look all sparkly and new

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The game was objectively better from a story point of view when it was written by an old metalhead dude. Metzen got undeserved crap but he told a fun story that you could tell he cared about. Was it amazing? No but it was the game that we fell in love with.

Corporate hipsters attaching themselves to properties for impressive lines on a resume are way more worse. I don’t get the impression any of them care.

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Really hope we get a lot more skin tones for races. Purple eyes for Draenei is the dream :yellow_heart: Worgen got so many!

Any race you’re hoping for in particular?

honestly, purple skin + bone face/body paint for trolls is already dream level material, since I can finally properly make my dark troll hexxer now.

worgen getting a whole host of eye colors is also a win. More hair for goblins maybe?

the only real thing I’m really real hoping for that probably won’t make it for release is upright forsaken. And maybe pulling their shoulder pad locations in more centered. but that’s not really customization just…tweaks.

Really Forsaken need work, they were one of the more disappointing races with their model update.

The stitched and skull face were ruined imo.

An upright option for Forsaken and Worgen would be dope.

The men came out ok, but the women look rough.

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oh man that reminds me

jawless/damaged faces for girl forsakens

we gotta go equal opportunity body horror

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Yeeeeeees!

BoDy UnClEaR

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Let my Forsaken be an actual skeleton, you cowards

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forsaken hairstyle but its just an open skull with a brain sitting out

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