I don’t think anyone is going to argue that Vol’jin wasn’t done dirty - he most certainly was. Even so, Sylvanas’s appointment still makes sense even outside of the necessity for what Blizzard was trying to set up for the plot in future expansions.
Erring and Saurfang were seen as too old to lead, Baine was seen as too young, i don’t think I need to tell you why Gallywix would have been a bad idea, and while Lor’themar certainly had the most experience he is still only a regent to his own people. It’s telling that even with there being no other logical choice to lead Blizz still thought Vol’jin would need a push from the Loa to put Sylvanas in charge.
I don’t think they ever expected everyone to be happy with how she came to power - I think they’d ere relying on that sense of doubt. They just underestimated how many Horde players would actually be absolutely enthusiastic about Warchief Sylvanas (even at the detriment of poor old Vol’jin.)
That’s a fair point. Weirdly though, I think it was Varian that was killed off for faction parity rather than Vol’jin. Both were very sudden deaths, but his didn’t seem to serve much purpose other than to replace him with his son.
His death was over-glorified and given a lot of focus, Anduin was given a lot of focus as his potential successor and the Alliance story felt like a next chapter with Anduin taking the throne.
Vol’jin just being offed for no reason after he accomplished nothing of note felt like they accidentally shredded the script.
They had to give the Horde an extra cutscene because the big Broken Shore one was all about how Varian was awesome.
Yeah … what they told me was very clearly “everything you liked about the Horde faction was wrong. Don’t you know the only thing of value on your entire faction is an edgy nihilist who treats everyone else like garbage, and who only gets away with half of what she does because of plot convenience?”. Nevermind that the WC3 vision of the Horde is only reason the Faction makes functional sense. Or that they continue to have to use that same image of the Faction to save it from their WC1/WC2 BS. Nevermind that Sylvanas was never even given a reason to start caring for her own Forsaken more as people, than just tools for her own personal use. When they did what they did with Jin, they made it VERY clear how much contempt they have for the themes of the WC3 Horde. Something they’ve been hammering home for years I suppose.
Just like Cairne with Garrosh, Vol’jin had to die to put a Despot on the Throne.
Well I’m sorry you feel that way, but I would hope by now that you would understand that not everyone who plays Horde wants the same thing you do and not everyone who played Horde saw Sylvanas and her ascent (at the time) in as negative a light as you did.
I can’t speak for the writers, what their intent really was or wasn’t, because somehow along the way they managed to piss off everyone who plays their game - Horde and Alliance, Pro and Anti-Sylvanas - But I’d like to hope that there was some audience that they thought that their story was catering to.
This was part of why I questioned whether it was bad dialogue because they were intentionally putting on a show. A lot of time up there to discuss strategy where the Jailer can’t see her after all…
It’s more than likely just face value bad writing but it is unusually generic, noteworthy even.
You’re right. I was apparently the exception, because I noticed after EoN she was never given a motive to start caring about even her own people more as people, then tools for her personal use. Beyond the mere expectation by her fanbase that that change occur, because the alternative was unspeakable. But if you pressure them, they can’t give you what that motive was or when it happened outside of ABSURDLY generous interpretations of what “Bulwark Against the Infinite” and Sylvie saying she’ll “use” the Forsaken meant.
Which means, you have a leader who’s PC race were just accessories for her own personal use, now leading the entire Faction of her Alliance of Convenience. Meaning that now everyone in the faction was just part of her tool, her Bulwark Against the Infinite. And with how she wielded that tool, we were just the Scourge 2.0 (like we ended up being in BfA). Evil braindead monsters led around blindly for Sylvie’s story and purposes.
So, I was just browsing through various WoW machinima on YouTube, as one does, and I happened upon IKedit’s remaster of the Wrathgate, which I had seen before, but I decided to watch it again. As I was watching it, I couldn’t help think of this little snippet we have here, and the dialogue does not compare favorably at all with Bolvar’s speech making and trash-talking in Wrath. This is the same man who stood at the base of Angrathar and issued challenge to the Lich King? He comes face-to-face with the person who is arguably responsible for his death and who also dethroned him as Lich King, and the best he can give is “We will stop you, Sylvanas!”? Blizzard, you could literally just lift the audio for “You will pay for all the lives you’ve stolen” from the Wrathgate and it would be an improvement over this. Please give him something more interesting to say, even if the meaning isn’t changed, just something more poetic than “We will stop you!”
Or, contrary to that, seeing how the world changes and how different chatacters establish and express different views on events, might actually make the world more rich, and show that a faction with, (random number) half a dozen races is also a half a dozen ways to view the world, instead of being jammed into “1 faction = 1 mind (until it’s convenient to take another route)”
2 notes:
there is an interview with Afrasiabi, when after he was asked about why the allied races that were added (post Legion ones I suppose, given the date of the interview). And the answer was “what’s cool”. IMO the main follow up question would be “what is the target audience to actually define what might be considered as cool”. Given the things mentioned in the “I feel lied to” thread, I think it’s more about some people in the team being vocal about what they think is “cool”, which is not a good approach IMO for commercial software.
When during blizzconline the devs made the Evolution of Thrall planel the thing that stood out for me, is that the people there, while passionate, interested in the story, invested in it, etc., totally oblivious when it comes to the media [I meant: the tools, opportunities, and limitations of the game as medium for the narrative] and the audience who plays the game. There are no considerations for why people should find in interesting to “play” through that story, to participate in unraveling it. And many more things could be said about it, but that is a good enough “#1 problem” candidate IMO.
Well, it worked kind of fine in pre-Cata time. Sylvanas mean a lot for the forsaken as someone who gave them a new reason to exist after all they’ve been through. For Sylvanas they were a tool to accomplish her crusade against Arthas. Both sides knew what it’s all about, and appreciated it for what it was.
Deviating from that line was… an odd decision that led to many problems and negativity as we can see nowadays. Sylvanas was good for who she was, and not so much when the modern devs tried to repurpose her for their ideas.
I think they can’t do it, because that might clash with what the devs desperately want to do with the story, it seems. I remember having a really bad feeling about where it all goes, when I did the Spear of Kalliope quest line in Bastion.
Servant of Kalliope says: The Mark of Humility. Symbolizing one’s resilience against arrogance and pride. Servant of Kalliope says: Humility is not only about the self. It can take many forms. Servant of Kalliope says: There will come a time when you will seek the aid of someone you branded as an enemy. I pray humility allows you to see the path.
So, yeah. It seems they really want to push a story line for Sylvanas in a direction which might make the situation even worse.
And it all IMO is so comical when paired with all their talks about morality and such.
I mean going back to the Thrall panel, they have a horribly wrong conception of what being a slave is like.
Their fundamental problem is they have just a flat-out bad, incorrect world-view for sensitive issues, straight up.
Because if Thrall is what they think a slave story that makes sense is like, I don’t want to know what they think is a genocide/genocider story that makes sense.
There have always been different concepts of slaves, and Thrall was not a worker-slave but rather a fighter-slave, a gladiator.
Am I misunderstanding this, or do you mean that because something bad has happened to someone, it is impossible for him to do bad things, or how should I understand this?
Plot hasn’t been resolved quite yet but the whole 9.1 “Actually Elune has a purpose for all the dead night elves to save Ardenweald/her little sister” heavily implies Elune intentionally let all the night elves die for some Greater Good.