Sylvanas from BfA onwards may have been the result of a dev spat in the Cosby Suite

[Doness-kargath (Doness)]

The war between the Alliance and Horde has no official name, for some reason.

[Alynsa-wyrmrest-accord]

Hah. Haha hah. Bwahahahaha!!!

This is f’n hilarious!!! I knew it, I knew the whole BfA Sylvanas arc was weener-brained manchild Afrosalami’s sexytime fetish made manifest, but to see someone near enough to the source confirming it is giving me giggles!! Giggles of frustration and hate, but hate giggles are still giggles!!

We all got screwed because two pervo devs had a pervo dispute!!!

How much further until we reach the bottom of this felhole?

@Doness-kargath

The war between the Alliance and Horde has no official name.

It does now.

The War of the Cosby Boys.

[Finge-wyrmrest-accord]

This about confirms a fear I had after watching the 9.2 cinematic. I’ve said elsewhere that I didn’t understand how we wouldn’t get any further insight on Teldrassil when we have an internal monologue occuring between the two parts of Sylvanas in front of a burning Teldrassil.

But perhaps that’s because there simply is no further insight and no reason for it occuring at all.

I’m now guessing that Blizz likely went to Golden and just said; “There’s absolutely no reason that this should have occurred, please do your best to make one up with this book.”

I don’t foresee that going fantastically.

That said, Afrasaibi is only responsible for soo much - Shadowlands has still been horrendously handled overall, including (but not limited to) the stuff surrounding Sylvanas and Teldrassil.

[Drahliana-earthen-ring (Drahliana)]

@Anuella-cenarion-circle

The Forsaken and the Alliance have been battling over Lordaeron for years. There was no reason whatsoever to scribble another war crime into the Horde’s naughty book just to provoke an invasion of the Undercity,

If Undercity was going to be taken away from the Horde a similar loss was needed Alliance side. Teldrassil was the most logical story choice.

[Ethriel-elune]

@Drahliana-earthen-ring

Teldrassil was the most logical story choice.

Not with a genocide, torture, and obliteration of nearly the entire Night Elf race.

Also, Teldrassil is not equal to Undercity. One is a zone, the other a city.

[Pellex-hyjal (Pellex)]

@Anyaceltica-llane

It certainly explains the sudden jump in her behavior.

Holy cow. I always kinda thought it was a plausible-sounding conspiracy theory, but I tried to treat it like just that—a conspiracy theory. Didn’t expect to get lowkey confirmation that it’s at least partly right.

@Drahliana-earthen-ring

If Undercity was going to be taken away from the Horde a similar loss was needed Alliance side.

It’s possible that Undercity wasn’t going to be taken in the original version, just besieged. That would explain why they didn’t have any “Alliance occupation” assets ready to go.

It’s also possible that Teldrassil was always going to be destroyed, but either not by the Horde or not in an unprovoked attack.

[Ethriel-elune]

@Pellex-hyjal

It’s also possible that Teldrassil was always going to be destroyed, but either not by the Horde or not in an unprovoked attack.

And it would’ve been fine.

If the Night Elves weren’t killed, tortured, and obliterated. None of the three.

They could’ve taken the tree away, but not kill of the entire race permanently in the most cruel way possible

[Drahliana-earthen-ring (Drahliana)]

@Pellex-hyjal

It’s possible that Undercity wasn’t going to be taken in the original version, just besieged. That would explain why they didn’t have any “Alliance occupation” assets ready to go.

It’s also possible that Teldrassil was always going to be destroyed, but either not by the Horde or not in an unprovoked attack.

It had been well known that the Devs were looking to cut down on player capital cities. It was a golden opportunity to take out two at once.

[Ethriel-elune]

@Drahliana-earthen-ring

It had been well known that the Devs were looking to cut down on player capital cities.

So is anyone going to mention how irrational and stupid that would be?

That idea itself?

[Anelaan-wyrmrest-accord (Anelaan)]

@Smallioz-kromcrush

I don’t like retcons. Writers are supposed to work around issues rather than hand wave them away when they are inconvenient.

I feel like there’s a massive difference between “we wrote something bad, let’s retcon it” and “we had a literal abuser in power and he and his buddies made some really horrible stuff we can’t possibly fix, let’s retcon it”.

[Smallioz-kromcrush]

@Drahliana-earthen-ring

It had been well known that the Devs were looking to cut down on player capital cities. It was a golden opportunity to take out two at once.

Why? To accomplish what? Server strain? The cities and the zones are still there.

@Anelaan-wyrmrest-accord

I feel like there’s a massive difference between “we wrote something bad, let’s retcon it” and “we had a literal abuser in power and he and his buddies made some really horrible stuff we can’t possibly fix, let’s retcon it”.

Retconning is only for the writer to get out of a jam. It does nothing for the viewer.
We all saw the Night Elves get killed, Horde do all those things and how embarrassingly the Alliance and Horde characters reacting to it all.

Everything we all lived through during BFA and Shadowlands is still there. Being told oupsie it never happened doesn’t do anything for anyone except the writers to skip over the difficult task of making amends by writing something that works for all of us and move on to the next chapter.

I already posted what my idea (and Zahir’s) would be to get us back on track. I think it works well enough but idk if from a Horde player view point it works as well.

[Doness-kargath (Doness)]

Why would they want to do that? That sounds like the ridiculous reason they removed the Brutosaur.

[Doness-kargath (Doness)]

Good writers retcon things when necessary. Black Blood Elves were criticized by racists with the excuse of lore. Lore is a product of those who make it.

[Pellex-hyjal (Pellex)]

@Ethriel-elune

None of the three.

Obviously we don’t know for sure, but it’s at least possible that it could have happened without those things.

@Drahliana-earthen-ring

It had been well known that the Devs were looking to cut down on player capital cities.

See paragraph #2 in my post that you quoted: if they were determined to get rid of Teldrassil, they could still have destroyed it, just in a different way. How? Pick any of the theories that were floating around in the lead-up to Warbringers. Accident caused by unstable stored Azerite, NEs torch it themselves (after evacuating) to deny the Horde a prize, Azshara does it for reasons of her own, N’Zoth brainwashes someone else into setting the fire without knowing what they’re doing … I’m sure there were more.

[Anelaan-wyrmrest-accord (Anelaan)]

@Smallioz-kromcrush

Why? To accomplish what? Server strain? The cities and the zones are still there.

Development time and throwing players into less places so it doesn’t look as empty.

It’s why all of the vendors and portals are in Org and Stormwind and not across multiple cities.

[Alynsa-wyrmrest-accord]

@Ethriel-elune

So is anyone going to mention how irrational and stupid that would be?

Ok, sure!!

This whole idea, that the game needed less capitals, is outright stupid. It effectively always had only the current expansion capital, and Stormwind/Orgrimmar outside of RP servers and specific quests. There is no real reason to bind your hearth to Undercity, Thunderbluff, Darnassus or Ironforge, let alone the BC-era capitals. All players were already funnelled to at most two cities.

And “destroying” Undercity and Darnassus didn’t even “get rid of” any capitals; they’re just behind a phase now. Levelers still pass through them as needed. Capped characters still visit them as needed. Nothing is gone from a mechanics perspective or from a convenience perspective (because both were already lacking in conveniences compared to SW/Org).

There is no benefit to “getting rid of” these two cities, and it’s dumb-headed logic to think they “needed” to be gotten rid of.

[Smallioz-kromcrush]

I mean ok… but right now Kultiras is just as abandonned as Teldrassil ever was and they still spent a lot of money making the best city in the game.

[Yvenathilm-fenris (Yvenathilm)]

@Anyaceltica-llane

Factor in the knowledge that Kosak (took over as the Lead Narrative Developer when Metzen started focusing on project Titan) was also part of the Cosby Suite, and now Tyrande and Jaina’s character assassinations in MoP to make room for God-Emperor Wrynn’s Alpha-Male Human Potential™ suddenly makes sense.

Kosak wanted Jaina as the Villain while Afrasiabi for the sake of consistency wanted Sylvanas(whom Kosak liked) as the Villain.

Both wanted a Female Villain for Alpha Males to triumph over. They just disagreed on which one.

[Smallioz-kromcrush]

@Yvenathilm-fenris

Both wanted a Female Villain for Alpha Males to triumph over. They just disagreed on which one.

Alpha male??? who? Andiun?
Oh nvm Saurfang.

[Pellex-hyjal (Pellex)]

@Yvenathilm-fenris

Kosak wanted Jaina as the Villain

I’m not sure he ever wanted Jaina to be a villain, just a warhawk. A hero to the Alliance and a villain (or at least an antagonist) to the Horde. And I’ve always believed that was because they were planning to develop Anduin as the voice of peace and reason, and they felt like the Alliance didn’t need more than one of them. This despite the fact that Jaina, as part of an organization that members of both factions interacted with—not to mention her previous friendship with Thrall and the whole story of what happened with her father—was much better positioned to be neutral-ish than the son of the human royal family.