I don’t think that there is literally a single thing that they could possibly do that would make even a quarter of the regular posters on this forum happy.
If I was on the writing team, I would have looked at these forums maybe once or twice before I arrived at the conclusion that looking at them is pointless and I should just write what I think makes sense and rely on my colleagues for feedback. I suspect most of the head writers have done exactly that and frankly, they’re correct to do so.
This is probably the single most toxic fandom I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely in the top 3. And that’s impressive considering that the WoW lore fandom is puny compared to most of the other contenders. We definitely punch above our weight in that regard.
Respectfully, and strongly, disagree on this point. If what’s been happening since Legion equates to what the writers believe “makes sense,” and internal feedback hasn’t aided them in ironing out some of the more egregious problems, then I feel like they desperately need some more outside - constructive - criticism.
I’d actually say this forum is, by and large, pretty tame. Check out the comment section on any Dragonball Z video and you’ll see what an actual toxic fanbase looks like.
If that’s true, they ain’t gonna find it here. Nobody here cares about the quality of the writing, they care about nursing fictional grievances and getting one over on their posting enemies. Anything that isn’t conducive to that is “bad writing” regardless of its objective quality.
If anything a true outside perspective would probably be more positive because they aren’t weighed down by ten years of brain-poisoning internet BS.
If this appears to be the case the only reason for it is that it’s heavily moderated and we aren’t allowed to cuss. Go to some WoW lore discords and see how people act when they don’t feel they have to put on a mask of passive-aggressive civility under the threat of forum vacations.
I also want to say that I liked your OP. I think it was pretty accurate and insightful and I’m sorry your thread got ruined by the inevitable dumb slapfighting between terminally online psychopaths like myself that is the ultimate destiny of all discourse on this hellforum
That is incorrect. Even since vanilla, the Blight was developed in order to wipe both the living and all other undead from the face of Azeroth. The RAS has allways been as evil as one can be.
BFA alone shows serious changes are needed to their writing process.
Horde gets the ash of genocide on its hands but this is not talked about in its in game content until Crossroads, instead a single person getting tortured is treated as the big moral catalyst for Baine to be the first Horde leader to defy Sylvanas outside of the rather distant Saurfang.
Faction War basically ends at the beginning of 8.2, leaving the primary theme of the expansion barely making it to the halfway point.
N’zoth gets relugated to a single patch with a very secondary void presence before then. Could basically be written out as nothing important would change going into change with Shadowlands having no meaningful connection to its events.
Horde gets a council with no meaningful reflection on why so many supported Sylvanas outside of vague hatred statements which get minimal elaboration.
The problem is the WoW fandom can’t seem to even have consensus on the important, typically faction war, events. Which divides the fanbase in sureal wild takes that in any other media would mean the writers did a fantastic job at depicting these events.
The more I talk with people here the more I am convinced the writers are actually geniuses and this is all this community deserves.
Sylvanas is said she has the support of the people, and we’re never shown why.
Like Garrosh appeared to have improved the quality of life in Orgrimmar. Industrialized the place, shored up its defenses, expanded territory, etc.
Despite every country rambling about its lofty ideas the simple fact is that most people just want to feel safe and have a tolerable job with decent pay. You sort that out and a lot of people will at least turn a blind eye to some more heinous plans you’ve going on.
So Garrosh was believable. But Sylvanas didn’t improve anything. She made things immediately worse. Orgrimmar’s population surged alright but not from provincial Orcs flooding in for new opportunities.
In Wrath when Forsaken refugees came pouring in the Orcs were not happy about it. And while I love them the reality is they do eat people. That’s not a stereotype it’s their biology. So I can get being a bit nervous about having a bunch of desperate ones camped outside your house.
I grant that times have changed and they’re more accepting of the undead. But in any scenario a massive influx of refugees is going to cause some friction. Top that with starting a brutal war of attrition right after the last Legion conflict and I fundamentally do not understand how she was popular.
Did they all just hate Teldrassil that much? Every member of the Horde knows exactly what it’s like to watch your homeland burn around you. You’d think they’d have more nuanced opinions about now being responsible for doing just that. Especially to the Kaldorei who are never framed as the big bad blue. Hell the Tauren have better relations with Darnassus than they do with nations in their own faction, and the Forsaken never even fought the Kaldorei directly until Darkshore.
Not to mention this is right after Legion. So fighting alongside Elune Priestesses is a very fresh memory for this toon, and you had the Kaldorei present in a bunch of other Halls.
Just awful writing. Sylvanas was getting to the point where even the Forsaken blindly following her was getting silly but at least she’s a God queen to many of them. Why the rest of the Horde who owe her nothing would just go along and hope for the best is ridiculous.
The Forsaken blight developed to take out the Scourge and the Lich King. Why else would a bunch of undead make a version of the Blght -which originally did not affect undead- able to affect undead? It’s only use pre-Cataclysm was during the assault against Lich King.
However, once it’s revealed that Putress has created something that can slay undead and living alike, combined with the terrible ‘friendly fire’ incident , the Horde/Alliance realize this new blight is too dangerous. There’s a whole joint operation to go into Undercity and deal with Putress and their followers.
It’s not until Cataclysm -again, where the previously established relationships started shifting- that we find out Sylvanas is still developing the plague and the Forsaken in general are slinging it left and right primarily against the living.
And later, in BfA, they decide that she was behind the original Wrathgate incident and wanted to kill everyone in the world it the whole time.
It is also easy to see why a certain number of Orcs would fall for Garrosh’s demagoguery. A guy who emphasizes being the biggest, baddest meathead would appeal to those who mistake raging recklessness for strength and honor.
Well there was a brief period where some horde npc’s wandering around were praising her for the ‘victory’ in Kalimdor, but that was quite brief.
The whole world war was really just presented in whimsical one liners, and not really shown to be evolving in any fashion.
Anduin: we’ll have to start recruiting farmers.
Captain Blighty: The alliance is winning on all fronts.
Anduin: We’ve only got enough troops for one attempt
Lorthemar: Sylvanas has the support of the people.
We also have the Horde supposedly falling apart from what Saurfang talks about to Thrall, but we don’t really see anything like that until the 8.2 rebellion beginning and that was after Sylvanas literally tried to kill off those most likely to do so.
Because they, and by they I mean the RAS, wanted to develop the ultimate blight, that would scour the world of both the living and the scourge. That’s what all their experiments was for, and all the test subjects, like the captured dwarven ranger. This was vanilla, mind you, and they kept their goals under wraps, and have continued to do so.
I don’t know if the RAS’s plans changed or got retconned over the years, but I know for absolute certainty that the RAS wanted to get rid of basically everyone except the Forsaken itself. Whether this was under order from Sylvanas or not is something I don’t know.
Which imo has contributed largely to the Alliance/Human story in WoW feeling very disconnected from WC3s events. Stormwind wasn’t relevant at ALL (at least on screen) in WC3. Heck, you could even argue Gilneas was more relevant. They had a Brigade as part of Jaina’s Expedition to Kalimdor. Theramore made more sense as the human racial capitol in WoW.
But again, i understand gameplay mechanics dictated Stormwind. It still feels pretty awkward though. I think a lot of the Human/Alliance complaints & disconnect would be nonexistent if Theramore had been the official capitol. Or even if it was portrayed better ingame for that matter. It was the “New” home/kingdom founded by the survivors of those Kingdoms and should have been treated as such. If it was the racial capitol or even just portrayed better ingame, properly representing the Lordaeron/Fallen Kingdoms of the north, i believe there would have been less people pushing for a reclaiming of Lordaeron.
But the RAS was tasked with making a weapon to defeat the Scourge Lich King. When Putress went behind everyone’s backs to create a weapon to kill the dead AND the living in WotLK, both Horde and Alliance went against it and removed them.
And then King Varian declared war on the Horde for not catching it sooner.
The plans for the Blgght did get retconned over the years so that Sylvanas knowingly ordered it and continued having the Forsaken use it. Up to BfA, where it’s revealed that she wants to just kill everyone and so many Forsaken just go along with it and end up as the villains.
And the reason for the war between the Horde and Alliance following the WotLK got rectonned into Garrosh being a jerk and leading the Horde into a war with the ultimate goal of conquering all of Azeroth.
This is what I mean when I say Blizzard has made a habit of changing the more nuanced/complicated conflicts of WC3 and earlier WoW to the point where the dynamic now is that the Horde races repeatedly end up committing ridiculous crimes and being made to feel bad bad because they were born innately bad, while the Alliance increasingly ends up being these put upon goody goodies who can do no wrong .
And apparently the living as well, or atleast they took the second part upon themselves, which is why all their testing in vanilla is on living beings, not undead.
That is where you are wrong. The RAS’s intention was always to make the blight devastating against both the living and undead. Putress simply used what they had already created against the wrong target.
They may have retconned Sylvanas ordering it, but the Blight was always intended to kill both living and dead, right from the start.
It is of course possible that the RAS was under the command of Varimathras ever since vanilla, in which case it can be considered his fault that the blight became what it became. But there is no doubt as to what the RAS intented to do with the blight, and neither that the rest of the Forsaken didn’t stop them, despite their abhorrent research.
The original Blight wielded by the Scourge/Lich King affected only the living.
In WC3/Vanilla WoW, the Forsaken started working on a NEW Blight. One that would actually destroy undead instead. They wanted to defeat the Scourge and the Lich King.
As you pointed out, Putress hijacked the project and turned this new Blight into something that would be used against the living as well as the undead, with the ultimate goal of using it against everyone. And they did end up using it on everyone at the Wrathgate. That’s not what Putress was hired to do, though.
That’s why after the Wrathgate incident, the Horde and Alliance both went into Undercity, defeated Putriss and Putriss’ supporters, and declared that the Blight was too dangerous to be used again.
And that’s where WotLK ended it. Putress gone. The Blight condemned by everyone. Varian declaring war on the Horde for even letting this happen to begin with.
It’s only later, when Blizzard started down the track of deciding that Forsaken (and other Horde races) are just all around prone to being terrible that the Blight became part of a larger Sylvanas/Forsaken plot to destroy everyone.
The Scourge had blight? You’re sure you don’t mean the plague and all that jazz? Because one is disease, while the other is more akin to a biochemical weapon.
And the living. The Forsaken weren’t as nice as you think they were in vanilla. They were actually pretty evil, especially the RAS. or at least they were portrayed to be far more evil than any other race, Horde or Alliance. Cold and uncaring at best, and extremely cruel at worst.
No, it was always intended to be used against the living as well. I’m 99% certain that RAS members say so outright in questing, in vanilla. Not cataclysm, vanilla. And even if they didn’t, it’s not a coincidence that all of their test subjects were living beings, not undead, despite it being much easier for them to grab as many zombies as needed from their surroundings.
But Putriss hijacked the project and altered it’s goals. It was not requested to work against the living. Putriss did that. And was secretive about it. That’s why they, as you stated before, they kept their goals under wraps.