I think the forums overestimate how many people actually have a problem with it. Watching twitch, I remember chat being filled with “for the horde” and SMOrc during the burning of Teldrassil.
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We need a moment where the Forsaken and Goblins drive the narrative. Hardcore Goblin and Forsaken fans are getting their chaotic destructive moment.
As a person who mains Horde and a Blood Elf fan - I like seeing my Goblin and Forsaken partners have their day in the sun. The Horde needs to look out for the interests of all its members. The Orcs have used the Horde for their purposes, and other races are calling in debts.
I would rather experience this, then have the Goblins and Forsaken ignored while in the trunk of the Orc clown car. BfA is doing a great job of balancing a Troll infusion with Forsaken aggression and Goblin profiteering.
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I agree with Jellex that Blizzard misjudged the reception of Teldrassil. But I really can’t make sense of what they were expecting, given the things they’ve produced. I think they expected a sizeable percentage of Horde players to be upset (at first), but for those people to be soothed by “Old Soldier.” Beyond that, they have Saurfang scold the PC in the stockades, then expect the PC to back him against Sylvanas. Through “Old Soldier,” they tell us that the burning of Teldrassil was Sylvanas’s personal act and it doesn’t mean the whole Horde is evil, but then they expect the PC to still be happy to help her and Nathanos go on a corpse-raising spree in Kul Tiras, culminating with the raising of Derek Proudmoore … which then makes Valtrois compare the Horde to the Legion. Is it just that they can’t think of any other way to have the PC be active in the story?
It’s all such a complete mess that I could almost believe there are two or three separate Horde teams, each with its own idea of what Horde players will enjoy, each contributing parts of the story and never mind if those parts contradict each other.
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I’m not sure if your version or mine is worse. I thought that Blizz had themselves acknowledged that the SoO patch was not really their finest hour, yet this would be repeating something that they understand the players are not big fans of.
I think you got a lot of people reacting on the spur of the moment. That said, I freely acknowledge that I have no evidence one way or another for this claim. As far as I have been able to discern, more people have ended up unhappy than happy with the War of Thorns.
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Ive enjoyed every bit of this game and honestly I think blizzard has never failed to give us a good experience. The last thing I want is the player base influencing the story. But thats my 2 cents.
Well congratulations for enjoying BfA. I guess you’re their target audience.
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Bruh, everything is better with a plumbus.
Oh, now I remember. I must’ve forgotten that particular plotline because it also felt off to me. XD While Staghelm had been suspicious for years, going fullout Xavius-loving fire druid felt off to me somehow (I was expecting something a little less…hamfisted?), and the dragons magically deciding the tree was pretty cool after all because Malfurion said so certainly felt off.
As far being a source of corruption–I was under the impression it was not the tree itself so much as how it was grown, though the reveal about Staghelm’s betrayal retconned that. Voldrassil in Northrend was torn down when its roots reached Yogg-Saron’s prison, and Nordrassil is on top of one of the highest mountains of Azeroth. I always assumed that was why the dragons refused to bless Teldrassil–being out in the ocean it’s more likely to reach the Old Gods. At least, I preferred that explanation than the “you’re being arrogant asking for immortality” one–which just sounds strange coming from a bunch of immortal proto-drakes.
I think it’s pretty dang telling that I am not and never was a fan of Sylvie and even I think that her character has been assassinated basically beyond repair.
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Correct. All according to cake.
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In this expansion, I have a conundrum, I don’t like at all what Sylvanas is doing and the horde being, rightfully after what was done, villain batting, but at the same time I don’t want to have a rehash of MoP. I don’t, honestly as much as I dislike Sylvanas right now, want to see another Horde leader killed for purples or off screen.
I have no idea how they didn’t realize that doing this would not be a good idea.
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Sylvanas should’ve been replaced by Jorg of Ancrath.
My feelings exactly.
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It also gave us Legion. There was very little in Legion that wasn’t fanservice and recycled storylines, and yet it’s still considered one of the best expansions.
BFA meanwhile is recycling the storyline of a previous expansion that was very controversial, and is doing so by beating the ever loving stuff out of half the playerbase with the villain bat. It’s hard to enjoy the beginning or middle of the story when the story is insulting, and it becomes very easy to say “you know what? I don’t care about the ending.”
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I’m going to have to agree with you there. As a primarily Alliance player, this story has been frustrating. The Alliance has been written, while in “positive” light they have been written painfully incompetent.
I get to watch our cities burn, armies routed, people slaughtered, but hey, at least I’m still “the good guy”, aka, the self righteous moron that can somehow do no wrong ever.
The story isn’t much better for the Horde. Sure, they come off as dominant, but Holy Crap the Villain bat. I get it, they’re trying to make the Horde seem like the edgy monsters that they look like, but that’s not what the Horde’s original WoW era purpose was. And now they’re losing and on the verge of a second Civil War.
This story is beginning to take it’s toll on everyone it seems.
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Yeah, Im just going to enjoy the game and see how the story goes instead of having a moral quandry because someone on the internet told me I should.
Everyone is just repeating the same things to look cool and conflicted on a forum. I mean look upward, its even happening with your diction, the last 6 people used the term “villian bat.” If thats not indicative of feeding a mob mentality I dont know what is.
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You can be an “X character fan” and still dislike current narrative direction said character is undergoing. While I can only speak for myself I’m a Sylvanas fan in the sense that I enjoyed her character depiction from WC3:TFT all the way up to Legion (yes Legion, where she was Warchief as well) because I viewed it as a natural progression of her character and that her role of becoming Warchief will undergo character progression from the character to be less self-serving and eventually learn to care for the greater Horde community as is required by the Warchief role.
Obviously, come BfA in what we have now I didn’t get this and I am critical of Blizzard for failing to live up to what was supposed to be a simple character growth high school students can point out. But just because I’m critical doesn’t mean I’m not still a fan of her’s; my support for her character is my current spite/resistance against Blizzard’s current writing team for putting her down the path of a cliche villain to raid boss in the end. I don’t care for Sylvanas winning (again I was a fan of her’s during Stormheim where she lost to Genn) and as for “looking cool” that’s just aesthetic.
And while this is just my own opinion, I reckon the current support for Sylvanas atm stems from the same nature that they are resisting Blizzard for taking a beloved character they’ve come attached to down a villain path that not only is cliche/simple but as already done with Garrosh years prior.
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I doubt very many that frequent Story forums are here to look cool (Except for 3slot). We are here because, obviously, we love the flipping story of WoW and want to discuss it and debate certain aspects. Unfortunately, the story this expansion has given us little to debate or really enjoy.
And we all say villain bat because Blizzard is as predictable as they come. Remember when Garrosh got deposed? How they swore the new Warchief would shock us all? Who did it turn out to be? Everyone and their grandmother that hasn’t touched a PC guessed; Vol’jin. Who ended up burning Teldrassil? Surprise! It was Sylvanas. Shocking a few, sure, but not something out of Game of Thrones.
You are more than welcome to enjoy the game as you wish. For those of us on this board, we want story; Good story. With complex and fun characters to work alongside it. We’ve gotten neither.
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Personally, I like to think BFA never happened. I’ll post, try to rationalize something, try to explain this or that, but at the end of the day, the story is so bad that I can’t help but just write myself out of the narrative. Which is bad.
Someone else here said it first but they said it best; “If you have to write your character out of the story, why have the story to begin with?”
I’ve said this time and time again but no-one wants to be the bad guy. The genius of the original Warcraft storytelling is that both side felt that their actions were justified and that both sides felt they were on the righteous side.
Could this war be justified? If they tried hard enough, maybe. The attack on Sylvanas could’ve been the casus belli right there and then, because they tried to whack the Warchief. Even then, it would’ve required drastic changes to the story (not counting the hideous mishandling of logistics), mostly keenly being: not burning Teldrassil. A war campaign that pays reprimands to an enemy for previous actions. doesn’t focus on bringing harm to non-combatants and focuses solely on inflicting injury on the Alliance forces over previous wrong-doings, softening them for parlaying at the negotiating table, that’s a lot easier to process.
Being dishonest, dishonorable and above all, betraying your own virtues to kill an enemy, including the family they leave behind? Not in the slightest. It is the burden of the leader to justify a war and it is their burden to ensure that there is no action taken that would make them consider defecting, lose faith in their leadership and weaken bonds with key individuals required for war and ruling in peace time. Sylvanas does none of that, she just reels back and says “BuRn iT!!!”.
This plot is full of holes, poor in quality and is desired by so few, if not no-one at all. It lacks the nuance of a war story, it lacks the nuance of politics that pay a huge factor in the olden ages and it lacks any motivation to fight this war that is circling the plot. It’s unacceptable.
To any CDev member currently reading this; I am not mad at you, I am simply frustrated with the team. I enjoyed the first two expansions I played before I quit for personal reasons and Legion wasn’t bad for story telling. I just feel that you’re retreading old ground that’s already been traveled and shifting everything established around to try and add context for this story that your audience doesn’t exactly want.
If you have the power, I beg of you; treat Battle for Azeroth as non-canon and just content filler to pass the time while waiting for the true continuation of the narrative. If you have no plans for the story, that’s perfectly okay, you don’t have to keep churning something out or re-visit already treaded ground. Legion ended in a good way in that the world is violently shaking from Sargeras’ sword being plunged into the earth and that both factions are just barely on their feet after fighting an enemy that was infinite in numbers. That would have been the perfect time for the adventuring expansion, where both societies begin to rebuild what was lost and for the wayward to explore distant kingdoms, uncover forgotten treasures and learn ancient secrets. Uldir would’ve still made sense as a raid. Crucible of Storms, too. It would’ve given the Zandalari and the Kul Tirans plenty of time to rejoin their specific folds. In the end, it neatly ties in to an Old Gods emergence and the next story is ready.
You have the potential for something great and you squandered it with this. You can make this right if you just dash it and try something else.
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And the corollary is that you can be upset at the direction a character is going without being a mindless fanpoodle, or even a fan in particular. Sylvanas was never a very important character to me, but what they’re doing to her now is giving me more of an urge to defend her than I ever had before.
ETA: I should specify–I want to defend her past actions and character, not anything she’s doing in BfA. Because they haven’t written her in BfA to be defensible at all; even their stated goal of “plausible deniability” is laughable given what they’re actually showing in the game.
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