I am extremely sad to see what they are doing to Sylvanas. She was such a mysterious and complex character, and they took the most obvious route and made her go crazy and turn into garrosh 2.0… which they said wouldn’t happen. I really hope they save this with some wild twist no one saw coming, like her betraying the jailer all in the hopes of keeping herself and her undead alive to grow her army. But I wont hold my breath. I keep coming back to the lore because I loved Sylvanas story so much. But now with Arthas “dead”, Kael’Thas dead, and most likely Sylvanas, there are no more characters that draw me in and keep me engaged in the story anymore 
Only reason I even played BFA was to side with Sylvanas and see where the story went.
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To me, it seem like the worgen kinda innately fail right out of the gate with two basic werewolf concepts of 1) “I’m an enemy in disguise” (horde are going to view them as the “other” whether they’re in human or worgen form) and 2) “I’m infectious and will turn you” (nobody on the horde is in fear of contracting the curse).
As-is, they just seem almost perfectly tailored to be a disappointment, with the worgen lore being night elven backstory involving a wild god that previously only orcs cared about, only to have said wild god seek redemption through Varian of all people instead. And then their human themes get superseded by Stormwind because that’s the alliance baseline.
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I think one of the worst things done to the undead, is Death Knights. Narratively, I cant stand the KotEB. Gamplay-wise, all of the undead abilities are rolled into this one class, that has little to do with the undead playable faction.
There are a bunch of other minor greivances I have. For example, I think it’s sad that you can have a void elf with a blue silvermoon shield… but the shield with the Icon of Torment is an NPC only item. Forsaken did not get much love with thematic items prior to BFA. Vile Fumigator’s Mask being untransmoggable… the list goes on.
But, the new customizations are good. And undead get undead pets first (I think they should be the only ones that can have them) but at least there’s that.
Not that it has anything to do with the Forsaken, but if I read the quest on wowhead properly… Sapphiron is killed by the PC with the help of one other character (an npc)? That’s kind of sad. Hopefully it’s Kel’thuzad’s fault for not raising him at full power.
The possibility of the Nathrezim being native to the Shadowlands is a plus for UD, but it doesn’t really matter for the forsaken much, since our dreadlord got taken away a long time ago.
But who knows what Wrath of the Warlords of Shadowlands will have in store? There are still a lot of unknowns, and plenty of room for good things to happen.
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I think an evil-Light expansion should really lean into the holy crusade aspect, so I wouldn’t want something like the bolded. Turalyon having a Stannis-like epiphany and deciding he needs to unite the world under the Light to save it from the Void would be more interesting imo. Make it a no-holds-barred religious crusade, no realpolitik.
RP Forums ------->
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I mean the Forsaken really got hosed in BfA. There are no two ways about it. Their two most prominent characters get sent to villaindom. And they have no reasonable replacements.
Calia represents such a complete break from the Forsaken as they have been written that if she were made the Forsaken leader it would be tantamount to a complete bait and switch for most Forsaken players. If she has to be around, it should be in a side role, perhaps representing a different, but not the dominant, facet of the Forsaken.
Voss is an interesting character, but lacks the power and the force, in my opinion, to be a faction leader. She would better serve as a spymaster for the Forsaken or Chief Assassin.
The Forsaken, in my view, need to come out of this quasi-council period of uncertainty with a faction leader who has some heft and power. The Horde is generally lacking in powerful characters, and the Forsaken in particular lack developed characters. I am indifferent as to whether they should develop and empower an existing character, e.g. Lydon, or whether they should import an existing powerful character, e.g. Kel-Thuzad, or create and develop a new character.
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I was giving him a way out, but do you really want this? For Turalyon to lead the Alliance on a Holy Crusade … and get full up Horde villain batted. I get that Alliance players believe Blizz will insulate and justify them no matter what; but this might be even pushing the limits of that.
He’ll die you know. Bouts of the villain bat come with serious collateral.
How? I mean, Turalyon is lordaeronian. If Calia will become the queen, how would distancing help? I mean, if she is affiliated with Turalyon, she could order him to end the conflict, and save lifes as probably would want to. If she distances away, that would be like her saying “I want to see more killing”. Seems, counter productive to me.
P.S.: not to mention the hanging in the air question of the living lordaeronians.
P.P.S.: and the previously mentioned problem of the Light affecting undead.
Ask CDev 2
Record of undead emoting positive emotions are rare, though there are reports, however, that some Forsaken have slowly experienced a sharpening of their dulled senses of touch, smell, etc., as well as an increase in the flashes of positive emotions that have otherwise become so rare since their fall into undeath, when influenced by the Holy Light. The drawback however, is that they also become disgusted with themselves and are likely to increase attempts at their own self-destruction; for regaining these senses would force the undead to smell their own rotting flesh, taste the decay in their mouths and throats, and even feel the maggots burrowing within their bodies.
(they would be exposed to Light regardless if Calia would be queen, secretary, janitor, or whatever; leading to changes in personality and actions)
gl hf
it isnt relevant tho, the whole forsaken story is how they want to be accepted has who they where, and the undead thing is just a look. here we go with the cherry picking again
I think the poster is referring to the retcon of what Sylvanas’ more general motivations were.
The most important aspects of what happened, meeting the Jailer and her subsequent over-arching goal in life, are completely missing from he story. Interpretation is not having to assume major story elements that aren’t there. (Assuming it is even possible to extract the right one from that almost infinite possibilities).
Edge of Night is now pointless or wrong, so the only real question is whether it is a “retcon” if intended to do that all along. (If you believe they actually intended this story arc back then.) But, in the end, the difference is basically meaningless.
I mean, if we’re playing with such a hypothetical then those of us who are in the SLs would come back after an enormous amount of damage has been done to the Forsaken. She was supposed to be getting to know them, and instead her absence (for what I assume is her searching for what happened to her Husband and Child) prevented her from being there to protect them. She can order him to stop, she can’t undo whatever damage he’s done.
As for the living of Lordaeron. Truly, screw them. They’ve all likely resettled in the southern human lands by this point, and as much as the Argents like to pretend they’re neutral … it didn’t slip my notice that they were purifying those lands exclusively for living Human resettlement. They will push out the Forsaken eventually to convenient areas even with Calia protecting her dead children.
For all we know Annhyide was the Jailor (hell I assumed she could be Yoggie for a long time, considering his human form is a female Vrykul). But, you are right, there is no sign she met the Jailor in that book. Her motive however, was absolutely clear. Avoid my afterlife at all costs. Seems to be a fairly natural transition into her seeing the whole Afterlife system that “would put her in the Maw” as unfair, cruel, and needs to go.
I’m not saying that Blizz isn’t likely to hit us with retcons here, they already have. But there were two ways to take EoN. One of a woman who with no proper motivation to start caring for her people, started caring for her people (her terror at her own hell is not a motivation to start caring for them, as much as it is an impetus to need them again. There is no clear cause-effect there). The other is of a bitter, selfish nihilist who came back to repurpose her tool … until such a time where the ceased to be of sufficient value to her again. Just like her arrows.
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I don’t care so much as others about keeping all my toys in pristine condition. We’ve had umpteen versions of the Alliance wearily forced into war against the Horde because of some action taken by the Horde. The next one would be more interesting if the Alliance was enthusiastically and proactively driving the war.
Anyway, let’s hope Blizzard has learnt their lesson from Cata, MoP and BfA and knows to how to make a satisfying aggressor storyline. There were definite improvements from Cata+MoP to BfA in how they presented the defensive storyline, so it’s possible.
thats impossible cause we always know the aggressors are the bad guys
Hey, if you’re willing to hand over that “On the Defense” character plot armor for a while I’d be OK to make that trade. Don’t mind so much if you guys run roughshod over some of our territories for the short term. Its our reps that need character development and testing. On top of our council getting placed through some tough times in a crisis situation.
Voss (now solo repping the Forsaken with Calia in the SLs), Gazlowe (brand new Bilgewater Lead), Rokhan (brand new Darkspear Lead), Geya’rah (Lost her entire world to Light Fanatics), and Mayla (Shouldering a lot more Tauren Burden with Baine Gone) could all be turned to diamonds with that added pressure. Lor’themar, Talanji, Thaly, and Kiro could have some fun too!
For all we know, the Legion, the Old God, or some unknown threat we had never imagined (other than the Jailer) was involved. Deliberate hiding of key elements just renders the whole story false. You can’t come up with a conclusion that isn’t wrong.
Is her motivation to avoid the afterlife? She doesn’t want to “there”, which is apparently the Maw, but once she strikes her unknown deal with the Jailer, there is no evidence that she has to fear death or anyone to parse what the Jailer wants her to do vs. avoiding death.
Once you retcon the story, pretty much any conclusion goes out the window.
You can argue what the story said before they retconned it, but that is awfully pointless, isn’t it? I mean, once they say the heart of the story was left out, any conclusion is meaningless
Her interactions with the Jailor may be retconned, the character who could do what she did in BfA … was arguably not. That’s my point. Its not that Blizz went into EoN, created this woman who treated her “Mongrel Race of Rotten Corpses” like trash; willing threw them away; then came back and cared for them. Then decided to retcon it. That was just one possible interpretation, even though its very generous to Sylvanas despite her not being given a motivation to care about either the Forsaken or the Horde. Or its of a woman who threw her worthless tool away, and then found a reason and motivation to need them.
As for what she’s doing in SLs … it kinda seems like she’s trying to blow up the whole arbiter system; and a lot of the SLs realms with it. Which would suggest she’s trying to not only “avoid” her own afterlife by destroying it, but destroy the very system she see’s as unfairly “placing” her in the Maw in the first place. I think she’s getting played, but its not entirely divorced from the fear of her own eternity presented to her in EoN. Especially considering just how much of a failure her Bulwark really proved themselves to be (repeatedly, especially in Stormheim) … and her losing 5 of her 9 Primes before MoP. Her Bulwark proved themselves lacking in value long before BfA.
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people who stan sylvanas literally need to replay wc3, go on classic and do all the undead quests, do the wotlk quests cause they clearly didnt do them
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Nothing like a character who gets praised for acting like Nathrezim … by Nathrezim; or who’s only response to why she’s not the Lich King is “because she serves the Horde” … when that was always suspect then. And proven wrong now. She also pulls a line about “A New World Order” to only the Alliance PC in Stormheim; which is a heavy homage to Arthas’ line when he killed his father.
Clearly, Sylvanas was written to be a hero.
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Yo OP, one of us is going to have to change our look. This is embarrassing.
On Topic: Honestly, I am not too bummed by the current state of the Forsaken. They weren’t going to develop anything anyway until Sylvanas is wrapped up, I don’t think. And the story trailer is once again being coy about her motives, so who knows where that is going.
Ironically, I too was coming around to the idea of Calia provided her shortcomings were outright addressed, but her being not in the cards is also welcome - no way for her to be used poorly if she’s not the leader.
Voss is a stretch but I’ll take puple-energy-paladin-killer zombie if that’s what’s on offer. Ironically, given how councils are bemoaned, I would like any Forsaken leader best if they were the open public face of a council led by all the heads of the various Forsaken organizations. The council doesn’t even need to be open or really that well known - a shadowy, scarcely described high table of zombie lords is cool.