Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
(no really, that’s a lot of in-depth thinking and I appreciate it, but I’m a little lost as to the topic in regard to the original discussion).
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it does, but SMC is the worst
To Gentarn:
Your ideas intrigue me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Heyo!
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They’re not, actually. There are female peons scattered here and there but they’re not used as much. Presumably because the lack of sound files of a woman saying “work work”
my unpopular opinion is that the war plot in MoP was no better than the war plot in BfA and I don’t really get the rose tinted glasses for MoP-era storytelling
This too.
Back to the topic at hand, I’m a vet of an older style akin to the one you mentioned in your post, a “show up and rock” type scenario. “Go to some events”, has indeed been the veritable norm. It’s difficult for me to initially attain some investment without much in the way of exposition, and discord ain’t cutting it for me. Good lord, needle, meet haystack.
Some of the stories are well written, and folks have excellent narrative voices, but as folks mentioned before, while the systems are interesting, how much is too much?
As for meetings, I understand your point, but I enjoy that style to a degree, myself. I think you have to know what you’re getting into.
In relation to GM’ed events, as an experienced runner, I certainly agree with Kailarra’s notion the more intimate the group, the easier to run. It’s almost like akin to class size in school. Roll vs write, as Erenna brought up, is also an issue in larger groups.
The big thing I’m running into, aside from a general lack of exposition and grace period for new folks to get invested, would be simplistic themes vs the mindboggling themes that take a lot of time to get involved in without that exposition.
I think with an experienced GM /roll 20 is fine, as said experienced GM can and should be able to modify situations based on player abilities, reactions, tactics, and the environment. I was part of a crew in both Wow and Lotro that did events like these for years.
Heh, but then folks would also have to accept and trust a Gm. That can be hard to establish, but it certainly goes a long way.
Neither were good, like at all.
But at least MoP wasn’t a literal 1-by-1 rip like BfA is of MoP.
You even got a legendary cloak from Wrathion. AGAIN.
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Going to repost my unpopular opinion here:
I think there’s some endemic problems to how Sylvanas was written and portrayed post-retcon, that has effectively neutered her character and by extension completely obliterated how the Forsaken interact due to how close they are tied with their now-absent faction leader.
Sylvanas could be said to be the faction leader most tied to their race, as the Forsaken have developed a cult of personality around their literal saviour and base much of their justification for their unliving to be in service to her. The only one I believe would come second place is Thrall and the Orcs.
Sylvanas was always set out to be a tragic character with multiple themes present throughout her storyline. Her entire involvement and play from Vanilla to Wrath of the Lich King was notsomuch fixating on being “Evil” but the race itself based upon becoming the monster most see them as. The Forsaken, for what they truly are, is a race that does have some inherent good notes and people to them, but since the founding of Lordaeron and killing Garithos there has always been a push to focus survival over upholding morality - otherwise the Forsaken would not exist into Vanilla WoW.
Sylvanas herself is somebody who cannot and could not relax. Her race’s starting faction is the most tenuous, with the entirety of said race inhabiting crumbling crypts and ruins. The first time that Sylvanas had tried to take a breather it was immediately destroyed by Puttress and Varimathras throwing a coup. All that she’s worked for had become vulnerable, and Puttress was a good foil. It showed players what happens when the Forsaken indulge and truly become monstrous, hating the living to go so far to allying the Legion which they defeated prior in an attempt to wipe everyone out. Uncaring and unfeeling.
Post Cataclysm the Forsaken have finally achieved their dream and come into their own being - with the Val’kyr being their centrifuge. It felt like that they achieved their vengeance against their tyrannical master and are now controllers of their own fate. Sylvanas now rightfully fears death with what she’s been shown, and the Val’kyr that surround her are now quite the living clock.
Throughout Cataclysm’s story you see Forsaken ascendant. Those who once harried them are now on the backstep. But you also see how in their rise to power a majority of what they do has now slid closer and closer to being unethical, unfeeling monsters. Journeying throughout Silverpine you also get to see what happens to Sylvanas when she lets her guard down even in allied company - a gunshot to the back of the head point blank.
No matter how powerful Sylvanas is or was she was always shown to have a very human element: Vulnerability. Her sought-after control of not only her own fate but her people, and the realization that she cared more for them instead of trying to justify the Forsaken as “Arrows in a quiver” was even more development that there was some actual altruism that the Banshee Queen supposedly lacked.
Throughout Cataclysm and beyond Sylvanas Windrunner was obsessed with trying to not die. Everything points towards her manuveuring in not placing herself in a situation where she could die again. Trying second-guesses and making pacts with Helya in an attempt to not only secure her future, but her people’s future as well.
Battle for Azeroth, I believe, ruined Sylvanas’ character since her inception, and was a two-for-one with how Teldrassil was burned with the majority of Night Elves and Gilneans within it dying. Sylvanas was always a very rugged character, but there was always some semblance of having her stop before she went too far. Especially for someone who could’ve easily taken a second breather and look at the parallels she was drawing with the War of Thorns and her own defense of Quel’thalas.
It certainly could’ve been written to be more interesting. Teldrassil could have burned still.
Battle for Azeroth has destroyed her character through revisions and contradictions. The Sylvanas Windrunner that I grew up with - as corny as it was - playing World of Warcraft through my childhood, teens and now adulthood, was someone who deliberately made stupid choices that were nothing but self-damaging. The Loyalist questline was practically you just reporting to Sylvanas and then Sylvanas telling you to go ahead and ruin her plans anyway. The small rebellion pitch and the last legs of Stormwind’s army outside her gates with no siege weapons could’ve easily been pushed back, with a good bit of casualties, with the ordering of a few volleys and shots fired.
Instead we now have this coming into Shadowlands. Sylvanas Windrunner was the epitome of someone who controlled their own fate, and by proxy helped their people. She doesn’t need redemption; redemption isn’t on her marker. She’s boiled down to two choices where it’s either people find her insufferable and redeemed. Which is a total joke. Or she’s put down into the ground and the Forsaken players look at Calia and shrug their shoulders when their Menethil comes back, assumes being Queen with nothing to show for, and then starts preaching about how she resonates with them despite being gone for 99.9% of their story and how they clawed their way back up from the literal grave.
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I definitely agree with that. The whole thing could have been written way better than it was.
First thing, shouldn’t have killed off Vol’jin. I understand that they were going for a “shock value! Look at this threat! Upheavals in leadership!” thing, but while that worked for Varian and his heroic sacrifice, as he’d been there story wise since the end of vanilla and in person since Wrath, Vol’jin literally just became Warchief, his death was extremely underwhelming, and importantly, everything that could have happened after could have still happened with him still alive.
If I was writing the story, I would have had Vol’jin injured on the Broken Shore, but have him survive it, but having some kind of demonic curse/infection in the sound, getting worse over the course of the expansion. He would still be giving orders, but near the end of the expansion he would give Sylvanus temporary command as he slips out of consciousness. Sylvanus, despite still reeling from her attack by Genn during her expedition to Stormheim, would nonetheless still be sending forces to Argus to try to stop the greater threat. Once the Legion is defeated, the curse is broken and Vol’jin starts slowly recovering.
Immediately after, while both sides are busy investigating the would in Silithus and Azerite, Genn decides to follow up his original attack by taking advantage of the current state of Lordaeron’s defenses and launches a surprise attack. There’s a lot of people who don’t like the undead, he has no problems getting a sizable force together for it, especially since canonically it has only been a few years since Sylvanus destroyed his entire country and personally killed his son.
Sylvanus, still with her temporary command of the Horde, is devastated. The deal with the Jailer has been on the table for a while, and she considers taking it. Instead, she tries to calm herself, consults Saurfang, and they decide that with Lordaeron lost the best move is taking Teldrassil. They muster their troops and attack.
It starts off as a normal attack. They plan on taking the tree, capturing as many as they can. The elves and worgen defending it though are unbending. When she captures Delaryn, the elf insults Sylvanus, saying things that essentially mean “you’ll never take the tree and you deserve everything that happened.” This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and Sylvanus decides in a fit of rage to take the Jailer’s deal, and orders the tree burned. Throughout the expansion from there on out there are hints dropped that she’s gaining power exponentially from an outside source
Events that go down from there are similar, though this time instead of Saurfang building a rebellion, it’s a recovering Vol’jin trying to take back the Horde again. This time, maybe he’s in the Orgrimmar cutscene instead of Saurfang and doesn’t make it out, but still saves the Horde. Things end up about where they do at the end of the expansion, but now Sylvanus looks a little more sympathetic for her probably inevitable redemption arc, Vol’jin actually does something during his reign, and doesn’t just go out like a chump. The whole thing is more morally grey, especially since it’s hard to claim that Genn wouldn’t have justification for attacking the Forsaken at every opportunity.
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My maybe? unpopular opinion is I think Mists of Pandaria went from being this meme expansion where everyone railed on Kung Fu Panda-ring to China or whatever the spit takes were, to probably the most meaningful character development our factions have had collectively since the closure of Warcraft 3, with hints of shaking up or even dissolving the status quo, and while I genuinely liked Warlords of Draenor I think following that change in MoP with “what if we did an entire expansion about heavy metal orcs with a razor thin justification for PvP and we’ll just have the Horde start it again” is part of why a lot of people look back on that set of expansions with annoyance.
Also my name-change finally went through and I lost all my forum cred again so this is why I’ll never be able to post images.
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Welcome to The Wyrmrest Accord Forums!
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Don’t do this to me baby, don’t do this to me.
Your New Forum Poster Survival Kit is in the mail, Presented by the Forum Cabal™.
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Please refrain from feeding the trolls, unless you want to, then @ me so I can join.
Good luck and have fun!
I miss Kor’kron RP.
No, to go a step further I miss the conflict driven, racially focused and even potentially exclusive RP where there was perpetual tension in capital cities and the Horde was more a union of convivence rather than this very harmonious coalition that seems to exist today.
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I never thought I’d see “miss” and “Kor’kron” in the same sentence.
I can see the appeal but I also remember stuff like the Trials and I can’t help but feel half of my face start to smirk while the other half begin to slouch as if I’m having a stroke.
But I also just didn’t find the racial tensions of the Horde to be very fun. Have enough of that in the real world.
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To put some context, a lot of the longtime WoW friends I have today were formed during setting up events during MoP, the Rebellion, Trials and so forth. Not to mention the Steelpaw also formed during the trials period. I -personally- did not have a horrible time in regards to the RP and policing that was happening in capital cities but I won’t discount other persons experiences that were less than stellar.
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I think MoP brought a lot of RP to the table, and helped people feel more confident when it comes to events. There were a LOT of World PvP-RP events and a lot of World RP events in general that were tied with the MoP story.
Unfortunately, as you stated, it brought a lot of people who suddenly felt empowered to do a lot of nasty things and give off “Not Great” vibes to a lot of folks who could have cared less about the current story.
In the end, it was definitely a case by case basis. By that point, I had all but given up on Horde RP since I was personally tired of the Kor’kron and racial divides that basically dominated the Horde RP scene. But I know a lot of folks who enjoyed the huge spike of race-specific guilds and stories, and some who enjoyed the Kor’kron stuff that didn’t tread the “haha we’re RPing” and “Living out the fascism dream” which were good folks being lumped with otherwise idiots.
It honestly makes me think that a good reason why people want nothing to do with BfA or its story is specifically because of how some folks took the Kor’kron concept and broke the dial on personal boundaries and how not to suck during RP. No one wanted to relive that, and all the ones who did are either long gone or probably hated into hiding.
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welcome to the no forum images club friend. My 5 day suspension for mentioning “draenei male nipple rings” is what put me here, and I dare them to ban me for that again
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It’s been a while since I succumbed to the whims of “Semi-new character overlaid on an old frame” so it was really jarring to see a post history of like… 3.