I agree with the ‘they stuffed too much into one expansion’ bit but disagree with ‘they should have focused on the faction war’ part. The Faction War part of the story was the absolute stupidest part, and I seriously doubt that they, huffing their own farts as they were, could have ever made a good story over it.
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Blizz biggest mistake in bfa and wot especcialy:
Creating a scenario that you know won’t be solved in a game like an MMO, in an RTS that would have been no problem to handle the whole thing and finish it well. I’m sure if the story had come in an RTS, the Night Warrior would probably have been the equivalent of Arthas/scourge
But in a format like WOW? Impossible to solve
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Ha. Point taken. On both counts.
But…it’s one thing to just use night elves as punching bags. That’s when I would say “okay, maybe they don’t quite…get it.” But when you have them bad at the things that they are supposed to be good at, to make someone else look good?
That’s when it starts seeming a bit…pointed.
Malfurion. Tyrande, personally empowered by Elune. In their forests.
The guy got away.
From elves. In the woods.
…yeah.
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Yeah, I guess I should have elaborated with ‘stuck with it if they HAD to’, because going through any of it was like pulling teeth. If it was going to suck anyway, just stay with the stupidest theme and save the cooler stuff for well… a better expansion.
but He WaS eMpOwErEd bY a VaL’kYr
… the very same type of Val’kyr we take out in Andorhal as level 40 murder hobos.
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The burning of Teldrassil was pretty much the idea of one person, Afrasiabi, over the objections of pretty much everyone else.
The story the Horde player experiences does not paint the horde as blood thirsty.
- Saurfang goes along with the planning because Sylvanas convinces him that Genn’s attack showed the Alliance will attack again.
- In a scene just before the burning they have Saurfang going out of his way to protect innocent lives.
- They show Saurfang reacting in denial and outrage at the order.
- The Sylvanas book (originally due to be realeased at about the same time) showed that Sylvanas was following a plan by the Jailer that only Nathanos had any knowledge of.
*Pretty much every other leader opposed the burning.
But, after having the player witness the burning of Teldrasil, Blizz has the Horde PC. being her willing champion. I don’t know if that part had already been written when Afrasiabi had inserted the burning of Teldrasil and it wasn’t changed. Or if Blizzard has no other story for the PC other than to be the faction champion and simply didn’t care if it painted the PC as an accessory after the fact.
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Did Afrasiabi single handedly ruin BfA? Hard to say. The expansion cinematic, made well before the decision of the have Teldrasil burned, and it feels much more nuanced and balanced.
The Sylvanas novel paints Sylvanas as a nigh delusional pawn of the jailer. Even if that is only to set up Shadowlands, it is hard to see how she could have been anything as “as many deaths world-wide as possible”.
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You know, I bet that it all (Burning itself aside) would have been far more palatable if only Blizz had had the Alliance attack on Lordareon happen first. Allies get to feel proactive, Horde get to feel like they’re merely actually protecting themselves for once.
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While the burning would have still have been terrible, but I think if blizzard justified it by saying it was a accidental azerite cache explosion, or that N’zoth snuck in some of his minions to burn the place or even Azshara doing it as a power play to turn both factions against one another because it played into her goal of freeing N’zoth would have been far better than what we got
Anything than what we got could have worked with a little extra effort
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That gave me a chuckle remembering that. You have to think that val’kyr probably thought she could handle a few people with pitchforks.
Look. I don’t know what to tell you. Lordaeron makes 'em tough.
…is that what should have happened? Crap. We forgot to bring in the people with pitchforks to Darkshore? I–
–wait. I just redid part of Borean Tundra. That was another case when some farmers in Farshire held the line with pitchforks.
…the hell happens to humans when you give them pitchforks, man?
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Either Human farmers become overtaken with martial prowess at the thought of their crops failing or some extremely business savvy enchanter is out here jazzing up lvl 5 pitchforks with max level enchants and none of us have caught on.
Either way the addition of pitchforked madmen could’ve prevented the War of Thorns apparently. If only Anduin had sent some of those guys to Darkshore instead of… killing Rastakhan for no reason? Dang, it’s just one stupid thing into another, huh?
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If you leave aside the Burning of Teldrasil and Sylvans being delusional, the story is the that Horde reacts to Genn’s attacks with war, They they take Darkshore with a feint, the NEs, even without help from rest of the Alliance, rally and single-handed fight off the Horde and regain Darkshore.
Not an automatic fail of a story. Depends on a lot on what they do with Teldrassil (occupied? besieged?)
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I do quibble with using the word “love”, though I don’t think Blizz hates them either. Personally, I think that Blizz is too accustomed to using night elves to set up a story… but not finish it. The night elves are backstory, not the game.
Need a faction conflict? The Horde punches the night elves, and the story starts as the Alliance responds.
Need an ancient race? Add some night elves, with a problem that the player (of either faction) fixes for them in the story proper.
Because this is backstory to when the player has to deal with Nathanos/Sylvanas/the undead later. So the night elves lose to set up the story.
And then the Night Warrior gets frantically added to SL plots (but always losing so that the plot happens regardless) because “why are the players still complaining? Here’s some more screentime, that’s enough by itself, right?”
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Properly harnessed, there is little to nothing that can withstand the sheer power of a random human farmer.
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This wasn’t anywhere near as apparent as it needed to be. Theron wasn’t allowed to express this opinion until after Sylvanas was deposed, and I’m pretty sure he and Saurfang were the only two leaders to even acknowledge it happened. Rokhan’s post-war gossip text - “oops, just following orders lol” - was a truly pathetic and utterly accurate reflection of BfA’s Horde. An absolute disaster of a storyline from start to finish.
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Some where on Azeroth, is a angry farmer with a pitchfork waiting for that one moment that sets him off and he lays the smack down on the entire universe with his farming tool 
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One of the other problems I see is that Darkshore/Teldrassil are not just night elf zones, but the farthest back zones from the Horde.
To reach Teldrassil, the Horde demolished all defenses in Darkshore.
To reach Darkshore, the Horde demolished all defenses in Ashenvale.
The Horde didn’t just take a zone. They took every non-contested night elf zone (sorta counting Ashenvale with its lore limbo of “the night elves keep being told they took it back offscreen, but is always occupied everywhere when a new story starts”, which is its own can of worms). Barring a naval option, there’s no way for the Horde to have a plot about Teldrassil without having conquered all the Alliance night elf territory first. And that’s not a good story beat in a two-faction game.
This is also why the Burning was so bad: The story made a point of the civilians evacuating to Darnassus - so the Burning wasn’t just the loss of the city, or the people in the city, or the people (and flora/fauna) of the entire Teldrassil zone, but also of refugees from every single Alliance-controlled night elf zone, as they ran further and further and we still couldn’t save them.
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No. Patch 8.1 killed the franchise. That was when Blizzard decided the Horde would lose the war and destroy the Zandalari for good whom just had been introduced as the final troll tribe and we all know Trolls aren’t allowed to have victories ever. Dragonflight is boring and I don’t think I will return for the next expansion if the philosophy of the Horde being the loser sticks. Sorry Blizzard but you ruined my loyalty to you.
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Levels are never really a good argument, otherwise we could argue that Arthas is stronger then Kil’Jaeden but weaker then Kil’Jaeden who is stronger then the stronger Archimonde rather then the weaker Archimonde.
Best counter point there would be that it’s negated by being a trained Ranger Lord of the Sentinel’s Opposite Faction Equivalent.
Still could have been handled better.
I would rather be worried that there is no serperated afterlife for Orcs and Tauren while all of Ardenweald is night elf themed.
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