Sylvanas’ storyline throughout BfA & Shadowlands.
How did it go from killing a civilian population because dying person called her a dunderhead (later retconned to be because da Jailer told her to do it) to her eyes changed color so she our friend now and her punishment (for putting the literal entirety of existence in danger btw) is doing what the player characters had already been doing for two years at that point but solo, with zero assistance from the Covenants (which is kinda questionable because don’t they need them souls asap to get back to proper function?)
The complete lack of any real development of other characters during Shadowlands, like, Pelagos was basically a cardboard standee that just followed Kyrian members and then spontaneously became judge of all souls.
The Jailer was definitely the villain ever made.
And I’m personally quite bitter about how Kel’Thuzad was handled.
I actually felt some genuine anger seeing the words “Wait! Stop! I could offer you unimaginable power!” appear on my screen (I had audio muted because I hated hearing the effects or whatever they did with his voice) like he’s some sniveling maggot.
Ugh, there I went going on a disgruntled tangent about Shadowlands again…
That’s just a lot of forum complaints in a nutshell. People have made up their own headcannon about what something is, or how something works, then complain when they find out that they’re wrong.
Hello, I see you replied to the thread. My headcannon is that Dragonflight has good writing! Thank you for informing me that my headcannon is incorrect, haha!
Why should we care about Dragons, moaning about us retaking their lands for them?
Shouldn’t we take them for ourselves? For the Horde, Alliance?
If the Dragons are so weak they should be allowed to fall to the wayside, we’ve slaughtered Old Gods for Azeroths sake we should not care for relics of a bygone age.
I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with his writing. However i DO think there is something wrong with WoW and Blizzards writing in general, they seem to have lost he ability to write male characters that don’t just wallow in their tears and emotions, no one that has any edge or even any masculinity to them. I guess in their zeal to make everything “woke” and “inclusive” they forgot how to write 1/2 the population in any real sense, all males just sitting in corners crying tears of bs that no actual real male does.
Rumor is that there’s a group in the entertainment business that can influence finical backing from certain projects if they don’t meet a diversity criteria.
Which is why we’re seeing it alot in movies, games and shows.
Meh, i saw “diversity” garbage all over my former company back in 2016, even tied executive bonuses to it, they lost site of what mattered for stupid reasons. Fast forward and lets just say things haven’t gotten any better because they decided to get rid of folks (experienced) with buyouts and try to fill positions with “diversity” hires (who know very little but fill a checkmark).
It’s all over the place because it’s all over California and that state is a basket case filled with stupidity and clown ideas. There is a reason 100’s of thousands of people a year are leaving California for other states.
I think Malfurion has done two things since Cata: get captured in Legion and get shot by a bow in BFA. Both times, I think it was just to take him out of the story early, because he’s so powerful they don’t know how to use him other than removal.
Would Varian have died if Malfurion was on the beach to create a giant storm to block the advancing armies so they could retreat? Probably not.
Would Alliance have stuggled to take UC and forced Sylvanas to gas her own people and home, if Malfurion was there to take down the walls? Probably not.
It’s sad, but I agree with you. They don’t know what to do with him. They didn’t know what to do with Tyrande and all her power either when she was blessed by Elune.
I can’t speak for ALL of his writing, but Zovaal was the worst written villain I have ever seen in media. No character development, no backstory to speak of, no motivations to speak of. Just “for the evulz, all will serve me” until suddenly “a cosmos divided will not survive what is to come”. Zovaal COULD have been an interesting villain, but that would have required him to have been planned out in advance, not just pulled out of someone’s posterior to copy the “villain behind the scenes” story that another game did well.
I joked at the beginning of the expansion that he might as well have been a robot. Quit 2 months in and just came back 3 weeks ago. Only to find, when he died he turned into a robot, and it was expected to be taken seriously. Hard to make fun of something when it makes fun of itself. I call Zovaal “Dollar Store Thanos”. Zereth Mortis was also poorly written and mostly uninteresting. They could’ve gone wild with a truly alien environment, instead we get something that looks just like Azeroth except there are cubes and robots everywhere. Oh and YOU CAN WALK ON THE WATER! Just like shamans have been doing since 2004 and everyone has been doing since the water strider.
That said, Dragonflight is a big improvement…I’m not sure who wrote what or how involved Steve is. At least Raszagath, Fyrakk, and Iridikron feel like part of the Warcraft universe (Zovaal didn’t), and they each have their own motivations. I saw Vyranoth turning away from the other Incarnates a mile away, but at least the story is interesting.
In big companies, people in higher positions tend to take credit for stuff people under them do. I seriously doubt Steve wrote everything himself. There is probably an entire team of writers, and it’s impossible to know who wrote what unless Blizzard decides to reveal it.
It boils down to he wouldn’t kill off Sylvanas in Shadowlands. Because he’s an outspoken Sylvanas fan. (Not really, he just mains a Forsaken, wrote a Short story about Nathanos) people see him as not being ‘on their side’ ever since he defended the removal of Garrosh’s offensive “shut your mouth” line.
I agree whole heartedly with this. Writing was always my passion, even if I didn’t make it my career. I love writing little short stories and when I decided to try my hand at a full length novel I realized just how much actually goes into it. I’ve been working on just the world building for the better part of 10 years. Haven’t even really started on character development beyond who’s the protagonist and the villain.
The biggest issue I have with WoW’s writing is the lack of consistency within the world building and the established lore. They just bend and twist it willy nilly and that creates the problems we are seeing now. Drastic changes to character development with barely (if any) explanation as to why their motivations have changed.
Even in a fantasy setting, you have to have consistency.
