Oh yeah, I half expected to see the poison at least used as a plot device. It actually would have made the Legion far more threatening (and they were already threatening) if their weapons were now equipped with this untreatable poison that could kill even trolls.
We’re going to start seeing a lot more antiheroes getting whacked with the villain bat. Else, villains are going to be conjured out of nowhere which can only work a portion of the time.
Meanwhile, they kill off our major lore characters like this is Game of Thrones, except we can’t replace our lore characters as easily. Going back to Vol’jin, ask all of the troll players how they’re liking Rokhan as their replacement.
The Undead sound real thrilled with Calia - and Voss is no leader either. The goblin race also had a very specific theme that its players bought into - its why Trade Prince Gallywix was kept around - and now they have Gazlowe who is hardly representative of the race. The Horde’s antihero races are now as good-aligned as the tauren.
What we’re witnessing is almost a… cultural and moral purge of the Horde’s leadership. Almost like they’re trying to make the Horde as bland as the Alliance.
Its like the current gen of of writers/devs think of themselves as creators instead of Stewards. They are not making something from scratch, they are guiding something that others built. If they want to be original creators, create your own world outside of this one and see if anyone will buy it.
Its just like the new Star Wards sequels. And Disney got burned badly and is forced to go 180 degrees the other way.
There is no point. Blizzard has shown complete disrespect for the lore and those who follow it. It is lazy story telling to just go and change what ever you want to make it fit into the current narrative.
Have you seen any of the reports on supposed insiders have relayed? If what they relayed is true, Disney is going to be business first - make $$ by win back our core customers (in SW) first. One guy was even reporting they want all vestiges of “woke” will be gone from the company.
Don’t worry, we’ll get another expansion exploring what it means to be Horde when Talanji goes off the deep end, and we’ll have to rebel against her and her Zandalari conquest. Because at this point, that’s what I’ve come to expect of Blizzard’s writing.
This is another reason I don’t support the faction war any longer; I strongly believe the story is worse off for it at this point in time. But it won’t go away, so we’re going to keep this ridiculous back and forth and stripping characters of any interesting quality. Back and forth, again and again, we’ll bicker and whine and moan about the other side but nothing changes. Their showboating with Thrall and Jaina doesn’t matter.
At this point in time, and I’ve been saying this a lot, WoW needs a full reset. We need a time skip that puts us forward, so we can wash the story of the horrifically awful loops and start fresh. The world needs a face lift and the story needs to just be plucked and moved forward, it’s the only way to really clean it up because otherwise we’ll simply retread the same ground again and again.
I honestly don’t think they have a choice, if they want Star Wars to get anywhere. Definitely obvious that there’s a lot more money from core fans than whatever they got from this new arc.
Pffft, that will never happen. I really, really wish though.
I agree. I’d prefer that the Alliance and Horde have parallel story development at this point. You can have political intrigue and the like thrown in, but doesn’t need to be open warfare.
You know, people talk about the faction war as being the real problem here, but I’d argue that it’s less the topic and more the writers.
Even if we shift the focus, the story’s still going to suck. It’s just we might finally stop losing major cities for absolutely nothing in return.
It is sickening though. When I saw BfA’s cinematic, I had an absolute burst of excitement. “Oh my gosh, the Alliance is retaking Lordaeron.” THAT would have advanced the story in a very new way. The Horde occupying Darnassus and the Alliance occupying Undercity would have been a much better plot point.
I disagree - that won’t help us. We’ve had minor expansions before, and they were the equivalent of a good rest for the story. MoP was a good example of what that looks like (at least until SoO). Plus a time-jump would be unwelcome for RPers.
Important thing to remember is that it’s the writers. It doesn’t matter what angle you come at WoW’s story, or what you do with it. If you don’t replace who’s in charge, we won’t see a story improvement.
I could move this game forward right now with my own storytelling if I was paid to do so. I know saying that on the internet is just tough talk, but I genuinely believe I could do better. 100% true to the foundations we have so far, and yet not a trite repetition of what’s already been done.
Adding “new facts” is not the same thing as a retcon. It is closer to saying that mammoths never actually existed and nobody ever saw the skulls in the first place.
I am at work so I can’t dig out my Chronicals V1, but wowpedia has it listed.
" It was previously stated that the spirit healers were Val’kyr who split from the Valarjar after Odyn and his forces were imprisoned within the Halls of Valor by Helya, and decided to disappear into the Shadowlands. The few Val’kyr who still had nobility in their souls dedicated themselves to watching over the physical world, and from within the Shadowlands, they would occasionally guide the dead back to the realm of the living.[7] This was retconned with Shadowlands .[4][3]"
I had a similar excitement from the trailer, but I thought it was Sylvanas actually becoming the leader the Horde needed, showing character growth of her wanting to become a better leader and not simply treating her subjects like disposable arrows. I had such high hope for the story as it bringing the Horde together while the Alliance maybe would get some fractures finally.
Instead, MoP 2.0. Pretty much tit for tat, every moment in BfA is comparable to MoP done infinitely worse. I’m still honestly shocked they went with that choice, because it was a truly horrific option.
In my mind, BfA was the last chance to show the faction war was worth having. They squandered it by once again showing Horde and Alliance working together to topple a Horde warchief, and further pushed the pointlessness of the war by showing that cinematic with Thrall and Jaina claiming that they were different. They’re not, we’re not, none of it is different. We’re going to repeat the story again once Shadowlands is done, guaranteed.
I definitely see the issues involved (I AM an RPer as well, so I can understand). However, the story is going to continue to twist in on itself as they struggle to make it cohesive. They’ve butchered characters that have no real chance at being redeemed to the playerbase (Tyrande and Malfurion are great examples, where they almost managed to redeem them but oh wait they lost to Nathanos despite Tyrande being God empowered. Great story telling).
MoP IS a great example, but it’s an example of their ability to write new and unique characters rather than continue to use pre-established ones. Who knows, maybe they’re trying to kill off all the ones that have existed and killing them off so they can write their own characters. It fits their MO of Game of Thrones-ing (yes I’m making it a verb) a bunch of fan favorites.
I don’t know if the writers specifically are horrific, or if they’re simply pushing their own take on characters that have been long established and they’re failing there. Because MoP as a unique expansion with an entirely new group of characters shows there is signs of success. It was just decimated by bringing back the faction war and the focus back to pre-established characters.
I don’t disbelieve you. Honestly, there are countless people on various RP servers that could write the story better than Blizzard ever could. Because honestly, the RP people are the ones that care about the lore and story. I’ve re-written the overall plot of BfA to make even that flow better, and this expansion is an utter trainwreck.
Their writers either need more freedom (I believe that the writing comes last and they have to try and force the lore to work with what the game development team came up with), more experience writing, or better writers. It’s difficult to say exactly what the issue is or where the fix is for them.
Chronicle volume 1, pages 47-48:
Odyn and the Raising of the Halls of Valor:
“…Odyn brooded within the halls of Ulduar. He was furious that his allies had acted against his wishes–the wishes of the Prime Designate. More than that, Odyn believed with all his heart that the Dragon Aspects would fail in their charge to safeguard the world.”
“…He would create an elite army of his design…the vrykul…the perfect expression of the warrior spirit…”
“All that remained was to find a means of ferrying the spirits of the dead to the Halls of Valor. For this Odyn studied the energies that permeated the Shadowlands. The knowledge he gained would allow him to transform some vrykul into spectral beings known as the Val’kyr. The wraithlike servants would travel between the Shadowlands and the physical world, guiding the souls of worthy vrykul to the Halls of Valor. Yet those who became Val’kyr would be cursed to live as phantom beings for all eternity.”
“No vrykul volunteered for the grim task of becoming a Val’kyr, and thus Odyn decided he would create his servants by force…Odyn shattered her physical form and twister her spirit into the first of the Val’kyr. Helya’s howls of pain and anger rumbles across the surface of Azeroth and pierced into the very heart of the Shadowlands…she found herself compelled to obey his will. Under Odyn’s command, she set out to transform unwilling vrykul into the cursed Val’kyr… For ages, Helya and her fellow Val’kyr brought the souls of heroic vrykul to the Halls of Valor.”
Page 57 - The Sealing of the Halls of Valor.
"In order to defeat the other keepers, Loken realized that he would first have to neutralize Odyn and his might Valarjar army… After Loken had restored her free will, Helya called on the same powers she had used to secure the Elemental Plane in ages past…sealing off the Halls of Valor and the inhabitants within.
"Not all Val’kyr continued to follow Helya after Odyn’s defeat. Some of these spectral beings disappeared into the Shadowlands. The few who still retained a glimmer of nobility in their souls dedicated themselves to watching over the physical world. From within the Shadowlands, these Val’kyr would at times guide the dead back to the land of the living."
So… it may not be a retcon, but an expansion of that pre-existing lore. With the lost Val’kyr as spirit healers, and perhaps the lost Val’kyr being taken in by the Kyrians and given the same duties, but not the purging of memories and thus leading to the Forsworn.