Walking into clouds of flesh melting toxins was apparently their plan during the siege of Lordaeron so… I guess so.
I really don’t think it’s beyond repair.
The solution seems plain as day.
- Get a reliable content release schedule.
- Stop relying on borrowed power systems
- Stop narrative focus on hero characters, players should do the cool stuff, not NPCs.
- Focus the story back on Azeroth proper and the playable nations therein.
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i would disagree here, i do not want this "hyperfocus on player " like ff14 have…i despice this, i want to be an adventerure and not to be the chosen one of the entire multiverse. one of many…
i want to feel the story…but in the lore, it should be the lorecharacters that deal with XYZ. maybe i´am more pro story then most of us here.
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Yeah the problem is definitely not that there are stories told from characters perspective rather than players.
The problem is planning. The updates are waaaaaaaay too slow. The content way too repetitive and slow. Like it takes them 6 months to make 15 minutes worth of content we blaze through. And the only thing that puts a speed pump on us is timegates and slow reputation grinds.
Cinematics look basic as well… like it a college student working part time on their own can make those cinematics.
The problem is how much content blizzard is putting out and scale and scope of the “story” they want to tell.
Danuser is telling a story you should tell in a comic book or a tv show with an episodic format where the story gets an update every week or every month. Not half a year!
They keep saying “Tyrande’s story is not over” well jesus christ man, its been like 5 years end it already. But they haven’t even covered half of the story she is supposed to get to close her chapter.
Anyway this guy says it way better than I can.
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That’s addressed in point 4.
The story should be about the nations. Not their leaders nor the PCs themselves.
Classic understood this extremely well. It was borderline surreal that it managed to get me to regard Sylvanas with awe and reverence. But it did.
How?
Because it had me being just some random deader who slowly but surely had proven my worth to the Horde and Forsaken in particular.
I’d started doing chores for local Deathguard. When my ability to handle mildly dangerous tasks was established I got bumped up to solving problems for Executoes that they didn’t have the spare men to handle.
In Silverpine I was bumped along the ranks between Executors and Apothecaries until I was finally called in by a High Executor with a truly dangerous task. Assault Shadowfang Keep and bring him the head of the Archmage behind this Worgen problem.
Eventually I was called by Varimathras. Just walking into the Royal Quarter is intimidating. Rows of Royal Dreadguard eye you every step as you make your way to the throne room. You are tasked with crushing the Scarlet Monastery.
Even then Sylvanas takes no notice of you. It’s only at about level 50 or so that you receive a summons from the Banshee Queen. And you really feel like a bad mfer when you do. From humble beginnings killing duskbats you’ve become such a formidable agent that the Dark Lady herself has called upon you, by name.
In Cata Sylvanas is calling you a cool dude and giving you private exposition poney rides at level 14 to explain the Forsaken in case you didn’t pay any attention in Tirisfal.
That’s stupid for a lot of reasons. But the main one is you don’t get an opportunity to see all the aspects of Forsaken society.
By the time you get to Sylvanas in Classic you’ve worked for the Deathguard, the Deathstalkers, the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow and countless Forsaken citizens who need some problem solved. You get to see the ins and outs of their culture and society.
You’ve helped out everyone from the guy sweeping bat guano to Varimathras himself by the time Sylvanas knows your name. And it feels like she ought to by now. You are revered, perhaps even exalted, amongst the Forsaken by now. You’ve conquered every challenge set forth. Massacared enemies - human, undead or otherwise - by the bushel. You’re god damn right she knows your name.
And that’s where modern WoW fails. I actually think Boralus is handled a bit better than Dazar’Alor because you start in prison. So of course the High Admiral has no reason to speak with you.
In Dazar’Alor you’re on Royal business pretty much minute one. And help out local cops and citizens purely out of the goodness of your heart.
Which is fine. But I think it would’ve been way better if you gradually got closer to the pyramid while rising through the ranks and learning about Zandalari culture. So when you actually do ascend to the throne and stare out across Zuldazar not only have you earned it, but you know every alley you’re looking down on by now.
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I’m not convinced the game’s lore will ever recover from BfA, mostly due to its disgusting mishandling of the Horde. Enough time and handouts from Blizzard might halfway restore the night elves’ dignity, but the Horde will forever carry the taint of having participated in a genocidal zombie’s war of annihilation. No sad, dead orc or repentant mass murderer on parole will ever wash the stain clean. Our entire faction was forced to go along with this garbage, again, and after MoP it was just not a storyline this already blackened faction could afford to repeat. No excuses. No demon blood or magical mitigating factors. The ugly shadow MoP and WoD cast over the orcs, BfA pulled over the rest of the faction.
Atrocious as the entire concept was, I could have accepted Sylvanas going Garrosh’s way. If they really didn’t have the stones to make good on the cinematic and let the Alliance throw the first one, sure, whatever, ruin her character and let’s move on. But the writers’ failure to insulate the wider Horde from Sylvanas’ mind-broken insanity is something a two-faction game will never recover from. They dumbed the story down to Sylvanas vs Saurfang, got rid them both, and kind of forgot to give the guys left behind any substantial role throughout the travesty. Baine, Thrall, Theron, Rokhan, Liadrin, Voss, Thalyssra, Ji; “good”, “heroic” characters all, and through sheer incompetence Blizzard made Sylvanas’ sins theirs. But even getting rid of them wouldn’t solve the problem.
Maybe it’s because I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to write MoP 2: Genocide Jill’s Excellent Adventure in the first place, but I see no way to salvage the Horde after BfA. And in a game that paradoxically necessitates keeping both its player factions on more or less equal footing, that’s a deathblow for the story’s integrity as far as I’m concerned.
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You’re both right. Warhammer has multiple eras and the Age of Sigmar is background legend for the ages that come afterward.
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He is my Lord of Dusk. Hail Amadis!
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Tyrande was never the military leader that people seem to think. She was a focus of inspiration which is something else.
She’s also a bit of a shrew to Malfurion once she wakes him up in the RTS, complaining about how she had to do the work of leadership without him around, even though she should have known that he didn’t have a choice in the matter.
Tyrande may be the sympathetic one to the strays she brings home, but cross her in the slightest way, she goes into Manic Shrew Mode. Varian, who has had to learn the hard lessons of managing himself as a former Rage Monster is THE person to appreciate her rage and talk her down from it. He’s the Chosen of Goldrin, so he’s actually the Human who resonates with the feral nature of Night Elves the best.
The battle site is full of mindless undead soldiers that will attack anyone regardless of faction.
Brill itself remains erased. The Scarlets are still out there, Outside of an outpost and the depressing entry town, there are no friendly spots for the Horde there.
This is the most asinine decision blizzard had ever made. Greymane should’ve been the chosen one.
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I think Silverpine was a fun questing zone. By the time I spoke with Sylvanas, I achieved many things to advance the war effort: I killed worgen, spider queens, forest giants and plague bombed murlocs. The most overpowered level 14 of all time!
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Varian has had far more of a character arc than Greymane. Schemed upon and manipulated by Onyxia, Split in two between a civilised and his wild side, Varian reunited and reconciled with both halves. Not to mention that he triumphed in personal combat, surviving a Horde slave arena. Greymane however let his lust for vengeance drive him off the reservation.
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Doesn’t matter. Varian is not and was not a worgen, he has literally ZERO connection to Goldrinn. It was just another way to rub salt in the wounds worgen fans were already suffering from at that point.
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But remeber that the whole scenario revolved around Varian knowing about the Sha problem and that engagin head on with the Orcs would have resulted in a much worse outcome. Varian’s plan was in fact pretty much the same as Tyrande’s. It was Anduin who informed his dad about everything, making him change is mind.
But then we have Varian having learned it all and failing to share that informtion with Tyrande, his reason being that she had to be “A Little Patient tm”.
I do agree that Tyrande is far from the best military leader but that doesn’t mean she is clueless about fight tactics.
I see her more of a “street smart” regarding combat decisions. Like thinking on her feet depending on each situation. That’s why I always defend her choices in WC3. People tend to blame her for releasing Illidan but the world was about to be destroyed. She needed to fix the problem of now before there was no world to think about problems of tomorrow.
And in that Tyrande/Varian interaction from MoP, it showed how little Varian thought about the rest of the leaders. He thought of himself as the best of best and thinking little about the others. Otherwise he would’ve come up with a plan that involved all the parties in that moment.
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That’s nonsense! why would Goldrinn choose a Worgen over Varian? He was full of Human Potential!
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I know right?! Even our heritage armor quest line tells us worgen suck for being worgen 
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You don’t have to be a worgen to embody that spiritual connection. Greymane may have fangs, but Varion was far more of a wolf than he is. Try to think beyond being literal.
Street smart? Maybe you should reread WOTA. She comes across as quite the opposite to me. I think that a wise leader that was so “street smart” would have found a better way of securing Illidan’s release than murdering Maiev’s Wardens. She may have had to but that’s pretty much all on her for allowing the Wardens to grow so distant from her. She literally couldn’t find the time in 1en thousand years to keep them loyal to her as she should have.
They literally weren’t there. And it would have been criminally stupid to have them all at one place where one lucky Horde move would have decapitated the entire Alliance. That’s the one lesson that everyone should have taken from Theramore. I can’t think of a good reason why Tyrande was there at all.
We are clingling desperately on a dying IP hoping it will reach a peak of WoLK or Legion again… but it won’t because they genocided the Night Elves, and Sylvanas’s charactization along with them.
This IP will never heal.
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I love the sarcasm in this comment. Sums up Warcraft.
- Human Potential *
** But only if that human is a poster boy for toxic masculinity. (Varian, Illidan [shut up he counts], Arthas)
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Varian is the very definition of a Toxic Man Child. He’s blizzs poster child on how they view masculinity in general.
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