I keep saying that GoT caused this cancerous effect that got characters killed for pure shock value and disregarding if said death was necessary for the plot or characters.
Had this same discussion on another thread. They absolutely had nothing abt Zovaal back in BFA, if they had they would have put some kind of foreshadowing. They just wrote BFA and then SL retconned her motivations. The whole ordeal was awful
Even if Zovaals introduction was the surprise hook, they would have talked more about Sylvanas motivation in cut scenes and quest text. They are not subtle storytellers. The fact that the motivation had to be spelled out in a novel that was basically billed as an explanation, because they knew there was no explanation, and it didnât come out until close to the end of the expansion is very telling.
Remember, they knew this stuff didnât make sense, so much so that they put in the Ardenweald quest âWhatâs my motivation?â As part of the theater chain. And they still didnât tell us her motivation because Golden hadnât finished re-writing it yet.
obvious step is getting missed here. zovaal being a non-issue in bfa doesnât mean they retconned her intentions entirely in shadowlands. her will to genocide massacre the night elves is not dependent on zovaalâs existence. and thereâs no evidence iâve seen supporting the claim that such a retcon even really took place.
To be fair, going from âI want to kill all this night elves to have less night elves to worry aboutâ to âI want to kill all this night elves to feed souls to the Mawâ is a pretty big shift in motivation. Might not have clear evidence but judging how everything went and the lack of foreshadowing one can make an educated guess.
yeah i agree, the introduction of all of shadowlands definitely recontextualized it. i was pushing against the idea that sylvanas was initially somehow a moderate about the not-genocide, though. that seems much less tenable as a claim.
If anything is to be salvaged, Iâll have to say that âI want to just exterminate them so in 500 years I wonât be fighting this same war AGAINâ is a much better motivation than whatever carcass rotting under the sun was happening in SL
They were literally making up her story as they went along âŚ
There was hardly any âGrand scheming villain conspiracyâ going on at the time.
BFA, along with especially Shadowlands and the Jailor came out of the blue when they bent over & whipped it out of their butts then improvised as they went along.
As surprised as I am to say so myself right now â Evevien is right:
That pretty much sums up character developments, arcs, and so forth in a nutshell.
i mean i categorically agree. part of why the faction war has been such a joke in recent years is because thereâs just no military acumen represented on either side. presumably this is because one canât write what one doesnât know. but what itâs resulted in has just been⌠uh⌠
This is your problem. You decided you knew what the Devs intent was an wont listen to anyone, including the Devs when they tell you something different.
So, when do you think they develop an expansion? Do you think they story board, fine tune, code, test, and then release an expansion in the last 3 months of a previous one?
In truth they are already working on the next expansion when they release one. They we already developing BC during Vanilla. They were working on WotLK during BC, etc., etc.
They had to know about Zovaal before BfA because they had to already have it story boarded out.
And how long do you think those high quality cinematics took to develop? You think they made those a month or two before release? To get Saurfangâs story in that form would have meant they were already working on them before BfA was released. And their culmination was VERY tied to Sylvanas deal with Zoval.
They did, you just missed them. Here is one for you. Do you remember the fight between Sylvanas and Malfurion? They called out that she should not have been able to stand against him. They called out that she shouldnât be that strong. They were already hinting that she had gotten some kind of power boost from somewhere.
Not really sure how you missed that one. It was actually a major talking point on this forum at the time. Everyone asking how she was that strong.
First patch: âHey guys, look Sylvanas is way stronger than the used to be.â
It wasnât subtle. We didnât know what the reason behind it. They didnât hang a Zovaal sign on her. But, Sylvanas made a deal with someone/something was pretty explicitly laid out.
You are reading a cause in that is not supported by facts. Development time does not allow improvisation like you are describing. They knew where they were going, what they aimed at. Shadowlands was already well into development when BfA was released.
The story was bad. But it wasnât bad because of improve. It was just a bad story.
Thatâs not really foreshadowing Zooval being a thing though. Her power up could have literally come from ANYONE or anything.
Thatâs just the characters telling us that Sylvanas has a unknown power up.
Iâm aware, my point is that I doubt they already had an idea of Zovaal as he was presented in Shadowlands back in BFA development cycle (let alone Legion with the voice in VolâJinâs head in his deathbed). They left that mini-foreshadow up for grabs for anything later on.
So, granted, there was a foreshadow, but you canât convince me it was for the Jailer we met in SL. They are not subtle about their writing, theyâd have added something more tangible. Not a neon sign over Sylvanasâ head, but something.
They DEFINITELY shifted the narrative going from BfA to SL.
Certainly they had a lot developed for SL, but they made some pretty glaringly obvious changes to Shadowlands story. They abandoned huge portions in favor of pursuing different threads. Thros and Gorak Tul are dead ends. Muehzala is a major player and gets only a moment of time in a 5 man. Donât get me started on the Primus.
Heck, we know they wanted Covenants to be more antagonistic and we had to choose one and it would be permanent before they pulled the ripcord.
Iâm not going to keep trying to convince you of reality. If you think that blizzard got their narrative team flipped upside down between legion and SL and no one made any meaningful changes during that time you can keep on believing that.
Did you want a sign saying Zovaal with flashing light and arrow pointing at Sylvanas?
That very first patch quest chain setup that Sylvanas was clearly working for someone with more power. Who that was and what the final goal was were unknown, for sure. But it means they DID have plans, they did setup that she was working for someone else. Which goes counter to the narrative that they retconed/reframed/changed plans and added different goals later.
And your basis is?
At that time, Zovaal was probably pretty nebulous.
Blizzard has told us the development cycle. We know how it works. when Legion was being released they would have had BfA acts planned out and started structuring it. Shadowlands would have been roughly story boarded, but not finalized. By the end of Legion they would have known the general picture of Shadowlands and started to structure the acts.
So, when they planned out Volâjinâs death it would have likely been something along the lines of âWe know we want this SL villain to be pulling strings and we want Sylvanas working for him.â So, they wanted to put her in a position to do something. As they finalized his general motives (wants to break out, needs souls, etc) during legion while they were building BfA they would have structured BfA acts around that.
The idea that they just invented Zovaal during BfA is just crazy.
They certainly made changes to the various acts of Shadowlands while developing it during BfA. But not to the main story arc. Sylvanas working for Zovaal was a thing before BfA release. Shadowlands being powered by souls was not invented during BfA.
All of the things you mentioned were side quests, minor shifts in story telling, and game mechanics. The main arc was not a last minute change.
Nobody changed the main arc of the story. Changing the main arc of SL when they were already halfway through BfA is not something they would have had the resources to do.
Itâs so easy to say after the fact that Zooval was totally a thing they had planned all along. Itâs a lie that even blizz loves to push on ocassion.
But fact is, no, there was no hint that Zooval was a thing during BfA.
Considering many of the writers, Danuser included, said the ending of the series was one of the best endings theyâve seen⌠yeah, wouldnât doubt it.
Yeah, at no point in Legion or BFA did I get ANY hints of âbald nipple manâ was the true cause of every bad thing that has happened since Warcraft 3. From changing the Dreadlords from intelligent demons to super sneaky agents of Denathrious, to the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne being aCkTualLy created by the Primus, to Argusâs soul shutting down the Arbiter⌠all so Zovaal could be propped up as this 10-dimensional chess player.
Shadowlands was garbage and absolutely decimated the lore of WoW.
Let me take a different approach to help you see. Letâs Occamâs Razor this.
Which is more likely:
It is just not realistic to think they changed the main arc of Shadowlands halfway through BfA.
No hints?
Sylvanas was suddenly way more powerful than she had been. That totally wasnât a hint of anything? Sylvanas suddenly deciding a massive war with the Alliance was a good choice. That wasnât a hint of someone else pulling her strings?
I donât understand this idea that if BfA did not spell something out explicitly than it was invented after BfA was already half way over.
I would completely agree that during WC3 they had no concept of Zovaal. Nor in WotLK. Nor in Cata. Etc.
But they absolutely had a plan for him while they were building BfA.
Disliking Shadowlands story is a completely fair take. I would never fault you for that, I agree the main arc was a bad story. But that doesnât make it a last minute invention halfway through BfA.
Nope. None. I attributed Sylvanas suddenly having more power than usual because she was working with Helya, a former Titan Keeper. At no point did I think there was some mysterious âbigger evil dudeâ behind her actions. I had thought it was all part of some plan she and Helya had concocted and was fully expecting the end of BFA to have a navy of Kvaldir joining the Horde while Odyn, still raging over the event of Legion, sending the Valajar to aid the Alliance.
At no point did I think Zovaal was a thing.
I bolded the key part there.
You assumed a thing.
You not expecting a thing doesnât mean it wasnât planned.
And I donât think anyone expected Zovaal exactly. At least not that I remember seeing. There was LOTS of speculation about who she was working for at the time. Which I suspect was what Blizzard intended. They wanted people wondering so that when he was revealed it would be a big thing. But the fact that there was someone was pretty clear, even if we didnât know who.
So, yet there was hints at what was going on. The community was left to speculate, which can be a good thing. The problem is that some people latched onto their theories so hard that they decided they were actually correct and Blizzard just changed gears.
At the end of the day, you can judge for yourself if you think they should have given more/less/different hints than they gave. That is fine. Just as long as you realize that your not guessing what was coming doesnât mean it wasnât their plan all along.
See, the mistake youâre currently making is the belief that Zooval was a fully fleshed out being as far back as Legion and even early BfA. Early designs of Zooval clearly looked NOTHING like the character we got in SL. It did look an awful lot like the Primus.
Given the turmoil that was going on at Blizzard during that time, no I donât think they had fleshed out who or what Zovaal was or what his role in the story was going to be. They had an idea of - âHey, letâs go to the afterlife!â - and that was it. Thatâs all they were working with at the time of Legion and BFA. The concept of Sylvanas being in league with some super Satan to remake the universe I firmly believe was not a thing until maybe halfway through BFA and Afrasiabi was on his way out the door.