let’s take stock, based on the Baine rescue scenario and what we think we know about it…
Orc leader? Saurfang is in open rebellion.
Tauren leader? Baine was imprisoned for treason.
Belf leader? Lorte is implicated in treason by helping Baine escape.
Troll leader? None to be found, but the Zandalari refused to bow before Sylvanas’ authority, and Rokhan is also part of Baine’s rescue. Hard to imagine the trolls backing Sylvanas, if it comes to blows.
Goblins? Can smell change in the wind as good as anyone. Gallywix might prefer war over peace, but he also prefers being on the winning side. Can’t see him really backing Sylvanas here.
The rest… really don’t matter. Thalyssra seems to have her hands full in Nazjatar, Geyah’rah is probably behind Sylvanas, but not that much of a factor, Tauren stand with Tauren, and who was Ji again?
Since WoW tells its story more through its characters than its armies, and all the major characters seem to have chosen sides - and clustered on one side - it seems like the only thing left to do is to topple the leader they don’t like, and if they are not going for another siege-scenario like with Garrosh… this could happen very swiftly. It feels to me as if 8.2, or 8.2.5. at the latest, could actually finally end this infighting mess.
It will be a revelation when people can fly up there in 8.2 and learn that he is up there for a reason: His potty mouth and his scalding story criticisms.
There might be some resemblence in the narrative there…
He was at the meeting when Baine got arrested, admittedly this was after everyone pointed out he was missing.
TBH I don’t want him to get ruin so I quite like he is not in this. It was already a mouthful for a Panda to free Zul from the prison without any questions.
On one hand, it seems like there will finally be a reckoning for Sylvanas. On the other hand, Blizzard loves to keep her safe from any harm, so it may well end with them killing all faction leaders apart from her.
Get this, get this.
This is what Nathanos tells you if you decide to tell him about Lor’themar working to rescue Baine.
Nathanos: Play along for now. I’ll send word ahead. These traitors are in for a surprise once they reach Bloodhoof.
Hhahahhahahaha, play along for now, who the hell comes up with this stuff.
The plan to rescue Baine succeeds because of your effort as a player, but even when given the perfect opportunity to betray the people trying to rescue Baine, you still help them succeed.
Next quest you’re gonna get is to kill Sylvanas and Nathanos is gonna tell the same thing.
Well also Lor’themar and Thalyssra are are bluntly joining the rebellion after fall of Azshara. Wasnt there a dialogue between the two?
Most likely by 8.2.5 Sylvanas will be no longer Warchief for reasons. And we will have continuation of the story, maybe some end to war, wrapping up and leading to next one.
Near enough all choices in any game is just an illusion of choice. Blizzard already have a set outcome, all you get to do is decide how it happens with the limited choices you have.
No, a lot of choices in other games actually impact the story’s outcome and bring their own consequences.
I think we all knew that these choices wouldn’t make any difference, I mean look at the excuses Nathanos constantly keeps giving you.
It’s clear that they planned for the Saurfang and Baine path to be the canon one since even before the expansion launched.
Which also begs the question of, why do MoP 2.0? Why not try something new?
Why not at least make the Alliance do horrible stuff and make the Horde the heroic side?
Why do Horde characters constantly get killed while their Alliance counterparts get development, forgiven for their actions and made into perfect characters?
Take Season 1 of The Walking Dead. No matter what you do the outcome will be the same. You will die, Clem’ will live, Kenny will go missing/presumed dead, Ben, Carly, Doug and a bunch of other people will die or go missing.
The game has a set ending, all you do is pick what choices you want to get that ending.
Games what differ from this either are standalone which don’t have to account for multiple endings or games which then produces a second game which narrows back down any multiple endings into the same outcome to make another game.
Either that or there will be a canon set of events which take place regardless of your actions, like there is in Dragon age for example.
Well, it was, the Sylvanas choice was only given after backlash to the War Campaign in 8.1 and was then added in beta.
All it just does is keep giving the player stops to hop off the Sylvanas train.
Dunno’
What, Sylvanas as Warchief being heroic? Lol. Stuff like that needs to be developed not just click and make it happen.
Such as?
Horde losses more characters sure, the Alliance losses a lot as well as well as zones, cities, towns, even entire races (etc…). That sucks hell of a lot more with that especially when it is all dropped for balance reasons with no story behind it.
As for BfA the Horde and Alliance have both lost a few notable characters.
Given the current story and approach they are giving her, i’d say that after Azshara raid, Sylvanas will have one of these two:
Abandons the faction to continue her particular agenda, and becomes but another boss in the final raid against N’zoth. Much like Ashvane became of Azshara.
Repents halfway through her war plans and sacrifices herself to save the Horde/Forsaken. Redeeming herself in front of the other Horde leaders.
This second alternative i see more likely because of her past description in Legion’s main page, where it said that she would ultimately face the consequences of her acts and be forced to choose between whats important for her, and the future of her people.
Either way, i agree that this will end up pretty soon.
I didn’t say Sylvanas, I said the Horde as a faction.
Right now even as Horde you are set up to believe that other Horde are your enemies and not the Alliance. In a faction war.
There’s no reason to not make Sylvanas do something good, make it so she has to choose it, so that the general Horde population actually sees it. It’s good pr.
Well Jaina for one, wasn’t she meant to be a Warbringer?
We even had a whole choir song about her realising that her father was right and that she’s listening now.
Couple of months later and now she’s suddenly saving the Horde again because without Baine the Horde isn’t worth saving.
I’m assuming by dropping for balance reasons you mean the Cata revamp?
Did you like how the Horde had less development, zones and quests before Cata?
For a 2 faction game giving 1 faction a lot more doesn’t make sense.
For everything else, the Alliance is also given a lot more cities and towns.
I mean just look at BfA, all 3 zones in Kul Tiras have their own towns that is part of the nation of Kul Tiras.
However most of the Horde quest hubs are just some random ruins that are in the zone.
What are the Alliance gonna do to some ruins? Destroy them even more?
In a narrative where characters are very very important, to where if your race doesn’t have a developed character it’s not even mentioned in the story, the number of characters that are alive is much more important than some random towns that everyone is gonna forget once the expansion is over.
Geya’rah was brought in to be the new Zaela I guess.
The illusion of player choice was just that; an illusion. I reckon Sylvanas will be gone before players who sided with her are actually able to do anything actionable. Leaving us innocent in the eyes of the Red Alliance once they take over, since they’ll have no idea we were on the Horde’s side.
I’m guessing Night Elves will have to suck it up with regards to Teldrassil. Our precious High King wouldn’t be happy if they sought vengeance.
He might even have Alliance players kill any Night Elves who do seek it out. Because god knows that’s what they’re doing to the Horde right now.
Sylvanas doing something good is out of character for her, she doesn’t care about anything like that.
If you want something like that then Sylvanas should have been developed differently, not changed because it is a change.
Ahhhh, yes. Nothing more fun than watching her flip-flop about changing character every other instance. Is bad development worth it?
I’d rather have no development than bad development personally but that is just me.
Yes I understand it from a balance reason, but not from a story perspective.
The Alliance still got shafted, the Horde could have just expanded its influrence in zones which aren’t controlled by the Alliance to increase their power thus their development. Not bring the Alliance down to their level while destroying lots in the process which make little sense story-wise how it could happen.
Dazar’alor is massive and possibly the biggest city around and all the lands around it belong to the Zandalari (or should before the whole coup thing etc…). They have a bigger army, the same level navy and a superior air force. They are dominant in what they do and can assert their control like they have done in the past over the globe.
Sure, Kul’tiras had more towns, but its city was hell of a lot smaller, in the questing itself most of them towns/villages have been destroyed along with its people. And at least the Horde bases in Kul’tiras are actual bases such as Warfang hold. The Alliance set up in ruins and camps in every single Zandalari zone.
And that is up to debate as it depends on which race we are talking about as well.
Lets take Night Elves as an example.
Night Elf culture and religion is tied very closely to their territory, more so than most other races, and taking those zones away would effectively eviscerate their racial identity. They are the protectors of Ashenvale, granted a sacred mission by Elune to defend her favored lands, and to protect the Well of Eternity from those who would misuse it. If you take that away from them, what do we have left? The Night Elves would be culturally and spiritually gutted.
And we have been seeing that constantly since WoW began. Ashenvale been occupied and abused by the Horde, Azshara given away in a peace deal despite them apperantly winning. Teldrassil is now a smoulding husk and Darkshore is blighted and being plagued to destruction.
Sure, characters can be important to the plot and pushing the story forward. So does the zones, the places and people living in them and removing them would destroy the story faster than having major characters killed.
And is that worth it just to keep a couple of important/major characters because they are that important to the story that it is impossible to never have a story without them?
Regardless, Nathanos is proof that a major character can be developed within an expansion (beyond the odd quest he had in Vanilla and Cata quests). If Sylvanas dies then hopefully (in theory) a new Forsaken person or group can be developed, can be made important and be developed. And developing such characters is easier than having a zone change every X years.
Which is why I said to MAKE her choose that choice, make the other choice so bad that she has to do it.
Just because it’s “out of character” doesn’t mean that the character will never do that, especially if given another choice that is a lot worse.
Well the Horde got shafted from Vanilla all the way till the end of Wrath, did they whine how the zones were not equal and the Horde should get more zones in the future?
Blizz was going into a faction war storyline in Cata so they decided to actually show that in the world.
What? It’s like the same size as Boralus but just with everything spread around the city instead of it being in one spot.
Besides like half of the city is not even usable/is hostile to you and the center third is 90% a pyramid of only a small part you can go to.
I haven’t gotten the impression that the Zandalari are dominant really, seeing as how the Horde has saved them like 5 times already.
Even with that, Alliance still gets more than the Horde.
Warfang isn’t even that big, doesn’t the Alliance have that big harbor in Vol’dun?
The story doesn’t quite reflect that, nobody mentions Teldrassil or Undercity, it’s all in the characters.
I see your point but I still will stick with my claim that characters are more important and the Night Elves still have one of the biggest character rosters when it comes to races.
Hyjall still hasn’t been touched so I wouldn’t say that they would be gutted if for some reason they lost Ashenvale.
Yes, it is.
I’m not advocating for more zones to get wrecked but they’re not as important in the narrative Blizz is currently pushing.
I’d still say that Nathanos was a big player for Horde in Legion.
He was like the 3rd Horde character in Legion with the most screen time even though he only really appeared in 1 zone.
I wouldn’t like that they could just come up with some random character and make them a big deal out of nothing.
They made Voss in Cata and she’s still not that big of a character today.
The fact that you can’t come up with a character to replace Sylvanas tells a lot of how much Bizz has screwed the Horde up in the last few years.