Can't put decent title because I will spoil next patch

Lore Story
81

Forsakens weren’t defeated by the Alliance. They didn’t lose their city, they destroy it to kill full alliance army, as a clever strategy. They also managed to save all their people, and all Lordaeron lands.
Yes, Sylvanas goes rogue, but do you really think that she will not going to be redeemed?

So, forsaken have all their people and army saved. Lands are in their hands but a little bit corrupted by the Horde hands.
As for Night Elves, their lands are destroyed, or in the Horde hands. They live now in Neutral territory. Their nation is almost wiped out, so they will need a millennium to restore the nation. And their leader Tyrande, is in the same unknown state as Sylvanas is.

So, Night Elves are in much much much much much worse state than forsakens… And there will defiantly more to come. Like Evil Elune, defeated Tyrande, playable undead Night Elves on the Horde side e.t.c.

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82

That “who got the hardest blow” competition is pointless. Each player gets to cry about a different race depending on their tastes and allegiance, and it’s always justified, because sincerely in Warcraft everyone and their mother have been torn apart at some point - except maybe like Humans. As a troll fan, I have plenty of things to be sad and frustrated upon, for example.

Now the symbol of Teldrassil made it intense for sure, but man Zuldazar was pretty bad. The whole point of the Zandalari was that they were supposed to be the big naval force the Horde would receive - and the entire fleet vanished in a matter of minutes. Not even mentioning the murder of Rastakhan.

And yeah Forsaken are in a terrible, terrible state. They have always been about Sylvanas only. They have nothing left rn.

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83

People (mostly alliance players) keep asking me what I expected to happen.
With the way the writers took Sylvanas’ (part in the) story since somewhere into Legion it’s been quite obvious we were going to end up fighting her in some raid down the road.
I never in a million years have expected her to take the role of warchief. I would have expected her to kindly and respectfully decline, preferring to stay in the background where her ‘morally grey’ actions would have been a lot less known.
From where she would have been able to help (or manipulate) the Horde and ruling warchief.
Everything from end of Legion up until now just feels like it was written first, and then later decided to let Sylvanas be the antagonist instead of some new name, because Sylvanas sells and a new name might not.
My problem isn’t that Sylvanas is going to end up a loot piñata, I’m way past that. My problem is her character is butchered and there is no way back. Not for her, not for the Forsaken. And there is no way forward, unless Forsaken are fundamentally altered.

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84

another Sylvana hate-thread

90+ replies in just 2h

Well i guess poo flies will be poo flies.

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This can explain situation.

Sylvanas was in very good shape till the end of Legion. She got pact with Helia, but still work for the forsakens good and keep horde strong. On other hand Helia have very similar destiny with Odin as Sylvanas with Lich King.

Don’t forget one simple step, Genn attack Warchief of The Horde, this can fire up the war, even without burning of world tree. I can’t imagine, if Nathanos Blightcaller attack the boy king, what alliance reaction will be.

I wrote this on another threat. Even till attack of UC, Sylvanas give gas masks, open portals to save as much possible people. She gave a choice of traitor Saurfang to see another day with the horde. So till this time Sylvanas did not pass the line as villain. But after that writers throw it too much and too fast.

What is my bet for Sylvanas, that she will be banshee Jesus and will save the boy king from Jailer. Will survive in 9.1 and still believe, that will not be killed. Not by us, not by Tyrande, not by SL itself. Only thing I want the most, and don’t have window to happen, but is to leed forsakens again, even if they will be on edgy line of the horde, because of that.

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86

I honestly think that the “blow” itself is rather mute in terms of how any particular race might fare in the long run in the story.

Races can suck a pretty hard punch, and still come out of it stronger and with a better narrative arch.

Take for example Blood elves.

They are genocided, 90% of their race gone (dev words), their capitol corrupted to this day, and their King murdered.

Still, they’ve had one of the most stellar narrative recuperations ingame: they recover their military might in BC, take back a renewed source of power, project their military might against the Scourge (Sunreavers) and during Cataclysm (Reliquary).
Then, they are even MORE reinforced in Pandaria with brand new units and stories (anima golems and blood magic), which they then use to have another redemption arch by aiding AU Draenei in WoD.

In all, a great disaster that shattered their race, was still managed in a way that further reinforced their themes.

Honestly? That’s far from being negative development.

Negative narrative, or what people should really consider as “blows”, is the stuff that actually damages in a narrative level any race. Villain batting is one of the chief forms of it.

That’s the reason why for example we still have a continued call back to Theramore thanks to the persistence of Jainas role in the story, but nobody ever talked again about the fact that orcs remained leaderless after Garrosh demise, until Varok was named such on TWITTER, and FOUR YEARS after Siege of Orgrimmar.

PS: Another example of what I call a real “narrative blow”, would be the misuse of certain characters.
The death of Voljin alone, was enough to destroy more Darkspear development, than all the troll deaths that Garrosh ordered during MoP.

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87

I completely agree with you. Even getting driven close to extinction barely matters narratively at this point, for most of the PC races have faced it at least once in their history. No matter how frustrating it is for us, the fact that devs don’t communicate on numbers (even approximate numbers) among races gives them that freedom.

As you said, the Darkspear lost Vol’jin, and that hit hard, for a simple reason : there are pretty much no other important Darkspear characters. Rokhan’s a good boy and I like him, but he’s light years away from embodying his people. Actually Master Gadrin feels more like a Darkspear leader figure lol.
NE still have their leaders, their goddess, and plenty of other relevant and powerful characters.
We know that the Darkspear are doing good as a tribe. Does it matter in terms of narrative health though?

Same for the Forsakens, although here I’d argue that Lilian Voss has gotten more solid recently, but that’s personal

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Meh. I don’t think she is relevant or developed narratively to cover up the glaring issues left in the aftermath of BfA.

Her character screams of shoehorned all over it:

She has close to zero connection with the Forsaken faction beyond her undead state, she made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with them (And this went as a recurring theme up until Legion, in the prelude of BfA). She holds no authority over any relevant Forsaken segment, and is known to have spoken repeatedly against their praxis in war times.

There is literally not enough development to grant her either (1) Forsaken respect/loyalty, (2) leadership experience.

She is basically being proposed because of the remnants left in the wake of Sylvanas/Nathanos destruction as relevant faction members, she is the one that could pose the least of a challenge to the ongoing alienation of their themes.

Once Sylv and Nate were out, the leadership should’ve fallen to Faranell, or Belmont, or Velonara, or Mortuus.
But, they wrote themselves into the corner of denouncing so many core Forsaken traits, that they can’t bring any of these alternatives as they would simply be Sylvanas or Nathanos 2.0.

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89

Aren’t there a few surviving Desolate Council members too? They could make a new Desolate Council with some members having the old Forsaken traits (Death to the living) and some bieng like the old Desolate Council. That way we’d have a new story for the Forsaken where they’ll try and find a balance between their two sides.

90

Nope.

The concept on itself had some merit and originality.
But Golden used it basically just to create a cast of expendable fodder that Sylvanas could kill in an “emotive” display and tear jerking moment, that further cemented the sudden new iteration for her character, that doubled on all her villlain traits.

All the relevant characters of the Desolate Council died in the meeting. And still, were but a bunch of nobodies invented on the spot.
The rest aren’t given a name in the novel.

As for the idea itself, I’ll repeat that it may have had some merit. But if Blizzard truly wanted to work on it again with the OG left in the faction, they’d have to deal with:

  1. The guy that orchestrated the deployment of the Blight over Gilneas.
  2. The guy that worked under/for Varimathras and tagged alongside most of the nasty stuff Nathanos ordered.
  3. The general that first had the bright idea to weaponise the usage of Valkyr as a fast troop deployment technique.

And so on.

Honestly, after ousting Sylvanas and Nathanos, do we really think Blizzard writers would keep these sort of characters as leaders? As they are right now?
Not that I would complain about it, as they represent inherent aspects of the Forsaken faction.
But I don’t think they went through all the trouble of condemning said traits, while removing those that sported them, only to backpedal in such a spectacular way as to put Putress, Nathanos, and Sylvanas 2.0 versions, back in charge of the faction.

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91

Why being happy with replacements when we can have the originals back in charge? I say lets take Nathanos and Sylvanas and let them return to the Horde once Shadowlands is over. Calia and Derek need to be killed while we are at it.

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92

Actually let’s do that. I miss Nathanos so much

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I don’t know if Sylvanas can return, honestly. Nathanos could return, but the majority of Horde and Alliance leaders despise Sylvanas and blame her for everythinf, and it would mean constant civil war (or threat of) within the Horde and Forsaken. (Admittedly that could be interesting too).

Sylvanas had so much potentional as, not a villain, but atleast a morally grey faction leader. Instead we got… this.

They don’t have to die, just put them in the faction they’re supposed to be. The Grand Alliance.

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94

The alliance will be destroyed by the Horde in due time.

95

Sure buddy, whatever you want.

96

Agree.

In my opinion one of the most damaging things Activision-Blizzard and at to some extent Blizzard themselves are to be blamed for are: population numbers.

First culprit here: The Wrathgate incident.

From WoWpedia:

“The Alliance loses almost 5,000 soldiers and the Horde loses over 4,000”

It’s quite curious after that event the author’s ceased to provide army losses.

For me this is where it all began.
What exactly was the need to create an event where both factions take such massive losses ?

To further explain my point of view, it’s said when analyzing a conflict such as the second world war, amateurs look at army numbers; tanks, planes, soldiers, guns.
Experts look at logistics. No army can move without fuel, fight without ammunition, survive without food and replacements.

Because they keep pulling numbers out of nowhere, everything loses their impact.

We still don’t know how many soldiers perished at the Broken Shore, besides a vague: “massive loss”.

Or how many civilians/soldiers died during the 4th war, besides: “many”.

Does anyone knows how many Kul-tyrans, Zandalari ships were lost ?

This brings to one of the points where I think Blizzard started to do a massive disservice to the Forsaken lore.
Cataclysm.
The moment they decided to write that Sylvanas is using her Valkyr to resurrect more Forsaken, because Garrosh was apparently wasting too many of her soldiers.
Or they decided to bring that stupid weapon that was supposed to kill Arthas, but in reality was completely worthless, except to kill thousands of Horde, Alliance soldiers, at the Wrathgate.
Also a plot weapon to shorten, battles.
Gilneas ? Blight.
Undercity ? Blight.
Next conflict ? Let me guess: more blight.
The problem here: neglecting the fact that Forsaken are survivors of the scourge and they are not fit to be used as an army.
Historically the Romans lost 50 000 man to Annibal at the battle of Cannae, but they raised another, because they had a massive population to get recruits from. That’s not the case for many races in WoW like the Forsaken.
I will also add the races that live thousands of years like the NEs or Draenei.
Also: there was a conclusion to that conflict, which ended with the Carthaginian losing the conflict to the Romans.
How long till we see a conclusion of this conflict ?

Wotlk starts an era of cooperations between the two factions which usually ends in military disasters. Making them pointless.

Cataclysm starts an era of conflicts between the two factions which usually ends in nothing. Making them also pointless.

The constant need of escalating the drama factor ends up in my opinion to make everything feel numb.

To clarify exactly where I am coming from, the Horde could be dealt a “devastating” blow by losing Ogrimmar in the next conflict and I bet people would just say: “We needed a new capital anyway, the old one was ugly”.

Preach stated once in one of his videos that he stopped caring about the lore, because at the end of the day you have a faction conflict, but you still enter Ogrimmar as in a normal day.
Outside the expansion zones, you don’t feel like there’s a conflict going on.

Also how many unfinished things they leave behind, each expansion ?

  • If a racial leader dies they should be quick to appoint his replacement.
  • What are they planning to do with Gnomeregan or Gilneas ?
  • They never solved the situation between the NEs and the Horde regarding the areas Garrosh occupied during the conflict.

Just to name a few.

I just think they focus too much on world ending threats and major conflicts.
This type of narrative works very well in the RTS where you command massive armies.
If the other faction brings a massive army to invade your territory, you raise another massive army.
If the Legion attacks you go and confront them with an army having your faction leader as the playable character.
This doesn’t work so well in a world where you are just one person.

Unless they are planning to give you powers of the magnitude of Thor from the marvel comics.

My question:
Do we really need all of this world of constant conflict just to have an adventure game where you level up, go and slay a giant dragon with many other player’s just to get epic loot and than be praised in game for it while parading your latest armor/weapons in the Capital city ?

Cheers.

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97

They didn’t gave a details about that trade contract, the reason of the war. We had 3 addons 6 years of a game where there was no any trade contracts between Orcs and Night Elves. Than suddenly in one small book Thrall says - “Oh, yes there was one trade contract that Elves have canceled”.
And War started.
7 years have passed after the War was over, and we still do not have any details about the reason why the War have even started. But yes, Garrosh army is still in Ashenvale, end destroyed army of Silverwing Sentinels is also there, alive…

Hek, we don’t even have a details how Night Elves joined the Alliance. Alliance is just not so important for the Blizzard.

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98

Interesting post you wrote, I agree with all of it, or at least cannot find a thing to argue you on.
But to answer your question; I do believe we need conflict in order to keep us playing the game. Just going around collecting profession materials while killing boars to save the next farm is going to get bored pretty fast even when the boars become fel boars, hell boars, fluffy boars or whatever kind of boar.
But I don’t believe we need world-ending conflict after world-ending conflict. For instance an expansion after Cataclysm could have focussed on rebuilding Azeroth, restoring zones and have minor conflicts about resources and stuff. And maybe then it would make sense that during those activities we got word that Garrosh was using an alternate realm Horde to open a portal back to Azeroth and blahblah Draenor happens. But more in-depth, without the need to cut it short to start on the next world-ending conflict prematurely.

I wouldn’t even mind if an expac needed more than 2 earth years to tell its story. The devs could go: we got these great ideas but they don’t fit 1 expac but they do regard 1 central theme so this time we will have ExpacName part 1 and then ExpacName part 2 which we’d have to obviously buy because you know; no business survives without selling stuff. So it will give the devs more space to really flesh out some good ideas they do have at times but need to cut short because of lack of time/space/room/whatever.

But in conclusion: Azeroth would feel more like a real world if we actually had to face the consequences of conflict and rebuild our lands, got some downtime in between the big action, while still having some sort of action in the form of little squabbles. Then we wouldn’t yawn at the next token big bad, but actually be intimidated and excited to vanquish the enemy.

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99

That would have been my dream expac tbh.

Also even though I hard agree devs should set their focus back on Azeroth, I wouldn’t mind going back to Outland for example. It is so integrated into the story of Azeroth it almost feels like home

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100

Yeah more people feel that way about rebuilding after Cata.

Outland did give us 2 races that feel pretty core now and I feel we can still do plenty there. Scryers and Aldor also still there. There are definitely possibilties. Honestly I kind of feel the same way about Northrend. Though I played neither live, I only joined during Legion.

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