How much do you guys think Blizzard can change on the fly?

Lore Story
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Regarding this story.

If they see how they failed to create the feeling they targeted when they first created this story.
And any character involved.

If they feel like Baine or Saurfang aren’t getting the sort of welcome they wanted amongst Horde players.
Or how the Alliance players aren’t starting to forgive whatever shenanigans the Horde pulled in this war.

How much room do you think they have to avoid a potential collision course?

Edit: Examples above are just my own speculation regarding the outcome we are heading towards.

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Personnaly I think they have plenty of room…even
now. Even though I think they made a big mistake from the get go in this expac, what I think they lack is the willpower.
Maybe I’m seeing to much into this but you can sort of see the ‘knee jerk reactions’ to player feedback with the choices they’re now giving us, as ultimately hollow as they may be.

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None. I think they had the story planned out well before, and especially the cinematics they use now seem to take quite a long time to create. Apart from that, they see the player reaction as a reaction to half the story. They know how the character arcs end, you don’t and for everyone who correctly predicts what will happen, there are 10 that cry about things that will never happen to drown him out.

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We are approaching 8.2 which looks to be the start of N’zoth and his fishy friends arc, which basically means that the faction war is going to the back burner once more. I think it is safe to say this plot is pretty much set in stone by now.

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Officaly they claim the plan out the story years in advance.
Unofficaly i think they have been trying to stop the bleeding since the burning of tederasill.
I mean we get the tyranade we have been asking for for years.
The defiant one.
We alliance is kicked the horde butt’s across the continente’s after war of the thorn was a very badly written curb stump.
The horde can now choice who to side with.
Choice was unheard of in quests until recently.
Baine has grown a spine and is being arrested.

To me it seems like there doing damage control.
Also blizzard abbandon warlords of dreanor story to work on legion(and it shows) because of the bad reactions it was getting.

So blizzard can make as much change to the story as would be needed.
Beside: Constistance exist to enhance the story not tie our writters hands.
If they really wanted they can just declare all of bfa none canon.

Do i believe they will give us what we want?
No.
Do i believe they are very carefull now?
Yes.
I believe that the mass unsubing to close after tederasill was a wake up call to blizzard.
Or at the very least a wake up call to there bosses.
Bosses who hate losing money.

They want this faction war over with but are unsure how to pull it off without getting an other mass unsub.
Sylanas cant remain warchief but also cant be killed because of massive unsub.
The night elves(and alliance) must have there revenge and not just scoll the horde then let them off because that would create a bigger unsub then even tederasill(after all they want to avoid an other siege of ogrimar)
And they dont want the alliance to win because then the horde will mass unsub.
There backs are against the wall.
They need to make the story a success of risk losing massive amount of money.

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Fire the people who were involved in anything that was written from “Before the Storm” until now or at least keep them on their toes.

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I feel like the max they are willing to do is the split storyline for the Horde which they are basically giving you the illusion of choice to get off Slylvanas’s Horde side at every attempt they can.

Imo it should probably end with the loyalist characters death in the eventual rebellion.

I don’t think Blizzard will change from its current path, and if they do then it will ruin the story further if they give into the demands of the Cult of Sylvanas and she is allowed to live without being executed or hunted down by every nation and race in game for what she has been doing.

But the faction war will most likely die down anyway with what Rangoor has said and some bigger threat will come along and we’ll have to put our differences aside blablabla ToT 2.0 ending with a Old God threat.

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If I were to put a measure on the room they have, I would say a room in the form and size of Sylvanas. They would have to throw away that room.

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A large room the size of Nazjatar. They can hand-wave much of the problems with the return of the Old Gods story arc, and suddenly people have much bigger problems than one Warbringer gone mad.

They can have literal years to work with to change the direction of the Sylvie-death finale, if so chosen.

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Well I sort of like the story so far. The issue i whould have with it are that most of the story needs to gathered by reading or listening to other media. I mean it’s hard to acctually understand what made Sylvanas burn down the tree, what drove Baine to go behind Sylvanas back etc. If this story whould be executed properly every character involved in the core plot whould had needed a Jaina styled story line were we could go more in depth with the whole construction of their characteristics and possible goals.

Unfortunately most of the plot characters need to be put togheter by smal pieces of information from multiple sources… where the game itself are the weakest link. Ofcourse the story feels bad then…

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Well you see, that’s where your slightly wrong.

This is very much a battle between youtube users and us users on these forums.

Youtube receives alot of praise for Baine and Saurfang; indeed, I’d say that the people on youtube much prefer Baine and Saurfang over Sylvanas, whereas forum posters prefer Sylvanas.

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Consistency was never Blizz’s strong point so I don’t keep my hopes up.

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Having room? Plenty, with great twists and unexpected ending. But knowing Blizzard we will have another “Dreanor is free” ending with bits leading up to another expansion.

My hope is this war being the ending of Azeroth as we know today, engulfing in Old Gods. Black Empire where we have to fight to preserve Azeroth being corrupted. I am looking forward to seeing expansion about old gods and Black Empire, with PC having a choice in his own campaign. All Alliance and Horde strongholds decimated and power level brought down to near zero.

There is a great chance of this still happening, with last patch. Imo there is way more interesting things happening with Nzoth and Xalatath then in faction rivalry, but its not quite enough to fill the forums filled with that kind of threads instead of Baine this Sylvanas that and never ending Elf history grind.

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This has been the only engaging story throughout BfA.

You know story with Xalatah will always be top notch, where it won’t be sheltered down and she will cause so many questions.

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while there has been good plot in bfa, it has not been in the faction war which was sickeningly alliance are the good guys which robbed them of having any interesting plot developments. It ment the horde though having a more dynamic story pushes them in directions that people who started playing thanks to their depiction before legion are all extreamly pissed, especialy if they played MoP.

In my opinion who ever agreed to the idea of a return to the faction war should be the people who lost their jobs as the return to it has damaged the story immensely.

I will always say there is far more interesting opertunitys in making the alliance the bad guys or on the wrong side than the horde and there is inklings of that but every time it pops up its shoved away as if some alliance fan girl near the top dosnt want that to happen.

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First of, thanks for the replies.

Personally, i think Blizzard writers are writing themselves into a narrative corner that won’t have easy solution.
The obvious twist will leave tons of people dissatisfied, the current plot is leaving people dissatisfied, and almost every avenue they can take is certainly going to leave people dissatisfied. For one or both sides.

I agree with some of you regarding these bits:

But overall i think that the core of the story has already been written and whatever impactful conclussion they have planned, won’t be changed regardless of the backlash the community has.

Regarding Horde side of the story, nobody wants a SoO 2.0. Few want Garrosh 2.0. And very few want a Kerrigan.

And even if the Alliance does have it mildly better, there are certain potential outcomes that’ll still leave a good chunk of their playerbase dissatisfied. Again, doubt many want another SoO 2.0

You’d have to be quite a blinded fool to not note how Baine and Saurfang characters are certainly NOT getting the kind of welcome Vol’jin had in Pandaria.
You could make a poll amongst the ‘hardcore’ Horde players (leaving aside Alliance ones), and would probably discover that the target audience of these characters, the Horde playerbase, hardly tolerates their current portrayal. Not saying everyone, but certainly a big portion of them.

But again, this was just an example of an obvious outcome people would/are arguing against.
I could’ve instead mentioned how i doubt many would want Sylvanas to end up being the planet saviour.

Again thanks for the replies.

I’m personally baffled about why would Blizzard feel like engaging in these sort of risky business knowing full well how it would affect actual real people behind the screens.
Unless they had a back-up plan to compensate or counter potential backlash, or (and this is much more worrying) they were indeed overconfident enough to think that in time people would bend over and “accept” or like the kind of story they are pushing on them.

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Never said anything about the welcome (please stop bringing in arguments nobody even mentioned.)

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???

Never said you specifically did. I was talking in general terms.

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Then why quote it to me?

I’m totally done with you Zarao. Stop talking to me from here on. I’m not interested in anything you have to say anymore.

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Because you were the one that expanded on the specific example of Baine and Saurfang i named, and i took said point to further elaborate the disparity regarding how people felt about two characters that seemed to be marketed as the ‘correct choice’ for Horde players, but instead were frowned upon by a good chunk of the playerbase…?

???

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