I know that I am far from the only one that feels like the story lately is feeling a lot like terrible cringey fan fiction with a obvious bias towards Sylvanas.
Most newer players don’t seem to mind and fell the flashy cinematic not even realising that something was “off”, while the majority of the rest of us especially those who have been playing since Wc3 and even before are just left kinda exchanging looks and thinking “wtaf? Something is wrong…”
Most expansions up until BfA were not without their own problems but all in all the story was pretty good (at least as someone who spends a LOT of money on the franchise, feeding my obsession; paying for several accounts, always pre-ordered the collectors edition of each expansion, I never before had the thought of quitting WoW, until now). One notable red flag was when Kil’Jaeden was NOT the finally boss of Legion my heart dropped with worry; I knew there and then that Blizzard would not carry the story line across another expansion and this was going to be it. Sargeras would be rushed and under-whelming and it seemed like that they just wanted to get the Burning Legion out of the way.
I have to admit I didn’t mind the end of Legion too much, despite the fact that Argus SHOULD have been it’s own expansion, I was willing to let it slide as we still had N’zoth to contend with (BAHA, boy was I stupid for thinking this)… N’zoth was also patched out of the story, like a bug that was hotfixed. After years of build up and waiting: this Old God was also gotten rid of to make way for new villains which we have no connection to and don’t give a DAMN about. All the lore surrounding the Old Gods and why they were imprisoned instead of being killed was just forgotten and N’zoth was just killed just like that. N’zoth did more damage in Cataclysm while he was bloody imprisoned ffs. So I guess all this time Azeroth had nothing to worry about apparently, no big deal. For people who played from Cata (or before), and had to wait to meet the one “who signed Deathwings paychecks”, there is no way anyone was happy with that ending and for Blizzard to claim they thought it was an outcome to be proud of is like spitting in the faces of Warcraft fans.
The same with what was done to the Bolvar - Lich King was disgraceful. We have waiting to see if Bolvar is still noble and good or will he be corrupted too, he could be worse than Arthas if so - “new breed of Lich King” remember. There are 14 seconds of the Shadowlands cinematic that is gold, Sylvanas standing infront of scourge and Bolvar, Bolvar stands up. Those 14 seconds are far better then the whole thing itself. Imagine if it switched back to Sylvanas and she just said “lets make deal” END - “WoW Shadowlands”, and thats all we got. How much better would have even just that been?!! Instead warcraft fans around the world were openly mocked and insulted by what was actually shown. Why do new need a new Villain right now. We HAD N’zoth christ sake. We had Bolvar who had still to reveal his mental state. There were plenty of other potential villains for Sylvanas to bargain with. So much of the existing story is being rushed or completely ruined and destroyed.
The potential for an amazing expansion was not only ignored but flushed down the toilet and over the coarse of BfA one of my favourite characters across all franchises; Sylvanas, I now hate. Even when she loses she still wins, the opening of BfA was suppose to be the revenge moment for the alliance for Teldrassil, but no, alliance don’t destroy undercity SHE DOES. That day in Sep 2017 I reach into the press to take out my Sylvanas for my first of many coffees, but it slipped, smashing all of the counter. I was devastated. I see now this was an Omen, a sign of the terrible things to come to World of Warcraft.
Everything about Sylvanas now stinks of awful sleezie fanboy gut twisting puk worthy fan fiction. The coffee mug tried to warn me…
I went from loving this character to despising even hearing her bloody name so thanks for that Blizzard.
My view on this is that, ultimately iON Hazzikostas is the one to blame for this because even if he is not the fanboy pushing this crap, is he still the Director and the one allowing this to happen (ie. failing at his job).
The Damage has been done… but does anyone think it can be fixed and does anyone agree this is iON who is responsible or do you think darker forces are behind this massive drop in story quality???
I really feel like this is season 8 of Warcraft.
We are connected with Ion then. My name Kaloyan means “Handsome John” or Ioannitsa in greek. What a coincidence.