Anduin Wrynn, except it’s evil goth anduin wrynn from three expansions in the future who went back in time and dressed himself up as Putress to frame Sylvanas.
Putress was working with the Legion, but he didn’t do the Wrathgate, see it’s very nuanced+subversive when you think about it.
Wrathgate was part of a pretty crap plot in Wrath. Like the actual Wrathgate questline was pretty good but the Lich King storyline overall was pretty laughable. the Yog-Saron plot was fairly cool though.
Just a quick reminder that the current lead narrative designer for the game thought Game of Thrones Season 8 was phenomenal
Generally the overarching stories have either been a bit limp or not built up enough. But personally i’ve not found much of the stories written for the past couple of expansions not that enjoyable in the least.
I’m just thankfull Shadowlands can largely be ignored.
The Lich King’s plan was to repeatedly lose until he could kill and reanimate 25 schmucks.
not danuser but this is my favourite GoTS8 ‘take’
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/494/684/04d.jpg
some people really out here being their most basic selves in full view
I’m 99% certain that’s satire and is riffing on a different tweet about the subtle symbolism of some superman movie.
No, this one was serious I’m afraid.
Alright yeah, apparently that one is the original. Oops
Older WoW expansion stories ranged from… Non-existent, confusing, thin on the ground, Thrall, and The Good One:tm:, but it feels like they were bad stories handled better than Shadowlands.
Shadowlands, BfA, and Legion kind of show that Blizzard is not able to do character-focused stories. Mists was arguably the last time they did a character-focused story and had the characters be meaningfully different, rather than the current seven flavours of Anduin and baddie-but-not-really Sylvanas.
Since then, every character in focus has just become the main character of the expansion, and if you’re not down with them, then I guess you can… idk, go hogpost in the corner.
I’d take a story that’s thin on the ground over a story where, say, the Alliance has no role other than saving the Horde from itself (again) and the Horde is forced to rally behind a poster boy who only reflects part of the faction.
A storyline you cannot avoid and permeates the entire expansion.
Ah yes, every expansion since Wotlk.
I think this has a lot to say.
“Everyone” likes Arthas, so an expansion centered around him as the big bad is a safe bet.
“Everyone” likes Thrall, so you make an expansion that makes everyone hate him instead.
Sylvanas has been a controversial figure for long, and by the beginning of the last expansion people were asking for her to go away, and we’re still being strung along with her plans towards a potential redemption arc.
For some I don’t think it’s as much of her being controversial as much as her current characterisation being at odds with how she was shown to be and what Blizzard originally marketed. There’s been some pretty heavy-handed retcons and the like, even for Blizzard’s standards. There’s a good quote about continuity that comes to hand.
How Blizzard spoke about Sylv at the BFA unveil Blizzcon and how they spoke about her one year later makes me wonder if this story was always planned. 
Edit: typos cuz my hands are cold af.
Meanwhile Danuser decries anyone that doesn’t really want a Sylvanas redemption arc as being too stupid to understand smart clever storytelling already
end the pain
After the losing DOTA in the original Warcraft 3, all Warcraft properties going forward have a clause where anything created within the game is Blizzard’s intellectual property. That includes you, Aerilen. Danuser owns you.
What’s your favourite retcon my one is the one where she has an internal monologue to herself about how she never wanted to be Warchief but that she was proud to be the first female Warchief, and then later in that same expansion it turns out that taking power was always intended and she was in on the plan to put her on the throne.
Literally lying to herself in case of someone reading her thoughts.
Top tier.
Some sacrifices have to be made for the betterment of all…
Mine is when they changed the Kingdom of Azeroth to be Stormwind.
The one where in Cataclysm she’s like “heh I’m like Arthas but I serve the Horde”, then in BFA when she has a cinematic about how much she really likes smugly being like Arthas, and then how now in Shadowlands she realizes she’s just like Arthas and really doesn’t want to be because oh no Prince Charmi- Anduin :((
I’ve been playing Classic recently and tbh, I think Classic’s two overarching faction plot-themes ( the Horde struggling to establish itself on a hostile continent and the Alliance struggling to deal with a crumbling kingdom of Stormwind ), plus the supporting racial themed stories all honestly stand up well.
It’s a proper tabletop RPG adventure in how it’s shown and not told, and some plots take forever to work your way through, like the Alliance Onyxia plot spanning almost your entire levelling experience.
And that’s really satisfying for me. Whereas BFA and Shadowlands felt way more… on-rails. Like I’m being told a story instead of being shown a story.
I could expand on this but it’d take me forever and at least four full forum posts to get it out and I don’t want to waste everyone’s time with my verbiage.