I expect late July but it might even drop in August depending on how long they want the TBC launch to last.
Iâm expecting another 3-4 weeks, tops.
Certain spoilers from the 9.1 thread remind me of what another MMORPG did, a little too strongly.
Spoilers for 9.1 of WoW and 4.0 - 4.3 of that other MMO
So Sylvanas has a fractured soul, much like Uther - and it's being implied that should the soul of Sylvanas be restored, the resulting Sylvanas will be one who took no part in any of the evil deeds that the Sylvanas we know perpetrated. In short, an innocent version of Sylvanas who did nothing wrong.Iâm strongly reminded the moral dilemma surrounding a villain from the Stormblood expansion, someone called Yotsuyu. She served as the governor of her homeland on the behalf of its imperial conquerors, but she hated her own people and tormented them at every possible opportunity. Over the course of the expansion, it is revealed that she became this way because she endured a whole bunch of trauma at the hands of her native culture. In the end, sheâs left to die in a building that collapses into a river after sheâs defeated.
However, she shows up later in the expansion, having been rescued from the river but having suffered severe head trauma that left her without her memories. The good guys are forced to debate whether this amnesiac Yotsuyu - or âTsuyuâ - should be punished for her crimes or whether she should be given a chance to live a new life, free from trauma. Being the good guys, they choose the latter.
Unfortunately, the machinations of another villain cause her memories to return, and believing herself unworthy of the kindness of the good guys, she contemplates suicide. However, sheâs quickly reminded of the cruelty she suffered at the hands of her own culture and is unable to forgive her people. So Yotsuyu forces the player to fight her one last time and in her final moments, she kills one of the characters responsible for most of her suffering. In the end, she dies satisfied and itâs all very tragic.
This feels like Blizzard is stealing a lot of notes on âhow to make a villain sympathetic after they have done a lot of heinous stuff.â But thereâs a lot of differences, at least in my eyes.
- Yotsuyuâs entire story was told over the course of a single expansion. The story of Sylvanas is almost twenty years old at this point.
- Yotsuyuâs introduction, initial defeat and the reveal that she survived the collapsing building were all shown in 4.0, a single patch, making it clear that this story was planned from beginning. Meanwhile, the fact that we have never gotten any inkling of Sylvanas having a fractured soul makes this story feel like itâs contrived, as though it was invented in the past couple of months for the sole purpose of redeeming Sylvanas.
- Yotsuyuâs story had a beginning, a middle and an end. Her âredemptionâ wasnât just a bit of fan service to justify keeping a beloved villain alive, it was done to make the players consider a moral quandary and ultimately ended in heartfelt tragedy. Though I canât speak with certainty, the redemption of Sylvanas feels like it will serve no purpose other than to keep a fan favorite character alive and justify not killing her. I canât imagine this good, whole Sylvanas with her soul united being killed off for the sake of tragedy. This writing team just doesnât have the guts for that, in my opinion.
- The level of contrivance is a little different too. Amnesia through head trauma is a little overdone, but itâs simple and itâs believable. The amount of hoops that Blizzard needs to jump through in order to create a Sylvanas who hasnât done anything wrong however, is utterly absurd. I saw the term âretcon-plothole-pandemoniumâ somewhere and that perfectly describes most of Shadowlands, this fractured-Sylvanas plot included.
- The final death of Yotsuyu grants closure to everyone in the audience, no matter what side they were on. People who loved her and hated her all got what they wanted. Yotsuyu got to experience a little joy in her life as Tsuyu, but she also received the punishment that she deserved in the end. I canât see Blizzard doing anything with Sylvanas that will give the people who dislike the closure that they want, unfortunately. Sheâll come out of this fully redeemed and/or alive, and that will leave a lot of people very frustrated.
A talented writing team can make a villain who has done a lot of evil deeds sympathetic. Villains can be very tragic and nuanced characters when written properly. I just donât trust Blizzardâs writing team to achieve that with Sylvanas, not at this point.
In short, Iâve lost all faith in Blizzardâs ability to write a compelling story. Iâd put this in the 9.1 thread, but Iâd rather keep any discussion of non-WoW games confined to Pet Peeves.
7 Likes
Been my feelings since urhhhh MoP? WoD times.
Having a former quest designer turned lead writer isnât exactly helping their case either when all we get is rip-off MCU/GoT/Whatever popular thing but WoW.
At least it was a little engaging back then. I could bring myself to get angry and passionate about it. Now all I can do is clinically point out the innumerable plot holes and contrivances without feeling anything.
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And only gets worse and worse.
That is true, but even then it felt awful.
Yup.
I didnât know you even said something silence-worthy.
can any of you d&d nerds look over my character sheet and see if you can spot any obvious or inobvious places where i may have potentially screwed myself over on an advantage or could have spent more points more efficently
we start next week and i want to be sure iâm as good as i can be
https://ddb.ac/characters/48069579/MWYE4Eas someone who knows nothing about d&d
yep, looks good chief
3 Likes
Did you roll for ability scores? Usually you canât get as low as 6.
If you want to optimise, move your +1 Cha from race into +1 Con. 11 Cha isnât relevant vs. 10 Cha, but setting your CON to an odd number means you can take Resilient: Constitution later down the line (probably at 8th level once youâve maxed int at 4th) and bumps your HP along with giving you save proficiency.
Other than that looks good.
Our DM said we could set it that low. No idea of that is normal or not, but here we are.
I was hoping that the +1 cha from my race was giving me 12 cha, but tbh I have no idea if thatâs true or not.
It was a while ago that I set it up and I canât remember how the maths worked out anymore.
Wait I think I see it. I gain a charisma from my actor feat so Iâm spending a point unnecessarily.
Unusual but not unheard of. Still, if you follow those your stats (pre feats/ASI) do end up as 27 point buy so you did that right.
Actor isnât"optimised" but Iâm guessing you want it for unoptimised reasons, which is fine. You can still move your racial ASI to CON so you end up with 6/14/15/18/10/10.
Int +2 at 4th gets you 20 in mainstat 
Resilient Con gives you con save proficiency (so you can hold onto those concentration spells) and +1 Con for HP boost.
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I didnât, and ultimately received apologies for their handling of the matter. Basically someone somewhere thought I had claimed that a ticket response from years ago was representative of current day policy at Blizzard, and so I was obviously trolling.
Only the ticket was less than a day old, which they eventually realized as well. How I ended up receiving an outdated ticket reply from a Blizzard Rep that hasnât worked there in years is the part I still donât understand.
Ghosts in the machine man. 
4 Likes
Yeah. Want advantage on deception and performance rolls for using my disguise self and illusions. Big part of the character to be engaging in that.
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My phone had a spaz and I posted in the wrong thread. Ew
But I missed Serpent life.
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My pet peeve is that DnD Beyond SUCKS for making characters unless you buy a ton of supplements
I canât make a Spore Druid without buying a pdf
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I leech off a friend who has the full subscription, but even then you miss out on some official options like the Ixalan/Zendikar species choices. Only stuff in books, even though the Planeshift PDFs are official sources.
wikidot
I shall say no more.