So, 9.1.5 is turning out to be quite a fanservice patch. They are essentially going through all the “easy fixes” lists that are out there and throwing in whatever they can get ready, without much of their usual stubbornness. Great.
So… Are there comparable acts that they could do with the Lore? Ignore the long-term planning they had before, strip the writers of their pride, and just make them throw in what the customer wants for now?
If so, what would you like to see? The easier to implement the story fanservice is, the better. Give those guys a list of what they have to do to make you forget the hate for a time.
I don’t have specific ideas at the moment, but I’m interested to see if others have one-
Oh, no, scrap that, I have one: Make a cartoon anvil fall from the sky and smash Sylvanas, and then just move the story on without her. I’m not joking as much on that one as you’d think…
9.1.5 hits and we log in, stood at Kil’Jaedens fallen body. We hear laughing, Velen tells us that wasn’t KJ and he’s called the deceiver for good reason. We discover that everything that happened since that point was a fever dream.
Honestly, just consistency and commitment. You’re right that they’re just drip-feeding us and going through the features, and it’s not really convincing me much to return, but seeing it happen as a form of improvement on their end is the start of a hopefully big step that keeps on walking.
That’s when it would finally raise my expectation of it.
As for actual story? I honestly would desire the genuine disentanglement of mysticism and clearing of doubt so to speak. Give us the answers we want around the Jailer and the Shadowlands in general. For them to stop hiding vital reasoning upon vital reasoning to continue their supposed ‘genius plan’ and make an actual story out of it.
Granted, I am so sick and tired of this current plot - and all the plots that led to this - by now that I would also love to consider just a hard, reality reset but that won’t really change anything if they’ll just continue proving that they’ll do the same crap all over again but this time with different narrative flavour. This time, it is the Jailer, next time it will be Mr. X and we will be none the wiser as to WHO, WHAT, WHY all over again.
This goes the same with Sylvanas. Prolonged hiding this way does not really inspire muchj beyond hearing that old, tired excuse of: “Ah, but we/i/you don’t know, therefore he/she/it is a MASTER GENIUS!”
What I want most of all is simplicity, and something that is executable in game.
The continued expansion of the wow universe, adding more plotters and puppets along the way doesn’t work. The writers seem to think they are George RR Martin or similar, heaping plots upon plots thinking they can put in a twist and everyone goes ‘Oh wow, you’re so clever’
Give me a villain with a personality, tell me who they are, what their plan is and a why me and my friends need to defeat them. I don’t need lectures about ‘morally grey’ and ‘renewal over vengeance’.
Give us some cadence to the story, so we’re not lurching from one cliff hanger to the next.
An actual story, with fully realised characters would be nice. (In terms of the overarching narrative. Contained storylines seem good enough.)
Easiest way to get there would likely be a Sylvanas exposition dump, which would catch us up on all the things we should have known by now. What, Why, How Jailer wants to achieve, What, Why, How she wanted toa chieve and why did she turn on him now of all times. What are the consequences of the success and/or failiure. You know the basic pillars of plot and characterisation. (Misdirection is offering up a red herring to draw attention from the real answer. Not just saying nothing and then going like “TADA WE’RE SO SMART Y’ALL”
The North of both continents have suffered way more than enough, even until recently in BfA…isn’t it time to hit those southerners for a change? (And by southerners I mean Dwarves, Gnomes, Stormwind Humans, Tauren, Trolls and Orcs on a lesser extent).
Otherwise if the faction war is always mainly brought around the zones of Lordaeron, Quel’thalas, Northern Kalimdor like in BfA, it gets boring quickly and it’s not very fair that the kingdoms in the south always have it so good after all…I say it’s time to invade/devastate the territory of Ironforge and Thunder Bluff next time. Dwarves and Tauren really need some “good” development after all
I’ll do you one better! We get an urgent message from Chromie, that the timeline is collapsing. What, everything we knew and loved is about to be gone? No no! When you went to “Alternate Draenor”, it turns out you never came back to the main timeline Azeroth! Now quickly, warn Varian and Vol’jin about what’s about to happen at the Broken Shore, and keep Genn and Sylvanas from fighting!
That, or remember the Old God tainted world Garrosh sent us to when fighting him? We’re still in it! The cunning bastards made a double layered illusion, so once we fought our way out of the first one, we were still trapped without knowing it! Why else has everything been so weird since Pandaria? Now quickly, we need to undo the damage the Old Gods have wrought!
On a more realistic note… they could probably just add some dialogue between NPCs throughout the world that gives us a little glimpse of the current situation.
Also… we’re still short one giant exposition dump to explain what the heck is actually going on in Shadowlands. They could throw out their teasing and just tell us, since patience is wearing thin on that one.
Edit:
Also, this is the only thread in the story forum that has had a post in the last 2 days. One of four threads that had a few posts in 8 days. Maybe we really need that fanservice…
Yaungol are ok, Forest Trolls are ok if they are the tribe in the Hinterlands, if you mean the Amani, before joining the Horde, they must assure that there will be peace with the Blood Elves forever, they could even keep Zul’Aman as long as they contribute defending the borders of Quel’thalas at the very least. Zandalari Trolls should also be able to help them in the negotiations for joining the Horde, keeping an eye on them and reassuring the Blood Elves the Amani will be peaceful from now on. But I’m very doubtful, Amani Forest Trolls are just too prideful/arrogant to accept even something simple like that.
Mogu just won’t happen as they are too brutal and generally war-mongers and power-crazy. Also they should have been introduced in MoP in that case.
But the playable race that the Horde truly lacks at this moment is the Ogres. The Alliance with the introduction of Void Elves (who can even look similar to High Elves) feels basically completed once again now, Horde won’t feel completed until the Ogres are playable too. Not sure why Blizzard catered to a few High Elven RPers (despite all the mess they made on the forums back then, it was not even 100 people asking for High Elves probably) while they do not want to cater to a few Ogres fans as well. This will not help quelling the voices of people talking about Void Elves like the bias of Blizzard and Alliance outright stealing the model of a race of the Horde, until they introduce Ogres or an Alliance race in the Horde as well (like for example Alteraci Humans)
Well in lore after the Fourth War the Orcs probably now have free access to at least half (if not all) of Ashenvale to fill all their needs of resources…even if the status of Ashenvale has not been officially confirmed, there’s no way the Night Elves currently have enough population and strength to control and defend all of it for themselves right now, so even if they declare all of Ashenvale is forbidden territory for the Horde, the Horde can just enter and take what they want anyway for now…
I guess it’s better here even if the story forum is almost dead, than in the US where the topics are almost always the same boring ones and always degenerate in a flame war between RPers…for example, most of the topics there are just like: "when will Lordaeron be reclaimed by the Alliance? The Forsaken have 0 right to it " “Why Blizzard hates Night Elves?” “How many Forsaken are still alive?” “Why can’t the Horde just wipe out the Alliance”
Funnily, an easy lore fix for me would include a quick demise for Sylvanas as well.
However, I do envision Tyrande getting the honor though. If she wants to drop an anvil on her, that’s fine. Impaling her on her glaive would work for me as well.
According to Exploring Kalimdor Ashenvale is forbidden territory for the Horde. The Night Elves closed their borders and its basicly a detah trap for any Horde to enter it.
Those 2 Horde, from who’s perspective its written from, needed permission to enter it, and even then its on their own risk(I think Velen told em that)
Leave Sylvannas alone, she is the strongest character in the lore at the moment. If Gods of Blizzard are going to will it, she will come out as victorious!
Technically that’s nothing new…Tyrande forbade access to Ashenvale to all Horde members since the incident of the Wrathgate and the defeat of the Lich King as well (alongside closing all trade routes).
We know that didn’t work well for the Night Elves…the Orcs could still enter in the region when they wanted, and they could attack the Night Elves when they wanted, taking that prohibition as actually a good reason to wage war because the Night Elves acted selfishly. Prohibitionism isn’t going to work, because in Kalimdor the Horde is a much bigger power with much bigger needs than the Night Elves (especially now that the Night Elves even lost Teldrassil and have a much reduced manpower).
Rather than forbidding things, it would be better for the Night Elves if their druids actively helped the Horde making their own regions (Durotar, the Barrens) into lush forests like Ashenvale so that the Horde has no need to invade them in the future ever again. Teaching the Orcs into using wisps for gathering wood from trees and lending them some could be good too.
It’s like the Blood Elves forbade the High Elves to visit the Sunwell ever again, only because they are affiliated with the Alliance (Void Elves can corrupt it so they will not be accepted, but the High Elves still are). It’s still their homeland, so forbidding the High Elves to visit the Sunwell would just be perceived by the Alliance as a hostile act, and could lead to an attack against Quel’thalas if Turalyon and Alleria really want to take advantage of that situation. So Night Elves should have learned by now that prohibitionism is never a good answer, especially against a much bigger power than them.
She’s probably not that strong anymore now that she left/betrayed the Jailer, and got the other half of her soul back, because she probably have lost all the special powers that were granted by him now. It’s also possible Alleria is the strongest Windrunner character, now.
I don’t think she betrayed Jailer. That’s what I am saying all the time. Sylvannas is one of the strongest character because she did not want to serve under Lich King and whatever the deal she had with Jailer, she never intended to be his minion or subordinate. That is what we see in cinematic and that is not betrayal.
The problem is that a Forest Troll customization would allow Troll players to RP as Amani (even if the customization is supposed to be just Revantusk). Just like the recent high elven customizations allow Void Elves players to RP as High Elves in the Alliance.
The problem with this is that RPing as Amani in the Horde would indeed be lore-breaking…we know that as long as Blood Elves are in the Horde (and also Forsaken, on a lesser degree though), Amani would never accept to join the Horde to justify some players RPing as Amani Trolls. Not to mention that some Amani players could also harass the Sin’dorei players because of this (they wouldn’t be able to attack the Blood Elf players, but they could still insult them, or cause strife to them).
I am not against Forest Troll customizations but people would certainly RP as Amani with them, that cannot be denied. And we know that until Blood Elves (and Forsaken) are in the Horde, this is something that shouldn’t happen because it’s lore-breaking, the hatred and rivalry between these two races is just too deep, so in order to get Forest Trolls into the Horde maybe we should wait for a new game when the Blood Elves will eventually leave the Horde as a faction (I’m not saying they should join the Alliance either though, but being neutral or being into an elven-only faction alongside the Nightborne and maybe other elves would work much better for them of course)
(by the way, when I say it’s lore-breaking, the blame for this is mainly on the Amani Trolls, of course. Surely, the Blood Elves wouldn’t be happy of their presence in the Horde, but they are enough pragmatic to accept if a reasonable deal is made with them, for example if the Amani join the Horde, they get to keep Zul’Aman and the surrounding troll areas for themselves, but they also must accept the presence of Zandalari Trolls in their city in order to check on them and watch their behaviour toward the Blood Elves so they don’t turn aggressive, and the Amani also accept that they must help the Blood Elves restoring the Ghostlands to their natural state, and help the Blood Elves to protect Quel’thalas against invaders from outside…under these conditions, I am pretty sure the Blood Elves would accept their presence in the Horde, but I’m sure the Amani still wouldn’t, because we know their hatred of the elves is just too deep…
