It’s alliance bias. Horde characters die. Alliance ones are immortal and get extra story attention.
Hell if I know. His life was meaningless, his only ‘great’ deed involved begging the Alliance for h-help and then standing back until Garrosh was dethroned and he was named Warchief. A position with which he did nothing and then died like a stuck pig, roasted on the spear of a Legion grunt.
Then he made Sylvanas Warchief because whispers.
He was a terrible leader and an all-round idiot, like the rest of his species, his importance makes little in the way of sense.
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Thing is, they didn’t outright kill him.
In Beta, he didn’t die, he just went MIA (something that already pointed at writers putting in hold his character for further use).
He then died, and we had a standby regarding his plot, until BfA announcement had devs showing Thralls character parading his urn while stating “We will continue the story of our favourite troll”.
Being facetious or cheeky in an interview because you don’t want to spoil the overarching plot that might tie in with the expansion that comes after the one you are marketing, isn’t really that relevant.
Given how many elements of Voljins story tie with or forebode the upcoming Shadowlands one, it’s impossible for them to have come up with all of it on player backlash.
You don’t create an entire expansion based on punctual negative feedback that makes you backtrack.
I don’t see them backtracking on stuff that is simply a thousand times easier to fix.
And they’ve consistently signalled their ability and willingness to turn a blind eye to negative critics.
Assuming they listened now, is far fetched. People might want to console themselves with hopes about Blizzard finally listening to their players, but given the circumstances, in this case it seems more like wishful thinking.
The way they did his character was in some nasty and unnecessary way.
Sh!t development that forever tarnished what otherwise would’ve been a great character arch, that obviously needed his story to continue in some fashion.
But assuming they brought him back out of some favour towards players, from my point of view, is stretching it.
Everything points at Blizzard already holding this plot venue for some time.
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Well I don’t buy it. It all looked to me as they were backtracking. That “Mia” thing didn’t do anything, they just changed their mind and outright killed him. And made us watch his funeral even, and immediately swear loyalty to Sylvanas.
And then absolute ZERO update for entire Legion.
This is why I used Gelbin as example- this is how you preview that his abscence will be temporary.
With Vol’Jin they had to retcon stuff! That wasn’t temporary abscence, losing in such a way racial leader, being left for obscurity for such a long period with no replacement.
That unique questline was just plot device for next expansion which will likely meet it’s dead end.
Warchief Vol’Jin is over, neuanced narrative is over, his leadership over Darkspear Trolls is over. Everything he was built up for has ended.
That was not by any means “temporary” abscence to me. It changed too much, the damage it caused costed dearly entire faction identity not just racial one. And for what? He wasn’t even mentioned as one of the major heroes for this expansion- perhaps he will, I don’t know.
But I’m not terribly excited to wander around spirit. I liked him for just being a troll, living person that had to overcome limitations to achieve something.
He is still dead Zarao.
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Yeah, remember when Taylor got ressed as a DK in Legion? Him becoming a horseman was pretty cool. And that BfA questline with Varian’s spirit meeting Bolvar again was great as well.
Thoras was used as Alliance equivalent though.
Not taylor but thoras. And Anduin got his private moment with Varian at the tomb of Sargeras.
The fact that Blizzard didn’t outright reveal that this was their planned route, doesn’t make the whole expansion, something born out of them wanting to backtrack on Voljins butchering.
For good or ill, at some point before/during Legion, this became the intended plot.
Writers do not create an entire expansion in order to redeem Voljins character, solely out of player backlash.
And stuff like having them going automatically for a more “conservative” approach such as simply making his character go MIA, points at them already realising that they had need of his character in future stories.
In all, I doubt that this whole Voljin arch, that ties so much and already starts advertising this Death expansion, was something born solely because Blizzard owned a mistake that players pointed out.
And Vol’jin got his private moment with felguard #99483 at Broken Shore, yet you still got a quest-line in BfA.
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Except they didn’t create any expansion just to redeem Vol’Jin. They gave him a questline that was just plot device for next expansion. We don’t even know what kind of influence he will have there. The effort they gave to Vol’Jin questline was comparable to extra Sylvanas loyalist route - which surprise surprise WAS added after massive outrage and lead to absolutely nothing as it ended before expansion even ended for good.
So until I’ll see what they will make with him in next expnasion I’ll remain sceptical.
It wasn’t
It wasn’t private moment, because it was just brief scene while we still had to witness Varian’s heroic death and Sylvanas saving the day. And had to wait with entire expansion span to get mediocre quest chain that backtracks on the Legion’s decisions.
Which means that Blizzard was going for that path since the beginning, and that they didn’t create the questline because of some player backlash that protested them killing Voljin.
They did so because they had an already planned Death expansion, with Voljins shenanigans with death entities as a prelude/introduction to it.
Edit: In short, the half-baked and mediocre quest was but a continuation of an already crappy story. Not Blizzards response to some complaint.
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As I said I don’t buy it. They could’ve used just Bolvar or Sylvanas or even Sen’Jin to get same introduction to Shadowlands.
If they really wanted to foreshadow it from the beginning they wouldn’t let us witness how he was stabbed by the demon, instead they’d put some effort to show that there actually was something wrong there other than him being careless and not seeing oponent right in front of him.
Well to me it looked like it. And I’ll remain sceptical until I’ll see what they will actually DO with him. If they will do close to nothing it will just prove my point.
If they will do something meaningful, then cool. But I don’t think it was worth it in a long shot.
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You are putting to much faith on a bunch of guys that tackled the issue Sylvanas was putting for their target plot by retconning two thirds of her story arch.
Compared to that, failing to detail exactly how they were screwing over Voljins char, is rather meek
I fail to understand the point you’re making now. Vol’Jin was screwed big time in Legion, killed, buried and forgotten, the BfA content doesn’t change this fact. Oh great they pulled back his spirit, if we’re lucky he will be second Magni.
As for Sylvanas, - well I’d say that BtS was already retcon and self- contradictionary. Her plans doesn’t really hold up and it’s one big mess, but the fact remains that Vol’Jin was sacrificed to further HER story. He had to be offed so she had a free had to do all this crap she did.
Thanks to screecher, Horde is a joke faction now. I believed that Horde could get back on good track after Garrosh, but Sylvanas completely killed any credibility this faction had. There is nothing left that would make Horde player proud unless he sticks to racial pride.
That I don’t know why is it hard to buy that regardless of how bad they handled it, or how poorly they showed it, it’s really obvious that the path they threw Voljins character into, and most importantly, the quests that came afterwards in BfA, were intentional in order to introduce us into this upcoming expansion.
Not as some tweak in order to compensate players that felt that simply killing him was a disservice.
It was all part of the same journey into the crap pool.
And i simply pointed out that, in a setting where they were already all to willing to retcon the majority of some characters story, throwing around some indicators that may seem unclear of their intentions, isn’t that of an oddity that may imply something other than the obvious.
Because yeah, we already know that they suck at writing.
It really wasn’t that obvious in Legion, had they dropped a tiny hint I would be more eager to believe it. But they didn’t and they pulled him back after months and months of people complaining about this move.
So UNTIL I’ll see what they actually will do with him I will remain sceptical and not gonna buy that it was carefully plotted from the start. It looked like hot mess they tried to later retract from.
But we will know more once Alpha footage will appear to see what they’re actually going to do with it, but I’m not holding my breath.
Vol’Jin is still dead. I don’t think they will ressurect him or continue his story after Shadowlands.
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If only. Most races weren’t even given that much…
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*Hugs tauren bro
I really feel for you guys. It’s a crime what was done with tauren. 
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