Blizzard should kill more lore characters in the future

[Kokolums]

You started off on the right idea by drawing an example from an excellent novella (although I am pretty confident you only saw the movie, since anyone who has read it would have at least quoted the correct title of the story), but then you crashed and burned HARD on the analysis of the death of Varian. That was perfect.

Incorrect. The death of Varian was a waste. The WoW universe currently has a MASSIVE problem with threats that are not credible, therefore there is no tension. It DESPERATELY NEEDS villains that win straight up fights. Desperately. If you cannot see that, I don't think you really should be judging these things.

[Lane]

GoT didn't invent killing characters but if you're presenting an end of the world ultimate war scenario like Legion then it's rather unrealistic if front line heroes never dying.

It's also unrealistic for faction leaders to be on the front lines, IMO. Vol'Jin, in particular, had no real backup for Warchief if something happened to him, having chosen Sylvanas literally at the last moment and only thanks to the Loas (which I still think is BS). People keep saying Varian's death was "necessary" to develop Anduin's character who has done jack all since he sends you to Stormheim. Tirion was perhaps the most unceremonious of them all basically having only died so that the player could take his weapon and lead the class hall.

So, no, I don't agree Legion did it well at all. The deaths were solely for shock value or convenience.

What would anyone care if Tyrande died? Tyrande who has been built up at this point to be a hot headed incompetent. Or Baine, who has literally done nothing. Killing characters only works if you feel investment and care for that character. The writers for WoW have done nothing to make players feel invested or caring about characters.

Malfurion returning in Cata is the worst thing that ever happened to Tyrande's character.

[Sengel]

I said Legion did it well...

WotLK zombie apocalypse felt like flu season
Deathwing destroying the world was cool to see but little else happened
Iron Horde was the worst, we stopped the invasion with ease then defeated each Warlord with ridiculous ease.

One thing Cata did REALLY well was allowing DW to randomly kill you in the leveling process so that you always felt like we had no nope no matter how powerful you were (see standing in the fire achievement). For all of its faults, CATA Nailed the Villian FEEL just not...anything else lol (well dungeons were fun if you were a tank or healer and liked to take the lead)

[Zandalariprelate]

No I don't want that, unless death can be a new form of develop for x character like Ysera that can be the new solution of the return of the Dragons Aspects as champions of Elune, other point of killing characters in wow is bad because you left some space which have to be filled and a mmorpg is really hard to create a character and given him some develop or character grow, just look at Vol'jin case, the darkspear are without leader and Varok is very old and his only role in legion doing allub ackbar in the broken shore don't help either to follow his story.

[Zoldor]

Agreed, that would have been both terrible and cool as hell to see firsthand (whether in a cutscene or in in-game action).

They really missed the ball not making this a badass cutscene. Could have been one of the most epic of all time.

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One thing Cata did REALLY well was allowing DW to randomly kill you in the leveling process so that you always felt like we had no nope no matter how powerful you were (see standing in the fire achievement). For all of its faults, CATA Nailed the Villian FEEL just not...anything else lol (well dungeons were fun if you were a tank or healer and liked to take the lead)

Firelands was strong, while a little weak lore wise, but dealing with Deathwing turned out so badly. Then again, making a fight against him was an uphill battle from the start. Spine was a cool concept and fun from a lore perspective, but the last portion was such trash. Would have been better if he got weakend to a human form and would spew corruption or something. Fighting his feet and Jaw while corruption spewed out was less than rad. Also, sparkle explosion was the ultimate lol moment.

OT: I think killing characters can be a great plot progression point, especially with a change in guard, but they need to do a better job of advancing new characters and explaining time length so we can actually see these new characters move up. Garrosh was done fairly well in that aspect. Anduin, could be cool, if we get to see some development now that Dad is dead. Kind of surprised we haven't seen Khadgar take on an apprentice yet. Some characters really need to have kids, and we need to stop with the this character has a kid they love lets kill it to make some old person enraged. Better to kill the old person and have a build moment for the younger character. This would also be a great way to bring in some of the other races to the forefront as they've been part of the Alliance or Horde for a decent amount of time now and could really start having a foothold in decisions etc.

Old soldiers don't retire or get old age that often in a high fantasy world, but Blizz seems to want to snuff out the young generation and let people just continue to age.

[Lilly32]

Jaina death would be most welcome. WoW characters have too much damn Plot Armor.

[Zoldor]

Jaina death would be most welcome. WoW characters have too much damn Plot Armor.

I'd like her to grow to be a good bad guy. Sometime after the legion. Not a believing in doing the right thing, but at any cost, but a classic revenge based bad guy. Someone who feels slighted by all those around her at the expense of her and her people. I'd love her to throw caution to the wind and attempt to fuck shit up, maybe seek some Old God power something like that. A good classic villain.

[CaptainV]

One of the best aspects of Legion storywise was the killing of three major heroic characters from the start. It set the tone and emphasized the threat we're dealing with (something I felt previous expansions lacked, especially WoD) so I really hope Blizzard won't shy away from killing off huge characters in the next expansions. What's your thoughts?

Id rather they were more faction biased for a change in favor of the Alliance as the last several expansions have generally been stories where Horde has got major attention and spotlight storytelling. Even in this one though most of it is about Night Elves and Illidan, you still get a massive lore boner for Sylvanas becomming Warchief.

For once id rather have an expansion that had a strong exclusivity to Alliance storytelling that "didnt" involve massacuring alliance characters, infact, the "Horde" is the one that needs to loose major characters and landmarks, as its been covered in spiked plot armor since WoW launch.

[Zoldor]

Id rather they were more faction biased for a change in favor of the Alliance as the last several expansions have generally been stories where Horde has got major attention and spotlight storytelling. Even in this one though most of it is about Night Elves and Illidan, you still get a massive lore boner for Sylvanas becomming Warchief.

For once id rather have an expansion that had a strong exclusivity to Alliance storytelling that "didnt" involve massacuring alliance characters, infact, the "Horde" is the one that needs to loose major characters and landmarks, as its been covered in spiked plot armor since WoW launch.

Yeah, super protected. We've only killed off two Warchiefs recently. Had Thrall just choose to go on sabbatical. Had our major city as a raid tier. Had the Tuaren leader killed. But man that Slyvannas lore boner though. Guess having Anduin become King isn't enough.

While I do agree on the Alliance needing some spotlight storywise, which they are getting now, with the dwarves being important, the draenai being important, illidan and the Night elf stuff etc. I'd still like to see a little more on their side, I'd also like the horde to stop being the villains which is nice for an expansion, since essentially the past 2 have been all about killing orcs and horde off shoots. But I wouldn't say the horde has been protected and not lost anything.

[CaptainV]

Yeah, super protected. We've only killed off two Warchiefs recently. Had Thrall just choose to go on sabbatical. Had our major city as a raid tier. Had the Tuaren leader killed. But man that Slyvannas lore boner though. Guess having Anduin become King isn't enough.

While I do agree on the Alliance needing some spotlight storywise, which they are getting now, with the dwarves being important, the draenai being important, illidan and the Night elf stuff etc. I'd still like to see a little more on their side, I'd also like the horde to stop being the villains which is nice for an expansion, since essentially the past 2 have been all about killing orcs and horde off shoots. But I wouldn't say the horde has been protected and not lost anything.

I mean okay, ill give you the warchief thing but tally the amount of alliance leaders/heroes that have died in the last 4 expansions vs the Horde ones and the numbers are clearly biased, not to mention landmarks the alliance once cared about being outright destroyed for expansion plot reasons.

I stand by the idea of an expansion portraying the Alliance as the bad guy for once, and the Horde taking a Massive hit, like the loss of a capital city. Which would help give the Horde a chance to shine as a heroic faction as a change being seen as this "desperate rebel" against the Tyranical armarda of the Alliance.

[Feel The Power]

Kill them all. George R. R. Martin it!

WoW ends with us killing Sargeras with a crossbow while he is on the toilet in the middle of the night.

[Flurryfang]

The difference between knowing and caring is just that. It's fine if you don't care, but that doesn't mean you suddenly forgot about someone's existence.
I know for a fact that no one actually cared about Yrel and Grom, as they were AU characters.

Warcraft's lore is no longer limited to just the game. It hasn't for years. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but the story is there, whether u like it or not.

We should? Blizzard are the once who should try their hardest to keep us invested in their characters, if they want to create a playerbase, who is connected to their game. I think that the huge fallout of players is partly contributed by Blizzards way of thinking, that players should actually work hard to understand the lore. Sure, it might not be impossible to go out and read books, webposts, comics, webcomics and hidden quests in WoW to understand the story, but it does not make it easy for people to like the story when they have to do all this. When is it too much? What if blizzard created cartoon series, RL series, pop-up books and WoW Racer, where they build their main story in... Are you expecte to follow/read/play all of that, just so that you can understand the main story?? I have already said enough, when they came out with War Crimes, which pretty much tells you the pre-story of WoD. If nobody read that story, they would have no idea what WoD is about and why things are happening.

Warcraft lore should ofcourse not be limited to the game, but when you have to outside of the game to understand THE WoW Game, then you are setting up your story for ruin. When you kill of characters, who most of the playerbase don't know or care about, yet make it a primary event of an entire expansion, then i am not surprised that people look at WoW and say " What the fuck? What is that and who are these guys? This game is getting wierd/confusing.... Im out!"

[Dug]

I'd be down with more death but it has to be done with purpose and not just for the shock value alone. Would become boring if you could just predict that every major character who goes against power enemies will just end up dead and we have to clean up the mess.

[Deleted]

I mean okay, ill give you the warchief thing but tally the amount of alliance leaders/heroes that have died in the last 4 expansions vs the Horde ones and the numbers are clearly biased, not to mention landmarks the alliance once cared about being outright destroyed for expansion plot reasons.

I stand by the idea of an expansion portraying the Alliance as the bad guy for once, and the Horde taking a Massive hit, like the loss of a capital city. Which would help give the Horde a chance to shine as a heroic faction as a change being seen as this "desperate rebel" against the Tyranical armarda of the Alliance.

What Alliance hero beyond Varian has died?

[Mace]

Did I ever say GoT invented killing character? No. They popularized it as a means to punctuate every single major occurrence to the point where its over used and expected.

The issue is more so that blizzard ramps up the threat level to hard and to fast. Cata, WoD, WotLK, Legion, all start with huge scenarios with the bad guys messing everything up, then we hit the actual bulk of the content and the threat levels plummets as we go from zone to zone with little threat. Eventually the last raid comes and we mop the floor with the bad guys.

Having someone die at the start like with Legion did not make the Legion seem like any more of a threat than the old gods in Cata or the Lich King in WotLK. We had our big moment of danger and then decended into the questing experience where we destroy everything.

Killing characters it not automatic good story telling. Killing characters does not automatically make a crappy story a good one. Other MMO have been able to pull off good story telling because they dont ramp up the hero to god levels, or if they do base storylines based on others reactions to the events and make it clear that you're ultimately in a fragile position (FFXIV). There are ups and downs that are spread out. Rather than WoW which is one down followed by a none-stop up until the next expansion.

Take the Imperial Agent storyline in SWTOR: you start from a lower station, work your way up, sometimes are betrayed, other times you're faced with morally grey issues. Ultimately by the end you're up there in your organization but you're not leading it. You're not a walking god. WoW has gone to far with making the characters feel special and in doing so made to many world ending events not seem threatening. The writers themselves seem incapable of doing any storyline past "Good guy has a minor setback at first, then rapidly starts winning everything". Going further, there's no characters they can really kill off to make a moment seem dangerous since in WoW, the writers have largely done very little to flesh out important characters or make players feel sympathetic to them. Why should anyone care that Vol'Jin died? He did pretty much nothing. Why should we care about Tirion? He committed treason in a book no one read, then pops up in WotLK and like the player, ends up hitting overpowered god of war status. What about Varian? We're mostly just told he's great and amazing, but very little had been done to show that point. Why would we care about any of the myriad characters whose entire personalities change to fit the moment (Garrosh was notorious for this, but Varian had it too)?

What would anyone care if Tyrande died? Tyrande who has been built up at this point to be a hot headed incompetent. Or Baine, who has literally done nothing. Killing characters only works if you feel investment and care for that character. The writers for WoW have done nothing to make players feel invested or caring about characters.

Also please dont speak realism in a magical high fantasy setting with canon resurrection.

Well said

On topic though, I agree that we haven't seen a good villains win moment since, ironically, cataclysm when death wing destroyed the world (to bad his fight sucked).

so you are saying all the villain win moments have sucked?

[HitRefresh]

They shouldn't kill off characters just to kill off characters, only if it's benefiting the story.

What they should do is just stop bringing back so many dead characters.

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What Alliance hero beyond Varian has died?

I guess Magni in a way, but it was pretty obvious he was returning eventually. But there was Bolvar and Tirion.

[Spiffums]

I liked seeing the leaders die. They have been sending us out for years to do the heavy lifting. Maybe showing up when the final raid boss is at 0.0000000001% HP to kill steal. Then act like they really did something.

I say kill em all! It would throw the world (of warcraft) into Chaos and force Khad to take up the mantle of the Guardian!

[Dagoth Ur]

I agree with OP. Imo WoW's biggest problem storywise is that all villains feel like bunch of Mojo Jojos from powerpuff girls. I like how Legion started by killing Varian and Vol'jin but since expansion release BL is losing on all fronts throuout Broken Isles and since they are the biggest threat we've ever faced, not to mention with limitless forces and power, the invasion is just not represented well.

Instead of killing more lore characters I would like to see some territorial changes on Azeroth. Let them have a zone or two so that the invasion can really feel like invasion. Some people won't like this idea but imagine Legion capturing Ironforge for example and than you can have whole raid about capturing it back (Liberation of Ironforge :P)

[Smallfruitbat]

The Broken Shore event/cinematic defined the Burning Legion as a real threat for me. Prior to that, the last time I remember having an 'oh shit' moment was the Wrathgate, maybe there were others but that really stuck out for me. Leaders, leading their army and failing to neutralise the threat.

I want villains who are genuine threats. The Exodar cinematic was amazing -we got a level of cruelty and patience from Kil'Jaeden that we've never seen before. Instead of twirling his moustache and shaking his fists at Velen, he'd spent millenia crafting his revenge. The ideal final boss of an expac would leave us the heroes staring into space thinking -we defeated him, but look at the cost...

We shoved KJ back down the plughole in SWP and shook hands with Kalecgos. In Wrath of Lich King we smashed Frostmourne and went off rejoicing with our loot while Bolvar got his own epixx. Cataclysm, Thrall and his mates killed Deathwing while we jumped around distracting him. Mists of Pandaria; Garrosh gets taken off in chains and everyone agrees he was a bad boy. Warlords, we may or may not have defeated Archy for good but it's OK cause 'we are one in the Light' and have forgiven whatshisname cause he swung his axe about during the fight. I don't see that we've ever fought a boss that has taken much from us.

The thought of us having to part with our artefact weapons and lose a few more NPCs along the way would be a sign that WoW has grown up from the happily ever after we seem to get when the loot piñata dies. -I just don't want Blizzard to go the other way and just wipe out characters for shock value. To be honest, I wouldn't have minded if Tyrande had died during the confrontation in Suramar. (not played is horde side)

[CaptainV]

What Alliance hero beyond Varian has died?

Lets see:

Bolvar (Killed at the Wrathgate, turned into TLK thus no longer affiliated with the Alliance)
Benedictus (Turned evil in Cataclysm, revealed to be the leader of the Twilight Hammer)
Rhonin (Killed off Screen at Theramore)
Many if not every character in Theramore.
Arthas (Considered an Alliance hero despite being TLK, much like Garrosh was a Horde hero despite being a corrupt Warchief)
Main Universe Maraad (Killed saving AU Yrel)
Alternate Universe Velen (Killed saving AU Yrel previously)
Commander Ebonlocke (Turned evil in Legion, revealed to be a cultist, you kill her as a rogue)
Prince Liam Graymane (Killed by Sylvanas trying to save his father)
Amber (Killed in the Rogue Questline, Rip you magnificent SI:7 Sniper Bitch)
Taylor (Killed in AU Draenor off screen, technically becomes an undead companion but is never seen beyond Draenor)
Varian (Dies fighting Gul'dan in Legion and failing to kill him)

There are others in this list too but my memory is foggy, lets just say.

The Alliance has lost "significantly" more noteable characters and landmark individuals than the Horde has so far:

Saurfang JR (Killed at the Wrathgate)
Cairne (Killed by Garrosh by accident)
Garrosh (Killed by Thrall after escaping justice)
Vol'jin (Killed by a poisoned Legion Spear, Hinted to have some comeback by Blizzard)
Nazgrim (Killed in the Siege of Orgrimmar, rip you magnificent bastard)

Anyway, honestly thats the only noteworthy people I can think of that died in the Horde. Theres probably others but not *nearly* as many noteworthy characters as the Alliance has lost.

Theres also landmarks:

Gilneas (Lost during the War for Gilneas by forsaken plagueing the place into a fallout style wasteland)
Theramore (Nuked to hell)
Gnomeregan (Nuked to hell with radiation after a reclaiming effort failed)
Westfall (Pretty much left in Cataclysm under an endless civil riot, before finally being bombarded by the Legion in Legion, probably survived, but is still badly damaged)
Duskwood (Literally Everyone in Darkshire that isnt a member of the Nights Watch is dead, since they turned out to be Legion cultists)
Nethergarde Keep (Some pointless reason assured that Nethergarde would get destroyed but not the Horde equivilient in Blasted Lands)
Andorhal (The Rebuilding effort was pointlessly demolished by Sylvanas as an effort to show her one upmanship on the alliance)
Silverpine (Sylvanas killed an entire village of Kirin'tor needlessly for her own personal conquest of Gilneas unprovoked)
Hillsbrad (Literally every settlement in hillsbrad that belonged to the alliance is gone)
Arathi (Pretty much a rogue undead state now as of Legion's DK quest chain)
Ashenvale (Partially conquered, in warcrimes novel its hinted the horde have left it alone but the damage was done)
Azshara (Night Elf Territory now completley conquered by Goblins, part of the warcrimes treaty was the goblins could have Azshara if they left Ashenvale alone)
Darkshore (Origional Night Elf Town completely destroyed by Deathwing)
Northern Barrens (Alliance Outpost on the coast completley destroyed by the Horde)
Southern Barrens (Alliance Dwarven City destroyed by the Horde in revenge for Camp Tauarjo)
Feralas (Alliance Night Elf town drowned underwater by the Cataclysm)
Swamp of Sorrows (Alliance Fort sacked by the Horde)
Stormwind (Repaired recently, but damaged by Deathwing for years)

Comparing the Damage to the Horde we have:

Camp Taurajo (Destroyed by War criminal Alliance Raiders)
Barrens (Split in half by the Cataclysm, no major damage done)
Ogrimmar (Lorewise only, damaged after the Siege)
Undercity (Raided by Death Knights but no major damage was done)
Blasted Lands (Horde Keep over-run by rogue Ogres but is still intact and reclaimable)
Mulgore (Drowned by the Cataclysm, but no major damage was done, has healed rather well)

Other than that no real damage was done, hell the Horde even took back Echo Isles where the Gnomes couldnt get back Gnomeregan.

So honestly, theres your answer, the Alliance has lost *alot* compared to the Horde that has been wearing plot armor to the balls since Vanillia.

Its honestly time that armor got ripped off and swung a thousand miles away, Saurfang doesnt need *plot* armor to survive.