Why did they feel the need to announce Garrosh as the endboss of MoP from the start?

[ringpriest]

After the introduction of MoP at Blizzcon, many fans were angry and confused about the expansion. One focus for that disatisfation was "no big enemy". As negative word of mouth about MoP threatened to boil over, Blizzard released information about how Siege of Orgrimmar would be the final raid of the expansion, with Garrosh as the "big bad". By doing that, they undercut the whole plot of MoP; they effectively gave away the ending (weakening the whole expansion's story) while attempting to make up for their horribly botched reveal. The whole episode is symptomatic of modern Blizzard's problematic approach to their fans and the game. Blizzard has always seemed remarkably out of touch with their customers, and even more surprisingly, doesn't seem to care that it's out of touch or that when it does try to connect with the customer base, it's always in a pretty ham-handed manner. I fear that we'll see something similar at Blizzcon in a few days. (Although I hope we don't, and that Blizz has learned something over the past two years.)

[klogaroth]

Isn't this what's happened with every expansion?

Deathwing was pretty well telegraphed, the Lich King was in the name of the expansion, and even if you weren't prepared for TBC you would still have noticed Illidan in the trailer.

[ringpriest]

There was more build up for a showdown at Sunwell than for killing Illidan.

The entire expansion at release circled around the confrontation at the Black Temple. BT was the focus for most of Shadowmoon Valley, among other things.

[hrugner]

The entire expansion at release circled around the confrontation at the Black Temple. BT was the focus for most of Shadowmoon Valley, among other things.

Yes, but the build up to Kaelthas covered the other half of outland. His story built up the Bloodelf story which came to a head at the Sunwell. The troll raid, while super fun, was tacked on for sure; but Sunwell? There was plenty of build up, and it made more sense that we were there than any other raid in all of BC.

[AVPaul]

Just because SoO is rehashed not lesser, then DS and they had to justify it somehow. So it's obvious, that if raid boss is Garrosh, then he should be killed in Org. As a result - nobody is complaining about using rehashed content to build raid environment.

[Florena]

Just because SoO is rehashed not lesser, then DS and they had to justify it somehow. So it's obvious, that if raid boss is Garrosh, then he should be killed in Org. As a result - nobody is complaining about using rehashed content to build raid environment.

Much more of SoO is original though. Immerseous, norushen and sha of pride are in new areas, as Garrosh's compound. DS on the other hand didn't really have much of anything new.

[Belloc]

That doesn't change the fact that Illidan was the PLANNED end boss for BC. When BC launched they did not know they were going to end with the Sunwell, they added this story once they figured out that it was still going to be a while before WotLK was ready. Hence, Illidan was the announced (planned) end boss while Kil'Jaeden ended up being the actual last boss.

I mean, if you want to argue semantics then the 'end boss' of WotLK was Halion and not the Lich King.

The name of the expansion was "The Burning Crusade," not "The Black Temple." When you killed Kael'thas, you got an in-game reference to Kil'Jaeden. Finally, Blizzard has flat-out stated that the Sunwell was always intended to be the final raid of The Burning Crusade.

Believe whatever you want, but Illidan was never intended to be the end boss for BC.

TL;DR? Kil'jaeden was always planned as the end-boss of BC.

[Bathory]

Because people lost their absolute shit when Blizzard made an attempt at subtly, and said there wouldn't be a main antagonist.

Personally, I don't think they should have said either. Spoilers and what not.

[Heiros]

Because of the player QQ on official forums... rly disapointed me to know that garrosh was the end boss....

from then... MoP was just a "discovery of how we will eventualy kill garrosh".... its like reading a book and starting with the last page

[Rumred]

From what i can remember people were in a uproar when at first they said "Their will be no ever presence bad guy in MoP" people didn't like that so they went ahead and announced what would happen to calm them down.

[Beecup]

Blizzard planned to keep it a secret, but Metzen dropped the ball shortly after Blizzcon 2011 at a media event and gave away the final villain.

I was there. People were let down about the Kung Fu Panda and Pokemon expansion.