9.0 General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

The problem here is that "Sylvanas is powerful and crafty and the real villain lol" is a twist that's already been done before. Sylvanas being the main villain of SL after she is the "real" main villain of BFA (because only the biggest loreheads care about N'zoth) is a wet fart of a twist because it's happened before and her running away to 9.3 has no narrative significance.

It does have significance in that she carries with her a near infinite amount of investment from the playerbase compared to the Jailer. Defeating her will be cathartic and feel like a major ending to a story that has technically been going since Warcraft 3. Or 2 expansions if you only count the ones where her motivations are starting to become clear.
Sure, the Jailer can be cool and all, and i have no doubt that the expansion will give us reasons to hate him. But why should the average player care about him when we just defeated Sylvanas, the character that several expansion have revolved around defeating. It would at best be only a slight downgrade to fight the Jailer unless he literally ressurects a whole bunch of former WoW villains to carry emotional investment in his stead.

[EbaumsTipster]

Hell, I'll even go and say it's likely the only reason that they haven't confirmed Sylvanas as a raid boss in the Maw raid is because, aside from the butthurt, is that they want it to be a big Blizzcon 2020 reveal.

[Yarathir]

Subverting expectations is a perfectly valid way of increasing tension for the person experiencing the story, as their preconcieved notions of how the story should function and flow is challenged, leaving them at a loss as to how the story will actually conclude.

Examples of good subversion would be:

Avengers losing at the end of Infinity war. Or even more poignantly, beheading Thanos at the beginning of Endgame. Both challenges the viewer to consider what this means for the rest of the film, and how it can resolve happily when this has just happened.
Anakin killing Mace Windu. Obviously not if you watch the movies in release order. But as a new viewer this notion challenges the viewers idea of what will happen if our main lead just commited a murder.
Darth Vader is Luke's father. Not a twist now, but to those who watch it unspoiled the movie is a genuinely impressive display of how to surprise the movie viewer with a revelation that changes the entire way you expected the saga to end.

And those are just from films. Not to mention that a twist is not dependant on it being surprising necessarily. The more important step is whether it makes sense in the context of teh story and is properly foreshadowed.

In principle? Sure.

In practice, it's either a crutch for shit writers or an excuse for deliberately scornful writers.

[Rathwell]

Players on a new character that hasn't done anything & we know absolutely nothing about: I hope Blizzard's story department treats them with the dignity they deserve
Players on Sylvanas: Kill her immediately

I mean, we've gotten to know her character well enough to know that that is a warranted treatment of her. Just because a character is established doesn't mean we want to keep them around past their expiry date. She's had all the spotlight she needs and nothing can really be done to redeem the past 2 expansions of Sylvanas story.

[EbaumsTipster]

It does have significance in that she carries with her a near infinite amount of investment from the playerbase compared to the Jailer. Defeating her will be cathartic and feel like a major ending to a story that has technically been going since Warcraft 3. Or 2 expansions if you only count the ones where her motivations are starting to become clear.
Sure, the Jailer can be cool and all, and i have no doubt that the expansion will give us reasons to hate him. But why should the average player care about him when we just defeated Sylvanas, the character that several expansion have revolved around defeating. It would at best be only a slight downgrade to fight the Jailer unless he literally ressurects a whole bunch of former WoW villains to carry emotional investment in his stead.

Because this isn't really that important to the health of the game? If they want to expand the cosmology and start introducing threats that aren't WC3 related, good for them. I don't think they're too concerned about how many people are going to stop playing the game the second Sylvanas dies because it's a minute number.

The celebrity characters and story do not dictate how well the game does, the gameplay does.

[Yarathir]

It does have significance in that she carries with her a near infinite amount of investment from the playerbase compared to the Jailer. Defeating her will be cathartic and feel like a major ending to a story that has technically been going since Warcraft 3. Or 2 expansions if you only count the ones where her motivations are starting to become clear.
Sure, the Jailer can be cool and all, and i have no doubt that the expansion will give us reasons to hate him. But why should the average player care about him when we just defeated Sylvanas, the character that several expansion have revolved around defeating. It would at best be only a slight downgrade to fight the Jailer unless he literally ressurects a whole bunch of former WoW villains to carry emotional investment in his stead.

Maybe, but for me, dealing with Sylvanas is basically "Thank god this is finally over." Cathartic? Maybe. More than that, it's something that is long overdue and I'm tired of her skipping about always dodging the consequences of her actions 'because they want her to'.

I won't feel like it's some epic, amazing le cinematic moment, I'll just feel relieved that we won't have to deal with her again.

[Sondrelk]

In principle? Sure.

In practice, it's either a crutch for shit writers or an excuse for deliberately scornful writers.

That mens those wirters are hacks, not that subverting expectations isnt a powerful tool to improve a story.

[Raetary]

Players on a new character that hasn't done anything & we know absolutely nothing about: I hope Blizzard's story department treats them with the dignity they deserve
Players on Sylvanas: Kill her immediately

No shit.
Blizzard isn't exactly known for their good writing, so whenever a new character appears, especially if its an interesting one, people hope they treat them well.

Sylvanas is an age old character that they have screwed a million times over at this point by making her a genocidal, 10D chess master mind who apparently is so good she even managed to manipulate the writers themselves, looking at how many plot holes her character alone has created.
Not to mention how she's been a highlighted character for 3 expansions now.

So, of course people want her dead and gone.

[Yarathir]

Players on a new character that hasn't done anything & we know absolutely nothing about: I hope Blizzard's story department treats them with the dignity they deserve
Players on Sylvanas: Kill her immediately

Yes. She's run her course and many of us are bored and done with her and have been for at least 1 expansion if not more.

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That mens those wirters are hacks, not that subverting expectations isnt a powerful tool to improve a story.

No, but it is what it primarily means in the context of modern creations.

"Man that was shit."
"Dude it was subverting your expectations. I guess you're just too much of a brainlet to appreciate that."

[Ersula]

The problem here is that "Sylvanas is powerful and crafty and the real villain lol" is a twist that's already been done before. Sylvanas being the main villain of SL after she is the "real" main villain of BFA (because only the biggest loreheads care about N'zoth) is a wet fart of a twist because it's happened before and her running away to 9.3 has no narrative significance.

Like I said, Arbiter makes more sense. Jailer is the just a bit too obvious final raid boss. The Arbiter is the slightly less obvious big raid boss. Just from their designs.

(Also holy hell, those examples you gave aren't "subversions" of expectations. They were all extremely obvious. Every Infinity Stone story in comic history, in fact every major marvel comic event always involves some mass-death that gets undid somehow. And you didn't expect Darth Vader, as a angry teenager, to kill one of his jedi instructors??)

[Sondrelk]

Maybe, but for me, dealing with Sylvanas is basically "Thank god this is finally over." Cathartic? Maybe. More than that, it's something that is long overdue and I'm tired of her skipping about always dodging the consequences of her actions 'because they want her to'.

I won't feel like it's some epic, amazing le cinematic moment, I'll just feel relieved that we won't have to deal with her again.

But don't you want the final boss to give you a feeling of Catharsis when they finally go down?
Defating Argus at the end of Legion was cathartic because we had spent the entire expansion dealing with the Burning Legion, enough so that most players were completely sick of seeing green. And then at the end we knew that the Burning Legion was gone, and we could move on to a better story.
When we defeated Arthas it was cathartic because the character had been built up for years, and additionally had been prancing about the entire expansion taunting the players. The fact that his plan was barely coherent didnt matter, because the players mostly enjoyed the fact that they finally got to defeat the Lich King.

And that is the thing with having Sylvanas as a final boss. Yes, it will be annoying having her run around for the entire expansion, but it will also feel amazingly cathartic when she is finally killed, and we simultaneously end the threat of the Shadowlands. Stretching that catharsis over 2 bosses, the latter one which will have a far lower player engagement doesnt seem like a winning formula.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

No shit.
Blizzard isn't exactly known for their good writing, so whenever a new character appears, especially if its an interesting one, people hope they treat them well.

Sylvanas is an age old character that they have screwed a million times over at this point by making her a genocidal, 10D chess master mind who apparently is so good she even managed to manipulate the writers themselves, looking at how many plot holes her character alone has created.
Not to mention how she's been a highlighted character for 3 expansions now.

So, of course people want her dead and gone.

People hate Sylvanas mostly because of what she does, not the 1000 Plotholes that people here claim she created.

[Sondrelk]

Yes. She's run her course and many of us are bored and done with her and have been for at least 1 expansion if not more.

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No, but it is what it primarily means in the context of modern creations.

"Man that was shit."
"Dude it was subverting your expectations. I guess you're just too much of a brainlet to appreciate that."

That complaint mostly spawns from people who are suffering from some strange variation of Stockholm syndrome for movies where they are unable to separate what they liked about the movie from what is actually good.
Besides, the only reason people think badly of Subverting expectations to the level they do is because the Last Jedi was garbage at subverting expectations, and those who liked it latched onto subverting expectations as the go-to excuse for critics disliking it.

[Sondrelk]

Because this isn't really that important to the health of the game? If they want to expand the cosmology and start introducing threats that aren't WC3 related, good for them. I don't think they're too concerned about how many people are going to stop playing the game the second Sylvanas dies because it's a minute number.

The celebrity characters and story do not dictate how well the game does, the gameplay does.

The cosmology chart is important and all, i just don't see why defeating Sylvanas cannot also coincide with removing the threat of teh Shadowlands. Seems like some pretty dodgy writing to place the emotional cathartic finale to a decades spanning story to the middle of an expansion because you are afraid people cannot stand to wait another 2 patches. At this point i say Blizzard should just buckle down, and accept the criticism instead of defeating Sylvanas too quickly and undercutting the rest of the expansion.

[EbaumsTipster]

When people are this mad at the character in a way that translates to actual hatred for the company writing her, they aren't going to use her for another two years. I don't know what to tell you other than that.

If she escapes the Maw people will be fucking furious. Not to mention it doesn't make sense when her powers are granted by the Jailer, and she can't become the Jailer AND escape yet again.

[Yarathir]

But don't you want the final boss to give you a feeling of Catharsis when they finally go down?
Defating Argus at the end of Legion was cathartic because we had spent the entire expansion dealing with the Burning Legion, enough so that most players were completely sick of seeing green. And then at the end we knew that the Burning Legion was gone, and we could move on to a better story.
When we defeated Arthas it was cathartic because the character had been built up for years, and additionally had been prancing about the entire expansion taunting the players. The fact that his plan was barely coherent didnt matter, because the players mostly enjoyed the fact that they finally got to defeat the Lich King.

And that is the thing with having Sylvanas as a final boss. Yes, it will be annoying having her run around for the entire expansion, but it will also feel amazingly cathartic when she is finally killed, and we simultaneously end the threat of the Shadowlands. Stretching that catharsis over 2 bosses, the latter one which will have a far lower player engagement doesnt seem like a winning formula.

Argus was a nobody. They at least have the chance to build the Jailer up since he's already around.

Sylvanas' removal from the story will cause relief, but not in the way you are thinking. It'll be a "finally this shit is over, why did we have to wait so long" relief and then hopefully forgetting her character ever existed.

As an aside, Gul'dan was also a character that was build up, but he wasn't the final boss either.

[Delmorii]

????

Sethrak have unique idle animations though, and unique sitting, sleeping, swimming and eating animations.

Right yeah, I should've clarified I meant a full unique kit-- though again, not the best indication. Following my own logic, murlocs should be playable, because they have not only unique rigs, but dance, casting, et c. It isn't infallible. As someone else pointed out, though, the real indication for Sethrak was the lack of a blatantly female model, which the Vulpera had from launch.

Think that's impressive? Wait until the next build when we datamine the necrolords doing this

I laughed harder than I should've at this, thank you for that lmao

[Sondrelk]

When people are this mad at the character in a way that translates to actual hatred for the company writing her, they aren't going to use her for another two years. I don't know what to tell you other than that.

If she escapes the Maw people will be fucking furious. Not to mention it doesn't make sense when her powers are granted by the Jailer, and she can't become the Jailer AND escape yet again.

So Blizzard should just cave to the critics and sacrifice effective storytelling?
Sure, their wriitng has not been stellar, but i fail to see why that means they should cripple it further for the promise of having people complain for half an expansion less.

And yes, i hate Sylvnaas as a character as much as anyone. I cannot stand her 10D chess where even her most glaring mistakes were all part of her evil master plan all along. And i espeically dislike the fanboys who refuse to accept that Blizzard is a bad guy. But Blizzard wants to at least pretend she is a tactical mastermind genius with contingencies for her contingencies as layered as Sherlock Holmes, but i don't think the sotyr is actually served well by backing out of that now and having her die in a middle raid when you could instead have her break down at the final raid when players long for nothing but her death and she is at her strongest, organically ending several expansion worth of buildup in one single battle, instead of spreading that out over several patches.

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Argus was a nobody. They at least have the chance to build the Jailer up since he's already around.

Sylvanas' removal from the story will cause relief, but not in the way you are thinking. It'll be a "finally this shit is over, why did we have to wait so long" relief and then hopefully forgetting her character ever existed.

As an aside, Gul'dan was also a character that was build up, but he wasn't the final boss either.

The thing with Argus was that he carried player interest, both because he was a Titan, of which we had known about for a long time. But also because defeating him simultaneously meant we defeated Sargeras, the big bad of WoW.
And as i have mentioned with Gul'dan. While he was a similar character built up from the previous expansion, it was always clear that he was a lackey to the Burning Legion, an organization that we the players have a well-established interest in, which meant that when Gul'dan was defeated we knew that we still had Kil'Jaeden and Sargeras at the top just waiting. Not to mention knowing that the Tomb of Sargeras would be a raid afterwards, which the players had known about and been curious about since at least Warcraft 3, if not 2.

[EbaumsTipster]

Right yeah, I should've clarified I meant a full unique kit-- though again, not the best indication. Following my own logic, murlocs should be playable, because they have not only unique rigs, but dance, casting, et c. It isn't infallible. As someone else pointed out, though, the real indication for Sethrak was the lack of a blatantly female model, which the Vulpera had from launch.

People always try and argue this with "well they don't HAVE to look feminine" or "it's about time we got a genderless race". In regards to Sethrak it was mentioned that Sethraliss had a vaguely different head shape so that was their "female body" as well.

If it doesn't have two big round boobs for the lowest common denominator to drool over, it ain't a playable race. Nuff said.

[Polybius]

Like I said, Arbiter makes more sense. Jailer is the just a bit too obvious final raid boss. The Arbiter is the slightly less obvious big raid boss. Just from their designs.

(Also holy hell, those examples you gave aren't "subversions" of expectations. They were all extremely obvious. Every Infinity Stone story in comic history, in fact every major marvel comic event always involves some mass-death that gets undid somehow. And you didn't expect Darth Vader, as a angry teenager, to kill one of his jedi instructors??)

They didn't exactly undo everything for that story, Xandar got wrecked and 5 years passed. The consequences and stakes are still there

But OT: Has the Arbiter been hinted at through Legion pamphlets? Crooked serpent with no eyes, ouroboros?