9.0 General Discussion

[Varodoc]

They also had big yuge plans for BFA and the story was a dumpster fire regardless. I don't trust a word Danuser says regarding such things.

Elaborate on how it was a "dumpster fire". Such a strong word, it really wasn't terrible. The most disappointing thing in my opinion was how Alleria and the Ren'dorei had no role in Patch 8.3, when they have been training for a year precisely to fight the Old Gods. Their role was confined to enemy mobs in a Vision of the future. Regardless that didn't make BfA terrible to me.

If you want an ACTUAL dumpster fire, that's WoD. It's clear what the general outline was:

- Garrosh manipulates the AU orcs into war;
- They suffer heavy losses and become servants of Gul'dan out of desperation -> History seems to be repeating itself;
- The Legion joins the fray and Gul'dan summons Archimonde;
- Grommash, realizing he was manipulated all along, redeems himself and helps take down Archimonde;
- The orcs and draenei end hostilities and focus on rebuilding the world -> History ultimately did not repeat itself.

But since Blizzard gave up on the expansion pretty quickly, all of these points were disjointed, they were not connected in any way, there was no narrative. In one moment Grommash threatens to kill everyone, in the next he helps us kill a demon general. On paper these points are fine, but the execution was trash. That's why it's so retarded that the draenei and orcs cheer for Grommash when he really did not do much to atone for his many crimes...

This however was not the case with BfA, they had a plan from the start and they carried it out.

[Makabreska]

We've barely seen the guy, we'll know more as time goes by.

Well, they said same bout N'zoth.

[Sondrelk]

Elaborate on how it was a "dumpster fire". Such a strong word, it really wasn't terrible.

Big faction war opening seriously tainted by Blizzard trying to defend a "morally grey" storyline that didnt really seem to exist as Sylvanas burned down Teldrassil while the Horde seemed perfectly okay with it.

Faction war ramps up when the Alliance attacks Dazar'alor for flimsy reasons instead of more important, and indeed more vulnerable targets like Silvermoon.

Brief detour to Nazjatar.

Sylvanas disappears in a puff of smoke. The faction war plot is still going strong and is seemingly nowhere near an actual conclusion, but we are supposed to just take Blizzards word that the faction war is over now.

N'zoth is released, and despite all hte important story beats prior to Nazjatar, and indeed some during Nazjatar were faction war related we are now fighting N'zoth, despite him having nothing to do with the story we were given previously.
Blizzard doesnt even attempt to find a commonality between the two that allows us hte players to accept that Teldrassil burning has organically led to us defeating N'zoth in Ny'alotha.

Ny'alotha is a fairly lackluster area, and the stories in the revamped areas are not really interesting enough to give players a massive investment in defeating N'zoth, meaning that when we get to the Kamehameha ending it is even more of a letdown than it might have normally been.



Generally BfA was an expansion of a lot of promise, but instead of getting a coherent plot we got 2 halves of completely different plots that didnt even really end all that amazing.

[Ersula]

She is morally grey only because Blizzard said so. None of her actions prove it though. Neither the way she presents herself, her thoughts, her opinion. Everything about her is vile at best, evil at worst.

If they for some pathetic reason write her to be a saviour or whatever other nonsense her fanboys want her to be, after 2 (and then however long will it last in SL) expansions then it's a bad writing, simple as that. You just can't write a character as evil from the begining then at the last moment reveal "SURPIRSE! AKCHUALY it all had a reason she wanted to save us all!!"

IDK what cosmic troubles are there in the universe, nothing allowed her to use unwilling azerothians, spark a baseless war, kill people, separate families and destroy homes. This isnt morally grey, it's evil. Unless you want to argue Sargeras is morally grey too, because his "intentions" were good even if the way he wanted to do it is extremely bad.

We're not going to defend this writing. It is aggressive in *hiding Sylvanas' intentions* which is a hack way of hiding a twist. But here's what we know
*After Garrosh & Illidan & Gul'dan, we know they always eventually regret killing off a character, they'd rather do something different
*Sylvanas died heroically & selflessly. She was not "evil from the beginning" in fact she only started doing evil shit about the same time they invented The Jailer
*"Surprise it was actually because she wanted to save us all" has been done before, and the audience's response was positive, with Illidan. Illidan didn't have a redeption story: He just decided 10,000 years ago that he would commit atrocities in order to defeat a greater evil. You can still see Illidan as evil, but the game does portray him as a Christ-like figure at the end of Legion despite him killing way more innocent people than Sylvanas at this point
*The big tell is the Kyrian campaign directly stating the Mawsworn are not responsible for their actions. It's contrived but yeah, if the Jailer can literally morph any mortal soul into a monologuing villain, you have to assume that of Sylvanas.
*At this point its clear Sylvanas' choices were to suffer eternal torment in the maw or serve the jailer. But it would be more thematically confusing to punish her for this, a choice literally no one would have the strength of character to choose
*Just killing her off as a raid boss doesn't propel us into the next expansion. It solves problems rather than create new problems which is a no-no for writing on ongoing story

[Gorsameth]

Well, they said same bout N'zoth.

N'Zoth wasn't even really in the picture until 8.2 and then still only by mention.

The Jailer is a 'little' bit more prominent from the start.

[Varodoc]

Big faction war opening seriously tainted by Blizzard trying to defend a "morally grey" storyline that didnt really seem to exist as Sylvanas burned down Teldrassil while the Horde seemed perfectly okay with it.

Faction war ramps up when the Alliance attacks Dazar'alor for flimsy reasons instead of more important, and indeed more vulnerable targets like Silvermoon.

Brief detour to Nazjatar.

Sylvanas disappears in a puff of smoke. The faction war plot is still going strong and is seemingly nowhere near an actual conclusion, but we are supposed to just take Blizzards word that the faction war is over now.

N'zoth is released, and despite all hte important story beats prior to Nazjatar, and indeed some during Nazjatar were faction war related we are now fighting N'zoth, despite him having nothing to do with the story we were given previously.
Blizzard doesnt even attempt to find a commonality between the two that allows us hte players to accept that Teldrassil burning has organically led to us defeating N'zoth in Ny'alotha.

Ny'alotha is a fairly lackluster area, and the stories in the revamped areas are not really interesting enough to give players a massive investment in defeating N'zoth, meaning that when we get to the Kamehameha ending it is even more of a letdown than it might have normally been.



Generally BfA was an expansion of a lot of promise, but instead of getting a coherent plot we got 2 halves of completely different plots that didnt even really end all that amazing.

But there was still a story, even if it was structured in a messy way. Meanwhile in WoD there was literally a part of the story missing. The Shattrath City raid was completely cut. Characters like Yrel and Liadrin, who were meant to be much more important (and were set up to reclaim the fallen city), ended up doing very little in the grand scheme of things.

Now tell me, how would BfA feel if the entire Battle of Dazar'alor raid was cut? Because that's WoD to you, there was a raid planned to take place in Shattrath City and it was completely removed with no replacement. That's one huge chunk of the story missing.

BfA vs. WoD is like a movie of 2 hours that actually told the story it planned to tell, even if it sucked, and a movie of 2 hours where 30 minutes of the movie for some reason are missing.

[Nyel]

Elaborate on how it was a "dumpster fire". Such a strong word, it really wasn't terrible. The most disappointing thing in my opinion was how Alleria and the Ren'dorei had no role in Patch 8.3, when they have been training for a year precisely to fight the Old Gods. Their role was confined to enemy mobs in a Vision of the future. Regardless that didn't make BfA terrible to me.

*snip*

This however was not the case with BfA, they had a plan from the start and they carried it out.

The entire faction war / war about Azerite. It doesn't need explanation, it was a disaster from start to finish, especially after an expansion like Legion, were both factions came together. Having N'zoth in 8.3 just solidified the Legion outcome and how out of place the faction war storyline was.

Having a plan doesn't help when it's a bad plan.

The storylines of the continents were good (Horde way, way better than Alliance, especially Zuldazar and Nazmir are way superior to anything Alliance has gotten) and could have been way better with a focus on either a big bad evil (Ghuun -> Nzoth) or smaller threats, but it was just a weird mixture of neither here nor there. WoD at least had a focus on the Iron Horde and then the Legion, which was carried throughout the expansion. In BfA you went from A (Uldir) to B (faction war) to C (Azshara) to B (faction war) to C (N'zoth) in the end, disappointing with both storylines (the abrupt end and outcome of the faction war in 8.2.5 was ridiculously bad; N'zoth and 8.3 were underdeveloped and needed more time to shine).

With a clear focus on N'zoth, the expansion would have made sense. We really didn't need the faction war nonsense for the Azerite / Magni / N'zoth storyline. Could have worked well without.

Up until the pre patch I didn't play the Horde storyline of BfA. If I did back after launch I wouldn't have hated BfA as much because the Horde story is a lot better than the Alliance one (or it's better presented, better written, hard to explain - the rise and fall of Rastakhan / Talanji is just so much better than the pirate nonsense and the little Proudmoore stuff we get on the Alliance side). Yet the entire experience is tarnished with the faction war, especially now that both factions act like nothing has happened minus Sylvanas and Nathanos departure.

[Sondrelk]

We're not going to defend this writing. It is aggressive in *hiding Sylvanas' intentions* which is a hack way of hiding a twist. But here's what we know
*After Garrosh & Illidan & Gul'dan, we know they always eventually regret killing off a character, they'd rather do something different
*Sylvanas died heroically & selflessly. She was not "evil from the beginning" in fact she only started doing evil shit about the same time they invented The Jailer
*"Surprise it was actually because she wanted to save us all" has been done before, and the audience's response was positive, with Illidan. Illidan didn't have a redeption story: He just decided 10,000 years ago that he would commit atrocities in order to defeat a greater evil. You can still see Illidan as evil, but the game does portray him as a Christ-like figure at the end of Legion despite him killing way more innocent people than Sylvanas at this point
*The big tell is the Kyrian campaign directly stating the Mawsworn are not responsible for their actions. It's contrived but yeah, if the Jailer can literally morph any mortal soul into a monologuing villain, you have to assume that of Sylvanas.
*At this point its clear Sylvanas' choices were to suffer eternal torment in the maw or serve the jailer. But it would be more thematically confusing to punish her for this, a choice literally no one would have the strength of character to choose
*Just killing her off as a raid boss doesn't propel us into the next expansion. It solves problems rather than create new problems which is a no-no for writing on ongoing story

Have you ever actually accepted that anything Sylvanas does is evil? I faintly remember once asking you if you could name a single thing Sylvanas could do that would convince you that she was evil, which you never answered.


As for evil things Sylvanas has done:

She killed Garithos for control of Lordaeron despite never making any claims, nor seeming to be slighted in any way, she just wanted Lordaeron taken easily.
Accepted the use of live vivisection and human experimentation on innocent living Lordaeron human farmers when developing the Blight. She claimed she only did it to known criminals, but admitted that she knew that the people she had killed were innocent.
Made an unprovoked attack on, and blighted the Kingdom of Gilneas. This despite getting precise orders to not be an evil bitch and use a known weapon of mass destruction.

And of course she has generally acted shady since she was freed from the Lich King's control.


When Illidan was redeemed it required retconning actions he had taken from BC, an expansion mostly reviled for butchering several characters. Said expansion was also over 10 years old. Illidan didn't show up in WoD throwing Draenei children into furnaces while monologuing about how hope is meaningless.
"Surprise, she wanted to save everyone" did not have a positive reaction. In fact, most players I saw hated it, and indeed the twist upon twist at the end seemed to be that Illidan was never actually good, and that the evil things he did was not justified.


Where do the Kyrians state the Mawsworn are not responsible for their actions? And what does that really have to do with Sylvanas? The Mawsworn have not shown any sort of characteristics, Sylvanas has. All the current signs point to Sylvanas being perfectly in control of her actions.


You really, really don't seem to have seen any of the previous expansions then.
BfA was caused by us defeating Argus, and by extension Sargeras, the fallout of that causing BfA.
Legion was caused by us killing Archimonde, which propelled Gul'dan into Azeroth.

No, the killing itself doesnt propel us into the next expansion, but the ircumstances surrounding it easily could.
Has Sylvanas maybe released something into Azeroth that we do not know of? Or did killing her cause her necromantic powers to go haywire?

[Gorsameth]

But there was still a story, even if it was structured in a messy way. Meanwhile in WoD there was literally a part of the story missing. The Shattrath City raid was completely cut. Characters like Yrel and Liadrin, who were meant to be much more important (and were set up to reclaim the fallen city), ended up doing very little in the grand scheme of things.

Now tell me, how would BfA feel if the entire Battle of Dazar'alor raid was cut? Because that's WoD to you, there was a raid planned to take place in Shattrath City and it was completely removed with no replacement. That's one huge chunk of the story missing.

BfA vs. WoD is like a movie of 2 hours that actually told the story it planned to tell, even if it sucked, and a movie of 2 hours where 30 minutes of the movie for some reason are missing.

Cutting Dazar'alor would have changed absolutely nothing in the story of BfA tbh. It changed one faction leader for another, but since Talanji played no part in the story after the Battle, it doesn't matter who rules the Zandalari.

[Sondrelk]

But there was still a story, even if it was structured in a messy way. Meanwhile in WoD there was literally a part of the story missing. The Shattrath City raid was completely cut. Characters like Yrel and Liadrin, who were meant to be much more important (and were set up to reclaim the fallen city), ended up doing very little in the grand scheme of things.

Now tell me, how would BfA feel if the entire Battle of Dazar'alor raid was cut? Because that's WoD to you, there was a raid planned to take place in Shattrath City and it was completely removed with no replacement. That's one huge chunk of the story missing.

BfA vs. WoD is like a movie of 2 hours that actually told the story it planned to tell, even if it sucked, and a movie of 2 hours where 30 minutes of the movie for some reason are missing.

WoD had chunks missing for sure, but that only made some of the character turns seem rushed, like Grom being the hero. WoD did manage to tell a story that logically built on itself.
Garrosh goes to stop demon blood > Orcs get desperate > Orcs drink demon blood.
Shattrath might be missing which might have further expanded on the Iron Horde, and how Grom came to doubt his cause and whatever, but you could still trace that line from start to finish and see how Garrosh going to past Draenor led to us fighting Archimonde.

In BfA we supposedly have the entire story and it still doesnt work.
Azeroth is stabbed, Sylvanas burns down Teldrassil > Alliance retaliates > Alliance allies with Horde dissidents to defeat Sylvanas > Sylvanas flees > N'zoth as a final boss.
In BfA there isnt a consistent throughline that links the beginning to the end. It really does feel like the writers transplanted the ending of a different expansion to BfA when Sylvanas ran away.

[Nyel]

Cutting Dazar'alor would have changed absolutely nothing in the story of BfA tbh. It changed one faction leader for another, but since Talanji played no part in the story after the Battle, it doesn't matter who rules the Zandalari.

Yeah, it basically could have been resolved in a dungeon instead of a raid.

[Ersula]

She killed Garithos for control of Lordaeron despite never making any claims, nor seeming to be slighted in any way, she just wanted Lordaeron taken easily.

If you're defending Garithos, there is no hope for you. Mr. "lets use the the elves as human shields" was designed to want to be killed by the audience.

Any of Sylvanas warfare techniques can be attributed to the Necrolords, which are now presented as good. Every racial group of mages is shown to do human experimentation. And in most of these cases, killing someone is textually different from the formality of killing & raising them. The existence of the Forsaken is not cruel or punitive; its transformative.

Or that Gilneas deserved to be invaded: Wolf monsters were constantly coming over into the Forsaken's territory, it would have been irresponsible not to deal with that

Yeah, I'm rationalizing, but that's all morality is. I mean, if killing Garithos is evil, clearly Jaina invading Dazar'alor & murdering their king is indefensible. But the Alliance & the story don't even dwell on it. It's nothing to them. It's fine. By this comparison I guess this means Jaina deserves to be killed & go to hell too, right?

[shoc]

Awesome video exploring the Shadowlands beasts with Russian Zoologist Nikolay Drozdov. Auto generated English subtitles aren't too bad.

[Makabreska]

N'Zoth wasn't even really in the picture until 8.2 and then still only by mention.

The Jailer is a 'little' bit more prominent from the start.

Well, he was first mention during Cata reveal, as a guy working behind the scenes. And in the end the only thing he could do was a Lich King move.

[Sondrelk]

If you're defending Garithos, there is no hope for you. Mr. "lets use the the elves as human shields" was designed to want to be killed by the audience.

Any of Sylvanas warfare techniques can be attributed to the Necrolords, which are now presented as good. Every racial group of mages is shown to do human experimentation. And in most of these cases, killing someone is textually different from the formality of killing & raising them. The existence of the Forsaken is not cruel or punitive; its transformative.

Or that Gilneas deserved to be invaded: Wolf monsters were constantly coming over into the Forsaken's territory, it would have been irresponsible not to deal with that

Yeah, I'm rationalizing, but that's all morality is.

Garithos was a douchebag for sure, but that still doesnt in any way make it less of an evil act when Sylvanas allied herself with him to take back Lordaeron, then killed him at the end for seemingly no reason.

Necrolords experiment on already dead people in an afterlife that caters to the kind of people that would want to perfect themselves in any way imaginable.
Sylvanas kills people for the purpose of creating a weapon of mass destruction.
There is in fact a qualitive difference between Necrolords creating weapons in a realm where everyone is united in a want to attain martial perfection for the sake of defence, and killing innocent farmers you picked up randomly because you want to kill even more people.

Also, I really hope you understand how psychotic that line about Gilneas makes Sylvanas sound.
If her rationale for brazenly attacking a neutral party, killing its leaders and blighting its lands forcing the people to flee is to stop some werewolves that are coming from the same vague area then she is beyond insane.
If what she really cared about was just getting rid of the Worgen why not just say that? She could have gone over to the wall, asked if they needed help, and if not just bunker down and kill every Worgen coming through, no need to ikll innocent people because you were mildly inconvenienced.

[Jastall]

Elaborate on how it was a "dumpster fire". Such a strong word, it really wasn't terrible. The most disappointing thing in my opinion was how Alleria and the Ren'dorei had no role in Patch 8.3, when they have been training for a year precisely to fight the Old Gods. Their role was confined to enemy mobs in a Vision of the future. Regardless that didn't make BfA terrible to me.

If you want an ACTUAL dumpster fire, that's WoD. It's clear what the general outline was:

- Garrosh manipulates the AU orcs into war;
- They suffer heavy losses and become servants of Gul'dan out of desperation -> History seems to be repeating itself;
- The Legion joins the fray and Gul'dan summons Archimonde;
- Grommash, realizing he was manipulated all along, redeems himself and helps take down Archimonde;
- The orcs and draenei end hostilities and focus on rebuilding the world -> History ultimately did not repeat itself.

But since Blizzard gave up on the expansion pretty quickly, all of these points were disjointed, they were not connected in any way, there was no narrative. In one moment Grommash threatens to kill everyone, in the next he helps us kill a demon general. On paper these points are fine, but the execution was trash. That's why it's so retarded that the draenei and orcs cheer for Grommash when he really did not do much to atone for his many crimes...

This however was not the case with BfA, they had a plan from the start and they carried it out.

Of course that would be the only criteria for you.

Mine is that the faction war was stupid from the get go mere months after a global Legion invasion. That everything surrounding the War of the Thorns and Teldrassil was completely retarded, from the behavior of the NEs to how easily the Horde crushed everything to the nonsense of our catapults being ICBM all of a sudden. That Lordaeron had an interesting premise but in execution ended up being decided by superpowered NPCs taking turns flaunting their largely metaphorical dicks. That the war itself was barely portrayed after the pre-patch besides boring ass Warfronts that got a "resolution" off-screen when they told us who won as if it mattered anyway. That some side characters like Rexxar and Voss had their motivations make 180s to suit the current plotline. That Jaina's "daughter of the sea" promise went basically nowhere as she's flip-flopped back to wanting peace for, what, the fourth freaking time now. That Saurfang, Baine and Sylvanas were all turned into caricatures of themselves. the expansion used up both Azshara and N'zoth and neither of them ended up being very satisfying. That the plotline of Azeroth dying was basically concluded by "you killed the big squid guy and it's all OK now, no more woons!". That the entire thing was built from the ground up to be a rehash of an already poor storyline and somehow executed it even worse. And also that the entire thing was predictable to me, and not in a good way, the moment Sylvanas torched Teldrassil was curling her mustache.

By the way, this is the short version of my grievances.

And yeah, WoD was equally as bad if not worse, but that doesn't make BFA good, only slightly better than the worst. Thus still a dumpster fire.

[Varodoc]

Of course that would be the only criteria for you.

Huh, duh? You don't need to be remotely passionate to understand how that is a problem. Alleria and Umbric were wasted in favour of characters like Magni and Wrathion who already had ton of screentime and focus. Anduin never even thinks about asking Alleria and Umbric for advice on how to deal with a literal SPAWN OF THE VOID LORDS THEMSELVES.

If anything, it surprises me a lot that not many people complain about this. People around here constantly moan about how the orcs and blood elves were nowhere to be seen during the Argus patch or Tyrande and Malfurion did not fight Azshara in 8.2, but no one ever brings up how the best Void users and scholars in the Alliance had 0 role in a patch solely dedicated to the Old Gods.

Except, you know, as hostile bosses in a cryptic Vision. Which was very badass, don't get me wrong. Seeing Alleria single-handedly corrupt Stormwind was badass. But it was not what I anticipated.

It is especially frustrating because in 8.2.5 Alleria was the ONLY ONE to bring up the gravity of the threat posed by N'Zoth, and how perhaps it was wise to form a truce with Sylvanas to deal with the Old God. Yet she is nowhere to be seen during the actual fight with N'Zoth. Talk about an actual red herring.

[Eapoe]

She is morally grey only because Blizzard said so. None of her actions prove it though. Neither the way she presents herself, her thoughts, her opinion. Everything about her is vile at best, evil at worst.

If they for some pathetic reason write her to be a saviour or whatever other nonsense her fanboys want her to be, after 2 (and then however long will it last in SL) expansions then it's a bad writing, simple as that. You just can't write a character as evil from the begining then at the last moment reveal "SURPIRSE! AKCHUALY it all had a reason she wanted to save us all!!"

IDK what cosmic troubles are there in the universe, nothing allowed her to use unwilling azerothians, spark a baseless war, kill people, separate families and destroy homes. This isnt morally grey, it's evil. Unless you want to argue Sargeras is morally grey too, because his "intentions" were good even if the way he wanted to do it is extremely bad.

She hasn’t been written as a villain over 2 expansions. Some of her deeds are considered villainous, such as the burning of Teldrassil.
The thing everyone who loves to hate on her keeps overlooking is that every time she actually talks about her plans they include things such as “set us free,” and usually talks about the endgame.
Things to consider: if she is looking to conquer death and free everyone from its clutches then what she is doing she doesn’t consider it evil. She’s not killing people because she enjoys it, she’s doing it because she wants to gain power to overcome something that she feels looms over and threatens everyone: death. If she conquers it, and possibly even the Jailer, it’s possible she is planning on returning everyone and setting them free.
It f she is planning this then she sees herself as a savior and not a villain, and if those are her intentions and they do succeed then she is perhaps the good guy of the xpacs.
It’s also possible that she is doing it simply because she is evil and wants to rule over everything and everyone. She might be completely evil.
That’s the rub. We don’t know, and won’t know until Blizzard reveals it.
All I know is that all thru BfA she wasn’t spouting things like “I’ll rule them all,” or “I will have all the power.” She stated things like “we will be free from death,” and “I will set them free.” Her shout of “the Horde is NOTHING!” actually further solidifies she has bigger plans as in the grand scheme of things the Horde can’t stop death or their subjugation to it.

This is all written from someone who doesn’t even really like her character. I just try to actually decipher what Blizzard is hinting at and leading us towards rather then “Sylvanas is evil because I can’t stand her.”

[Sondrelk]

She hasn’t been written as a villain over 2 expansions. Some of her deeds are considered villainous, such as the burning of Teldrassil.
The thing everyone who loves to hate on her keeps overlooking is that every time she actually talks about her plans they include things such as “set us free,” and usually talks about the endgame.
Things to consider: if she is looking to conquer death and free everyone from its clutches then what she is doing she doesn’t consider it evil. She’s not killing people because she enjoys it, she’s doing it because she wants to gain power to overcome something that she feels looms over and threatens everyone: death. If she conquers it, and possibly even the Jailer, it’s possible she is planning on returning everyone and setting them free.
It f she is planning this then she sees herself as a savior and not a villain, and if those are her intentions and they do succeed then she is perhaps the good guy of the xpacs.
It’s also possible that she is doing it simply because she is evil and wants to rule over everything and everyone. She might be completely evil.
That’s the rub. We don’t know, and won’t know until Blizzard reveals it.
All I know is that all thru BfA she wasn’t spouting things like “I’ll rule them all,” or “I will have all the power.” She stated things like “we will be free from death,” and “I will set them free.” Her shout of “the Horde is NOTHING!” actually further solidifies she has bigger plans as in the grand scheme of things the Horde can’t stop death or their subjugation to it.

This is all written from someone who doesn’t even really like her character. I just try to actually decipher what Blizzard is hinting at and leading us towards rather then “Sylvanas is evil because I can’t stand her.”

Not written as a villain? What part of declaring hope meaningless and forcing someoen to watch as their family and friends painfully burn to death is even remotely morally ambigious?

Again, the main sticking point that any Sylvanas redemption would have to start adressing over anything else is why Sylvanas didnt just tell anyone what her plan was.
Sure, people might consider the solution evil or insane. Anduin might ask for more time that maybe they don't have, or Genn would not trust her at all. But the opportunity to simply sit the various faction leaders down and saying exactly what the problem is was there.

Yeah, sure. Sylvanas is empowering the Jailer, killing people left and right, destablizing nations, releasing N'zoth and generally coming across like the most evil character we have seen in recent times, but she could always just ressurect everyone somehow.
How does that help rebuilding Teldrassil? How does that help those who went insane because of N'zoth, or even just got ailments from her attacks? I guess at least it would be good then that the Horde got off without having to pay anything, the relationship with the rest of Azeroth could have been destroyed forever considering what happened.

Let us take for a moment her cry of "the Horde is nothing!"
If she was not villainous, why not just let Saurfang go and escape without killing anyone else? A single soul couldnt possibly be that powerful, especially not when counted next to the cities she destroyed.

The problem with a Sylvanas redemption is that absolutely nothing so far points to her being good.
Giving her a redemption arc would essentially retcon the entirety of BfA, which I somehow doubt will happen right after it finished, no matter how crappy it was. If anything it is more likely then that we get the full "it was all a dream" shtick to explain away Sylvanas' evil deeds.

[Jastall]

Huh, duh? You don't need to be remotely passionate to understand how that is a problem. Alleria and Umbric were wasted in favour of characters like Magni and Wrathion who already had ton of screentime and focus. Anduin never even thinks about asking Alleria and Umbric for advice on how to deal with a literal SPAWN OF THE VOID LORDS THEMSELVES.

If anything, it surprises me a lot that not many people complain about this. People around here constantly moan about how the orcs and blood elves were nowhere to be seen during the Argus patch or Tyrande and Malfurion did not fight Azshara in 8.2, but no one ever brings up how the best Void users and scholars in the Alliance had 0 role in a patch solely dedicated to the Old Gods.

Except, you know, as hostile bosses in a cryptic Vision. Which was very badass, don't get me wrong. Seeing Alleria single-handedly corrupt Stormwind was badass. But it was not what I anticipated.

It is especially frustrating because in 8.2.5 Alleria was the ONLY ONE to bring up the gravity of the threat posed by N'Zoth, and how perhaps it was wise to form a truce with Sylvanas to deal with the Old God. Yet she is nowhere to be seen during the actual fight with N'Zoth. Talk about an actual red herring.

Because not many people actually care about these characters. The Void Elves as a race are popular Alliance side because of the pretty BE model but that's it, Umbric is about as "who?" tier as Ji Firepaw and Mayla Highmountain. Nobody, or close enough, is anywhere near as obsessed with these guys as you are. There's your explanation, take it or leave it.