What was the point of siding with Sylvanas in BFA?

[Verdugo]

There was no point in siding with her. Any halfway reasonable person could see it was the 'wrong' choice almost instantly anyway.

You know what happens when you make wrong choices? You lose. Loyalists players lost.

I still think it was better choice, just because you get an actual ending to the expansion.

[Varodoc]

But you are telling people how to enjoy the game, you're just too blinded by your desire to be "right" that you cant see it.

Im still a loyalist to Sylvanas and there is nothing you can say or do to change that, sorry.

I don't need you to change it. I don't even know who you are. That doesn't stop me from correcting misinformation where I see it.

The Loyalist toon canonically ends up renouncing Sylvanas.

Sylvanas canonically attempts to have the Loyalist toon killed in Nazjatar and no longer considers him a valuable minion.

It's straightforward really.

[rrayy]

I do speak for Blizzard, since they literally said at Blizzcon that Sylvanas never intended to save the Loyalists from what is to come, hence why that questline won't be continued in Shadowlands.

I'm not telling you how to formulate your headcanon, I'm telling you what is canon. Your toon renouncing their loyalty to Sylvanas is canon. Since I'm tired of repeating myself, I'll quote myself:

Wrong, and I showed you how you are wrong., Blizzard's decress don't mean spit. Thyey cannot force my toon to partake in anything in Shadowlands. They cannot force my toon to do anything towards Sylvanas. In short , you are wrong and always will be no matter how you try to claim otherwise.

[huth]

My loyalist toons won't. My toon will have zero to do with any of it. Go back to my wedding example. I choose not to go to a wedding, but the wedding still goes on. The wedding still happening does not mean I attended it. Same here. My toon doesn't go to the Shadowlands, I do not betray Sylvanas. The event can go on all it wants, but My loyalist toon will play no part in it. She also hasn't betrayed my toon either.

The problem here is you, as a player, don't get to decide that part of the story. Stopping to play the characters won't change that lorewise, they will be doing all of these things.

And Sylvanas never considered you more than a useful tool to begin with. She betrayed you well before the story of BfA was over, and she forsook you well before that point as well.

Wrong, and I showed you how you are wrong., Blizzard's decress don't mean spit. Thyey cannot force my toon to partake in anything in Shadowlands. They cannot force my toon to do anything towards Sylvanas. In short , you are wrong and always will be no matter how you try to claim otherwise.

No, but they can simply make it so that your toon has done all of those things, and you can't stop them.

[rrayy]

But you are telling people how to enjoy the game, you're just too blinded by your desire to be "right" that you cant see it.

Im still a loyalist to Sylvanas and there is nothing you can say or do to change that, sorry.

Exactly. Blizzard can decree whatever they want, but I have already shown how easy it is to get around and how ignorant Blizzard is if it thinks it's story forces a player to do anything on a loyalist toon.

[Ebulli]

Silly really. Players lost because Blizzard cut the content or pushed it till way later, nothing more nothing less. Players choices are a matter of picking of the main stream choices or off the beaten trail. no one is saying i'm with her because she does bad things and you actually believe so makes you out of touch. It comes down to it, its really is a game and some of you all need to chill out and lighten up.

[ymirsson]

I don't need you to change it. I don't even know who you are. That doesn't stop me from correcting misinformation where I see it.

The Loyalist toon canonically ends up renouncing Sylvanas.

Sylvanas canonically attempts to have the Loyalist toon killed in Nazjatar and no longer considers him a valuable minion.

It's straightforward really.

There are many occasions were headcanon is not applicable, but this is one of the few other opportunities. Especially in the face of an self-important forum hero spouting "i speak FOR blizzard".
You can repeat what blizzard made canon, you can't speak for blizzard.
and yes, loyalists to sylvanas won't change the actual story blizzard is trying to tell. but neither do they lose just because you need a personal victory in some fan forum.

[Omedon]

What was the point of introducing branching in BFA war campaign questline if the choices don't have any impact and all we got in the end is Garrosh 2.0?
Did I miss something here? Was something scrapped out of the game or just not completed at all?
I don't see any suitable conslusion for those who chose to side with Sylvanas, and now with Nathanos' death there surely be none coming.

You were given the option so that Blizz could say they gave the option, nothing more. It was never going to change how things panned out.

That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that choice "democratically" decided how Shadowlands ends for her.

The PCs are heroic characters. That is not up for debate in this game's main story. Choosing Sylvanas isn't a heroic choice, but they gave it just to be able to say they had.

[Talrath]

They tried to comfort both sides, those who love Sylvanis and those who don`t, but in the end it didnt matter at all. No consequences at all and that is where blizzard made the mistake. If they said that Sylvanis sympathizers were incarcerated for their crimes, well that would mean that alot of players would lose their characters. To still show some consequences of their action, blizzard could have given them a permanent debuff that they cant use any of the horde facilities until they finish a certain of very very tedious tasks (with no flying). After those tasks they give you the right to be horde again.

[rrayy]

The problem here is you, as a player, don't get to decide that part of the story. Stopping to play the characters won't change that lorewise, they will be doing all of these things.

And Sylvanas never considered you more than a useful tool to begin with. She betrayed you well before the story of BfA was over, and she forsook you well before that point as well.

Yes it will, because my toon will not participate. By your absurd logic, I took part in the Halocaust despite not being born until decades later and not even being a German simply because it happened. If you do not take any action to denounce Sylvanas, then you didn't denounce her. It does not matter what she does. My toon refuses to do anything for the Horde Council, and refuses to fight for them. Ergo, I am still loyal to Sylvanas.

[Biglog]

It was an awfully poorly handled "optional storyline" by Blizz tbh. Mechanically it was poorly designed that there were 2 quest speech options that had to be selected correctly to be a Sylvanus loyalist. And both were very easy to miss that you were making that choice permanently and couldn't be undone. And the fact that such a major decision at least it appears has zero impact in Shadowlands (and just changed a couple cutscenes in BfA) is disappointing and a missed opportunity to add a lot more depth.

As for Sylvanus and why anyone would side with her, there's a quick bit of lore you may have missed that's pretty important. This fact also triggered me yesterday a bit and you'll see why. At Arathi one thing that wasn't explained well or at all in-game but was in the novel was that Arathi was supposed to be a short meeting for families split by the war, especially forsaken and human families. They were supposed to meet for a short-time then return to their sides. That was the agreement. However, Calia covertly went to the meeting and secretly began convincing forsaken to become traitors and switch sides to the Alliance at Arathi, completely betraying the agreement Anduin made with Sylvanus. THAT is what initially set off Sylvanus to attack at Arathi and then the World Tree. That's not even mentioning Genn's earlier revenge action that left them with no future.

An excellent analogy is Korea today. South Korean and North Korean sometimes have reunion gatherings for families split by the Korean War. They meet for a short time as a goodwill gesture and go their separate ways. If at those reunion meetings South Koreans started covertly getting North Koreans to defect, it would be immediate war without question. And that's essentially what happened at Arathi. It proved her mistrust of the Alliance to be justified, and amplified her hate as it would anyone who is betrayed when reaching out a hand to an enemy.

Beyond all this for extra bad Blizzard dev measure, as of the pre-event start yesterday in-game having Calia work with Lor'themar at a high position in the Horde in Orgrimmar after what happened at Arathi doesn't even make sense. It's incredibly lore breaking since the Horde would (even minus Sylvanus at the helm) still be furious at Calia for her massive betrayal of the Horde at Arathi and would *never* put her in that position in a million years. If you don't read the books you likely missed all of this and why the entire Arathi-Sylvanus-Calia situation is/was handled in-game much worse than you even thought. It would be like the US giving Edward Snowden a pardon and then making him head of the NSA lol.

So with all that in-mind yes I am glad there was a Sylvanus loyalist questline, as weak as it was. But overall it was a mess and all over the place, like they couldn't decide as devs went along if they really wanted Sylvanus to be a villain or not. So then they just messily shoehorned her into being one.

[slime]

What was the point of introducing branching in BFA war campaign questline if the choices don't have any impact and all we got in the end is Garrosh 2.0?
Did I miss something here? Was something scrapped out of the game or just not completed at all?
I don't see any suitable conslusion for those who chose to side with Sylvanas, and now with Nathanos' death there surely be none coming.

Seems similar to when you are given the "choice" to not remove N'Zoth's eye from your head. Didn't seem to make a difference and I also thought this might have been something else that was scrapped.

[The One Percent]

To show what a good little simp you are. You can RP as Nathanos for your next cuckplay, I mean, cosplay.

[rrayy]

They tried to comfort both sides, those who love Sylvanis and those who don`t, but in the end it didnt matter at all. No consequences at all and that is where blizzard made the mistake. If they said that Sylvanis sympathizers were incarcerated for their crimes, well that would mean that alot of players would lose their characters. To still show some consequences of their action, blizzard could have given them a permanent debuff that they cant use any of the horde facilities until they finish a certain of very very tedious tasks (with no flying). After those tasks they give you the right to be horde again.

Which would be terribly dumb because there would be no point in siding with her. What they should have done is create a split in the horde. Basically, a 3rd faction.

[Baneto]

I don't need you to change it. I don't even know who you are. That doesn't stop me from correcting misinformation where I see it.

The Loyalist toon canonically ends up renouncing Sylvanas.

Sylvanas canonically attempts to have the Loyalist toon killed in Nazjatar and no longer considers him a valuable minion.

It's straightforward really.

Now you're really starting to reach, misinformation? Where did you get that from all of the blue?

Coming here and trying to tell me how to enjoy my game, are you role-playing as an opinion-police or something?

[rrayy]

This is like skipping a characters death in a book and jumping ahead and being like .. Well he didn't die in MY story!

Not even close to the same. I created my toon in this game, not Blizzard. I didn't create any character in a book.

[Otaka]

Would you prefer if your character was stripped of all their items, achievements, titles, mounts, pets, gold, and abilities, and put into jail like every other Banshee loyalist?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Were other loyalists stripped of any of those? did they even have anything that players do?
I dont recall so... so why would we be stripped of anything?

Speaking of which... what does siding with someone have anything to do with your ingame achievements and other vanity items? literally nothing.. its just story choices, even in games where story choices actually matter you dont get stripped of your valuables and sent to prison. And if you do you can always reclaim them after escaping.

[Varodoc]

Were other loyalists stripped of any of those? did they even have anything that players do?
I dont recall so... so why would we be stripped of anything?

Speaking of which... what does siding with someone have anything to do with your ingame achievements and other vanity items? literally nothing.. its just story choices, even in games where story choices actually matter you dont get stripped of your valuables and sent to prison. And if you do you can always reclaim them after escaping.

That's how jail works. You are stripped of everything valuable. And you can see that every loyalist left in Orgrimmar who did not embrace the new government were thrown into jail.

And I don't know what RPGs you play, but in most RPGs you are definitely stripped of all your items and currency when you are thrown into prison...

In fact, literally in BfA the Alliance toon is imprisoned in Tol Dagor and stripped of their armour...

[Chonar]

Man, you guys wanting a different outcome really just want your character to be jailed in Orgrimmar permanently, dont you?
I mean, to each their own I guess... cant be any fun gameplay in my book.

I mean, you can *desperately want* a different outcome all you want, but recounting the legally cast votes aint gonna... *cough* Sorry, I mean... changing your allegiance in an MMO aint gonna change the storyline in the long run.

[huth]

Not even close to the same. I created my toon in this game, not Blizzard. I didn't create any character in a book.

Yes it is. It's exactly the same. You're arguing that because you didn't play through the rest of the story, it didn't happen. But it does. Even if you never play those characters again, which you already have to to keep your convictions, they will still follow the same canon story as everybody else.