What was the point of siding with Sylvanas in BFA?

[Otaka]

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...

My point still stands... just like in tol dagor you will reclaim your armor once you escape, just like in most RPG-games. Even in the more realism oriented ones like kingdom come deliverance you can and most likely will reclaim your armor after prison sentence.

Also, we werent stripped off our achievements, titles, money and mounts in tol dagor so what you on about.

[Varodoc]

My point still stands... just like in tol dagor you will reclaim your armor once you escape, just like in most RPG-games. Even in the more realism oriented ones like kingdom come deliverance you can and most likely will reclaim your armor after prison sentence.

Also, we werent stripped off our achievements, titles, money and mounts in tol dagor so what you on about.

Then what? Where do you go after you "escape from prison"? To the Shadowlands? Where every single quest is about undermining Sylvanas' efforts? Are you suggesting that Blizzard should literally develop a different expansion for the hardcore Loyalists, which are a very small fraction of the overall playerbase?

Also, do you understand what a "Reductio ad absurdum" is?

[Baneto]

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.

I guess that is the beauty of role-playing, you can create your own stories for your own characters.

Just that on forums some people like to come and play opinion-police and try to dictate how other people should enjoy the game.

If those people cant accept that, its their problem not mine.

[huth]

I guess that is the beauty of role-playing, you can create your own stories for your own characters.

Just that on forums some people like to come and play opinion-police and try to dictate how other people should enjoy the game.

If those people cant accept that, its their problem not mine.

Within the confines of the current ruleset. And the ruleset for computer games necessarily has limited prewritten stories which require that your character participates in certain events.

[Otaka]

Then what? Where do you go after you "escape from prison"? To the Shadowlands? Where every single quest is about undermining Sylvanas' efforts? Are you suggesting that Blizzard should literally develop a different expansion for the hardcore Loyalists, which are a very small fraction of the overall playerbase?

Also, do you understand what a "Reductio ad absurdum" is?

No im not suggesting anything, just give us small meaningful choices to spice up the game. No need to make an entire expansion length story arc to satisfy a minority.

But did you know we have this title called Bloodsail Admiral? to get it you must literally be hostile with goblins therefor booty bay, gadgetzan and everlook will be hostile on sight to your character if you dont grind that rep back.

So with 5 seconds of imagination used: they could do a small quest chain (just like the loyalist chain was very short) to allow us to return to the favor of the Horde.
And if we choose not to do that questline then our character will remain hostile with horde guards in orgrimmar and other main cities of BFA as if they were alliance (except in old expansion areas since those are never updated anyway to the present state).

That would be a very small change and a possible fantasy players could go about doing with one of their characters, just to spice things up a little for those who may want it.

[Zyky]

If the conclusion is the same disregarding choices, what was the point of introducing them in the first place? To create an illusion of choice?

You were given special dialogue, you should have known from the start that it wasn't going to effect the story other than hearing special dialogue. They weren't going to cut the development in two for people who sided with Sylvanas and for people who sided with Saurfang, there was always going to be a singular point where the story was going. You got lore, aka dialogue, that wouldn't have been made privy to the players if the option wasn't available.

[Varodoc]

No im not suggesting anything, just give us small meaningful choices to spice up the game. No need to make an entire expansion length story arc to satisfy a minority.

But did you know we have this title called Bloodsail Admiral? to get it you must literally be hostile with goblins therefor booty bay, gadgetzan and everlook will be hostile on sight to your character if you dont grind that rep back.

So with 5 seconds of imagination used: they could do a small quest chain (just like the loyalist chain was very short) to allow us to return to the favor of the Horde.
And if we choose not to do that questline then our character will remain hostile with horde guards in orgrimmar and other main cities of BFA as if they were alliance (except in old expansion areas since those are never updated anyway to the present state).

That would be a very small change and a possible fantasy players could go about doing with one of their characters, just to spice things up a little for those who may want it.

But... that literally already happened... by defeating N'Zoth and saving the world from annihilation, you returned to the favour of the Horde. Sylvanas did NOT want that, she wanted N'Zoth to kill as many people as possible, and you stopped him before the bloodshed could spiral out of control.

What you are proposing LITERALLY happened already.

[huth]

So with 5 seconds of imagination used: they could do a small quest chain (just like the loyalist chain was very short) to allow us to return to the favor of the Horde.
And if we choose not to do that questline then our character will remain hostile with horde guards in orgrimmar and other main cities of BFA as if they were alliance (except in old expansion areas since those are never updated anyway to the present state).

Right until a main story quest requires you to go talk to an NPC that is now hostile to you.

[Otaka]

But... that literally already happened... by defeating N'Zoth and saving the world from annihilation, you returned to the favour of the Horde. Sylvanas did NOT want that, she wanted N'Zoth to kill as many people as possible, and you stopped him before the bloodshed could spiral out of control.

What you are proposing LITERALLY happened already.

Except it didnt... we were forgiven before we even were noticed. I did the loyalist chain on my warlock and literally nothing changed in the world for that character... literally nothing, walked around in orgrimmar and zuldazar with no difference to the experience.
Clearly not very well implemented naughty-arc.

Its too late now but we know they are going to continue making pointless little chains in the future, all we want is to make those little chains more meaningful to those who may want them to be meaningful.

This was the point of the topic, to question why make such choices available that require development effort but give 0 actual ingame value. Considering such value could be added with minimal effort. (compared to overall effort of the entire quest chain)

- - - Updated - - -

Right until a main story quest requires you to go talk to an NPC that is now hostile to you.

Easy fix, weve had such quests before... usually require a certain item to make you friendly with them. We have hundreds of toys, just give the loyalists a toy to give them a disguise that lets them talk to them (or any npc that would be friendly if not for the loyalist debuff) for a period of time.

[huth]

Easy fix, weve had such quests before... usually require a certain item to make you friendly with them. We have hundreds of toys, just give the loyalists a toy to give them a disguise that lets them talk to them (or any npc that would be friendly if not for the loyalist debuff) for a period of time.

So now you want a copout so you don't have to suffer the consequences of your choices. Then why have the choice in the first place? And yes, such disguises exist... for factions which are hostile to you by default. Precedent for the kind of situation you present is to have to manually work yourself back into the good graces of the factions involved.

[haiyken]

If Blizzard actually ended up making the Sylvaneous choice 'mean something' for horde - players on both factions would be in an uproar. If it was a 'bad' reward (like character banned from horde capitals or something) then everyone who made the 'bad' choice and didn't know that was going to be the outcome would immediately be demanding a re-do. Alliance players would just be mad for being left out - good or bad consequences - and feel there was a 'bias to give horde players more fun/whatever". Even horde players who 'liked' their consequences would agree that those who didn't know about it should be able to have a re-do. Later players would either stop playing the plotline entirely (never making the choice they didn't like) or just determine their choices based on the consequences (as they do with Covenents and other choices in the past) and the side left out would always be pissed. And if they made a 'third faction' in the horde just based on those players who sided with Sylvaneous - hell i'm not even sure that's a mistake the game would ever recover from. People would lose trust in the future of their gaming experience and players would quit in droves because of how poorly handled such a HUGE game changing mechanic was implemented. And again, 1 side being left out of any chance of having the same faction. (All without alts of course - but IMO alt play should never been a reason or justification for one-sided game options - not everyone plays alts).

I think you're touching on an interesting point here. "Even horde players who 'liked' their consequences would agree that those who didn't know about it should be able to have a re-do". Currently, players know so much in advance from datamining, official blog posts or even Blizzcon, that there is a huge expectation of knowing excatly what you're in for when playing the game. It's clearly an issue for the addition of meaningful choice because players are now choosing based on the outcome, not the choice that "feels right". I have honestly no idea if changing this paradigm. Not in the gameplay, obviously, but not even in the story/RP, I think.

For branching narrative - or even just differences localized to your character only, as we mentionned before - to work, the outcome or ramification shouldn't be known right away. If we do know, it can't possibly be meaningful. For example : in the starting scenario for BFA, the Horde marched on Night Elves land in order to cut them of from Silithus and the azerite. A choice could have be given for Horde players to side with Sylvanas' plan or to start voicing their concerns to Saurfang/Baine about such an aggresive tactic following the Horde/Alliance working together to end the Legion. Seeing things excalating that quickly with the Burning of Teldrassil (as a surprise) would feel really different for the players who made both choices (the one siding with Sylvanas being appalled or going full on loyalist). Following Teldrassil, another choice could be given for players to express what they think about these events and what to do next. And so on... These choices are not as powerful when players already know the narrative about to unfold. The choice could still be meaningful when playing, but players know it's not really changing how the story will go. It's obvious that this will never be a dynamic story changing according to players decisions, but the illusion could remain if through players interacting with the NPC different scenarios (or more so different points of view on the same story) could unfold. It's much more difficult if you aldready know the end.

In the end, all of this is about one thing : are players ok with not seeing the full picture and only experiencing the story through their character's eyes and actions. It's a real topic, because we can see players complaining about too much lore in the books or in other media (comics, animated shorts, short stories, etc.) and want to experience it in the game itself. I recently watched a Nobbel stream where he reacted to the new content patch and particularly about a line in one of the cinematic. In this cinematic, Blovar tells that he "knew Sylvanas would come for him/the helm". Nobbel quickly added he wanted to know "how Bolvar knew she would come". On the other hand, I personnally don't care about how Bolvar knew (for me it's akin to him saying "I had a bad feeling about this"). Players now have the expectation of everything being explained in so much details that it's impossible no to think we're missing out on so much if a quest was not available to us because of a choice we made before, sometime a long time ago. I understand why : players pay for the game, they want to play the full game. It's juste not compatible with experiencing meaningful choices and branching narrative. *shrug*

[Baneto]

Within the confines of the current ruleset. And the ruleset for computer games necessarily has limited prewritten stories which require that your character participates in certain events.

You're trying way too hard to push your opinions on other people, I suggest you step down a notch and worry about yourself more.

This is a roleplaying game at its core, and people can make up their own characters storylines just fine.

Or are you rampaging against players on RP-realms as well, telling them they're playing the game wrong?

[Kithelle]

With this branching introduced, I was honestly expecting the story won't be dumbed down to Garrosh MoP copy-paste, but this is exactly what happened.

The only way the devs could have made it meaningful would require such a massive overhaul of the game, they've set up Sylvanas as a villain for years. While both the Alliance and Horde were fighting demons in Legion she was off doing her own dealings in the background. In BFA she was obviously trying to inflate the death count, to what end we didn't learn till later.

But she was set up to be evil since Legion, earlier if you add up all the questionable stuff she had done. To have players continue to follow Sylvanas would require a new faction...a purely evil faction

[huth]

This is a roleplaying game at its core, and people can make up their own characters storylines just fine.

Or are you rampaging against players on RP-realms as well, telling them they're playing the game wrong?

Again, within the confines of the ruleset. You can't just claim you have a dragon you use to wipe the enemy army out. You need to have obtained that dragon at some point, and other factions within the world would react to such an event. The kind of freedom you try to promote here is closer to young kids just making up new powers to declare themselves winner.

It's a role-playing game, which means there are rules and limitations, especially when there's more than one player involved.

Yes.

Literally this.

Everyone has begged to be able to choose the bad guy side, knowing the bad guy WILL lose, always.

That's the choice they allowed this time. It was never a secret that Sylvanas would betray us.

/thread

Which makes it all the more ridiculous that they're now complaining about precisely that and demand there be a path where she didn't.

[Talrath]

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.

I disagree, blizzard already has a difficult time writing about 2 factions. How would a third faction improve their writing? Blizzard will keep the 2 factions and so to please both parties my idea would still give both players some fulfillment of their choices. Better something than nothing I say.

[Baneto]

snip

Its okay if you dont get it.

[Karlz0rz]

What was the point of voting for Trump, when Biden still won?

[lagiacrux]

didnt they say beforehand that this was kind of an experiment, and that there wouldnt be any lasting consequences for your choice?

seems like they delivered exactly what they promised.

[Soon-TM]

What was the point of voting for Trump, when Biden still won?

Considering that Joey's policies are likely to be very similar to The Donald's, you actually have a point.

[MrLachyG]

I always thought it was just a temporary in game choice which provided some flavour for Horde characters