Will you trust the word of Blizz execs in future lore discussions?

[Goldielocks]

Correct. Garrosh had different goals, actions and motivations. They only seem similar when you take a very shallow look at them.

90% of people don't care about the lore. Only the surface level view matters and on that level, the two characters seem exactly the same. If 8.3 has a Stormwind raid, it will in fact be 5.4 v2. A egomaniac who is using the power of an Old God and the Horde/Alliance have to defeat them.

In the eyes of the vast majority of people, Blizzard has failed to offer something new.

[Luxeley]

Lore - yes. Anything else, especially game play decisions - absolutely not.

[TheFirstOnes]

No.

"Sylvanas isn't Garrosh 2.0. She's got a motive to all this. Trust me. She's not all evil"

*Turns out to be GUL'DAN 2.0, AND IS COMPLETELY FUCKING EVIL!*

"There are no Old Gods this expansion"

*N'ZOTH IS THE FINAL BOSS!*

[Carolus Rex]

No.

"Sylvanas isn't Garrosh 2.0. She's got a motive to all this. Trust me. She's not all evil"

*Turns out to be GUL'DAN 2.0, AND IS COMPLETELY FUCKING EVIL!*

"There are no Old Gods this expansion"

*N'ZOTH IS THE FINAL BOSS!*

She wasn't Garrosh 2.0

Garrosh only wanted to do what he thought was best for the Horde.

Sylvanas despises the Horde.

Garrosh fought to the death for what he believed in.

Sylvanas fled like a coward.

[october breeze]

I don't trust the whole wow team anymore, not because of the lies, but mostly because I have come to certain conclusion that modern team is extremely incompetent and don't care much either.
They are in fact HIRED employees to punch the card in the morning and get back home with the 4:30 pm bus. Their work, lacks passion, and you can see it in every single aspect of the game... well except for the art team, which I believe are mostly interns!

[huth]

"There are no Old Gods this expansion"

Said who, exactly?

[TheFirstOnes]

Said who, exactly?

Ion directly said that...

[huth]

Ion directly said that...

Do you have a link? Because i don't remember that part.

[Saltysquidoon]

I think the thrust of my point was lost under my facetious sarcasm.

If I write a book called maclua about a female werewolf that invites an accountant to her creepy mansion, spooks him and then takes a ship back to greenland to turn it into an island of werewolves. Then people ask me if I've just done a spin on Dracula (because I obviously blatantly have) and I say 'no its totally different just wait till the end trust me guys'.

The issue isn't I've redone dracula (but not technically because despite the overarching story being identical there a mild factual differences which according to the internet makes them technically different), whether it is a good or bad retelling will depend on the independent merit. The issue is I have said something (knowingly or unknowingly) that to a theoretical uninterested reasonable observer would appear to be false.


The most egregious issue for me was having the denouement of the story be a coalition force of the horde and alliance sieging orgrimmar is a kick in the balls no matter how you look at it. I don't know exactly how long CGI FMV takes to go from storyboard to rendered but I doubt you can do it in a short amount of time so either;
1. They already had this cinematic in production when 'not garrosh 2.0' was stated which would make them lairs because they did a lie by lying after the community noted where the story was obviously going (because PR damage control > integrity apparently), or 2. After stating that it wouldn't be 'garrosh 2.0' they decided to commission a cutscene of SoO 2.0 because they have no self-awareness or don't care.

[Revamp Man]

Watch the loyalist cinematic before you make half baked threads like this. While she does say the horde and everyone was "Nothing" in the grand scheme of things, she is kinda right. We're talking about cosmic eldrich horrors that are older than the universe and maybe time itself. In a very lovecraftian way, everyone on azeroth is nothing.


Edit: I was extremely against the idea that sylvanas was morally grey from day one but the new cinematic literally shows that she knows something and is trying to prepare everyone. She probably can't tell anyone because, you literally get infected by N'zoth and he can see what you see, she can't really trust anyone but herself with whatever information she has.

And she struck a deal with queeny

N'zoth got freed and queeny looked scared

I think he knows what sylvanas is up to and we are in for one hell of a twist

[cparle87]

She wasn't Garrosh 2.0

Garrosh only wanted to do what he thought was best for the Horde.

Sylvanas despises the Horde.

Garrosh fought to the death for what he believed in.

Sylvanas fled like a coward.

Garrosh only wanted to do what he was thought was best for the orcs. Right from the start he showed he couldn't care less about the other races which made up the Horde.

- - - Updated - - -

The problem comes from the way that story is told.

If we're meant to be taking her perspective in a sympathetic way, then we need to be given some reason to sympathize with her. Instead, what we get is a clearly Saurfang-centric picture of Sylvanas going above and beyond in denying the Horde's honor and being unfit to lead its people and representing what they stand for. We could get a clear explanation for all her actions with a big revelation plot twists that show her doing good all this time - And that's just a repeat of Illidan's poor story telling throughout TBC.

If she's not gonna be Garrosh 2.0, we certainly don't need her being Illidan 2.0. We want her to be Sylvanas, and we want her character to say and do things that fit her character. Whatever she's become in the story, it's not being told straight to us, and that's the problem with having any empathy for her at all.

If she's paranoid about N'zoth, then it still doesn't explain her actions with destroying hope and burning Teldrassil. It doesn't explain why she's decided to ally with Azshara. It doesn't explain why she ressurected Derek Proudmoore.

I was a Saurfang follower in the questline, but as far as lore went I wanted to believe that Sylvanas was being genuine about her motives as she describes them in the books. That she didn't believe a lasting peace was possible and if she accepted a temporary peace it would come back to destroy the Hoede in the future. I believed that she intended to hold Teldrassil for ransom and that the burning was a poorly thought out snap decision upon finding Malfurion had survived.

I was even on her side regarding Saurfang's objections during the Battle for Undercity. I felt that Saurfang didn't have the right to say the Horde didn't have the right to use every weapon it had to defend itself. Didn't have the right to say "it's better for you soldiers to die following the code of honor that I espouse than to live by following Sylvanas'. I thought she was genuine when she said the Horde was worth saving. I saw it was a pragmatist vs idealist argument.

I don't think she's paranoid about N'Zoth, so to speak. She thinks she can use him, like she believes she used Azshara, to advance her plot. As for Derek, do you think there was more to it than her stated intent: use him to assassinate Alliance leaders, particularly Jaina?

[UnluckyAmateur]

The problem comes from the way that story is told.

If we're meant to be taking her perspective in a sympathetic way, then we need to be given some reason to sympathize with her. Instead, what we get is a clearly Saurfang-centric picture of Sylvanas going above and beyond in denying the Horde's honor and being unfit to lead its people and representing what they stand for. We could get a clear explanation for all her actions with a big revelation plot twists that show her doing good all this time - And that's just a repeat of Illidan's poor story telling throughout TBC.

If she's not gonna be Garrosh 2.0, we certainly don't need her being Illidan 2.0. We want her to be Sylvanas, and we want her character to say and do things that fit her character. Whatever she's become in the story, it's not being told straight to us, and that's the problem with having any empathy for her at all.

If she's paranoid about N'zoth, then it still doesn't explain her actions with destroying hope and burning Teldrassil. It doesn't explain why she's decided to ally with Azshara. It doesn't explain why she resurrected Derek Proudmoore.

I think a logical problem with it though is that like I said before, you can't just go blabbing about your plans with everyone. You also have to factor in Sylvanas/illidan's personality which is very "We do this my way, no exceptions" and it comes across as extremely heavy-handed which can be a good or bad thing if you consider making the act convincing. Illidan's story was absolutely flip floppy but this current sylvanas storyline follows the same trend but it has the advantage of being planned out since Legion.

As for the Azshara bit, she clearly opposes N'zoth more than anyone but like previously mentioned, she didn't want to lose everything so she took the deal for the moment. She literally has an in with N'zoth and they both want his ugly ass off Azeroth.

The Tree while it still comes across as her throwing a tantrum because an elf talks shit. Bring up the novel all you want, you shouldn't have to read outside material to make up for poor story telling in game. Imagine in Age of Ultron instead of tony making it clear that he made ultron to protect humanity, he just makes it on a dime and its only explained later in a spin off comic. That's shitty storytelling but i'm getting off track though.

And derek she ressurected purely to have a mole in the alliance, that's pretty obvious considering she says it herself (iirc).

[Carolus Rex]

Garrosh only wanted to do what he was thought was best for the orcs. Right from the start he showed he couldn't care less about the other races which made up the Horde.

Nonsense, he valued those who showed strength, especially the Tauren. He started to despise the Forsaken because he thought of them as weak and frail, and later killed the trolls because of what Vol'jin did, but if you were useful to the cause of the Horde, he had a place in it for you, no matter what race you were. He had Aethas work for him, and he even had goblins in Siege of Orgrimmar and took some of them with him to Draenor.

[cparle87]

Nonsense, he valued those who showed strength, especially the Tauren. He started to despise the Forsaken because he thought of them as weak and frail, and later killed the trolls because of what Vol'jin did, but if you were useful to the cause of the Horde, he had a place in it for you, no matter what race you were. He had Aethas work for him, and he even had goblins in Siege of Orgrimmar and took some of them with him to Draenor.

Seeing the value in an asset is not the same as caring about their wellbeing. Garrosh only cared about the other races so long as they could contribute something to his chosen people, the orcs. Take your particular statement, the tauren. During the pandaren intro, pay attention to his words. "You'll find no better companion in battle than an orc." Followed by "The tauren have made themselves useful, look this one is a shaman." The trolls and goblins being relegated to slums and banned from the core part of the city. Sending blood elves into hostile territory without warning them. Mocking a blood knight about whether she was even strong enough to lift her sword, and backhanding her when she responded to you. Blowing up an inn filled with Horde citizens for daring to criticize you.

[Kokolums]

She wasn't Garrosh 2.0

Garrosh only wanted to do what he thought was best for the Horde.

Sylvanas despises the Horde.

Garrosh fought to the death for what he believed in.

Sylvanas fled like a coward.

i said this in july

Its really a question of it being a story that is TOO CLOSE to being Garrosh 2.0. Which is already is. She turns evil by burning teldrassil, now we've got an honorbound horde ready to dethrone her. We're already too close, regardless of outcome, for this NOT to be a boring rehash. Which is why it sucks. It sucks because the bulk of the speculation we can make about this outcome just reminds us of Garrosh, and makes us cover ground we already covered with Garrosh, and no-one wants to cover that ground again because its just boring. Its boring!

[anon5123]

If you cared about the lore after WOTLK, you were setting yourself up for disappointment.

[Carolus Rex]

i said this in july

She turns evil by burning teldrassil

No, she already was before.

[tromage2]

These lore guys are out of idea's.
the lore department is one of the weakest points of the current WoW dev team.

They rly need to look for replacements or ppl to help them because to just do another MoP V2 almost step by step is killing when it comes to storytelling.

[Katchii]

I'm not sure what you mean by "trust" in this context.

Am I going to believe every word that comes out of their mouth and take everything they say literally? No, probably not, but not because I don't trust them but because they're human and make mistakes.

I will however trust that they believe what they're saying and aren't deliberately lying to us.

When it comes to the story (and only the story, no other aspect of the game), I don't mind being mislead a little bit to preserve a plot twist or the story as a whole. Nothing really worse when it comes to a story is knowing exactly what's going to happen, when and how. Sometimes knowing the end result is fine if you don't know all the twists and turns it took to get there.

[Soon-TM]

No, she already was before.

Which made the Garrosh 2.0 outcome all the more predictable. At least Garrosh could be granted the benefit of the doubt in the beginning.