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  1. #241
    Quote Originally Posted by Malix Farwin View Post
    Regardless of how you feel about the character, She was Assassinated. Her story had more depth and was much more than just bad guy doing bad things for generic reasons.
    What depth? Her story has been straightforward since forever:

    Classic-WotLK: She was killed by Arthas, so she wants revenge on him and will stop at nothing to achieve her goal, even if she has to betray humans, conduct experiment on the living, or siding with greenskins (and she certainly has no love for those savage races, given her interactions with the ogre band in WC3).

    Cataclysm-Legion: She has seen what Hell awaits her for her crimes, so she wants to do anything to avoid her own death. She seeks to ensure Forsaken dominance on Azeroth so that she never runs out of meatshield against Hell, for she needs her (and I quote) "arrows in the quiver". She's even willing to enslave Eyir to give herself and her meatshield an endless supply of val'kyrs, aka immortality. Even in MoP, for the 10 minutes she appeared, she was a complete asshole; threatening Theron with reanimating his fallen soldiers and refusing to ever serve a "troll warchief".

    Her story and motivations have always been straightforward. The ONLY thing hinting at something more was that one line from Legion website about her people being more important than her soul, which at this point has been answered. And with literally no surprise to anyone who read Edge of Night, her soul is more important to her than her meatshield.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jastall View Post
    I think the major difference is that most of Illidan's crimes were committed against otherwise fairly disposable NPCs over the course of one expansion, and for a number of people his heavy-handed retcons in Legion were bringing the character back to what he should have been.

    Sylvanas has been committing acts that are at best very morally dubious, at worst unquestionably evil since vanilla, and has only ramped up in both spotlight and heinous actions since Cataclysm, including of course fucking over the Alliance more than anyone in history save Arthas. Pretty much every player in said Alliance hates her fucking guts, and the Horde seemed split 50/50 at best most of the time. I think the genie's out of the bottle on this one. She's done just too many things to too many playable races/characters for a redemption to go over well. I already saw a lot of grumbling after the Shadowlands cinematic, and that was just her being a plot device who effortlessly trashes the Lich King while spouting her edgy one-liners. If they truly go full Kerrigan on us, kingdoms will burn indeed.
    They prob won't go Kerrigan route with her. They set up Kerrigan's redemption story way early in SC2's story and actually made her likeable once she was freed from her mind control.
    Last edited by Varodoc; 2020-03-31 at 08:28 PM.
    Expansion Storylines ranking:

    Legion > Cataclysm > MoP > BfA up to 8.2.5 > Wrath > TBC > WoD > Dragonflight > BfA 8.3 > Shadowlands

  2. #242
    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post

    And considering I already believe that World of Warcraft's story has no narrative integrity, even between its latest expansions (I'm already lenient when it comes to long term continuity), I wouldn't really mind if they came up with a reason in Shadowlands to redeem Sylvanas and justify her actions. It would be bullshit, of course... just like Illidan's transformation was bullshit. But then again, her current development was bullshit as well, and clearly tonally dissonant for Horde players, and I'm not going to feel guilty if I have my way through bullshit narrative as long as Sylvanas haters don't. Given the subject matter of the expansion, it might even be plausible bullshit.
    I think the major difference is that most of Illidan's crimes were committed against otherwise fairly disposable NPCs over the course of one expansion, and for a number of people his heavy-handed retcons in Legion were bringing the character back to what he should have been.

    Sylvanas has been committing acts that are at best very morally dubious, at worst unquestionably evil since vanilla, and has only ramped up in both spotlight and heinous actions since Cataclysm, including of course fucking over the Alliance more than anyone in history save Arthas. Pretty much every player in said Alliance hates her fucking guts, and the Horde seemed split 50/50 at best most of the time. I think the genie's out of the bottle on this one. She's done just too many things to too many playable races/characters for a redemption to go over well. I already saw a lot of grumbling after the Shadowlands cinematic, and that was just her being a plot device who effortlessly trashes the Lich King while spouting her edgy one-liners. If they truly go full Kerrigan on us, kingdoms will burn indeed.

  3. #243
    Merely a Setback FelPlague's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malix Farwin View Post
    Regardless of how you feel about the character, She was Assassinated. Her story had more depth and was much more than just bad guy doing bad things for generic reasons.

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    Rofl... okay.
    except she was, she literally was experimenting on prisoners men, women, children, soldier, and civilian, to try and make a stronger and stronger plague.
    Quote Originally Posted by Varodoc View Post
    My ideas are objectively good

  4. #244
    Merely a Setback Trassk's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malix Farwin View Post
    When did that take place? Exactly.
    The denial is strong with this one.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by FelPlague View Post
    except she was, she literally was experimenting on prisoners men, women, children, soldier, and civilian, to try and make a stronger and stronger plague.
    Your not gonna win trying to make this one realize the truth. Your have better luck curing Corona with lemon and lime juice
    #boycottchina

  5. #245
    Quote Originally Posted by Thage View Post
    Sylvanas isn't remotely on Orgrim's level. Orgrim tried to pull the Horde back from 'stab kill bleed wahey,' and most of his campaign in the northern Eastern Kingdoms was so the Horde would have enough land for those left behind on Draenor to settle and start anew. Orgrim began actively exiling the darkest elements of the Horde after killing the Shadow Council and only kept Gul'dan around because he absolutely, one-hundred-percent needed Gul'dan's loyalists in the short term (and made no secret to anyone, Gul'dan included, that he intended to cave Gul'dan's head in the second he caught a whiff of duplicity off the warlock). When Gul'dan split his forces off, Orgrim left him to die and kept pushing forward for a better future for the Horde. And even then, when the Alliance and Horde met in battle, Orgrim strived to keep the Horde conducting itself as proper warriors rather than the vicious brutes Gul'dan and Blackhand made them into (in order to better demonstrate this shift, novels and later portrayals retconned Orgrim's duel with Lothar into a fair fight rather than one where Lothar got blindsided).

    As soon as Sylvanas was handed the reins to the Horde, she immediately began taking steps to further her omnicidal agenda, cutting deals with death entities like Helya and seeking to enslave Eyir. After the defeat of the Burning Legion, Sylvanas threw the Horde right into another war, not to secure the Horde's future (despite that being the rhetoric she used outside her innermost circle) against the 'threat of the Alliance' (despite Anduin being a known peacemonger and the rest of the Alliance at the time being perfectly willing to take their cues from him) but because she needed a meat grinder to kill as many people as possible. She used a minor conflict in the far-flung reaches of Silithus as justification to attack Teldrassil, culminating in burning the night elves' primary civilian population center, again not for the rhetoric she used in public, but because every person killed on her order caused her to grow in power. The entirety of the Fourth War/Blood War, as overseen by Sylvanas, was a meat grinder for no other purpose than to be a meat grinder, including dragging unaffiliated third parties into the meat grinder to make it as bloody as possible.

    Orgrim engaged in a bloody war of expansion because he had no other feasible choice if he wanted to secure a future for the Horde beyond being Gul'dan's murderpuppets. Sylvanas engaged in a bloody war designed to kill as many people as feasibly possible because it secured more power for her specifically at the expense of both factions and several previously-unaffiliated third parties. Nobody came out better for having joined their respective factions except the vulpera and mechagnomes, who joined up after the meat grinder was finished and everyone was picking up the pieces.
    Orgrim did way more atrocities than sylvanas. Orgrim has killed way more people than Sylvanas.
    Everything ugly sylvanas may have done. Orgrim did ten time worse.
    The whole plot of the Sylvanas war was to secure the horde and break the alliance because they could attack again. A stormhein bis could happen any.time. she knew it, saurgang knew it.

    Same thing as Orgrim after destroying stormwind to the ground. He looked Howard north and thought he should massacre everybliving souls.
    Orgrim was a mass murderer, slayer of countless civilians, warmonger, and used the most vile powers he could have his hands on.

  6. #246
    Quote Originally Posted by keymil View Post
    Very interesting reply. What I think is the biggest issue in all of this is that the lore entries Blizzard produces (cinematics, books, important game events) often times feel like "Jebaited" moment when looking back at them after even one expansion. It's almost as if Blizzard intentionally made misleading stuff in order to achieve their "plot twists".

    But even with that in mind, Sylvanas story made at least a little bit of sense, up until Shadowlands. Shadowlands completely break her character. Sylvanas attitude in Legion, her inner thoughts in the book - nothing of it implies even a little bit what is her plan. And while maybe they didn't plan for all of it to go this way when they released these entries in the past, it's definitely a bad writing deciding to throw all of it into a trashcan, write in a new thread out of nowhere and say "plot twist!" or "it was the plan all along, noone knew!". Yeah, like not even Sylvanas knew apparently? Up until Shadowlands that is.
    Sylvanas had several motivation changes, some big and some minor, and they were almost always driven by some meta requirements of the game rather than character development, which technically means they were all derailments.

    Warcraft III Sylvanas was cool. She was edgy and ruthless, but she still remained sympathetic due to her tragic past, desire for freedom and "elven heart", and she clawed her way to the top with cunning and determination. Hers were probably my favorite missions in TFT.

    In Wrath, they made her incompetent in order to kick start the Horde vs Alliance conflict, then they deprived her of a resolution with Arthas because they wanted the focus to be on Tirion Fording and Bolvar for some reason. Then they made her suicidal (her TFT statement that "we will forge our own path in this world" did not suggest that she would be) as a plot device required to justify her 180 shift on raising Undead.

    This whole recruiting the Val'kyr to raise new Forsaken wasn't a natural development for Sylvanas, but Blizzard wanted to update the starting zone to match the Cataclysm time line and they needed a reason for new Forsaken characters to be "freshly created". Sure, the logical choice would have been to have Sylvanas steal more ghouls from Bolvar's remaining "restless Scourge", but that would have meant her focus should have been towards Northrend, or the Plaguelands at best. Since the Scourge was "done content" and they wanted to leave Northrend behind, this possibility wasn't even addressed.

    What really sealed the deal was the new Alliance race, the Worgen. Their in-lore starting zone was right next to Silverpine Forest, but they couldn't remain there - first of all because having two opposite faction zones so close to each other invited trouble, and second of all because they didn't want to make fully fledged capitals for the Worgen and Goblins anyway - so Blizzard, out of a gameplay and design imperative, had the Forsaken invade Gilneas and push them out of the zone. The Horde/Forsaken also had to initiate the conflict, because having it the other way around would have been weird to segue into the Worgen joining the Alliance as both isolationists and aggressors.

    So really, all the "evils" Sylvanas does there are not for the sake of her character development, but out of an imperative to create a starting zone for an Alliance race. From a meta perspective, she is literally yet another interesting Horde character sacrificed on the altar of villainy to provide a boss of the Alliance. Meanwhile, Genn Greymane, whose past would have allowed him to be a legitimately grey character, was white washed every step of the way... so no, I never believed the Alliance players deserved any sort of revenge for Gilneas.

    Admittedly, this new "the Forsaken must go on" Sylvanas could have been interesting, but they changed her yet again into a globalist warmonger for BFA, and the ultimate mistress of Death for Shadowlands, each time to kickstart the expansion, and not because it made sense or because it would have been cool to see her pursuing that (the burning of Teldrassil, I believe, left everyone unhappy).

    I think at this point we should appropriate a programming term and use it for Blizzard's writing: "spaghetti narrative".

    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    If Vereesa's preferred methods is to outright kill the Sunreavers, I don't see anything strange or surprising with her "questioning Jaina's methods" as I'm sure she wouldn't agree with the idea of incarcerating them, which were Jaina's "method".
    She questioned it because that quest is about killing civilian shopkeepers who merely "sided" with the Sunreavers. Still wanting to sell stuff to the people you know from a certain group is a few times removed from the guilty people (leaders?) of that group, so it hardly warrants being executed in their own shops. But it's the Alliance who did it, so I'm sure it's fine. In fact, the blood elves already forgave Jaina and those merchants were probably secretly evil anyway.

  7. #247
    Quote Originally Posted by Trassk View Post
    Your not gonna win trying to make this one realize the truth. Your have better luck curing Corona with lemon and lime juice
    LFMAO can I make my signature with his pls xd

  8. #248
    The Lightbringer Minikin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malix Farwin View Post
    Regardless of how you feel about the character, She was Assassinated. Her story had more depth and was much more than just bad guy doing bad things for generic reasons.

    - - - Updated - - -



    Rofl... okay. The writers called her Morally Grey, you say she never has been but i guess your opinion matters more because i guess reasons.
    the writers changed their mind.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trassk View Post
    The denial is strong with this one.

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    Your not gonna win trying to make this one realize the truth. Your have better luck curing Corona with lemon and lime juice
    LOL thanks for the laugh
    Blood Elves were based on a STRONG request from a poll of Asian players where many remarked on the Horde side that they and their girlfriends wanted a non-creepy femme race to play (Source)

  9. #249
    Quote Originally Posted by Malix Farwin View Post
    Regardless of how you feel about the character, She was Assassinated. Her story had more depth and was much more than just bad guy doing bad things for generic reasons.

    - - - Updated - - -



    Rofl... okay. The writers called her Morally Grey, you say she never has been but i guess your opinion matters more because i guess reasons.
    The writers never called her morally grey. They said the Horde was morally grey. Nothing else.

    The "Sylvanas morally grey" meme originates from Horde fanboys misinterpreting that line, but they never, in fact, said she herself was morally grey.

    There's a lot of harsh things that happen in war in general, when groups are fighting for survival. At the end of the day, they resort to desperate measures when it comes to the choice between that and extinction.

    Both sides should be worried about this. Azeroth is a world of grey, it's never been a world of black or white.
    Last edited by Varodoc; 2020-03-31 at 09:07 PM.
    Expansion Storylines ranking:

    Legion > Cataclysm > MoP > BfA up to 8.2.5 > Wrath > TBC > WoD > Dragonflight > BfA 8.3 > Shadowlands

  10. #250
    Quote Originally Posted by Varodoc View Post
    The writers never called her morally grey. They said the Horde was morally grey. Nothing else.

    The "Sylvanas morally grey" meme originates from Horde fanboys misinterpreting that line, but they never, in fact, said she herself was morally grey.
    Burning of Teldrassil makes her morally grey xd
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerovar View Post
    They had no prior build-up and instead tried to leech off of already established things people are familiar with. The Scourge? Maldraxxus did that. The Lich King? The Jailer did that. Frostmourne? The Runecarver made that. Sargeras corruption by demons and everything resulting from that? Also the Jailer's plan.

  11. #251
    Merely a Setback FelPlague's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Varodoc View Post
    The writers never called her morally grey. They said the Horde was morally grey.
    that aint even true, the exact quote is. "Azeroth is a land of morally grey choices."
    in response to a question about sylvanas and the horde, so it is easy for people to make the connection, but he was pointing out all sides make good and bad choices, and not all of these choices are as simple as "gopod or bad"

    A great example is the purging of stratholme.
    morally grey.
    i call it a good choice, but MANY call it a bad one, and it is grey for that and many reasons.
    illidan also made very many morally grey choices.
    hell EVEN KILJADEN, as he points out and we get from legion questing, he felt there was NO WAY his people could stand against sargeras, so he took the deal, knowing in his heart it was the only way to keep his people alive, as to go against a titan would be his races utter death. although his heart was wrong.
    Last edited by FelPlague; 2020-03-31 at 09:07 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Varodoc View Post
    My ideas are objectively good

  12. #252
    Quote Originally Posted by FelPlague View Post
    that aint even true, the exact quote is. "Azeroth is a land of morally grey choices."
    in response to a question about sylvanas and the horde, so it is easy for people to make the connection, but he was pointing out all sides make good and bad choices, and not all of these choices are as simple as "gopod or bad"

    A great example is the purging of stratholme.
    morally grey.
    i call it a good choice, but MANY call it a bad one, and it is grey for that and many reasons.
    Yes I just found that interview, they didnt even say the Horde was morally grey itself.

    Quote Originally Posted by DemonHunter18 View Post
    Burning of Teldrassil makes her morally grey xd
    Probably all the ashes clumping up on her skin. It be like that sometimes.
    Last edited by Varodoc; 2020-03-31 at 09:10 PM.
    Expansion Storylines ranking:

    Legion > Cataclysm > MoP > BfA up to 8.2.5 > Wrath > TBC > WoD > Dragonflight > BfA 8.3 > Shadowlands

  13. #253
    Quote Originally Posted by Jastall View Post
    I think the major difference is that most of Illidan's crimes were committed against otherwise fairly disposable NPCs over the course of one expansion, and for a number of people his heavy-handed retcons in Legion were bringing the character back to what he should have been.

    Sylvanas has been committing acts that are at best very morally dubious, at worst unquestionably evil since vanilla, and has only ramped up in both spotlight and heinous actions since Cataclysm, including of course fucking over the Alliance more than anyone in history save Arthas. Pretty much every player in said Alliance hates her fucking guts, and the Horde seemed split 50/50 at best most of the time. I think the genie's out of the bottle on this one. She's done just too many things to too many playable races/characters for a redemption to go over well. I already saw a lot of grumbling after the Shadowlands cinematic, and that was just her being a plot device who effortlessly trashes the Lich King while spouting her edgy one-liners. If they truly go full Kerrigan on us, kingdoms will burn indeed.
    I explained what I think of her "heinous acts against the Alliance" in a previous comment.

    As a Horde player, I hate it when our characters get hit with the villain bat to provide bosses for the Alliance. Just because you feel victimized by a horde hero doesn't mean that they should become a villain to their own side and that I should help you kill them. When the bloody hell are we going to feel justified in hating an Alliance character? Even Genn, who was an absolute douchebag who left the Alliance because they didn't want to genocide the orcs and hid behind his wall for the entire Scourge and Legion invasions was now retconned into a kind, wise, loyal and tolerant old man.

    If you look at things from a meta-narrative perspective, you will realize that your need for satisfaction is a lot less pressing than our need to not get our first tier, interesting characters fucked over and killed time and time again. We're kind of running short on them.

  14. #254
    Quote Originally Posted by Varodoc View Post
    Probably all the ashes clumping up on her skin. It be like that sometimes.
    She is like Kratos xd
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerovar View Post
    They had no prior build-up and instead tried to leech off of already established things people are familiar with. The Scourge? Maldraxxus did that. The Lich King? The Jailer did that. Frostmourne? The Runecarver made that. Sargeras corruption by demons and everything resulting from that? Also the Jailer's plan.

  15. #255
    Quote Originally Posted by Nekrotix View Post
    Sylvanas isn't a villain. She's not, she REALLY isn't, despite Blizzard making you think she is. She isn't.

    Let's talk about some facts here, right? Ever since... Let's say Battle for Azeroth, they've been trying hard to get you to believe Sylvanas doesn't have a good bone in her frail, withered body. Yet even if she doesn't, it's not her fault. At all. In the slightest.
    She does what she does because she refuses to die. She can't, she doesn't WANT to die. Because she knows if she does, she'll be tortured for all eternity. If you knew what awaited you after death was pain and misery, would you do any different?

    Cataclysm to Legion Sylvanas displayed this. It showed Sylvanas as a leader desperate to protect her people, and especially herself. She. Cannot. Die. And who's fault is it, that she is forced to live eternally? Arthas Menethil, the guy who brought her back from the dead and forced her to assist him in the assault on Quel'thalas. By all accounts, Sylvanas is a victim, and while you can argue her methods up until BFA have been dubious, morally-unsound, and likely dangerous to other races, they all followed the similar mantra of survival.

    Then BFA came around and Sylvanas decided to systematically force every goddamn race on Azeroth to want her dead! First she burns Teldrassil to the ground for absolutely no reason, desecrated her people's only home, raised the corpse of Jaina's brother and force them to ASSASSINATE her, and then killed a very, VERY reputable and beloved icon of the Horde because he had the audacity to question her leadership. And now she's literally working with some random fuckass nobody's ever heard of to justify a huge power spike so she could waltz up to Icecrown, break into the afterlife and rule as Queen of the Assholes.

    This is actual textbook character assassination. They are treating Sylvanas with no depth, no nuance, no grace or tact and just saying "Well she's evil now so go and fight her in a raid now lolbai"

    Is anyone else really pissed about this??
    Please tell me how someone is a victim when they did something out of pride that got them killed? Unless you do something simply because you want it you do the thing transactionally. If there was nothing in it for Sylvanas she would have let those two elves die and escaped alive because that was overall better for the war effort and would, in the long run, have saved a lot more people. She reacted that strongly because she wanted something from them and when they died she was unable to get it and then she died herself.

    I know that people like to think they're good and whatnot and if you've ever done something with a hind thought of even getting the reward of someone saying thanks to you then you're no longer a person who does something good. You do something bad and people who act transactionally always react strongly when they're unable to get that transaction.

    A person who tried to save them for a good reason would never have powerslides to look good and if those they tried to save died they would go "c'est la vie."

    Sylvanas was never good and her 180 when she found out that eternal torment awaited her when she died caused her to nope out of that instantly instead of accepting her fate, like a person with good intentions do. She was no longer able to get the reward she thought she was owed so instead she sought it somewhere else. Her entire motivation was transactional, for her own good instead of for the good of others.

    Sylvanas has always been a third rate villain and her keikaku dori are so incompetent that the only reason they stand any chance of working is that everyone else is worse. Her contingency at UC would only come into effect if her main plan failed. Her main plan would only fail if someone was able to bypass it thus rendering her contingency little less than scorched earth and that's no contingency that's a denial of resources which would be a good strategy if you were looking to do a prolonged fight.

    And the Wrathgate was peak incompetence "Let's attack Arthas the moment he comes out of ICC and can easily retreat to it to escape our ambush." The soldiers there were dead anyway, let him walk out and get drawn out by the fresh bodies and THEN ambush him so that if he tries to retreat he has to walk through a field of death.

    Undercity itself was a laughable fiasco and a general show of Sylvanas' trademark incompetence. Fit Varimathras with a choker that prevents telepathy, tell him so, place a secret extra ward that monitors his use of telepathy for when he invariably tries to work around the choker because Dreadlords are untrustable. Find out secretly that he's planning a rebellion, allow the rebellion to happen to score some brownie points and get rid of Varimathras and Putris. After the rebellion, you make sure that the person you confided in dies because of course, you did since someone has to move all the wheels needed for such a plan. Then send the player to investigate the death this is to give yourself some legitimacy and to make sure that someone else says they found nothing leaving your hands clean.

    The only ones that have assassinated Sylvanas's character are the people who've since WC3 have seen her as brilliant when she never was. All that she ever showed in-game was vanity, stupidity, and incompetence. The only reason she's failed upwards like this is that she has plot armour.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I explained what I think of her "heinous acts against the Alliance" in a previous comment.

    As a Horde player, I hate it when our characters get hit with the villain bat to provide bosses for the Alliance. Just because you feel victimized by a horde hero doesn't mean that they should become a villain to their own side and that I should help you kill them. When the bloody hell are we going to feel justified in hating an Alliance character? Even Genn, who was an absolute douchebag who left the Alliance because they didn't want to genocide the orcs and hid behind his wall for the entire Scourge and Legion invasions was now retconned into a kind, wise, loyal and tolerant old man.

    If you look at things from a meta-narrative perspective, you will realize that your need for satisfaction is a lot less pressing than our need to not get our first tier, interesting characters fucked over and killed time and time again. We're kind of running short on them.
    Horde society has always been an autocrat's wet dream. Total obedience to the Warchief and the Warchief can choose their own successor without any input from anyone else? Anyone with autocratic and/or nationalistic ambitions would sign up for that.

    Thrall's Horde was deeply flawed from the inception. The concept of everyone being equal is admirable. The reality of having a leader that's chosen unilaterally by the previous leader is the first sign that there's no equality within the Horde as the leader is more equal than anyone else to paraphrase Animal Farm.

    This is the reason that attempts to paint the Horde as morally grey have always failed because of the Horde as an institution being nationalistic and jingoistic with a revised past. All the hallmarks of deep autocracy. In RL world parallels the Horde is the US South. Unfairly maligned and in this case put into prison camps for no reason, despite them invading Azeroth and murdering their way through it. Sure they were under the influence, they still did it and needs to take responsibility for it and they never have. The alternative to the prison camps was genociding them off the face of the planet and as the victors that had suffered a lot the Alliance showed an incredibly amount of mercy by letting them live.

    In the same vein, the US south fought a war of Northern aggression when they were unfairly attacked. What ample warning? What specific words from the leaders of the Confederacy that they fought for the rights to own other people, shhh!!!

    And just like the US South the Horde never faced their past and instead invented a revised version where they were just victims. Victims if the Demon's Blood, victims of Ghul'dan, victims of the prison camps. The Orcs willingly took that blood when they were promised that blood would give them power unimaginable, and it did fulfill that wish, the granting of the wish just came with the Monkey Paw attachment of them no longer having free will. The Old Horde are still responsible for the things they did and a large portion of the new Horde is made up of elements of the old and they essentially pulled a karma Houdini.

    If anything, the council that players seem to loathe so much is the first step towards the Horde being the beacon of equality that they see the Horde as being. Talk about irony.
    Last edited by Quaade; 2020-03-31 at 09:55 PM.

  16. #256
    Old God Soon-TM's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    We're kind of running short on them.
    Running short? The only OG characters we hordies have left are Baine, Thrall, and maybe Bob if we're feeling generous. And the former can barely be considered a Horde character by now.
    Quote Originally Posted by trimble View Post
    WoD was the expansion that was targeted at non raiders.

  17. #257
    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    I explained what I think of her "heinous acts against the Alliance" in a previous comment.

    As a Horde player, I hate it when our characters get hit with the villain bat to provide bosses for the Alliance. Just because you feel victimized by a horde hero doesn't mean that they should become a villain to their own side and that I should help you kill them. When the bloody hell are we going to feel justified in hating an Alliance character? Even Genn, who was an absolute douchebag who left the Alliance because they didn't want to genocide the orcs and hid behind his wall for the entire Scourge and Legion invasions was now retconned into a kind, wise, loyal and tolerant old man.

    If you look at things from a meta-narrative perspective, you will realize that your need for satisfaction is a lot less pressing than our need to not get our first tier, interesting characters fucked over and killed time and time again. We're kind of running short on them.
    I would like to ask a question regarding that one. Why do think a character from a playable faction shouldn't be punished if he/she pulled an Arthas on the world. Just because he/she is a part of a faction shouldn't immediately mean that he/she should have plot armor to protect him/her. The same thing goes for the whole faction. If a faction does things you would expect from the Burning Legion for example or the Scourge I don't see why that faction shouldn't pay the price a normal NPC faction usually pays. Especially when a faction endangers Azeroth many more times than it saved it then I don't see why they shouldn't take the NPC treatment. The playerbase can always keep going without a faction. The story can also be written without one.

    Also if you hate your characters being villainized why did you people pushed for that in the first place? I always thought it was a vocal minority that wanted all this but considering Blizzard did it either the vocal minority is too loud and the majority is too much of a kitten to talk or the majority really wanted this. See what that caused now? The vocal majority of the Horde playerbase who wanted to be Scourge 2.0 fucked both factions. First the Horde by stripping it of everything and then the Alliance for making them acting completely stupid. So should I congratulate them for creating the worst MMO expansion of a game in history?

  18. #258
    Merely a Setback FelPlague's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soon-TM View Post
    Running short? The only OG characters we hordies have left are Baine, Thrall, and maybe Bob if we're feeling generous. And the former can barely be considered a Horde character by now.
    Rexxar
    chen
    Gazlowe
    rokhan
    lothremar if you consider TBC, but you sare talking OG so...
    Quote Originally Posted by Varodoc View Post
    My ideas are objectively good

  19. #259
    Quote Originally Posted by Coconut View Post
    Sylvanas had several motivation changes, some big and some minor, and they were almost always driven by some meta requirements of the game rather than character development, which technically means they were all derailments.
    It's actually sad that Sylvanas has been diminished to the same role Garrosh has - a plot device. And the worst thing is, with some effort they could come up with a story that would make much more sense, without butchering the characters (both WoD and SL).

    Sylvanas no longer has any character in her, she's just a comical villain now relegated to a role of bringing an expansion Blizz wanted so much they decided to butcher her.

  20. #260
    Quote Originally Posted by Quaade View Post
    Horde society has always been an autocrat's wet dream. Total obedience to the Warchief and the Warchief can choose their own successor without any input from anyone else? Anyone with autocratic and/or nationalistic ambitions would sign up for that.
    The Horde showed at the Siege of Orgrimmar that a Warchief's power means nothing if they go against the spirit of the people. A rebel will rise up, gain support and depose them. At that same point, the Horde was defined as "family", a bunch of people who accept and forgive each other. Just like Thrall sought to recover Grom after he drank the demon blood. Just like Vol'jin accepted the defeated Garrosh loyalists back into the fold, and the Horde is accepting Sylvanas loyalists now. If the writing was consistent, Sylvanas should have been very careful not to lose the trust of the Horde; an authoritarian rule would have been the last thing to try with Garrosh so close in the memory of the people.

    This retrospective redefining of the Warchief position is hogwash and a perfect example of spaghetti narrative. The story itself doesn't explore any of the points you describe either, nor does it contrast the Horde political apparatus with the one of the Alliance, which is not that rosy either by modern standards, to the degree that it is well defined enough to analyse. The human kings are absolute monarchs who ignore their debts whenever they see fit and, although they offer trials to captured enemy leaders, freely allow the execution of their own subjects for minor offenses such as theft (as evidenced in Elywnn Forest quests), and in the land of Kul'Tiras they hang witches on bogus proof and condemn people to the cruel punishment in a realm of shadowy torture.

    The Night Elves are also led by two absolute rulers, who often put each other's safety ahead of the safety of their own people (and the world). The leader of the Gnomes is an incompetent buffoon who authorized the use of radiation gas against the Troggs (which, unlike the Blight, is not seen as a war crime because, of course!, the troggs are ugly and stupid, and therefore deserve to be killed in cruel ways and be experimented upon) and managed to intoxicate 80% of his population. The Draenei are led by a religious figure who abandoned his home world to the Legion because he was told to do so in a vision. Great example to learn from for the real world!

    Yeah, WoW has such a strong position to make political commentaries about the Horde! Doesn't feel like a game built around game mechanics, fun and the rule of cool at all, it's a deeply complex geopolitical case study... So much to learn!

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