Did BFA ironically end up more realistic than if the devs were good writers?

[Skytotem]

I'm not saying they didnt attack the tree because it had civilians. I'm saying that logicly you would want to attack infrastructure and military bases before dealing with civilians. Most other cities are much better hubs and house much more of Azeroths armies.

We could go back and forth over the Legion's attack plan but, the point remains the burning was anticlimactic and not handled well.

[cparle87]

You can shore up any bad story with enough rationalizations, but the fact remains it was a DEEPLY UNSATISFYING story because we'd already gone through all of it with Garrosh and the rationalization of "Well we didn't think the Horde *got it* with Garrosh" remains downright insulting.

On the other hand, it's possible they made the story too subtle for their audience, who need the "rationalizations" spelled out to them to understand what's going on, and their tiny minds get offended and lash out.

[Skytotem]

On the other hand, it's possible they made the story too subtle for their audience, who need the "rationalizations" spelled out to them to understand what's going on, and their tiny minds get offended and lash out.

1. No need to be condescending.

2. Given pretty much everyone predicted from early on they were going to "Garrosh" Sylvanas (which, aside from making her a raidboss, they did) I don't think it was too subtle.

The problem is the story was all tell and very little show.

We're TOLD Sylvanas has broad support but given most of the Horde has never liked the Forsaken I have to ask... why?

She didn't DO anything during legion, why's she popular with any non-forsaken?

Baine still didn't do much pro-horde.

As mentioned earlier, the whole 'assassinate thrall' thing came out of nowhere and seemed pointless.

Even if OP is correct this was still an appalling story for the Horde of us being too stupid and evil to manage ourselves and having our leadership replaced with folks favorable to a foreign power.

[Aucald]

She didn't DO anything during legion, why's she popular with any non-forsaken?

Basically while we were contending with Antorus and Argus the Horde leaders led by Sylvanas were defending Azeroth from a giant Legion counterattack headed by Sargeras (who was looming all over Azeroth as a burning energy cloud). You can actually see fleets of Legion dreadnoughts approaching Azeroth from within the Antorus raid instance, massing more and more the further you venture into the Legion's HQ. Sylvanas built up a huge cachet of prestige for her defense of Horde lands and the citizenry during this point, which was part and parcel of the huge support base she had going into BfA.

This was pretty much all offscreen, of course; as the action from the PC perspective was entirely centered on the Argus campaign and the vanguard attack on the Legion's citadel.

[Skytotem]

This was pretty much all offscreen, of course; as the action from the PC perspective was entirely centered on the Argus campaign and the vanguard attack on the Legion's citadel.

Which is why I don't care.

They couldn't even bother to stick a few NPCs doing a 'stay awhile and listen' to seed that.

[cparle87]

1. No need to be condescending.

2. Given pretty much everyone predicted from early on they were going to "Garrosh" Sylvanas (which, aside from making her a raidboss, they did) I don't think it was too subtle.

The problem is the story was all tell and very little show.

We're TOLD Sylvanas has broad support but given most of the Horde has never liked the Forsaken I have to ask... why?

She didn't DO anything during legion, why's she popular with any non-forsaken?

Baine still didn't do much pro-horde.

As mentioned earlier, the whole 'assassinate thrall' thing came out of nowhere and seemed pointless.

Even if OP is correct this was still an appalling story for the Horde of us being too stupid and evil to manage ourselves and having our leadership replaced with folks favorable to a foreign power.

She has broad support because she saved our asses at the Broken Shore, was acting all above-board, and had reasonable explanations for why she started the new war that she spun as being in the Horde's long-term best interests. Also you're completing ignoring the fact that while the order halls were operating on the Broken Isles the entire rest of the Horde and Alliance were putting down Legion invasions all around the world. Those assaults that happened in the pre-expansion event in canon never stopped. Everyone not involved in the Broken Isles was somewhere else fighting.

The assassinate Thrall thing did not come out of nowhere. The resistance was gaining ground, she hadn't been able to get Saurfang, so she moved to get rid of the one guy with enough political clout to depose her if he chose to get involved. Ended up backfiring because Thrall had no intention OF getting involved until he realized if Sylvanas was willing to gun for HIM then something must be wrong.

Thank you for your excellent example of the kind of no-thought kneejerk reaction the average player-base has to any story that isn't spelled out to them up front. Thanks for playing.

[Nebron]

On the other hand, it's possible they made the story too subtle for their audience, who need the "rationalizations" spelled out to them to understand what's going on, and their tiny minds get offended and lash out.

Just lol...

[Skytotem]

Thank you for your excellent example of the kind of no-thought kneejerk reaction the average player-base has to any story that isn't spelled out to them up front. Thanks for playing.

Alright you have a good day bud.

[Firefall]

This was a great read. A little muddled in the middle there to me, kinda felt like the honor stuff was a tangent/went too long. But I like your interpretation. I just hope that they actually go into the disadvantaged states of the Forsaken and Night Elves as a result of all of this, because that would redeem BFA and give us grey.

[Syegfryed]

Conclusion: This story of the Alliance, the overall stronger faction, winning the war by instigating a coup within the underdog faction and ultimately convincing its elite leaders that peace would be more profitable to them, with the result that they oust a popular wartime leader and install globalist policies that ignore the disadvantaged, isn't an exciting fantasy story but it does seem unintentionally realistic, and does in fact end up being "shades of gray". It also shows us characters who are more complex than Blizzard itself notices.

i mean, the problem is we already had that in MOP, is a copy paste of the same premise.

And bfa lore was not like you wrote in here, it could be if they were good writers, and understand how the characters works, but it wasn't like that, we had a evil leader, doing evil shit while everyone was ok, until a point it wasn't ok, combined with Saurfang and Anduin smalltalk

The alliance causing a rebellion could be a cool story, if it make some sense at all, but that was completely not needed.

If the devs were good writers, we wouldn't have BfA

also this, the premise was already fucking bad, and everyone should know that since they put a dead elf in the eladership of the ~~horde~~, killing vol'jin ina pathetic manner this expansion was going to be a shitshow.

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She has broad support because she saved our asses at the Broken Shore

thats hardly something to make her well supported among all the horde, knowing her past and what she did

was acting all above-board, and had reasonable explanations for why she started the new war that she spun as being in the Horde's long-term best interests.

no one in their right mind would give support to her on that, because they just get out of a war...

Even so, the campaing in the war of thorns was a completely failure, tons of deads to get shit and a genocide in our bakcs, how the fuck anyone would be with her when by petty reasons people were against Garrosh in cata? because "we ahd to stay together cause it would be worse? bullshit, why not that before?

it make zero sense.

Also you're completing ignoring the fact that while the order halls were operating on the Broken Isles the entire rest of the Horde and Alliance were putting down Legion invasions all around the world.

if you are talking about the pre-patch,and that continued, Sylvanas never partake on those. not directly at least, so, people would not be eager to her

The assassinate Thrall thing did not come out of nowhere. The resistance was gaining ground, she hadn't been able to get Saurfang, so she moved to get rid of the one guy with enough political clout to depose her if he chose to get involved. Ended up backfiring because Thrall had no intention OF getting involved until he realized if Sylvanas was willing to gun for HIM then something must be wrong.

which still makes little sense, backfiring is like key word for bfa.

[kansor]

We're TOLD Sylvanas has broad support but given most of the Horde has never liked the Forsaken I have to ask... why?

Whatever we saw or didn't see her doing, she brought the Horde safely through a demonic apocalypse, imagine what that would do to a real-life politician's approval ratings. Then she delivered an unprecedented military victory against the night elves (Ashenvale had been fought over ever since the orcs landed on Kalimdor). It's not hard to see why she's popular. I don't fanboy btw, obviously she's a creep but the portrayal in BFA was tone-deaf and all over the place, and this new "eat all souls" retcon is kiddie cartoon stuff. Which I guess is what WOW is but there you go.

This was a great read. A little muddled in the middle there to me, kinda felt like the honor stuff was a tangent/went too long.

It was the buzzword of the xpac and Saurfang's main motive, has to be addressed.

[DeltrusDisc]

I can only assume this is a troll post

Also, TLDR

You should read it before calling it a troll post (which actually goes against the rules ) and you might discover it's actually an incredibly well-written, well-articulated thought piece on the current story.

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I had plenty to say. The implication was that someone would only say BfA was the result of good writing can only be trolling. Also TLDR, nobody has time to read that crap

Your reading comprehension is lacking. He's insinuating the writers are bad and through their bad writing, they somehow made a convoluted mess that has some sprinklings of good writing here and there. Unintentional good writing. Blizzard better get on it and fix it and get us back to bad writing stat.

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Because if Teldrassil were this easy to burn I have to question why no one else managed it previously when the Legion had goddang spaceships lying around.

I cannot express to you how happy I am that those ugly, stupid Legion spaceships never dirtied the skies over my beautiful Night Elven lands.

I barf at the idea!

[Super Dickmann]

I mean, the Horde and Alliance are imperialistic powers and this same narrative gets repeated in most zones -- arrive in new foreign place, identify which group of natives is most amenable to your faction, arm them and help them crush their rivals, enlist their help in killing the big bad you came here for, move on to next zone. That's how it works.

It's less the ends than the means. Usually when we take out a side-group they're either all blanketly hostile or they're oppressed and just need to be shown the way, which we do by stopping their leader in a dungeon or in a climactic encounter. I.e, standard fare for a fantasy story, befitting the genre and medium. What sets the sethrak apart is that there's no ideological defeat for the baddie, the narrative doesn't frame Vorrik as representing any meaningful constituency, nor do we fight him in the format of these things in a dungeon. We only kill him, destabilize the region and then prop up our proxies while rendering his group irrelevant. Tellingly, the end boss of the dungeon isn't a sethrak but a bunch of faceless Zul goons. The Vorrik-Korthek situation is just a writ-small version of what we get later with Saurfang and Sylvanas, which also ends in an anticlimax.

[Th3Scourge]

You should read it before calling it a troll post (which actually goes against the rules ) and you might discover it's actually an incredibly well-written, well-articulated thought piece on the current story.

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Your reading comprehension is lacking. He's insinuating the writers are bad and through their bad writing, they somehow made a convoluted mess that has some sprinklings of good writing here and there. Unintentional good writing. Blizzard better get on it and fix it and get us back to bad writing stat.

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I cannot express to you how happy I am that those ugly, stupid Legion spaceships never dirtied the skies over my beautiful Night Elven lands.

I barf at the idea!

No, I read it, there are no sprinkles of good writing in the BfA story. They didn't make anything in their convoluted mess of a story other than a convoluted mess of a story

War campaign - dog shit
Nazjatar - underwhelming
Mechagon - uninspiring
Zandalar campaign - Wakanda never
Uldir - had the potential to be a catalyst for an actual decent Old Gods plot, but ultimately fell flat
Kul Tiran campaign - had potential with unifying the nation but it never developed any further
BoD - great raid, average story - ally assault, kill king, flee
Eternal Palace - Man did they cock this up. Had a decade of potential riding on the lore, and it was so underwhelming
NWC - Is so, so, so bad. I don't think they could've made a worse ending to an Old God than the shit they plated up.

Old Soldier was good, not so much in any story elements, but in execution.

[Krawu]

Could be it fell victim to the same phenomenon as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

It's full of somewhat realistic but boring politics. Some power unjustifiedly blockades another under a false pretense, appeals are being made at the space UN etc.
Maybe this is something that just happens sometimes as writers get older. They have more boring grown-up matters on their mind and it eventually sneaks into their writing.

[Lyvefire]

i mean, the problem is we already had that in MOP, is a copy paste of the same premise.

And bfa lore was not like you wrote in here, it could be if they were good writers, and understand how the characters works, but it wasn't like that, we had a evil leader, doing evil shit while everyone was ok..

Which, for some reason is somehow not Tel'drassil?

BFA was a garbage fire from the start that only got worse when they tried to salvage it (read U-turn from faction war) after the majority of the playerbase was falling over themselves laughing at the shit they were claiming to have have written "morally grey".

[Soon-TM]

On the other hand, it's possible they made the story too subtle for their audience, who need the "rationalizations" spelled out to them to understand what's going on, and their tiny minds get offended and lash out.

On the other hand, subtlety has never been a forte in Warcraft's narrative. Not with Metzen (although SC1 and WC3 were at least serviceable stories), not with Afrasiabi and certainly not with Danuser. The fact that the main antagonist's ultimate goals changed like three times in a row between Legion and BfA (including Golden's heavy handed retcons in BtS) shows their skill at Nuance™, as Danuser loves to put it

That's why your theory @kansor is a veritable tour de force of rationalisation. The story could have been interesting if writers had actually owned it up, instead of making everyone act like an idiot just to prop up Our Treasure.

[KainneAbsolute]

I agree with this topic. Many people are tired because we got Garrosh 2.0 but in reality, many countries keep electing bad leaders beause their culture and society distort core "values". The Horde is diverse society with many fractures that depends a lot on personalist leaders. In terms of story, they always have to return to Thrall, the historic leader and his "credibility" to bring order. If Thrall dies, the Horde would be able to survive? Internally, it seems more are appearing.

However, many of the things I say ar ejust analysis and complemented a lot with previous stories and headcannon. Blizzard did not go full into faction war or full in to old gods manipulation. They wanted to show some horrors of war and how it creates and endless cycle but a the same time we went to Uldir. I wish in some way that Uldir did not exist. I wish the war was more global and also affected Blood Elves, Taurens, and even Stormwind. However Blizzard did not want to go full

Instead, we are sent to Nazjatar and we freed and Old God. Nzoth only needed to keep manipulating the factions. Manipultate Alleria and cause the destruction of the Sunwell, deepen the venguence thirst in the Zandalari. Instead he wished to fight? Part of his plan? He asked for the dagger to Xalatath. He let an Horde character to pick it and bring it Azshara and Azshara brought it to us.

The Old Gods wanted to end the war because they noticed the only winner was going to be Death? it does not make sence because the big prize is Azeroth, why postponing a Void Titan? Thats why the writing is not succesful. We have only one raid about war, 2 warfronts and a campaign thats do not help to show the war and the position of each faction and race. On the other hand we got 3 old gods raids (created old god, servants of the old gods and the most awaited old god). But we did not get enough lore, involvement of the main characters, etc.

I liked more Sylvanas approach in Good War. About being the dominant power and use strategy to dominate. He left everything. It is incredible that she did not want to keep some loyalties, lies, manipulation, etc. I always thought Derek was a trap and timebomb to end Calia or Jaina. Instead she leaves all strategy, her leadership is not seen. Almost like she wants to be discovered. Iam not saying that Sylvanas is pretending to be evil but she had all the tools to cause a more diresome war. What about Azerite? How is the revolution of Azerite around the world? Where are the weapons of mass destruction?

Blizzard in terms of story had a big potential. An opportunity to solve old stories and enemities and create new dynamics (they did but we do not if they are going to forget them like Pandaren). Globalization vs Superpowers. Instead, they broughts us and half-baked story.

And they forgot the big sword.

But I have to say that I enjoy this discussion. In other thread someone analyzed the power of each race within each faction and I liked it. I wished a raid or warfront in Thunderbluff. I always remember how Wrathion described a siege there like a Bloodbath. But I guess Anduin will not allow it and, in that sense, Baine protected his people.

[Super Dickmann]

The people using this thread to run interference for the writers by claiming that this interpretation was intentional have not read the actual post. It's a hilarious thought exercise of BFA as a treatise on regime change and imperialism and the material and ideological motives of the parties involved in the process with an undercurrent of class warfare. Things like Baine being driven by commitment to the free movement of people and capital with his appearance in Stormwind representing the cosmopolitan nature of the Horde's ruling class and their separation from the interests of the races they champion should really clue you in.

OP, what are your thoughts on N'zoth and how he's freed by the actions of this cosmopolitan faction as being a representation of manufactured insurgent groups as tools to destabilize states preceding regime change and providing an acceptable pretext for military intervention?

[Luxeley]

Wow is suffering from the same writer stigma as Game of Thrones. Once both of them ran out of source material they tread water for a little bit, made a splash but then sank.