What was the point of siding with Sylvanas in BFA?

[Soon-TM]

I think you are over thinking it... we are talking about blizzards writing staff. The same group of people that forgot wrathion hated the legion and didn't add him to that expansion then tried to justify it with " well he hated old gods too!". Never mind the whole sword in a plant thing.

Its been a long time since we had good story telling in wow. I can't really even mark when it died. I want to say wrath maybe cata? Though tbc has a pretty bad storyline.

The writing staff lives in a completely isolated bubble, and it seems to be intentional. Also, while BC was more or less a mess, and WotLK had plenty of "WTF Blizz" moments, the narrative was at least largely exempt of Mary Sue's, something I find extremely irritating. Thrall in Cata was cringey enough, but things became even worse in MoP, with all that preachy tone that has impregnated the narrative ever since.

[Frolk]

To show who's a simp and who isn't.

Why was this infraction worthy?

[Dead Moose Fandango]

Way to miss the point. The thing is, why open the possibility of allying with her if the ending was going to be the same as the rebel choice? Oh, and spare me your morality lessons, I don't need the one Alleria fan in these boards to tell me that her sister is EvVVuUUulL.

Her sister is EvVVuUUlL! Is that any better?

[FuxieDK]

I think you are over thinking it... we are talking about blizzards writing staff.

I don't think I do..

Why else would the main prize (a toy) be for the betrayal, where you didn't get anything, if you did the right thing and reported traitor(s)?

It can only be, because Blizzard thought that we would follow them blindly like sheep and side with the traitors. No thank you... I did the right thing on my main and 5 alts, and only went traitor on a single alt to get the toy.

[Mr. Smith]

Why was this infraction worthy?

One of the mods probably picked the loyalist route.

[Soon-TM]

Her sister is EvVVuUUlL! Is that any better?

I'm afraid I'm not getting your point

[rrayy]

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.

No it is not. Again, I did not partake in any of the Shadoiwlands events. I did not do anything for the Horde Council. Therefore, I did not renounce her. By your absurd logic, I am responsible for the Halocaust, WWII, Vietnam War and all other events despite the fact I wasn't even alive for them simply because they happened. That is now how this works at all. It does not matter if the events happens. I did not partake in it therefore I did not renounce her. Period.

[CalamityHeart]

People got exactly what they asked for.

It was inevitable that no matter what Blizzard did for the loyalists vs. rebel storyline, no matter how much "effort" they put into stupidly drawing it out with this suggested shit like "traitor titles", being sent to jail, "redemption questlines", making Horde cities unfriendly to people who didn't get with the program once Sylvanas left, or whatever, the two paths would crash back into each other and become the same story again. Inevitable.

WoW isn't a choose-your-own-adventure game with a dynamic and player-driven story. And that's fine. Blizzard clearly has no intention of writing it that way at all. That's to be expected. People demand that Blizzard try to do it this way, despite the obvious, inevitable end result, and surprise surprise, they're mad when that end result comes to pass.

And now Blizzard is "lazy", because they're unwilling to jump through flaming hoops to turn this stupid branching plot into something that's impossible to sustain in the long term and that they clearly don't have the heart or desire to try. They're "bad storywriters", not necessarily because the story is bad (it's not great, but that's a different topic), but because they're not writing in the unreasonable way that I want them to write. I want the freedom to decide the story, WoW is my visual novel/single-player RPG.

It's not about idolizing Sylvanas or wanting a well-written story. Blizzard struggles enough with the story of WoW without the tangled mess that in meaningful player agency shoved in. That doesn't make the story better. All it does is create three sorts of people. People who saw it coming and are okay with how it turned it, people who somehow didn't see it coming, and are eye-rollingly upset, and people who go the extra petty RP mile and decide that they're going to fuck their own game experience over this, like it's actually that type of game. "Well, I'm not gonna play my loyalist characters anymore, if Blizzard is not going to write for me anymore." Do you, I guess.

There was no point in the loyalist storyline. There was never going to be a point. Blizzard would've been better off just doing the on-the-rails storytelling that they've always been doing, but they sighed and gave this a try anyway. They didn't put their heart into it, because they didn't want to. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if they never tried it again.

[CyanCobraXS]

Will be satisfying to finally see her go.

[mysticx]

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

I'm still amazed people were surprised by it all, WoW isn't a game with a deep storyline, the bad guys *always* lose in the end (Usually because the bad guys' evil plan tends to amount to "Kill everybody else", which is bad for the storyline in the long run), and reluctantly or not, the Horde are shoehorned into being the good guys (No matter what they do during their "lapses"), so where this idea that Sylvanas would be the one to win (Or even just stick around as Horde leader) came from is a mystery to me.

[Florena]

I'm still amazed people were surprised by it all, WoW isn't a game with a deep storyline, the bad guys *always* lose in the end (Usually because the bad guys' evil plan tends to amount to "Kill everybody else", which is bad for the storyline in the long run), and reluctantly or not, the Horde are shoehorned into being the good guys (No matter what they do during their "lapses"), so where this idea that Sylvanas would be the one to win (Or even just stick around as Horde leader) came from is a mystery to me.

I might have had some faith in the idea if it hadn't been a mid ptr addition added to quell backlash from horde players not wanting to betray Sylvanas and save Saurfang. But given when and why the loyalist route was added it smelled of lazy pandering from the start and it was pretty obvious the Saurfang route was the intended one the whole way through. The game didn't even try, you were doing the exact same quests either way with just a wink and a nod from Nathanos to play along if you were a loyalist.

Honestly the little chat with Sylvanas at the end of it was far more payoff than I expected loyalists to get.

[Chromell]

Sylvanas was just a simple banshee, but he found her worthy of his power because he knew that her idealism would make her an easy pawn.

Not taking any sides here, but this is all your speculation, no?

[Varodoc]

Not taking any sides here, but this is all your speculation, no?

It should be obvious that this is what happened.

Sylvanas was a simple banshee when she died. She was not a special creature. However, she was easily manipulated by the Jailer, who played into her terror of the Maw and desire to create a better afterlife for herself and everyone else.

Of course, the Jailer doesn't care about mortals controlling their own fates, he just wants to consume everything. That's a convenient lie he used to lure Sylvanas into his side. The pieces are easy to put together.

[mrcodez]

What was the point of introducing branching in BFA war campaign questline if the choices don't have any impact

If I had to guess, probably to get the players to whining and giving the illusion of "player agency" which was a real big buzz-phrase at the time. I suppose it did have some impact as loyalists got some different dialog in a few quests.

Like wearing N'zoth's eyeball hat, you can always keep waiting with hope that someday they are going to acknowledge the loyalist status with something special.

[Swnem]

As people say nowadays, you got the simp experience, just like Nathanos. She used you and threw you away. That was it. It ended there.

[Queendom]

She used you and threw you away. That was it. It ended there.

But this does not happen in the game. Loyalist chain ends with Windrunner spire cutscene, you're not betrayed, disappointed with, used by or whetever else. And it happens AFTER Saurfang death. So even in your last quest for Sylvanas you're still fine with her and she with you. This questline just ends in nothing, and the next thing you know is SL prepatch event quest chain "hurr-durr Sylvanas is evil". The stuff Lorthemar and others are talking about on the roof of Grommash Hold only make sense for Saurfang loyalists.

[Davaca]

We have to make concessions by playing an MMO instead of a single player RPG. From a game-play and game design perspective it would be very taxing to try to give each player a different experience based on their choices. It would be akin to making a 3rd (or more) faction. So, they have to sacrifice some lore and story consistency, in order to keep some balance.

Your complaint is valid, it is weird to have apparent choices when they don't matter, but it's something they have to "simplify" to have a consistent MMO experience for everyone.

I wouldn't say it's meaningless. Sometimes those "fake choices" give us elements to play in our heads with the story and the personality of our characters, even if ultimately they converge in the same ending for everyone.

Think of it like when you do a random quest and end up doing something your character wouldn't do, but you end up doing the quest anyway in order to keep the game going. Almost every quest in game railroad you in a way or another, but you just bite the bullet because that's how it's programed and it wouldn't make much sense to spend a lot of resources crafting a personalized experience for everyone in an MMO.

[Ticj]

I'm left here having to wonder if there's going to end up some hidden reward for siding with Sylvanas later on in SL. It makes it pretty confusing if doing something like participating in killing Nathanos would potentially hurt any kind of future reward because it may be considered a rebel choice. I want to keep doing the loyalist line if possible and it kind of sucks not being certain that there may or may not be more of it later because unless they explicitly state otherwise there could be more.

Well, it seems like nathanos wanted to die anyways so maybe it was the loyalist choice too ;P

[Elestia]

Lol.. lowkey Blizzard telling you Sylvannas loyalist = Trump supporter

[loras]

Lol.. lowkey Blizzard telling you Sylvannas loyalist = Trump supporter

That's irrelevant to like pretty much the entire world minus, what, 3%?

They're a global company, it'd be foolish for such a company to involve local politics into a global product (which doesn't mean that they won't make that mistake, but it's that much more unlikely).

Also it seems more than a little unfair to compare Trump or his supporters to a literal genocidal nihilist (and her supporters).