What was the point of siding with Sylvanas in BFA?

[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?

[Fleugen]

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?

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

[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

[Eapoe]

Blizzard has made it clear that they have carried story themes and narratives across multiple xpacs. It’s possible that it will come up in Shadowlands, or even later depending on how SL unfolds. As a side note, I’d enjoy it if there is another xmog somewhere for remaining loyal as I did this on an alt.
Blizzard has also made it clear that sometimes a story just gets dropped whether finished or not. It’s possible that this part is over and remaining loyal gets you nothing other than a cutscene that everyone gets to watch.
She leaves stating that in time we would understand her meaning. Maybe there will be something extra, maybe not. Just going to have to see if something happens in SL.

[Aydinx2]

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?

People wined to be given a choice even when they knew the conclusion of that questline from datamining (which is what started with them wanting an option to begin with). So yes, what they actively asked for is the illusion of choice.

[Aucald]

This thread is not about real-world politics or the current election, keep the topic grounded on the story of Shadowlands/BfA.

[Aydinx2]

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

Besides this statement being objectively incorrect, this thread is about game design (choice in videogames), not real-life politics.

[FuxieDK]

What was the point of introducing branching in BFA war campaign questline if the choices don't have any impact and all we got in the end is Garrosh 2.0?
Did I miss something here? Was something scrapped out of the game or just not completed at all?
I don't see any suitable conslusion for those who chose to side with Sylvanas, and now with Nathanos' death there surely be none coming.

My theory is that Blizzard tried (and failed horribly) to justify Saurfang's betrayal, with player numbers.

It must have blown up in their faces (hence the fail), because they have never revealed any numbers of how many who were loyal and how few went traitor.

[enderzone]

My theory is that Blizzard tried (and failed horribly) to justify Saurfang's betrayal, with player numbers.

It must have blown up in their faces (hence the fail), because they have never revealed any numbers of how many who were loyal and how few went traitor.

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.

[Soon-TM]

Besides this statement being objectively incorrect, this thread is about game design (choice in videogames), not real-life politics.

Besides this statement having objectively no historical grounds (not since Reagan, at least) to stand on, the comparison wasn't made by me but by @Karlz0rz in the first place.

[Jetstream]

Funzies. The point was funzies. Nothing else.