Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Shadochi]

I get your point but the heavy focus on Sylvanas in the video was objectively too much. It was about Anduin. And all the time we help Jaina to free Anduin. Why the sylv focus again? It's not whining when people talk about the wrong focus. It doesn't mean WoW is dead or everything is always bad or next xpac story will be bad or whatever

Not to mention this week we got 2 cinematics with Sylvanas as the main focus... now I fear that the Jailer ending will also have her in the spotlight...

[Makorus]

If you're just looking at the worst ideas, yes. But there are good, great examples that totally exceed what the WoW writing team is capable of. Don't mix the good ones with the bad ones, even if the ratio is 1:10 for the bad ones.

Like what?

"Oh, while we are on (choose one: Draenor, Argus, Nazjatar, Nyalotha, Shadowlands), villain destroys Azeroth"?

"Oh, this is actually just a nightmare by N'zoth while he corrupts us during the fight"

"Arthas should show up"

I've never heard of anything good coming from the community.

[Landrisser]

"Oh, this is actually just a nightmare by N'zoth while he corrupts us during the fight"

As overused as this is it would be much better than any narrative beat that happened this or last expac.

Let’s pray that all this garbage was just an N’zoth dream

[Raetary]

The only thing that i didn't like was Sylvanas' monologue being too long.
It felt like a drag.

Not to mention this week we got 2 cinematics with Sylvanas as the main focus... now I fear that the Jailer ending will also have her in the spotlight...

Even if it doesn't we have a whole epilogue with her at the center to quest through.

[Syegfryed]

Just as baffled as I am that people cannot for the love of god accept differing opinions. Who are you to decide what's good and what's not other than for yourself?

like i said, you can lore and like all you want, but this is objectively bad storytelling, no matter how you cope out by claiming "muh opinion"

It's simple. Some people have good taste, some don't. And for others, wow is like a religion now, and they will blindly defend it no matter what.

Yeah, one people above literally proved your point.

It's nuts how people whine about the writing but then constantly suggest significantly worse alternatives.

"What do you mean Jaina is more worried about her pseudo nephew who just nearly exploded after being brainwashed than she is about her exboyfriend turned murderer from two decades ago dying for the third time!?! She should be sobbing and talking about all her memories of him!"

Then why she didn't say anything to him in the cinematic though?

Oh yes, it was hijacked by sylvanas.

Jaina had way more to say about Arthas than sylvanas had. don't pretend it would be worse than what we got lol.

- - - Updated - - -

Not to mention this week we got 2 cinematics with Sylvanas as the main focus... now I fear that the Jailer ending will also have her in the spotlight...

mu money is she killing him somehow, she will def be the main focus of it, then the epilogue with her 'taking responsibility(not really)" of her actions, going to the maw.

[Makorus]

People with no experience in writing or anything, saying it is "objectively bad storytelling" while not being able to elaborate why and just mention "Oh, Sylvanas shows up" is my favourite trope of this thread. Still going stronger after almost 1400 pages!

[Vasoka]

People with no experience in writing or anything, saying it is "objectively bad storytelling" while not being able to elaborate why and just mention "Oh, Sylvanas shows up" is my favourite trope of this thread. Still going stronger after almost 1400 pages!

If you need to be told and explained, in detail, why, then you're probably not worth the bother in the first place, buddy. Sorry.

[Makorus]

If you need to be told and explained, in detail, why, then you're probably not worth the bother in the first place, buddy. Sorry.

Thanks for proving my point.

I mean, I deeply care about the literary analysis of people who think that Warcraft 3 is an artistic masterpiece of writing and think Arthas is one of the best written characters in fiction.

[Landrisser]

People with no experience in writing or anything, saying it is "objectively bad storytelling" while not being able to elaborate why and just mention "Oh, Sylvanas shows up" is my favourite trope of this thread. Still going stronger after almost 1400 pages!

Idk man there have been countless hours dedicated to dissecting why the writing in WoW is so bad. If you still need to have it explained to you at this point then there is something seriously wrong. I recommend you play a game with good writing like FF14. The world building is excellent.

I promise you you’ll get a better idea of what competent writing looks like so you won’t have to defend WoW’s MLP fanfic tier writing anymore

[Makorus]

Idk man there have been countless hours dedicated to dissecting why the writing in WoW is so bad. If you still need to have it explained to you at this point then there is something seriously wrong. I recommend you play a game with good writing like FF14. The world building is excellent.

I promise you you’ll get a better idea of what competent writing looks like so you won’t have to defend WoW’s MLP fanfic tier writing anymore

The writing of FFXIV is so good that people tell you to skip until late Heavensward/Stormblood

Can you in your honest heart tell me that the Company of Heroes questline is good writing. Can you?

[Sondrelk]

People with no experience in writing or anything, saying it is "objectively bad storytelling" while not being able to elaborate why and just mention "Oh, Sylvanas shows up" is my favourite trope of this thread. Still going stronger after almost 1400 pages!

They have an entire lineup of characters who have just as much, if not more reason to hate Arthas there, but instead we focus on Sylvanas who is probably among those with the least amount of reason to interract with him.

We have Jaina, his former lover who left him at the crucial moment where he needed guidance the most, and who has been haunted by whether she made the right choice or not ever since.

We have Uther, who trained him and similarly to Jaina left him when he needed him most. Who saw his country fall at Arthas' hands, and whose hatred of him caused him to abandon his principles and take ultimate vengeance by ensuring Arthas suffered as much as possible.

We have Bolvar, who was tortured by the Lich King, but ultimately decided to take the burden of holding back the Jailer.

And we have Anduin, who is similar to Arthas a prince taking on far too much responsibility, and who ended up suffering much of the same torment Arthas did at the hands of the Jailer.

And yet despite all these characters having much to do with Arthas, we really only hear Sylvanas, a character who has been massively overplayed even considering how despised she is in the community.
It all ends up with a general feeling that the story is far too fixated on Sylvanas.

[ilgynoth]

HAHAHAHA that Sylvanas part is AMAZING!
They literally destroyed Arthas and everyone who said for the past 2 years that Arthas is the most iconic figure if WoW, which he is long time no more. Since BfA its Sylvanas and everyone was like "Noooooooooooo, its Arthas boohooo *bitchin*"
Obviously Blizzard would never treat his most iconic character like a worthless poop cloud. Man they REALLY destroyed Arthas hahaha. damn. That was brutal. xd


But the most hilarious part of this Cinematic was the moda fucking Sadfang. Like bro, we killed this peace of shit for good in BfA, litterally made him into a Trinket AND SOMEHOW!!! SOMEHOW this peace of shit comes back just to say one more fucking time "HONOR!!!!" BRAAA, thats overkilling a meme


Anyway, it's funny to see some incels on different forums/reddits/tweets how they complain that they destroyed all the "masculin males" like arthas, garrosh and made them into dust shit, while Sylvanas will never face it. - YEAH BRO, lmao imagin comparing losers like garrosh or arthas to the LITERAL most iconic WoW Character

[Syegfryed]

People with no experience in writing or anything, saying it is "objectively bad storytelling" while not being able to elaborate why and just mention "Oh, Sylvanas shows up" is my favourite trope of this thread. Still going stronger after almost 1400 pages!

ah yes, the copium, that is my favorite about people defending blizzard.

you cannot say something is good or bad unless you have experience on it, finest fallacy of authority.

Like people said, there is countless of hours dedicate to why shadowlands story is awful and this one cinematic in specific, already said in this very thread, you are ignoring those pretending you would care if we explain why, cause we both know people who ask why never rly care about and just handwave the issues.

[Nyel]

The writing of FFXIV is so good that people tell you to skip until late Heavensward/Stormblood

Until Heavensward. And they tell you that because the first main story (aka WoW Vanilla, if you want to make the comparison) is dragging on forever and setting all the things in motion that unfold later. It's like a very long prologue. But it's from 2010-2012 as well. So why are we comparing those two things and not what FFXIV achieved later on?

[Landrisser]

The writing of FFXIV is so good that people tell you to skip until late Heavensward/Stormblood

Sounds like these are people that only exist in your head. You will get made fun of in the ff14 community if you buy the skips, lmao.

FF14 has a lot of world building and politics early on. This usually filters WoW players like you. It’s understandable that someone who is defending WoW’s writing doesn’t have the attention span to sit through something more complex than an mlp fanfic lol.

[Nyel]

We have Bolvar, who was tortured by the Lich King, but ultimately decided to take the burden of holding back the Jailer.

Yeah by the way, where was Bolvar? Did he have any lines? It's so weird he was there but yet again didn't have anything to do or say in the cinematic.

[Makorus]

They have an entire lineup of characters who have just as much, if not more reason to hate Arthas there, but instead we focus on Sylvanas who is probably among those with the least amount of reason to interract with him.

We have Jaina, his former lover who left him at the crucial moment where he needed guidance the most, and who has been haunted by whether she made the right choice or not ever since.

We have Uther, who trained him and similarly to Jaina left him when he needed him most. Who saw his country fall at Arthas' hands, and whose hatred of him caused him to abandon his principles and take ultimate vengeance by ensuring Arthas suffered as much as possible.

We have Bolvar, who was tortured by the Lich King, but ultimately decided to take the burden of holding back the Jailer.

And we have Anduin, who is similar to Arthas a prince taking on far too much responsibility, and who ended up suffering much of the same torment Arthas did at the hands of the Jailer.

And yet despite all these characters having much to do with Arthas, we really only hear Sylvanas, a character who has been massively overplayed even considering how despised she is in the community.
It all ends up with a general feeling that the story is far too fixated on Sylvanas.

The expansion literally deals with Uther coming to terms with Arthas. That's literally what the entire Bastion (and I think) part of the Korthia questline is about.

Jaina has come to terms with her fault in Arthas' downfall. That's literally what her arc in BfA is partially about, culminating in the cinematic of her being in Thros. "Forgive yourself and don't look back on what happened".

Bolvar is so irrelevant in the bigger picture with Arthas that it would be laughable if he started with his big emotional monologue.

Sylvanas is the only one who still suffers because of Arthas. She is the only one who never got any kind of resolution. Her entire motivation for the biggest part of WoW was getting revenge on Arthas, which she ultimately didn't even get. She was the last character with any loose threads relating to Arthas (of the characters that mattered anyway, not gonna start listing characters like Muradin).

Having Jaina, or Uther go over it AGAIN would not just be idiotic, it would make previous cinematics and story developments redundant and less impactful.

[Syegfryed]

Yeah by the way, where was Bolvar? Did he have any lines? It's so weird he was there but yet again didn't have anything to do or say in the cinematic.

He was supposed to be a important figure and main character in shadowlands, guess what? cut to showcase Sylvanus, she is our true protagonist and all we need.

And then you have to read people talking how shadowlands story isn't garbage

[Landrisser]

The expansion literally deals with Uther coming to terms with Arthas. That's literally what the entire Bastion (and I think) part of the Korthia questline is about.

Jaina has come to terms with her fault in Arthas' downfall. That's literally what her arc in BfA is partially about, culminating in the cinematic of her being in Thros. "Forgive yourself and don't look back on what happened".

Bolvar is so irrelevant in the bigger picture with Arthas that it would be laughable if he started with his big emotional monologue.

Sylvanas is the only one who still suffers because of Arthas. She is the only one who never got any kind of resolution. Her entire motivation for the biggest part of WoW was getting revenge on Arthas, which she ultimately didn't even get. She was the last character with any loose threads relating to Arthas (of the characters that mattered anyway, not gonna start listing characters like Muradin).

Having Jaina, or Uther go over it AGAIN would not just be idiotic, it would make previous cinematics and story developments redundant and less impactful.

You know what would make a story development redundant and less impactful? Having a character who committed genocide, and was manipulated by the jailer, try to take the moral high ground against someone who was dominated by the jailer.

“Bolvar is so irrelevant”

Yeah, no kidding. He’s irrelevant because the writing is bad and the writers have no clue what to do with him.

Extremely cringe post. You shouldn’t be talking about bad ideas from the community when yours are so utterly brainless.

[Nyel]

This cinematic plot hole is also very funny. Just found this comment on wowhead:

So was that actually Saurfang and Varian's spirits? If so how did they get there? Varian should have been judged since he was killed before Argus but Saurfang was killed after so shouldn't he have been in the maw?

I'm sure someone of the "Shadowlands is awesome" brigade will explain to me why this worked and was well done, but I'm still waiting for a proper explanation without contradicting the lore they tried to set up in Shadowlands.

Edit: in before those are just Anduin's memories