Patch 9.2 PTR - Build 41360: Sylvanas Cinematic

[Relapses]

"Barry" is a lazy, new 4chan meme thing surrounding WoW and the other game. Unless your name is somehow Barry and are the actual person they're referring to. In which case, that's fucking hilarious. I didn't think my opinion could go lower. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wasn't aware of the Barry meme, that's hilarious. But yeah, he's posting in the same threads doing a poor impersonation of me so I think it's just a weird fan of mine.

[rrayy]

Lies. I haven't met a single one. Maybe someone who has no strong feelings about the story or Sylvanas giving a polite "I liked it..." when asked, but they don't have strong feelings either way.

There are people in this thread who said they lijked it. There are people on various forms who have said they liked it., Basing your entire claim on "people I met" is anecdotal at best and completely disingenuous at worst.

Good to see you can boil down all legit criticism to a simple strawman. The story being bad is subjective, the game being bad is subjective, except, oops, the biggest subscription loss in the history of the game isn't subjective. Telling yourself the game is still solid is not just copium anymore; it's a complete denial of reality.

Lines like "It is garbage" is not legit criticism. Also, it is funny you accuse me of a strawman when that is exactly what you use with the subs nonsense. People leave for tons of different reasons. Claiming they left for one reason and using that to claim you are right is disingenuous. The rest of you post is a massive projection of ones opinion that boils down to nothing more than "I am right. Anyone who disagrees with me is in denial". Your opinions are only that. Not fact. Period.

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Opinions can definitely be wrong. And yes, writing, character arcs, and story structure can be objectively analyzed. There are plenty of recognizable factors that make the difference between good and bad story telling. You’re certainly welcome to like whatever you want, but your enjoyment doesn’t shield the subject from objective criticism.

Wrong. Opinions are not wrong. Opinions cannot be wrong. and. no, you cannot objectively analyze any of the three things you listed. That is projection. It is ALL subjective.

[Kyphael]

Well that’s bullshit.

There is no “good” Arthas given how the events of WC3 went. He had a very clear arc that took him from hero prince to vengeance driven extremist before he even picked up the blade. Arthas getting some sort of redemption arc would be shit tier writing as well since it would have to rely on the same character arc retcon they’re using on Sylvanas, picking a point where the arc happened and saying “ok now you’re two different characters”.

That was my point. They should have used the bad retcon on a popular character like Arthas, not one players no longer want to see, hear from, or be featured in stories. Bringing a redeemed Arthas back into present day events would be much more interesting, the argument of whether they should or not, notwithstanding. We're way past the point of "should they?" by now, clearly, given the current state of lore, nothing is sacred as they are no longer bound to any standard of coherent story-telling. At this point they're just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. At least do it with your most popular character, not one who has been written to be insufferably bad in every way conceivable.

[Adamas102]

Wrong. Opinions are not wrong. Opinions cannot be wrong. and. no, you cannot objectively analyze any of the three things you listed. That is projection. It is ALL subjective.

Oh the irony of telling someone they’re opinion is wrong while at the same time trying to argue that opinions can’t be wrong...

Yeah I guess if you’d never gone to school, read a book, or if you consider Paul Blart Mall Cop to be the pinnacle of filmmaking you wouldn’t know how to recognize something like well crafted narrative structure. Just because you’re ignorant of how something can be objectively criticized doesn’t mean it can’t be done, though.

You, like so many other fragile posters on these forums, seem to misconstrue “opinions” as “personal preference”. The latter is yours, but opinions are based on value judgements and those are most definitely not equally valid.

[HeyGuysHello]

Sylvanas becoming a victim is such a terrible copout. She should have been an antihero with a hidden plan to take down The Jailer from the beginning. We went through secret politics for whose side we were on. She opened the world of the dead for us. She had regret in her eyes for having to convert Anduin. She had the perfect roadmap for an antihero that saves two intertwined worlds by temporarily killing us all to do it. It was so perfect. The ending of that would have been such a good payoff. Just chef's kiss, so good. Instead, we get, "hE uSeD mE i'M a ViCtIm 2!" Hire me. I'll fix this pile for you.

[Athorha]

Sylvanas becoming a victim is such a terrible copout. She should have been an antihero with a hidden plan to take down The Jailer from the beginning. We went through secret politics for whose side we were on. She opened the world of the dead for us. She had regret in her eyes for having to convert Anduin. She had the perfect roadmap for an antihero that saves two intertwined worlds by temporarily killing us all to do it. It was so perfect. The ending of that would have been such a good payoff. Just chef's kiss, so good. Instead, we get, "hE uSeD mE i'M a ViCtIm 2!" Hire me. I'll fix this pile for you.

Wait til you see what blizz eventually concocts with her void infested sisters story

[Le Conceptuel]

Sylvanas becoming a victim is such a terrible copout. She should have been an antihero with a hidden plan to take down The Jailer from the beginning. We went through secret politics for whose side we were on. She opened the world of the dead for us. She had regret in her eyes for having to convert Anduin. She had the perfect roadmap for an antihero that saves two intertwined worlds by temporarily killing us all to do it. It was so perfect. The ending of that would have been such a good payoff. Just chef's kiss, so good. Instead, we get, "hE uSeD mE i'M a ViCtIm 2!" Hire me. I'll fix this pile for you.

Sylvanas was never an anti-hero. If you've played WarCraft III, it's pretty immediately obvious she is more "crackpot dictator of plague-riddled shithole and lunatic rebel undead". She's a narcissistic rebel leader at heart, and any deviation from that is completely out-of-character. Add to that how she's also the entire reason why the Jailer's plan worked, as she gave his army its population. It would honestly be even worse if Sylvanas were an anti-hero with a secret plan, especially since that's what everyone was expecting from the get-go—that she's secretly be playing 400d chess and manipulating us all instead of just telling us openly about Threat #3547 that could totally end Azeroth so we can go in there and kill it like every other thing we've ever faced as a threat. It would do little other than make the heroes look like idiots, make people hate Sylvanas even more, and would lack any general meaningfulness to the plot other than "look how cool funni undead ranger is!!!"

[Foolicious]

Add to that how she's also the entire reason why the Jailer's plan worked, as she gave his army its population.

I mean its a video game and we somehow have to get to play the expansion, but sylvanas is the reason why the jailers plant won't work isn't she? She opened the way for the heroes of azeroth to enter the shadowlands, unite the covenants, rescue the missing leader of one covenant(if not the most important of all) and in the end at least fight zovaal head on. It still could go the way of "zovaal planned for the heroes to fight him", but i don't think so.

[Eapoe]

Sylvanas becoming a victim is such a terrible copout. She should have been an antihero with a hidden plan to take down The Jailer from the beginning. We went through secret politics for whose side we were on. She opened the world of the dead for us. She had regret in her eyes for having to convert Anduin. She had the perfect roadmap for an antihero that saves two intertwined worlds by temporarily killing us all to do it. It was so perfect. The ending of that would have been such a good payoff. Just chef's kiss, so good. Instead, we get, "hE uSeD mE i'M a ViCtIm 2!" Hire me. I'll fix this pile for you.

She’s not a victim though. Yes, she got played; but as shown she also didn’t have her good soul. Basically, everything she did was of her own free will and wants/needs, but she had no empathy or moral problems with her choices. Basically, she was a sociopath. She did the things she wanted to do because they were in her interests and she felt justified because her means justified the end she was working towards.
She didn’t feel remorse for Anduin so much as seeing the correlations between the Jailer and Arthas’s goals and methods. It gave her pause when she started to realize what she was helping the Jailer do.
She got played, but she’s not the victim.

As far as Blizz’s storytelling about it, they definitely could have used some more polish and well thought out narratives and story arcs. Overall, it’s not as bad as some people make it out to be, but it definitely has its flaws.