Sylvanas. Dev vs Dev on lore.

[Syegfryed]

Oh I never complain, I merely point out how amusing you people are. Imagine having such strong emotions for some guy they think is to blame for stuff they don't like, in a game they can't stop playing/thinking about/spending time on.

Danuser is to blame for shadowlands story, and not Afrasiabi.

[Super Dickmann]

stormheim happens way after the heroes joined the classhalls, so she, as head of the faction should know about.

Stormheim may happen first or last and the warrior PC can be Alliance or Horde. In either case, what matters is that the zone is written with the presumption that neither the Alliance nor Horde know what's up, which is why they have to investigate the signs in the Valkyra training village to figure out what's up, something unnecessary if either had even the most basic info the Warrior PC had at their disposal.

The factions did fight the Legion, in their places, but we know it was saurfang who lead in durotar/kalindor defenses, they sure didn't sit on their ass, but Sylvanas did next to nothing to hold her speech in vol'jin funeral.

We know that post-Legion all Horde leaders, Saurfang included credit Sylvanas for her leadership and that he held the defense for Durotar. Of course, we don't actually see it, since Sylvanas vanishes after Stormheim and Saurfang only appears for five minutes to attempt to commit suicide in a pointless way and featuring either would take away from the time we can spend with various other purple elves.

Yes, but in the RTs they didn't joined the horde, when they did, there should be a line to not be crossed by definition. Horde don't care about silverpine or other humans experiments because they don't know, its not their problem, the problem is when this dynamic is shifted, putting sylvanas and the forsaken on the spotlight would put those things on the light, and the imaginary line will be crossed, and thats why we had some of the interactions in BfA(like rokhan and Talanji regarding sylvanas actions) was a matter of wait for things to blow up, they just blow up in atomically.

Like i said, even if enslaving Eyr should be good for her and the forsaken, is a problem when affects the horde and/or put the horde in a bad light.

Sylvanas warchief was DOA, if she didn't step down from the position it was a matter of time before she going full villain, exactly to do what you said, escape turbo hell, and how she does this? exterminating her enemies, that in the end, will mean, exterminate the horde as well because their innate difference

The orcs have practiced slavery at all times except under Vol'jin and that's only because he's so much of a non-entity that we can't gleam anything about his leadership. Swaying the spiritual/magical forces to fulfill a service for the community in the here and now doesn't budge against this point.

Disregarding the above, the core point of disagreement is that I maintain that Sylvanas in a temporary leadership role would've been a decent way to both square the circle as regards long-term Forsaken relations with the main Horde race and develop her character while Blizzard produced some younger orcs. In the room when she's appointed, disregarding any procedure there's no one either qualified or with the military back-up to take over besides her, what with half the room either having tried to defect to the Alliance or being what amounts to a bedwarmer to the new Alliance King with Baine. Outside the room, the only one that either narratively or thematically would have worked better if they insisted on killing Vol'jin was Saurfang, who'd be able to take over for a transitional role until we got some younger orcs to take the spot.

@Raisei

As I said earlier in the topic, villainy is not a character trait by itself, it's within the context of something. Sylvanas and the Forsaken at large have had 0 conflict with the Night Elves up to now, not because she gives much of a shit about them, but because it doesn't matter to her in the slightest, hence why she protested against any large-scale action on Kalimdor as it'd leave an opening for the Alliance to attack the Eastern Kingdoms. It's why I've gone on and on in this and other topics that the Forsaken operate and are interested in chiefly in Lordaeron and operating therein. BFA wrenches the Forsaken entirely out of this content, and after BTS has slaughtered the founding premise of both their society and soft-retconned either most of Cataclysm or going back even to Vanilla, it makes the race peripheral to their own destruction. Even the Night Elves get to actually interact with their home in someway, but the fall of Lordaeron has no bearing on anything and the crux of Forsaken clashing with Sylvanas hinges on a new character and Baine getting assmad about a single guy being enslaved. The Forsaken's appearances, such as they are, have no connection to their prior plot, their role in Darkshore is to be strawmen in an area that has historically and narratively been around orcs and night elves. Sylvanas takes the front in being the main opposing figure to a race she's had no interaction with for a reason that wasn't decided on at the time it took place in service of Saurfang repeating the Mists plot beat for beat.

Beyond eliminating one of the player races as regards their story up to that point and doing so in order to enable the destruction of the Horde itself, pinning the blame for Sylvanas's baffling support by a population that opposed Garrosh for much lesser infractions on the Horde institutions that the expansion would go on to tear down, it also does no favors for Sylvanas as a character. Whatever can be said about SL Sylvanas I can at least believe that Steve wrote a character, a poor character who's a massive dumbass, but still a character, rather than a signpost with angry eyebrows attached that exists to antagonize other characters into going through an identical storyline of learning about love and peace, be it Jaina, Saurfang, Baine, etc. Simply by referring back to Edge of Night and Sylvanas's actual reason for her actions in the first place, being avoiding hell, Shadowlands' portrayal attempts more than BFA did.

This is not to say it is good, the only area it is unquestionably much better than BFA at is the Horde, as the Horde doesn't appear besides the two eunuch cheerleaders Jaina keeps around in Baine and Thrall. The core flaw you're rightly taking umbrage with is, like Sylvanas and Tyrande themselves a hold-over from BFA, but one that can't be forgiven narratively. It's the morally vacuous narrative that only makes the final instance responsible for all actions and all personal grievances a moral failing. With BFA that was behind the Horde characters we were supposed to support being the ones most willing to slaughter their own side in service of an abstract good and who ultimately submit entirely to the leadership and moral values of their opposition. Meanwhile the crowd consists of lemmings who go from supporting Sylvanas's total war for world conquest to opposing it purely on the basis of her calling them some means, reducing any actual agency and position on the part of the citizen to being a lemming motivated solely by the mood of the hero characters. On the Alliance side it was how Tyrande was portrayed as morally bankrupt for holding any grievance to the Horde who've preyed upon her people for the last twenty years and the population that's been through conscription and actually suffered at the hands of the Horde are entirely happy with a white peace because the leaders are buddies.

SL skips following up on the first point because the Horde has zero role on it, as is always the case with these crappy neutral world-antagonist expansions, but it plays the last to the hilt, both in treating Tyrande as irrational and vengeance-driven even in pursuing the actual culprit who even in the most recent cutscene takes ownership of the decision to torch her people as part of her cosmic scheme, and as regards responsibility. "The Horde dindu nuffin, it was Sylvanas" turns into "Sylvanas dindu nuffin, it was the Bald Man". Except not even that since unlike BFA or SCII, the story still accepts Sylvanas' responsibility rather than rob her of her agency directly but attempts to pull the sleight of hand anyway using obtuse plot devices like soul splits. In doing so, Danuser continues the moral vacuity of the previous narrative, either in the exact same way with the Night Elves or by shifting the responsibility one point up the ladder as with the Jailer. That is among the worst aspects of the expansion, joined by its abysmal villain, the treatment of Elune and some of the more inept retcons (KT lol). But his error is not in refusing to end a character who's been a mainstay of the franchise for last 20 years as something other than a strawman for the consumption of people who always hated the character, it's in doing so extremely poorly in a fashion that also does little for the people who did enjoy the character.

On a side note, it's funny you mention KJ, because that's precisely my issue with how he ended. This guy was the Deceiver, the actual face of the Legion given that Archimonde is an angry blue man with five lines and Sargeras is more of a force of nature, the architect of the destruction of the orcs and the draenei, someone so petty and elaborately cruel that he corrupted his old friend's son solely so he could savor the moment where Velen is forced to kill his progeny and realizes who it is. Yet his last patch has nothing to do with any of it and he's played sympathetically opposite Sargeras, performing no deception to speak of and having Velen solemnly wave him off. He dies a wet blanket, the core of his character undermined. Compare to someone like Garrosh who managed to go out with conviction not once but twice and in both cases beclowning everyone else in the scene because his ending moments were true to his character. Sylvanas will be far more KJ than Garrosh, because what the core of her character actually is has been wrenched drastically from what it's been in two successive expansions in drastically different ways.

[Syegfryed]

Stormheim may happen first or last and the warrior PC can be Alliance or Horde. In either case, what matters is that the zone is written with the presumption that neither the Alliance nor Horde know what's up, which is why they have to investigate the signs in the Valkyra training village to figure out what's up, something unnecessary if either had even the most basic info the Warrior PC had at their disposal.

If we use the npcs in the final cinematic with the weapons to stop sargeras sword the warrior hero was horde, i think it was Eitrigg even.

Its impossible for her to not know that we were part of classhalls if she tell us about the shield

We know that post-Legion all Horde leaders, Saurfang included credit Sylvanas for her leadership and that he held the defense for Durotar. Of course, we don't actually see it, since Sylvanas vanishes after Stormheim and Saurfang only appears for five minutes to attempt to commit suicide in a pointless way and featuring either would take away from the time we can spend with various other purple elves.

Tell and don't show is very easy anyway.

And that you mention saurfang being a dumb dumb, that alone would show that yeah, sylvanas knew about the class halls.

The orcs have practiced slavery at all times except under Vol'jin and that's only because he's so much of a non-entity that we can't gleam anything about his leadership. Swaying the spiritual/magical forces to fulfill a service for the community in the here and now doesn't budge against this point.

Savery under thrall leadership though wasillegal, even with Garrosh wasn't something abusrd(from what i remember he "slaved" beasts, like magnataur), it was a "minor" thing compared to capture and experiment in living things. Slavery wasn't "part of the horde values" but the undead ''Death to the living" kinda was their gig, that was highlighted if they are the big focus.

Disregarding the above, the core point of disagreement is that I maintain that Sylvanas in a temporary leadership role would've been a decent way to both square the circle as regards long-term Forsaken relations with the main Horde race and develop her character while Blizzard produced some younger orcs.

Like i said, i agree that if things were temporary, it would en up normally, "hey, she help us to defeat the legion, maybe she and the undeads are not so bad after all", the norml and logical course of actions was to her step down after Legion.

but it wasn't temporary, they decided to keep going, its only went downhil, BfA, the expansion about horde x alliance, with zandalar as foothold was not supposed to be a Sylvanas and undead expansion. A dead elf as face of the horde in a war against the alliance, in the troll lands? the thematic was completely fucked up. They sold BfA as a "second, second war", then it should englobe race vs races, orcs x humans, zandalar x kul'tiras, guilneas x forsaken, and keep going from that, as races fighting each other. Bfa worldbuilding in this part was awful. Vol'jin should have crawled his ass back to the living like any troll would and impose moral against Rasthakan.

In the room when she's appointed, disregarding any procedure there's no one either qualified or with the military back-up to take over besides her,

I disagree with that, there was plenty of names, with enough qualifications, they were just, not well know or are popular like her.

[united]

Yeah I've been hearing this circulate too now.


My question is: how can 1 person (Afrasiabi) have literally all the power to make choices that were allegedly that bad narratively and known to be vindictive in nature just make them unchecked?

It's just called lack of responsibility and pinning the game's terrible narrative decisions on someone who is already (rightfully) hated. I don't buy this for one second.

[Ardenaso]

https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlor...nd_it/hitjhxj/

that was written by someone who's been a fan of Warcraft since WC2 and a hardcore lore fan

I think the truth might be even more foul. I think Alex Afrasiabi intentionally villanized Sylvanas to the maximum extent he could have to take revenge of how Dave Kosak, who loved Sylvanas, used her as an excuse to villanize Garrosh. Let me explain.

During Cataclysm, Alex Afrasiabi and Dave Kosak were at each other's throats over wishing to use the character of the other to show theirs as being better. Garrosh for the first and Sylvanas for the second.

Garrosh was always Afrasiabi's love child and Kosak worked out the Sylvanas story with Edge of Night, Silverpine and Gilneas to show the orc warchief as a malicious monster that wanted nothing but to throw all the Forsaken into obvious death for the sake of wiping them out. At the same time, he was very easy to dominate by Sylvanas. He was also portrayed as stupid and incompetent.

Afrasiabi is known for writing Garrosh into a more favorable, honorable light. He was behind Stonetalon Mountains and the famous execution from the top of the cliffs. "You are dismissed." He was also behind most of Warlords of Draenor, especially Garrosh's dream to recreate the Old Horde with his father as the lead.

Later on, Dave Kosak became lead quest / story developer for Mists of Pandaria. And that ended with him placing Garrosh into the shoes of the villain of the expansion. He even said that at an interview before the expansion's release, spilling the beans on the future Siege of Orgrimmar. He turned the orc warchief into a dictator with no morals, even contradicting his stance at Stonetalon Mountains by bombing Theramore.

Essentially, i think Alex Afrasiabi wanted revenge for the desecration of Garrosh as warchief. So he answered in kind with Sylvanas, the favorite character of the writer that wronged him. My theory is that he made Sylvanas as evil as he could have possibly imagined with absolutely no other plan but that. To force her into becoming a final boss with no morals like Garrosh was forced to be.

Danuser was left with the remnants of an intentional character sabotage. And given he is an incredibly incompetent writer, we were left with what we have in Shadowlands.

He even said that at an interview before the expansion's release, spilling the beans on the future Siege of Orgrimmar.

[Asrialol]

Danuser is to blame for shadowlands story, and not Afrasiabi.

He's as much to blame for stuff as Ghostcrawler was blamed for stuff. You thinking Danuser is to blame doesn't mean he's to blame.

Would you mind giving me a run-down on how WoW expansions are made - how the story is worked on? For example, does Danuser write something, then it's set in stone? Is that the process? Please, explain it to me.

[Syegfryed]

He's as much to blame for stuff as Ghostcrawler was blamed for stuff. You thinking Danuser is to blame doesn't mean he's to blame.

Why? this comparison doesn't make any sense. why can't we blame the LEAD writer for the awful writing? lmao

Im not blaming him for covenant systems or shit like that, but lore is his department.

[Aucald]

Why? this comparison doesn't make any sense. why can't we blame the LEAD writer for the awful writing? lmao

Im not blaming him for covenant systems or shit like that, but lore is his department.

It goes to the argument of Danuser being the totem for *everything* wrong with WoW lore, effectively and retroactively. The same way that Ghostcrawler was once the hate-sink totem for everything wrong with WoW gameplay, effectively and retroactively, etc. WoW lore isn't the product of a single individual - it's a committee project on which a number of other factors bear into and have influences on, from the game systems to the marketing, and Danuser doesn't operate as the unilateral authority for anything including lore itself. Now I would say that as the face of WoW lore Danuser is responsible for it, but as that goes, there are a lot of people who are responsible for things that are still outside of their control (workplace life is seldom fair, after all).

What degree Danuser is responsible or guilty for the state of WoW's lore is anyone's guess, really. You may believe he deserves the lion's share of the blame, or you may even hold him blameless. It's a subjective decision given none of us really knows the ins and outs of what's going on at ABK's lore department, so YMMV.

[Syegfryed]

It goes to the argument of Danuser being the totem for *everything* wrong with WoW lore, effectively and retroactively. The same way that Ghostcrawler was once the hate-sink totem for everything wrong with WoW gameplay, effectively and retroactively, etc. WoW lore isn't the product of a single individual - it's a committee project on which a number of other factors bear into and have influences on, from the game systems to the marketing, and Danuser doesn't operate as the unilateral authority for anything including lore itself. Now I would say that as the face of WoW lore Danuser is responsible for it, but as that goes, there are a lot of people who are responsible for things that are still outside of their control (workplace life is seldom fair, after all).

See, im not blaming him from everything, im blaming him from what he is supposed to be working on, tht would be shadowlands,, if he is indeed working at all. As someone in the Lead position, he either created, told people to create, or approved the creation. I cannot fathom how the main plot of shadowlands could be the fault of Jimmy the freelance writer, or Kevin, who wrote some quests in maldraxxus..

And if Afrasiabi masterplan was to make her a villain, and she suddenly became poor sylvanas set up to redemption, we can safely say He is the responsible for that


As a sidenote, i think its funny to talk about what is wrong with wow lore "retroactively" hen shadowlands sets up a retroactively villain

[Aucald]

See, im not blaming him from everything, im blaming him from what he is supposed to be working on, tht would be shadowlands,, if he is indeed working at all. As someone in the Lead position, he either created, told people to create, or approved the creation. I cannot fathom how the main plot of shadowlands could be the fault of Jimmy the freelance writer, or Kevin, who wrote some quests in maldraxxus..

Imagine a scenario where the marketing department sends you a raft of memos that read like commandments:

1.) The next expansion (Shadowlands in this case) needs to showcase Sylvanas, as she's the most lucrative character in the current stable.
2.) We want to open up the game universe considerably to breathe life into the IP and ensure a long-term ROI for stakeholders.
3.) Game of Thrones looks to still be an IP worthy of emulation to increase initial sales, so make sure you ride those coattails.
4.) WotLK was one of WoW's best expansions in terms of overall profits, so let's ensure we repeat or refer to as many of those story riffs as possible.

Now you, in the shoes of WoW's Principal Narrative Designer, have to write a story that capitalizes on those marketing commands. Try to be original, but make sure you hit all those metrics and appease the board.

[Syegfryed]

Imagine a scenario where the marketing department sends you a raft of memos that read like commandments:

1.) The next expansion (Shadowlands in this case) needs to showcase Sylvanas, as she's the most lucrative character in the current stable.
2.) We want to open up the game universe considerably to breathe life into the IP and ensure a long-term ROI for stakeholders.
3.) Game of Thrones looks to still be an IP worthy of emulation to increase initial sales, so make sure you ride those coattails.
4.) WotLK was one of WoW's best expansions in terms of overall profits, so let's ensure we repeat or refer to as many of those story riffs as possible.

Now you, in the shoes of WoW's Principal Narrative Designer, have to write a story that capitalizes on those marketing commands. Try to be original, but make sure you hit all those metrics and appease the board.

I could do that, and it would involve Sylvanas Redemption. neither a bald man responsible from "everything". I can see more return in making Sylvanas a memorable villain, than redeem her with soul split bs. most of the shadowlands is about sylvanas and rly, redemption is the worst possible way to go, imagine doing that with the Lich king? ntire expansion would be a waste.

Hell, i would throw bolvar, some death knight lore and you can set up a LOT of nostalgia. Quest to reforge and use frostmourne and people would go Crazy by that alone.

Now seems like we already can blame the failure of 10.0 in the sharehoulders.

[Aucald]

I could do that, and it would involve Sylvanas Redemption. neither a bald man responsible from "everything". I can see more return in making Sylvanas a memorable villain, than redeem her with soul split bs. most of the shadowlands is about sylvanas and rly, redemption is the worst possible way to go, imagine doing that with the Lich king? ntire expansion would be a waste.

Hell, i would throw bolvar, some death knight lore and you can set up a LOT of nostalgia. Quest to reforge and use frostmourne and people would go Crazy by that alone.

Now seems like we already can blame the failure of 10.0 in the sharehoulders.

Sure, and maybe that would work - and maybe people who dislike Sylvanas or are tired of her would be at your proverbial door with pitchforks and torches in hand, who's to really say.

What I'm saying is that it's difficult to write a compelling or original story that isn't either blatant fan service or stale as four-year-old horse dung when you're hindered by the twin specters of marketing expectations and external demands.

[Syegfryed]

Sure, and maybe that would work - and maybe people who dislike Sylvanas or are tired of her would be at your proverbial door with pitchforks and torches in hand, who's to really say.

I think, that the oens who dislike and like her, would be completely fine if they made her a compelling, good, villain.

Cause, lets be real, everyone who love sylvanas love because she is "bad", she is cruel, ruthless and pragmatic, do whatever it takes for survival, and people who dislike her, dislike by the same reasons, making her a villain that englobe all hose qualities would give her fans validation and would give the people who don't like her justification.

What I'm saying is that it's difficult to write a compelling or original story that isn't either blatant fan service or stale as four-year-old horse dung when you're hindered by the twin specters of marketing expectations and external demands.

I totally agre isn't easy, but there is some easy points to follow to keep the lore as close to warcraft lore as possible without shooting your own foot.

By example, the Crown of wills is an awful storytelling that seems to want to spite in their old lore, and this is rly something related to sharehoulders, afrasiabi or the direction who told you to do.

[MuscleBobBuffPants]

I think she has too much plot armor for any of this to be real.

[Darth Vowrawn]

Yeah, I do somewhat believe it. Afrasiabi going crazy and doing insane crap that ruined the story. Sure, entirely believable due to him getting absolute power over the setting. Now, does his (Afrasiabi) story outline that he set up, with Sylvanas and the Jailer and all of that, justify Danuser being utterly crap at his job and his handling of it? Hell no. Danuser should have put a modicum of effort into it, not been an arrogant douche about his position on it, and changed stuff when the fans rightly called it a shit job. They should have put some effort into the game's story to make the Jailer relatable or give him some motivations, they should have given some kind of reason for Sylvanas doing her acts of lunacy.

Instead, they are just trying to use Alex Afrasiabi as a boogeyman/red herring in order to distract from their own incompetence saying "b-b-but evil gropey douche!" instead of owning up to their failures and improving.

[Overlordd]

You all once again got played by clickbait master Taliesin and irrelevant shirt guy trying to cause a scene by taking things out of proportion.

https://twitter.com/TheRedShirtGuy/s...64665426063360

[Verdugo]

It goes to the argument of Danuser being the totem for *everything* wrong with WoW lore, effectively and retroactively. The same way that Ghostcrawler was once the hate-sink totem for everything wrong with WoW gameplay, effectively and retroactively, etc. WoW lore isn't the product of a single individual - it's a committee project on which a number of other factors bear into and have influences on, from the game systems to the marketing, and Danuser doesn't operate as the unilateral authority for anything including lore itself. Now I would say that as the face of WoW lore Danuser is responsible for it, but as that goes, there are a lot of people who are responsible for things that are still outside of their control (workplace life is seldom fair, after all).

What degree Danuser is responsible or guilty for the state of WoW's lore is anyone's guess, really. You may believe he deserves the lion's share of the blame, or you may even hold him blameless. It's a subjective decision given none of us really knows the ins and outs of what's going on at ABK's lore department, so YMMV.

If anything, this proves that there is always one person having the final word on everything. Metzen, then Kosak, then Afrasiabi and now Danuser.

[[Apok]]

The whole thing seemed like a scapegoating exercise from the outset, or people misrepresenting comments to take them as they wanted or felt.

Also seems an easy way out to be able to go "oh well i had to do all this shit because of what the last guy left"