Moments where the bad guys should have won

[Rockefellah]

As far as we were concerned Illidan and Vashj (as all Naga) were bad guys. Kael was in a weird position with silver moon initially loyal to him.

After getting to shattrath we learn the perceived truth of the three being in charge of Outland with as far as we are concerned domination as a goal.

Kael doubles down on it betraying Illidan. At this point we (and apparently the Naaru) don't see Illidan'a long game to take a bite out of the Legion.

[Nymrohd]

At this point we (and apparently the Naaru) don't see Illidan'a long game to take a bite out of the Legion.

Or A'dal is a good being of deontological morality and does not believe the ends can ever justify the means; he will not excuse Illidan enslaving and sacrificing mortals to deal significant damage to the Legion no matter if from a utilitarian perspective it might make sense.

[Houle]

Imagine if Primus turned out to be a bad guy and that the rune-carved legendaries he constructed for us were really infused with domination magic. Then we would run across the maw mindlessly. I remember those traders in Oribos saying things like:

Trader Ba'telk says: I am growing fond of these mortals. Many possess flexible morals. I can appreciate that.
Trader Ba'gor says: Not sure they would agree. They seem to believe they are the heroes of the story.
Trader Ba'telk says: It depends who is telling the story, does it not?

Ahhh if only.
It wouldnt have saved the xpacs story overall (since the very idea of having an entire expansion in the fckn afterlife is a horrible thing, that makes death in the story basically meaningless) but it wouldve made it more bearable.
But oh well, at least we got 3D printed robots and "mysterious unknown threat, arriving in 3-4 xpacs" right? Right?!

[Feanoro]

Ahhh if only.
It wouldnt have saved the xpacs story overall (since the very idea of having an entire expansion in the fckn afterlife is a horrible thing, that makes death in the story basically meaningless) but it wouldve made it more bearable.
But oh well, at least we got 3D printed robots and "mysterious unknown threat, arriving in 3-4 xpacs" right? Right?!

Don't worry, the usual headcanon is being spun by the Blizzard Defense Force to cover the gaping holes and explain how this is all actually brilliant writing. It's already begun with reframing the robots as avatars for some spiritual essence to inhabit, merrily ignoring whether or not the realm of the dead is (or should be) physical.

Soon enough, anyone pointing out that no, all they showed was 3D printed robots, will be damned as "not constructive".

[Cloudmaker]

Ahhh if only.
It wouldnt have saved the xpacs story overall (since the very idea of having an entire expansion in the fckn afterlife is a horrible thing, that makes death in the story basically meaningless) but it wouldve made it more bearable.
But oh well, at least we got 3D printed robots and "mysterious unknown threat, arriving in 3-4 xpacs" right? Right?!

It is because we arrived too late in the Shadowlands. The First Ones were gone, and practically everything had been destroyed by the Jailer, leaving us with little to preserve. In addition, we were not properly introduced to the underlying significance of the story. We didn't even know why some events occurred; it seemed as though the majority of them happened spontaneously or behind the scenes. These robots are prototypes. With the addition of spirit, they become true living entities. Yeah, I'm not going to lie; these light-year plot holes can be irritating for mortals. I can wait, though. I have time.

[shadowmatrix]

There are two failed attempts, iirc, against Icecrown. The Wrathgate being the first, and that was the full force of the Horde Expedition and Alliance Vanguard working together. That isn't stopped by the Lich King, but rather Apothecary Putress, etc. The horde and alliance probably would have had a decisive victory here.

Nah, when the Forsaken struck the Lich king had already brought the Alliance/Horde momentum to a halt by killing the Horde commander. It might have turned into a war of attrition but the undead have the advantage in that kind of fight.

[ThatsOurEric]

Oh yeah, no doubt! Like I said, it's thematic for an expansion about us fighting the Lich King, the actual lord of the undead, for us to be brought back from the dead to be able to take him down. And had they left it simply at that, I'd probably be fine with it. It's further delving into the realm of the dead and playing jump rope with it that I eventually had a problem with.

Yes, Shadowlands was a horrible stain on the lore.

[RenTheCat]

Kael'thas should have permanently destroyed the sunwell or at least made it so it was pure fel. That way Blood Elves wouldn't have turned into some horrible human copycat race which is all about the light and knights. They should have stayed as evil fel vampires with green eyes like how it's iconic for Orcs to have green skin. But no, Blizzard of course had to make Draenei a bunch of idiots who outright kill off the Naaru the blood elves have been torturing for months and give them a life changing reward, all evil deeds of the Horde races must be white washed and forgotten.

[BaumanKing]

In BfA the Alliance should have won by completely occupying the Horde's cities (just replace the city guards with Alliance soldiers and that's it) and forcing their resistance into hiding. This would have led to an exciting storyline about the rise of the Horde in the next expansion (Blizz loves their WC3 call-backs). And because of that we would also finally get a morally gray Alliance, showing its hypocrisy and atrocities.

[Super Dickmann]

Examples beyond count, but Legion is the biggest example. The Burning Legion, for all of the hype behind it, has been a joke for the entirety of the MMO, consistently foiled and pushed into the background. Even in the backstory, only the War of the Ancients frontloaded the Legion as being a be-all end-all threat. Past that, we've been told they're an army that has destroyed between many and every world except one, but they're endlessly upstaged by their proxies, be it the Horde, the Scourge or Illidan. Even the Dreadlords end up writing them off and running their own gig in TFT and in TBC they're a punch line to their expansion title, barely better in WoD where Archimonde gets dunked by a raid group. Their wins go nowhere, Hyjal and Dalaran repaired at no real cost.

Legion was the chance to revert on this and it started out well, the Broken Shore is the best expansion intro done yet and is unlikely to be topped because it actually, physically sold the threat by having the players lose and suffer palpable losses. 'Biggest Legion invasion of all time' begins with a bang. And also ends with it, because from then on the expansion does absolutely nothing with it. Despite invading in force the Legion spend the entirety of 7.0 as a background, while we spend most of our time either fighting their proxies or basically unrelated baddies like Xavius. The marquee Legion character isn't anyone in the actual Legion, but Gul'dan, who is himself massively out of focus.

The expansion did try and go around it and in the order campaign you see and hear about the Legion hitting the Arathi Highlands, infiltrating Stormwind or see them burning Pandaria and such, which is close to selling you on the threat again. But by 7.1, that's all done. You have visual callbacks to Archimonde destroying Dalaran, pretty much the most impressive Legion moment of the entire franchise, but it's just so KJ can sulk in front of a virtual screen, send ships that we take care of within 5 quests and then besiege the Broken Shore with little issue. KJ himself is given possibly the limpest villain ending this side of Anub'arak, but even then, the expansion gives itself one more chance to present the Legion as a threat with Illidan forcing open the portal, opening the way for the ships of the Legion to invade in force, Khadgar even shocked about this. So what is the result of closing the distance between Azeroth and endless amount of Legion armies, connected to countless conquered worlds? Absolutely fuck all. It never comes up. In fact, the only casualties save for the Broken Shore come from Sargeras himself stabbing the planet and even that gets dropped unceremoniously. We invade their home with zero issue aboard one ship and kick the ass of their entire heretofore unseen chain of command.

You could direct 'Yes, but they don't achieve anything' to any baddie in the game except Deathwing and the faction expansions, but Legion is by far the worst case. The Iron Horde were localized baddies who then ended up in a playable faction, the Scourge we can see their effect on the world in every zone they're in and can even play through doing it ourselves in the RTS, the Mawsworn are relegated entirely to their plot cul de sac, but the Legion are the top baddie and yet nothing they ever do matters. Legion was the absolute last chance to amend this, letting them devastate Azeroth while we focus on Antorus would've made that whole raid make far more sense, but more than that it would've narratively served both this expansion and the future ones. We defeat the Legion at great cost and with its leadership beheaded the demons retreat, not out of kindness, but so that the individual warlords can fight over who keeps what. We end up in a devastated world, with fantasy plutonium pouring out of the world's heart. Not just a tool for war in a place that's generally fine, but with temptation to use it to clear the damage in the here and now, to regrow what's been wrecked even at the cost of killing the world in the long term. The consequences of the Legion are so vast that you have a genuine dilemma going on on what must be done to recover from the damage and if you refuse to said means, who gets to call dibs on the limited resources left. Instead, not only is the Legion a wet fart, it being a wet fart sabotages the next two expansion stories.

[Linkedblade]

Examples beyond count, but Legion is the biggest example. The Burning Legion, for all of the hype behind it, has been a joke for the entirety of the MMO, consistently foiled and pushed into the background. Even in the backstory, only the War of the Ancients frontloaded the Legion as being a be-all end-all threat. Past that, we've been told they're an army that has destroyed between many and every world except one, but they're endlessly upstaged by their proxies, be it the Horde, the Scourge or Illidan. Even the Dreadlords end up writing them off and running their own gig in TFT and in TBC they're a punch line to their expansion title, barely better in WoD where Archimonde gets dunked by a raid group. Their wins go nowhere, Hyjal and Dalaran repaired at no real cost.

Yeah, interesting point. In an expansion titled the burning crusade, there aren't many raids where we fight the legion. Magtheridon is emprisoned already, we only go in and kill him and his jailers. Archimonde/Mt hyjal was time travel. And sunwell is the only demon raid.

[Philenia]

- The confrontation with the Lich King (We were beaten... only by a strange twist of fate, we were resurrected and won)

I do not agree, the light intervened. It used it's might via Terenas to ress us. It is rare in the lore but not unheard of.


But the rest is indeed a bit strange we won.

Deathwing also doesn't feel great, the one device we need to kill him can be recreated in a few days? Also why no aspect that uses it? But Thrall? Just to get green Jezus more screen time?

Also I kind of think we should have lost also against the Jailer, it would have more sense. We get killed and our souls are taking by Elune and go back to Azeroth with the Jailer in the background where in a few xpacks we finished him.

The whole legion thing is strange, since Sargeras was close all the time. He should have intervened and empowered some of his troops/leaders of killed us on the spot. That said I think Sargeras will be the final raid boss we kill. They properly have a xpack planned when they wanna close WoW. I wouldn't be surprised if they are already making it in the background.

[Dastreus]

N’Zoth and we all know why.

consumed the essence of other fallen old gods, being the final with a physical body still functioning, plus being the most cunning of them. And a war between horde and alliance. Yeah, no, he should have won hands down.

[Nymrohd]

Examples beyond count, but Legion is the biggest example. The Burning Legion, for all of the hype behind it, has been a joke for the entirety of the MMO, consistently foiled and pushed into the background. Even in the backstory, only the War of the Ancients frontloaded the Legion as being a be-all end-all threat. Past that, we've been told they're an army that has destroyed between many and every world except one, but they're endlessly upstaged by their proxies, be it the Horde, the Scourge or Illidan. Even the Dreadlords end up writing them off and running their own gig in TFT and in TBC they're a punch line to their expansion title, barely better in WoD where Archimonde gets dunked by a raid group. Their wins go nowhere, Hyjal and Dalaran repaired at no real cost.

Legion was the chance to revert on this and it started out well, the Broken Shore is the best expansion intro done yet and is unlikely to be topped because it actually, physically sold the threat by having the players lose and suffer palpable losses. 'Biggest Legion invasion of all time' begins with a bang. And also ends with it, because from then on the expansion does absolutely nothing with it. Despite invading in force the Legion spend the entirety of 7.0 as a background, while we spend most of our time either fighting their proxies or basically unrelated baddies like Xavius. The marquee Legion character isn't anyone in the actual Legion, but Gul'dan, who is himself massively out of focus.

The expansion did try and go around it and in the order campaign you see and hear about the Legion hitting the Arathi Highlands, infiltrating Stormwind or see them burning Pandaria and such, which is close to selling you on the threat again. But by 7.1, that's all done. You have visual callbacks to Archimonde destroying Dalaran, pretty much the most impressive Legion moment of the entire franchise, but it's just so KJ can sulk in front of a virtual screen, send ships that we take care of within 5 quests and then besiege the Broken Shore with little issue. KJ himself is given possibly the limpest villain ending this side of Anub'arak, but even then, the expansion gives itself one more chance to present the Legion as a threat with Illidan forcing open the portal, opening the way for the ships of the Legion to invade in force, Khadgar even shocked about this. So what is the result of closing the distance between Azeroth and endless amount of Legion armies, connected to countless conquered worlds? Absolutely fuck all. It never comes up. In fact, the only casualties save for the Broken Shore come from Sargeras himself stabbing the planet and even that gets dropped unceremoniously. We invade their home with zero issue aboard one ship and kick the ass of their entire heretofore unseen chain of command.

IMo what should have happened in Legion is that the Legion Assaults from the prepatch should have stayed around and expanded to cover more and more of the map, including world bosses assaulting faction capitals. At the end of the xpac Azeroth should have been in ruins.
Also during the 7.2 Legionfall cinematic KJ should have actually done what Archimonde did and blown up Dalaran. Have Dadgar sacrifice himself to land the city somewhat safely in the water right across from the Broken Shore but have the city be burned and broken for the rest of the xpac.

[Super Dickmann]

IMo what should have happened in Legion is that the Legion Assaults from the prepatch should have stayed around and expanded to cover more and more of the map, including world bosses assaulting faction capitals. At the end of the xpac Azeroth should have been in ruins.
Also during the 7.2 Legionfall cinematic KJ should have actually done what Archimonde did and blown up Dalaran. Have Dadgar sacrifice himself to land the city somewhat safely in the water right across from the Broken Shore but have the city be burned and broken for the rest of the xpac.

I'd feel bad for losing Dadgar, but yes, all those ideas fit very well. KJ starts off 7.2 by pulling an Archimonde and destroying Dalaran. If you want to show a difference between him and Archimonde, i.e cunning vs. brute strength, you can move that one plot where Aethas (of course) has his agents be co-opted by the Legion and infiltrates the city into a main story and have them break it while the ships attack, achieving the same. Dala is out of commission, which is fine since it's out of focus later anyway. With Argus, it'll always be contrived, but I'd combine focusing the aftermath on the world being destroyed and only saved by collapsing into demon-infighting with the allusion to foul play if you're still doing SL later, i.e the Dreadlords in the Legion and Lothraxion coordinating to allow the Vindicaar in so that it's not that we attack the Legion's capital head-on and win but that we're taking advantage of a once in a lifetime opening.

[Nymrohd]

I'd feel bad for losing Dadgar

Love Dadgar and want him to go out with a bang. I very much doubt he will manage that in Dragonflight which just feels very low stakes. Saving the heroes of Azeroth and countless civilians by blocking the second in command of the Legion at the cost of his life would be a good end. Better than what Tirion got.

This is part of why bad guys should occasionally win btw. Varian has his legacy as a great hero of Azeroth because a bad guy won. For heroes to exist, they need to struggle. And occasionally lose someone.

[ArenaDk]

I will never understand this : Arthas should have won / lost because a miracle.

Arthas being alive this long is based on his pure luck, even if we ignore paladins using the light to do light things with one of the strongest light weapons.

Arthas was lucky that infront of his door the nexus war happend, alliance vs horde and an old god returning.

There was no reason why not the whole dragonflights or even a few couldnt just fly up and nuke icc either with magic or simple fire, we know the Lichking is weaker then the Thunderking who struggles vs wild gods, so dragons outscale the lichking by a far.

What does Arthas have ? Sindragosa who was one consort , while Alex is probably packing 10 of this in her chamber, including Krasus.

Arthas is one of the few villains were literally no higher tier being cared enough to deal with him and left it all to mortals. Even Ragnaros had a harder matchup vs a wild god , malfurion and a cow + heros.

Arthas didnt have bad luck to lose , he was lucky to even get close to winning temporarily, which also wouldnt had matterd cause deathwing was on his way

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

Arthas didnt have bad luck to lose , he was lucky to even get close to winning temporarily, which also wouldnt had matterd cause deathwing was on his way

Makes you wonder... What would have happened if, RIGHT before we storm the gates of Icecrown, Deathwing bursts from Deepholm.

What would Arthas have thought? And what wuld Deathwing have done?

[darkoms]

Nah, when the Forsaken struck the Lich king had already brought the Alliance/Horde momentum to a halt by killing the Horde commander. It might have turned into a war of attrition but the undead have the advantage in that kind of fight.

The Chronicle literally says that the Lich King might have died in that battle, but this did not happen, and the attack of the Forsaken is described further. So it's pretty obvious that the Lich King only survived there due to the intervention of the Forsaken (oh irony)

- - - Updated - - -

I will never understand this : Arthas should have won / lost because a miracle.

Arthas being alive this long is based on his pure luck, even if we ignore paladins using the light to do light things with one of the strongest light weapons.

Arthas was lucky that infront of his door the nexus war happend, alliance vs horde and an old god returning.

There was no reason why not the whole dragonflights or even a few couldnt just fly up and nuke icc either with magic or simple fire, we know the Lichking is weaker then the Thunderking who struggles vs wild gods, so dragons outscale the lichking by a far.

What does Arthas have ? Sindragosa who was one consort , while Alex is probably packing 10 of this in her chamber, including Krasus.

Arthas is one of the few villains were literally no higher tier being cared enough to deal with him and left it all to mortals. Even Ragnaros had a harder matchup vs a wild god , malfurion and a cow + heros.

Arthas didnt have bad luck to lose , he was lucky to even get close to winning temporarily, which also wouldnt had matterd cause deathwing was on his way

Ah, it's good to see you're still here. Yes, it's quite funny that everyone says light-ex-machine, but no one says that Arthas was lucky the whole war, first because of Malygos, then because of Putress, and that's not even talking about the war of the Alliance and the Horde with Yogg-Saron and each other

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

Lei-shen. Also not a bad guy aside from enslavement and subjugation of all of Pandaria and being a ruthless ruler with desire to take over the world to complete the work of the titans.