The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Murlocos]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/an-unli...nst-the-335284

So many characters to choose from and they chose these two to team up. Sigh...

I did this quest on the PTR and really did not enjoy how it was framed, even as someone that's not really a huge night elf fan or wants to get into the genocide debate. Wowhead doesn't cover the whole thing in full so I'll just throw the description into spoilers just in case.

Voss is framed as an infallible person of kindness and justice while the night elves are portrayed as unnecessarily cruel and mean-spirited against her. You meet up with Shandris and Voss, and they're already portrayed as comrades because hey, you can't trust modern WoW to do proper buildup for anything that isn't a cosmic threat.

Shandris begins acting more pointed and distressed and then runs off, and you read her journal that Wowhead describes, which makes it seem like she can't truly forgive the Forsaken. Voss acts perfectly polite and nice about this trying to help her. She almost feels like a totally different character. The whole while she's trying to help, all the dryads and keepers of the grove of the such are expressing their distrust and dislike of her.

Then it's revealed it's a nature spirit that got released earlier in the questline that's stoking Shandris's negative feelings, AKA you can just resolve the issue by killing something. You both save her, and then Voss lectures all the gathered night elf forces about how they need to be more open-minded and tolerant of people trying to help them. This is written so heavy-handed that they have all the dryads and such emoting of looking away in embarrassment and shame, in case the message wasn't smashed into your skull at this point.

It's the same problem over and over again: no buildup, just jumping to the end point the writers want. The Forsaken are being portrayed as morally superior to the people they massacred the same time we're seeing them try working together for the first time. Danuser and company cannot write a proper followup to the events of Battle for Azeroth, because the only outcome they want is everyone is best friends. We're supposed to handwave everything that happened so we can focus on cosmic shenanigans because faction strife gets in the way of that. If these writers did Warcraft 3, the humans and orcs would have become best friends off screen before even sailing to Kalimdor.

[Izalla]

I remember in BFA running errands for Nathanos pretty much screaming at my character and just accepting it like some little kid without any say.. My big ass orc battlelord from Legion and other stuff that has my character conquered in the past.

It was pretty silly at the time.

See I always felt less like Nathanos had any authority over me or I was being forced to let him belittle me, and more like he was basically a mosquito whining in my ear but nothing I would ever consider to be a threat to me. Like a "whatever helps you sleep at night, bud" attitude toward him. He wasn't powerful enough to be bothered by because lorewise I should be strong enough to roflstomp him instantly if I really wanted to. When you think of him like that you kinda just chuckle when he acts like he has any place to boss you around, and you were gonna do that anyway so he can have his precious little power trip moment.

[Xilurm]

I did this quest on the PTR and really did not enjoy how it was framed, even as someone that's not really a huge night elf fan or wants to get into the genocide debate. Wowhead doesn't cover the whole thing in full so I'll just throw the description into spoilers just in case.

Voss is framed as an infallible person of kindness and justice while the night elves are portrayed as unnecessarily cruel and mean-spirited against her. You meet up with Shandris and Voss, and they're already portrayed as comrades because hey, you can't trust modern WoW to do proper buildup for anything that isn't a cosmic threat.

Shandris begins acting more pointed and distressed and then runs off, and you read her journal that Wowhead describes, which makes it seem like she can't truly forgive the Forsaken. Voss acts perfectly polite and nice about this trying to help her. She almost feels like a totally different character. The whole while she's trying to help, all the dryads and keepers of the grove of the such are expressing their distrust and dislike of her.

Then it's revealed it's a nature spirit that got released earlier in the questline that's stoking Shandris's negative feelings, AKA you can just resolve the issue by killing something. You both save her, and then Voss lectures all the gathered night elf forces about how they need to be more open-minded and tolerant of people trying to help them. This is written so heavy-handed that they have all the dryads and such emoting of looking away in embarrassment and shame, in case the message wasn't smashed into your skull at this point.

It's the same problem over and over again: no buildup, just jumping to the end point the writers want. The Forsaken are being portrayed as morally superior to the people they massacred the same time we're seeing them try working together for the first time. Danuser and company cannot write a proper followup to the events of Battle for Azeroth, because the only outcome they want is everyone is best friends. We're supposed to handwave everything that happened so we can focus on cosmic shenanigans because faction strife gets in the way of that. If these writers did Warcraft 3, the humans and orcs would have become best friends off screen before even sailing to Kalimdor.

Should I just become a Draenei fan? They don't really seem to have any issues lorewise. I even liked the Man'ari skin unlock quest. Just gotta ignore that their entire existence is based on a retcon that happened 18 years ago and I'm set.

[Ferlion]

I did this quest on the PTR and really did not enjoy how it was framed, even as someone that's not really a huge night elf fan or wants to get into the genocide debate. Wowhead doesn't cover the whole thing in full so I'll just throw the description into spoilers just in case.

Voss is framed as an infallible person of kindness and justice while the night elves are portrayed as unnecessarily cruel and mean-spirited against her. You meet up with Shandris and Voss, and they're already portrayed as comrades because hey, you can't trust modern WoW to do proper buildup for anything that isn't a cosmic threat.

Shandris begins acting more pointed and distressed and then runs off, and you read her journal that Wowhead describes, which makes it seem like she can't truly forgive the Forsaken. Voss acts perfectly polite and nice about this trying to help her. She almost feels like a totally different character. The whole while she's trying to help, all the dryads and keepers of the grove of the such are expressing their distrust and dislike of her.

Then it's revealed it's a nature spirit that got released earlier in the questline that's stoking Shandris's negative feelings, AKA you can just resolve the issue by killing something. You both save her, and then Voss lectures all the gathered night elf forces about how they need to be more open-minded and tolerant of people trying to help them. This is written so heavy-handed that they have all the dryads and such emoting of looking away in embarrassment and shame, in case the message wasn't smashed into your skull at this point.

It's the same problem over and over again: no buildup, just jumping to the end point the writers want. The Forsaken are being portrayed as morally superior to the people they massacred the same time we're seeing them try working together for the first time. Danuser and company cannot write a proper followup to the events of Battle for Azeroth, because the only outcome they want is everyone is best friends. We're supposed to handwave everything that happened so we can focus on cosmic shenanigans because faction strife gets in the way of that. If these writers did Warcraft 3, the humans and orcs would have become best friends off screen before even sailing to Kalimdor.

I say this as a fan of Blizzard, and not so much as a complaint as much as a critique.

One of their largest narrative issues is that they talk to the player, and not the character. What I mean by this is, very often they craft their stories from a standpoint of our characters (And as a result, all characters) knowing everything the player does. So when a particularly strong emotion or feeling is in the community, they will sometimes address it in this manner.

It makes their story and stuff come off as extremely heavy handed. If that spoilered part is even in the realm of being accurate, it'll cause a minor backlash, but ultimately it's pretty clear at this point Blizzard wants to present the Horde as not being at fault for Teldrassil.

[Ersula]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/an-unli...nst-the-335284

So many characters to choose from and they chose these two to team up. Sigh...

It makes sense that the Forsaken are the only horde race that actually gives a crap about the night elves getting a new home. As penance, obviously. It wouldn't make sense for any other horde race to give a crap. Plus it was probably written by whatever dev wrote the Lilian/Tidesage Ardenweald questline that got dropped from the Shadowlands alpha.

It's the same problem over and over again: no buildup, just jumping to the end point the writers want. The Forsaken are being portrayed as morally superior to the people they massacred the same time we're seeing them try working together for the first time. Danuser and company cannot write a proper followup to the events of Battle for Azeroth, because the only outcome they want is everyone is best friends. We're supposed to handwave everything that happened so we can focus on cosmic shenanigans because faction strife gets in the way of that. If these writers did Warcraft 3, the humans and orcs would have become best friends off screen before even sailing to Kalimdor.

So if Night Elves are hostile to anyone, that's not portraying them positively enough, but if Forsaken try to do something good, that's portraying them too positively? Do you think you might have a bias toward the night elves?

[seainma]

I did this quest on the PTR and really did not enjoy how it was framed, even as someone that's not really a huge night elf fan or wants to get into the genocide debate. Wowhead doesn't cover the whole thing in full so I'll just throw the description into spoilers just in case.

Voss is framed as an infallible person of kindness and justice while the night elves are portrayed as unnecessarily cruel and mean-spirited against her. You meet up with Shandris and Voss, and they're already portrayed as comrades because hey, you can't trust modern WoW to do proper buildup for anything that isn't a cosmic threat.

Shandris begins acting more pointed and distressed and then runs off, and you read her journal that Wowhead describes, which makes it seem like she can't truly forgive the Forsaken. Voss acts perfectly polite and nice about this trying to help her. She almost feels like a totally different character. The whole while she's trying to help, all the dryads and keepers of the grove of the such are expressing their distrust and dislike of her.

Then it's revealed it's a nature spirit that got released earlier in the questline that's stoking Shandris's negative feelings, AKA you can just resolve the issue by killing something. You both save her, and then Voss lectures all the gathered night elf forces about how they need to be more open-minded and tolerant of people trying to help them. This is written so heavy-handed that they have all the dryads and such emoting of looking away in embarrassment and shame, in case the message wasn't smashed into your skull at this point.

It's the same problem over and over again: no buildup, just jumping to the end point the writers want. The Forsaken are being portrayed as morally superior to the people they massacred the same time we're seeing them try working together for the first time. Danuser and company cannot write a proper followup to the events of Battle for Azeroth, because the only outcome they want is everyone is best friends. We're supposed to handwave everything that happened so we can focus on cosmic shenanigans because faction strife gets in the way of that. If these writers did Warcraft 3, the humans and orcs would have become best friends off screen before even sailing to Kalimdor.

Interesting.. Wouldn't you consider how Lillian treated Zelling in BFA, and how she continued to honor her promise to make sure his family was safe a part of her growth as a kind person? Also wasn't she helpful to that captain women and Derek Proudmoore? I know thats Forsaken specific in these cases but its not too much of a stretch for her to give the same kindness to Night Elves.

[Xilurm]

I say this as a fan of Blizzard, and not so much as a complaint as much as a critique.

One of their largest narrative issues is that they talk to the player, and not the character. What I mean by this is, very often they craft their stories from a standpoint of our characters (And as a result, all characters) knowing everything the player does. So when a particularly strong emotion or feeling is in the community, they will sometimes address it in this manner.

It makes their story and stuff come off as extremely heavy handed. If that spoilered part is even in the realm of being accurate, it'll cause a minor backlash, but ultimately it's pretty clear at this point Blizzard wants to present the Horde as not being at fault for Teldrassil.

Stuff like that happen during PTR, and I haven't seen people complaining about this, like for example the Alexstrasza quest from 2 patches ago. Means no one will care when it's live either.

[Murlocos]

I say this as a fan of Blizzard, and not so much as a complaint as much as a critique.

One of their largest narrative issues is that they talk to the player, and not the character. What I mean by this is, very often they craft their stories from a standpoint of our characters (And as a result, all characters) knowing everything the player does. So when a particularly strong emotion or feeling is in the community, they will sometimes address it in this manner.

It makes their story and stuff come off as extremely heavy handed. If that spoilered part is even in the realm of being accurate, it'll cause a minor backlash, but ultimately it's pretty clear at this point Blizzard wants to present the Horde as not being at fault for Teldrassil.

I agree with your take on it, though I think this has become exacerbated in recent years. Partly from the change in guard of the creative team, and partly because the story has become so mired in controversies and mistakes that it feels like an increasing portion of the story consists of nervous apologies to players. It's nice that they're open to feedback, it's worrying that they need feedback so often that they seem incapable of steering the ship alone.

The Sylvanas loyalist scene from the heritage questline has the same problem, it's very obviously aimed at players to the point where she's referencing things that only make sense to the omniscient player that can read short stories on the website. Unsurprisingly, Danuser himself claimed credit for writing that scene.

[Xilurm]

It makes sense that the Forsaken are the only horde race that actually gives a crap about the night elves getting a new home. As penance, obviously. It wouldn't make sense for any other horde race to give a crap. Plus it was probably written by whatever dev wrote the Lilian/Tidesage Ardenweald questline that got dropped from the Shadowlands alpha.So if Night Elves are hostile to anyone, that's not portraying them positively enough, but if Forsaken try to do something good, that's portraying them too positively? Do you think you might have a bias toward the night elves?

I mean you're acting like that's a weird thing. It really isn't.

[Ebonn]

I did this quest on the PTR and really did not enjoy how it was framed, even as someone that's not really a huge night elf fan or wants to get into the genocide debate. Wowhead doesn't cover the whole thing in full so I'll just throw the description into spoilers just in case.

Voss is framed as an infallible person of kindness and justice while the night elves are portrayed as unnecessarily cruel and mean-spirited against her. You meet up with Shandris and Voss, and they're already portrayed as comrades because hey, you can't trust modern WoW to do proper buildup for anything that isn't a cosmic threat.

Shandris begins acting more pointed and distressed and then runs off, and you read her journal that Wowhead describes, which makes it seem like she can't truly forgive the Forsaken. Voss acts perfectly polite and nice about this trying to help her. She almost feels like a totally different character. The whole while she's trying to help, all the dryads and keepers of the grove of the such are expressing their distrust and dislike of her.

Then it's revealed it's a nature spirit that got released earlier in the questline that's stoking Shandris's negative feelings, AKA you can just resolve the issue by killing something. You both save her, and then Voss lectures all the gathered night elf forces about how they need to be more open-minded and tolerant of people trying to help them. This is written so heavy-handed that they have all the dryads and such emoting of looking away in embarrassment and shame, in case the message wasn't smashed into your skull at this point.

It's the same problem over and over again: no buildup, just jumping to the end point the writers want. The Forsaken are being portrayed as morally superior to the people they massacred the same time we're seeing them try working together for the first time. Danuser and company cannot write a proper followup to the events of Battle for Azeroth, because the only outcome they want is everyone is best friends. We're supposed to handwave everything that happened so we can focus on cosmic shenanigans because faction strife gets in the way of that. If these writers did Warcraft 3, the humans and orcs would have become best friends off screen before even sailing to Kalimdor.

No buildup is not the same as “I missed all the buildup.” I just recently replayed Tirisfal Glades and being a fan of the Forsaken in general, it’s pretty clear that she had plenty of buildup and background, a lot more than many other characters. Saying there’s “no buildup” is pretty wild. That being said, it’s a video game that is 30 years old (franchise) so if they don’t come up with brand new stuff sometimes… honestly what do you expect? This is one of the most infuriating things to me to hear from other gamers. Developing new content means introducing brand new events and plot turns and characters and feelings and ideologies sometimes. Not everything can have a 2, 5, 10, whatever number of years to buildup when we’ve already been going through those established bits for 20 years.

[Murlocos]

So if Night Elves are hostile to anyone, that's not portraying them positively enough, but if Forsaken try to do something good, that's portraying them too positively? Do you think you might have a bias toward the night elves?

It's the execution more than the idea itself. I don't think it's a terrible idea to write Forsaken trying to redeem themselves for what they did in BfA. The issue is that the way they decided to initiate that process was to immediately portray the Forsaken as selfless and virtuous while the night elves are portrayed as being stubborn and bitter in a way that feels disconnected from the severity of the atrocities the Forsaken committed.

I'm not arguing just about the principle, but that the way they handled it was as lazy as possible. Some people might also find it offensive, but again, I don't want to get into that whole angle of the endless Teldrassil arguments.

[Ferlion]

I agree with your take on it, though I think this has become exacerbated in recent years. Partly from the change in guard of the creative team, and partly because the story has become so mired in controversies and mistakes that it feels like an increasing portion of the story consists of nervous apologies to players. It's nice that they're open to feedback, it's worrying that they need feedback so often that they seem incapable of steering the ship alone.

The Sylvanas loyalist scene from the heritage questline has the same problem, it's very obviously aimed at players to the point where she's referencing things that only make sense to the omniscient player that can read short stories on the website. Unsurprisingly, Danuser himself claimed credit for writing that scene.

I think the largest issue with it being so much more apparent is that we are realistically dealing with problems that started in BFA and Shadowlands, and those expansions were themselves disjointed and suffering from internal issues.

With that being said, I also think that Blizzard has a very distinctive cultural bent that tends to overlook just how terrible of a thing someone in their story just did.

The former employee who was going on about how normal people from Goldshire undoubtedly see Sylvanas as the greatest hero Azeroth has ever known because she saved gram-grams soul from super hell comes to mind.

[Xilurm]

No buildup is not the same as “I missed all the buildup.” I just recently replayed Tirisfal Glades and being a fan of the Forsaken in general, it’s pretty clear that she had plenty of buildup and background, a lot more than many other characters. Saying there’s “no buildup” is pretty wild. That being said, it’s a video game that is 30 years old (franchise) so if they don’t come up with brand new stuff sometimes… honestly what do you expect? This is one of the most infuriating things to me to hear from other gamers. Developing new content means introducing brand new events and plot turns and characters and feelings and ideologies sometimes. Not everything can have a 2, 5, 10, whatever number of years to buildup when we’ve already been going through those established bits for 20 years.

Bruh. The character of Lilian in Tirisfal Glades isn't the same as it is here.

Next you're going to tell me there's build up in Scholomance too.

[Ersula]

Bruh. The character of Lilian in Tirisfal Glades isn't the same as it is here.

Next you're going to tell me there's build up in Scholomance too.

I think it's consistent progression considering her questlines in BFA.

Ironically the Night Elves & Forsaken can bond over their shared victim complex.

[Ferlion]

Bruh. The character of Lilian in Tirisfal Glades isn't the same as it is here.

Next you're going to tell me there's build up in Scholomance too.

To be perfectly fair, there very much is a good story to be had from Lillian Vosses introduction of a vengeance filled monster consumed with rage for what happened to her transforming over the years to someone who has moved past that anger and now knows how to help others in the same situation.

Like, on a personal level, Voss knows a thing or two about rage, distrust, and trauma.

[Murlocos]

No buildup is not the same as “I missed all the buildup.” I just recently replayed Tirisfal Glades and being a fan of the Forsaken in general, it’s pretty clear that she had plenty of buildup and background, a lot more than many other characters. Saying there’s “no buildup” is pretty wild. That being said, it’s a video game that is 30 years old (franchise) so if they don’t come up with brand new stuff sometimes… honestly what do you expect? This is one of the most infuriating things to me to hear from other gamers. Developing new content means introducing brand new events and plot turns and characters and feelings and ideologies sometimes. Not everything can have a 2, 5, 10, whatever number of years to buildup when we’ve already been going through those established bits for 20 years.

This is about the portrayal of both races, not just Voss. All the night elf NPCs in the storyline are portrayed in a negative light. There's no room for interpretation here because Voss declares the message at the end of the questline: we want to help you, so get over yourselves already and let us help.

Again, I'm not arguing against this from a primary viewpoint of it being a bad moral, it's that they go about it in the most heavy-handed fashion that can't just have Voss be displayed positive, but everyone else as ignorant and in need of education from her. I don't think it's very good writing.

The former employee who was going on about how normal people from Goldshire undoubtedly see Sylvanas as the greatest hero Azeroth has ever known because she saved gram-grams soul from super hell comes to mind.

What was this?

[flan1337]

I did this quest on the PTR and really did not enjoy how it was framed, even as someone that's not really a huge night elf fan or wants to get into the genocide debate. Wowhead doesn't cover the whole thing in full so I'll just throw the description into spoilers just in case.

Voss is framed as an infallible person of kindness and justice while the night elves are portrayed as unnecessarily cruel and mean-spirited against her. You meet up with Shandris and Voss, and they're already portrayed as comrades because hey, you can't trust modern WoW to do proper buildup for anything that isn't a cosmic threat.

Shandris begins acting more pointed and distressed and then runs off, and you read her journal that Wowhead describes, which makes it seem like she can't truly forgive the Forsaken. Voss acts perfectly polite and nice about this trying to help her. She almost feels like a totally different character. The whole while she's trying to help, all the dryads and keepers of the grove of the such are expressing their distrust and dislike of her.

Then it's revealed it's a nature spirit that got released earlier in the questline that's stoking Shandris's negative feelings, AKA you can just resolve the issue by killing something. You both save her, and then Voss lectures all the gathered night elf forces about how they need to be more open-minded and tolerant of people trying to help them. This is written so heavy-handed that they have all the dryads and such emoting of looking away in embarrassment and shame, in case the message wasn't smashed into your skull at this point.

It's the same problem over and over again: no buildup, just jumping to the end point the writers want. The Forsaken are being portrayed as morally superior to the people they massacred the same time we're seeing them try working together for the first time. Danuser and company cannot write a proper followup to the events of Battle for Azeroth, because the only outcome they want is everyone is best friends. We're supposed to handwave everything that happened so we can focus on cosmic shenanigans because faction strife gets in the way of that. If these writers did Warcraft 3, the humans and orcs would have become best friends off screen before even sailing to Kalimdor.

odd - are they doing this to write them into the new tree story? Why...? It would be more interesting to have this group break off and oppose the new tree/undead/NE. While I think people tend to be a bit silly with saying WoW has too much friendships but at this rate there is too much unrealistic friendships.

[Ferlion]

This is about the portrayal of both races, not just Voss. All the night elf NPCs in the storyline are portrayed in a negative light. There's no room for interpretation here because Voss declares the message at the end of the questline: we want to help you, so get over yourselves already and let us help.

Again, I'm not arguing against this from a primary viewpoint of it being a bad moral, it's that they go about it in the most heavy-handed fashion that can't just have Voss be displayed positive, but everyone else as ignorant and in need of education from her. I don't think it's very good writing.



What was this?

His tweets of it don't exist anymore, AFAIK, but yeah. I'm not going to include a name, because honestly I don't want people going and bugging the guy. Especially since he wasn't involved with the story. But like I said, I think it's more of an internal culture problem than a individual problem when you pair it with the constant jokes and teldrassil comments and the way the story wrapped up. I think if people aren't willing to move past a singular event, then they should likely move on from the game. They got their vision, and you can either go along with it or not.

[Ebonn]

Bruh. The character of Lilian in Tirisfal Glades isn't the same as it is here.

Next you're going to tell me there's build up in Scholomance too.

That portion of Forsaken story is relevant, I’m not talking only about that character, and when I said I was a fan of the Forsaken story in general, I was referring to several expansions worth of Forsaken lore. So you’re really missing the point of what I was saying here lol. I was merely pointing to a very early bit of background, not trying to summarize every piece of it bit by bit.

- - - Updated - - -

This is about the portrayal of both races, not just Voss. All the night elf NPCs in the storyline are portrayed in a negative light. There's no room for interpretation here because Voss declares the message at the end of the questline: we want to help you, so get over yourselves already and let us help.

Again, I'm not arguing against this from a primary viewpoint of it being a bad moral, it's that they go about it in the most heavy-handed fashion that can't just have Voss be displayed positive, but everyone else as ignorant and in need of education from her. I don't think it's very good writing.



What was this?

I do get what you’re saying. But I respectfully disagree. I love Night Elves too, but they’re mortal and imperfect much like any other race haha. I actually appreciate this story and feel like it falls right in line with what I’ve been seeing of both races since BfA. Like this was an expected trajectory for a people in so much pain, as opposed to it coming from nowhere. I suppose that’s just a difference in what we each see and read into. I saw the strings being laid out and tied together a long time coming, but if you don’t view the story in the same way, I can totally see why it would feel out of nowhere and extra heavy handed. I think a lot of people jump to those conclusions too easily, but that being said, Blizz does do that sometimes lol so you’re not wrong.

I actually feel like that whole feeling of Voss to the NElves is really more about a couple specific Night Elf characters and probably didn’t need to be generalized to the entire people. Like Tyrande really needs to hear that shit but maybe not ALL the NElves lol

[Ersula]

While I do think it's pretty obviously a reference to Khaz Algar that doesn't make it anything other than speculation at this point. I'm kinda hoping it is the other side of Azeroth though because I've been wanting to see that for like 15 years now.

Sure but there was no reason to think there was an "other side of Azeroth until we see the actual globe in Legion." I have to wonder what actual in-universe astrologers thought, because those globes in Titan-facilities that put EK & Kalimdor on opposite sides of the planet would have made no sense scientifically.

"Hey Thorim, the day-night cycle doesn't match up with your globes, man."