Originally Posted by
Biomega
They're anime villains, of the most generic kind. No real motivation, nothing discernible beyond "we're bad guys, and we're gonna do bad things!", no real cohesive story to slot into. Sure the design of their vision forms is interesting and they look kinda cool, but in terms of narrative, this is about as bland as it gets.
I guess it's the development time lag to blame for them not learning anything from the Jailer fiasco. Mystery is one thing, but if you don't make people CARE in some substantial way, then you can't really generate investment into stories or fates. Blizzard is really kinda bad at this. They think "the world is gonna end, you guys!" is somehow enough as a narrative driver, but the fact that this has been the case for decades now really kind of makes it ring hollow. Villains like Arthas or the Legion at least had a legacy of previous storylines that gave you an idea about what they were like and what they were all about, but the new villains they've introduced since have really never risen above the level of Generic Big Bad - for all the attempts at making the Jailer into this 4D-chess mastermind behind every event in the WC universe, it never actually went anywhere. We never found out what he was after or was doing, exactly; all we got was more generic one-liners in the vein of he'll remake reality, he'll enslave us all, yada yada. And they have not managed to rise above that in DF, not even close.