some people are trying to defend how much generic and boring the story and design became (zoval is still a nobody) by arguing kaelthas and illidan was badly written in Burning Crusade.True, the whole set up of Illidan was incoherent in BC, and also Kaelthas in BC was just a "now I'm craAAazy-demon !"BUT- there was a lot of other stuff around BC- it was still nicely connected to warcraft 2 (the landscape, some characters and stories)but yes it was the first case of major retcon to ease the job of writers (draenei)WOTLK was a LOT much better than SL. Sure Arthas was evil and stuff, but we had a lot of interaction with him, interesting snippets in his past (by quests), and it was an iconic bad guy from WC3. He was integrated in warcraft for a long time.Mist of Pandaria has a lot of good writing. Again, you could argue blizzard's writers were flip-flopping with Garrosh, but MoP has a lot of stories and characters to see, there was an interesting theme, continuing the whole story of warcraft, thebiggest threat was set up for a long time (old god, new orc leading the horde )my point is : yes, Warcraft is not the best writing ever but it was efficient and sometimes interesting. End of BFA was wasted opportunity, and SL is generic and empty. Zoval was a bad idea.To drop out of the window all Tyrande and Sylvanas development is madness.Blizzard lost its spirit.
Can they fire Mr D already?
It's just amazing and utterly bizarre to me that Blizzard saw thousands and thousands of players criticize their writing for years, get fed up and leave for other MMOs, and just watched SO MUCH of their playercount drop because of this god awful story and said "You know what we should do? Not plan out our next story at all!"It's just....Why? Why? WHY would you do that? Y'all had over three %^&*ing years to brainstorm this #$%^ and didn't even consider, I don't know, brainstorming that &*!@? Were they going to made N'zoth the big bad and had to replace him last minute or something? Bc the Jailer genuinely had no foreshadowing at all. Hell, did he even EXIST as a character before Shadowlands?I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that players have not only been criticizing the story, but literally giving FREE ADVICE for THREE YEARS on how Blizzard can fix it and Blizzard has just gone "We heard you! We're going to do the exact opposite of all that. :)" If Steve Danusar came on Gameinformer ten years from now and said they were actively trying to destroy WoW because they were tired of making it, I wouldn't even blink. Because that's the only reason I can think of for them specifically making the worst narrative decisions possible.
Zovaal = Aizen knock off. They just keep copying and stealing characters from other shows and hoping it sticks in wow..it doesn't. Aizen is AWESOME. Zovaal is...garbage tier villain.
One of the most generic and boring villain in modern fiction.Can't wait to move on, rly.
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This is super boring. Lame storyline. Lame villain.Bobby Kotick is a more interesting villain. I wonder when we get to fight that goblin.
Good to know that the narrative team is still second-to-none when it comes to developing horrid, cliché dialogue. Unironically the worst in all of fiction for a studio of this repute.
A nameless character is actually quite brilliant. However.. the way to introduce this has been flawed. You can't suddenly make him uber epic. It would be fun if it was more of a rogue-like person. Pulling the strings as a much smaller person than this big lump of unemotional fleshyflesh. He should've been called Bruno. A small character from Azeroth than travels in a hidden way to different worlds. Setting everything in motion. He can also be a she, or anything in between or out. The Shadowlands should've then be the one to introduce it. Not just immediately "Here's a bunch of big flesh. Oh, he pulled it all". I mean, the big storyline ain't all that bad. I still enjoy it. But there was so much more to the story that because of the huge climax, it was a bit like a premature eja... you know...the climax that ends anti-climax. Unless.... this may actually not the Jailer at all? And Bruno is still out there, letting us all believe that a hump of emotional flesh is behind it all, but in real-life, he is nothing more than a cosplay fire fighter that went to the wrong house on fire. I know, sad right? :( I already get tears in my eyes for this guy. You will not believe what happens next.
sorry Blizzard, but who cares with this character. You can reveal all these "omg look he's the mastermind of it allllll" stuff you want (though we 100% all know there will be a REAL mastermind behind Zovaal), but it doesn't change how badly written and forced the Jailer is, not to mention all the retcons made for him. Legit the worst villain in Blizzard's entire history of games, not just Warcraft.
my question is what is ambition? because he talks like cringy bad villain that doesn't really have a plan. besides... "me mad that i wanted to learn things, they replaced me, and then through me down the hole to deal with bad souls. So because of that i'm messing up the afterlife because the maw sucks ass and fack all my eternal siblings"
Here is what I know to this point in lights of this Alex Afrisiabi or w/e his name was spelled like. Alex has pushed through the burning of Teldrassil and this has #$%^ed up alot of story threads the writting team had in store of Sylvanas. The writting team did what they could to fix this and keep Sylvanas's narative thread by inventing the Jailer. They did not plan the Jailer, initially, but they had to ram him in to fix what Alex did despite the team being against it. This is the excuse I am reading between the lines. The covenant thing was not planned either. They had to make a design decision because the Burning of Teldrassil messed things up pretty good.Ofcourse, this does not excuse the terrible decisions and writting in BFA but this is their excuse for why Shadowlands from storytelling point of view is this lackluster.Also, Aizen had entire arcs about his actions and those were explained too. Aizen's downfall was that he abandoned his Zanpaktou and he was defeated by the man that became one with his Zanpaktou. It is an anime about swords where the main villain abandoned his sword and his attunement to it and lost because of that. If you remember right in the Soul Society arc what Zaraki said and what Yoruichi and Kisuke Urahara said about Zanpaktous is that:1. The Zanpaktou must be wielded as an extension of yourself.2. The Zanpaktou has a will of its own. More often than not wanting to protect its owner. See Getsuga, initially refusing to teach Ichigo Mugetsu because Getsuga feels what Ichigo feels and does not want to lose contact with him because Mugetsu spends all the spiritual power of Ichigo.3. Battles between Shinigami is a battle of attrition and spiritual power.Also, on Ywach, it is a massive oversimplification that misses all points. Its similar to looking for facts to prove you right. You find the fact, you see it does not fit your narative so you make it fit your narative.