Asmongold Reacts to How 1 NPC Destroyed WoW’s ENTIRE Franchise | by Accolonn
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 сер 2024
- Asmongold watches "The Story of Zovaal - How One NPC DESTROYED The WoW Franchise!" to find out how Blizzard ruined WoW's entire story with a single NPC. Zovaal, The Jailer is a World of Warcraft character first introduced with WoW's Shadowlands expansion. World of Warcraft hasn't had decent storytelling in years, especially compared to other MMORPG Asmongold plays such as FFXIV (Final Fantasy 14). But what is the root cause of poor writing and underwhelming delivery of World of Warcraft's Lore? Is it the recent Blizzard scandals that led to awful workplace environment or the absolute greed of Activision-Blizzard's CEO Bobby Kotick? Will Microsoft buying Blizzard solve these issues? ...or should we stop giving WoW devs excuses and hold them accountable for disappointing Shadowlands plot?
► Asmongold's Twitch: / asmongold
► Asmongold's Twitter: / asmongold
► Asmongold's 2nd YT Channel: / zackrawrr
► Asmongold's Sub-Reddit: / asmongold
Thank you all for watching! Stay tuned and subscribe to the official Asmongold UA-cam Channel to always be kept up to date about the best Asmongold Highlights, Asmongold Reacts and funniest Asmongold moments from World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14 (FFXIV) and other games played on stream!
Original Video:
• Video
Subscribe to Accolonn!
/ @theaccolonn
Channel Editors: CatDany & Daily Dose of Asmongold
► 🎸 Outro song: CatDany - Get Enough
If you own the copyright of content showed in this video and would like it to be removed or the Ad-Revenue made from it please contact::
► / catdanyru
►
#Asmongold
The jailor knew Microsoft would buy Blizzard, its all part of his master plan. That is why he made the stock price drop by pretending to be written badly.
🤣👍
holy fuck... microsoft has the sigils now
Even Microsoft can’t save Blizzard from itself.
funniest shit I've read in a while lad
How is this post a year old, it only just happened and UA-cam even recommended me this video, lol.
Kel'thuzad went from being a Mage interested in Necromancy, to being forced to serve the Scourge, to trusting Ner'zhul's plan, to becoming the only friend Arthas had as a Death Knight (to the point he saved his life), to dying twice in the service of Arthas... To suddenly realizing he was on the Jailer's side all along.
Pog story telling
Word on the street is that Kain is deified
The best part is the zovaal writers actually think that their writing is better because their character controls everything or.... It seems like a plot to piss off the previous writers from last night's cube crawl more than a plot within the warcraft universe written for the enjoyment of the fans.
Parkour!!
So... quadruple-crossed. Not double-crossed, not tripple-crossed, but quadruple-crossed.
Bandits stole grapes from the vineyards near Northshire Abby. Now I finally know why, and who’s responsible. The Jailor needs to be held countable for these crimes.
Hahaha.
My problem with the jailer hasn't been that he supposedly had a 5m IQ with which to plan out almost everything from warcraft lore: my issue - is that Blizz has decided to wrap up almost all of warcraft lore into this one character. They're actually retconning and wrecking the entire history of warcraft in a cheap, transparent, desperate attempt to make this character relevant or interesting. Take all of warcraft lore and play a game of "the Simpsons did it" but substitute the word "Simpsons" with "jailer".
Why were the Eredar corrupted? Well - because the jailer manipulated Sargeras. Why was the world tree destroyed? Burning Legion > Sargeras > Jailer. Why was Draenor destroyed creating the outlands? Burning Legion > Sargeras > Jailer. Dark portal Orc invasion? Burning Legion > Sargeras > Jailer. Scourge and Arthas and Lich King(s)? You guessed it - Burning Legion > Sargeras > Jailer. Worgen? Surely the worgen aren- oh wait - Druids fighting the burning legion (satyrs specifically) sooooo.... Burning Legion > Sargeras > Jailer. Fall of the high elves? Burning Legion > Sargeras > Jailer. Eshara . Oh you say - but at least Queen Azshara and the Naga were a corruption of the old Gods and thus void influence... right? Welllllll not really, no, because her fealty to the old God was a result of the well of eternity being blown up after it was corrupted by fel magic because she made a deal with the legion in exchange for power soooo.... Burning Legion > Sargeras > Jailer.
the only things left in WoW's lore, which are not wrapped up into "the jailer did it".... are trolls, furbolgs, centaurs, old gods, the curse of flesh (so far, but I suspect that will change), deathwing, and maybe a handful of other items in the lore. Almost everything - legitimately - almost EVERYTHING in warcraft lore has now become "the jailer did it".
I don't care if it was him randomly throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what stuck, or if it was a 5 million IQ plot from the beginning: almost everything from this once expansive fascinating, intricate world of lore and story of factional strife among many disparate groups vying for power and control and resources and survival; has boiled down into being nothing but the manipulations of this one - single - character.
Yeah exactly true. Completely stupid.
It seemed to not be questioned much with the “Loki” TV show.
Guess blizzard thought they could have their “man pulling the strings at the end of the world” storyline as well.
@@nhagan001 I've been out and away from the MCU for a fair bit, but if you twisted my arm - my most honest response would be that no one really cares about MCU lore at this point.
Wokists have already poisoned the well so much in comics, retconning and replacing characters, that younger viewers don't know the original history or plot and the deep lore enthusiasts really only watch Loki - to see Loki.
That's pretty much a show you can watch, purely because Tom Hiddleston as Loki is so entertaining. That and Owen Wilson does a remarkably good job as a straight man. Like, if you had the opportunity to watch a spin off show of J.K. Simmons playing the role of Jonah Jameson? Yes, yes you would, and that would be an hour of your time well spent - because Simmons was fucking brilliant in that role.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Whilst I hate the Jailer as well....essentially Blizzard has just added an extra step in the corruption ladder. If you remove The Jailer, everything leads to Sargeras. So I mean, its been done before I guess. My question is who's next? Burning Legion>Sargeras> Jailer> Shrek?
Deathwing > Old Gods > Burning Legion (created Dragon Soul to fight the Legion with instruction from the Old Gods) > Sargeras > Jailer
Turns out KT's phylactery had its own phylactery. We can't destroy his phylactery until we go to the super shadowlands (where creatures from the shadowlands go when they die) to destroy his phylactery's phylactery. Coming in 2024.
you know I wouldn't mind that as a running gag.
Lifelands*. Where it will turn out the BIGGER mastermind of the cosmos had always intended him to become a life-lich, who has always secretly hated necromancy and was spying on the scourge & Jailer all this time.
Or Super Ultimate Infinite Land Unleashed where we fight a biggerer villain that controls spacetime and is gonna destroy the universe again again (x69)
You do touch on something important... the Shadowlands is not the real afterlife. Its a mechanic construct where souls are gathered, basically stolen from the real afterlife. Then they suffer eternally in the Maw and Furryland, and get grinded into dust. Upon death, which in afterlife should be impossible to begin with. At least you'd have to respawn in Oribos or something. If thats the real afterlife of Warcraft, its more grimdark than Warhammer and Dark Souls combined.
Not enough phylactery
Also needs an unresolved cliffhanger in a major side plot to sell 10 copies of a book later on
Doesn’t help that Zovall looked like a random, bald dungeon elite that couldn’t afford shoes. His character design was garbage
Its sad to see so many fans come up with better stories then the devs
Its actually hilarious. Basic old trodden and trope ridden stories are better than what Blozzard delivers. Like bruh. Giving Zoval a love story as a motive is better than what we have. Make it that he falls in love with one of the old ones or how the creators of the shadowlands are called, and the other keepers of the shadowlands dont like that and yeet him. His goal is to get revenge and bring back/save his lover, no matter the cost even if that means consuming every living and dead soul in the universe. Bam. Better foundation for a story than what we have.
@@spacejunk2186 that already sounds better then what we got lol.
The Blizzard horribly fails in collecting proper feedback from players and possibly rewarding them for their passionate ideas.
@@svrls0619 xpac after xpac. Too sad.
I mean.... It's millions of fans against a couple hundred devs what did you expect
If the heroes really beat zovall (which let's be real, there's no way we won't with blizz) it will open up a massive plot hole where it doesn't make sense that any villain could ever beat us, or even stand close to us for that matter, and the stakes would never be high again.
Just like archimonde and kil'jaeden
We took out 3 old gods. A death titan. And soon the jailer. You’re certainly right. We own the universe.
I bet you the only person that could beat out heroes at this point…
Are their spouses.
Blizzard fell into "Lore Powercreep", which is a term I just made up, where you must make the next bad guy even MORE powerful than the one before it, to attempt to make the player feel like they are advancing or that the new villain is more threatening then the one before it so it feels more interesting to defeat. They got so caught up in this cycle they went to the full extreme and made him the biggest baddest bad guy ever...which is a problem for exactly why you said, if we do win, and we will...how can you then top THAT? How could anything ever be threatening and motivating again?
we have been having this issue since wotlk in my opinion.
The Jailer is the Ultimate Chad. He mindbroke everyone because he's playing 8D chess.
But according to T&E he's just been throwing shit at a wall for millenias to see what sticks lmao
The jailer é o Bolsonaro porra
And refuses to elaborate
Playing 8D Chess on his magnificent Chest
8=D chess
Zoval is what happens when you decide to use Sylvannas instead of Arthas as his champion: On one hand you have a character that is completely blind and stupid to everything the big bad says and does, only to have a heel turn because he said a word that triggers your character. Though since you want to keep that character's free will, you make a new Lich King to try an insert some 'conflict' in her actions; but since that character is completely blind and stupid, she does it anyways. A character that has to have empathy installed into her brain for some backdoor redemption moment.
On the other hand you have a character that has lost his free will and has been forced to do the big bad's bidding from the very start, a character that was written to have been fighting over his domination in the leadup to his defeat. A character who had a chance of being freed from that domination but was immediately cast back into to the big bad's hands. Imagine if he still fought against the domination imposed upon him still in the Shadowlands. Imagine if he was the one who was giving the players breadcrumbs to follow, threads to pull, cracks to open. Imagine Uther, Jaina, King Ternas, being given an opportunity to simultaneously correct their own personal wrongs for abandoning Arthas in his time of need and to rescue his soul from the fate they unwittingly sheparded him into. Imagine Arthas in the final hour sacrificing what remained of his soul to make a singular choice to save the Shadowlands; only for his mentor, friend, and father to stand beside him in that moment to save and redeem him. Imagine instead of his final words being "I only see darkness for me" he says something akin to "I'm glad I was able to see you one last time with my own eyes."
But no, everyone was denied this story narrative in favor of redeeming Sylvanass: Which required Tyrande to abandon her vengeance. Which requires everyone she's wronged to forgive her for choices she made using her own freewill. Which is being done via "She didn't know what she was doing, she didn't know." Using the splitting soul mechanic introduced in this expansion alone to give her the narrative exit.
*wipes tear* look how they massacred my boy!
What disappoints me the most is that Sylvanas HAD sympathy. You saw that when she got the Blood Elves a place in the Horde. You saw it again when you returned her locket to her and she sang the lament.
They wrote the sympathy out of her. The Sylvanas of the later expansions would have NEVER invited the Blood Elves, she wouldn’t care about the locket.
They wrote her emotions out, only so they could write them in when it was convenient.
Ok but this, literally all of this. Sylvanas could have fit in somewhere else for sure, she is a character that you basically have endless possibilities with, but for some reason they just didn't do anything with any of those possibilities.
ye wen i seen the clip with arthas being throw to the mall i belived that blizz will make him somfing like darth vader to sidios for the jailer
Hire this man.
Any random wow player, definitely RPer can make blizz a better story. I have no idea where they brought Steve from or the rest of the writers under him
The Jailer should win, so he can remake Azeroth and make it great again!
He's going to build a wall around Azeroth and make Sargeras pay for it!! 🦞😎👍
And give it to the people (Donald J.Trump)
I would love if he just releases a virus that deletes wow from your hard drive so you don’t have to suffer any longer as a final act of mercy
Agree
I don't play WoW, but seeing as he's always going out to reset the universe, then it's safe to say it'll happen.
Honestly at this point they might aswell say that at some point the true timeline was disrupted by the Infinite dragonflight and basically 'made' the Jailor, they told him key future events, and let him manipulate the outcomes to his favor, we have to go to these key points in the Warcraft history to prevent the Jailor's influence from taking hold and letting the true timeline to be returned to it's original state.
....Basically make a story that the Infinite Dragonflight told the Jailor about all of the key moments in history, which allowed him to manipulate the outcomes to favor himself to eventually reach the point he got in Shadowlands,... And it's our task to go back to these key points in history to prevent the Jailor's influence from seeping in, with the end of the storyline having us fight against a Void-Lord empowered Murozond from ever influencing the true timeline ever again.
This idea would be basically making a 'Caverns of Time' expansion, where it's literally entire questing zones taking place in different time periods that take place within 'Our' timeline and not in a 'Warlords of Draenor' alternate timeline, so think more on the lines of 'Escape from Durnholde keep' and 'The Culling of Stratholme'
Also for some reason I kept calling the Infinite Dragonflight the Timeless Dragonflight.
Well the infinites are corrupted bronzes from the future when their father goes nuts
Either that or the ever popular "This was all an illusion created by N'zoth because we never actually defeated him and he's been hardcore fucking up Azeroth while we've been comatose for two years."
That legit sounds like a good idea if the writers were fired and a new bunch wanted to course-correct.
Sounds like an Avengers Endgame Time heist expansion.
@@clawsandteeth7846 Honestly would be a better twist lol
I stopped playing end of Cataclysm.
I was a die-hard forsaken player. After the end of 3.3.5 I felt as if the whole faction lost its purpose and with it I lost my purpose to keep playing even though it took me one whole expansion to realize this.
Seeing how Sylvanas is about to break completely as a character, how the hell is the forsaken STILL even a thing!?
i have been watching accolonn for like 2 months now and he speaks the truth on every video, im so glad u had the chance to give him some light. please give him support 💜
@@jonathansoko1085 Of course he does. The F does that mean?
Everyone does the same.
What a stupid thing to say.
I like Asscolons breasticles
Been subbed to Accolon for a while myself and love his lore discussions
I subbed to Accolon until I realized I can't take WoW's lore seriously anymore
I found Accolon a good while ago, but stopped watching after the lore was obviously horrible and he still tried to cope. Glad he found his spine though, same for Pyromancer and everyone else who finally sees this crap for what it is.
I really liked Sylvanas as a character, she went the full hero journey and beyond, from being that tormented morally grey at the very beginning, to finding new purpose with the forsaken and the horde, to redeeming herself and being a hero, to being the leader of the horde herself.
I haven't played wow for years but was always keeping myself updated on the lore.
It makes me sad seeing such a nice character being destroyed like this.
I agree with your point of view and add that I continue to like her story because I feel like the direction they are taking isn't as bad as it could've been
@@qpSubZeroqp but it can be way better so stop settling for shit, that is EXACTLY why we are here now. Fing christ...
Breaking news: she still is that same character
Sylvanas ran concentration camps back in Vanilla, the only thing that was ever "grey" about her was her skin.
You weren't following Sylvanas very closely if you thought she was a hero after Wrath of the Lich King. She went off the deep end and started becoming the next Lich Queen then, believing that without a large enough army to protect her and shield her from death she'd get killed and go to hell. Everything after that had potential, either for her to realize she was worse then Arthas (who at least originally wanted to do good things) to her just becoming the next Lich Queen and being a big bad. But at no point was she heroic after Wrath of the Lich King.
Asmon gave voice to what I've been saying for 10 years. When every thing has to be explained and laid out before the audience's inspection, you lose the magic. Some times, less is more, including answers. Everyone is so quick to demand imaginative stories and worlds, and yet so few seem to actually want to use their own. The world only gets small once all the dark corners of the map are filled in.
It's been a year and this shit still makes me shake my head.
Thank you Anne Stickney and lore team for completely destroying 20 years of lore.
Every time stuff like this happens it reminds me of that interview with Ian years ago where he said that "all of WoW's story is planned 5-8 years ago." You cannot convince me that the idea of the Jailer existed before BFA. I think they created him in BFA specifically to give Sylvanas an out for the shitstorm THEY were going to put her through. The Jailer is a scapegoat for their own shitty writing which is, in itself, shit writing. God Microsoft can't buy them sooner.
Arthas became evil because, as Tichondrius states in Warcraft 3, Frostmourne claimed the souls of whomever the sword touched. Arthas' soul was the first one it claimed since he was in prolonged contact with the thing upon claiming it in Northrend. Thus his soul was trapped inside the sword and was essentially under the control of Ner'zhul through the Crown of Domination. And yea; remember him? Ner'zhul? The orc shaman who destroyed Draenor to flee into the cosmos, only to be caught by Kil'jaeden? Who destroyed his body an bound him to the suit of armor inside ice from the Twisting Nether he then flung atop Icecrown Glacier to enact the plan of creating the Scourge to weaken the forces of Azeroth for the second coming of the Burning Legion?
Arthas pretty much not only reclaimed his soul for but a moment when Tirion Fordring shattered Frostmourne with the Ashbringer, but was freed from the Helm of Domination when the thing got flung off his head when he got his ass kicked while suspended by all the souls originally trapped inside Frostmourne. That Arthas we see dying in the ending cinematic was the original Arthas we meet in Warcraft III, finally free, hence "Father! Is it over?" like waking from an inescapable living nightmare, only to die immediately after.
Blizzard writing team: "Pfft! FUCK that noise. It was really the Jailer all along who knows everything before even we do because we just pulled him out of our ass- I mean he can read the script before it's even approved!"
Fuck Activision-Blizzard. This serves as a reminder as to why a setting like Warcraft requires a setting bible. So you don't constantly pull stuff out the ass because it's easier than actually making it work in tune with the rules set up.
Except Arthas had already become evil BEFORE he claimed Frostmourne. While that fall from grace was not his fault and was the result of him trying to do the right thing (ending the Scourge menace to save the survivors), he nevertheless did fall because of it.
Arthas losing himself to the Frostmourne was more symbolic of him betraying his reason for starting his quest in the first place due to his new blood vengeance to kill the demon behind the Scourge that was terrorizing his people.
Sylvanas:
- Burns down a whole city of civilians just to flex on one random nightelf giving her backtalk
- Uses whats basically the Fantasy world Version of Chlorine Gas just worse on the battlefield, and if that wasnt bad enough, a Battlefield full of her own people
- Discurages the rescure of her own people from her biological weapon in favor of slaughtering retreating Alliance Soldiers
- Literally wants to create a Human VErsion of a Chlorine Gas Bom from the Dead Brother of an enemy leader
INternet Simps:
sHe'S mOrAlLy GrAy!!!!!!!
That's not sylvanas. That's Bfa Sylvanas.
@@Regunes Not that its such a big jump, she has been mind controling and murdering people left and right ever since she got her own will back in WC3. Her Signature Ability in WC3 was literally to rob others of their free will and dominate them.
Take a moment and look back at Sylvanas Missions, she hast exactly been the nicest woman around. She literally went "Hmmm... So theres an undead fortress that I really want to destroy, but I only have my Banshees... Oh I know, I will just violently mind control this random ogre tribe that didnt do anything to deserve it, these Bandits who maybe did something to deserve it and if I feel like it also these Murlocs and Gnolls because f*ck it why not, and just let them run straight into their death until they did enough damage so I can safely threaten the Dreadlord to kill him if he doesnt assist me in killing his brothers"
This was literally the first Mission you played as Sylvanas, and depending on how effective you played you wiped out 1-3 tribes of Natives and a Bandit Camp for your Mission. You dont have any of the Tribes in your next mission, so the canon is that they literally all died so you could reach the Dreadlord.
@@Regunes thats a logical fallacy
Thank you to the person or the people that recommended Accolon to be reacted to by Asmon! He really deserves this bump in views and the new subscribers. He's great!
When I watch this and hear them talk about how this guy influenced all the events of Warcraft 3. I begin to wonder if they are sticking with the rewritten story that they wanted to do for the remake but just won’t say it and thus you get this reaction. Still interesting to watch from the outside
Wanna know the Worst part of all this? 😐 … Same team has been working on the next expansion.
WoW stockholmers coping that Microsoft will save the franchise when Blizzard is rotten to its core. The developers being clueless is one thing, but even the writers are just as incompetent.
@@fantomas4935 Microsoft’s writers aren’t exactly known for their riveting storytelling, and MS subcontracts most of its developers on 18 month contracts leading to spaghetti code and barely functioning games like Halo Infinite, one of the most barebones, broken and lifeless games in the entire franchise. Microsoft created 343 to maintain the Halo franchise and its crashing and burning in real time, its lost 89% of its playerbase on Steam alone in under 2 months. The story in Infinite is one of the most simplistic barebones and soulless campaigns in the history of the franchise due to its poor writing. 343 has never once had a good launch product for the past 10 years and Microsoft couldn’t give a shit. Do you really believe just because Asmongold tells you Microsoft is good that means anything? He has admitted he hasn’t even played their most recent project where they buried $500 million into microtransactions and a broken game.
People who still have hope in WoW ever becoming good again are the equivalent of GME bagholders spamming rocket and gorilla emojis hoping they will recoup their life savings as the stock continues to spiral into the nether.
No one who works at Blizzard today knows, or gives a fuck about knowing, what happened in some games old people made. Commence Operation: Retcon.
I would LOVE to see them do an internal votes on what the the top problems are in the game right now and seeing how far off they are compared to a fan vote
I'm with you. This comment deserves more attention.
At this point Zolval is just beyond broken, so the idea of him being beaten doesn't work in any way, shape or form, but he will be and it won't make sense.
I want to know when the character of zovaal as he exists right now became an idea. Was he an "idea" back in wc3? Was he only created because someone watched avengers and wanted a Thanos? At what point did they decide they needed a mastermind behind everything, because it seemed pulled out of their ass only because someone liked Thanos
Same lol, I wish there was footage of that meeting.
Probably mid bfa is when they came up with this. They don't plan ahead very far as you can tell their storytelling sucks ass.
There’s no way he existed in any form before BFA
The Jailer really did feel like the concept was pulled out of someone's ass on the fly
I can tell you. Battle for Azeroth. AT BEST Legion.
Blizzard and all the ppl there never planned out the jailor but the ONLY support for A character was the source of the helm and Frostmourne. I do believe the voice from the helm was implicated to be Ner zuhl who is all but deleted from the lore.
Or maybe it was WoD?
I personally think he was never specifically conceived until recently and certainly not in Warcraft 3. To suggest so is as others have said, current teams forcing this character in to the plot in my opinion, amounts to an excuse to kill off everything which they revived in WoD character and plot wise so they could focus on future stories and put an end to the past. Thats being generous.
I am thoroughly convinced that the inspiration for the Jailer is Kotick and that the Shadowlands are an allegory for the soul of Blizzard. The heartless Jailer deceives all under the guise of some master plan, the covenants are the fragmented internal factions at Blizzard, etc. I never see this mentioned but to me it feels obvious.
Gallywix in Cata/Bfa was Goblin Kotick stand-in. But there is an allegory for Antivision itself in the Jailer, yes.
I wish the jailer was a bit for ruthless. His character would have had a lot more weight to it if he had actually killed Bane in the first cinematic we see him. Or honestly if he would have choked sylvanus to death like thanos did to Loki. The jailer would have that unstoppable force to him rather then annoying inconvenience.
Accolonn being accused of hate click is a bit ridiculous. If anything he may be guilty of giving the writers/lore team the benefit of the doubt for too long.
Either way I do enjoy his no holds barred commentary.
There is that one piece of story that connects back to azeroth, where you play as the farmer in redridge and i think its pretty well done. You know, you defend the town against the scourge and ultimately die. Which raises a big question: His soul goes to the Shadowlands, but why does every Player respawn his soul at a graveyard? Of course, we don't get answers.
A random farmer isn't "Azeroth's champion", so she doesn't give a f 😂
Edit - wouldn't be surprised if they went with a lazy thing like this.
Regardless how they plot armor us to victory, the Jailer already won.
10:16 YES! I am literally praying for this since i first heard what happens in Shadowlands! This guy destroyed one my favorite fantasy universes and he is still doing it! Literally ANYONE on the internet could have written a better story for this expansion! Hell, even I could write a better story for this expansion within 5 minutes! The nerve to even drag the classic stories into this to cover himself in a laughable way, is seen from miles and infuriating!
I'd like to know whether you actually have done it, or is it just all bark and no bite?
I think you should start gathering the story to the point where you liked it, and expand the rewrite from there.
@@KittenKatja For me, the struckture of Shadowlands ment no sense to begin with. This is the afterlife for the people of Azeroth and it seems limited. Where do innocent souls go, who are not warriors or heroes? Who just want a peaceful afterlife, not becoming warrior-angels. I was thinking that there is a place for these innocent souls (i just called it the Realm), where they can spent their afterlife with their family or people they chose. Going to other places like Bastion or Maldraxxus is a privilige for champions, warriors and soldiers who still want to fight and protect people. The Maw is the reflection of the Realm, where the evil souls are sent.The Realm and the Maw generate anima in equival measure and Orubos sorts it out to the different places of the Shadowlands. Revendreth is in the middle where the Arbiter sends souls, who did evil things, but still has a chance to become good. It is up to Revendreth to try and reform the soul and sort it in the end. The anima's main purpose is to fuel the slumbering and growing titan spirit of Azeroth. But the Jailer of the Maw want's to claim the innocent souls of the Realm too, so he could have supreme power over the Shadowlands and through it, influence the titan-spirit. In this version HE is used by outer forces (let's say the Void), to corrupt Azeroth from the inside.
When we are introduced to the Shadowlands and the Jailer, we see the conflict that both Bastion and Maldraxxus are fighting for the protection of the Realm, while Ardenweld is just neutral, trying to keep the wild spirits safe. Of course there can be a conflict here too, that the forces of the Jailer threatheing the wild seeds, so the Winter Queen has to join the fight. After exploring all these places, there comes the betrayal of Denathrius and a huge siege of the Realm as the first raid, where the forces of the Maw invade and we have to protect the Realm. This can be some charactertime for npcs you get to know in both Bastion and Maldraxxus. Next raid is Denathrius and from there we are taking the fight to the Jailer. We are slowly discovering how the Shadowlands is constructed to fuel the titan-spirit and how the Jailer wants to corrupt her.
As for Slyvanas being involved, she was afraid to die, because she went through the process. She was sent to Revendreth, were she saw throught Denathrius, who sent her immediately to the Maw for this. This moment is important, because this solidifies her view that the afterlife is unjust and must be broken down. In the Maw the Jailer made her an offer, that he let's her return and not suffer in the Maw for an eternity, if she supplies him with souls. Her deal with Helya was a desperate attempt to escape this contract, but Helya being in the service of the Jailer too, didn't actually gave her what she wanted, thus remained bound to the Jailer. I have no love for Sylvanas, but this would have ment more sense.
I was thinking about this a lot. Maybe not award-winning, but I would like it better, so the Shadowlands could feel more of an afterlife and not just places and themes thrown together.
Plot twist: Zovaal was planned since Warcraft 2.
Illidans "redemption" made sense. He was, IMO, the best character in all of WoW. The depth, the moral crisis, the story tied him together like a real person. Her even resisted being "cured", just like so many of us resist being cured by moral busy bodies who don't really care about our well being, but just want to slot is into their mold of "good".
Sylvanas' makes zero sense. They Mary sued her to death, and then just...what? No moral crisis? No change? No atonement? Completely ridiculous.
Tyrande also doesn't make sense. You can't just magically change a character's main motivation with some foofoo ritual and have it be satisfying. And Elunes lack of knowledge also makes no sense.
Illidan's redemption also made sense since it felt like justice for how he was treated in BC when he randomly became uncomplicatedly evil bad guy. Legion felt like bringing his story back on track and tying it off in a worthy fashion.
As a hobbyist "writer" (in the end it gets channeled into an ongoing DnD campaign), i feel like many other writers struggle with stake escalation, so thats something i myself try to get better at
technically there is no need to have ever greater stakes. Once you save the world from a demon invasion, there is very little you can do to go further without becoming slightly ridiculous
and even if you do, what are you going to do after that? Storywise you could absolutely go down in stakes and still have a very compelling story. There are tons of really cool stories in which the world isn't in danger.
In an MMO, maybe its a problem with "we have increased the level cap and added 3 more zones - and this time instead of saving the world, you have to save a city from destruction", but there is still plenty of room of "someone is supplying horde and alliance with weapons of mass destruction and we have uncovered this underground facility" or some rebellion somewhere or a new continent rises and its a story of who colonizes it first and so on and so forth.
I am not that deep into warcraft lore, but i am absolutely sure you can build a plot that matters to the character and the important NPCs and feels cool to the players, includes a few new zones and so on, without having to be bigger and more dangerous and more impactful than ever before. Players are willing to accept trashmobs in the latest expansion being stronger than bosses two expansions ago, as long as the story is good, they can probably accept that the secret weapondealer goons/rebel agents/elementals of the new lands are dangerous to a previously max level character
The issue is the current writers at Blizzard aren’t the original creators of the storylines everyone loves from WC3 and the first 3 expansions. You have what are the equivalent of fanfic writers molding the legacy of the franchise into an unrecognizable abomination, that’s why its best to realize the franchise is dead. Just let it die and move on. There’s a reason why no writer tried to rewrite Tolkien’s rich world (except for Amazon) after his death, because sometimes good things should be left alone. Not everything has to be an MCU movie.
In order for your idea to work, you would need buildup and foreshadowing. Nobody will give a crap about ancity that needs saving if you have no idea about that city or why it is important beforehand. But Blizzard made their writers undergo gene therapy so that they are incapable of writing that things.
Asmon is not entirely wrong on Jesus being a Plot Device. He was Sent to Fulfill the Law written by Moses, in otherwords he was literally filling the role of a character in a Book. The Old Testamant's Prophecies
@@Dreamlink91 the bible is just the best selling fantasy book. The religion around it a different conversation and not the point
@@Dreamlink91 oh man an edgy atheist, what a shocker!
@@Dreamlink91 *tips fedora*
@@Dreamlink91 cry more
@@Dreamlink91 I can hear the Cheetoh stained fingers typing this comment.
One of the most chilling moments in the Arthas novel is near the end when Arthas kills the mental representations of both Ner'zhul and his humanity/innocence. This conscious decision to discard any opportunity of redemption is an amazing bit of writing, and if he was being controlled the whole time, its meaningless.
One of my favorite is still when you’re defending Ardenweald and then the cut scene ends. And then Anduin just... Walks in. Yoinks what you were defending and is gone in two seconds- Like what was the entire point of me being there if this all power Ysera sister just- LEAVES an important piece to be taken or all that fighting for it to quite literally mean nothing but a waste of time to keep you busy.
It's even more hilarious and sad and pathetic and so many more other things once you look at the 9.2 PTR and see the datamined information. We don't even know his motives, his reasons, his justifications, his perspective...We don't even know who the First Ones are except they made a giant robot factory that apparently spit out creation. We don't even know anything about their secrets to even UNDERSTAND WHY ZOOVAL IS DOING THIS.
THERE IS NOT EVEN A HINT OF A BIGGER PLAYER IN EARLIER EXPANSIONS TO JUSTIFY HIS MANIPULATIONS SINCE WARCRAFT 3!
P.S-Dear Microsoft. Burn it all to the ground and start over.
They've done pretty big retcons before and made it work well enough, but nothing _this_ large. Meh, they'll probably pull a "It was a hallucination" and move on.
@@invalid_user_handle Honestly, I hope that's what they'll do. I'd rather have them do "it was just a dream" type of thing vs. having to accept that everything that has happened in SL is canon. SL lore (and SL itself, let's be real) is so unbelievably bad.
@@DreadlordJaina it's a shame too since the general concept of the shadowlands is cool with the Maw, the covenants etc. If they had executed it better and not ignore half the shit within their story that they had already, it would have been good. But instead they executed it so poorly that I don't even want to see it.
Best thing if we suddenly wake up and we are still fighting N'zoth.
@@fannarh As a weird Void dream apocalypse story plot, that would be lightyears better than the disaster Shadowlands became.
Creating a plot twist to outsmart the audience instead of carry the story is a great way to make people not care about a story.
One of the best ways to implement Zovaal would have been to have him only nudge characters in a direction instead of directly controlling characters.
You want interesting female WoW characters? Well, I can think of one that could potentially be interesting if they managed to actually reasonably pull her into the story... But Yrel, specifically the version from the Mag'Har Orc allied race quest... The version of her that's become a fanatical tyrant forcing everyone to worship the Light and killing anyone who refuses.
I think she'd make for a great villain because of the nature of the power of The Light in setting of Warcraft.
Lillian Voss is a really good character too
Watch Blizzard make her a irrelevant dungeon boss.
It's just ridiculous how much more threat the players have had to deal with, progressively, from expansion to expansion.
If this guy controlled so much, what the hell is next? "Oh, save us from this evil creature controlling everything, and later on there's another eviler creature controlling more things."
LAME!
Also, that's what the WoW extended books should be. The Lord of the Rings is the main trilogy, and there are dozens of books that explain the main story. In WoW, the game should be exactly what the Lord of the Rings is. The books should only compliment and expand the game. Imagine if you had to read the Silmarillion to understand the Lord of the Rings.
I feel like an old man screaming at clouds. I loved the small narratives in Legion like freeing the Nightborne, and the actual ressurection of Illidan, however I despised what they did with the Draenei lore and the big narrative of just bum rushing to Argus and wrapping up the entirety of the Legion. People quote BFA like it was the start but the story has been sliding since Thrall shot his magic lazer beam out of the magic dinner plate.
I agree, I dont know why people liked the Legion ending lore so much.
I've tried for years to describe it all in a variety of ways, only to be utterly outdone by whoever first decided to call it messy. Because that's exactly what it is. It feels like it was absent mindedly thrown together by people who don't give a shit.
Blizzard literally just makes (sh)it up ever expansion. Lore is a complete clusterfuck. It would take “work” to plan out a coherent story for a decade of expansions.
Steve Danuser needs to go. He has retconed fan favorite lore to "attempt" to make the jailer this 10,000 IQ mastermind. Wrong.
With the decline of longstanding Antagonists and the overly repetitive use of Faction wars I believe it would be good for Blizzard to take an Expansion or two to drive away from fighting an endgame BBEG and set up more long-term neutral foes. Maybe try for a turn the PC into mercs in a time of peace between the factions facing off against smaller type foes that wouldn't be worth gather an entire army from the factions to handle (I.E. Scarlet Crusade, Defias brotherhood, Syndicate, Pirates & others) we've escalated so far into Cosmic battles that taking time away from those to handle these smaller Homefront foes that keep popping up in world would be a nice pace changer. Maybe have Robbery scenarios or clearing out Scarlet cultists from scattered abandoned churches and ruins left about after all their major strongholds have been stomped in other expanses. These smalltime foes could bring us back to other zones and areas that we haven't touched in a while under the premise of seeking out these gangs and insurgents.
That wouldn't work. We're literally the guys that defeated Titans. If we would fight smaller Enemies, such as the Defias, it wouldn't be a challenge for our characters. It would be impossible to explain lorewise why we are not just steamrolling that kind of stuff with all the immensely powerful artifacts and magics we have at our disposal.
@@Gyallarhorn1 we usually lose use of any artifacts between expansions anyways hence the not bringing older gear into new content for long, also escalating battles are the reason the story is kinda hitting rock bottom if the only thing PCs can fight that pose a threat are gods and cosmic forces. The difficulty of fighting the homefront enemies isn't the individual fight, its fighting splinter cells and trying to discover the who's behind the group.
@@marshallbridgeman Yes... but if you want to do that, you're playing the Secret World, and not WoW.
We don't "loose" the artifacts though. It's simply a gameplay mechanic that we get Items with better stats.
Lorewise we still are the guys with access to the most powerful artifacts known to our factions. It's just a fact that the Allianceand/or Horde basically has access to the Ashbringer, the Scythe of Elune, Necromantic rune blades and whatever else you can think of.
The Defias do not have that. To gain such artifacts, they would first have to fight and beat enemies even more powerful than what we have beaten to even pose a threat.
We also have access to divination magic, domination magic and a whole lot else. Getting information won't be hard. And once we have these Informations, we can basically just go in and murder everyone without breaking a sweat.
The Lore is fucked at this point. It would take some kind of reboot or reset that makes us weak again.
Hmm... it reminds me of that trailer for WoW Classic where the guy sings in the tavern of how weak we once were and that we're going back to vanilla.
Sentient weapons and items are a stable in fantasy since D&D, it's a classic to give a player a super overpowered weapon, to only make it a sentient bloodthirsty psychopath that forces the player to kill any given character under threat of being killed themselves lol
“His 40,000 year plot, has been ended in a single patch”
Ah yes, the telltale traits of a well developed villain
I laughed so hard at, “it’s domination-ception.” 🤣🤣
Asmongold and Accolonn = great content creators!
I don't even play WoW and I don't know any of this story or characters, but I'm still watching and enjoying Asmon's vids like these coz it's just entertaining 😂
In his review of The Witness, Joseph Anderson noted that the worst stories are typically simple ones told in a complex way. By making the Jailor the supposed mastermind of literal decades worth of written lore, the last few years of which needed dozens of books and outside sources to even comprehend, Steve Danuser and his Merry Band of World-Building Mutilators have committed a cardinal sin of storytelling. They made a story that's somehow both convoluted and lazily simple.
Same issue with black zetsu/kaguya at the end of naruto shippuden. We’re made to think someone is the big bad. We have lore for them. They’re built up, and then there’s someone that was never mentioned AT ALL that’s truly pulling the strings behind the scenes the whole time. It’s lame af and terrible writing. It isn’t satisfying or compelling at all story-wise
Eventhough Kaguya etc. was mentioned when they explained the History of Ninjutsu etc, it was still very random and weird with no PROPER buildup (they could have atleast teased a lil)
If Arthas was hanging around Anduin like Johnny Silverhand does with us in Cyberpunk, and became a recurring character, it would've been kinda cool.
If Zovaal was able to do so much to influence WOW's history, how did he do it from the Maw? If Sylvanas could meet Zovaal when she jumped from ICC and then return to Azeroth, how was Zovaal trapped in the Maw? Sylvanas could have freed him from his chains and he could have come to Azeroth too.
Jaina...Sylvanas...Tyrande... You know, I had more fun traveling across Kul-Tiras with Talia Fordragon, and she's more responsible and nice character, than those 3. Especially this scene, when Anduin meets her after main storyline.
Warcraft 2 also draw me to the Warcraft,
it look simple and fun then come Warcraft 3 where I simply love everything in it
that led me to follow World of Warcraft lore in the first place
Seeing Shadowland make me sad, I wouldn't even believe it myself that I would hate the lore like this
Arthas in the sword kinda tracks. Wasn't Ner'zhul originally trapped in a crystal. So he shows up as a helmet in Icecrown. A Helmet with a blue crystal in it. So Arthas gets the sword with the runes on it and his corruption begins. He puts on the helmet and merges with Ner'zhul. Arthas dies and gets sent to the maw and Zoval shoves him in a blue crystal just like he did Ner'zhul. Makes sense.
That's not the point, Arthas by the end of Icecrown was no longer the Lich King.
Why would he ever work for the Jailor? And why would the Jailor seek to control Anduin through Arthas if he could control Anduin himself just like Arthas?
Man this is just a sad way to end this part of the "story"
Emerald Nightmare & Trial of Valor served a purpose in Legion and where not there for no reason. They were palette cleansers.
Pre-patch, Leveling & pre-raid gearing was all themed around the Legion so to not burn players out on the burning legion being EVERYWHERE we got Emerald Nightmare as a break untill we resumed the Legion theme with Suramar and Nighthold etc. Same thing with Trial later in the cycle.
Same thing happens in all good expansions. ZA in TBC. Ulduar and the dragon raids in WotLK etc.
Metson was a horde shill and as an aliance player who is STILL shafted in lore and gameplay because of him and his legacy I can NOT for the life of me say his lore was good it was decent and better than current story but his focus on horde love alliance hate is something that is wrong Im a horde main now because I have to be to want to do any form of raiding... but my heart is still alliance and always has been since the beginning so honestly metson leaving was good for alliance but bad for the game as a whole we need someone to evolve his legacy but do it in a way that shows both sides some love not one that makes thrall green jesus...
My best example of mysteries enriching the setting is the story of the blue wizzards from Tolkien. Or to be more precise, the lack of a story. We know nothing about them other that they went to the east. And oh man, my thoughts fly when I think about them.
i didnt like when the old gods went from "sargeras trembles at their mention" and his only way of killing them was to KILL ALL LIFE in the universe and let them starve to death, but i understood it from lore perspective...
but the jailer? now thats fucked up lore, killing everything and destroying over 15 years of lore right there...
It was the Void Lords that terrified Sargyboi
Imagine,back in the day,the big bad guys were like these:
Shadow Council
Nathrezim
Burning Legion
Sargeras
we all thought that Sargeras was the one big bad boy,and like when the police is investigating a scene,the Jailer - as the FBI (higher authority) - comes in and says like: Okay,Now I'm in charge now,we take over the case. And Sargeras,the Shadow Council and the others like: No,this is our case,this is our country!
FBI Jailer: Not anymore...
Zoval controlling Sylvanas' the whole time just reduced her character to nothing. She went from complex and interesting whether you saw her as a villian or a friend she was worth investing in. Now it's just lol doesn't matter she was just missing half her soul. She hasn't done anything good since being struck down by Frostmourne. It's all part of a big evil plan from an inter dimensional Thanos.
Same with everything to do with Zoval has taken the entirety of WoW's lore and made it pointless.
It didnt reduce her character to nothing tho??
She has done everything she did on her own free will. She always had a choice, but chose to ignore it.
She saw herself as the villain, and acted accordingly. The split soul thing is NOT. I repeat, the split soul thing is *NOT* a missing-good-side versus the bad-side of her personality.
@@toreole5831 that's exactly how they presented it in the cutscene.
That she has been trapped inside Sylvanas the whole time watching the evil things she's doing without being able to stop it.
So if it's not that why present it as such? Because monkeys are writing it.
I started watching Accolonn years ago for the lock vids as that's my main. I stayed for the evolution into lore. I can appreciate the fact that he's been honest about the game and where it's going despite his love of the lore. Glad he's getting some attention as he really does speak his mind and the truth about the state of WoW.
Like I said in the chat, when you explain gods, you make them almost mortal in a sense and remove most of the mystique. Something a god should have in any narrative by default.
A lot of characters were immediately ruined in WoW, when they started completely explaining them. Probably mainly because even they didn't know and made it up as they went.
Elune was pretty cool, all the way up to the point when she was revealed to be the Winter Queens effing sister and spoke. Then she just became the same as the rest. Still cooler than the rest imo because she still hasn't been given a face yet... But still the same as the rest.
Also doesn’t help Elune talking about Tyrande making a choice when a few quests prior she gave her absolutely no choice. I can understand why Azshara didn’t like elune much…. oh wait blizzard doesn’t keep up with characters any more so they will be allies in the future.
the daughter from the deadmines should have had more to her story Vancleef she could have has some wicked dungeons and stuff
I catch Acco a ton as well as you and here I get to watch you both. You guys are always on point!
This whole Zovaalthing is just a forced storytelling. There was 0 reference to the Jailer back in the day, that something or some1 is behind the scenes, controlling Arthas or any of the characters. With this every choice that Arthas or Sylvanas made is ruined by this. This is why I hate Blizzard. They not even fucking up the current timelines, with these decisions, they manage to ruin the already existing good characters and story too.
I don’t like how in wow lore, life and death are treated sorta like factions, not states of being. X serves death, so they are the bad guys. Y serves life, so they are the good guys. It’s very binary and boring, especially for a story that wants to be deep and fulfilling.
It’s fine if you want a bad guy to just be a bad guy, but then you get a relatively simple story with not much profound revelations. Whoever wrote up this lore wants the jailer to be this more complicated character, who has more deep reasons for why he does the things he does. Labeling him as “death” from the beginning kinda immediately makes him so shallow.
It’s like if you made thanos, didn’t tell us why he is doing what he is doing, put a big ass sticker on his 4head labeled “big bad guy” and trying to build a compelling story around that.
Like the Arthus litch king lore is so appealing because there is this inner struggle that the “big bad guy” is having, and you end up sympathizing with him. The jailer is just a turd with nipples.
@@Min-gy8zu Thats a good example of a more compelling story, the light users. You can use light and still do wrong, so it isnt that binary.
For those curious. Asmond mentioned a new writer coming in to take ownership of another authors story. This does happen and to be factual, it has happened. One of the most infamous moments of this is in the Western Comic scene, DC comics to be specific. You'll have to ask comic historians about this but a fan wrote a letter to DC about Super Boy of his own head Canon of super boys origins. The original creators told that fan "no, you're wrong". Years later this fan entered DC and made it high enough in the chain to make his head Canon real.
WoW goes through its major villains way to fast imo.
There's a few that pop back up here and there but often its a villains appears and is taken out within an expansion... Am I wrong for wanting some of the bigger villains to last atleast 2 expansions?
Especially if they're extremely powerful Uber beings.
The time they took to go through, produce and kill the major villains you could conceive and raise a child to maturity.
Sylvanas was already a flat character. But the talent behind blizzard was able to take a close look at the minor topography of the character and make it even flatter.
Sylvanas is so flat that Flat Earthers don't believe it's physically possible.
I would love to see asmongold more DIRECTLY collaberating with other content creators. Like for example if we got an hour session talk or podcast with asmongold, accolon and maybe rich too, would be cool as fuck.
WOD could've been amazing if it did 4 things different. 1) Embrace being an alternate timeline (Bronze Dragonflight anyone? Alternate timelines have ALWAYS been a thing.) 2) An actual threat to OUR timeline/Azeroth (doesn't just have to be the Iron Horde but it has to be a believeable threat, not just "demons span all timelines lol"). 3) FINISH THE FREAKING STORY. 4) ACTUAL endgame content other than raids.
Hey Asmon,
I really do appreciate the content you have been uploading over the years.
Your content has got a lot of people I know to try the game, be that classic or retail.
Thanks a bunch for getting people I know into the game and reigniting my flame for the game as well.
I fell into the pack mentality of "the game is dead" or "the game is shit now" for a couple of years. But after watching your videos and stream I slowly realised that, those thoughts of the game was dead or shit are not true and I was only feeling this way because many players jaded and angry players are saying this over and over.
So I stopped listening to trade chat, youtube chat and stream chat, I joined a new guild and really started to enjoy the little things in the game again.
Thanks again :)
I hope you are well
Pack mentality? fuck off mate , its shit, atleast we can admit that but go ahead mate, take that copium and blame it on the "pack mentality" ................. pathetic.
The Jailer is to Wow what Christoph Waltz's Blofeld was to the Daniel Craig James Bond movies.
Speaking in terms of actual significance of the story, have we really felt anything important from all this? Was there ever an underlying message? With the final fantasy franchise (not just XIV the MMO), you have this idea that hope prevails in the face of overwhelming odds - even in the face of gods. In the fallout franchise you get the classic "war never changes". What exactly did we take from the experience of WoW? Was it worth anything in the end?
At 31:10 I can think of Scatino the captain who sank 4 mega ships, got raised to a captain in 2 years from working on a shitty security camera job and still managed to somehow make it. I am not suprised for Activision staff working at WoW.
Everytime i see Zoval i start to think something like:
"Ahahahah, okok this is enough stupidity, please bring out the real vilain"
I honestly cant take him seriously
Let's just say N'zoth put us all to sleep in Ny'alotha, we're having clearly terrible nightmares. We wake up to Ralof saying; "You're finally awake"
First
Many writers of note have said this, including recently Tarantino. Basically the idea is that when you write a story and characters, at a certain point they begin to write themselves. Their past actions, their motives, their experiences in the story begin to shape and answer the question “so what do they do next and why?” Without much thought at all. This is what makes a well written and well rounded character.
When I hear Asmon talk about writer ego it is so true and it’s an example of a bad writer. Instead of reading, understanding and then telling the story of a character the writers that inherit work often want to rework or rewrite the characters, which of course never works because the character should be writing itself, instead some twerp with a degree in creative writing gets the job and wants to make their mark by turning all the characters and the story into their favourite trash media, which is poor continuation and is just like poor adaptations where they completely rewrite whole sections and characters. It rarely works and even when it does it’s even rarer that it’s as good or better than what came before.
Poor writing and writers are literally ruining all media.
The account wide rep thing, i thought a bit about it and I i think SL was good set up for making it account wide, as in when doing the DH starting zone, Illidan himself mentiones you having an immortal soul unlike the NPC's in Azeroth, thought when going into SL, since its the after life and all we could have learned that we are one soul and all the characters in that account are connected to that one soul, hence they could have done something to enable the NPC's see that or us showing them that we are that one soul, to make sense that my new allied race pally has the same rep as my main where I farmed legion rep to max, because its the same soul on a different avatar. but maybe they dont want to introduce that. just a passing thought on account wide rep and having less shit to grind on alts.
40:33 Exactly. Answering every single question in your lore is the biggest mistake you can make, in my opinion. People are so afraid of mystique and letting the audience interpret. You can tell a cohesive story without shining light on every single little nook and cranny until there's no wonder left.
Elune being a robot will still matter. And that still destroys so much of the lore of WarCraft.
warcraft 3 ending cinematic has the lich king saying to arthas: "Now we are one"
I thought Arthas died at the end of WOLK, at least that is what the final cinematic leads me to believe.
We need more based cinematic of epic battles. I want to see frontlines of Orcish Grunts or Human Footmen clash against some type of enemy, with their leader showing absolute fearlesness. That's the thing I want to see.
One of the reasons everyone LOVED what the Garrosh cinematic in Shadowlands represented. It was an amazing way to give a middle finger to all who oppose his version of the truth. Remember, Garrosh believed 100%(and still believes) that his choices were the correct ones. That's what made it badass.
A story only Sweet Baby Inc writers could've dreamt up.
Yea at the end of WotLK I thought Arthas kinda....redeemed himself. Yea his soul still got sucked up into the blade but he was no longer evil just paying for his crimes. So now why would he go back to being evil and controlling Anduin? If anything it should be Arthas that is fighting to give Anduin those moments of clarity from the Jailer. That would give Blizz a way to bring Arthas back into the light, he fought for what was right even though he was dammed.
Your take on S8 of GoT is spot on. It's really simple - they crammed two seasons worth of content into six episodes. Other than that, it would work.
See, they already had a perfectly good post-ICC motivation for Sylvanas: keeping the Forsaken alive and avoiding her own final death. Silverpine Forest was one of the best questing zones in game because it focused on developing that conflict. Stormheim and her binding of Eyir to create more Val'kyr to raise her people was a great example of sympathetic villainy. The little sparks of mortality she showed raise interesting questions; if push came to shove, would she choose to save herself, or save the people she leads? After Legion, she really could have gone either way. That was what made her compelling
...Man, I still can't believe they threw all of that away for whatever the Jailer's vague plan is. The lifeless corpse they paraded about from BfA onward was not Sylvanas Windrunner. I refuse to acknowledge it as such.
They tried to make a Thanos but forgot the years of build up and back story and fear of the existence of this director.
Also about the Ring and Sauron. Sauron imbued part of his essence into the ring. So the rings were in fact pieces of him. Which is how he could influence those who wore them.
Tbh i started in legion and assumed Guldan came back to life via the Legion's power.
literally the WoD not mattering has been in my head cannon since Legion kicked off. Vol'jin was Warchief for all but a week and a half before he got offed
The naxx 3d Intro vid a guy made.. Ä while ago.. Legendary for me
Of course Steve is the face of the narrative design team, he's the LEAD. All story decisions have to be approved by him, he isn't just some figurehead.