Honestly, I think more than anything that’s pissed people off about finally seeing Teldrassil burn and all the events surrounding it isn’t really just Sylvanas doing her thing or the shitty writing.
I think people are pissed that Blizzard, as a company, lied. They were cowards who hid behind the “what if’s” and played on people’s intrigues only to give us exactly what we thought it’d be. That they kept going “oh it’s morally gray” and building it up as if there would be some sort of twist. Or maybe not even a twist, so much as something more to it, an explanation, a justification.
The way Blizz handled it, particularly Ion Hazzikostas, was basically just to build up the hype, tell us there was so much more to it, that we’d really see things were more than just Sylvanas being evil.
And then it was just Sylvanas being evil.
I mean, it’s shitty writing, but that’s not the point. I have dealt with much of Blizz’s shitty writing and shrugged it off. But to basically dupe your audience and say there’s more when there actually isn’t? That’s what really, really rubs you the wrong way.
If I come to you and I’m expecting an okay-if-not-perfect thing but you start going into vague intrigues of how you’ll just “have to wait and see ooo!” and keep saying vague statements of how you’ll see there’s more to it, but then what you deliver is pretty much exactly what I thought in the first place… that’s where the real disappointment lies. You feel fooled, even if you weren’t particularly hyped, and no one enjoys feeling like the fool. Especially when you paid $60+ and $15 for the privilege of being fooled.
I fully expect Ion and Blizz to spin this somehow given they are catching shit. More than likely with a “you’ll see what we have in store in later patches!” because that’s just how it goes.
Or they’ll see the outrage, see how it kept people engaged and paying, how people talking across the internet and think it was a massive success because, hey, here we are, talking about it and paying for it.
They’re already doubling down on that:
The login screen says 8.0.
You’re already releasing 8.0 patch content.
How can you, in good faith, say “the expansion hasn’t even started yet.”
If this isn’t the start of the expansion then what is?