World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is set to receive a plethora of new content with the upcoming Patch 9.1. Among that is a confrontation with Sylvanas, who currently appears to be acting as an antagonist. Some players are not looking forward to it at all. They fear a cliché.
What kind of patch is this? The upcoming Patch 9.1 brings the first major changes and new content to the eighth WoW expansion Shadowlands. The patch includes:
- Continuation of the Covenant campaigns
- new story surrounding Anduin, who is becoming a sort of “Arthas 2.0”
- Korthia, a new area with daily quests and more
- the mega-dungeon Tazavesh
Overall, these are good changes and some believe that the worst thing about Patch 9.1 is the wait for its release. However, not all players are satisfied with what they expect.
What is the problem? One of the major new contents is the raid Sanctum of Domination. In this, players will face ten bosses – with a final battle against Sylvanas Windrunner, the Banshee Queen.
Sylvanas is a controversial character, loved or hated by players. There is hardly any gray area. And right now, the battle against her is causing some of the community to mock the upcoming content.
“Who is ready to not kill Sylvanas?”
What players criticize: Threads keep appearing in the WoW subreddit where players criticize that nothing will happen with Sylvanas anyway. The players think that the story writers are glorifying the Banshee too much:
Even though there will be a fight against her, players are sure that nothing else will happen. The reddit user knihT-dooG writes cynically: “I can’t wait to get GENOUGH’t at the end of 9.1 and see her bansheet away” (via reddit).
The discussion has been going on for a while. Several weeks ago, the reddit user AnwaAnduril opened a thread titled: “Who is ready to not kill Sylvanas in the new Maw raid and see her redemption cinematic?” In his text, he notes: “Because genocide isn’t really that bad, according to Blizzard, I guess” (via reddit).
Why is this a problem? Players feel that Blizzard exploits its villains too often (the antagonists, not the class). They could be holding players off too frequently, only to later celebrate one or more reappearances.
The antagonists escape and are then “recycled” in upcoming stories. Either they freeze the players in battle and flee, or they avoid their just punishment in other ways. Sylvanas herself demonstrated this at the end of BfA.
In the honor duel against Saurfang (“Mak’gora”), she used her banshee powers and fled before Tyrande could take her revenge – or practically anyone else who had already built up hatred against her at that time.
Now players fear that this will simply happen again – or that Sylvanas will receive a so-called “redemption arc.” This is a plot in which a villain is redeemed and converted to “good.”
There are already signs for a “redemption arc” for Sylvanas and players are now sure that at the end of 9.1 they will either be held off once more, or that Sylvanas will suddenly be redeemed. Similar to what has already happened with Illidan (via reddit).
Joy over new mounts and more
Is everything really bad? Even though Sylvanas is a common and recurring topic of contention, not the entire community is against the development. Many players are looking forward to new content, such as the new mounts for their Covenant:
Me, a Nightfae, when 9.1 finally drops from r/wow
Here they humorously point out parallels between the Nightfae mount and the dog-dragon Fuchur from The NeverEnding Story, but overall seem satisfied with the changes.
Overall, the fact that more content is coming is welcomed. Cortyn here on MeinMMO thinks: Patch 9.1 looks really good and I don’t get the hate
What else players suggest: With the upcoming patch, some constructive players also see the opportunity to address issues in Shadowlands. They wish for a removal of caps for soul ash, conquest points, and honor or the fee for changing binding median (via reddit).
This would make playing Twinks, or alternate characters, significantly easier. Blizzard has even already helped by removing one of the most annoying endgame grinds, making it a bit easier for Twinks.
When is Patch 9.1 coming? So far, no specific date has been announced for Patch 9.1. Due to its size, with at least 18 new bosses in one raid and a mega-dungeon, testing could also take a while.
The patch testing is likely to start on the PTR sometime in April. From there, you can expect around 6-8 weeks, although this estimate may persist because of the size and the difficulties with the current corona situation.
More about this can be found in our post: Finally, Blizzard announces Patch 9.1, revealing rough plans
