Having any big-name character bite it in a long-running game like an MMO is a toughie—obviously, you want your stories to have stakes, or else your players are going to tune out by the ninth fakeout. On the other hand, if you do it wrong, then everyone's going to be insufferably mad at you for the rest of the game's lifespan. Which, for a two-decade-plus game like WoW, is gonna be a while.
That doesn't mean World of Warcraft isn't going to keep trying, mind you. The Worldsoul Saga is one of Blizzard's most ambitious moves yet—committing to a three-expansion story arc where everything's been more-or-less planned out, giving them the chance to tell larger, bigger-reaching narratives.
