Is making every player a "hero" a good idea?

[Deleted]

I preferred how our characters were originally depicted as nameless adventurers. Although given how many times we have saved the world, there was a point where it wouldn't make any sense for us to remain anonymous.

Even so, the higher level we get, the more the quests seem to praise us as a hero. It's very pigeon-holing for how you envision your character, even if you aren't a roleplayer. I've struggled to enjoy my garrison missions on anything other than my human paladin because it just hasn't fitted anybody else. Being a roleplayer makes the forced hero role even more painfully obnoxious. Why would my wandering Gilnean druid who despises authority and the laws of man EVER become the commander of the Alliance expedition into Draenor?

Don't get me wrong, it's cool how we're being recognized for our achievements. But I wish there was an alternative to being the world savior in everybody's eyes. Having multiple alts all doing the same thing to become a hero is straying dangerously close to the style of a single player RPG. I find that replaying an RPG cheapens the experience of the climb to greatness, if you see it over and over but with a different PC. That's starting to happen with WoW, and if that's the case, I may just leave my alts behind to keep it special for my main.

[Atherions]

I don't like being a superhero chosen one supreme super commander of the alliance. It feels stupid, there is no more badass NPCs in this game since you as a player is the shit compared to everyone else. Thats why i transmog into green level 40 questing gear and i ride shit mounts since i refuse to acknowledge my toon as the second coming of Christ

[Manabomb]

This is what the players have done, though. People have been playing for 12+ years, and everybody is going to get the same story because of technical limitations. The options are to have people stick as regular old adventurers (and I guarantee that if this was the case we'd have people complaining about it on these forums), or go with the hero route.

This is a complaint I've never understood, though, to be honest. It's an issue people have with the story - they don't like that characters in-game refer to them as special, unique heroes. But story-wise we are. PCs have saved the world more times than your average comic book character, and the story takes that into account. If it didn't, you'd have an even bigger problem.

It's an interesting issue, because I agree that an MMO story should probably take into account that players aren't going to stand that far above their peers in terms of accomplishments. However, WoW is 12 years old, and so it faces unique issues like this. We'd either have to be facing crappier bosses (story wise), or having our story accomplishments ignored, which would bring about as many or more complaints from fans.

Mechanically speaking, there are plenty of ways to stand out from other players. Mythic and high-end PvP titles and mounts make an impact, so that feeling is certainly there for players who are able and willing to chase it. Story-wise, we've become heroes through 12 years of saving the world from various threats. We were regular adventurers, but this naturally snowballed as the story constantly upped the stakes throughout the years, and now other characters don't ignore us.

I remember even back in BC a lot of faction NPCs couldn't care less who you were, despite killing Ragnaros or even Kel'Thuzad as well as having a myriad of quests completed throughout the world. I found that jarring back then - I can't imagine how strange it would be to be treated as an adventurer after killing Kel'Thuzad (twice), Illidan, Arthas, Deathwing, Garrosh and Archimonde (as well as the other raid bosses, especially the Old Gods).

And to add onto this, this type of story snowballing isn't unique to World of Warcrafts story telling and is something FFXI had to deal with and probably a few other MMO's that are going to make it passed the decade mark. I'm just not sure how anyone would be able to fulfill both camps of "ordinary adventurer vs. world hero". I can't think of any MMO (or RPG for that matter) that has had simultaneously a world hero and ordinary adventurer story arc in the same play through for the same character, especially when that character is the PC.

I can't see how to make both work in the same story and I'm not sure why people complain about WoW, especially considering you've been "average adventurer" for much of early Cata and MoP's leveling experience. Come to think of it, WoD was the first expansion that really pushed the "player character is the hyper hero chosen one" from the very beginning in the leveling experience. It all just seems like a nonissue in a flood of actual issues, but cleverly disguised as something that might rile some people up.

[Thrif]

Honestly at this point, after playing for 11 years and killing every evil bitch from Ragnaros to Deathwing to Archimonde, I personally think it'd feel pretty ridiculous if we still turned up in each expansion and were told "Get in line grunt. Go harvest me 4 flowers and kill 10 rats and I'll give you 8 copper."

As opposed to the start of Warlords, where you start off with killing ravens, planting flags, and then go out to kill pale lurkers and gather amount of crates of stuffs? And later on, simply "That guy hasn't been heard of for a while, go check it out," totally in line with what a garrison general should be spending his time doing.

No, we're still gathering x amount of flowers and killing x amounts of dudes for random people and random reasons. The only difference is that now it makes no sense at all from a lore perspective.

Just wait until Legion where every single player will be leader of its class. Yep, that's right, Arthussdkqt the Keyboardturner will be leader of all death knights. Legalasxx the Puller with ever growling pet will be leader of all hunters. They will wield mighty artifacts and will be one and only savior(s) of Azeroth, defeating biggest baddest bosses in LFR or in easy single player quest with shiny cut scene.

Its stupid single player crap that does not belong to MMO and it annoys the hell out of me.

Yep, this is pretty much WoW lore today in a nutshell. Or rather, video games in general. Make everyone feel proud and accomplished despite their actual skills and effort, so they will feel good about playing and'll continue to buy our games.

Of cource, that's not how it works out, all it does is that nobody feels accomplished ever. Which shows fairly well in their sub numbers.

[Mirishka]

We've killed Arthas, Deathwing, Cho'gall, Lei Shen, and countless others. We're kinda sorta past the 'no-name adventurer' point.

- - - Updated - - -

Yep, this is pretty much WoW lore today in a nutshell. Or rather, video games in general. Make everyone feel proud and accomplished despite their actual skills and effort, so they will feel good about playing and'll continue to buy our games.

Of cource, that's not how it works out, all it does is that nobody feels accomplished ever. Which shows fairly well in their sub numbers.

Maybe the people who are mad about that should look for pride and accomplishment in areas of their lives that actually matter. Like their career, education, children, relationships, etc.

[Thrif]

And to add onto this, this type of story snowballing isn't unique to World of Warcrafts story telling and is something FFXI had to deal with and probably a few other MMO's that are going to make it passed the decade mark. I'm just not sure how anyone would be able to fulfill both camps of "ordinary adventurer vs. world hero". I can't think of any MMO (or RPG for that matter) that has had simultaneously a world hero and ordinary adventurer story arc in the same play through for the same character, especially when that character is the PC.

Baldur's Gate does it pretty well. You start off as a very insignificant adventurer fighting wolves and kobolds, and at the end of the series you can claim the throne of a dead deity after killing dragons and demon princes. And nowhere does it feel like you're making an impossible power level jump or forced in any way.

The difference is that that story works very well in RPGs, not so much in MMOs. It works when it's a finite, self-contained story.

[Deleted]

it is crappy. In fact the days where you were a lowly guy were better. More danger in the world etc...
This also begs the question: when legion is done, what will become of those artifacts that have been so freely distributed? Do we carry on another xpac again with those weapons? would blizzard make a quest that actually removes all of them from players?

We will most likely have to sacrifice their power to defeat the last boss, or some other RP even before the expansion after Legion. That or we just keep them and Blizzard sticks to the theme but changes the weapons.

[Leih]

No, we're still gathering x amount of flowers and killing x amounts of dudes for random people and random reasons. The only difference is that now it makes no sense at all from a lore perspective.

Maybe they should just make everything a garrison table and we order other people to do all our quests, would that make you happier?

We're still hands-on adventurers, and having gameplay trumps silly notions of "I'm too important to do anything now."

The thing to focus on is the story behind the gameplay and not the gameplay itself. Running back to your corpse after dying doesn't make sense either.

[Thrif]

Honestly at this point, after playing for 11 years and killing every evil bitch from Ragnaros to Deathwing to Archimonde, I personally think it'd feel pretty ridiculous if we still turned up in each expansion and were told "Get in line grunt. Go harvest me 4 flowers and kill 10 rats and I'll give you 8 copper."

We're still hands-on adventurers, and having gameplay trumps silly notions of "I'm too important to do anything now."

Aaaaalrighty then.

[Deleted]

We've killed Arthas, Deathwing, Cho'gall, Lei Shen, and countless others. We're kinda sorta past the 'no-name adventurer' point.

We didn't do it alone. We did it in groups of adventurers, often with help from NPCs. Yep, we are sort of past the no-name adventurer point, but nowhere close to being powerful heroes.

Maybe the people who are mad about that should look for pride and accomplishment in areas of their lives that actually matter. Like their career, education, children, relationships, etc.

Its the opposite. Players that look for pride and accomplishment in video games are the ones content with current situation. Players that are not happy with current situation are looking for adventures in big world, not being praised with fake pride and virtual accomplishments.

[Jademist]

FFXIV and Guild Wars 2 have you as "the hero" and they fare well story wise. If you were just some lowly adventurer for the rest of eternity then what's the point? Being a hero is part of the Warcradt journey. Otherwise we would be stuck dispatching kobolds all day. Ordinary adventurers do not take on a dragon aspect or the Lich King.

[nekobaka]

Well we have always been heroes or at least heroes in training. Just not the prominent main heroes. The leveling experience got gutted each expansion particularly with Cata and later up until endgame organized gameplay for the most part the player experience is more of as a god or at least demi god than hero. Unfortunately this does cause a sharp devide in player training and expectations that has lead to many discussions of issues. Part of that reasoning was due to attempts to get players both into endgame where most players are and later potentially to jump into raiding. The leveling experience post initial launch has always been a sore spot for MMOs like WoW that try to keep the overall leveling time about the same while still making the experience not too daunting for new players.

There are some changes in legion along with general comments from the devs that the leveling experience should be better. Time will tell though.

[Leih]

Aaaaalrighty then.

You're completely missing the difference between gameplay and story.

In the story, we are recognised as commander, hero, leader, whatever.

There still has to be gameplay to go with that, there's still gotta be some kind of quests.

Not difficult to understand.

[Deleted]

I hope that those guys who still want to be simple adventurers would be fine with "a big bear in the forest" or "leader of a local bandit gang" being the final bosses of a raid tier while the npc heroes deal with the real threats off screen.

[Deleted]

This heavily depends on what game you like to play. If you like your RPG's as slowly progressing hero that gets all the fame at the end, or you opt to remain a unmaned adventurer throughout the whole game. I really liked the old vanilla zones, before Cata, because they functioned on their own, without you, and you were just passing by in this big wide world. Now after the cataclysm, every quest npc is waiting for you, nothing seems to get done without you and you are the center of the focus in the storytelling. I am not gonna say it's a bad thing, it's a different thing and the game is played by 5-10M people, so not everybody is gonna like the same narrative style.

EDIT:

I hope that those guys who still want to be simple adventurers would be fine with "a big bear in the forest" or "leader of a local bandit gang" being the final bosses of a raid tier while the npc heroes deal with the real threats off screen.

This goes with what I said about storytelling in vanilla. All the way up to 60, you were killing "bears in the forest" and "local bandit leaders" and clearing old caverns of spiders and undead. And when a big threat was to be tackled, you just multiplied this "lone adventurer" by 20 or 40. I am not advocating for 40 man raids here, I am just saing that it had it's logic.

[WowIsDead64]

In terms of story - I hate, that I'm being made a "hero". I want to be just an unit, who does his part of job, like it was back in Vanilla. But in terms of power - I'm one of those players, who think, that everything should be account wide, just because rewards, that grant some progress and advantage to my alts - are the only rewards, I treat as useful.

[Metallourlante]

I know it's just a game but sometimes it makes me laugh: "You're a hero, you saved our village, you helped defeat the most powerful villain in the world. Now please go gather 10 rocks and do some peon work, ok? bye thanks"
Seriously though maybe it's just nostalgia but I liked it more when I was just a plain adventurer.

[Thrif]

FFXIV and Guild Wars 2 have you as "the hero" and they fare well story wise. If you were just some lowly adventurer for the rest of eternity then what's the point? Being a hero is part of the Warcradt journey. Otherwise we would be stuck dispatching kobolds all day. Ordinary adventurers do not take on a dragon aspect or the Lich King.

Again, are you arguing that you aren't fighting kobolds anymore? Every expansion is filled with 99% fodder that a level 10 character should be able to handle, and you are still gathering X amounts of flowers and killing Y amounts of random dudes.

Did you ever run into Tirion picking linen cloth so that a woman in an inn could make a bandage for her wounded child? Or Thrall picking flowers for a botanist who was working on a new potion? Maybe Sylvanas looking through dirt for item scraps for a gnome engineer? No? That's right, because larger than life characters doesn't do these things.

Yet, you are. And you do.

[llubtoille]

Our characters are no longer (have never been?) 'our characters', but are instead pawns in the story Blizzard wants to tell.
They have as much control over our characters actions as they do over Anduin's actions, which is to say complete control.
Regardless of whether or not we, the player, does the action, it is assumed that we have done the action.
It is a linear story ham-fisted into an open-world rpg, which is basically saying, when faced with the problem of player agency in a story driven game, they have taken the easy way out by removing that agency.
Very likely it was done out of necessity, but it was the 'lazier' path nonetheless.

[shise]

There is no other way, the game was initially designed about that.

Players are the heroes, but you need to understand something; you shouldn´t think that there are over 5 million heroes like you and some with even better equipment, the point is that every player experiences it from HIS own perspective; there is only 2 or 3 guilds and its people in.

Fortunately, that is not the case, but that is how you are supposed to feel about it