The story is putting off people wanting to try WoW

[Ielenia]

I am personally against story elements in MMORPG games, It never ends well.

Huh? That doesn't make sense. That's like being against violence in fighting games, or against speeding in racing games.

[Evangeliste]

Are you high?

My point is if you're new the story doesn't make sense because of the jumping, it's like watching Season 4 first then going to Season 2 & 3 before continuing Season 4. It only makes sense if you already know the story

Star Wars would like to have a word with you.

[Granyala]

There is A story when leveling?

Last time I checked there are hundreds by now. Each zone has it's own storyline and typically you don#t even get to any of the old expansions main storylines because most of that was told in raids.

[Toppy]

Dark souls 1 had little to no story at all. You would have to actively look around for clues on story. this equals to no story imo.

Dark souls 2 and 3 have rich clues on the story sure.

I suppose if you dont know how to read then yes, DS1 had little to no story.

[Leodok]

I began playing in Cata, and it wasn't hard to understand the story of each 1-60 zone (most of the time). The quests give you enough information to know the basics of what's going on. Westfall, lots of poverty and an old crime organization returning. Redridge, Lakeshire is under attack by gnolls (and, later, orcs). Gilneas, there's the worgen curse, then the undead invade. Silverpine, you're helping the forsaken and the Horde to fight the worgen (and laughing at their inhability to do so). Eastern Plaguelands, you're following a caravan around the zone.

The BC leveling was completely confusing, though. Nothing is explained, first you're fighting the Legion, then there's this Illidan guy (I thought he was part of the Legion too...), but you don't really know what he's supposed to be. And apparently the Outlands are also the homeworld of the orcs... wait, wasn't it Draenor? Ohh, Outlands is Draenor! I wish someone had told me about it...

Then you get to Northrend and it gets simpler. You're fighting the Scourge, and that's it.
And, from there on, everything's in order.

[Toppy]

I began playing in Cata, and it wasn't hard to understand the story of each 1-60 zone (most of the time). The quests give you enough information to know the basics of what's going on. Westfall, lots of poverty and an old crime organization returning. Redridge, Lakeshire is under attack by gnolls (and, later, orcs). Gilneas, there's the worgen curse, then the undead invade. Silverpine, you're helping the forsaken and the Horde to fight the worgen (and laughing at their inhability to do so). Eastern Plaguelands, you're following a caravan around the zone.

The BC leveling was completely confusing, though. Nothing is explained, first you're fighting the Legion, then there's this Illidan guy (I thought he was part of the Legion too...), but you don't really know what he's supposed to be. And apparently the Outlands are also the homeworld of the orcs... wait, wasn't it Draenor? Ohh, Outlands is Draenor! I wish someone had told me about it...

Then you get to Northrend and it gets simpler. You're fighting the Scourge, and that's it.
And, from there on, everything's in order.

To be fair, TBC's story didnt make much sense when it launched in the first place.

"Ok we're going to Outland to fight the demons who invaded us. We're going to beat them back by beating up the guy who is... actively fighting them..."

[Tome]

What you can have in an MMORPG is a world story with some key characters.

What you can't have in an MMORPG is a story focusing on the player character being the be-all world saviour.

It's bad, it's horrible, if they do it and think it's okay, they aren't good storytellers for the MMORPG genre.

It breaks the story completely and it becomes crap, and I can honestly say, without even having a second thought that anyone who thinks it's a good idea because it fills their ego, they should go back to singleplayer RPG's. There are many out there for you.

[Toppy]

What you can have in an MMORPG is a world story with some key characters.

What you can't have in an MMORPG is a story focusing on the player character being the be-all world saviour.

It's bad, it's horrible, if they do it and think it's okay, they aren't good storytellers for the MMORPG genre.

It breaks the story completely and it becomes crap, and I can honestly say, without even having a second thought that anyone who thinks it's a good idea because it fills their ego, they should go back to singleplayer RPG's. There are many out there for you.

Well blizzards fault is that they just plain stopped world building after WotLK. The issue wasnt that the player was the main character, thats never really been the case and still isnt in Legion. The issue is that they always pick a famous character to essentially be the main character of the story. WotLK it was Tirion. Cata it was Thrall. MoP was an odd case in that it was many racial leaders in general, though they were all the story focus while the player was just there to lead them around. WoD it was Khadgar and Yrel. Legion its Khadgar, Illidan, and maybe Anduin.

The world doesnt matter, only the hero of the month. The players dont even matter, they are secondary to the hero.

[Marmot]

Let's say I've never played before, do I really give a flying fuck about the story BEFORE starting the game? Who spends hours learning the ins and outs of the game's story before starting it?

[callipygoustp]

I am personally against story elements in MMORPG games, It never ends well.

What does a RPG, that has no story, look like?

[Deleted]

And honestly I can understand why! Let's look at this from a complete point of view from somebody starting now! First you have the 1-60 experience that doesn't make much sense unless you played Vanilla, TBC and Wrath. 60-70 you're thrust back in time with no indication that the events from here on are set before 1-60 experience (same with 70-80) then your back to the timeline in 1-60 (again not mentioned)

I understand it is kinda inevitable that Cataclysm fucked up the chronological order of the levelling story experience but I have had a few people just quit because the story made no sense without background checking everything

I think most people playing MMOs don't even give a fuck about story.

[Toppy]

What does a RPG, that has no story, look like?

I think most people playing MMOs don't even give a fuck about story.

You'd be surprised. People get really heated about the story, even one as full of holes as WoW's.

[callipygoustp]

Not liking a story is not the same as there being no story. I have to say, that while I thought the ending was not the best (along with plenty of others) I did think the story in general was decent(along with plenty of others).

[Toppy]

Not liking a story is not the same as there being no story. I have to say, that while I thought the ending was not the best (along with plenty of others) I did think the story in general was decent(along with plenty of others).

(It was a joke pointed at the general decline of writing quality in favor of more shootan and action)

[SirCowdog]

I don't know what you're talking about.

This is probably the best thing WoW-related I've ever read.

It really does point out just how ridiculous the timeline and story-telling in WoW is, though. Even Star Trek doesn't do this much time-jumping.

[Logwyn]

Star Wars would like to have a word with you.

Technically Lord of the Rings did this with "Son Tolkien" publishing his father's works too.

Neither is technically "going back in time" either.....

Its like taking World History classes were you take World history 1500 to now then take World History before 1500...

You don't magically go back in time you just study thing our of order....

But yeah with WOW.... ugh... what is it?!?!?

[Nurvus]

And honestly I can understand why! Let's look at this from a complete point of view from somebody starting now! First you have the 1-60 experience that doesn't make much sense unless you played Vanilla, TBC and Wrath. 60-70 you're thrust back in time with no indication that the events from here on are set before 1-60 experience (same with 70-80) then your back to the timeline in 1-60 (again not mentioned)

I understand it is kinda inevitable that Cataclysm fucked up the chronological order of the levelling story experience but I have had a few people just quit because the story made no sense without background checking everything

I think Blizzard would greatly benefit from putting in the work to do the following:
1 - Make the 1-60 leveling happen in "pre-cata azeroth" (lots of work I know, but worth it - see below why)
2 - Give players who are simultaneously above level 80, not in combat, and outside an instance, a cinematic showing the cataclysm.
3 - Every zone in azeroth from 80+ happens in "post cata azeroth".

What's the point?
Not only does it make the game coherent, it also opens up the path for a content structure that enables Blizzard to easily make the world worth exploring.
Adding random treasures you can find.
Adding rare monsters and roaming rare monsters that actually feel "naturally" rare due to the size of the world, rather than because they have huge respawn timers.

This mentality can be used for future expansions.

[Thetruth1400]

I am personally against story elements in MMORPG games, It never ends well.

It's not the story that is the problem, it's that they changed only part of the story mid way through. They changed the entire 1-60 experience with Deathwing, but didn't do anything to TBC or WotLK to bring it into line with the story that they were moving ahead with come level 80.

So the story DOES flow, but it flows from 1 - 60, then picks back up again at 80, which is where the immersion breaking happens. Frankly, when they were doing the revamp, they should have just made what was Vanilla a 1 - 80 experience where TBC and WotLK were alternative routes that you could take, but where outside the current timeline flow. They revamped the entire map pretty much, they could have revamped the leveling experience at the same time.

Honestly, with how Legion did things, I hope they continue forth in that route and even retroactively start going there too, at least for leveling. If they kept the new stuff as for this expansion leveling, but made the entire world level cap out at the previous expansions level cap, I think that would work fine. If I want to level my character without ever having stepped food into the horrors of Northrend, or the found isles of Mists of Pandaria, and I didn't want to be one of the heroes that went through the portal to help on Draenor, so be it, that content, in the grand scheme of things, has already passed and doesn't matter anymore, we're on to the threat of the Legion invasion.

[taaveti]

I don't think the problem lies with the revamped 1-60 zones, since the revamp actually made the quests a lot more gameplay-friendly to new players, with stories of most zones done very nicely. The problems are, imo, two-folded:

1. Players outgrowing old zones way too quickly: quests are often greyed out halfway through the story-line, effectively forcing players to abandon the existing story and head to new zones.

2. 60-80 questing experience being disjointed: as what others have said, players being forced to level up in TBC/WLK zones which happened before the current 1-60 timeline, breaks immersion.

The solution can actually be quite simple, one I believe is probably already being considered by Devs: Dynamic levels.

1. First off, current 1-60 zones and dungeons should scale dynamically from 1-80, thus removing the needs for players to level in TBC/WLK zones. Once they reach level 80, they can then proceed into the Cata zones seamlessly.

As soon as player enters a new zone, a breadcrumb quest should pop-up, directing the player to the beginning NPC if they want to start questing in the area.

2. Secondly, revamp the Heroes Summoning Board so it works similar to the scouting map in Legion, with improvements:

Provide a selection of meta-quest-lines, some spanning multiple zones, for players to accept and work on.
Only that this time, allow players to accept multiple meta-quests, in case they find themselves uninterested to the quests they are currently working on and want to stop working there.
Also provide significant rewards (could be exp, gold, or even heirlooms for new players) for completing entire quest-lines.

The reason for this is to provide new players with a more fluid leveling experience, and prevent them from being disoriented on where to level next, while still avoiding another total revamp of older zones (by adding meta-quests on top of existing quests).
More experienced players can of course still pick on where they want to level up, if they so choose.

3. For the TBC/WLK quest-lines, my proposal is as follow:
Incorporates them into the Heroes Summoning Board system as mentioned in 2. Have the TBC meta-quest available at level 40 (and scale the entire TBC areas dynamically from 40-80) and the WLK meta-quest at level 60 (and scale the WLK areas from 60-80).

Be VERY SPECIFIC to tell the players that they are being time-walked into the past, to allow them to experience what happened before the current timeline (maybe even moving the portals to Cavern of Time), so players won't feel as disjointed from the other quests they've been working on. Maybe even slap a buff on every players telling them they're experiencing the past when entering those zones, similar to how they treated the Paw-don Village in Jade Forest.

As mentioned in 1, make these zones optional when leveling from 1-80.

Sorry for the block of texts.

[Deleted]

I think Blizzard would greatly benefit from putting in the work to do the following:
1 - Make the 1-60 leveling happen in "pre-cata azeroth" (lots of work I know, but worth it - see below why)
2 - Give players who are simultaneously above level 80, not in combat, and outside an instance, a cinematic showing the cataclysm.
3 - Every zone in azeroth from 80+ happens in "post cata azeroth".

What's the point?
Not only does it make the game coherent, it also opens up the path for a content structure that enables Blizzard to easily make the world worth exploring.
Adding random treasures you can find.
Adding rare monsters and roaming rare monsters that actually feel "naturally" rare due to the size of the world, rather than because they have huge respawn timers.

This mentality can be used for future expansions.

I think you re uderestimating the huge amount of work tht would be for a relatively tiny audience. It would mean another total and complete revamp of all Azeroth content and the only people likely to see it are brand new players and those blasting through on alts. Considering the backlash (unjustified in my opinion) against Cataclysm's lack of content I dont thin that would go down well woth players or be seen as a good use of resources by Blizzard.