So...Why is none of the NPCs powerfull and awesome anymore?

[cparle87]

Blizzard have resently, proberly starting with MoP, found it very hard to finish character stories or have them extend between expansions. I fear very much, that if the Sylvanas/Greymane story is not told in 7.X, we will never see Sylvanas interact with Eyir again and that entire plot will be left in the dust. Blizzard are pretty amazing with setting up stories and characters, opening up for an ever expanding roster of character story-line, but this will not last, if the lorefocused playerbase begins to realize, that most of the stories that Blizzard sets up will never end and therefore be bad overall.

They don't always, though. The kvaldir, for instance. We were introduced to them back in Wrath where they were this mysterious race of vrykul who were deadly threats to all coastal areas. Then besides a cameo in Vashj'ir where they were shown to have warred against the naga, and nearly winning, in the past that was it. Until in Legion we finally find out where they come from, who created them, and what their objective is.

[yetgdhfgh]

Thing is Blizz needs to learn how to make lore NPCs interesting but sadly there tactic seems to be just let some hack writer write stories in Books you will never read and then never mention it or show it ingame. But if anyone brings it up on a forum you will get paragraphs at how X did something amazing to Y.

[Flurryfang]

They don't always, though. The kvaldir, for instance. We were introduced to them back in Wrath where they were this mysterious race of vrykul who were deadly threats to all coastal areas. Then besides a cameo in Vashj'ir where they were shown to have warred against the naga, and nearly winning, in the past that was it. Until in Legion we finally find out where they come from, who created them, and what their objective is.

The Kvaldir would be a good example of really good faction build up, if Blizzard had prepared them for 4 expansions in advance, but to be very honest, i actually think that they made up their origin story far after they introduced them, so it was proberly not planned for the Kvaldir to be the servants of Helya. I actually believe, that some notes in Wrath talks about them being Vrykul, that just disappeared during a seafarer, like ghosts of the dead that comes back

But yeah, if they were planned, it would be amazing

[MonsieuRoberts]

The problem is that apperantly we have even surpassed these extreme NPCs, yet the game treats us like we have not, which sets up a disruption in the game between story/lore and gameplay. It is like having a legendary character finally come into play during Legion, that has killed powerful enemies and saved us several times in the lore, but he is shown as a lvl 49 character with 2730 hp inside the game. That is kind of the things happening right now. Turalyon for example is supposed to be this mighty guy, that is supposedly going to be a major factor in the battle against the Legion, yet he sits on his ass in the Vindicar and is just as good as killing demons as light elemental.

Yup, it's a problem if you care at all about continuity. We should never have attained these artifacts, we should have never been given direct command over our own garrisons, etc. Powerscale is out the window.

At this point I don't think that's a solvable problem. You're going to be an intergalactic badass from now until forever, and the NPCs will continue to...sort-of be like you. But we all know who's really the true badass.

Spoilers: It's not Nomi

[yetgdhfgh]

Yup, it's a problem. We should never have attained these artifacts, we should have never been given direct command over our own garrisons, etc. Powerscale is out the window.

At this point I don't think that's a solvable problem. You're going to be an intergalactic badass from now until forever, and the NPCs will continue to...sort-of be like you.

But shouldnt that be the end goal of this game? You walk out of the Valley of Trials with no more than a shirt on your back and a rusty axe and you want to end it as the most powerful hero the world has ever known? You dont wanna hit level 200 and still be talked down to by a level 20 questgiver?

[Grimo]

It was the Light-reforged Great Royal Sword wielded by the most powerful paladin in the Warcraft universe.

Yeah, this. It would have blasted a lesser demon to ash.

[Flurryfang]

But shouldnt that be the end goal of this game? You walk out of the Valley of Trials with no more than a shirt on your back and a rusty axe and you want to end it as the most powerful hero the world has ever known? You dont wanna hit level 200 and still be talked down to by a level 20 questgiver?

That should be the goal of the entire game, but i think MonsieuRoberts sets it up as problem since Legion is apperantly not the last expansion, so this is apperantly not the goal after all, there is still a bit undtil finishline.

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Yeah, this. It would have blasted a lesser demon to ash.

Yeah it did not. I tested this and he needed alot of swings with that sword to take down a common fel stalker.

[MonsieuRoberts]

But shouldnt that be the end goal of this game? You walk out of the Valley of Trials with no more than a shirt on your back and a rusty axe and you want to end it as the most powerful hero the world has ever known? You dont wanna hit level 200 and still be talked down to by a level 20 questgiver?

Depends I guess.

I personally never had any issue with being an Uber Adventurer, but I didn't and don't care about the continuity of the game, or the "logical relative power" of my characters. That's not a sticking point of WoW I ever cared much for.

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That should be the goal of the entire game, but i think MonsieuRoberts sets it up as problem since Legion is apperantly not the last expansion, so this is apperantly not the goal after all, there is still a bit undtil finishline.

Yeah, that was my point. Players and their relative power will either plateau and you'll be on the levels of Tirion, Darion, Thrall and some others, or you'll continue to grow upwards in strength. As it stands, players and their weaponry are so strong we could be raid bosses from the early expansions. I don't see much attraction in "losing power and not getting it back so you can be an adventurer again" and I'm sure Blizzard doesn't see attraction there either. They can fill the "I wanna be low lvl again" niche in other ways, namely scaling and timewalking.

From here on out you're going to be He-Man on crack on every single character you get to lvl cap. How is there any going back? The evils of WoW's universe are not going to decline in power. You're not going to go to Blizzcon and hear "So since we're back to fighting between Horde and Alliance, and you don't need the power of the titans anymore, we're going to regress all your characters in power, and go back to lvl 90/80/70/60 levels of character power." Sargeras is NOT the end-all be-all, lest Blizzard finds that they're really not interested in making $15/month from millions of people.

So Titanic strength is the new meta, now and forever.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I mean, we literally saved the entire capital of our faction when we were like...level 12 or something. (If you're horde that is. Not sure I remember if taking out VanCleef was shown to be as important.)

You've been a pretty big badass right from the start in WoW. The only real difference between then and now is a relative lack of cohesive narrative, cutscenes, and so on.

That still isn't Jesus. Fuck I save my city sometimes just by doing my job and not letting substations explode.

You become Jesus when you are the leader of the class. Leader of the military forces. The Jedi that cuts off the white wizards head, the guy that orders the exacution of order 66, and then also shoots torpedoes in the Death Star without a targeting computer. Then are top it off take on someone that slices planets in two with his sword. Planets. That's you. In one expansion.

I really has only been that way since WoD. Did you do great things before WoD? Sure. But were you the Jesus of the universe? No. A hero, adventur, and over all kick ass person? Yes. A god? No. The differences are obvious if you try to look.

[Pandragon]

This is pretty much the same thing I talked about in the thread i started a while ago, about how Illidan, Khadgar, Maiev and Velen are just standing at the broken shore looking like they are waiting for a bus. NPCs need to be doing a lot more around the area we are fighting in.

[MoanaLisa]

NPC power is perceptually relative to our own. The more powerful we become in the game, killing off gods and what-not, the less impressive NPC's are going to be.

It's a problem.

[cparle87]

The Kvaldir would be a good example of really good faction build up, if Blizzard had prepared them for 4 expansions in advance, but to be very honest, i actually think that they made up their origin story far after they introduced them, so it was proberly not planned for the Kvaldir to be the servants of Helya. I actually believe, that some notes in Wrath talks about them being Vrykul, that just disappeared during a seafarer, like ghosts of the dead that comes back

But yeah, if they were planned, it would be amazing

Isn't that what they are? Seafaring vykul who are ghosts and come back to kill? Helya is pretty much a sea goddess and all the vrykul fear her and going out to sea. That's why they don't bury their kings at Shield's Rest anymore, or send their dead out to sea on viking funerals.

[Grimo]

This is pretty much the same thing I talked about in the thread i started a while ago, about how Illidan, Khadgar, Maiev and Velen are just standing at the broken shore looking like they are waiting for a bus. NPCs need to be doing a lot more around the area we are fighting in.

To be fair, they spearheaded the venture into the Tomb. At the base, they are coordinating the attack. They can't always be flying into battle.

[Deleted]

Here's the scoop:

Ion Hazzikostas, likeable guy as he may be, isn't a very good game director for WoW. He is too much about the raiding and the systems. He doesn't seem to grasp the concept of the MMORPG, or have any particular love for immersion. He used to play the game as a raiding game, and that's how he is developing it.

The original WoW dev team has slowly been phased out over the years, so people like Jeff Kaplan, Chris Metzen and even Tom Chilton are no longer involved with the game. These are the guys who made the game we know and love, or at least the people who set the direction for its development. Jeff Kaplan was really spot on with his philosophy on MMOs.

The gaming market has changed, and Blizzard is now desperately trying to appeal to the younger audiences who are constantly being fed with the e-Peen type of lore and gameplay where you have a few clearly defined set superheroes that you play in short sessions, like in a MOBA or even (in a sense) when watching a movie like Guardians of the Galaxy.

All of this leads to player character power creep in WoW. Every expansion has to top the next one in terms of our involvement and rank. We have to be the leader, we have to be the hero. As a result, NPCs have been tuned back to play supporting character in the story, or to be villains. Gone are the days when we could look up to people like Tyrande, Malfurion or Thrall. Now they'll always be cheap plot-devices that annoy us. They've replaced the common villager as the Quest Giver. In my opinion, not only will this make for a worse game in the long run (because an MMORPG depends on the fact that players are inhabitants of a world, adventurers, and not the leaders), but it will also make the lore awful and its characters trite. Unless we go back to being more average adventurers in the next expansion, this game is screwed with regards to lore and immersion. When everyone of us is the hero, no one is the hero. In other words, you won't feel like the hero when you know every other player is doing the same thing. That's why being the adventurer works so well. You can assume other faceless adventurers were involved with taking down the Lich King without losing your sense of accomplishment. You can't say the same about leading the expedition to Draenor or the class order without feeling like a tool, because you know everybody did it and that lore-wise, your role is a joke.

Look, don't believe in the myth. Just because we defeated the Lich King doesn't mean we're walking gods. We always did those things together, and we always had the help of our demi-god friends. In no way are we "entitled" for this promotion to demi-godhood. Hell, Saruman the White in LotR was a demi-god and even he could be stabbed to death by his lowly servant Grima Wormtongue. It makes perfect sense for us to still face a threat when surrounded by wolves in Elwynn forest or exploring strange new worlds.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Alleria just cut a whole in a house, Velen shackled and executed some fool, Illidan blasted the primal Naaru to bits, plenty of powerful characters around.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I feel more than anything else, we don't see enough of them. So many storylines just, you know, end with no resolution.

I think there is a thread kicking around on this, but for example:

Wrathion
Sylvanas
EVERY OTHER NAMED NPC IN OUR ORDER HALLS.

We are fighting on Argus? Where the hell are they? ITS THE WHOLE REASON WE WENT TO THE BROKEN SHORE/ISLES.

Your points are valid that the power shifts seem to be heading in our direction, but I just want to see these people fighting for our world, as its really the only one we have.

Hell, get A'dal over here so he (I assume he is a he, do Naarus have gender?) can kick some ass! Get the damn dragon aspects (RIP Ysera) to tear up the battlefields too!

I send my champions on Argus missions every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Sometimes they accompany me on missions.

As for the others you named... The Legion may be our most immediate threat, but that doesn't make it the most dangerous. Some of Azeroth's movers and shakers (e.g., Malfurion) are already focused on 8.0.

[Pandragon]

To be fair, they spearheaded the venture into the Tomb. At the base, they are coordinating the attack. They can't always be flying into battle.

they look like they are waiting for a bus. At least put them around a command table.

[Deleted]

I send my champions on Argus missions every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Sometimes they accompany me on missions.

As for the others you named... The Legion may be our most immediate threat, but that doesn't make it the most dangerous. Some of Azeroth's movers and shakers (e.g., Malfurion) are already focused on 8.0.

I can contend with that point for sure, as I too am sending out my champions so the order hall is kind of assisting.

But, I mean come on, they surely are not only the most immediate, but surely the most dangerous aswell? I can't really believe that from a lore perspective important figures have chosen not to go help us fight the biggest and most dangerous being that we have ever encountered in World of Warcraft to fight...whatever might appear in 8.0? Pirates (speculation of course)? They could be, and if they actually are its been absolutely appalling in terms of explaining that to us in game.

[Odinfrost]

Yeah it did not. I tested this and he needed alot of swings with that sword to take down a common fel stalker.

Dude, as a fire mage I wield Felo'Melorn, a weapon which could match Frostmourne in combat after it was reforged and whose swing turned demons into ash during the War of the Ancients (and that was a weaker version compared to its reforged form VS Frostmourne) and yet a deer in Azuna would probably kill me before I kill it if I used nothing but my basic attack.

Gameplay =/= actual power

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I can contend with that point for sure, as I too am sending out my champions so the order hall is kind of assisting.

But, I mean come on, they surely are not only the most immediate, but surely the most dangerous aswell? I can't really believe that from a lore perspective important figures have chosen not to go help us fight the biggest and most dangerous being that we have ever encountered in World of Warcraft to fight...whatever might appear in 8.0? Pirates (speculation of course)? They could be, and if they actually are its been absolutely appalling in terms of explaining that to us in game.

After we kill Evil Tree in Emerald Nightmare, Malfurion says stopping Xavius could "buy us enough time to defeat the Legion before the true threat rises from the shadows." Sounds ominous to me, and like he doesn't believe the Legion is our biggest problem.