Should The Next Expansion Be More Dark and Gritty?

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Go and look at kung fu panda architecture and compare it too WoW. You can also compare night elf architecture which has an asian theme to pandaren architecture. The style of pandaren architecture is more exaggerated and round, which is a common style in cartoons for very young children vs. more realistic styles used in animated targeted at an older audience. It is like comparing Never Land Pirates to One-Piece, they are both cartoons and both have pirates, but they are very different styles targeted at different age groups.

I really don't see what you're saying.

[Deadlycurves]

personally i think MoP had a good balance, i just hope the next xpac is less daily quest reliant and they slim down the number of companion pets they add each patch.

[Wyrt]

More dark and gritty than a genocidal war, open rebellion, and the sieging of a city with massive casualties?

[Belize]

The next expansion should be completely Film Noir themed.

The main villain should be the Disembodied Head of Robert Mitchum

[GennGreymane]

Garrosh had people thrown onto the spikes of org does that not count?

[Annarion]

These threads make me sick. Garrosh bombed an entire town, kidnapped the survivors, tortured and experimented on them, including children. Oh and by the way they sent a whole bunch of Horde soldiers into the town first to make it look like it was a regular attack, and then lit the bomb off anyways, with no guarantee that any Horde soldiers would be able to escape in time, as we had no idea there was a bomb until the last second. He sent Kor'kron assassins against another race leader because he disapproved of his rash actions and dark methods. He then instigated an open war against a neutral faction by forcing members of said faction to allow Horde agents to infiltrate an enemy city to steal back an artifact he intended to use for world conquest, one which he gleefully used to experiment on his closest followers, twisting them into monsters for his own personal gain.

The Alliance, on landing in Pandaria, willfully murdered unarmed survivors of a shipwreck as they swam to shore. They pressed the native peoples into slavery in order to fight the Horde on foreign shores.

Both factions manipulated and intimidated the local races into joining them in their conflict. They opened up an untouched wilderness in order to exploit it's resources.

A race of tyrants bent on enslaving the rest of the world used dark magic to twist other races to their will, using stolen technology to generate endless armies. They joined forces with another race bent on world dominance, and resurrected their mightiest king and warrior.

A horrible force of malevolence fueled purely by emotion rose to destroy an entire race and culture by twisting their queen to force them into a war they could not win. It completed desecrated their homeland and rendered all it's life twisted, poisoned and dying. It then attempted to corrupt the very wellspring of life in Pandaria.

A young black dragon, progeny of Deathwing, uses us to manipulate the flow of events, causing a massive conflict resulting in untold horror and death, in order to forge a new world order.

Garrosh succeeds in corrupting the same wellspring of life in Pandaria, and doing so causes innocents to become corrupted and attack their former friends, not to mention destroying the only safe haven those pushed out of Kun Lai had to go. Those Kun Lai refugees were under siege from another people who were being driven out of their homeland by ravaging Mantid.

Many classic heroes of the Horde and Alliance are killed or wounded in action. Old friends are pitted against each other. Thrall, having saved the world, must once again risk his life in order to correct the mistake he made with Garrosh. Nazgrim, a long-time friend and ally is forced to defend against us, and ultimately dies.

WAR. GENOCIDE. MURDER. CONSPIRACY. HORROR. DEATH.

THIS. IS. A. DARK. GRITTY. EXPANSION.

It is easily the darkest expansion. Just because the first two zones are light hearted because we haven't gotten to the brunt of the horror just highlights the later horror. Just because it isn't fucking zombie themed and there aren't that many skulls doesn't mean a goddamned thing.

[jbombard]

I really don't see what you're saying.

You can easily find a MoP screenshot that more closely matches the one of KFP you used, which would provide a far better comparison.(I assume you didn't to intentionally bias the comparison) And I'm not talking about character design so ignore the silly panda in the KFP shot and look at the architecture. KFP has pretty realistic style that does justice to Chinese architecture, while WoW uses exaggerated shapes and a more round shapes in general in the Pandaren architecture which is common in cartoons for younger audiences. Even night elf architecture doesn't go nearly as far as the pandaren architecture does.

[rayden54]

I don't like the obsession with "dark and gritty.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

You can easily find a MoP screenshot that more closely matches the one of KFP you used, which would provide a far better comparison.(I assume you didn't to intentionally bias the comparison) And I'm not talking about character design so ignore the silly panda in the KFP shot and look at the architecture. KFP has pretty realistic style that does justice to Chinese architecture, while WoW uses exaggerated shapes and a more round shapes in general in the Pandaren architecture which is common in cartoons for younger audiences. Even night elf architecture doesn't go nearly as far as the pandaren architecture does.

Ah realism and non-round shaped buildings, guess in MoP this is the first time Blizzard went back on that. I mean come on, everyone knows WoW was a realist game meant for grown adults before WoW with all it's actual buildings and such. Here are some examples of realism:

[Matt0193]

I don't want to see a "We're all gonna die" sub-theme for an expansion, but I would like to see one where we are actually forced to witness difficult choices. Something like:

If in Icecrown, where you would've attempted to save Crusader Bridenbrad, you would've seem him crawling away to die. Instead of doing all of these things to try and save him from undeath, you simply killed him outright and burnt the remains to prevent him from being raised again.

If in Krasarang as the Alliance, you worked with Lorekeeper Vaeldrin and Lyalia to see if they could uncover anything that would help the NIght Elves reclaim their immortality. A darker version would've seen him sacrifice someone else, perhaps another Night Elf or a Sunwalker who was also captured, or simply take what little life was left within her for himself.

Darker themes like that, which really make you question why you were there. Granted the Alliance Krasarang chain was very deep, but that isn't to say that a darker ending couldn't have been equally as powerful.

[jbombard]

Ah realism and non-round shaped buildings, guess in MoP this is the first time Blizzard went back on that. I mean come on, everyone knows WoW was a realist game meant for grown adults before WoW with all it's actual buildings and such. Here are some examples of realism:

All of them are cartoons. The difference is to what degree they want to exaggerate it. Once again you choose not to make the comparison and choose to show a bunch of other screens that are not applicable to the issue at hand. Are you saying that WoW pandaren architecture is more realistic than Chinese architecture used in kung fu panda?

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

All of them are cartoons. The difference is to what degree they want to exaggerate it. Once again you choose not to make the comparison and choose to show a bunch of other screens that are not applicable to the issue at hand. Are you saying that WoW pandaren architecture is more realistic than Chinese architecture used in kung fu panda?

I'm not even the one comparing Kung Fu Panda, you are.
What I am saying is that WoW has always been cartoony and there will always be cartoony things in each expansion. It's what Warcraft was based on, even in the RTS's.

[jbombard]

I'm not even the one comparing Kung Fu Panda, you are.
What I am saying is that WoW has always been cartoony and there will always be cartoony things in each expansion. It's what Warcraft was based on, even in the RTS's.

Well I never said it wasn't cartoony, so I'm not sure what you are arguing about. I used Kung-fu panda simply as an example of a cartoon with more realistic architecture for illustrative purposes. Kung-fu panda isn't exactly hyper-realistic, the point is that you can have a cartoon style that is a little less exaggerated and tone down the colors a bit and you would probably have a lot less people complaining about how it looks childish.

[Mihalik]

WotLK has two types of Dark and Gritty.

One was everything in Icecrown, and Naxxramas.

The rest of Northrend wasn't filled with skulls or stuff. But it did have a certain weight and weariness to it. Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord, Dragonblight. The Vrykul in their desperation and insanity, the Nerubians with their tomb like tunnels, the Taunka and Frostborn on the run, the oozing madness of the Old Gods. The final hold of the Dragons, the ruins of the Titans etc.

But we had Dalaran, Ulduar, Halls of Creation, Scholazar the Tournament grounds etc. None of them felt terribly dark or anything.

I think people are exaggerating.

[jbombard]

WotLK has two types of Dark and Gritty.

One was everything in Icecrown, the other Naxxramas.

The rest of Northrend wasn't filled with skulls or stuff. But it did have a certain weight and weariness to it. Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord, Dragonblight. The Vrykul in their desperation and insanity, the Nerubians with their tomb like tunnels, the Taunka and Frostborn on the run, the oozing madness of the Old Gods. The final hold of the Dragons, the ruins of the Titans etc.

But we had Dalaran, Ulduar, Halls of Creation, Scholazar the Tournament grounds etc. None of them felt terribly dark or anything.

I think people are exaggerating.

I think the music was actually very nice in Wrath, and really helped add to the atmosphere. The music can have a pretty big impact on how a zone feels. Also much like the opening scene of a movie, the first zone of an expack can help set up the tone of the expack and those impressions tend to stick with us. This is probably one of the reasons why so many people feel MoP felt childish or light hearted. The silliness of the trailor probably didn't help things, and the overall feeling of Jade Forest didn't really do well in setting up the tone of the expansion.

[CaptainV]

MOP was Dark, and it added something key to a dark expansion, personal injury.

For the alliance, we lost Theramore, for the Horde, Garrosh became a raging racist Tyrant that made everyone question his goal.

Personally I feel like the "War" Expansion was dealt with in MOP but the problem with Dark is there's a difference between War and Dark.

War is conflict, conflict brings loss, victory, glory, dark deeds but Dark is more of an atmospherically personal thing.

What did "I" do that was wrong in WoW to this point, when did I ever do something truthfully evil?

See this is where a char like Azshara or even Nozdormu would be "ideal" as the next antagonist, because they could "manipulate" you, the player, into performing dark deeds, in the case of Azshara, praying on the heroes constant battle to defeat evil only to end up becoming the monster they seek to destroy. In the case of Nozdormu, pointing out that changing history isn't always a bad thing, and surely there have been times the hero has wanted to change it.

I think the key here is that the villain of every wow expansion thus far has never felt like it was "OUR" problem, it feels more like a cleanup crew and that chore just so happens to fall on us. How did Garrosh problem affect me as an alliance player? He destroyed Theramore, fair enough that's good enough reasoning from a mass scale but what did he do to ME? Personally?

Again, I love Garrosh and its the reason I want him to stay on as a long term antagonist, we need a villian with a face, someone we can personally "HATE" to the end, someone that you crave to utterly destroy everything they have worked to achieve.

Nozdormu and Azshara would make ideal antagonists in this case, manipulating the hero of Azeroth into subverting the very beliefs they once represented, despite conquering their inner demons, and shadows, they are still allured by the prospect of temptation.

The greatest evil is the one that comes from a heroes fall.

We saw that with Garrosh, foreshadowing perhaps that in time we, the hero will eventually have the same plight, and be tempted by the very powers we have fought so tirelessly to destroy. Did Sargeras not once begin his crusade to destroy evil as a hero of retribution?

If history teaches us anything, anyone can fall, even the pure.

I want a Dark expansion that makes "me" feel like the bad guy, for once. I want char death, perma death as well, I want lasting personal consequences that make you feel that this isn't just the worlds problem, this is "Your" problem, you made a mess, you need to clean it up, and take responsibility.

I want an expansion that defines a single question that takes the hero of Azeroth on a journey of discovery...
What, makes, a hero?
And can a hero remain a hero forever? Or is the cycle of corruption an inevitable chain, as Arthas, as Garrosh, how many heroes have tried to do the right thing, and fallen?
And even more importantly than that... can a hero "rise" from the fall?

A good theme to cover is redemption, which is what the next expansion should focus on, giving the hero a dark storyline, followed by a path of redemption to atone for the mishaps they've inflicted, in a way that is what we did in MoP, but it wasn't a personal story, because in the end the Sha were unleashed by the war, not by us.

And so I want an expansion that focuses on the heroes of Azeroth, the legendary characters that are cleaning up the sh1t that all the other people in the setting are keen to avoid taking responsibility for. Tired, fed up, and a little weary of constantly saving the world, wouldn't it just be easier to take it over?

MoP had a theme like this, but Again, the theme was on a broad scale, not a personal one. The theme of the next expansion should be, how long can a hero remain a hero?

[ShadowJester]

I think a Naga/Azshara Expansion could be dark and gritty, while offering new architecture styles and themes that while have been around really haven't been in super much focus since tier 5. With the Naga haven taken control of the Abyssal Maw and probably having a lot of water control and water not, they could commit mass murder by flooding a lot of the world. Not to mention all the Deep Sea stuff from Vashj'ir could be expanded and that is pretty creepy itself, since deep water stuff is all spikey bone teeth and horrible lifeless eyeballs. If done right a Naga theme could be super dark, sea monsters murdering your face, towns wrecked by floods, heavy fogs all the time making life dreary and stuff. heck yes

[MistsofBoredom]

More dark and gritty than a genocidal war, open rebellion, and the sieging of a city with massive casualties?

"genocidal war" I don't think you know what that means.

[Wyrt]

"genocidal war" I don't think you know what that means.

I do. Garrosh's aim was to exterminate the alliance races and later to exterminate most of the horde races as well.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

People saying MoP wasn't dark aren't thinking of Dark as a story element.

For them, dark is heavy metal and killing 90% of the NPCs