Should The Next Expansion Be More Dark and Gritty?

[Chickat]

MoP was fine and actually was a breath of fresh air, but im ready to have something dark again like Wrath.

[thefinalwarden]

I for one want an old god focused expansion, you know, one that actually focuses on them rather than what Cata was trying to be. It could be a good, actual horror expansion with a focus on both psychological and grittiness. Of course, any effort to keep horror scary would be ruined once people start farming spooky bosses.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Why are you making the assumption that MoP has nothing dark or gritty in it? Or is very influence by your definition of "dark and gritty"?

Also nice name, you remind me of someone though. Could be an alt account.

[Zenny]

MoP strikes a nice balance I would like to adhere to, we have fun lighthearted areas and then we have rather dark quests and plot lines too. Having everything be DARK and RAGE is lame.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

MoP strikes a nice balance I would like to adhere to, we have fun lighthearted areas and then we have rather dark quests and plot lines too. Having everything be DARK and RAGE is lame.

Personally I'd like the world as a whole to be more on the middle path. With the lighter areas and the super dark areas being off on the fringes and often times hidden below the surface.

[Pull My Finger]

You'll grow out of the "dark and gritty" phase yourself soon enough.

[Khime]

When I think of WotLK, I don't think of "dark and gritty". I think of the Sons of Hodir, a faction quest hub that was almost entirely penis jokes. (Mounting Hodir's Helm, Raising Hodir's Spear, Blowing Hodir's Horn, Thrusting Hodir's Spear, etc.). I think of talking walruses that liked to fly kites, and who gave me a daily quest to help seals get laid. I remember the Wolvar and the Oracles. I remember yet more poop quests.

Oh, and I guess these was some snow and undead mixed in there somewhere, and some talking cows.

[Bullettime]

MoP was actually extremely dark and the darkest we've had.

People who look at the game and see pandas then stop are missing the core point of the story or the whole "Sha" angle and the damage they've caused.

[Karnige]

dark please!

[jbombard]

Personally I think the zones in wrath by far have had the best design to date. Most of the zones were not too dark or too light, but still had a nice unique feel to them. They stuck with mostly traditional fantasy themes. The music was awesome. MoP while it may have had some dark spots, the fisher price color scheme(bright basic colors) of zones like the Jade Forest in conjunction with silly fluffy pandas bouncing everywhere probably influenced how people perceived it. If they had used more realistic color schemes, less cartoony architecture(actually the architecture and colors in kung fu panda look much less childish), and limited pandas to a few NPCs it probably would have came across a lot more mature. BC was a bit too bright, not really in a childish way per se, but still had a lot of bright funky colors, which is probably why the Wrath zones felt so awesome coming off of BC.

[Splatter]

MoP was actually extremely dark and the darkest we've had.

People who look at the game and see pandas then stop are missing the core point of the story or the whole "Sha" angle and the damage they've caused.

MoP certainly had some dark themes but there was a lot of "comic relief" as well some cheerful zones. I wouldn't call chasing rabbitmen around valley of four winds a "dark" experience. Although i have really enjoyed MoP, I'd have to say Wotlk was darker.

[CaptainV]

I think personally what we lack is major NPC death, something that was prominent in WOTLK and in Cata to a degree, MOP had it at the beginning with Rhonin but that was entirely done via books.

What people want in terms of Dark is something that they see, a good example is how Taran Zhu lost to Garrosh (even if Garrosh is defeated in MOP) during the cutscene trailer for 5.4

That was a good example of dark, the hero tries, fails, and looses. But Taran Zhu did not "die" which is one of Blizzards problems.

They've killed off thousands of bad guys but so far heroes remain not only strong going but almost unkillable, its too "hero wins every battle" for my taste.

In Warcraft 3 sacrifice was a prominent key to the victory of mortals, I believe the next expansion should be death-heavy and focus on wiping the slate clean of the chars that either have little to no char development, or chars with so much development that they need to make way for new chars that are growing in recognition (such as Sylvanas to Lilian Voss).

What I want to see more than anything in the next expansion is loss, the hero looses, the hero looses their leaders, their home, their people. Something that gives me a MOTIVATION to be the hero that isn't just "generic bad guy has more loot for you to steal".

Garrosh was the first antagonist (sorry not even Arthas felt this close) to me that actually felt like a genuine threat. While Arthas wallowed in Northrend having fucked up a major assault on Azeroth Garrosh actively and constantly did bad things to the world with lasting consequences. Its also why id like HIM to survive and some of the people he wanted to kill to be killed BY him.

Garrosh would be great to keep as a long term antagonist, someone you love to hate and crave nothing more than to end, maybe two more expansions down the line having a final skirmish with him after he has not only fallen but truly gone bad, selling his soul to the legion, claiming revenge on those that maimed him and finally being downed as a mad rabid dog of Sargeras.

So in the TLR version.

More Lasting Antagonists...

More Protagonist Deaths... (Referring to NPC allies/neutral chars).

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

less cartoony architecture(actually the architecture and colors in kung fu panda look much less childish),

I'm sorry what? What was so different in MoP's architecture that made it more "cartoony" or childish than past ones? WoW in it self is a very cartoony game so I don't see how that would be bad, or possible.

[Evilfish]

MoP was actually extremely dark and the darkest we've had.

People who look at the game and see pandas then stop are missing the core point of the story or the whole "Sha" angle and the damage they've caused.

From an "ambiance" perspective MOP is not that dark. The only sensation of darkness and mystery you get it in the Mantid area, however, even with the Sha appearing and messing stuff up you are still in a green and overall, happy place, as for the story itself, it does not even come close to Cata and miles away from WOTLK.

Anyway, yest I want dark (literal darkness) I want creepy stuff I want a story that takes us to the fabled city of Ny'alotha. It's time to finally explore the world of the old gods, dammit.

[Chirri]

I think MoP was pretty dark and cruel, have you ever done SoO? There's citizens and darkspear rebellions hanging from poles with arrows in their chests. There's also Theramore Prisoners being forced to fight one another (if they refused, their children were killed).

The short bit with Aysa and Ji as you clear the area for Dark Shaman was rough. I missed the first part of the trash entirely because my ears perked up at her voice, and then I had to look around to see what was going on.

Brightly colored architecture and landscapes don't necessarily mean an expansion is all infant animals and flowers and rainbows.

I know a lot of people flat out refuse to other reading flavor text during quests, or even ignore quests completely, but come on.

Wrath was one of the most visually boring expansions for me. The Scourge, the Trolls, okay ... but the way they used Arthas through the leveling stage pretty much turned him into Dr. Claw (Inspector Gadget, anyone?) from my perspective, it was impossible to take him (and thus his entire military force) seriously. Wrath was super impressive almost solely to players who'd met Arthas in the original Warcraft games. I think I found Vanilla "grittier" in that regard, because simply coming across the Plaguelands and questing there was more horrific than haring off to Arthas-land was.

[Lazy Gecko]

The next expansion should be completely Film Noir themed.

[xskarma]

I loved the fact that places like the Jade Forest were brighter, and lovely to look at, and gave you a warm, welcoming feeling. It made the fact the Sha turned up there all the more of a stark contrast.

Whatever Blizz do I hope the next expansion strikes a good tone between light and dark places and light and dark feel to the expansion, so that the difference is more noticable. It just adds depth, I feel.

[jbombard]

I'm sorry what? What was so different in MoP's architecture that made it more "cartoony" or childish than past ones? WoW in it self is a very cartoony game so I don't see how that would be bad, or possible.

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.

[Masser]

"Darker, more gritty"

No no and NO!

[Lothaeryn]

I found Wrath comical gritty, wow models just doesn't do dark and menacing that well. Don't care too much, just want good story and good raids.

WoW models did a good balance of Dark/gritty in Blackrock mountain back in vanilla if you ask me, the only reason its comical is because of the low resolution and polygon counts of the era.

WoW CAN do dark/gritty, it could even go as far as Game of Thrones gritty. Its simply the devs who refuse to go that route and choose a comical approach at everything; hence Mists of Pandaria exists and appears lighthearted even though it has a rather dark story tone to it.