Should The Next Expansion Be More Dark and Gritty?

[Mukki]

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 hate to break it to you, but they're both targeted to similar age groups. One Piece wasn't aimed at adults in Shounen Jump.

[Airwaves]

I want to see an xpack where we lose.

[Kryos]

This topic comes up every now and then and one can easily tell how a lot of people started playing WoW in their teens. Now they're 19-24, are way into Game of Thrones and being badass and now they wish their WoW was "dark and gritty".

Except the truth is that the average age of MMORPG players is around 26. In fact, only 25% of MMORPG players are teenagers. About 50% of MMORPG players work full-time. About 36% of players are married, and 22% have children. So the MMORPG demographic is fairly diverse, including high-school students, college students, early professionals, middle-aged home-makers, as well as retirees. In other words, MMORPGs do not only appeal to a youth subculture.

Source: http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gate...ographics.html

This is surveyed from over 35,000 MMORPG players

[l33t]

While MoP is certainly more dark than, say, Cataclysm, it still is not dark enough to be truly heavy and depressing. The story is too Horde-centric, and, while I was glad to finally see the true faces of hyppocrite Horde leaders, it still has no "omg we gonna die" feelings like it was in Wrath. Maybe I'm just not convinced by the whole Sha stuff. Or, maybe, I don't give a flying f*ck about pandaren at all. Who knows, but for me Wrath felt a lot more heavy than MoP.

I don't care much about dark and gritty. I want story to be less childish. I'd love to have expansion where the main villain will be smart, for a start. And by smart I mean, sheming, stealthy allying with some badasses, stealthy gathering forces and then suddenly rushing towards alliance/horde, conquering lots and lots of Azeroth, but instead of stupid shit like killing, raping, empaling etc - just offer conquered people more quality of life, less tax payings and things like that, so conquered people would follow gladly, forming the final faction where former Horde and Alliance players finally could play together.
I'd also love the story to be more player-centric. That lazy, unneeded, stupid faction "leaders" don't actually lead anyone anywhere, they are in fact too busy building statues to themselves just before the end of the world happens.

[Deleted]

I want to see an xpack where we lose.

This. It would be so cool, and we would be waiting for the next xpack to take our revenge.

[Deleted]

I think while MoP has been 'Dark and Gritty', there was a lot of, dare I say it, childish sort of themes, like one poster said, giant vegetables and annoying rabbit virmen-like creatures. WHICH WAS FINE, but I'm so ready to get back to a Imminent-apocalypse expansion I.E. Burning Legion

[Deleted]

Yes MoP has some "darker" storylines, the enslavement of the Pandaren, the Alliance-Horde conflict and Garrosh's dark path.

But so much of this expansion has been a bit too much, Valley of Four Winds is like tellytubby land with oversized carrots and bouncy rabbits, silly monkeys calling each other silly names in the dungeons, and most of the pandaren are very jovial and cartoonish.

I realise that Blizz is trying to cater to all audiences but isn't the game age 15+? I'm sure that even 15 year olds don't find the Hozen funny.

Let's get back to some high fantasy, I want to see dragons tearing each other apart in the air above a plundered dwarven mountain fortress again.

I totally agree!

[Deleted]

This topic make me think of this :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbT-cW8Zb7o (If Fans Ran World of Warcraft)

I think asking for the game/story to go in a particular direction is the best way to fail.

On the Story/Art part , dev should tell us the story they want to tell and make the world they want to make.
This is how the best games are done IMO.

(I'm talking specifically about story/art, ofc for gameplay and mechanics they need feedbacks from player)

[Louis CK]

Exactly what game have you been playing if you missed all the dark shit that's going on in Mists?

Wrath was like... cartoon villain dark, and while that's not a bad thing, that's not "dark and gritty."

I REALLY need to follow the story in the next expansion lol...

This is what I know of MoP:

-An island shows up and there are pandas on it
-The pandas are nice people and drink a lot
-There's rabbits and monkeys, lots of them
-Everything is pretty
-For some reason, we can play pandas now on either faction
-We use their city as a main city
-For some reason, there are bugs everywhere
-Wrathion is apparently DW's son and is on Pandaria for some reason and talks a lot
-There's a first raid tier with statue guys
-There's a second raid tier with bugs
-Now we have to kill Garrosh (which I actually went online to read a little about)
-The fuck is this heart?

Yeah... I should pay more attention. I'll be reading quests and getting involved in the xpac. I missed a lot in this expansion (some from RL issues taking me away from the game, others because in my limited time I wanted to get leveled up, etc)

[Shudder]

I voted dark, but not wrath dark. I'd prefer darker, more like diablo.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I think it would be nice if we had fewer one-dimensional antagonists. Most of the major antagonists have plans along the lines of "destroy azeroth and kill everybody" which seems very impractical to me. A little more creativity would be nice.

Comes with the Old God territory. That's why I'm not a fan of them.

- - - Updated - - -

So ..

The woman losing her husband, going mad, succumbing to a Sha and being killed,
Chasing carrion birds away so that you can retrieve your comrades' corpses and honour them properly,
Rolling your allies' corpses over so that their souls can ascend,
Garrosh going mad and torturing and murdering innocents

.. aren't dark enough already (along with plenty of other examples)? Maybe you should pay more attention to the quests you're doing and the world you're travelling through, rather than just going "lol pandas!". I don't see any need to make WoW any darker than it already is, and I don't see MoP as any more light-hearted than other expansions.

Don't forget the whispers....

[Deleted]

With some supposed leaks of the new expansion title (The dark below), I think it should be much darker... I'd also like them to expand on Kara and use the area underneath it, which I think is a valid option if the leaked title proves true

[Deleted]

*incoming criticism for God knows why*

How do you think the story and theme of the next expansion should be portrayed? Do you feel it should be similar to Mists of Pandaria, or more dark and gritty like Wrath of the Lich King was, or somewhere in between?

did not vote.

I liked wrath, but I also liked TBC. So dark and gritty or high fantasy gets my votes

[Louis CK]

did not vote.

I liked wrath, but I also liked TBC. So dark and gritty or high fantasy gets my votes

BC felt more dark and gritty than WotLK to me. Putting skulls and undead mobs everywhere may be "dark" but BC was definitely more gritty imo.

- - - Updated - - -

With some supposed leaks of the new expansion title (The dark below), I think it should be much darker... I'd also like them to expand on Kara and use the area underneath it, which I think is a valid option if the leaked title proves true

As long as we don't have another underwater zone... Ugh...

[Deleted]

Where is the "less Dark than MoP" Option in the poll?
Only Valley of the four winds was light of all the zones but byt the end of expansion every zone in MoP is pretty much gritty.
what's wrong with having light, coloured zones that are a pleasure to stay in? Does everyone want to play only in Duskwood type zones?

[Blufossa]

Well, since "Dark and Gritty" in Wrath really meant "Put skulls and skull symbols on everything". I'd very much not like to return to it.

This.

Warhammer Online was the pinnacle of gritty to me (if anyone here has played it before it got screwed). It was terribly morbid, but hilarious at the same time.

[Deshow]

Well, since "Dark and Gritty" in Wrath really meant "Put skulls and skull symbols on everything". I'd very much not like to return to it.

I dont know what you expected, its an expansion based on the scourge.

[kerumilas]

A lot of people in this thread that are saying MoP is light-hearted seem to be bringing up Valley of the Four Winds and the races in there.

A key part of the story of MoP is how the multiple simultaneous threats affect the lives and mentalities of a relatively peaceful people. Valley of the Four Winds is our glimpse into the "old" lifestyle of the Pandaren, and the subsequent zones and raids show a gradual transition to the destruction of Pandaria. The Valley is a contrast to the horrible things happening elsewhere, of course it's silly.

Imagine the care-free people in the Valley learning that the being that basically enslaved the entire Pandaren race has been resurrected. Imagine then learning that the most sacred grounds of your island have been decimated by one of those "Horde" people using the powers of the Old God that created the Sha.

Dark and Gritty is relative, and having a light intro makes the transition that much more effective.

[Louis CK]

This.

Warhammer Online was the pinnacle of gritty to me (if anyone here has played it before it got screwed). It was terribly morbid, but hilarious at the same time.

Warhammer had the best ideas in an MMO I've seen to date. They just sucked horribly at making it work... It's sad, really

If Blizzard could take on what Warhammer was trying to do mixed with their experience in WoW and make another MMO after WoW using this... That would be a game I would probably play until the day I die lol

And I do agree... The grit/humor ratio was perfect in that game lol

[MoanaLisa]

It's interesting that people that want the next expansion to be dark bring up Jade Forest and Vot4W and never talk about Dread Wastes. If blood and bodies laying around are your definition of 'dark and gritty' no thanks. There was plenty of dark in Mists. Those that never bother with the actual story probably didn't see just how dark the expansion was. They won't see it in the next expansion either, hence it should look like Diablo.

The injection of terror and tragedy into what appears to be a relatively peaceful situation and the horrors that war can bring to an entire people that never asked for the Alliance/Horde war to be brought to their shores are plenty dark.