All Warcraft Villains Suck

[peedei]

I am going to get this item and then I will be more powerful than everything else, I was already bad or this item made me bad. I am already mega powerful and bad, if I am not bad I will be corrupted directly.

There aren't actually any intelligent villains that are weak and manipulate things to cause trouble, all the villains are "me smash, me powerful". Since all the villains are designed like this the ceiling for Warcraft story telling is how big you're willing to make a monster before it's bigger than the planet or can destroy a planet at the snap of its fingers (Dragon Ball Z syndrome or spectacle creep - just like power creep). The journey for the villain to become almighty and powerful is interesting like Arthas' anti-hero story because its not about how powerful he is it's about his loss of morality to become the monster and then his redemption, but the heroes who go to take him down? They're not interesting at all, their journey is to just 'be' stronger, they don't have to out wit anyone, most likely they'll find some form of kryptonite. There are exceptions like the Karazhan chess game but they are few and far between.

In something called 'Warcraft' we have very little to do with the cause and prevention of actual war, it should really be called 'Herocraft'. Instead of allowing Grarrosh to simply go to Outland and raise an army; where is the subterfuge, the chase and then the trap that plausibly allows the villain to get away and set up their plans to cause more problems. To do those things you don't have to be Deathwing, you could be any character big or small with a pepper of intelligence. Our 'fight' is the journey there shouldn't be 'showdowns' with evil lair's there should be last stands.

Player power is out of control because they keep giving us bigger and more brawn powered things to kill, so at which point do we become the 'gods'. We should never have even touched them to begin with, a god is not a god if you can kill it. We know we will kill Garrosh because he is no god, he is not smart. He is not interesting and WoD is just a waste of time to lead up to a new god which was bigger than the last one you killed.

[Flutterguy]

Someone is mixing their gameplay with their lore. It's important to keep these things separate.

And Blizzard isn't doing a whole lot different from what's been done for literally thousands of years of human history when it comes to story telling and no one else is either.


What would be "smarter" for you?

[Laukkanen]

due to game mechanics the villains can't be turned into anything else than loot pinataas with very little story/dimensions/depth to them.

[Odobisean]

Just ignore all that Lady Katrana Prestor and Lord Daval Prestor did a.k.a Onyxia and Deathwing. To a point Gul'Dan also manipulated the orcs. Fandral Staghelm also did some scheming

[Bigthumbb]

The problem with WoW compared to say, Warcraft III, is that there isn't a platform on which they can tell a story with any subtlety. They can't force you through a narrative like in an RTS game's campaign. Thus, all lore characters' motivations are simple enough that anyone who just resubbed can understand them. It's a shame, WoW's storytelling is utter trash because of it.

[Cyclonus-WOW]

#1 This is fiction. Just because your initial understanding is that Gods cannot die, doesn't mean thats true for the warcraft universe. I'm pretty sure we kicked some elder god ass a couple times now. There are plenty of fantasy book series where a mortal might become so powerful they ascend and become like gods. The Malazan series for example.

Along this line you should note that this is actually taking somewhat of a traditional path when it comes to roleplaying standards ( d&d ). We're getting to the power level now where we are going to attract followers ( see our garrison ) and become the kings of our little kingdom. If you were playing D&D in the warcraft world a player at level 100 could become warchief no problem. Remember they actually had to power up Thrall to become some sort of pseudo elemental god himself.

So I look at it like this:

We became heroes, right away. Saved the world.
We got magic items, we got magic mounts. Then we got tons more of both.
Then we became champions amongst our peers or gladiators ( brawlers guild )
Now we're going to become so awesome we can send others off to do raids/dungeons for us ( followers/garrisons ).

I think the DBZ syndrome idea is true, we're going to have to become constellations pretty soon But I'm also not complaining, all they need to do is continue to power up the bad guys and we're good.

Hell, maybe next expansion after WOD, we'll just command armies, and play WARCRAFT.

[Xalzel]

The issue as stated above by others is WoW itself. An MMO is just unable to tell the level of story that an RTS is.

[Marston]

You know why Arthas had such a great story? Because you played it in Warcraft 3 and saw everything of it.

Now image the same thing would have apppeared in WoW. How many years would it take to show all of that to the players ingame? His story spanned the whole of WC3, which alone could probably fill 2 or more expansions with content if you want to put all of that in. You can't just do something like this on the fly. It takes to much time. Of course you can do this. They basically did this with Garrosh over the course of 3 Expansions (Wrath, Cata and MoP - BC only as a short introduction).

Also, don't mix "the strong and powerful items" the players get with the lore. I am pretty sure in the lore Sulfuras would still be more powerful than a random Siege of Orgrimmar epic item. Even if there are roughly 500 itemlevel difference ingame.

[peedei]

Someone is mixing their gameplay with their lore. It's important to keep these things separate.

And Blizzard isn't doing a whole lot different from what's been done for literally thousands of years of human history when it comes to story telling and no one else is either.


What would be "smarter" for you?

A big bad is threatening the world because a 3rd party is black mailing it. By removing the precious item from the 3rd party the big bad has no reason to destroy everyone. The 3rd party does not have to be powerful to be interesting and uses traps or environmental events to elevate themselves rather than being strong by default, they use situational hazards to cause problems for the heroes. Fighting the big bad would be about survival and not defeating it giving time for other heroes to retrieve the precious item to resolve the issue.

The 3rd party can manipulate neutral hazards into their favor these can be big monsters but just bigger than the heroes if they are to actually defeat it (think of the cave troll or elephant for spectacle from Lord Of The Rings), nothing like all powerful gods.

[Flutterguy]

A big bad is threatening the world because a 3rd party is black mailing it. By removing the precious item from the 3rd party the big bad has no reason to destroy everyone. The 3rd party does not have to be powerful to be interesting and uses traps or environmental events to elevate themselves rather than being strong by default, they situational hazards to cause problems for the heroes. Fighting the big bad would be about survival and not defeating it giving time for other heroes to retrieve the precious item.

You do that all the time in this game. You know how many times you've done a quest only to have it turn out that you were being manipulated the whole time? Or how about taking care of side issues to weaken an otherwise powerful opponent? Summon Ragnaros famously "too soon" made him beatable by the heroes because he was not fully powered. Things like that.

You have to pay attention to the individual quests and not just the results of the raids.

[Faroth]

This kind of goes towards my dream naga expansion.

I'd love a big reveal and cinematic that indicates the naga and Azshara are the end boss of the expansion with N'Zoth behind the scenes. Then as the story develops through patches, Azshara actually manipulates the Horde and Alliance into a corner and offers them an alliance to defeat N'Zoth. Rather than the typical raid, kill, loot (or imprison and escape with Garrosh), have the expansion actually wrap up defeating N'Zoth but then the naga turn on the Horde/Alliance, who narrowly escape with their lives. Wrap up with the realization that "Congratulations, you defeated N'Zoth.....and also unleashed quite possibly the greatest threat Azeroth has ever had with Azshara now free to her own plans."

Then let her linger for an expansion or two before coming back to deal with her again.

But players would piss and moan about how Azshara was the "final boss" and we didn't get to kill her and Blizzard lied and wah wah wah.

[peedei]

You know why Arthas had such a great story? Because you played it in Warcraft 3 and saw everything of it.

Now image the same thing would have apppeared in WoW. How many years would it take to show all of that to the players ingame? His story spanned the whole of WC3, which alone could probably fill 2 or more expansions with content if you want to put all of that in. You can't just do something like this on the fly. It takes to much time. Of course you can do this. They basically did this with Garrosh over the course of 3 Expansions (Wrath, Cata and MoP - BC only as a short introduction).

Also, don't mix "the strong and powerful items" the players get with the lore. I am pretty sure in the lore Sulfuras would still be more powerful than a random Siege of Orgrimmar epic item. Even if there are roughly 500 itemlevel difference ingame.

Never played the RTS, Culling of Stratholme baby!

- - - Updated - - -

You do that all the time in this game. You know how many times you've done a quest only to have it turn out that you were being manipulated the whole time? Or how about taking care of side issues to weaken an otherwise powerful opponent? Summon Ragnaros famously "too soon" made him beatable by the heroes because he was not fully powered. Things like that.

You have to pay attention to the individual quests and not just the results of the raids.

Not us. The big bad dummy.