The themepark needs to close.

[sixx]

I agree with your post and also personally think the MMO genre is stuck in place. It hasn't evolve dude, is just there trying from time to time to shoot here and there couple of changes but it doesn't quite work. Also another problem that MMOs have is their development time. Wildstar itself has been in development since 2005!!! I believe this is one of the many reasons why it feels like a glorified relic of the past, the same thing happening to other MMOs. When they were in development X and Y was the norm and Z was what was expected to evolve to... but when the game is about to be released X and Y are pretty much outdated and Z concept has developed into a more broad idea. See where I'm going with this?

Something with a biiiiig impact needs to happen soon or those of us like me, will lose total interests in the MMO genre. And I suggest they start by finding ways to develop MMOs faster.

[SodiumChloride]

Just because you didn't read half of the BC quests doesn't mean there was no story given to Illidan or Kael in Outland. There was plenty of backstory and reason given as to why we were at war with them

No one said that there is no story. It's just that the stories were shit.

Illiadan was an anti-hero that walked the line. In BC he became an outright villain because "he has gone mad". Kael'thas was hero in W3 ... Again made into a villain via "he has gone mad" because they need a boss and they want him to be recognizable.

Malygos ... Need I say more? How many more times are they going to use the lame ass copout of a plot device called "he has gone mad"? All because they are too lazy, too uncreative to come up with and build up an original interesting villain. Even Garrosh was flip-flopped all over the place.

WoD you can look forward to them whoring out even more of their lore characters.

In general, their story telling is fucking horrible.

[Charge me Doctor]

Am I the only one who despises voice-acting for quests? Oo

EDIT: Also, I have no problems with killing, gathering, whatevering quests

I would love voice-acting for quests if you could listen to it on any time instead of only when you take quest. Like you open Q log, click button "play" and it plays it.

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No one said that there is no story. It's just that the stories were shit.

Illiadan was an anti-hero that walked the line. In BC he became an outright villain because "he has gone mad". Kael'thas was hero in W3 ... Again made into a villain via "he has gone mad" because they need a boss and they want him to be recognizable.

Malygos ... Need I say more? How many more times are they going to use the lame ass copout of a plot device called "he has gone mad"? All because they are too lazy, too uncreative to come up with and build up an original interesting villain. Even Garrosh was flip-flopped all over the place.

WoD you can look forward to them whoring out even more of their lore characters.

In general, their story telling is fucking horrible.

When you make a video game you need to make clear line where "black" starts and "white" ends. It isn't true for all games (some RPG actually give you a choice to see both sides of conflict and accept one of them) but in WoW, they had to make villains. I guess next time you will complain that we have to kill villains? I mean, yes, they all "gone mad", but they had strong reasons behind it.

[Celista]

Malygos ... Need I say more? How many more times are they going to use the lame ass copout of a plot device called "he has gone mad"? All because they are too lazy, too uncreative to come up with and build up an original interesting villain. Even Garrosh was flip-flopped all over the place.

WoD you can look forward to them whoring out even more of their lore characters.

In general, their story telling is fucking horrible.

Sylvanas is decent character development but I'll be pissed if she becomes a raid boss. Not happy with what I've heard of WoD so far, since it's an alternate timeline the death of a main character and racial leader will seem meaningless.

[Keristrasza]

ESO seems to be avoiding that decently enough

Funny enough, I never thought about that till you just mentioned it. I got to level 9 when and thinking back on it, I believe I found 1 quest that required me to "Collect" anything. Half the time I was to buried in the story of the quest I was doing ...and not having to read the quest myself made it all the better. Listen to them talk about what needs done ... go do it. Was kinda amazing really.

[metasine]

I can only relate the themepark to the real-life Disneyland. It has been basically the same idea for 50+ years, but people still love it. Personally, I can only "ride the rides" every five years or so. I look at themepark MMOs the same way. Sometimes you need to avoid what you love for a while to realize how much you really love it.

[SodiumChloride]

When you make a video game you need to make clear line where "black" starts and "white" ends. It isn't true for all games (some RPG actually give you a choice to see both sides of conflict and accept one of them) but in WoW, they had to make villains. I guess next time you will complain that we have to kill villains? I mean, yes, they all "gone mad", but they had strong reasons behind it.

I'm not asking for "black and white" stories, I'm asking for proper justifications for the actions of the characters and what they force players to do. This of course is difficult when your characters have no depth whatsoever.

To Blizzard, the story is "expandable".

[tiporispit]

Those points actually fit Vanilla and BC more than they do the "recent" WoW story.

"You're going to Outland to fight Illidan, Why? Who knows. Throughout the storyline, you collect hellboar flanks and shiny crystals and naga bladders. How does that help you stop illidan? Who knows? What in the hell is Illidan even trying to do that's so evil? Nuts if Blizzard ever tells you. But he's angry looking and has big demon wings and horns so he's bad GO KILL HIM! Oh, and go kill these trolls in Ghostlands and Kael'thas isn't actually dead."

That's literally the summary for Burning Crusade.

And, yet, it was better than anything since. Maybe story isn't that important? /shrug

[Kaleredar]

Just because you didn't read half of the BC quests doesn't mean there was no story given to Illidan or Kael in Outland. There was plenty of backstory and reason given as to why we were at war with them.

"They attacked us" isn't a reason, considering that there needs to be a reason that they attacked us to make a good story.

Illidan wasn't driven mad by an old god and didn't have any real preclusion to try and conquer the world like Deathwing and Arthas did, respectively.

I hear the notion of "well you obviously didn't read the quest text because the story was explained with the beauty of Don Giovani and the subtlety of Pelléas and Mélisande..." Alright then, TELL me which quests explicitly laid out what, EXACTLY, Illidan was trying to accomplish in outland, from attacking Shattrath and the players to sucking all the water out of Zangarmarsh? And for the record, I'm actually quite diligent about reading quest text.

And then explain to me why the hell we were supposed to care about anything going down in Zul'Aman. An entire raid tier stuck in "because why not?" ZA's reinclusion in Cataclysm made more story sense than it did in BC.

And, yet, it was better than anything since. Maybe story isn't that important? /shrug

WotLK was miles better than BC in terms of story (and many other things, but that's for a different thread.) MoP's story has held together pretty well as well.

[Vongimi]

There are quest-lines based on Shadowsong and Illidan, several of them actually. Some (or most), probably didn't read through the quests themselves and just wanted to get attuned or lv70 asap during that time but Blizz did put in explanations in the xpac, just like Wrath, Cata and MoP.

The Kael'thas retcons were a shitty move as well and it even pissed me off that Blizz didn't learn much in Wrath as well; Anub.

OT: I'm hoping that themepark Devs start putting more focus on what to do in the open world, instead of instanced content.

You should look up the word "retcon".... it doesn't mean what you think it means. Kael'thas clearly states he is not dead when you turn in the quest item that he drops. No retcon there at all. Anub on the other hand is a bit closer, mostly because they never explained WHY he was suddenly alive again. Lack of an explanation is not a retcon. The Eredar that changed from a demon race that corrupted Sargares, into a race that got corrupted BY Sargares... THAT is a retcon.

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"They attacked us" isn't a reason, considering that there needs to be a reason that they attacked us to make a good story.

Illidan wasn't driven mad by an old god and didn't have any real preclusion to try and conquer the world like Deathwing and Arthas did, respectively.

I hear the notion of "well you obviously didn't read the quest text because the story was explained with the beauty of Don Giovani and the subtlety of Pelléas and Mélisande..." Alright then, TELL me which quests explicitly laid out what, EXACTLY, Illidan was trying to accomplish in outland, from attacking Shattrath and the players to sucking all the water out of Zangarmarsh? And for the record, I'm actually quite diligent about reading quest text.

And then explain to me why the hell we were supposed to care about anything going down in Zul'Aman. An entire raid tier stuck in "because why not?" ZA's reinclusion in Cataclysm made more story sense than it did in BC.



WotLK was miles better than BC in terms of story (and many other things, but that's for a different thread.) MoP's story has held together pretty well as well.

Yeah they never really explained WHY he had a sudden change in heart and wanted global domination... He had never been an enemy of the goodly races at all, with the exception of those who attacked him first (the wardens, the night elves trying to stop his sundering of northrend). He had always been a "kill the bad guys at any cost" kinda guy... willing to do ANYTHING to destroy evil, but than jk suddenly he is a bad guy.

I personally think BC wasn't 2nd only to cata in terms of worst story. I was very dissapointed with the decision to suddenly throw the savage Burning Legion into a force that would make more sense as a villain in a Star Trek story...

[Charge me Doctor]

I'm not asking for "black and white" stories, I'm asking for proper justifications for the actions of the characters and what they force players to do. This of course is difficult when your characters have no depth whatsoever.

To Blizzard, the story is "expandable".

Did you payed attention when you played warcraft 3? There was a lot of things that happened to Illidan to drive him mad, in WoW, if you actually pay attention to quests, then you'll get full picture about what happened to Illidan and why he had to be put down

[Tekkommo]

When I played the Wildstar beta this past weekend, I was simply amazed at the great character customization

Weird, that was the first thing that disappointed me in that game. It has terrible customisation.

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Did you payed attention when you played warcraft 3? There was a lot of things that happened to Illidan to drive him mad, in WoW, if you actually pay attention to quests, then you'll get full picture about what happened to Illidan and why he had to be put down

But that requires reading man.

It's only a great story if it's voiced.

/sarcasm off

[Kaleredar]

Did you payed attention when you played warcraft 3? There was a lot of things that happened to Illidan to drive him mad, in WoW, if you actually pay attention to quests, then you'll get full picture about what happened to Illidan and why he had to be put down

Refer to my above post.

[SodiumChloride]

Did you payed attention when you played warcraft 3? There was a lot of things that happened to Illidan to drive him mad, in WoW, if you actually pay attention to quests, then you'll get full picture about what happened to Illidan and why he had to be put down

So took a sword to the chest = gone mad?

Explain Kael'thas.

Explain Malygos.

The reality was Blizzard wanted raid bosses, they wanted the bosses to be recognizable, they wanted big names. It didn't matter if it made sense or not, they were just tapping into W3 nostalgia and will freely whore out whoever they have.

Blizzard really thinks that's what sells expansions. Look at WoD ... They pull a time travel/alternate dimension bullshit plot out of their ass because they wanted to showcase old draenor and "old friends", good lore and story be damned. Maybe it does sell expansions ... But a good story/lore it doesn't make. Rather they are slowly destroying the "credibility" of their game universe for a quick buck, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[Agoonga]

I was hoping Wildstar would be more like a Platformer.

[Uoyredrum]

Those points actually fit Vanilla and BC more than they do the "recent" WoW story.

"You're going to Outland to fight Illidan, Why? Who knows. Throughout the storyline, you collect hellboar flanks and shiny crystals and naga bladders. How does that help you stop illidan? Who knows? What in the hell is Illidan even trying to do that's so evil? Nuts if Blizzard ever tells you. But he's angry looking and has big demon wings and horns so he's bad GO KILL HIM! Oh, and go kill these trolls in Ghostlands and Kael'thas isn't actually dead."

That's literally the summary for Burning Crusade.

That's a pretty good summary if you like to ignore all quest text and lore in general. Basically you'd be right if you played the entire expansion wearing a blindfold and earplugs.

[Hubbl3]

That's a pretty good summary if you like to ignore all quest text and lore in general. Basically you'd be right if you played the entire expansion wearing a blindfold and earplugs.

The explanation is spot on even if you read all the quest texts. Face it, the storyline of BC is NOT good at all.

[Mormolyce]

I'm guessing this is because WoW has been so massively unbelievably successful.

I would like the industry to be more experimental, but bear in mind an MMO is a massive investment with no guarantee of a return.

Those points actually fit Vanilla and BC more than they do the "recent" WoW story.

"You're going to Outland to fight Illidan, Why? Who knows. Throughout the storyline, you collect hellboar flanks and shiny crystals and naga bladders. How does that help you stop illidan? Who knows? What in the hell is Illidan even trying to do that's so evil? Nuts if Blizzard ever tells you. But he's angry looking and has big demon wings and horns so he's bad GO KILL HIM! Oh, and go kill these trolls in Ghostlands and Kael'thas isn't actually dead."

That's literally the summary for Burning Crusade.

And right in the middle "P.S. We're going to Zul'Aman to kill some trolls led by a guy who used to be an iconic member of the Horde. Why? I dunno, the NPC sending you on this quest seems to be not right in the head? Look it drops purples, shut up!"

[Kaleredar]

That's a pretty good summary if you like to ignore all quest text and lore in general. Basically you'd be right if you played the entire expansion wearing a blindfold and earplugs.

I'm glad to see you've ignored my other posts in this thread about this exact topic. You're only like the... third... person in this thread to do that so far. So I'd advise you to refer to my other posts.

[Thotor]

This is nothing new from greedy video games company (not talking about Wildstar). They are not making for the players but games that sales.
This is seen in so many video games genre, not just MMOs. Just look at the FPS genre, little innovation and sales millions of copies (like Call of Duty 36)
Themepark MMOs is the same, it attracts the mass and many players that get duped into the same old game. As long as players are stupid enough to pay in any form those games, it will continue to exists.

Hopefully EQN is trying to break from that cycle. Let's hope, we will get a change of pace.