Is making every player a "hero" a good idea?

[Mytheros]

I have to admit I don't get people say this...whole "Yeah everyone one's the hero...ha ha".... there's been several different people (or at least it was written by different forum account names put it that way) both here on MMO Champ and on the actual Blizzard WoW forums writing this same topic.

What do people think pretty much all games have ALWAYS been about? All MMORPGs always put the narrative of the quest lines and stories in the view that the individual player is the hero. Everquest, SWTOR, UO, Guild Wars , Wild Star...they write from the stand point that the player is the hero/savior of that particular story universe.

Since Nov 2004 on live realms in WoW our characters have been killing quest mobs that where "captains" or otherwise "tough guys" if you followed the quest lines and actually read them.

How people can play computer games for years and yet be utterly clueless how to suspend disbelief in the narrative to help you enjoy the immersion into a fictional story where YOU are the hero....that's just a foreign concept to me.

Its as if someone I knew for a decade has always driven to center city everyday for work , just sudden revealed to me "I don't know how to parallel park".....WHAT!? You work in the friggin city for over 10 years, you drive to work yourself every day....HOW...just HOW?!

[UnluckyAmateur]

Yep. Wrath was set up the right way - you're just another face in the boat of volunteers going to Northrend to help out - you even have to get in line to sign up when you get there.

Except you skip the whole line because of your accomplishments in Outlands but ok, lol.

[Deleted]

I really hope that we eventually will become gods. I mean we need to fight titans and old gods, void gods etc. Azeroth should have us as their one true god.

[Bytch]

it is crappy. In fact the days where you were a lowly guy were better. More danger in the world etc...

now we are those super heroes with super mega weapons having to kill ever increasing threats. at some point the threat has got to become so much bigger to take into account how stupidly "heroic" and powerful our characters have been designed.

This also begs the question: when legion is done, what will become of those artifacts that have been so freely distributed? Do we carry on another xpac again with those weapons? would blizzard make a quest that actually removes all of them from players?

They are leaving the fate of the Artifacts-after Legion up to the player base and community. They said, in a post some where they havent decided on what to do with them yet and will let us the players decide on what to do with them going forward.

[Rudkobing]

Yes, its a good idea.

[toxicrusader]

Making everyone feel special is just as equally boring and moronic as making everyone feel equally unimportant or to paraphrase "adventurey". Infact, I'm not really certain why anyone cares what everyone else feels like in the game, as the story on an individual level should be what drives it.

In other words, why do you care if you and the guy next to you is a hero, because otherwise you'd both be "adventurers". It's just a label and a method of story telling, not some ground breaking new way for Blizzard to make players feel like entitled shits. You guys do that on your own.

Your point makes sense.

Even while I'm not fan of the idea, YOU ARE one of the ultimate heroes of Azeroth, and from your perspective, almost everyone else is just another average Joe.

Artifact weapons mean no more than you currently BiS weapon, that every serious raider has too. it just happens that instead of a random weapon with some dubious taste, we'll get an awesome (well, most of artifacts are) and deeply rooted in lore weapon. Just like we had Gorehowl in the past.

Yet, it is weird when some random dude asks you to do trivial stuff.

[Darktbs]

They are leaving the fate of the Artifacts-after Legion up to the player base and community. They said, in a post some where they havent decided on what to do with them yet and will let us the players decide on what to do with them going forward.

THis is a escape Pod.Make something unique to a expansion,if the players like they push foward to the next expansion,if not,they remove or make it a minor thing for the people that like it.

[Bosen]

We're more like He-Man than LOTR. We're all super heroes.
I like it.

[Deleted]

Nope, I don't like it. But I kind of understand why it happens - MMORPG (genre) is the answer. You can compare W3 to WoW or Guild Wars to Guild Wars 2 and clearly tell which of them are better at storytelling.

[Irian]

Personally, I would say no. But....apparently there are people who like it, I guess.

It's always felt disingenuous to me. I want to feel like a hero when I do things that feel heroic. When I bring down the Lich King, that's when NPCs should be praising my deeds and commending my abilities, because that's something truly heroic. When I simply survive the intro quest to Warlords of Draenor and then complete a few zone quests, being told I'm a Commander, a hero and an exemplar of my faction feels like little more than the game outright kissing my ass and trying to make me feel important. Lore-wise, I shouldn't be considered - outside the moment, of course - the person who brought down Deathwing and the Lich King and Illidan and Nefarian and two old gods, because frankly on my newly boosted level 100 I didn't and the game has no way of knowing whether or not I did. If they're not willing to adjust the story for the inevitable case of different players with different merits being in certain situations then it would make much more sense for a player to simply be treated as an adventurer because that's what they are.

That's the big part that bothers me the most, I think. You're no longer <player name>, mercenary/adventurer/wanderer of your own merits. You're now <player name>, champion of the Alliance/Horde, respected commander and war hero. This may seem small to some but from a storytelling perspective it's massive, and in my eyes it's making the game feel a bit silly when it never gives you the opportunity or asks of you any particularly difficult tasks through the now-optional leveling process. It's like the game is trying to enforce how much of a special snowflake I am....along with every other player.

[Frandaero]

I liked it more when you were an adventurer or just another warrior. I hate it when players are put in the position of General, Commander, "chosen one" etc. Unless it's for a distinguished reason, and the title/prestige is limited, such as a high arena ranking or whatever. When everyone feels special no one feels special.

I doubt anyone is impressed or immersed by the fact that their character is a Commander of the Frostwolf Garrison. It's bad MMO design, IMO.

I don't think you quite understand how WoW Storyline works. You are the only commander of the Alliance/Horde. Not those 3000 guys at Ashran. It is a single player universe that you simply share with other people.

Each character is its own universe.

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Just wait until Legion where every single player will be leader of its class. Yep, that's right, Arthussdkqt the Keyboardturner will be leader of all death knights. Legalasxx the Puller with ever growling pet will be leader of all hunters. They will wield mighty artifacts and will be one and only savior(s) of Azeroth, defeating biggest baddest bosses in LFR or in easy single player quest with shiny cut scene.

Its stupid single player crap that does not belong to MMO and it annoys the hell out of me.

Tell me then, why does every player have to kill Hogger? Why doesn't it stay dead? Why is a completed quest still available to other people who didn't do it?

Each player is a universe. There aren't 3000 Garrison Commanders. It is only you. Only you are the leader of your class. You just happen to be sharing the experience with other players along the way.

[TheVaryag]

Hey guys, so I've been just getting back into WoW over the last few weeks, and I've been leveling some alts with heirloom gear. I realized how boring it becomes to level up so quickly and so easily... When you can just throw a DoT on everything and run away as it dies, the game really loses its sense of challenge and reward.

I then attempted Deadmines as a level 14 Rogue in heirloom gear and found it lots of fun. I managed to finish it as a I reached level 20. It's absolutely ridiculous that this can happen in the first place, but I loved the challenge for the first time while leveling an alt.

Now this brings me to my question. Is it good to make every player a "hero" without any regard for their achievements?

Yes, I know, I could be raiding and PvPing for titles and world firsts, but personally, I don't have the time to dedicate myself to a raiding guild. It would be great to somehow get recognition simply for being a skilled player in solo content. Automatically being called a "hero" for finishing a zone-wide quest chain and getting nothing at all out of it besides a piece of blue gear just isn't satisfying. Arbitrarily being called a "hero" made my questing experience in WoD feel unsatisfying, as I had not done anything particularly special.

This desire to get rewarded for a difficult task and not having time for a raiding guild is why I love doing difficult solo content. I used to do this by soloing rare elites in Pandaria with pieces of gear removed or doing WoD dungeons on normal by myself, and it's why I solo'ed DM at low level.

I miss the challenge that used to be present in solo content, and I wish we weren't called "hero" left and right unless we had proven something. For example, if I went and completed a five person quest all on my own, I wished NPCs would somehow react to that, or gave a better item for completing the quest on my own.

With that said, having Order Halls and Artifact Weapons in Legion will feel unearned for me. I'm not the top of my class, and I'm not the player who is leading thousands of people. From what I've seen in the Legion beta, Order Halls don't really connect you with other players of the same class anyway, so this idea of "leading my class" is almost meaningless.

If you want difficulty and challange you're In the wrong game now, that was back In Vanila, TBC and Wrath. And to some extend Cataclysm but not really. And we've been heroes since Vanila, the "Heroes who helped Varian defeat Onyxia" and so on, and who saved Windsor from Blackrock to help reveal Lady Prestor's true Identity. Or the heroes who killed Rend Blackhand, the false Warchief because Thrall asked you to. (Btw, I think It would've been cooler If Blackhand enacted a Mak'gora or something, but that's me).

And sadly, Blizzard made It easy to just blitz through the lower level content for the sake of "Catching up with your friends" and therefore removing any joy we older veterans had with the older expansions and the dungeons they contained... lapdogs, all of them. And right now, they think that's how they'll keep players on WoW, to make leveling this easier and have people catch up to their friends who are already playing, or just by themselves. To get to the "Endgame" and In this case, they want us to get to Legino faster and experience It, while I think It can be easy to just slow down and enjoy each expansion one by one (OPTIONALY that Is, not forced upon you) and really you can do It by yourself, but you'd have to know where to go from place to place to experience It, and the experience Is different then the expansions were experienced back then.

Just don't even play WoW right now, before the next year comes, the subs will be so low Blizz will do something drastic to WoW to keep milking It more to death. The fact they keep banning people left and right (I don't mean bot users, screw them) Is also horrid and not helping their loyal customers In staying In the game, especially If most of them were banned lately.

[Frandaero]

Maybe the people who are mad about that should look for pride and accomplishment in areas of their lives that actually matter. Like their career, education, children, relationships, etc.

I'm curious about your way of thinking. Why does career, education, children and relationships matter more than a fantastic story to you? How do you analize what matters most?

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How people can play computer games for years and yet be utterly clueless how to suspend disbelief in the narrative to help you enjoy the immersion into a fictional story where YOU are the hero....that's just a foreign concept to me.

Couldn't have said it better. People complaining just don't quite get it. Each character is its own universe.

[Deleted]

Each player is a universe. There aren't 3000 Garrison Commanders. It is only you. Only you are the leader of your class. You just happen to be sharing the experience with other players along the way.

That's the single player nonsense that does not belong in MMO. It turns other players into useless NPCs. Game should not be about me, me and only me, it should be about playing together with other players to accomplish common goals.

Single player games that way --->

[Onoros]

No, it's not.

[Lady Dragonheart]

I like it, it makes sense after adventuring for so many years that you're reputable enough to be considered a hero within your faction/the world. Commanding others makes sense as well in this manner, when you culminate how many tremendous victories and battles that we've been a part of, as well as major factors for.

[MakeMeLaugh]

I cringe everytime they call me hero...

[Pantalaimon]

The problem is if you don't eventually make everyone some sort of hero you fall into that feeling of 'Why kill this dude from a lore standpoint when it is always going to be written off as someone else besides you doing it?' Darnassus chick kills Illidan, Tirion kills LK, Thrall & Aspects kill DW, Thrall kills Garrosh. If all of these lore figures are always going to be the ones making any sort of impact on the lore then we may as well be playing as those characters instead, not some faceless nobodies that do cool stuff from a gameplay perspective that are highly disconnected from the story of the game.

[Hotmail]

It isn't because it comes at the cost of immersion. Once you are the most powerful character in the game you aren't really aspiring for anything beyond a higher iLvl.

The problem is if you don't eventually make everyone some sort of hero you fall into that feeling of 'Why kill this dude from a lore standpoint when it is always going to be written off as someone else besides you doing it?' Darnassus chick kills Illidan, Tirion kills LK, Thrall & Aspects kill DW, Thrall kills Garrosh. If all of these lore figures are always going to be the ones making any sort of impact on the lore then we may as well be playing as those characters instead, not some faceless nobodies that do cool stuff from a gameplay perspective that are highly disconnected from the story of the game.

It's more about driving home the point that players need assistance from major lore figures to deal with major villains. If you remove that you end up with bosses that aren't as engaging.

[FelPlague]

WoW has gone from being an adventurer in part of a grander scale, to being a hero in a solo player questing experience...

It's not a good direction, but there you have it -- WoW's become single player oriented now when it comes to quests and your position in its "lore".

well the thing is your not "the only of the heros" there is the paladin hero, the warlock hero, the warrior hero, etc, lorewise there is one hero (maybe more? lorewise there is nothing to say their cant be 1 per spec, just cant be more then 1 per spec cause that would make NO SENSE)

so lore wise we are still one of many heros, as there is many like us, 3 deathknights, a blood, wielding bloodmaw, a paladin wielding truthguard

but it is about time we get some recognition, as we did help kill every boss from vanilla to warlords (would be cool if they actually called out what ones you had killed, and maybe showed a "flask back" where you and X random people are cheering kinda thing, you wearing random pieces of gear from that teir, would be super cool, like seeing the lichking fall and it turns to your character (warlock for example) wearing full sanctified set with nibleung or something, would be pretty fun :P

thing is i know alot of you will hate to admit it, but with this kinda thing, no one can ever be happy


back in the days of vanilla bc and wrath, we were being sent to clean up shit and do horrible chores, meanwhile people complaining on the forums "we killed the ffing demonic lord kiljaden and cthun, why does no one care?!" and everyone secretly wanted to be a hero, and here we are, we are finally the heroes we deserve to be... and yet now everyone is complaining, wishing we were random adventurers who got shit all recognition for our work

finally green Jesus is no more, hes lost his role, we will take that role... and now people want green Jesus back... wut?

cause thing is were still abit under people like the leaders of the factions, where not as special as sylvanas, and others, they are faction leaders, we are simply class leader, we are not more important then tirion, we were simply the runner up, same with thrall, we were not more important, just the next in line, were not leading the allaince/horde, were not ordering around sylvanas, baine, tyrande, they are still ordering us around, just we are the next under them basicly, and we represent a class, a group of the elite of that class, warlocks represent the black harvest, a elite group of cursers, destroyers and summoners