We need to stop winning

[Tryfis]

We need a storyline where we don't come out as the heroes. We need a whole expansion with this concept. Cataclysm is kind of pointing at that theme, but we need it to a greater extent.

For example, we could've lost to the Lich King. Everything we know would have been destroyed, cities and heroes. We spend the rest of the expansion fighting to regain back the things and lands we lost. This scenario would have had to start at the beginning of the expansion. As in the first raid boss would have been Arthas, we lose, then the story plays out as all of Azeroth is overrun.

The game needs to be turned on its head. We have to get away from the theme of: Hey look there's a bad guy, let’s go send our attack force to his footsteps and eventually kill him. It's too predictable and expected.

Again, Cataclysm seems to be going towards this idea, with Azeroth being attacked directly and changed for good. However, its needs to be done 100%. I'm talking Deathwing having control of everything, and we are held as slaves throughout the whole expansion. The play experience is us living in enemies cities, doing what they want. There are no more Alliance and Horde capital cities, no sanctuaries. We eventually form pockets of resistance, and form a formidable attack force. We start to have small encampments of freed alliance and horde forces. The raids are US defending against enemies trying to destroy our bases. Think role reversal. We sit inside the fortress/castle and our job is to defend against those people seeking to destroy us. Of course, the enemies will be computer controlled, just like raids now, but we basically just switch sides for the sake of the story. Then we eventually take out Deathwing.

Anyways, this is just my idea. I know it’s too late for this expansion, but perhaps the next one. We just need something different.

[Xacez]

Wrathgate was a sort-of loss

[Deleted]

It would be an... interesting concept. I think enslavement is pushing it a bit too far, though. Plus, we are supposed to be the heroes of our factions.

What I'd like to see in Cataclysm is an incredible invasion of elementals and Twilight's Hammer cultists that take over whole parts of zones. We then have to get rid of them through quests, unlocking a phased version where our faction rebuilds the settlements and towns. I believe it's even very likely they'll implement something to this effect.

Edit: It would be a partial loss, because we'd lose those towns in the first place.

Wrathgate was a sort-of loss

And we fell for the Lich King's trap so he got us to the Frozen Throne... it didn't turn out quite as he imagined, but he did manage to lure us.

[Wigman]

If you want to lose, simply just wipe the raid :P

[Rusher]

If you want to lose, simply just wipe the raid :P

it won't change the lore

[Xheoul]

Problem with having an ending where the villain wins is that players wouldn't feel rewarded for their hard work, therefore losing interest in the game and overall story. While I love twists where the bad guy wins, it just doesn't cut it.

Imagine working extremely hard, dedicating all your time to a game just to find out you were powerless in the first place. Gamers like to feel that sense of power and ownage when they are playing a game. It makes it fun.

It applies to (for example) when I play D&D with my friends and I'm DM'ing. You want to give the players a sense of danger, but when they work together and team up and defeat a powerful monster with a challenge rating of 17 they get pumped and want to continue the adventure. If they get defeated, it sort of brings them down.

In WoW, you couldnt possibly solo a 10 or 25 man, you need your guild. Discussion of WoW's end game difficulty aside, you wtill have to work together to bring bosses down and restore peace to Azeroth. That's what RPGs are about.

I've said something similar throughout this entire expansion: We seem to keep coming out strong against the Lich King. Time and time again he's popped up, gone "oh hai gaiys im a big menace. Let me run away now". Would be nice if he popped up, actually made us fear our next encounter with him, and that would be achieved by actually making us lose. Something Big.

I was TERRIFIED of him the first time I ran that event in HoR. We were going crazy in vent screaming like little girls.

[La]

Evil never wins.

And even if evil wins, there`s an even eviler.. evil.

[Goatonlb]

I've said something similar throughout this entire expansion: We seem to keep coming out strong against the Lich King. Time and time again he's popped up, gone "oh hai gaiys im a big menace. Let me run away now". Would be nice if he popped up, actually made us fear our next encounter with him, and that would be achieved by actually making us lose. Something Big.

Watch the Lich King kill videos to see why. There's a single act that prevents him from owning us all...

[Deleted]

Problem with having an ending where the villain wins is that players wouldn't feel rewarded for their hard work, therefore losing interest in the game and overall story. While I love twists where the bad guy wins, it just doesn't cut it.

Yeah, even with the Lich King, people are whining how they feel we haven't achieved anything, and we're not certain whether Bolvar will get corrupted or no.

I can't imagine the whining if the Lich King were to actually win. Oh, wait, I can... the Zombie Plague event showed exactly that. :-\

[Daginni]

While I would agree. This would change the game to something more interesting. But you got to keep some hints of WoW in-game, change it too radically and people will not recognize it anymore, and it could stop feeling like WoW, and instead if could feel... different, and they would go play... something different.

Point is, you got a successful formula, you don't go adding other chemicals into the formula.

[Xheoul]

Yeah, even with the Lich King, people are whining how they feel we haven't achieved anything, and we're not certain whether Bolvar will get corrupted or no.

I can't imagine the whining if the Lich King were to actually win. Oh, wait, I can... the Zombie Plague event showed exactly that. :-\

The WoW community will whine about anything. Cataclysm is complete fan service and I assure you once it comes out people will whine about it too. Because Blizzard is such an amazing company they have spoiled us and we only want more.

But Im derailing from the main topic

Im content with the ending they gave this expansion. It opens up to new possibilities and they didnt just kill Bolvar in the Wrathgate. I felt he deserved a bit more than that and he got it.

[Deleted]

The WoW community will whine about anything. Cataclysm is complete fan service and I assure you once it comes out people will whine about it too. Because Blizzard is such an amazing company they have spoiled us and we only want more.

Yeah, the WoW community must be the most hard-to-please fanbase a game has ever had, judging by how they whine when Blizzard make what they wanted for years, but they're still not satisfied. :-\

Im content with the ending they gave this expansion. It opens up to new possibilities and they didnt just kill Bolvar in the Wrathgate. I felt he deserved a bit more than that and he got it.

Not to mention it's a far better ending from a dramatical POV than just having loads of explosions and Arthas falling to his knees saying "I'm sorry..." as he takes the blast that would have otherwise killed Jaina.

Obviously, some people'd prefer the other version, but I'm convinced the one they went with is the better one, story-wise.

[mmathes339]

I think we have kinnda lost something in this expantion. Yes, we beat Arthas, but in doing so ties between the two factions have become even more strained then they already were. Lore wise, Azeroth is slowly walking the path to total and all out war between the alliance and horde again. (WC4? A WoW expantion?) From what I've seen of cataclysim, the horde and alliance (more the horde than the alliance) start annexing territory from each other. Setting up major camps, and in some cases flat out taking over some other camps in each other's back yards. Yes we beat the big scary bad guy, but at what cost?

[Zonas]

Well when you think about it Players arent the bestest ALL the time.


We are the reason Hakkar comes back in the first place, we create a big threat for the horde/ally by killing Thaurissan and leaving his Son to get all revenge pissy, if i remember right its sorta the Hordes fault for the wrathgate with helping Putress back in BC and the quests that lead up to wrathgate.

There are tons more things that cause the players to screw over the world.

While they arent as big like Arthas destroy Azeroth but theyr still bad.

[Masnailia]

Well when you think about it Players arent the bestest ALL the time.


We are the reason Hakkar comes back in the first place, we create a big threat for the horde/ally by killing Thaurissan and leaving his Son to get all revenge pissy, if i remember right its sorta the Hordes fault for the wrathgate with helping Putress back in BC and the quests that lead up to wrathgate.

There are tons more things that cause the players to screw over the world.

While they arent as big like Arthas destroy Azeroth but theyr still bad.

Don't you mean wife/unborn son who never even met his father and won't give a shit about him being killed?

[Tryfis]

Problem with having an ending where the villain wins is that players wouldn't feel rewarded for their hard work, therefore losing interest in the game and overall story. While I love twists where the bad guy wins, it just doesn't cut it.

Imagine working extremely hard, dedicating all your time to a game just to find out you were powerless in the first place. Gamers like to feel that sense of power and ownage when they are playing a game. It makes it fun.

It applies to (for example) when I play D&D with my friends and I'm DM'ing. You want to give the players a sense of danger, but when they work together and team up and defeat a powerful monster with a challenge rating of 17 they get pumped and want to continue the adventure. If they get defeated, it sort of brings them down.

In WoW, you couldnt possibly solo a 10 or 25 man, you need your guild. Discussion of WoW's end game difficulty aside, you wtill have to work together to bring bosses down and restore peace to Azeroth. That's what RPGs are about.


I was TERRIFIED of him the first time I ran that event in HoR. We were going crazy in vent screaming like little girls.

I get this, but we've been rewarded throughout three expansions. It’s also a give and take in WoW, you can never feel rewarded too much because the nature of the game. You kill beings of immense power, but at the beginning of next expansion you’re still collecting bear carcasses. So, the player always has something to bring them down out of the clouds. Why not have the high of killing something great be countered by a low of losing real big. Also, it's not like your losing as you yourself the player, it’s more of the story directing you into a low point. You'll still get the satisfaction of achievement with guilds, just in a different setting.

It's probably just me loving twists in story lines, but I feel like something will eventually be needed to spice things up in the lore. I do admit though, that the lore and presentation of it has been improving over the years of WoW. I even thought the Lich King ending was good, even more so than people give it credit for. This is partially due to so many people knowing about Bolvar beforehand (Something I admit in doing so myself).

[Tryfis]

Well when you think about it Players arent the bestest ALL the time.


We are the reason Hakkar comes back in the first place, we create a big threat for the horde/ally by killing Thaurissan and leaving his Son to get all revenge pissy, if i remember right its sorta the Hordes fault for the wrathgate with helping Putress back in BC and the quests that lead up to wrathgate.

There are tons more things that cause the players to screw over the world.

While they arent as big like Arthas destroy Azeroth but theyr still bad.

That's a good point. Like I said in my above post, the story telling in WoW has greatly improved since Vanilla. You have events like the one you mentioned, and things like king Wrynn being more aggressive and violent towards the Horde. It's starting to feel like the characters are driving the story now, rather than them wanting to put bad guys into the game and then developing the story around them.

[Zonas]

Don't you mean wife/unborn son who never even met his father and won't give a shit about him being killed?

No he will know the princess even says how mad she is about it and Thrall mentions how he will be a big threat when he learns who he is and what happend.

[Shadowfeet]

I take the win against Arthas as a pyrrhic victory. We seem to forget that Arthas the DK destroyed an entire kingdom, tainted the Sunwell (killing thousands of elves in the process), murdered his father, and sent countless other heroes to their death. He was supposed to be our greatest hero...but even he was turned. The loss came in WC III. Even now, his death has a somber tone. Bolvar, another great hero, is worse than dead, trapped as the Scourge's jailer. All around, it's pretty sad I think. We didn't totally roflstomp the Scourge. They kicked the crap out of us in the beginning.

[letstalklikepirates]

In the end of everything, good always wins, you can be enslaved now, but nomatter what someone will slay the enslaver eventually, or the enslaver turns good, or sometimes he just moves on to something else.

No matter what, in the end the evil stops doing evil, atleast the the people hes currently pissing off.

Its not just in video games, its in history. Hitler was killed. Napoelian was killed. Sadam was killed. Whoever oppresses others will eventually loose, or, in the case of a country, would be defeated. The British were oppressing the colonists, they rebelled, british lost. Sparta was oppressing a neighboring people they conquered, the barely repelled their aggression, and years later Macedonia (SP?) took over and the remaining spartan slaves that had not become spartan citizens integrated into spartan culture. "No king rules forever" <-- WoW quote, is actually true. Everything falls eventually, there are brief eras of evil but eventually good always takes over, this will continue until we die. The US will fall one day, maybe Canada will invade with a clone army or W/E, nobody ever suspects the canadians...