Will we ever be on a journey to discover, not to extinguish threat?

[Themanintobuildafire]

People HATED Mists. It's not happening, ever again.

I loved MISTS. I hated PANDAS. I still hate PANDAS.

It could happen as long as it is done right. I doubt the devs have the ability to do it right though...whoever is the vision over there has no vision. It is probably an accountant calling the shots.

[Deleted]

For me the issue is a simple one: We are too important... I miss the time where our characters were nobodies, we were sent to fetch a thing or kill a few orc scouts that invade our home. During rare circumstances we were even told to deal with a bigger threat by gathering our allies/friends as we would not be able to do it by ourselves.

Nowadays it's all about preparing to fight the next big bad and their armies while the npcs around us tell us how important we are over and over again, I honestly don't want that anymore.

It's one of the reasons why I am looking forward to playing Classic WoW again (on a retail server, because losing my progress a third time on a private server as they shut down is really not funny)


Edit: The Story of Pandaria was awesome as hell, It was the only expansion where I actually played from the beginning until the end with no breaks.

[KayRule]

MoP was literally announced and pitched on this and the number one thing everyone fucking cried their eyes about, outside of Pandas, was that there wasn't a clear endgame villain or threat.

If they gave us a cool expansion about discovering places and settling down in a time of peace, children would start screaming again.

- - - Updated - - -

For me the issue is a simple one: We are too important... I miss the time where our characters were nobodies

This bullshit again. By the time you were in the end-game of VANILLA, NPCs and quests no longer treated you as a nobody. Quests and events in BC and Wrath even predicate on asking for your aide or allowing you to do stuff because of your past heroics. The only thing that's change is now there's more voiced NPCs directing this at you and things like Garrisons/Order Halls to draw more attention to it as you skipped quest text and text-only broadcast back in the day.

[Bane-Thunder-God]

I wonder if it's ever going to be possible for Warcraft to introduce stories of Azerothians visiting other lands just for the sake of new discovery,

AND have necessary competition, factional tensions and whatnot, WITHOUT any threat against the world.


I thought MoP and BfA would be the closest thing but MoP ended with a dooming threat + Old God, and BfA seems like it's going to be the same deal.

What do you think?

But thats just what BFA is. Problem is you get those that complain OMG filler expansion cause no big bad has been revealed as yet.

Every expansion there IS discovery there's nothing like the feeling of landing in the new zones of a new expansion especially when you haven't followed alpha/beta footage of questing zones.

This is what makes me happy to buy every new expansion WoW puts out cause for those first few weeks its just simply amazingly fun discovering everything. And I take my time levelling i don't rush through content.

[Azahel]

Nah, it will keep scaling until we reach starcraft-ending levels of crazy.

[Lochton]

I wouldn't mind the option of explorative gameplay but we would need those damn boats and Stormheim harpoons for if it was just to move around by flight or flat maps, it would be boring. As well, some people don't feel able to play without a 'forward goal'.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I just LOVE how selective people's memories are... Suddenly, MoP was not the most polarizing expansion to date where people dismissed and hated on it entirely based off of "pandas" or "catering to Chinese market hurr!", and kept up that hatred even when 14 months of SoO retained 5 million players...

........I mean*shrug*..it's always the OTHER person that's the pleb, right? Nobody who plays WoW considers themselves a pleb.

And what other level should the story be 'liked' other than personal? I personally label an expansion "filler" if the content is shallow, gated behind silly things like "no flying" and geographically walled off areas (*COUGHWODCOUGH*) and adds no new class, race, profession or mechanics. I am sure BfA is going to be much more than just filler, since we are getting so damn many new races as opposed to WoD's 0 new race, 0 new class, 0 new profession, flying gated behind stupid achievements making the entire reason for getting it moot since you have to do everything without flying anyway.

I'm not a person who labels expansions as a fact based on my own feels, so no, in the context of this topic, I don't consider myself a pleb. I'm a pleb in other areas though, such as PVP. Everyone's a pleb at something, so turn down the drama a bit.

I'm talking labels on an official level, and we have never had a filler expansion, never will, unless they start literally going down the route of Anime with filler content that's only put out whilst waiting for the actual story to continue.

[ro9ue]

I wonder if it's ever going to be possible for Warcraft to introduce stories of Azerothians visiting other lands just for the sake of new discovery,

AND have necessary competition, factional tensions and whatnot, WITHOUT any threat against the world.


I thought MoP and BfA would be the closest thing but MoP ended with a dooming threat + Old God, and BfA seems like it's going to be the same deal.

What do you think?

I agree this feeling is more appealing to me than the current situation of constantly having to deal with end of the world scenarios. In vanilla, it was just like taking care of a group of bandits, maybe killing a Yeti in a cave, etc. You were sort of just a low profile hero assisting townsfolk. It was just about adventuring. I loved that.

[Gaidax]

Nah, it will keep scaling until we reach starcraft-ending levels of crazy.

Oh please we have only killed a Titan or two so far. It's not that bad.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I can see the last expansion ever being this, but as it works now no Warcraft related scenario has ever been about this. Not Warcraft 1,2,3, their expansions, or WoW.
There is always a quest that needs to be completed and always a malevolence driving that quest.

[Zuben]

As long as it develops the factions. MoP was that in my opinion, the local threats being minor enough to serve as distractions.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I just LOVE how selective people's memories are... Suddenly, MoP was not the most polarizing expansion to date where people dismissed and hated on it entirely based off of "pandas" or "catering to Chinese market hurr!", and kept up that hatred even when 14 months of SoO retained 5 million players...





I'm not a person who labels expansions as a fact based on my own feels, so no, in the context of this topic, I don't consider myself a pleb. I'm a pleb in other areas though, such as PVP. Everyone's a pleb at something, so turn down the drama a bit.

I'm talking labels on an official level, and we have never had a filler expansion, never will, unless they start literally going down the route of Anime with filler content that's only put out whilst waiting for the actual story to continue.

Well said. "Filler" means its not advancing the main storyline. Every expansion will always do this. People who use the term "filler expansion" don't really like WoW, if you ask me.
If they never introduced any more content ever for this game there would still be multiple years worth of stuff to get through alone.
Open your achievement tab some time.

[Projectmars]

The last 3 expansions didn't have a big bad until later on. End boss I mean.

Even without the announcement of what the end bosses would be for two of the past three expansions (Garrosh was mentioned by name as the final boss of Mists prior to the beta, iirc. At least prior to the launch) they still had Big Bads that threatened the players and were the forces we were fighting.

There's the mysterious other side of Azeroth continent that has never been seen by anyone. So who knows what could happen?

You mean Kalimdor?

Honestly, this is what I thought made Mists one of the best expansions in a long time. There was some interesting new story and backstory, and everything wasn't OMG! This is all tying together into one thing we have to defeat!

Which in hindsight was the perfect time to do that kind of expansion from a story perspective. If you were to view Cata - WoD as a play titled "The Rise and Fall of Garrosh Hellscream" then the Alliance v Horde war in Pandaria leading to the deposition of Garrosh is definitely a great and fairly logical second act.

Plus it was a good time for some breathing room. Azshara and the Naga & N'zoth were really the only established threats that could have been logically used then... but between the issues with Vas'jir and the fact that Cataclysm was pretty heavy on Old God stuff... they probably were less inclined to go that route.

[Sorrior]

For me the issue is a simple one: We are too important... I miss the time where our characters were nobodies, we were sent to fetch a thing or kill a few orc scouts that invade our home. During rare circumstances we were even told to deal with a bigger threat by gathering our allies/friends as we would not be able to do it by ourselves.

Nowadays it's all about preparing to fight the next big bad and their armies while the npcs around us tell us how important we are over and over again, I honestly don't want that anymore.

It's one of the reasons why I am looking forward to playing Classic WoW again (on a retail server, because losing my progress a third time on a private server as they shut down is really not funny)


Edit: The Story of Pandaria was awesome as hell, It was the only expansion where I actually played from the beginning until the end with no breaks.

Honestly looking back pandaria was alot more like vanilla then probably any other exoac as far as style of story goes.

- - - Updated - - -

I can see the last expansion ever being this, but as it works now no Warcraft related scenario has ever been about this. Not Warcraft 1,2,3, their expansions, or WoW.
There is always a quest that needs to be completed and always a malevolence driving that quest.

Last i checked kobolds and wolves in echo ridge mine are just pest control type stuff

[Littleraven]

MoP tried but people already hated it going in so they dd a hard pivot toward more "Warcraft" stuff. I still feel like that expansion was going to go a totally different way but they ended it they way they did to save face or something. That was the last expansion I felt had love poured into it. The devs were gushing about it at Blizzcon that year.

I would welcome something more free form and less focused on a world ending threat. It's refreshing honestly. As long as we still get content I don't really care if there is no huge villain waiting at the end.

[Sorrior]

MoP tried but people already hated it going in so they dd a hard pivot toward more "Warcraft" stuff. I still feel like that expansion was going to go a totally different way but they ended it they way they did to save face or something. That was the last expansion I felt had love poured into it. The devs were gushing about it at Blizzcon that year.

I would welcome something more free form and less focused on a world ending threat. It's refreshing honestly. As long as we still get content I don't really care if there is no huge villain waiting at the end.

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if that was meant to be where they ended the faction war..looking back maybe pandaren were even a way to test a system to have you choose your faction post faction war(note MUCH MUCH bigger threats still exist and plenty of room for WAAAAGGGHHHH if not fighting each other)

[Hawkknight97]

Even without the announcement of what the end bosses would be for two of the past three expansions (Garrosh was mentioned by name as the final boss of Mists prior to the beta, iirc. At least prior to the launch) they still had Big Bads that threatened the players and were the forces we were fighting.



You mean Kalimdor?



Which in hindsight was the perfect time to do that kind of expansion from a story perspective. If you were to view Cata - WoD as a play titled "The Rise and Fall of Garrosh Hellscream" then the Alliance v Horde war in Pandaria leading to the deposition of Garrosh is definitely a great and fairly logical second act.

Plus it was a good time for some breathing room. Azshara and the Naga & N'zoth were really the only established threats that could have been logically used then... but between the issues with Vas'jir and the fact that Cataclysm was pretty heavy on Old God stuff... they probably were less inclined to go that route.

What does Kalimdor have? I mean we already explored a lot of it already. From top to bottom or maybe not in some areas like Northern Stonetalon, Mysterious underground in southern barrens, probably mountain sides of night elf area within Moonglade and winterspring but overall I say we pretty much explored rest of kalimdor.

[Projectmars]

What does Kalimdor have? I mean we already explored a lot of it already. From top to bottom or maybe not in some areas like Northern Stonetalon, Mysterious underground in southern barrens, probably mountain sides of night elf area within Moonglade and winterspring but overall I say we pretty much explored rest of kalimdor.

Kalimdor is on the other side of Azeroth from the Eastern Kingdoms.

[FertsBlert]

SO basically you just want to invade another 'somewhere', kill them and take their stuff?

[Deleted]

MoP was literally announced and pitched on this and the number one thing everyone fucking cried their eyes about, outside of Pandas, was that there wasn't a clear endgame villain or threat.

If they gave us a cool expansion about discovering places and settling down in a time of peace, children would start screaming again.

- - - Updated - - -



This bullshit again. By the time you were in the end-game of VANILLA, NPCs and quests no longer treated you as a nobody. Quests and events in BC and Wrath even predicate on asking for your aide or allowing you to do stuff because of your past heroics. The only thing that's change is now there's more voiced NPCs directing this at you and things like Garrisons/Order Halls to draw more attention to it as you skipped quest text and text-only broadcast back in the day.

Maybe I was not clear enough, but during leveling you were a nobody, It was not until later that you were recognized... nowadays you are Super commander Johnnyawesome with level 20, back then you were just another adventurer in that level (Quest-wise)

And seeing as I leveled without quest helper back then, I most certainly read the quest text.. I never said anywhere that you were NEVER recognized as someone, but face it: You are made out to be someone important as low as level 20 in the current WoW with the Cataclysm revamp of the old world.