Blizz view of its writing abilities is BIZARRE

[Irian]

If they could actually write worth a damn then at least most people wouldn't be as fed up with Blizzard as we are on the lore side of things.

Basically everything related to night elves this expansion has been barely above what I'd imagine seeing on someone's Warcraft fanfic. Is this really the best they can do with writing? Can they honestly say with a straight face that they think this is going to invoke any emotions other than disappointment when they barely apply the most minimal of effort into their storytelling?

I've seen games and even MMOs with decent and at times good storytelling. Blizzard is far, far from that. Before talking about "highs and lows" they should consider making a story that isn't a literal beat-for-beat repeat of a past story.

And I know what some people would say in defense of it. "The story isn't done, it's not a repeat of MoP" I don't care. If the story went off the rails from here on, it'd still be fucking ridiculous that half of this expansion's story was an almost perfect repeat of MoP. They have this giant, gorgeous world with a great foundation for awesome stories and they waste it on this idiotic drivel they claim is good story, a retreading of the same faction war story that wasn't even that compelling in MoP.

As someone who used to be really into Warcraft lore as a whole, I feel embarrassed for giving a shit when it feels like the company itself doesn't.

[Mehrunes]

When did this happen? All I saw was Anduin asking for help.

It seems to me like people are letting their imaginations run wild, and can't distinguish their fantasies from reality.

Anduin asked Saurfang for help in the cinematic in which he captured him? Wat?

Aside from you conflating the recent cinematic with Battle for Lordaeron to excuse your messiah, did you miss the following dialogue?

Boiking: There is no honor in it.
Saurfang: That is not for an Alliance king to decide!
Boiking: At this moment, it is.
*Saurfang submits like a Baine, taking a Sargeras-sized shit on the concept of Lok'tar Ogar that is fundamental to actual Orcish honor in the process*

Teldrassil was cleansed of corruption and blessed by Alexstrasza and Ysera.

And the Horde gives a shit about blessings that benefit Night Elves only, because...?

A leader of the night elves in technicality only, for most of his time in-game he has done nothing but work alongside neutral factions, driving the Cenarion Circle and adventurers to protect Azeroth from threats.

It's a pretty big technicality. And you haven't explained why the Horde should care about him being specifically an Archdruid. Is there some part of the Blood Oath that I missed that mentions holding Archdruids above all other professions?

Is that why Thrall is able to cause the roots of trees to wrap around Langston in Lord of the Clans? Shamans deal with all the spirits of nature, including the Spirit of the Wilds, which is the souls of every living thing. Thrall was also able to commune with an owl, the spirit of horses to get the horses to buck and flee the battle at Durnholde and call upon the Spirit of the Wild to provide a dying stag when the Frostwolves were starving. Both druidism and shamanism deal with nature, trees being no exception.

I'm not sure why you confused reverence with the ability to affect nature with Shamanistic magic, but your question and everything that followed are a straw-man.

Yes, that's besides the point however, which was that trolls are savage and I don't want that to be changed.

It isn't besides the point because, once again, you were replying to a post talking about Thrall's Horde post-WC3. Things that happened prior to "post-WC3" are actually besides the point here. You know, like cannibalism of the Darkspears.

Except they still go into a bloodlust, Durotan went into a bloodlust when he fought the garn in Frostfire Peak as an adolescent and Thrall, who has the fel corruption but was not exposed to the blood of Mannoroth also went into a bloodlust in both the arenas and fighting Blackmoore. The Blood of Mannoroth just strengthens the bloodlust in orcs, the feelings however are entirely natural to orcs.

Name one Orc between Vanilla and Cata that went into bloodlust. Because Maraad isn't exactly an omniscient narrator.

[ChairmanKaga]

We committed a genocide. It was a shitty 'high point' to have because it did NOTHING of benefit for us to kill their civilians and burn our spoils.

What spoils? Moths and Cats? What use has the Horde for those and a big tree?

[Skytotem]

What spoils? Moths and Cats? What use has the Horde for those and a big tree?

Wood, ore, magic reagents, etc

[SleepsAtDay]

What spoils? Moths and Cats? What use has the Horde for those and a big tree?

I kinda wanted that bear-tree they use for a bank. It would’ve looked great in my yard, but noooooo...

[Voltsmasher]

Wood, ore, magic reagents, etc

Don't forget the frogs, it took me a while to catch one of those oh and owls

- - - Updated - - -

I kinda wanted that bear-tree they use for a bank. It would’ve looked great in my yard, but noooooo...

Everything looks better in fire right? - Sylvanas

[MrDragon]

Blizz did an interview on Reddit, most of the focus was gameplay, but frontpage here summarized the story bits

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...con_interview/



I get that you can't ONLY listen to players because that's basically the same as feeding a kid nothing but candy and icecream, but when they talk about highs and lows, they have to realize that for a lot of Horde players it's been lows and... no highs, for a long time, given SoO was not satisfying since Vol'jin and Baine and Thrall didn't DO anything in it, and WoD and Legion left us in the background.


Burning Teldrassil was a low for a lot of horde players too since it was dumb and few people Hordeside ever really wanted boring nelf lands.

Agreed, ever since Cataclysm the Horde has just been progressively feeling more and more alien to me as somebody who always prefered Horde over Alliance since Warcraft 1 but didn't fall in love with the Horde till Warcraft 3 when I stopped being an edgy 12 year old.
Not to say the Alliance side is particularly rosy, but it's not nearly as bad as they are at least consistent.
Talk about the Horde story being "dynamic" all you want, yes it changes a bunch but almost never for the better.
The Alliance story, while static, is at least not actively devolving.

[Skytotem]

Horde story doesn't even change

This is just Garrosh again

[ello]

It occurs to me, when was the last time the Horde was actually allowed to feel good about a victory? Andorhal?

It feels like every fight is either a loss or a win where we get shamed by our own faction because it was dishonorable or whatever.

[therealstegblob]

I don't think they understand the difference between players being angry at the writers and players being angry at the characters in the story, because there's a very big difference.

They kind of don't, no. This is an accurate and very crucial point.

When you want to make players angry at a character, the character needs to do negative actions that are well written, so that the player is enveloped in the story and treats the characters as real people. Just having characters do stupid shit to "get a player reaction" is shallow writing and is treating players like they're stupid.

[SleepsAtDay]

It occurs to me, when was the last time the Horde was actually allowed to feel good about a victory? Andorhal?

It feels like every fight is either a loss or a win where we get shamed by our own faction because it was dishonorable or whatever.

Theoretically, knocking down Deathwing should have been a good moment? That was Thrall. Not technically part of the Horde at that point, but Alliance were pissed at having to follow around an orc, so still counts I guess?

In general though, if you’re looking for Horde feel-good victories, don’t look for ones against the Alliance. Blizzard will never deliver an Alliance worth fighting.

[ello]

Theoretically, knocking down Deathwing should have been a good moment? That was Thrall. Not technically part of the Horde at that point, but Alliance were pissed at having to follow around an orc, so still counts I guess?

In general though, if you’re looking for Horde feel-good victories, don’t look for ones against the Alliance. Blizzard will never deliver an Alliance worth fighting.

Er, to clarify I was talking strictly faction war stuff. The neutral content is universal so there's nothing special there. But when it comes to HvA the writers tend to go out of their way to make us feel bad about it.

Like, god damn. If we're gonna do unethical shit can we at least not get lectured by our own NPC's about how much we suck?

[SleepsAtDay]

Er, to clarify I was talking strictly faction war stuff. The neutral content is universal so there's nothing special there. But when it comes to HvA the writers tend to go out of their way to make us feel bad about it.

Like, god damn. If we're gonna do unethical shit can we at least not get lectured by our own NPC's about how much we suck?

Thing is I’m having trouble with the neutral stuff too. That’s not great.

[Clone]

Blizzard is used to fans putting their story on a pedestal. For a time their writing was decent too, mostly because all their titles before WoW was fairly short. Having to write a 14 year old series was excluded all their shortcomings when it comes to writing.

[tripleh]

I blame Steve Danuser for alot of the bad writting. The darkshore event on the ptr is just lame. Raising nightelves to serve as forsaken , instead of just raising skeletons or horde corpses. They throw nightelves under the bus so many times. Sylvannas at this point is no different then a female hitler and the forsaken are portrayed as nazi soldiers.
Not to mention firing a catapult from darkshore to Teldrassil isn't even possible. Yet some how they do that . As players we need to complain more on the ptr forums and let other players know about the lame writing . The only way to stop it is to voice our concerns and or unsub. Only real way to bring about change to bad writing,

[GetCrunk]

Has any one heard something about the girl that took Chris Metzen place as story & franchise development ? I mean not even one interview or statement

[tripleh]

https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2018-1...n-for-sylvanas


Apparently Alex said that Sylvannas planned the whole wraithgate inncident and ordered it. For the forsaken to attack both the horde and alliance.

[Teleros]

Blizz view of its writing abilities is BIZARRE

Always been that way. It was less noticeable back in pre-WoW days when there was a lot less story to do, but beyond that... I'd say the big break came with the end of WotLK and the start of Cataclysm. Prior to Cata WoW went something like this:

1. Ooh big shiny new world to explore, etc etc etc.
2. Build up some threats for the new game. "Who's this Ragnaros bloke?"
3. Start bringing in older threats. "Wait, Scarab Wall? Old Gods? That was mentioned in WC3 right? And Deathwing had kids? Cool!"
4. Start dealing with big bads from previous games. "OMG we get to fight Illidan! And now retrace Arthas's path to Icecrown Citadel and kill the Lich King!"

Cata though... I mean, they literally broke the world, and whilst Deathwing was an old villain*, it never felt the same. At this point they very clearly moved to an expansion design that went something like this:

1. Hints of the new big bad during the previous expansion, if you're lucky.
2. Two years of content to deal with the brand new big bad.
3. Repeat.

I'd like to have something like a six year rule for big bads in WoW - ie, in general, you shouldn't kill any off until they've been around and present for six years, ie about 3 expansion packs (including the one they appear in). Prior to WoW you had everyone playing all 4 (8 with TFT) SP campaigns for the lore etc, so they got to know all the characters, but in WoW you can only count on players doing perhaps half of their faction's quests unless they're achievement hunters or (like me in vanilla) obsessive over this stuff. So, instead of Cata etc, I'd have done something like this:

1. Vanilla, has Naxxramas & C'thun as the big bads.
2. TBC, has Illidan & SWP as the big bads. Have the naga on the Sunwell island be Azshara's minions explicitly.
3. WotLK, has Arthas as the big bad. The seaweed vrykul types can be fleeing naga expansion, or perhaps allied to them. Ground tremors noticed throughout the land.
4. Azshara is the big bad in place of Deathwing. Earthquakes worsen, and Twilight types appear foretelling doom.
5. Deathwing is the big bad, complete with Twilight minions. Kirin Tor discover heightened Burning Legion infiltration too.
6. MoP with the Sha as the big bads. Alliance/Horde war ends with Garrosh's defeat. Trouble amongst the warlocks & spriests of both factions.
7. Legion, with the defeat of Sargeras, as just happened. Serious void issues going on here, especially with a certain sword landing in Silithus. No WoD, because it totally destroyed the old orc lore, and that was a Bad Thing.
8. BfA, with N'Zoth as the big bad.

I think you get the idea.

*I mean, barely. He was a random flying hero unit in Warcraft 2, and then a manipulative villain in that Richard A Knaak book, who got his arse handed to him by the other 4 Aspects. This just doesn't compare to taking down Illidan or Arthas in my book.

[Zandalariprelate]

part 5 is best part

Fixed for you pal

[Powerogue]

I think they're mostly referring to how we're only partway into the expansion. It's basically like screeching "I HATE THIS BOOK" when you've read the bit about Harry living with his mean step-family and haven't gotten to the part where he finds out he's a wizard.

They're going particularly controversial this expansion, on purpose, to evoke emotional reactions and make for a larger payoff at the end. Burning of Teldrassil = REEEE, but + Old Soldier = suddenly all the more awesome because we can strongly relate to Saurfang.