Story and Lore Blizzard Livestream - A story going nowhere.

[Nerovar]

This whole narrative is a joke and so far every major character gets displayed as incredibly stupid.

I guess it's really hard to write characters that are more intelligent than the writers.

[Magnagarde]

Yeah he went there so well prepared his entire army would have been utterly vaporized, if Jaina hadn't come by, I mean come on lets attack the forsaken capital, oh my Sylvanas uses the blight who could have thought this might happen.... oh well. She would sacrifice her own troops, utterly unthinkable, it is not like I have seen her literally seen her killing some of her own subjects just a weeks prior.

This whole narrative is a joke and so far every major character gets displayed as incredibly stupid.

The thing that needs to be pointed out is that what Anduin did was doomed to fail in order to give an equal footing heading into an expansion. They had to make him not be a winner in order to make sense for an intro into BfA from an out of character point of view.

What Tyrande's character does in Darkshore doesn't hold the same gravity for the expansion in terms of crucial elements of a story nor was it required to guide the narrative. They were free to guide her into literally any direction. Elune, non-Elune, vengeance, no vengeance, you name it. All of their cards were open.

This needs to be distinguished; a plot that's written badly to enable gameplay and a wholly-encompassing narrative from a plot that's written badly even though it had no out of character parallels and analogies to meet.

[Combatbutler]

The thing that needs to be pointed out is that what Anduin did was doomed to fail in order to give an equal footing heading into an expansion. They had to make him not be a winner in order to make sense for an intro into BfA from an out of character point of view.

What Tyrande's character does in Darkshore doesn't hold the same gravity for the expansion in terms of crucial elements of a story nor was it required to guide the narrative. They were free to guide her into literally any direction. Elune, non-Elune, vengeance, no vengeance, you name it. All of their cards were open.

This needs to be distinguished; a plot that's written badly to enable gameplay and a wholly-encompassing narrative from a plot that's written badly even though it had no out of character parallels and analogies to meet.

If it were a single instance I might agree, but as I said almost the entire xpack is one laughable bad decision after another, massive inconsistency and real pathetic attempts to rile up the playerbase to actually care about this mess, it is almost fun to watch.

[Magnagarde]

If it were a single instance I might agree, but as I said almost the entire xpack is one laughable bad decision after another, massive inconsistency and real pathetic attempts to rile up the playerbase to actually care about this mess, it is almost fun to watch.

I can't disagree, especially with how senseless the whole story behind the battle for Dazar'alor is. I could at least forgive for the prelude which got us nowhere, but the Darkshore warfront and Battle for Dazar'alor have shown that a chronical lack of storytelling sense and vision is at hand.

What I believe is worse is that, when bad writing gets called out with examples of why it is bad, they consider it a sign of "having told a good story" because "player are arguing about something".

[Fight4Fun]

Lore wise, game went downhill right at the end of Wotlk

Just when all WC3 lore was milked.

[Magnagarde]

Legion didn't do bad when it comes to the story in my opinion, save for 7.3.5.

It wasn't easy for them to do good in Legion, which is why they started paying attention to little details, such as individual order hall followers and what they were about, expanding on known and new characters alltogether. I was genuinely interested in seeing how the order campaigns would pan out, who the followers were and what the story was behind them joining their respective orders, not to mention the stories behind all the artifacts.

Suramar, Odyn, Helya, the Highmountain, Ravencrest, the Emerald Nightmare, all the artifacts' and followers' stories and so on were pretty decent/good. The conclusions and their results made in 7.3.5 were disappointing however.

[etheldald]

Joining Tyrande, the Hearthstone priestess of emo eye-inking that requires the Alliance hero's help to get anywhere in a completely meaningless shore that oversees a charcoal tree, would be a lot worse in my opinion.

Anduin got into war at Lordaeron, Stromgarde and Dazar'alor to stop the enemy. If you leave aside the stereotype that he's a Golden-haired (intentionally capitalized btw) prince that is the perfect male for his writer, the Alliance has shown more in these two patches under his command than the night elves have under Tyrande for the past 14 years. I mean, sure, all of what he attempted at the aforementioned places didn't pan out as he planned, but at least he can pick a location to fight over.

well i would rather have her that at least wouldn't forgive genocide over anduin who is trying to heal the horde.

[Varodoc]

Lore wise, game went downhill right at the end of Wotlk

Just when all WC3 lore was milked.

Not really, the story started going downhill when the RTS ended. TBC had garbage lore, with major Warcraft III characters like Illidan, Kael'thas and Vashj turning evil for no reason and the massive Eredar retcon. Wrath also had pretty bad lore. Arthas was a trash villain in Wrath, his plan made no sense at all and he had the personality of an evil toaster (while Warcraft III's Arthas was a compelling villain, the Lich King was pretty much a saturday morning cartoon villain). In my opinion, Cataclysm and Mists were much better than their predecessors because at least they TRIED to do something unique and innovative, instead of constantly relying on Warcraft III nostalgia and still failing to make a semi-decent story.

[Gaidax]

I think that stream was akin to casting pearls before the swine. Your average MMO-C troll would not understand and appreciate what is being done there.

[Arrashi]

I think that stream was akin to casting pearls before the swine. Your average MMO-C troll would not understand and appreciate what is being done there.

And what was done there ? Two guys circle-jerking about how awesome they are ? They didn't touch any lore-related subject and all they did was spent 1 hour saying "Stay tuned for updates guys".

[Gaidax]

And what was done there ? Two guys circle-jerking about how awesome they are ? They didn't touch any lore-related subject and all they did was spent 1 hour saying "Stay tuned for updates guys".

Aside from guys being excited about the work they do, which is something to appreciate always. The messages there were clear as always - story is moving on and there is a clear direction and a plot, there is a reason for things being the way they are and we've only just got out of what amounts to prologue chapter.

It does not take a genius to figure out that what we see right now is a tip of an iceberg and all this trolling here is simply uncalled because we seen barely 20% of the story so far and even these 20% are more of a prelude to the real plot - a means to and end we have no idea of yet.


On my end, I commend their massive balls for kicking off BfA the way it was done - it was a strong opening shot and what's more it was a self-inflicted opening shot that managed to be world-shaking, as opposed to your usual stock existential threat no.556 invading.

[Karamaru]

If people are not interested in your crappy story than its time to re evaluate your story, but than again Danuser doesn't really have a great track record when it comes to stories, they simply lack the writing chops to pull it off they aint making game of thrones here.

And just relying on shock value does not carry your story even less so when you throw a part of your player base under the bus I suspect this expansion is going the way of WoD since they want to recreate WC2 and WC2 was not morally gray or a compelling story no matter how hard they try.

[steelballfc]

how cool that Horde/alliance fans agree on this thread

[melzas]

Im not sure what you guys expected from this stream. Its not like they were going to spoil their own story...

People complaining about WoWs lore should go and play some other mmorpgs. Sure, if you compare WoW to single player games or movies/books, the then its horrible, but in this game its main purpose is to give background to the game, and its doing its job alright.

You come to McDonalds looking for high quality steakhouse dish, guess who is an idiot here.

[Eazy]

This is what happens when passions changes strictly to business...

[Spichora]

Aside from guys being excited about the work they do, which is something to appreciate always. The messages there were clear as always - story is moving on and there is a clear direction and a plot, there is a reason for things being the way they are and we've only just got out of what amounts to prologue chapter.

It does not take a genius to figure out that what we see right now is a tip of an iceberg and all this trolling here is simply uncalled because we seen barely 20% of the story so far and even these 20% are more of a prelude to the real plot - a means to and end we have no idea of yet.


On my end, I commend their massive balls for kicking off BfA the way it was done - it was a strong opening shot and what's more it was a self-inflicted opening shot that managed to be world-shaking, as opposed to your usual stock existential threat no.556 invading.

Tip of the iceberg? 20%? Dude we are balfway though the expansion already. We know the direction 8.2 is taking us.

Being proud to deliver a story that shoom the world for its inconsistency and ubsurd morality, is not something Id write on threads for others to read

[Terongor]

Not really, the story started going downhill when the RTS ended. TBC had garbage lore, with major Warcraft III characters like Illidan, Kael'thas and Vashj turning evil for no reason and the massive Eredar retcon. Wrath also had pretty bad lore. Arthas was a trash villain in Wrath, his plan made no sense at all and he had the personality of an evil toaster (while Warcraft III's Arthas was a compelling villain, the Lich King was pretty much a saturday morning cartoon villain). In my opinion, Cataclysm and Mists were much better than their predecessors because at least they TRIED to do something unique and innovative, instead of constantly relying on Warcraft III nostalgia and still failing to make a semi-decent story.

This this so much.

[Magnagarde]

I think that stream was akin to casting pearls before the swine. Your average MMO-C troll would not understand and appreciate what is being done there.

*Rofls in Latin*

The only pearls in regards to that stream were our minutes and the only metaphor befitting the word swine is the one that wasted one hour saying almost nothing.

- - - Updated - - -

Aside from guys being excited about the work they do, which is something to appreciate always. The messages there were clear as always - story is moving on and there is a clear direction and a plot, there is a reason for things being the way they are and we've only just got out of what amounts to prologue chapter.

It does not take a genius to figure out that what we see right now is a tip of an iceberg and all this trolling here is simply uncalled because we seen barely 20% of the story so far and even these 20% are more of a prelude to the real plot - a means to and end we have no idea of yet.


On my end, I commend their massive balls for kicking off BfA the way it was done - it was a strong opening shot and what's more it was a self-inflicted opening shot that managed to be world-shaking, as opposed to your usual stock existential threat no.556 invading.

I don't really like much of the story and I don't have many issues with the game. In fact, I still think BfA is contentwise (as in having something to spend time on, as meaningless as it can be at most times) much better than many previous expansions. But to defend that stream is just hillarious.

They could've come up with much better talking points if they took 30 minutes of their time and bothered looking up their own forums, the most popular threads and the most popular WoW-related lore forums on the internet.

[Zandalariprelate]

I think that stream was akin to casting pearls before the swine. Your average MMO-C troll would not understand and appreciate what is being done there.

Stop hidding Lore

If people are not interested in your crappy story than its time to re evaluate your story, but than again Danuser doesn't really have a great track record when it comes to stories, they simply lack the writing chops to pull it off they aint making game of thrones here.

And just relying on shock value does not carry your story even less so when you throw a part of your player base under the bus I suspect this expansion is going the way of WoD since they want to recreate WC2 and WC2 was not morally gray or a compelling story no matter how hard they try.

I am starting to wonder, if the HR deparment of Blizzard has low standar to hire people or they cutting the story like in WoD but in this case they can't run away

how cool that Horde/alliance fans agree on this thread

The enemy of all turns out to be blizzard, N'zoth is doing some 4th wall shit right there

[Karamaru]

I am starting to wonder, if the HR deparment of Blizzard has low standar to hire people or they cutting the story like in WoD but in this case they can't run away

Well they did hire Knaak so yea make that of what you will, also they can end it but it would be a very anti-climatic ending but then again everything about this expansion has been anti-climatic.