Blizzard use to write lore everybody liked...what happened?

[Wildmoon]

I was too young to criticize them. The notion of "quality of the story" was not present back then. I was just having fun getting to experience things. I actually miss that state of mind where I did not get annoyed by every little thing or try to find flaws.

[huth]

Ah, yes, things are super consistent now. Baine argued in front of the entire world that treason against the Warchief of the Horde warrants the death penalty if the Warchief so desires. Yet now Baine even getting imprisoned after his treason has been made public (for a much worse act than the treason he was talking about in the past) is treated as the worst thing ever. A Good War says the naval balance of power prior to BfA is tipped a bit towards the Horde, so that the Horde could probably win even when attacking Stormwind itself. *five minutes later* Oh, look, Alliance manages to land in Tirisfal without a hiccup and the ships that managed to land and not get destroyed by the slightly stronger Horde navy (now with home turf advantage rather than disadvantage) transported an army large enough for Alliance to successfully besiege Lordaeron. People are constantly forgetting their own powers, weapons, enemy weapons and plenty other things. #consistency

And gee, who'd have thunk than expecting, I dunno, Alliance not to forfeit their strategic advantage because it'd make Trolls sad (off the top of my head) is "an unrealistic level of expectations" (I mean, for reasons other than Blizzard's writers being atrocious at their jobs, because I highly doubt that was where you were going with that).

So nobody is allowed to change their mind or just not agree with Baine, and the Horde fleet can just teleport all over the place?

Those aren't inconsistencies.

Besides, the point wasn't that they completely avoid them now. It's that before, they didn't even try to.

[urasim]

There's actually a simple answer to this. It was back when they started telling stories that revolved around us(horde and alliance). So, towards the end of Wrath(with the argent tournament and then ICC)? Before we were the focus, the story had depth and wonder. Now all they want to do is force us to fight each other. There's no real mystery left, and the story is easily predictable. How many people yelled at them for making sylvanas into garrosh before we even knew she was becoming garrosh?

[Crillam]

The lore is now in the books instead...
There is so little lore in the game itself, things that are explained in the books/short stories.
It is so stupid because the minority do read those.

[Mehrunes]

Blizzard could do some really cool shit without making the characters braindead in the process.

Well, no, they couldn't. They can't write about something they have no idea about and their writes don't know what not being braindead is like.

So nobody is allowed to change their mind or just not agree with Baine, and the Horde fleet can just teleport all over the place?

Those aren't inconsistencies.

You pulled teleportation out of the nether in order to pretend you actually have an argument here. And you don't. The Horde had time to prepare for the siege of Lordaeron, as said by Sylvanas herself at the end of A Good War. And they did have that time largely because the Alliance didn't just teleport their fleets there either. Basic logic is still a thing last time I checked. On top of that, the Horde did get their army there in time. Including the Kalimdor forces and the people involved in War of Thorns on the other end of the world. How do you think they got to Lordaeron, exactly? Walked on water? That's not a particularly fast way of traveling compared to ships, you know.

And when there's zero reason for people to change their minds, yeah, no one is allowed to change it under such circumstances. Because characters require motivation and they have none here to change their minds on the basics of how Horde law system works. And no one was shown to disagree with Baine back then during the previous event in question. Including the Warchief of the Horde at the time. You know, the supreme leader of the Horde whose word is essentially the law in the Horde. In fact, Baine got that conclusion from questioning Vol'jin on how the Horde works.

Besides, the point wasn't that they completely avoid them now. It's that before, they didn't even try to.

And my point is they don't try to now either, vide them pulling stunts like completely ignoring Sylvanas' power set whenever the plot requires that.

[Aeula]

I wouldn’t say everybody liked it, but the majority interested in it enjoyed what was there.

Blizzard started using the story as an excuse to ‘do cool stuff’ which wasn’t actually all that cool and the lack of proper narrative context made it come off as stupid. They also shifted focus entirely to characters as time went on, letting the world stagnate and become irrelevant. TBC is where it started to go down hill with the Kael’thas/Illidan villainbatting.

The ‘it’s hard to tell stories in an MMO’ line is BULLSHIT. Utter bullshit. Competent writers and an adjusted focus to bring back the ‘World’ of Warcraft could do wonders for the game. Focusing on characters we don’t even get to have dialogue or any kind of meaningful interaction with is a stupid approach to telling a story in an MMO. It feels like we’re tagging along with whatever stupid plan these idiot characters have without any say of our own and their lack of dimension makes them feel unrealistic and hard to empathise with.

[Khaza-R]

Why is this ?

WoW storytelling was never really amazing. People mostly were attached because it was continuing to story laid down by WarCraft III. That's the reason why Vanilla -> WotLK is perceived as being so much stronger. The stories told in TBC and Wrath had tons of foundation to back them up.

When did it start?
What is the main cause?

Right about when they ran out of source material and starting making it up as they went along. This is why Cataclysm was all over the place. MoP was a fluke which was successful because it made its own self-contained story. WoD, Legion, and BfA all continue the messy narrative with no over-arching direction. This is why the quality of a lot of franchises (GoT, SW, etc) fall apart. They have no end game planned out so the story just wildly goes everywhere and it less fulfilling in the end.

You simply can't make a good story when you change direction every expansion.

[Drpizka]

Christie Golden happened

[SirBeef]

As far as i remember people always bitched about WoW lore. Most people agree on WC3/WC3TFT story being cool, but every new WoW expansion there are people who hate on WoW lore.

Outside of the Arthas story sure. Arthas was a walking talking cliche. Even then, WC3 was chocked full of bad story moments. Blizzards story writing has never been a strong suit. Go back and play some of the old games or even read a transcript of it. Most of it was bad and implored the rule of coll back then too.

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WoW storytelling was never really amazing. People mostly were attached because it was continuing to story laid down by WarCraft III. That's the reason why Vanilla -> WotLK is perceived as being so much stronger. The stories told in TBC and Wrath had tons of foundation to back them up.



Right about when they ran out of source material and starting making it up as they went along. This is why Cataclysm was all over the place. MoP was a fluke which was successful because it made its own self-contained story. WoD, Legion, and BfA all continue the messy narrative with no over-arching direction. This is why the quality of a lot of franchises (GoT, SW, etc) fall apart. They have no end game planned out so the story just wildly goes everywhere and it less fulfilling in the end.

You simply can't make a good story when you change direction every expansion.

Cata was backed up with tons of source material. Pretty much MoP was the only expansion without it.

[huth]

You pulled teleportation out of the nether in order to pretend you actually have an argument here. And you don't. The Horde had time to prepare for the siege of Lordaeron, as said by Sylvanas herself at the end of A Good War. And they did have that time largely because the Alliance didn't just teleport their fleets there either. Basic logic is still a thing last time I checked. On top of that, the Horde did get their army there in time. Including the Kalimdor forces and the people involved in War of Thorns on the other end of the world. How do you think they got to Lordaeron, exactly? Walked on water? That's not a particularly fast way of traveling compared to ships, you know.

And significantly slower than the personal teleportation they also have access to. Not to mention there not being any harbour near Undercity, and the Alliance fleet having a significantly shorter and less dangerous path there.

The Horde actually shouldn't have been able to get a fleet there in time.

No idea where you're getting that nonsense that they a) need a reason to be allowed to change their minds or b) don't have one. Sylvanas is proving that their law system does not work, and people change their mind without prompting more often than you seem to realise.

[Flurryfang]

What happened was that they ran out of content, that built on Warcraft 3 and had to create their own lore from "scratch". Warcraft 3 did a really good job with establishing characters, giving them an identity and making them all really likeable. That translated over with WoW, with most of the world being built upon our understanding of WoW and not a clear new idea.

That really changed for Cata. Sure, twillight hammer, old gods and Deathwing was something from Warcraft, but it did not have the spotlight in Warcraft 3, which made it so that Blizzard have to create their identity from square 1. It then showed how the old formular of TBC and Wrath did not really work for these new, "original" expansions. Concepts were harder to implement and explain to players, which is why when MoP came out, the idea of the Sha was wierd. I still to this day think it is the weakest of all the enemies of WoW, because it did not really feel as a part of WoWs foundation or core. Instead of telling the story of Pandaria and the Sha before we got to experience them, we did at the same time. When we finally got the concept into our head, the expansion was over and it was time to think about time travel and WoD instead.

To point to something current, just look at GoT. I think everybody would say, that the story of GoT got worse and worse as they got further away from the books, as the producers had to spend more and more time on the foundation, instead of building upon something that was already there.

In the end, despite my clear problem-outline, i think the question is still quite complicated. Like a factor could also be, as the game has involved more story, it has become harder to make all of it good, compared to the past, where little story was told outside of a few quests in each zone. Several zones in the past had long quest lines, that told the story of the zone, but today, every zone has a HUGE quest line that leads you through the entire zone in one go. Many things can go wrong.

[Itori]

Imo theyve just run dry on compelling story and refuse to let go, an mmo is designed to last as long as it can but when it comes to story there needs to be an end. If they were smart they'd end the story with bfa then pull a "X yrs later" and start building a new story, or pull a guild wars and just create wow 2 with a new engine with a fresh story

[Khaza-R]

Cata was backed up with tons of source material. Pretty much MoP was the only expansion without it.

I was more talking about from the perspective of the average WoW player. Chances are they've never touched a WarCraft novel. Or even WC2 for that matter.

Not that it mattered as much for Deathwing. He was actually built up heavily in Vanilla and in each expansion. They completely squandered his story arc unfortunately.

[SirBeef]

What happened was that they ran out of content, that built on Warcraft 3 and had to create their own lore from "scratch". Warcraft 3 did a really good job with establishing characters, giving them an identity and making them all really likeable. That translated over with WoW, with most of the world being built upon our understanding of WoW and not a clear new idea.

That really changed for Cata. Sure, twillight hammer, old gods and Deathwing was something from Warcraft, but it did not have the spotlight in Warcraft 3, which made it so that Blizzard have to create their identity from square 1. It then showed how the old formular of TBC and Wrath did not really work for these new, "original" expansions. Concepts were harder to implement and explain to players, which is why when MoP came out, the idea of the Sha was wierd. I still to this day think it is the weakest of all the enemies of WoW, because it did not really feel as a part of WoWs foundation or core. Instead of telling the story of Pandaria and the Sha before we got to experience them, we did at the same time. When we finally got the concept into our head, the expansion was over and it was time to think about time travel and WoD instead.

To point to something current, just look at GoT. I think everybody would say, that the story of GoT got worse and worse as they got further away from the books, as the producers had to spend more and more time on the foundation, instead of building upon something that was already there.

In the end, despite my clear problem-outline, i think the question is still quite complicated. Like a factor could also be, as the game has involved more story, it has become harder to make all of it good, compared to the past, where little story was told outside of a few quests in each zone. Several zones in the past had long quest lines, that told the story of the zone, but today, every zone has a HUGE quest line that leads you through the entire zone in one go. Many things can go wrong.

Most of Vanilla was lore made from scratch and all Lore is made from scratch. Why say that like it is a bad thing? Many zones were created. Races were given significant lore. New factions were created. Raid zones, raid bosses, most of the NPCs. But most ignore that. If it wasn't on the box of the RTS games, or a hero unit in WC3, then the vast majority doesn't care. That is more an issue with the player than Blizzard.

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I was more talking about from the perspective of the average WoW player. Chances are they've never touched a WarCraft novel. Or even WC2 for that matter.

Not that it mattered as much for Deathwing. He was actually built up heavily in Vanilla and in each expansion. They completely squandered his story arc unfortunately.

I look at it differently. I think DW felt his time was now and he had to strike, obviously this was from the whispers of N'zoth, so he cam forth too soon, and had to rush to get things done. He was in full panic mode. It makes the events of Cata and his easy demise make more sense.

[ravenmoon]

I don't know if someone brought this up, but SWToR literally wrote themselves into a corner because of the level of importance they gave each class that they had to merge all classes into the "Outlander" ... and now they are breaking that up sort of.

That was only a problem because EA took SWTOR development to a skeleton crew and switched it to maintenance mood rather than bolster it.

They literally provide a fraction of the content wow provides, because they have a fraction of the people. If they grew their original team like wow did, it would be a completely different story

[TheVaryag]

Lately, criticism outnumbers and outweighs praise, yet I remember when everything blizzard wrote was hugely popular and well loved.

It is not the case now, with a lot of dissatisfaction, disappointment, anger and resignation. While there are some praiseworthy bits here and there, it seems like in general the lore is pissing far many more people off than not, and even those who really love it have a lot of things they haven't been liking about it greater than what they like or at least irritating them a lot it is over shadowing the good parts (which are there - let's be fair)

Why is this ?
When did it start?
What is the main cause?

There are particular things I dont like, that I have been vocal about using positive tones more often than not usualky by trying to remind blizzard of the things I liked about their lore that dont seem to be developed.

I think bottom line is people are NOT seeing things in their fave race happening that they find exciting or empowering. I think the devaluing of race which a lot of people's characterisation and role play identify with is part of the problem while focusing too much on special characters and the two factions either seems to focused (legendary characters) or too encompassing (factions) such that you dont feel your character via race has any identity.

In a game that doesnt tell the story of your character specifically (you are identified in the story as a random hero or a bunch of heroes, it's never about you personally unlike a game like Swtor or FFXIV, in wow, the exploits are by a random adventurer), so consequently you live through your races as the primary identifier in lore and the first port of call to reflect you and represent your progress, then your class (which defines your gameplay) then your faction (the collective)
Faction isn't personal enough - which is where theyve thrown all the focus, legendary characters like Thrall, Khdgar, Sylvanas and Jaina are not you, so too much focus on them doesnt carry though either.

For the Alliance ? Dont really give a shit tbh, For the Horde? Dont care really, they've never been as interesting collectively as the individual races, so it's a huge mistake to only ever focus on them. I think race should be the main focus, then every now and them class, and once in a while a huge faction thing. After all, night elves and blood elves got me into warcraft lore, and a lot of people often talk about and care about their races...yet dont find anything meaningful ful or progress written for them...usually just pawns used to stir up drama. Its meaningless when my character causes a victory in wow, cos he is a nobody, it means much more when it is my race tho and I helped that.

Means little to me if a legendary character does it and exalting my faction is too broad a net

As mentioned above, sadly they go by rule of cool, as someone having played for 14 years now having made my own stories contained within RP guilds waaaay back when and little personal stories as well (Being a Roleplayer EU myself) It's hard to find reasons or connections between anything. Like, why does that first house you can go Inside during the Darkshore Warfront has a basin, suggesting elven plumming? Who the fudge knows, nothing is explained. Why do Horde/Alliance ships after you cap the Base Flag In arathi at the beginning go off Into the sky and go warp speed? Rule of coooool. That's why.

it's sad when you then look at games like even Final Fantasy 14 that has a mostly thought-through lore and how things work and same for the races, the gods and all th at. SWTOR, just to bring up -was- great with It's story, from level 1-50 the main vanila story was amazing. Because you had 8 simultanious lore characters running around. Like how WoW has us being "Random adventurers" In swtor, depenfing on your class of which there are 8. You are that specific jedi consular, or that sith inquisitor with a real name and Identifier. Not to spoil anything from the story, but In lore the Trooper Is known as "Major of Havoc Squad" and the Jedi Knight is known as the "Hero of Tython" among another title you can get at the end of the story, depending If you were light or dark side.

And yes, I've also played SWTOR from launch and still do drip Into the game just to see how It's going, mostly for story reasons. And trust me, ever since the FIRST expansion they've devalued the fact there's 8 lore characters and just made 7 of them disappear and the 8th Is you depending on which class you happen to be playing at the time. Not to mention because of "RPG Choices" the Empire, In lore right now doesn't know who Is their Emperor, who is their ruler, Is it a chick or a dude. Depending what choice you made In the latest expansion It could be ruled by one or the other It's not defined.

That's like, If we had a choice In the game in WoW (And this is a worrying point for me, because If Blizzard gives us TOO MUCH choice within quests there won't be a default canon, surely not one defined by them) to either kill Anduin and crown another king, or keep Anduin alive and kill the other guy. That'd create a divide wouldn't It, not only in Default canon but for people to follow In the long term.

SWTOR rant aside. There's then a game like Elder Scrolls Online that has books all over the world, some scources perhaps not so accurate In-lore due to the characters writing that, the unreliable narrator gag which Is quite refreshing. But most of It's true, all of the lore on gods, how armors are made and how they look, how each race's armors, culture, cuisine, architecture defines them and so on. It's so worked out, and not only that. They have a true HOUSING SYSTEM. Whcih has unique structures per race, you can have a high elf table, ornamented with gold bits. Or a redguard candlelight with that and then a Khajiit chair. Every race has It's own furniture, even ones specific to them. Every race's unique feel Is shown through that, and, you can also craft regular armor and weapons in style of those races.

You know how we have those Undead/Night Elf weapons from Darkshore? Or the Alliance/Horde general looking armor/weapons from Arathi? THAT'S COOL AND GOOD. It legit Is, because that gives me hope they'll soon give us unique weapons from each race and even faction to get In the future at the same time, and not just drip feed us a few race weapons and armor sets at a time. And, this is very Important: NOT HAVE THEM BE RANDOM DROPS THAT YOU CANT TARGET GRIND FOR.

You go Into a warfront, get 5/9 pieces from random drops, and also get currency ontop of that to buy the other 3-4 pieces from a vendor. That's how gear aquisition worked since TBC, If it works, don't fix It Blizzard.

[Flurryfang]

Most of Vanilla was lore made from scratch and all Lore is made from scratch. Why say that like it is a bad thing? Many zones were created. Races were given significant lore. New factions were created. Raid zones, raid bosses, most of the NPCs. But most ignore that. If it wasn't on the box of the RTS games, or a hero unit in WC3, then the vast majority doesn't care. That is more an issue with the player than Blizzard.

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I look at it differently. I think DW felt his time was now and he had to strike, obviously this was from the whispers of N'zoth, so he cam forth too soon, and had to rush to get things done. He was in full panic mode. It makes the events of Cata and his easy demise make more sense.

The reality is that most people do indeed the small stories and only focus on the big main stories, but that is not a problem in itself, aslong as the big stories are also good. You say it is the players issue, but any issue the players have, is Blizzards problem. Their job is to make the players happy and if that means focusing on the big stories, then that is what they should aim for.

My response to your first comment is, that we can't really talk about Vanilla...because Vanilla really did not have a story. The entire world was static, nothing in the world really changed during the leveling experience and few things changed at max with a few important lore quests(Moria questline). The few big things was Qiraj and Naxxramas, but even that did not change anything in the world really. The rules of development also does not really apply to Vanilla, as its development time was much larger than any expansion, giving them time to really set a foundation for their races, the different reputations and factions. Having Warcraft 3 to build on, also gave them alot of room to focus on other things, as the status-que of the world was set up.

[Sluvs]

IMO, they were always good at Worldbuilding and small tales. Every big story was a mess. With maybe WotLK standing out.

[Harbour]

Im pretty sure Blizzard still can write good and interesting lore and story... if it will be channeled through the RTS/RPG game, not MMO.
MMORPG game design in itself puts the limitations on the story.
Im pretty sure BFA story could be tweaked and made in a very satisfying way if it were Warcraft 4 campaigns, played in like 30-40 hours.

[Koward]

Blizzards writing was always shit, most probably you were just too young to notice.

It does not matter whether your writing is shit if you write a story simple enough.
IMO that's a big problem they have. Writing a deep character is very complicated.

Until TBC stories had a different scope with people against people, armies moving through lands... which is a more fault-tolerant storytelling.

Metzen started to write WC2 lore with a map as well as flags and nations inspired by gameplay colors.
Bigger picture, not many details, thus always plenty of potential and even modern Blizzard stories still find scraps in that original world building.