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

[Hyral]

What? From the beginning you had people who didn't like the Nelves and Scourge didn't get their own factions or that female nelves could be druids. They've always been butchering their own lore. It has never been unanimously liked.

[RobertMugabe]

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

Exactly this

[Daevied]

IT all started with tracer butt

[Terongor]

Yeah no... it has always being kinda lame the story while universe building has always blizzard strong points wc1-wc2 had little story but it build a cool universe and wc3 expanded that yeah but wow has taken many of the interesting parts of the universe away little by little.

[Soikona]

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

Basically this, where it lacks of creativity it makes up in volume. With there being such a large amount of lore, someone was bound to find something they like. Now though, there does seem to be less quantity so it’s harder to find something you like.

[ravenmoon]

Well, lets go down the list of shit choices that have ruined their story(s)

Wahmen are the strongest on all sides because power of vagina apparently (in game, I don't give a fuck about their books. If they want me to give a shit about their books, maybe they should have started writing books and adapted video games to them, not use them as a piss poor attempt to bandaid their ruined story. This also includes their other games.) [Going to side note for a second, women tend to actually be my favorite characters in fantasy, Sylvanas is still my favorite from WoW, but there's this undeniable trend we're seeing without any explanation as to why they're doing it]

Apart from this expansion, which seems to keep throwing female characters our way for no apparent reason, I also quite liked Jaina, Sylvanas and Tyrande. Jaina they recovered, Sylvanas this time round I thought...hmm what's going on, i teresting. Tyrande however has played so little a role in game stories, i was very disappointed she didnt star in 7.1, 7.2 as High Priestess of Elune, not some alliance lackey, and dumbfounded why she isnt starring in 8.2 - they really didnt do her justice in Legion (val'sharah cinematic was cool tho)

Anduin can't be evil or do bad things because, "it's wrong!"

I like Anduin tho, and i like that he can do no evil, as for do no wrong, he is young but he is extremely smart too, i think the problem is the wroti g isnt sophisticated enough or the medium unsuitable to portraying the various subtleties and nuances someone oh his character should have...ovarian was the grizzled wolf warrior, Anduin is the golden smart kid, that's his strong suit...but saying that, there is legitimacy for older leaders not to trust him or auto bestow high king on him, while I believe his insight should hold true in the end,, he is not immune to doubt, rebellions, court intrigues and he doesnt have to lead the alliance, problems could arise that his method of handling leads to fractures in the alliance that remove him and the office of high king I have never liked. Given the existence now of 3, possibly 4 human nations in the alliance if you count Arathor, it is enough for Anduin to be High King of the humans but no more .. that could go somewhere interesting.

Other side of the coin, Horde are evil/self serving always and no exceptions. (Unlike how they used to write of both sides being good and evil)

this is more complex than it seems. But I've always struggled to like the horde because of their values and the lack of races in the horde that boldly stand for the values i eschew...now if the nightborne and blood elves could become that in the horde, and boldly stand in defiance of any warchief order that causes them to act otherwise, then that might change. And I dont just mean honour, being honourable and being good and of sound morality are different things. Saurfang and Baine eschew honour, but they would be okay about doing things that arent good or noble. Give me an Avenue in the horde where those values lie, even if they dont dominate the horde and I may like a race there.


They cater to G/PG ratings, because having a grim story is too "scawwwy" for them, and they're afraid of hitting that M ESRB raiting. (Remember that scene in WC3 when you see the shadow of Arthas drive Frostmourne through the chest of his father? Yeah, that shit would be unheard of in WoW today.)

The original guy isn't writing it anymore (After he lost is testicles to his feminist wife, he started writing like shit anyway, but regardless once you take the story away from the writer, the new writer will never share the exact same vision.)

Yet the stories are dark in theme and plot if not necessarily in what you see visually, very dark - however I agree, the original writer lost his flair, whether it was his wife or his colleagues bullying out compromises that just dont work rather than finding alternate solutions to make it work, it's kinda gone way down hill.
Lack of good new characters.

Every new character we get either we immediately kill, or at the end of the expansion get thrown into the bin and ignored for the rest of the games life.

yeah, looking at Farondis and Farodin, easily 2 of the best new characters, vanished without a trace. And Thalyssra, also a fave of 7.0 butchered by going to a horde faction that represents the opposite of her character. A character that fits the night elves she didnt join to a tee, seeing how there were clearly two types 9f nightborne, one that fit the horde and one that fit the night elves, not sure why we didnt have both factions having nightborne, if only one could have the silhouette, simply write the alliance ones regaining ing their kaldorei form via the arcan'dor - Point is, if they cared enough, they would have seen and made a way.

Lack of explanation on why we're killing who and why so-and-so is doing what. (Just look at the shit show Sylvanas is now compared to how she used to be. Went from "underhanded, cunning, and by any means necessary for the good of her kind/horde" to "mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon villain doing evil just to be a cunt".

cheesy doesnt need to be crap blizz, but I think the problem is the stories get too big for the stage, and they are unable or unwilling to show or give the detail necessary to properly build up - things like cut scenes and more dialogue for starters.

"I don't give a fuck who you are, get me more wolf sphincters!". We've been playing this game for so fucking long, regardless of what expansion you picked up in, you were there and fought through some of the most fucked up shit. No one cares. Not a single person gives a shit about you, and always send you off on missions that make fuck all of sense on new expansion releases. Half the quests seem pointless/retarded for a seasoned murder hobo to bother with.

I'd say Swtor did this much better, by the time you become the Outlander, you are not doing fetch 10 wolf sphincter quests like a noob, but it is a result of how they tell their story, where you cant be the hero, but you are the hero, unlike SWTOr that mad you a specific class hero, wow's equivalent could have been a race hero cos races have the deep rich lore and it is a game of factions, so you are better off as a race hero than a class hero.. only druid, death knight and demon hunter were unified class factions

It's all on the rails. It's been a long, long time since things have gone or done anything unexpected. At the start of an expansion you know that when you load up you hear a bad guy, you kill a bad guy, then another bad guy shows up and goes "HAHAHA! I'M THE REAL BAD GUY!" Then you fuck on off for a month or two till the new patch to rinse repeat.

That's the problem when you writing calamity every two years and rinse repeat.

Several people have suggested, the story should shift to a single player game series, and wow is the environment you continue to explore the zones and races, including g the new ones that show up in the single player game series

Removing the problem of a wow 2, and solving the

[steelballfc]

this happens

[Darththeo]

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

The issue I brought up came about because of decision prior to that, but yes, that did make things worse.

[Zandalariprelate]

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

That is because the big stories doesn't even have any effect post plot, literally you can pretend some expansions didn't happened like MoP

[Sluvs]

That is because the big stories doesn't even have any effect post plot, literally you can pretend some expansions didn't happened like MoP

If that was the only problem, it would be fine. Currently they just want to move from one story beat to another, with no cohesion whatsoever. I mean, take a look at the burning crusade. WTF was that?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

About 5-6 years ago it become mainstream to internet fandom agendas to hate on everything. Suddenly everyone was a critic. Everyone knows what a good writer and story is about even though they barely could string 2-3 thoughts together on a piece of paper to make a grocery list. Usually based around "I wanted it to go like this" and when it does then it is poor writing, garbage characters, all a waste of time even for the years I enjoyed. The first few people were "cool" and "hip" for going against the mainstream but now its just mainstream to be against the "mainstream" (be sure to buy the merch, link below, buy buy buy merch).

Don't get me wrong I got nothing with people sharing their opinions or explaining how they feel but its gotten to the point where its a goose that shits gold is a useless bird because you have to sell the gold before you get the money.. why doesn't the goose just shit money instead? Give it a break on the tragedy level of these things. I mean I wasn't The Last Jedi but it didn't suddenly make me hate The Empire Strikes Back because "franchise ruined, it was all a waste of time" levels of retardation. I really don't like the lore in BFA but I don't suddenly believe Blizzard is nothing but a trash compactor. Then if you happen to like these things? Fine by me folks. I don't see why I need to change your mind or shit on you over it. All in all it is just entertainment franchises.

[ohwell]

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.

That's because Arthas and Illidan appealed aesthetically to the "amg cool" crowd and these were the same people who were confused as to why we were killing Illidan in BC.

[FelPlague]

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

writing a cool short story is very easy.


writing something that is almost 30 years gets very difficult, you have new cool ideas that you want to fit, but old lore dictates you cannot, there is old lore that no longer makes sense because of new stuff you did without looking back, etc

writing anything that is almost 30 years gets difficult, you have so much lore it becomes a mix of
"We cant add this cause it might break something in the past"
or
"This thing in the past was horrible, how best do we rewrite it?"

tell me one series going for 30 years that has kept up with good story writing? even one that has been going 20.

blizzard wants to add new charecters, people get mad they arnt using old characters
blizzard uses old charecters, people get mad they are recycling content

[Zandalariprelate]

If that was the only problem, it would be fine. Currently they just want to move from one story beat to another, with no cohesion whatsoever. I mean, take a look at the burning crusade. WTF was that?

Exactly, the first set of expansions were just Blizzard using their iconic characters to build a loyal playerbase and because they didn't though WoW would be a very popular game with lots of profite, heck even now they are just using Azshara as some mid tier boss when they are running out of villains or interesting characters.

[FelPlague]

That is because the big stories doesn't even have any effect post plot, literally you can pretend some expansions didn't happened like MoP

what? how so? because idk if you know but you could do this for the old expansions and even some of the warcraft expansions aswell...

without mop garrosh would not have been outted and would still be warchief
without mop the kirin tor still woulda been neutral and the blood elves still woulda been friendy with the alliance
if not for mop then the pandaren and monks wouldnt exist
if not for mop we wouldnt have had found out about the dead old god
if not for mop no idea of what happens when an old is killed
if not for mop anduin would seem like he did literally nothing in life, as he did a fuck ton in mop
if not for mop varian would have MUCH less of a hatred for the horde
if not for mop wod literally woudlnt have anything
if not for mop wrathion would literally have done nothing
if not for mop we wouldnt have had the whole zandalari mogu connection.

[Faesroll]

No they didn't.

[Zafire]

For those that don't know, FFXIV is doing an amazing job telling a story while making it an MMO at the same time. The game basically plays like a single player RPG until you catch up with the main story. It even cuts you off from a lot of areas until you complete parts of the main story. A lot of it is very interesting, too, although it does get stale in between the exciting stuff. I believe Guild Wars 2 does something similar, although I never got to a very high level on it.

Blizzard is just choosing not to incorporate fleshed out story telling into their narrative. You barely even have to do anything to access raids.

[Zandalariprelate]

what? how so? because idk if you know but you could do this for the old expansions and even some of the warcraft expansions aswell..

I was speaking lore-wise but evenif we include the gameplay, that has been eroded with time and the only thing left from MoP are the monk class and I guess pandas but those are rarely played by anyone these days since the nerf in the food racial buff.

without mop garrosh would not have been outted and would still be warchief

and we are doing that again but with Vol'jin now death, honestly what is the point of defeating the horde warchief if the thing still happens again in a very short gasp of time, it's dumb and upsetting like the annual genocide toward some alliance race

without mop the kirin tor still woulda been neutral and the blood elves still woulda been friendy with the alliance

Kirin tor was alliance for what, 5 seconds? They are again neutral and the blood elf plot of joining the alliance went nowhere, literally you can ignore that

if not for mop then the pandaren and monks wouldnt exist

Well I already talked about that but I concede that to you, monks are great for leveling after all

if not for mop we wouldnt have had found out about the dead old god

We got hints of that since C'thun in silithus and the sha thing has been ignored so far, in 8.2 we don't see the leaders wondering if they should imprision N'zoth or kill him, besides Yogg-Saron and C'thun death hasn't caused anything and Chronicles doesn't mention anything

if not for mop anduin would seem like he did literally nothing in life, as he did a fuck ton in mop

Well Varian did nothing in-game until his return as king in Wotlk and most of his stuff are from books, probably the books would had made Anduin more appealing rather than the in-game events and mechanics that limits his interactions and actions

if not for mop wod literally woudlnt have anything

I am sure they would had though into something rather than Garrosh escaping from Nurember Panda through the bronze dragonflight

if not for mop wrathion would literally have done nothing

He is literally doing nothing, his friendship with Anduin isn't mention and outside of some vague references, he has gone Me'dan aka lore error 404

if not for mop we wouldnt have had the whole zandalari mogu connection.

It was never fully explored and they are just fodder enemies to both horde and alliance currently

if not for mop varian would have MUCH less of a hatred for the horde

are you saying he would hate more the horde without MoP or would had grow some respect for them without that expansion? In any case after Wolfheart he become more "level head" thanks to Knaak and ironically he becomes the voice of the reason for some odd reason cough Metzen voicing him cough.

Jaina could be considered a true consequence from MoP but considering the writers keep her into some weird bipolar disorden where she is a warmonger in 1 cinematic and the other she acts like her old self, I am sure without the bomb she would had been shitted just like most of the cast currently

[Aucald]

Warcraft's story has never been stellar, but I think it was more well received because it tended to be more patchwork - there's was a lot of room for people to speculate, theorize, and sort of make their own story using the skeletal building blocks the games provided. Over time there was an internal push for a greater level of consistency, as well as bringing the story to the forefront with more complex or nuanced narrative arcs. With that came more of an ability to be critical about aspects of the story, or to pick apart elements of the story for a variety of reasons (genuine criticism, spite, specific agendas, or what have you). The denser the story the most instances of composition errors, as well; continuity gaffes and plot flaws which would ordinarily be papered over with speculation and guesswork now seem all the more glaring.

Externally speaking there is also something of a critical renaissance happening on the wider Internet - it's been in vogue for a couple years now to be overly critical about things, and there's definitely a bandwagon effect when it comes to lumping in on things there is a perceived swell of dislike for.

[ravenmoon]

Warcraft's story has never been stellar, but I think it was more well received because it tended to be more patchwork - there's was a lot of room for people to speculate, theorize, and sort of make their own story using the skeletal building blocks the games provided. Over time there was an internal push for a greater level of consistency, as well as bringing the story to the forefront with more complex or nuanced narrative arcs. With that came more of an ability to be critical about aspects of the story, or to pick apart elements of the story for a variety of reasons (genuine criticism, spite, specific agendas, or what have you). The denser the story the most instances of composition errors, as well; continuity gaffes and plot flaws which would ordinarily be papered over with speculation and guesswork now seem all the more glaring.

Externally speaking there is also something of a critical renaissance happening on the wider Internet - it's been in vogue for a couple years now to be overly critical about things, and there's definitely a bandwagon effect when it comes to lumping in on things there is a perceived swell of dislike for.

Not all the stories have been incredible, some were amazing, others far from it - but the world was amazing, the complex peoples and rich race lore - my disappointment with the lore started when they started dumbing down races and homogenizing them, ditching their unique lore in favour of one size fits all, blue all, and red all. For example, I use to admire the complexity of the night elves as this vast race that actually felt like it was more than a one thing race like most elven portrayals in fantasy realms - it had the forest, the great civilizaiton, nature magic, arcane magic, a goddess, the whole night thing, and this high moon and stars calling. Children of the stars they called them, immortal - with a wide net and range of things. when you look at how the priestesses, highborne, druids, illidari, moonguard, sentinels, nightborne, wardens, worgen, naga, satyr - this is rich stuff - immortals that had an air of perfection and flawlessness tot hem, yet capable of fallibility but also able to heal/find redemption, come back, they are not the only individuals to make a mistake, nor should they be denied redemption either (in case they want to redeem a race of naga and satyr).

then the story map .. did you know the night elves' story in a sense starts with WoW? The long vigil and the pre-sundering civilziaiton are both prequels - of an elaborate tale and a journey of race that has gone through arcane mastery and nature mastry, and have to find themselves anew after coming ut of isolation - the chance to build them into something both better and more powerful than they ever were in their lore (not necessarily restoring an empire) but it could be exciting, and they had the level of tragedy in their story that would justify great glory too.

However one of warcrafts biggest cricitsm, is not developing races, and tying up stories.. As a world that continues to evolve and change - that is usually a huge asset because you can see more of your fave race, and when they get knocked down (like the night elves) you know you can expect hat's not the end, and hope for some sort of come pack - and the greatest stories are the ones that give you something even more amazing than you thought would happen, just as they gave you tragedy more terrible than you thought would happen.

However they don't, when they visit new things and finish off old story, they do annoying things like forget important characters, important conclusions that involve already established characters. Sure new ones should come in, but you also have some great stuff to conclude and round up. The annoying of the writers is hwen they don't.. and perfect opportunities come to explore and expand lore for osme groups and it is overlooked always in favour of one group or one set of characters.

Maybe the problem is that they don't have time to do everything, but something they just shouldn't miss. The Order of Elune and Tyrande playing a role in Suramar as priests( not alliance lackeys) returning to their original capital, the broken shore and their most holy temple being reclaimed, the encounter with their predecessors - even if it was necessary to have a stronger legion role and class orders in volved, a way should have been found to tie those ones in.

now i'm just focusing on the night elf ones as it is night elf lore that Legion and 8.2 Azshara deal with, but fans of orcs, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, humans etc will all point out similar thigns.

i'm aghast at the night elves instead of coming together and recovering are takent hrough a second genocide, no story written to get a home , the nightborne given tot he horde (instead of shared) their lore against azshara not brought up in the patch that deals with her at all, and glaringly missing from finishing off the legion or interacting with Illidan when he came back and it was finally understood he was right about everything..

These are things we don't need to fill in the blnaks, these are the sort of things the critically acclaimed dramas are made over, or the cheesy knock offs that we enjoy anyway because they are in our favourite world. THe world is what we love.. writing the characters in properly and doing races justice stamps the whole creative work in a very special part. Failure to do so , or handling it badly greatly disappoints.

Without consistency and continuity, then no one is inclined to believe anything they write or introduced because it would be changed or ignored when it makes no sense for it to be.