Should WoW take a Darker direction?

[Sezh]

Umm...sure maybe if you're emotionless...I sure as hell felt sad when I saw a child crying for their parents after seeing corpses on the ground or impaled to a wall by spears after the Horde bombed a town unprovoked.

Really? That's your response. Well, now I know better than to ever attempt conversation with you again. Ciao.

[MrHappy]

we're going to the realm of death where the souls get stripped of all of their identity to serve their covenant as a newborn fanatic....how much darker do you want it to be?

[Mic_128]

Minotaurs. They're supposed to be scary.

I thought the sarcasm in my post was obvious, but I guess not.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Shadowlands, on paper, seems like a darker toned expansion:

- Themes of death and the afterlife
- Themes of one's actions in life and consequences in death
- Results of the Burning of Teldrassil's victims going straight into the Maw, not even having a chance to be judged by this Arbiter character
- Seemingly being able to interact with characters of old, with some of them coming to tragic ends, and seeing what happened to their souls/ghosts
- Stories of zones like Revendreth and the Maw
- Revendreth with punishing the wicked and vile, the Maw just being an abyss of evil

we're going to the realm of death where the souls get stripped of all of their identity to serve their covenant as a newborn fanatic....how much darker do you want it to be?

Beat me to it.

[Boricha]

I think the game already incorporates a lot of dark storytelling, but the poor writing makes it hard to get into. Not to mention it's rated T, so they can't show that much. I also think the updated models and artstyles have a somewhat more lighthearted feel to them than they used to.

[ONCHEhap]

Was the burning of a tree of thousand innocents not "dark"?

Jaina saw undead version of her own brother, that is quiet twisted in my book - it just fails to be viewed as such due to how stylized WoW is.

WoW has managed to balance the dark story, the question is if they need to change the art style to look darker.

The tree didn't feel dark,because it was the result of a forced and inherently retarded decision,so it just fell flat.
The low quality of the BfA story made everything that came after that just feel like it didn't really matter

[Puupi]

It's too late for that and the game is rated "teen" anyway.

[Skorpionss]

Shadowlands, on paper, seems like a darker toned expansion:

- Themes of death and the afterlife
- Themes of one's actions in life and consequences in death
- Results of the Burning of Teldrassil's victims going straight into the Maw, not even having a chance to be judged by this Arbiter character
- Seemingly being able to interact with characters of old, with some of them coming to tragic ends, and seeing what happened to their souls/ghosts
- Stories of zones like Revendreth and the Maw
- Revendreth with punishing the wicked and vile, the Maw just being an abyss of evil





Beat me to it.

Yeah and then you look at the reveal cinematic and realize it's only dark on paper, in execution it's the opposite of dark. Some zones look downright cheerful, and no matter how edgy they make the story, if their portrayal in game doesn't fit I can't take it seriously.

I realize this is a me problem but at the end of the day I'm the one playing the game.

And yeah the new art direction for the game really doesn't help if u ask me, textures are too clean, everything is too exaggerated, when compared to the old style from vanilla/tbc. And the character models look like if Pixar made a game(which isn't bad by itself, it just doesn't fit my idea of warcraft).

[Trumpcat]

People talking about the burning of Teldrassil as an argument that WoW is dark... But here is the thing, saying that twenty thousand people burned alive vs seeing a dramatic scene of a son murdering his father is not the same. In favor of the patricide scene being a far darker experience. It's not about what happens, but how it's portrayed. We barely have heavy themes in the game. I wonder what portion of the playerbase are minors so the game is kept at PG-13...

To quote what might or might not have been Stalin saying:
"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic."

[Suggs]

Yep, dark as fuck to the point of it offending people.

[Dracullus]

WoW is dark enough. WoW just have "heroic" theme, opposite to Diablo II (and hopefully IV) bleak, depressing tone.

Btw, that's why I hated Diablo III atmosphere - yeah, it had dark stuff like ton of corpses, etc. - but it was very similar to WoW. Demon in 3rd act (story was so meh I don't even remember his name) sounded like generic #412123 Burning Legion commander.

[FlemmMinis]

I don't think it can thematically go darker than "The Underworlds and our World are colliding and if we don't act we all will be fed to some kind of faceless maw."

[Donald Hellscream]

I don't think grimdark would do the Warcraft universe any favours.

Besides there are plenty of opportunities for darker themes in Shadowlands, Maldraxxus and Revendreth doesn't exactly scream happy fun time.

[Shadowsgrace]

While we're at it, why not up the ESRB to M and tint it with a little "Red light" while we're at it. That would up the Sub numbers.

[Thage]

BFA opened with the near-extinction of a sentient species and featured a power-mad megalomaniac causing a massive, bloody war for the sake of disrupting the balance of power between life and death. How much darker are we talking here, Game of Thrones dark where there's no point getting invested since everyone likable will die or go insane and the unlikable jackasses get the spotlight? 90s Dark Age comic books where everyone is a misshapen, grimacing sociopath? There comes a point where you can only go so dark before the game's nature as an ongoing MMORPG begs the question: if things are so hopeless despite everything the heroes of Azeroth do, why bother? If nothing gets better, it makes the characters' struggle meaningless, and if the characters' struggles are meaningless, there's no point in engaging in the story, and that is the death knell for any RPG, MMO or single-player.

[Powerogue]

We just had an expansion where entire cities full of innocents were lit on fire.

The tree has fire for leaves

And skeletons for branches,

And its roots feed only upon

The ashes of the dead.

The winds that sigh through it now are the cries of the dying

And this song,

This lament

For horrors unspeakable,

For cruelty unimaginable,

For the life and the beauty and the grace that once were

And shall never be again.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/st...ry/elegy#tab=5

[Donald Hellscream]

We just had an expansion where entire cities full of innocents were lit on fire.

But did we see women and children burning to death? it obviously isn't dark enough until we see children on fire running around screaming trying to douse themselves.

[Thage]

But did we see women and children burning to death? it obviously isn't dark enough until we see children on fire running around screaming trying to douse themselves.

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to announce the new Co-Vice Presidents of Creative Development: Rob Liefeld and Dan DiDio!

[Maljinwo]

People already defend a genocidal maniacs, that's dark

[Kithelle]

Really? That's your response. Well, now I know better than to ever attempt conversation with you again. Ciao.

I'm sorry...that I don't think every god damn thing that exists needs to be super gritty...congrats on being boring and generic and loving the flavor of the month.

You should grow up a little or one day you're going to cut yourself on your edge.