Should WoW take a Darker direction?

[MrLachyG]

saw this WC3 cinematic and made me think of how the various Warcraft moods used to be....



what are your thoughts?

I think early on in the expansion I hoped that Saurfang would still rebel against Sylvanas but not have Alliance support; then Jaina teleports to the battlefield where she executes Thrall and Rexxar as revenge for her father which would make Saurfang realise that he should stand with Sylvanas rather than fight her.

[Schattenlied]

Minotaurs. They're supposed to be scary.

Yet Tauren have literally never been scary... They're actually one of the most peaceful races in Warcraft lore and have been since they were introduced.

[Powerogue]

They should have allowed our playable character to be in Teldrassil while it burned. To hear the screams of the night elves, to watch them burn in front of our eyes.

We could. Didn't you play alliance side?



The real kicker is how, from then on, any time you try to take a Darnassus portal, you hear burning and screams for about 4 seconds before you get teleported to Darkshore.

[huth]

As for what I essentially need from them, you yourself know this, we have talked about this many times personally, and that's why, apparently, you popped in here today. Au revoir

I think you're mistaking me for someone else. We have not talked many times, never mind personally. In fact, this thread is the first time i've ever responded to you.

And you're talking about suspension of disbelief, not dissonance.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Yes, it should. It should never haved strayed from these darker moods towards childishness there is now with Vulpera stuff all over one of the zones, Vulpine Familiar, those owlguys from the Shadowlands zone etc.

Illidan has pandas on his warglaives.

[Powerogue]

Illidan has pandas on his warglaives.

And they still haven't made that a transmog option! >: (



While we're on the topic of WC3, the longest running gag in Blizzard history:

[AwkwardSquirtle]

While we're on the topic of WC3, the longest running gag in Blizzard history:

Darkness for Warchief.

[Jastall]

WoW has never been a dark game. It's had dark moments, people die, and there are some very dark images, but its always been very colourful fantasy, not dark fantasy. In fact of all the games (before Overwatch came along), WoW was probably the more light hearted silly and fun game, I found Diablo and Starcraft more adult in tone.

I like warcraft being the tone it is. It's apart of it's charm, to take that away makes it not warcraft. Warcraft has always been the best part of a Saturday morning cartoon.



For starters that's rose tinted glasses, if you were over the age of 18 when Warcraft 3 came out like I was, you'd know Warcraft 3 was never 'dark' and that cinematic (while awesome), is cheesy, the dialogue is great but its very action movie one liner "What are you doing my son" , "Succeeding you father", that last quote sounds like something straight out of an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick.

This delusion people have thinking Warcraft 3 was a great serious dark masterpiece is starting to annoy me. It's a great game don;t get me wrong, its one of my favourite games of all time, but I am not tied down to this crazy notion that the game was once some really dark and edgy game. It really isnt. lol

Seriously. The cinematic preceding the one linked here had Medivh barge in the throne room and saying "you have to believe me!" like he was Harry Potter confronting Dumbledore or some shit, and the final cinematic is about a bunch of Wisps going DBZ on a giant schmuck humping a tree.

Warcraft has never been dark like, say, Dark Souls; it has its darker moments for sure, mostly when the Scourge, the Horde or the Legion are involved, but it has literally always balanced out the grimness with a heavy dose of humor and whimsy. WC3 itself had pandas and stuff like that, not to mention the humorous unit quotes when you poke them or the truckload of pop-culture references.

BFA had attempted genocide, plus plenty of darker moments in the Horde experience like in Nazmir or the War Campaign, plus probably more to come in 8.3. It wasn't a very good story overall, but that's a case for darker not equating better, isn't it?

[Alkizon]

huth
And you're talking about suspension of disbelief, not dissonance.

no, I meant exactly what I said (suspension could happen inside the scene, if plot will require, for example, to give viewer/reader time to (re)think about "his"(= playing accomplice role in scene) possible next step, take a breath, main thing will be not to lose coherence; though technically, this is also one of intermediate results, not method)... but if find fault with words (take not literally), then disbelief will be elements within dissonance, that is, this is result that will precede it, disagreement with logic of what is happening, precarious position (what isn't necessarily result of loss coherence), this can be achieved by other methods, without affecting last one, and then everything will be even very good ("accomplice" by this time already will have connection with hero and question/main task will be in making both to have similar feelings, affect person through hero, which will prevent person from falling out of scene; if author was unable to "connect" them before, then exact opposite will happen).

In fact, it’s rather wild to discuss this, when “rail” quest system
- - - - -
player is had/forced to do this not because he/she wants/considers it necessary/right, but because devs have decided so, in exactly this order, everything is connected here, there is no way "searching", there are no mistakes, because devs aren't providing such, because stupid/lazy people complained about it too much and too long, so they're those who do "plot" now, who make choice, not players (and this is true not only for this aspect of the game)
- 23.03.2016 - (friend's quote)

Btw: plot was never bring to foreground before and therefore questions about its dominance over will of your character rarely appeared <url> | <url> But now it's imposing to you (main quest part is mandatory), like everything else in this expansion (yes, before it was like this too, but not so conspicuous, and clue is one - illogical plot, which is now also most key part (focus on solo passage)).

- - - - -
doesn't actually involve initiative of participant, and phasing/shards/scaling/breaks/stops (also in connection with player’s third-party activity) creates additional obstacles and style will really already stand last in such organization consistency (this already refers to technical part of coherence rather than stylistic). It will have fairly small chance of saving situation. This is not single player, it won’t really work like that, no matter how devs draw that in their heads.

sorry for offtopic
Having said “many”, I, of course, somehow exaggerated (looking with whom to compare here, it's relatively) but most of rest stuff is in topics about art and new vs old character models (there're couple more that aren't related to this, but I'm too lazy to look for). Not that it somehow offended me, no, also it’s not particularly important in principle, just to complete the picture. I assumed that somehow "notified" you by this (although, did everything possible for not to bother anyone again), but since that topic "faltered" there - you appeared here. I presume that wasn't lucky with that guess. So it goes.

[Gaebryel Quintyne]

They should have allowed our playable character to be in Teldrassil while it burned. To hear the screams of the night elves, to watch them burn in front of our eyes.

Well, you actually do hear the screams when you go there to save the few people left there to be saved. I still remember at the end of that scenario where Mia Greymane won't leave the night elves but Genn keeps insisting that she leaves with him and take the portal back to SW... And then Genn tells the night elf priestess something in terms of that they will be remembered or something like that I don't remember exactly. I felt that was pretty dark. That the night elves who were left there on the tree knew that they were going to die in the fire but couldn't do anything about it. I found it horrible seeing all that fire and hearing the burning flame and screams.

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We could. Didn't you play alliance side?



The real kicker is how, from then on, any time you try to take a Darnassus portal, you hear burning and screams for about 4 seconds before you get teleported to Darkshore.

You beat me to it lol. Yeah, I always dread taking that Darnassus portal only be ported back to Darkshore but those few seconds in between and hearing the flame burning and the screams... It gave me chills and made me feel nauseous a bit. Then again, I also find being deep underwater very scary (I have thalassophobia, which is fear of the deep underwater, not fear of thalassian elves lol).

[Powerogue]

Well, you actually do hear the screams when you go there to save the few people left there to be saved. I still remember at the end of that scenario where Mia Greymane won't leave the night elves but Genn keeps insisting that she leaves with him and take the portal back to SW... And then Genn tells the night elf priestess something in terms of that they will be remembered or something like that I don't remember exactly. I felt that was pretty dark. That the night elves who were left there on the tree knew that they were going to die in the fire but couldn't do anything about it. I found it horrible seeing all that fire and hearing the burning flame and screams.

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You beat me to it lol. Yeah, I always dread taking that Darnassus portal only be ported back to Darkshore but those few seconds in between and hearing the flame burning and the screams... It gave me chills and made me feel nauseous a bit. Then again, I also find being deep underwater very scary (I have thalassophobia, which is fear of the deep underwater, not fear of thalassian elves lol).

Yeah I've got that too. It definitely makes things like the hidden Nightmare mount where you have to paddle for ages into the infinite abyss of the fatigue water to find some super-hidden cave extra scary.

[Unholyground]

I kinda want to see some horrible shit happen to Thrall, maybe one of his kids dies, or his wife. Broken characters have more development.