Lore progression

[Talrath]

After all the lore problems, I would like to hear any feedback regarding lore which you want to give to blizzard.

Let me help with some brainstorming, ofcourse you can put in your answers.

- How do you want blizzard to tell lore in the future?
- Ingame only, from books, or both?
- How deep do you want the lore be told?
- Are you satisfied with the current lore, or do
you want it to be darker? More fantasy?
More realistic?
- Do you want your character to be the great
or take the mantle of the common soldier,
where you are representing a different
soldier all the time.
- etc etc.

- You can be even be very agressive and point the writers faults and say how you would have done it. Condition is that you start from WotlK and end with bfa. The burning of teldrassil happens, that is rock solid.

- Appoint a bettee writer, ofcourse you have to give validating reasons.


And lets go!

[Powerogue]

More consistently between mediums, and with enough "TL;DR" in game to understand what you missed. War of Thorns comes to mind as one that could have been done better in both departments, and Calia Menethil being one that's to be determined.

[mickybrighteyes]

More consistently between mediums, and with enough "TL;DR" in game to understand what you missed. War of Thorns comes to mind as one that could have been done better in both departments, and Calia Menethil being one that's to be determined.

quote for this.

Some versions of events that we the players see as we play the game are just outright wrong to a degree that we can't even use them for accurate reference. rastakhan's encounter comes to mind here with how the conversation changes based on faction you play (even though you're playing the same side per the encounter). Then there's the issue that some story details are completely offscreen (or only available to see under certain conditions like class/faction quests) and we are expected to fallow certain details that aren't present at times.

As for how they should convey the lore? they have to have in game presence as well as out of game material to supplement. As for depth? this can vary for whatever story is being told. Some details do need to be rather deep. Some of the world building aspects would need need some over the top dictionary/silmarillion level bullshit. But not every story would need that level of detail. Depth is something that would have to be relative to the individual story being told... Like are we talking Curse of Mistmantle levels? Or It's a Secret to Everyon depth? Not every story arc should be comparable to the details behind the Prestor family's actions in the human kingdoms, but such stories do need a lot of detail.

[allawyn]

Really, for me, they don't need to do any refining or something clever. They just need to have some concept of what the story means to the player.

I mean, they want Sylvanas to be the big baddie in Shadowlands? OK. What possesed them to do it by gutting Horde lore and making Horde players villians in their own story, in an unoriginal copy of Garrosh 1.0.

I mean, they have done nothing with the Horde except write them as villians, or mostly ignore them, since Cata. Even a mediocre attempt at anything else would have been big improvement.

[Flurryfang]

The first step towards better lore in WoW is just to accept, that you have to dedicate some quest-time to lore filled moments. They can be without any meaningful reward and just be for lore nerds. Save the time for the X.Y.5 patches, were you use time to catch the story up on as many fronts as possible, not just the main story. If Blizzard openly says, that X.Y.5 patches are the big lore dumps, people can take the time to enjoy it or just not care as a raid is still active.

I have tried it before, the act of making a quest is not hard. So making 20+ quests should not take a lot of work hours, especially when they have a lore team, which proberly have written all the quest text already for fun or beside the main story stuff. It would make the story complete within the game and make it able for players to fully understand the WoW lore, without having to find novels, short stories or even big freaking books on Amazon.

PS: Ohh and plan ahead when it comes to lore, and then stick with it. Have a plan for how the story will come out and make it match with the patches. Don't make one patch lore heavy and one completly empty. Split it out, have your lore people agree that it makes sense as a narrative and then connect it with the game development.

[Maljinwo]

The problem with wow writers is that they disregard past lore. They write "cool" moments even if a certain character or scenario doesn't really fit.

Between that and the insane amount of retcons we've been having lately, it feels that it's pointless to focus on the lore when what you know can be changed the next morning

[Rozz]

To utilize their massive cast. They did a decent job of this in Legion and in sections of BfA (usually war campaign related). If there is a threat, we don't need to see the same 5 faces. There are other characters we can grow to love more, without inventing more throwaways and exhausting familiar favorites.

[Syegfryed]

with coherence and consistency with previous lore, without using the rule of cool too much would be enough for me regardless if its on books or ingame

[Talrath]

Really, for me, they don't need to do any refining or something clever. They just need to have some concept of what the story means to the player.

I mean, they want Sylvanas to be the big baddie in Shadowlands? OK. What possesed them to do it by gutting Horde lore and making Horde players villians in their own story, in an unoriginal copy of Garrosh 1.0.

I mean, they have done nothing with the Horde except write them as villians, or mostly ignore them, since Cata. Even a mediocre attempt at anything else would have been big improvement.

Its true that they try to make the horde villains all the time. how do you think would be the best way to distance sylvanis from the horde? Sylvanis reeing out of the battle is to my opinion the most least exit you want.

- - - Updated - - -

More consistently between mediums, and with enough "TL;DR" in game to understand what you missed. War of Thorns comes to mind as one that could have been done better in both departments, and Calia Menethil being one that's to be determined.

I would have liked to experience the entire book in the game, with some cinematic ofcourse where sylvanis shoots the forsaken people.

- - - Updated - - -

quote for this.

Some versions of events that we the players see as we play the game are just outright wrong to a degree that we can't even use them for accurate reference. rastakhan's encounter comes to mind here with how the conversation changes based on faction you play (even though you're playing the same side per the encounter). Then there's the issue that some story details are completely offscreen (or only available to see under certain conditions like class/faction quests) and we are expected to fallow certain details that aren't present at times.

As for how they should convey the lore? they have to have in game presence as well as out of game material to supplement. As for depth? this can vary for whatever story is being told. Some details do need to be rather deep. Some of the world building aspects would need need some over the top dictionary/silmarillion level bullshit. But not every story would need that level of detail. Depth is something that would have to be relative to the individual story being told... Like are we talking Curse of Mistmantle levels? Or It's a Secret to Everyon depth? Not every story arc should be comparable to the details behind the Prestor family's actions in the human kingdoms, but such stories do need a lot of detail.

Do you think blizzard has the capability of writing a deep story or was that a thing from the past like their "the game is ready when its ready" thing. Because Prestor story was something that had alot of consequenses.

- - - Updated - - -

The first step towards better lore in WoW is just to accept, that you have to dedicate some quest-time to lore filled moments. They can be without any meaningful reward and just be for lore nerds. Save the time for the X.Y.5 patches, were you use time to catch the story up on as many fronts as possible, not just the main story. If Blizzard openly says, that X.Y.5 patches are the big lore dumps, people can take the time to enjoy it or just not care as a raid is still active.

That is actually a brilliant idea, this ensures that those that arent lore nerds can just skip it while the lore nerds can go full nerding.

- - - Updated - - -

The problem with wow writers is that they disregard past lore. They write "cool" moments even if a certain character or scenario doesn't really fit.

Between that and the insane amount of retcons we've been having lately, it feels that it's pointless to focus on the lore when what you know can be changed the next morning

Which retcon was the worst?

- - - Updated - - -

To utilize their massive cast. They did a decent job of this in Legion and in sections of BfA (usually war campaign related). If there is a threat, we don't need to see the same 5 faces. There are other characters we can grow to love more, without inventing more throwaways and exhausting familiar favorites.

I didnt really conncect to almost any cast except for Illidan and Fandral. Illidan had a motive, a goal and would do anything to accomplish his goals. He was loyal to his men and his men to him. To me, he was the best written character in WoW.

Second came Fandral, a typical strong general who broke into pieces when his son died. Eventually falling into the madnes of an old god. Which I find odd since, how can an old god corrupt him and how did he mistook xavius as his son. Anyway, Fandral tried many things for the benefate of the world but instead made mistakes.

These 2 characters truly had a good story, they felt real. Whereas any other character seems bland, unreal. I know that there is a massive cast, however I think it would have been a better story if they picked some characters to focus on mainstory while the other characters get a side story in a different patch which people can skip and just raid. This lore patch idea is from flurryfanflg. Props to him.

[Rozz]

I didnt really conncect to almost any cast except for Illidan and Fandral. Illidan had a motive, a goal and would do anything to accomplish his goals. He was loyal to his men and his men to him. To me, he was the best written character in WoW.

Second came Fandral, a typical strong general who broke into pieces when his son died. Eventually falling into the madnes of an old god. Which I find odd since, how can an old god corrupt him and how did he mistook xavius as his son. Anyway, Fandral tried many things for the benefate of the world but instead made mistakes.

These 2 characters truly had a good story, they felt real. Whereas any other character seems bland, unreal. I know that there is a massive cast, however I think it would have been a better story if they picked some characters to focus on mainstory while the other characters get a side story in a different patch which people can skip and just raid. This lore patch idea is from flurryfanflg. Props to him.

But Illidan and Fandral are examples of my suggestion. Use different characters where they make sense to, instead of forcing one character to fill every role. That way we don't have characters robbed of characterization they need and players can grow more endeared to them. As for which characters feel bland/realistic, I think that's entirely personal preference.

As for the patch idea, I don't think that's much different from what we have now. We already have an expansion main story cast, zone casts, and dungeon/raid casts. All three of those groups already fulfill this idea to some capacity each time new content is added (all they'd have to do is expand on lore a bit more). My complaint is that some characters belong in too many of these groups at once and for too long. We shouldn't have to sigh in relief to know Tyrande (a major character to a popular race) is going to be involved in the story after several missed opportunities. I don't like Tyrande, but it's probably because they jerk her around like a shoe string puppet.

[mickybrighteyes]

Do you think blizzard has the capability of writing a deep story or was that a thing from the past like their "the game is ready when its ready" thing. Because Prestor story was something that had alot of consequenses.

I wasn't aware the thread was hinging upon assuming the current staff on the job only.

[Razion]

Cut-scenes and cinematics have been a great vehicle to show recent major events, and I think that has worked out great lately - like, for the most part. Teldrassil and the Battle of Lordaeron especially remain huge talking points. I am a little sad there wasn't as much in the way of the beautiful Warlords style Warlord shorts there were before, because they're great to look at, but for more immediate interaction with other people being involved in lore conversations I understand things like Teldrassil and Undercity have been a lot more engaging for people overall.

Books like Chronicle and more specifically the cosmology chart especially above all have been gigantic boons for lore theory-crafters and people who really like to get involved in this kind of stuff. It's pretty great that the physical media in this case is so significant, because otherwise, like, historically, people didn't talk much for example about how crafty Garrosh was in Wolfheart. By comparison even normal players going about business in WoW have probably heard a lot about the cosmology chart by now. In terms of actually being engaged with physical media though, I personally found Chronicle pretty dense and hard to push through in terms of like, actually reading it. I much more enjoyed reading through the Sunwell Trilogy and Shadow Wing graphic novels. Those were fun, and I'd welcome more graphic novels like those. All of that is on the more serious side of lore, though. On the lighter side of lore, it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of lighthearted content out there to pursue. I'm not sure things like the mini-holidays have garnered nearly as much success as people were hoping for, but in contrast even the smallest updates to major holidays like Brewfest seem like they've been enjoyed more on a surface level, or at least that's the perception I'm getting. So, more major holiday support would be welcome.

[Garymorilix]

Have a certain number of characters be constant during the expansion. It worked very well with Khadgar.

The problem is, they can make as many Saurfang cinematics as they want, but if we don't interact with Saurfang in-game we won't have a connection.
Same with Sylvanas. They are barely present in the game.

The main problem with BfA's story was that it was about Sylvanas/Saurfang/Anduin for a year, and those characters barely if ever showed up in the actual game.
We got Nathanos, Shaw, Umbric, Talanji, Rokhan and all these were thrown aside at the end where they weren't even present (except maybe Shaw I don't remember).

Magni should have been a much more major character, but he's personality and motives are so one dimensional Blizz can't do anything with him.
He's popping up left and right, even in Nazjatar and no-one gives a shit about him.
The second boss from Uldir got more character developement than Magni got since Cataclysm.

What I want to see in Shadowlands is us following a small cast of main characters against a small cast of main antagonists. That way we can experience a flowing story instead of feeling like everything is disconnected and we just randomly teleport around the place.

[Ophenia]

- Stop time-limited QUESTLINES. Such as War of the Thorns (and in general, all pre-patch events).

- Summary of what happened out of the game. Or don't put important lore events outside of the game, at all

- If they want to go on with Faction-limited questlines such as in WoD, please introduce better the dungeons and raids for the other factions... As Horde I hated going into Tol Dagor, Nathanos tells me we're here to find someone, and in the end of the dungeon *poof* take your loots and gtfo. Did we succeed ? Who was that ? Why ? Same goes for Shrine, where Rexxar was apparently looking for a pearl. He got that and thanks, cya later, no idea what this shit was, and nothing at the beginning of the dungeon gave us a hint of why we were here at all.
All this seemed to be important (Tol Dagor's prisoner being Ashvane) or band-aid quests to give us a reason to be here (Rexxar's pearl ? Was it used at all afterward ?). That would have been easier to understand if they had just the PC be transmogged into the other factions and given a small summary by whatever NPC at the entrance of the dungeon.
Most of World Quests on the other faction's zone don't make sense either.

- Use main characters better than that... Tyrande and Malfurion being completely away while Illidan's redemption was the main focus, Illidan, Velen, Magni and Khadgar being absent during the fight against Argus even though they're here in the ending cinematic, Velen being mostly AFK-Vindicaar during the whole Argus patch... Will Lor'themar be used one day ?

[Mic_128]

Just stop fucking retconning everything!

[Piamonte]

yeah consistency between different mediums is the main problem of the game´s lore right know in my opinion.

[Vargrik]

But Illidan and Fandral are examples of my suggestion. Use different characters where they make sense to, instead of forcing one character to fill every role. That way we don't have characters robbed of characterization they need and players can grow more endeared to them. As for which characters feel bland/realistic, I think that's entirely personal preference.

As for the patch idea, I don't think that's much different from what we have now. We already have an expansion main story cast, zone casts, and dungeon/raid casts. All three of those groups already fulfill this idea to some capacity each time new content is added (all they'd have to do is expand on lore a bit more). My complaint is that some characters belong in too many of these groups at once and for too long. We shouldn't have to sigh in relief to know Tyrande (a major character to a popular race) is going to be involved in the story after several missed opportunities. I don't like Tyrande, but it's probably because they jerk her around like a shoe string puppet.

To be honest, I think WoW has many great characters. Tragic, selfless, cunning characters, for all tastes hehe. I really think the problem is the decisions Blizzard and the writers took for many of them.

[Aucald]

I don't personally have an issue with WoW's lore, which is a long and sprawling thing that has covered story-arcs I like as well as story-arcs I'm not so enamored of. Like any long-running series (be it TV or book) there are ups and downs with the story. But if I were to give some ideas on how want to "improve" the lore of WoW I'd offer the following guidelines, most of which are subjective to me and may not be anyone else's cup of tea:

1.) Focus on continuity - avoid explicit retcons, and take a long-term view about what any given story-arc might mean in the future.

2.) Keep the Horde/Alliance conflict as a background component and don't dwell on it overly in the main narrative(s).

3.) Don't get too heavy or grim/dark. WoW shines as a more fantastical lighthearted story, it doesn't need constant grimness or grit to be good. It's fine to indulge in that from time to time, but it shouldn't be overwhelming or permanent.

4.) Don't go too crazy with the "rule of cool" set-pieces. Keep it internally realistic as much as possible.

Those would be my basic pillars, in any case.

[Unholyground]

All lore pertaining the character development and motives that is not in the game but has a direct effect to the player experienced in game lore should be in the game, they should not and cannot expect everyone to be happy when they pull a Sylvanas and have all her lore tied to books, that is not only poor story telling it is very poor game design.

[AcidicSyn]

To utilize their massive cast. They did a decent job of this in Legion and in sections of BfA (usually war campaign related). If there is a threat, we don't need to see the same 5 faces. There are other characters we can grow to love more, without inventing more throwaways and exhausting familiar favorites.

This, but then also allow those characters to become ingrained in the story. Nazgrim is a great example of this. Sure, he's back as a DK but what is he to the story now? I loved his whole arc from Cata through to MoP. Fighting along side of him and watching him grow through the ranks. More characters like this are needed.


And of course, echoing so many others: consistency in writing. I'd prefer the "rule of cool" be locked away in favor of consistent writing. Ditto on the overuse of retcons. Best example being Wrathgate. The only reason I can imagine for retconning it to be something Sylvanas not only was aware of, but ordered herself is inventing some more reasons for horde to turn on her. So they generated these reasons at the cost of her characters development during a time when she was a far more interesting character? dumb move imo.