Quick thoughts about two sentences

[uikolertekopoku]

Interview:


Expansion philosophy now doesn't limit a story to one expansion.


and another

Ion talks about the disappointment some felt for N'Zoth's end, but at the end of the day we are the heroes of the story and we will always defeat villains and make way for new villains to enter.


What do you think about that we will allways win, and every villain will in the end loose so or so... doesn't matter how big strong or how big of an threat the biggest king of jailers is.... you are the hero! you will win..

How can you make a good story, or interesting villains when you know it doesn't matter what or she does you will win in the end.

And what you think about the Expansion philosophy?

[FelPlague]

Interview:


Expansion philosophy now doesn't limit a story to one expansion.


and another

Ion talks about the disappointment some felt for N'Zoth's end, but at the end of the day we are the heroes of the story and we will always defeat villains and make way for new villains to enter.


What do you think about that we will allways win, and every villain will in the end loose so or so... doesn't matter how big strong or how big of an threat the biggest king of jailers is.... you are the hero! you will win..

How can you make a good story, or interesting villains when you know it doesn't matter what or she does you will win in the end.

And what you think about the Expansion philosophy?

Well its lame, but thats how video games work.

It fucking sucks when the villian wins, in books and movies and video games, it feels shitty, it feels great when the bad guy is beat.
well in books and movies and stuff, sometimes the villian kills a hero, but is taken out by another, this is usually a good way to show the defeat of the heros, but the villian still loses in the end.

however in video games its hard to do this, in RPG's and stuff you can have some party members die, or some long term charecters pass away, but you can never really have the main charecter die, well unless you wish for it to be an end to the series, or end of the game, or swap to a new charecter, but sadly in an mmo you cant do that.

look to pokemon, they get away with it just fine, every single game you beat the villian it is difficult and you retire. however in the next game the story begins all again, because you are a new charecter. however in the recent game sword/shield they added expansions which shows the issue.
"I am literally the champion, why the heck am i doing all this, why are these a problem, i am literally the champion"

Swtor kinda did this well actually, in one of the recent expansions they had you "die" you were frozen for 5 years, all your party members who you became friends with or lovers with left you thinking you were dead, only to return years later and slowly save the new changed universe and find them bringing them back to your party, the villian won, well until you woke up and kicked their ass again. but for a fair few years in the game and in real life, the villian had won. however that takes a HEAVY depth into story, you can look to swtors fourms from back then, many people were upset that until the later expansion came out finishing up the story, they were left with a clifthanger of "the villian won" and if that was wow? that woulda been HUGE

while i would love to have villians win, and us have to move through multiple expansions before dealing with them, the community cannot handle that, look to the people already angry that sylvanas did not die, this seems to be their first attempt at it, as garrosh did expand to another expansion, but issue is he died in a quest...
so sylvanas really could be this, she won (sorta) and now we gotta go get our revenge and kill her in a future expansion.


so why? well cause the playerbase woudl flip their shit if we were told "alright welp, you lost, time to pay us another 60$ and wait 2 years if you want to finish them off!" and also because in a continual game, it is impossible to have your player right out die, or swap charecters like they could in an episodic game series (as in a game where every game starts you with a new charecter)

[Better]

Neither statement is inherently a problem.

The problem I have with the first is it often feels like they aren't trying to let a story span multiple expansions, but rather dropping a story, and maybe they'll pick it up, maybe the story is dead forever with no real ending.

As for the hero line, it's correct. Making a raid where the players lose probably wouldn't feel too good. But the problem with N'Zoth isn't that we won. It's that it didn't really feel earned in any way. He was built up as super powerful, and clever, but unfortunately didn't really feel it in game. All he really did was minorly terraformed two zones. We didn't give him the chance to breathe as a villain, so all the build up of releasing him, and we just kinda stomp him as soon as he gets freed with a big laser.

Imagine if we dealt with the Lich King in 3.0. It just wouldn't feel that good, yeah his minions did some stuff in the dungeons, but him being a recurring background figure that showed up from time to time to ruin our days is part of what made him a memorable villain (it helps that he had WC3 behind him too), as well as the fact that we couldn't just instantly storm his halls as soon as he became a threat.

[Varodoc]

I mean... that's literally what happens in 99% of the stories? I can't think of any franchise in which the villain ultimately wins, or at least any popular franchise.

And besides this has always been the formula in Warcraft. Yes, even in The Frozen Throne, because Arthas was the hero/protagonist that you were playing, and he won at the end. TFT didn't end with the antagonist Kil'jaeden and Illidan blowing up the Frozen Throne.

[Goradan]

Sometimes the villain has to win. Having the hero win all the time makes the feeling of danger become trivial.

[ParanoiD84]

Sometimes the villain has to win. Having the hero win all the time makes the feeling of danger become trivial.

Yeah feel the same.

[Biomega]

This is the same problem a lot of books or movies or TV series have, too - it's hard to create tension and stakes when it's pretty clear the main character(s) aren't really ever in any danger of dying. That's part of what made GoT so appealing. But think about Star Trek or whatever, no matter what happens you KNOW the ship isn't going to blow up, the captain isn't going to just die, and the universe isn't going to implode. It doesn't matter how big the threat is, some things will just never happen.

I feel they could do more with failure states in WoW personally, but ultimately I think it's just become way too safe and middle-of-the-road in terms of storytelling for something truly drastic to occur.

[A Chozo]

Can't have simples stories like Warcraft's or Dragon Ball's with deviations of that norm. Good guys fight the bad guys and that's it. That must be it, otherwise people don't feel satisfaction. Playerman gotta win in the end. We get setbacks, like Sylvanas fleeing almost unscathed and defeating Lich Kings with ease, but in the end? We defeat the villain. That satisfaction must exist.

And that's ok. That's the story of WoW. Gotta make peace with it, because they won't change that proposal just because it's old.

Otherwise they'll just shit the story by trying to "subvert expectations" and then we'll get another Last of Us 2-tier plot, where you lose just... because.

[Schattenlied]

doesn't matter how big strong or how big of an threat the biggest king of jailers is.... you are the hero! you will win..

How can you make a good story, or interesting villains when you know it doesn't matter what or she does you will win in the end.

It's literally always been this way, since day 1, we have never "lost" to the big bad... Ion putting words to it doesn't make it more true than it used to be, it has simply always been like this.

In other words, nothing has changed.

[Omedon]

Interview:


Expansion philosophy now doesn't limit a story to one expansion.


and another

Ion talks about the disappointment some felt for N'Zoth's end, but at the end of the day we are the heroes of the story and we will always defeat villains and make way for new villains to enter.


What do you think about that we will allways win, and every villain will in the end loose so or so... doesn't matter how big strong or how big of an threat the biggest king of jailers is.... you are the hero! you will win..

How can you make a good story, or interesting villains when you know it doesn't matter what or she does you will win in the end.

And what you think about the Expansion philosophy?

We are not and can not be given enough story choices to actually capital-L lose and have it be a story worth playing through as players.

An anecdote to show my point:

When I was a young and new Dungeon Master, 25 years ago, I DMed my players through a storyline that I had decided early on they would "lose and learn a harsh lesson" when it was discovered that they'd been tricked into letting the blood war (war of demons and devils that wrecks entire planes) spill into their reality. There was no way to stop it, the next chapter of the story I had long since planned revolved around this moment of "A-HA! The only path I let you walk was WRONG," and so, the next chapter was demons and other higher level stuff.

That was the first, last and only time I did something that made my players less enthusiastic for the next session, for the one learning the harsh lesson was me. That was not fair of me, and I've never done something like that since without it coming through actual victory, such as "you killed the big, long-hated boss, but the bounty hunter who wanted that kill is the next big bad!"

WoW is that DM. They've planned the next few chapters, and they must emerge through victory, not defeat, because like those players who dwindled from my tabletop game... WoW is not entitled to our patronage in the next chapter. Yes, I know, people threaten to quit over systems and mechanical "game-level stuff" all the time, but that betrayal of trust of "tell me a heroic story" is not something WoW can really do and have stick. The closest they've come have been all the morale-hit moments like Theramore, Teldrassil and Undercity, but again, those are someone's victory (and don't get me started on that) and merely a battle in the great war. This is also why any potential faction mechanical change has to be presented as a victory, not a defeat to either side... and why BFA was a "now or never" moment in a great many ways. But that's another thread entirely.

In short... because WoW deciding "you guys lost this time" is just that, an arbitrary decision, not something we chose to walk into... because we can't be given those choices in this genre of game.

[Soon-TM]

Sometimes the villain has to win. Having the hero win all the time makes the feeling of danger become trivial.

Indeed. If villains are to be taken seriously, they have to win at least a couple of times. Arthas benefitted a lot from the ending of TFT, when he won, even if he was clearly the bad guy (and yes, he was, us playing as him didn't change that an iota).

[Varodoc]

Why are people acting like Sylvanas somehow won in BfA? She lost, she even admits that. She laments how the war ended prematurely. In truth it was Sylvanas who was setback.

[Kumorii]

Not sure how anyone can think it will end differently in 15 years. We will defeat raid bosses because that's how raids work. I wouldn't mind if we lost when we "defeat" an end boss for us to recuperate and take him/her next time. Think people would whine about then reusing endbosses back to back tho.

[Accendor]

I mean... that's literally what happens in 99% of the stories? I can't think of any franchise in which the villain ultimately wins, or at least any popular franchise.

Ignoring the last season, GoT literally was this.


GoT Spoilers ahead (a lot of them):

The "bad" guys won more often than not. Sure, at some point they were defeated, but that is just the nature of things.
Look how long Joffrey was on the throne (even tho he himself did not much to earn that).
The White Walkers literally won every single confrontation they had with the main characters, including epic battles like Hardhome and the Siege of the Wall. They even killed a Dragon. And even in the end, when all "good" parties united against them, they would have won if not for Arya sneaking up and oneshotting the endboss which also killed all henchman.

Now don't get me wrong, I KNOW that many people hated the fact that Arya got the killing Blow, that Jon was basically useless the whole fight etc. I get that and I agree. But the thing is, nobody was upset about the fact, that the good guys won in the end, just because of HOW they won. There were enough setbacks, enough losses that winning this fight felt earned and deserved.

A better example might have even been Ramsey. For all his flaws, all the wins that he accumulated (which were A LOT) were a logical conclusion of everyones decisions. He was an asshole till the end and he was winning till the end and only lost because he really, really did not expect the Knights of the Vale to come here. Even when it was clear that he will lose, he STILL got another killing blow on a fan favorite character and the moment when Jon pummeled his face felt awesome.
In the end, Sansa got the killing blow and it felt good AGAIN.
Yes, I understand that also many people had problems with some specifics of those episodes (why did Sansa not tell Jon about the Knights coming, why did Rickon run in a straight line, wtf was this with the wall of bodies blocking the retreat path, was Sansa killing Ramsey really in character?), but basically nobody complained that the "good" guys won here in the end. In fact, it is almost universally agreed that the moment when Jon punched Ramseys face in, was one of - if not the most - satisfying moments and payoffs in the whole series.

Now lets compare this to N'Zoth, shall we?
So... I get that we were manipulated to collect Azerite and bring it to the Eternal Palace to free him. The problem is, we literally knew that since the Emerald Nightmare, so that kinda ruined the surprise there. We also massively decimated Ashzaras Armies and Followers. Even if Nzoth got freed, we still eliminated a powerful enemy that we would have had to deal with at some point either way.
Then the 8.3 questlines followed and I was waiting for the point where Nzoth would actually do something relevant. I still remember that one quest in Uldum where you got send on a scouting mission with a plane, fly back to the main hub and realize that it was been swarmed by Silithids, so you start bombing the shit out of them, only to realize later that Nzoth fucked with your mind and you just killed many of your allies.
THAT QUEST WAS AWESOME. In fact, in my opinion, it was the best quest in all of BfA.
However, after that Nzoth did nothing of relevance anymore. He locked himself up somewhere and basically waited. We never interacted with him or his henchman again, he never got to do anything relevant anymore and when we killed him, it was like "welp, ok"
On the other hand, imagine if the horrific visions would not have been VISIONS. Imagine if over the course of 2-3 months Orgrimmar and Stormwind would have actually FALLEN to his corruption from within. All the damn mechanics could have stayed the same, maybe change some of the bosses so that we do not kill Thrall and Alleria and Shawn and... etc, but lets be honest here, actually losing e.g. Rexxar and Alleria or Shaw as well as many citizens of our two biggest cities would have made be payoff of actually killing Nzoth in the end much, much higher.
However, that is just an idea of course, I am pretty sure a professional development studio can come up with something better.

[Varodoc]

Ignoring the last season, GoT literally was this.


GoT Spoilers ahead (a lot of them):

The "bad" guys won more often than not. Sure, at some point they were defeated, but that is just the nature of things.
Look how long Joffrey was on the throne (even tho he himself did not much to earn that).
The White Walkers literally won every single confrontation they had with the main characters, including epic battles like Hardhome and the Siege of the Wall. They even killed a Dragon. And even in the end, when all "good" parties united against them, they would have won if not for Arya sneaking up and oneshotting the endboss which also killed all henchman.

You have to ignore the last season because otherwise all villains lost, thus proving my point right. It's irrelevant to talk about a show while ignoring the final season, thank you, of course if you remove 100% of the ending then the villains didn't lose that much.

[Verdugo]

You have to ignore the last season because otherwise all villains lost,

And it is widely considered the shittiest session.

[Super Dickmann]

The villain usually loses at the end, but the villain winning on the way instead of being foiled at every turn separates a credible antagonist from a joke. As does the villain's defeat having any kind of cost whatsoever. WoW fails spectacularly at this more often than not. It's why the Broken Shore was a bit of fresh air though an opportunity they blew soon after since it was the high point of the Legion's competence.

[Mehrunes]

Well its lame, but thats how video games work.

It fucking sucks when the villian wins, in books and movies and video games, it feels shitty, it feels great when the bad guy is beat.
well in books and movies and stuff, sometimes the villian kills a hero, but is taken out by another, this is usually a good way to show the defeat of the heros, but the villian still loses in the end.

Even the last pre-WoW Warcraft game ended with the bad guy winning.

[Arrashi]

The core issue is that blizzard is incapable of writing villains with diffrent motive/goal than "I want to destroy the world".
From burning legion to arthas, from deathwing to garrosh, they all had same goal - kill as many innocents as possible and destroy the world, and that sucks because in that case they can't win without either ending the franchise or leading to reboot.

[Arrashi]

We win. Lore characters don't always, that's where the story matters

- - - Updated - - -



BC : Illidan = wants to create an army against the Legion, uses underhanded/ morally bad tactics, Kil'jaden = is part of the Legion, simply doing his master's bidding
Wrath : Lich King = wants to unify azeroth as scourge to resist the Legion/ external threats
Cata : Deathwing = wants to destroy azeroth and her people's for the Old Gods
MoP : Garrosh = wants to destroy the alliance/ most of the Horde to establish his true horde and rule the world his way
WoD : Grommash = wants to create an orcish army to conquer countless worlds, Archimonde = same as Kil'jaden
Legion : Gul'dan = wants to bring sargeras to azeroth, Sargeras = wants to create one uniform force against the void lords
BFA : Sylvanas = wants to kill as many as she can, Azshara = we don't know her full plans yet, but she wanted to get out from N'zoths grip, N'zoth = Old God shit

So, turns out villains don't just want to destroy the world

Oh they just want to achieve their goals by destroying the world because thats the only plan they can come up with. So they want to destroy the world and then do...something.