I think I've finally totally lost interest in Warcraft, because of it's story

[ravenmoon]

I was thinking of shadowlands, and how I just seemed much less interested in it.. and wondered to myself why?

It's fantasy, it's an ethereal realm, it should be engaging and exciting , not only to explore but for stories etc... and then I realised, from a story point of view, Warcraft's world mmo is very poor at telling these sort of stories and what has come before is so incohesive, I'm more interested in resolving the issues and squabbles or seeing the progression of races, than exploring the ethereal after realm.

Don't get me wrong, a new realm is or rather can be an exciting premise, but as an interesting lore thin, there are way too many details and set up to make it polished enough to swallow.. furthermore, It's really become the adventures of the Warcraft legends...i.e. the Slvannas', Anduins, Thralls, Jainas, Malfurion's etc etc with me (the adventurer) tagging along for the experience as assistant.

To me, the story of the races is so poorly developed and presented, I don't have closure or satisfaction on them at all, and I really want more of that stuff first to be ironed out properly before I start tackling a new and wonderful realm. Everything seems to go from more ridiculous to more preposterous with no end in sight. no desire to rein it in, to flesh it out and even it out.. even the stories in the books offer no closure, they are just jargon to set up the new stuff for a game experience that barely gets away with telling something cohesive.


I keep wondering how games like Final Fantasy XIV, SWTOR, TESO, GW2 all somehow manage to tell their stories better, a lot better than wow, even when their presentations sometimes suck.. but then , only in wow do I feel the story is more of an after thought or secondary consideration meant to fuel the latest gimmick to try out than it is a dynamic part of the world and show they are trying to present.

It's like the story is advertising campaign for the toy.. except this one isn't told very well.


I have put up with it for years, but I must admit, I just don't have any interest any longer. Why should I have to always make up or come up with explanations to explain the many holes we have.. I know @Aucald is probably the best at doing this, and it can be fun though to use your imagination to see how certain things work without direct evidence or depth.

But one of the greatest faults of the creative team is ZERO community engagement, they could actually be aware of all the holes, or controversies, blank filling ins we wrestle with and argue over and actually do things both in game, via statements and in books that actually resolve a lot of these things or set the record straight which can help us.

We've offered many suggestions along the years to boost more lore engagement and presentation, even in game that is a necessary part of smoothing this thing out. Changes and controversies with discontinuities that are too much for most people to be expected to try and fill... we needed them to step in and do more than just leave it up to our imagination.

I can't continue to be so attached to lore that constantly changes, had no continuity, and is basically a stand alone volume with every expansion, and essentially begins to be retconned as the new one lands - it just tells me the story is for flavour for the action.. and I'm not that interested in the entire project.

Warcraft could work as an excellent fantasy, it has all the trappings and it has tried to be, it has had good stories before, and has had consistent lore before, - i got into the story as much as the game, but all those lovely sceneries and attachable characters I play mean little to nothing when their story or the information I have about them that gets me into them constantly changes all the time, they are just for cosmetics and those cosmetics hate to break it to you Warcraft, are not that great.. it's the package that was great, looks and meaning..

I think I've just gotten tired of bothering.

Not seen much in shadowlands that gets me excited about Warcraft at all, I wonder what new players think. I am willing to bet/guess, the story or the tale mean little to nothing to them,

[Baconeggcheese]

Blizzards definitely not the company if you want really strong storytelling. There's some cool stuff in there but its always been the "gameplay first" approach. If you'd been holding your breath this entire time for decades of consistency to change then yeah... might be time to move on.

[TheFirstOnes]

I have many issues with Warcraft's story, but there's 1 reason why I think the story's gone to shit, and I assume many people think the same way, but they just can't put their fingers on it:

The story's WAY too big now.

It was fine when the Players could push back the Legion, or maybe defeat the Old Gods in their prisons. However...

The First Ones, multiple Cosmic Pantheons, guys that are capable of ending the entire verse? Really? Wanna know why BFA went to shit? It's because the story became so big in the Cosmic side of things, that smaller stories such as the Alliance and Horde conflict are all forgotten as soon as they're told. Hell, BFA became an Old God expac mid way because of how bland the Alliance Vs Horde war felt. Especially since we literally smacked the Legion in the face with these powerful ass Artifacts, etc.

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Blizzards definitely not the company if you want really strong storytelling. There's some cool stuff in there but its always been the "gameplay first" approach. If you'd been holding your breath this entire time for decades of consistency to change then yeah... might be time to move on.

"It's always been gameplay first"

They must be total dogshit at that department, then, cause Legion and BFA had so much shit gameplay design, it's actually insane. Not to mention just how forgotten WoD was, and how half-assed SL feels atm (Luckily, 9.1's gonna actually finish the half assed shit such as the Maw, and Torghast...I hope, but that's not the point of my argument. Should've finished this shit since launch).

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And note that I love Shadowlands. However, there are issues.

[cparle87]

Ravenmoon thread. I don't even have to read to know. Not enough night elves doing badass stuff, too many bad things happening to night elves.

[Unlimited Power]

Blizzard has repeatedly stated that they favor gameplay over lore, so I can't quite fathom why anyone would choose to play WoW primarily because they're interested in lore.

Lore in WoW only really exists to support gameplay. There's frankly little reason why the Maw Walker should have to choose a covenant and not be equally engaged with all of them.

[Morssoe]

I feel like I only play wow cause I want to know how current story/characters develops. Even raiding feels pointless cause character progress is badly designed imo.

[Seranthor]

.

There is no shame in reaching the realization that Wow might not be for you any longer and unsubbing and moving on. Millions have done it. If you are this unhappy I strongly encourage you to join them. Blizzard understand money, hit them in the wallet.

[ravenmoon]

Blizzards definitely not the company if you want really strong storytelling. There's some cool stuff in there but its always been the "gameplay first" approach. If you'd been holding your breath this entire time for decades of consistency to change then yeah... might be time to move on.

I really tried dude, the aesthetics, vibe, background the way they diversified this world, Iw as so amazed, the races all seemed to be interesting diverse, giving me more depth than every other fantasy that had those involved.

They had a level of seriousness and levity to them, something that was missing from the more polished Warhammer that was way too grim for me.. basically warcraft had potential, but they never really fleshed it out in the game, and never managed to get their books to tell cohesive or good stories that made the world seem more real.

Notice how the books seem to almost describe the game world, which is at best an approximation, it's silly to try and imagine the game world is a 1:1 reflection of how things should be, given that it's scope and size isn't even close to matching anything close to real enough for relatable story.

But rather than make the game compliment a grander story due to its limitation, it is the main vehicle of the franchise for telling it's story but refuses to invest in it properly - you can tell by the personnel they hire and what they invest in it. Basically for music, art, systems, programming they hire people and commission others that are some of the best in the industry world wide, complimenting their local staff some of whom have grown into some of the best in the business, not for story though, it's not to say they didn't have talent, quite the contrary, they just didn't invest in it, nor prioritise it or make it a legitimate valuable part of building a world


The funny thing about warcraft is that it's greatest asset and appeal of its theme and premise is it's fantasy, and yet that's the one that is just miles behind everyone lese.

I have already moved on, but this time feels different, I think for the first time, I don't think I'm ever coming back, at least for the first time I can honestly say, i really don't care anymore, it's weird, or hard to explain, - it's just not enough , I mean, it's not like i wasn't aware of all the issues etc, but it didn't seem to matter to me, and i kept on getting involved and engaged, that spark ahs gone.

[ONCHEhap]

Blizzards definitely not the company if you want really strong storytelling. There's some cool stuff in there but its always been the "gameplay first" approach. If you'd been holding your breath this entire time for decades of consistency to change then yeah... might be time to move on.

Blizzard used to be actually decent at telling the story of a world instead of key characters.
World building in the first two WoW expansions was genuinely really good,and their previous games had similar quality in their storytelling

The issues started to arise when they switched to a "superhero" style of storytelling,with every beat of the story revolving around one or several characters. Not only are they worse at doing that,their characters also simply aren't that compelling.
Things got even worse since Danuser became lead narrative designer in 2015. This guy is an actual hack who doesn't have the skills to lead such a story. The story was already off before he got there,but things became awfully Sylvanas focused afterwards

[Baconeggcheese]

They must be total dogshit at that department, then, cause Legion and BFA had so much shit gameplay design, it's actually insane. Not to mention just how forgotten WoD was, and how half-assed SL feels atm (Luckily, 9.1's gonna actually finish the half assed shit such as the Maw, and Torghast...I hope, but that's not the point of my argument. Should've finished this shit since launch).

You're confusing systems design with gameplay.

But anyway "gameplay first" has always been one of their pillars: https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/

I have already moved on, but this time feels different, I think for the first time, I don't think I'm ever coming back, at least for the first time I can honestly say, i really don't care anymore, it's weird, or hard to explain, - it's just not enough , I mean, it's not like i wasn't aware of all the issues etc, but it didn't seem to matter to me, and i kept on getting involved and engaged, that spark ahs gone.

The one thing I think a lot of players don't realize is that you don't have to wholly commit yourself to a game and its completely fine to drop it and then come back to it later. For some reason you see this consistent trend where they feel games need to be so robust that it is the only thing they ever play. This is especially true for wow players.

I absolutely hated what they did with class and systems design in legion. I was burning out hard by the end of the xpac but stuck it out hoping BFA would improve. BFA doubled down on legions bad, and I burned out and quit.

I didn't touch the game for the rest of the xpac, it was pretty much entirely off my radar for nearly 2 years. And that was fine, when shadowlands came out I picked it up again and now I'm enjoying it. Its not a commitment that you have to care or not care about. Its a game, you can drop it completely and then if you feel like it pick it up again later.

Its not like you're in a relationship with the game.

[Nerovar]

I have already moved on, but this time feels different, I think for the first time, I don't think I'm ever coming back, at least for the first time I can honestly say, i really don't care anymore, it's weird, or hard to explain, - it's just not enough , I mean, it's not like i wasn't aware of all the issues etc, but it didn't seem to matter to me, and i kept on getting involved and engaged, that spark ahs gone.

I can very much relate to this. I think for some of us Warcraft just moved too far away from its roots. WoW pretty much steamrolled through the entire setting until there wasn't much left to see so now they're at a point where they make up stories that are less and less connected to the familiar old stories and themes people cared about.

[McNeil]

I don’t think we had any expansion where people where this much disinterested in the story before. I do agree that it’s been a huge flaw. Warcraft story has never really been that great, but now it just feels like its ran its course and what we see now is whatever they can possibly come up with. I don’t play the game for the story at least, there are other games which do it way better.

[ravenmoon]

I have many issues with Warcraft's story, but there's 1 reason why I think the story's gone to shit, and I assume many people think the same way, but they just can't put their fingers on it:

The story's WAY too big now.

It was fine when the Players could push back the Legion, or maybe defeat the Old Gods in their prisons. However...

The First Ones, multiple Cosmic Pantheons, guys that are capable of ending the entire verse? Really? Wanna know why BFA went to shit? It's because the story became so big in the Cosmic side of things, that smaller stories such as the Alliance and Horde conflict are all forgotten as soon as they're told. Hell, BFA became an Old God expac mid way because of how bland the Alliance Vs Horde war felt. Especially since we literally smacked the Legion in the face with these powerful ass Artifacts, etc.

I can definitely identify here, and whiles I'm a lover of depth, volume and detail, when I like something, love to know more, love to read up every detail on it etc.. but this seems to have gone way way OTT, it's super convoluted, seems to clash a lot, and just seems more preposterous.


Still I emphasise I'm not averse to big ideas, but big ideas require big brains and skilled hands to flesh em out properly, they need to be, and if you're not wiling to invest the time properly in the entire story telling process to handle the massiveness of your scope and how out there it is, bringing it down for us mere mortals to digest, then it's going to go over our heads and feel like a lot of nonsense and poorly done one at that.

Sad thing is, even the down to earth stuff like the characters they use, their story is very poor, all over the place, it seems to change direction all the time, shifting almost as much as player opinion on reddit shifts, like they can't decide what to do with the characters and rely on opinions on twitter and reddit to determine what to do.. this has been the case since Illidan in Legion, it has affected the destinies of Sylvanas, Baine, Anduin, Tyrande the list goes on, you can't write a story based on popular opinion.

But then, if you can't tell a cohesive story in a unit like back in the old days with the RTS maybe you shouldn't try. Can you imagine if WC3 story was told in World of Warcraft? we would never have got the finale we got, the uproar when Quel'thalas was destroyed would have finished everything for starters, or Arthas turning traitor.. and no, it doesn't work with Anduin, it just doesn't... but i think that path, like Xe'ra and so many others, including Sylvanas and Baine all happened because of player outcry, that's no way to tell a story, changing it mid way constantly with very poor continuity.

[Lanscelot]

I have many issues with Warcraft's story, but there's 1 reason why I think the story's gone to shit, and I assume many people think the same way, but they just can't put their fingers on it:

The story's WAY too big now.

It was fine when the Players could push back the Legion, or maybe defeat the Old Gods in their prisons. However...

The First Ones, multiple Cosmic Pantheons, guys that are capable of ending the entire verse? Really? Wanna know why BFA went to shit? It's because the story became so big in the Cosmic side of things, that smaller stories such as the Alliance and Horde conflict are all forgotten as soon as they're told. Hell, BFA became an Old God expac mid way because of how bland the Alliance Vs Horde war felt. Especially since we literally smacked the Legion in the face with these powerful ass Artifacts, etc.

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"It's always been gameplay first"

They must be total dogshit at that department, then, cause Legion and BFA had so much shit gameplay design, it's actually insane. Not to mention just how forgotten WoD was, and how half-assed SL feels atm (Luckily, 9.1's gonna actually finish the half assed shit such as the Maw, and Torghast...I hope, but that's not the point of my argument. Should've finished this shit since launch).

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And note that I love Shadowlands. However, there are issues.

Dude, thats it! I totally agree with you!!!!

[MatPandaZ]

Go watch a movie or read a book if you want top notch writing and story development. There aren't really any stories that release a new book/movie every 6 months for 15+ years that are any good. It's a story with no end. Just look at most long running anime, it's the same shit with power level increased... or meaningless soap like drama repeated again and again. When there is no end to a story it's never really going to be amazing and engaging for 20 years.

[ravenmoon]

You're confusing systems design with gameplay.

But anyway "gameplay first" has always been one of their pillars: https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/



The one thing I think a lot of players don't realize is that you don't have to wholly commit yourself to a game and its completely fine to drop it and then come back to it later. For some reason you see this consistent trend where they feel games need to be so robust that it is the only thing they ever play. This is especially true for wow players.

I absolutely hated what they did with class and systems design in legion. I was burning out hard by the end of the xpac but stuck it out hoping BFA would improve. BFA doubled down on legions bad, and I burned out and quit.

I didn't touch the game for the rest of the xpac, it was pretty much entirely off my radar for nearly 2 years. And that was fine, when shadowlands came out I picked it up again and now I'm enjoying it. Its not a commitment that you have to care or not care about. Its a game, you can drop it completely and then if you feel like it pick it up again later.

Its not like you're in a relationship with the game.

It's a fair point you make, but I'm one of those "all in" kinda guys, if i come out, I totally break off, then if I come back at a later date, I go all in - obsessive personality type? I can't seem to do it in part measure.. but I can understand it, you just come online for the things you enjoy, a little at a time and go away.

I think I shifted to that mode in wow around BFA, but find myself having totally dropped it

[Nitrax]

I think it just suffers from having to increase the power of players/enemies in every expansion. I have the same problem with anime, if it's a long series it usually starts out pretty nice, with heroic characters, then it progresses to epic robots, still fine.. but after 2/3 of the season they move on to metaphysics and planet sized ninja robots. I feel that this is were WoW is now and have been for a while.

Also storywise, the whole imprisonment of our leaders is really a downer for me. I mean they were always epic save-the-world untouchable heroes, and there they are "getting caught" over and over again. If only it was the players heroism that managed to save them from the maw, but apparently we can just travel the maw because of some fluke and they could as well just put a taxi sign on our head.

[Baconeggcheese]

It's a fair point you make, but I'm one of those "all in" kinda guys, if i come out, I totally break off, then if I come back at a later date, I go all in - obsessive personality type? I can't seem to do it in part measure.. but I can understand it, you just come online for the things you enjoy, a little at a time and go away.

I think I shifted to that mode in wow around BFA, but find myself having totally dropped it

Again, totally fine to drop the game. I did so multiple times over the years. I'm just talking about the idea that it has to be some kind of final thing and you talking about it as if it was your significant other who you "lost the spark" with and are leaving.

Its just a game man, drop it and don't touch it and if you ever get the bug or they release something thats interesting you can try it out again. Or don't, its a game.

[ravenmoon]

I've also finally definitively concluded that it is not a good story. You know, most stories have great trials but a good end, as it teaches us that even the the hardest times can be seen through.. but this story, seems very good at telling disasters and terrible at compelling emotional triumphs.. perhaps because the hardest battles are the ones you fight in game, but the way they are concluded and the meaning of the victories are never properly dealt with before the next disaster, creating a perpetual cycle of doom and gloom.

Real life is tough enough as is, if entertainment can't bring you hope while entertaining you, even if it scares you a little along the way, then why are they telling these stories?

But then i guess they aren't telling stories really, they are basically just a platform for virtual fighting games, with some backstory thrown in. But didn't these sort of things start by people playing table top pen and paper RPGs where there was some sort of story adventure, and you were the hero along with your friends, trying to save the day?


The idea of the entire video game in the rpg department is story based, but one where you play the role of the hero, it's not just for bashing each others - so systems off course are important, because the way you fight and the things you have tod o in the adventure need to be both fun and engaging, but the whole point is the fantasy of the adventure and the story. If the story is just piss poor and secondary, it loses much of the heart of it's original appeal and thus super drifted.

[Selah]

So, here's the thing. The large bombastic nature of the world (the cosmic pantheons, the different planes of existence, ect.) is actually pretty in line with a lot of modern day fantasy story telling. Not that I'm an expert in all of the the other universes but they seem to have a similar setup. D&D, ESO, and so on.

My biggest frustrations are are a few specific points. One, our characters suffer from "chosen one" syndrome. I don't care if it's the Dragonborn from Skyrim, the Inquisitor from DA, or Azeroth's "champion" opening ancient relics because it's reacting to me for no reason. These kind of stories are self limiting because then your power must only grow and there can never be a real cap on it and they scream of special snowflake. Head canon, my main has never been in the raids to take down any of the big bads. Only ever following around the Alliance and Horde (or Order Halls) and helping with far less severe tasks. This needs to stop, have a fall from grace story, have us lose all of this extra power, and let us go back to being just some average joe. I'm totally fine with the "main" cast of WoW (Anduin, Jaina, Thrall, ect.) propelling the story forward, that's totally fine. I don't want anything to do with it.

Another pain point for me is how this larger plot is eclipsing everything. I get that we're in the afterlives but this is the perfect time to be focusing on the smaller stories. The farmer dad that died in Redridge is a perfect example. Legit one of the best done stories in the game bar none. Drinking the lemonade your daughter made for you to try to stay alive while you fight back the undead and then dying anyways? What a remarkable story arc and all it took was a few quests. We need more of this and less Wild Gods going to Ardenweald to be reincarnated but there is an anima drought but we're going to save our bestie Ysera who's the creation of the Winter Queen's sister in the other plane of existence. Don't get me wrong, that's interesting but it's all tied back into the greater plot.

Our personal characters mean nothing. They are no different then any of the NPCs in the story. Any semblance of player agency is just missing outside of transmog which itself is heavily restricted. There's no backstory for your character unless you write it up completely independently of the game, there's nothing in the way of character choices, and you can't even choose how to play your class. The entire RP aspect in RPG is completely missing. The MMO aspect is there and alive for sure but immersion? Nah, better go elsewhere. I'm totally aware its an MMO and there's only so much they can do but there is a difference between an attempt at player agency and what they're doing now.

The other problem is that, like OP said, the races, the classes, the different factions in the world, their lore is largely just ignored. I mean you have the class order halls who are seemingly still in operation but are doing exactly nothing apparently, what's going on with the Scarlet Crusade? Did the Knight of the Ebon Blade just sit around with a thumb up their ass until Sylvanas came along? What about the Shaman and their connections to the spirit realm during the time of the Shadowlands? What is going on with the Forsaken and their struggles now that their leader of so long has disregarded them? How is the Horde counsel working out? What about the Alliance with Turalyon at the helm? How have the Tauren been faring with the Grimtotem being brought into the fold? What are the Demon Hunters up to with the Legion largely defeated? What is life like for the Draenei with Argus being completely lost but the Legion put down? How are the Gnomes and the Mechagnomes getting along? Just some of the loose story plots in the game that would be far more impactful than "hey, the void attacked the Shadowlands once back in the day."