Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst
1
2
3
  1. #41
    That's the issue with the nature of stories and games like this.
    change can't wait.

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by Nzx View Post
    Lol what? This has nothing to do with my feelings. It's totally illogical for any of our characters to go back to struggling to kill Hogger at this point.
    That's still talking around your feelings. Nowhere do you prove it's a requirement to always be stronger.
    It's inevitable you are wrong since you just rejected all literature in history that does not do that.

  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by Sagenod View Post
    You're more or less echoing the sentiment the nigh-entire fanbase has been espousing since.... WOD, Legion?

    One of the main selling points of Dragonflight is a "return to Azeroth," elaborated on further as a return to the more grounded concepts that you're referencing.

    Whether you think the "bad > big bad > bigger bad" style of narrative is juvenile or not, it serves its purpose. Having a threat progression is more or less necessary for a long running storyline like Warcraft. We see it in all other forms of media and it works if it's done well right? It's just that in the context of Warcraft, they haven't been handling their progression very well.
    This whole "return to Azeroth" marketing is the biggest bullshit I have ever seen.
    WoW's first literal expansion was TBC which was way more lacking when it comes to lore or stories than SL and we didn't need to advertise 3.0 with "we're back to Azeroth".

    Also, BfA was way more grounded an expansion than WoD, Legion or SL even with the whole N'zoth thing at the end.
    Hell, BfA was way more grounded on release than DF is from what I can currently see.
    Do players care? No, because they say they want one thing but they don't actually want that.

    I generally don't care about the bigger bigger bad but I would personally like a more Garrosh style villain that is built-up over multiple expansions.
    And like actually built up, not just mentioned once or twice but physically present. Like with Garrosh we quested with and for him for 2.5 expacs before we killed him.

    My general story issue with SL is not with the story itself but the fact that it followed BfA.
    I mean, the build up was obvious with the whole Vol'jin questline but going to the Shadowlands immediately cut us off from many new interesting characters from BfA: allied race leaders, Flynn, Zekhan, etc.
    Their presence went from 100 to 0 while they could have served as a new batch of characters to expand lore and create new stories.
    And then we got what... Thrall, Jaina, Anduin and Baine for the 14th time... Real original.

  4. #44
    Scarab Lord Polybius's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Under Your Bed
    Posts
    4,405
    It’s just the writing. They try to go bigger but fail spectacularly, so folks ask for themes within Azeroth; loads of themes haven’t even been explored yet and we’re already fighting forces stronger than the Titans. Going bigger with a cosmic pantheon, above a cosmic pantheon, ad nauseum just doesn’t work.

  5. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by epigramx View Post
    That's still talking around your feelings. Nowhere do you prove it's a requirement to always be stronger.
    It's inevitable you are wrong since you just rejected all literature in history that does not do that.
    Yawn. Whatever, man. You're clearly not here to have your mind changed so there's zero point trying to discuss it with you. Of course you're totally right - in the LoTR universe, Bilbo destroys the ring in The Hobbit, and the LoTR trilogy is a story about Frodo squabbling with other hobbits in the Shire. No comic book series has ever done a crossover event entirely designed to wind in and consolidate power creep. In all literature, at all times throughout history, no protagonist has ever grown from their experiences, and has forever been engaged in collecting 10 kobold candles from a nearby mine in order to save a farmer.

  6. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by Zendhal The Black View Post
    Almost all shonen anime suffers this...

    For example at the start of Naruto, main characters had to train hard AF to do some basic stuff, time skip some episodes later and they are suddenly throwing moons at each other

    And wow went with the same way that you allways need "stronger" villain
    Heh. Don't let them know about Gurren Lagann. At least Naruto stretched it out over like 900 episodes.

    That being said, Blizzard didn't even go with the always bigger villain, it's always fluctuated. Biggest example being going from Cataclysm to Mists of Pandaria.

  7. #47
    Every expansion Blizzard surprises us with some scooby do shit where all of a sudden a new random bad guy shows up out of no where who's even stronger than the last one but we manage to find a way to defeat them with ease.

    Which Naruto is also a prime example of, every couple episodes there's a new bad guy who's even stronger than the last but the protagonist manages to beat them with the power of hope and friendship! it's the Dragonball Z circle of writing.

  8. #48
    I am Murloc! Oneirophobia's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2010
    Location
    Northern Ontario, CAN
    Posts
    5,044
    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    I agree.

    Blizzard has (or maybe had, we'll have to see) this notion that BIG = EPIC!!!!! so we got Deathwing which was handled about as badly as it was possible to be and became a big joke at the end of Cataclysm once we saw the raid. The problem really is that Blizzard is artificially deciding in advance what is and isn't supposed to be EPIC!!!!!. That can almost 100% be laid at the door of Afrasiabi who killed off a lot of established lore characters because that's EPIC!!!!! and big, bad monsters who are also EPIC!!!!! No one yet has been smart enough to see the problem so we get more world-destroying events—EPIC!!!!!—and character deaths with little time spent on building up replacement lore characters. Because back stories are generally not epic at first.

    It was a sad attempt to recreate that moment in BC when you walk into Outland for the first time. I would actually say that this bizarre attitude about all of this has been a bigger problem in the game than any amount of system talk. It absolutely is juvenile and precludes doing a lot of smaller, interesting stories because, well: "We can't have that. It's not EPIC!!!!! enough. Go bigger. Go badder. Be EPIC!!!!!. Because when we promote this expansion we'll be saying the word EPIC!!!!! out loud at least every 100 words or so. So it must be."

    It's hack, amateurish story-telling that ignores common sense (which even a fantasy story needs) and substitutes brainless size for thought.

    It's one reason why I think Mists is more fondly remembered in retrospect. Many of the stories that supported the expansion generally were smaller and played together very well in a narrative sense. That was Metzen. He is missed.
    We thought the "guitar-playing undead riding a t-rex, riding a shark with a laser on its head" was a joke, but it was completely serious.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Jester Joe View Post
    Heh. Don't let them know about Gurren Lagann. At least Naruto stretched it out over like 900 episodes.

    That being said, Blizzard didn't even go with the always bigger villain, it's always fluctuated. Biggest example being going from Cataclysm to Mists of Pandaria.
    It kind of fluctuated even within Pandaria, with the first big bad being a corrupted empress, jumping to Lei Shen (quoted by blizz with being "stronger than Lich King Arthas") and then jumping back to Garrosh (with more corruption).

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Nzx View Post
    You're clearly not here to have your mind changed
    That's extremely ironic, since that statement you just made proves you consider others idiots unless they change their mind to your ideas.
    Fact is there is a gigantic history of literature that heroes don't always become stronger and it's not always a worse story.

  10. #50
    People seem to forget that current Taza'vesh offers us the chance to be beaten up by random Kul Turan sailors (and murlocs).
    While i am not in favor of roleplaying pointless peasants our primary "power" seems to be to be in the right place at the right timr, with the right allies and tools for the job.
    A.k.a. our brute power level remains rather modest in spite of our achievements.

    And while it is logical for those achievements to have in-game "social" consequences like being promoted to elite troops (Pandaria), to commander (WoD), order hall leader (Legion) or ambassador (BfA) it has no direct bearing on the power level of our enemies.

    Even SL's maw walker status was more circumstantial than personal power related.

    So bring on the mundane plots; let us slay some dragons by the power of our own two hands! (Disregard the absurd amount of magical artefacts we now haul along)

    Oh and for the love of the pantheon: Stop confusing achievements with skill.
    Doesn't matter if it's irl, in-game or in-lore.
    Last edited by loras; 2022-08-13 at 03:14 PM.
    This is a signature of an ailing giant, boundless in pride, wit and strength.
    Yet also as humble as health and humor permit.

    Furthermore, I consider that Carthage Slam must be destroyed.

  11. #51
    Bigger and badder villains is somrthing I'd be okay with if it could be done so convincingly, each time they've crept in power we've needed allies to fight them during the encounters, Tirion with Arthas, the aspects with Deathwing, the titans with Argus. The Jailer is supposed to be a Titan++ threat yet all it took to beat that handsome squidward was a burger king crown and a bunch of murder hobos, this guy was supposed to be a cosmic theat unlike any we've faced before.

    I feel they should stick to making small time villains because the current narrative team have proven they cannot write a cosmic threat well.

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by epigramx View Post
    That's extremely ironic, since that statement you just made proves you consider others idiots unless they change their mind to your ideas.
    Fact is there is a gigantic history of literature that heroes don't always become stronger and it's not always a worse story.
    Name one series that has a persistent universe and the same characters wherein the stakes do not increase and the characters do not become more skilled or proficient in any way throughout. I'll wait.

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by Nzx View Post
    Name one series that has a persistent universe and the same characters wherein the stakes do not increase and the characters do not become more skilled or proficient in any way throughout. I'll wait.
    What are you talking about? Heroes constantly die in literature, let alone "always stronger".

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by epigramx View Post
    What are you talking about? Heroes constantly die in literature, let alone "always stronger".
    Right, so you can't name one. I'm done with this conversation, keep on believing whatever you want buddy.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by Nzx View Post
    Right, so you can't name one. I'm done with this conversation, keep on believing whatever you want buddy.
    ...Don't Game of Thrones and LotR qualify?
    Especially in the former heroes mostly just get older, like everyone else.
    Gandalf may be argued to "level-up", but he is literallyba servant god re-empowered due to his own failure, not exactly standard hero fare in any way either.

    Pretty sure it's quite limited that heroes endlessly grow in strength in literature outside of the American comic book worlds. Which have been and still are frequently mocked in no small part thanks to such, well, juvenile tropes.
    This is a signature of an ailing giant, boundless in pride, wit and strength.
    Yet also as humble as health and humor permit.

    Furthermore, I consider that Carthage Slam must be destroyed.

  16. #56
    There's nothing wrong with "the next big bad" however infinite growth is also an issue. How ludicrous do the space gods have to get before you realise that a few puny humanoids (and similar) beating this thing is pushing it a bit.

  17. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by epigramx View Post
    What are you talking about? Heroes constantly die in literature, let alone "always stronger".
    Are you referring to myths, nonfiction, etc? Those stories end when the main character dies. If that is what you are wanting then go back to playing single-player games, and not MMOs.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •