Blizzard story writing and way people react to it.

[TheRevenantHero]

I mean EverQuest is still around. People still plays Diablo 1.

So - there you have it. Blizzard and WoW still kicks ass, regardless of crappy storyline.

....And those games have solid stories. You're literally running face first into my point and still missing it. WoW is failing. Diablo Immortal is failing. Overwatch 2 is failing. But yeah....current Blizzard is still "kicking ass". If I rolled my eyes any harder, they'd fall out of my skull.

[Toppy]

Saying story telling is subjective is disgenuine. Its subjective to an extent. But there is writing that can be called objectively good or bad as well. The question is to what degree are they good or bad.

WoW writing, for the last two expansions for sure, is objectively bad.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

....And those games have solid stories. You're literally running face first into my point and still missing it. WoW is failing. Diablo Immortal is failing. Overwatch 2 is failing. But yeah....current Blizzard is still "kicking ass". If I rolled my eyes any harder, they'd fall out of my skull.

Hasn't Diablo Immortal been a massive ROI?

Anyway there are also a lot of players who don't pay attention to the story at all. I'm not going to pretend to have any concept of numbers at all, only that anecdotally I've probably read a dozen quests since 2004 and I'm definitely not alone. If not for the voiced dialogue you can't skip I wouldn't even know what's going on most of the time.

I think that's probably a major thing, you could skip stuff so easily in the past so people didn't pay attention enough to know they didn't like it. :P Whereas now all the major quests are voiced/unskippable

[HansOlo]

Hasn't Diablo Immortal been a massive ROI?

Anyway there are also a lot of players who don't pay attention to the story at all. I'm not going to pretend to have any concept of numbers at all, only that anecdotally I've probably read a dozen quests since 2004 and I'm definitely not alone. If not for the voiced dialogue you can't skip I wouldn't even know what's going on most of the time.

I think that's probably a major thing, you could skip stuff so easily in the past so people didn't pay attention enough to know they didn't like it. :P Whereas now all the major quests are voiced/unskippable

I honestly think that Blizzard reliazed, that people don't give anything about the story - outside the 5min attentionspan we all have today(which is spent on a cinematics). Of course there is the usual group of people, who also read a novel in thier freetime - who always values a good story. But most gamers today are instant matchmakers and then they move on.

So they are spreading it thin - and im fine with it. As long as the game survives - and better storyline proved not to the key(see SWTOR, LOTR and everything else with even bigger lore).

[MsSideEye]

This is not a topic discussing a singular lore event, some particular story or even a whole expansion story line.

Its more of a generalistic topic about Blizzard writing methods and how the players react to those, from relatively normal responses, to complete "going ham" states.

Also what i wanted to touch on specifically is the way some fans treat the writing team. Aka the "they fucked up so badly that we shouldnt demand anything "fixed" because its impossible and players will never be happy with the plot".

This stance arguably pisses me off more than any kind of contrarian , tribalistic "us vs them" fans, because it implies that because of Blizzard screwing up, we should be more lenient to them and basically accept their shit and then wait patiently for another spoonful and hope this time it will be less soupy and maggoty.

If on any other job, hell, in MOST other writing teams (for other franchises) you screw up so badly you CANT fix it... You get fired , your position replaced and you get a bad rep and a fine from the corporate. At least thats how everybody seems to operate. You break something - you fix it IF they allow you to try and fix it, or pay up and get out of the office tomorrow at 10:00 with all your stuff, no bonuses.

Why the hell then Blizzard , fucken "rock star team" suddenly became an exempt from the rule, and should be allowed an unlimited amount of second chances? Actually, we dont really see that much motion in their writing department, aside from Afrosalami being kicked out for being a freak and a few others all leaving roughly at the same time due to the same accusations, not related to their performance but more to their atrocious conduct.

And "players will never be happy" is subjective as hell, fuck, Legion was mostly praised by fans and it was made by "modern" Blizz. So they CAN produce a "working" expansion story, even if its cheesy and holds on the old plots and characters. Class Halls for example were surprising gust of fresh air in the stale Bog of Blizzard. And then they devolved into Covenants which seem like a downgrade actually.

So, to go in my thoughts before two people decided to derail an entire threat by devolving into a shouting match with each other.

I think one of the biggest problems with Blizzard/WoW's storytelling that we're running into for a lot of people is the age of the franchise itself and the players who are into it. Unlike a lot of other video games that are pushing 30 years old now (And yes, the original Orc VS Human is that old), there wasn't a huge amount of storyline with something like, say, Mario or Zelda. It was legit just save the princess, beat the big ugly monster. Even if Warcraft 1 isn't the most detailed adventure out there, it still had a bit more meat to it than the original Mario brothers.

But with that age you've also got fans who were there from that era and there are those who are STUCK in that era of media. They don't like the idea of anything changing the characters, the ideas that were originally presented, so changing them experiences push back. You see this with things like Star Wars, where people hold the originals as some unassailable perfection because that's what they got used to, how they were first exposed and what they found the most fun in. WoW is the same way, with how so many people were screaming for Vanilla over and over again.

Now, is that a wrong thing to say that people can't explore or enjoy that experience again? Not at all. But then you run into the problem where you've got those few who will stand upon the highest tower and scream till their blue in the face how great the original was and how shit you are for enjoying the modern stuff. And those people will want to relive the old days so much that they'll give the people behind them a million chances, hoping that the million and first time will give them the story of the quality they're expecting. It's a choking fanbase to serve too and one thing that I think Blizzard has run into again and again that isn't helping.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I honestly think that Blizzard reliazed, that people don't give anything about the story - outside the 5min attentionspan we all have today(which is spent on a cinematics). Of course there is the usual group of people, who also read a novel in thier freetime - who always values a good story. But most gamers today are instant matchmakers and then they move on.

So they are spreading it thin - and im fine with it. As long as the game survives - and better storyline proved not to the key(see SWTOR, LOTR and everything else with even bigger lore).

Yeah i mean the books are "bestsellers" but I guarantee that is not what people think lol (I work in publishing). A tiny pittance of players actually read them.

[s_bushido]

Also what i wanted to touch on specifically is the way some fans treat the writing team. Aka the "they fucked up so badly that we shouldnt demand anything "fixed" because its impossible and players will never be happy with the plot".

Demanding that something like this be "fixed" is ridiculous in the first place. There's nothing to fix. You don't like the story? That's nice, dear.

You can talk about it among other players, and even make suggestions about how you'd like to see things go. But the writers and devs are under no obligation to do what you want.

[Aucald]

As per usual, I have a multitude of opinions on this score as concerns meta-commentary on WoW's lore from an in-game and player perspective. Warcraft is one of the older IP's still active and vital in this day and age - it's been around since 1994, and underwent many iterations in terms of its story and that story's scope, from the bare-bones story of its initial RTS outing to the many-headed beast of today's incarnation of WoW. One of the main limiting factors, I feel, of the Warcraft story is that the game from its early beginnings all the way to today was never meant to be a story vehicle, not the same way other RPGs are. The story of Warcraft was always surplus to the gameplay elements - there if you wanted it, most of it fleshed out in the manual, but not really intrinsic to the game on any real level. That thread persisted from WC1 to WC3: TFT, really; and continued on into WoW's early days as well. WoW's story has always been and will likely always be hostage to the gameplay of WoW, sketched but never belabored, there if you want it but hardly required. It's a vehicle for spectacle and engagement, not truly meant to promote lofty discussions or even fuel passionate debates. This isn't to say its adherents have no passion about it, far from it, but mostly that those passions are what they bring to the table themselves, not anything provoked by the story itself in a fundamental sense.

As for the story itself, or the many stories that are woven into its ongoing arc, some of them are great and some of them are decidedly substandard. WoW tends to follow a basic pattern of rising and falling like a sinus wave, with variances in effective pitch or wavelength. A crash followed by a bash followed by a crash if you will. As in most IPs who've gone on for a long, long time I find that often the primary arcs themselves tend to be the weakest offerings, but these are often offset and supported by smaller B-plots that are often engaging or intriguing. It's difficult to really tie up everything going on under the hood of WoW's story and pronounce judgment on it in total, it's a creature whose parts are often greater than its sum, so to speak. I really think there's something in it for nearly everyone who cares to pay attention to it in the first place, really; and everyone's mileage will vary as to which riffs in the greater whole they enjoy or which they find disappointing. Speaking for myself, post-WC3 I've found that the faction war arc is a tired refrain whose day is well past and should've been put to bed long ago. But I often enjoy smaller stories that focus on interpersonal narratives and stories, and I like the larger arcs that deal with the Titans and the Old Gods, especially when the Old Gods were more Lovecraftian and obscured by in-game myth than they are today. I appreciate the expanded cosmology and the attempt to return some of the veiled mystique to WoW that's been removed due to the passing of so much time and the necessity of revealing so much information. But I also increasingly feel like the well is running dry, and there is a serious risk of reinventing the wheel if the approach isn't undertaken with considerable care.

[Caiphon]

So, to go in my thoughts before two people decided to derail an entire threat by devolving into a shouting match with each other.

I think one of the biggest problems with Blizzard/WoW's storytelling that we're running into for a lot of people is the age of the franchise itself and the players who are into it. Unlike a lot of other video games that are pushing 30 years old now (And yes, the original Orc VS Human is that old), there wasn't a huge amount of storyline with something like, say, Mario or Zelda. It was legit just save the princess, beat the big ugly monster. Even if Warcraft 1 isn't the most detailed adventure out there, it still had a bit more meat to it than the original Mario brothers.

But with that age you've also got fans who were there from that era and there are those who are STUCK in that era of media. They don't like the idea of anything changing the characters, the ideas that were originally presented, so changing them experiences push back. You see this with things like Star Wars, where people hold the originals as some unassailable perfection because that's what they got used to, how they were first exposed and what they found the most fun in. WoW is the same way, with how so many people were screaming for Vanilla over and over again.

Now, is that a wrong thing to say that people can't explore or enjoy that experience again? Not at all. But then you run into the problem where you've got those few who will stand upon the highest tower and scream till their blue in the face how great the original was and how shit you are for enjoying the modern stuff. And those people will want to relive the old days so much that they'll give the people behind them a million chances, hoping that the million and first time will give them the story of the quality they're expecting. It's a choking fanbase to serve too and one thing that I think Blizzard has run into again and again that isn't helping.

Thing is, it's completely possible to respect what the franchise was and explore new venues at the same time. The community blows up when writers try to 're-create' loved parts of old lore in a different direction. Sure there are die-hard Star Wars fans that adhere to the original Trilogy like some divine prophecy but total outrage only ensued with how Luke was portrayed in EP8 (which was so disconnected from the original character that the actor himself said it felt like someone else).

Shadowlands is hated for a similar reason imo. It touches upon established pieces of lore and actively changes the meaning and context, and usually not in a good way. The epicness of the Lich King fight or the struggles during WC3: FT is notably diminished when they were all set out by Zovaal. Retconning the Nathrezim to be his servants changes the context of many WC3~WotLK story arcs. Some point out that the Titans are also cosmic entities that were added in later but when Titans were established in Vanilla they weren't responsible for designing the events of previous Warcraft games. Rather, they were involved in new, previously unexplored aspects of lore such as the ordering of the world.

This is the direction that I think the writers should take, leave the established parts alone and explore new venues, rather than saying 'you know all those cool events of the past? Well they all happened because of this guy here!'.

[Khaza-R]

What is also subjective is whether the writing is good or bad in the first place because not everyone agrees.

This is a false premise echoed way too much. Good writing is objective. Jane Austen was a good writer. Especially for her day. I personally find her subject matter boring af. But that part is subjective.

Blizzards writing has never been stellar post the "golden era". However the amount of plot holes, inconsistencies and blatant retcons has increased as time as moved on in a careless pace. It is objectively bad regardless of an individuals ability to overlook it for enjoyment or not.

[RaoBurning]

Blizzard's biggest shortcoming in the writing department is likely the lack of forethought. I know they say things like "we were planning this expansion XYZ years ago" but... were they really? What constitutes "planning" exactly? There's little to no narrative thread from xpac to xpac until the Cataclysm-MoP jump, and even that is just "oh Deathwing breaking the world revealed Pandaria."

The Bronze shenanigans of Pandaria lead to Draenor's splintered timeline. Archi's defeat in WoD lead to the Legion, which... honestly I barely remember... oh right Azerite! Then Sylvanas doing all the stuff she did lead into Shadowlands. I get all that. But up until BFA->Shadowlands, where Sylvanas being an evil bitch is consistent and important throughout, that's all pretty basic bitch narrative threading. It's more like building two completely different Lego sets and then slapping a bridge between them.

Now, not to be that guy again, but FF14 has a few things that sets the writing on a good trajectory. There's a very consistent group of NPC allies the player character works with, who grow and change with the events of the game. And pretty much everything that happens has lasting consequences that we keep feeling throughout the expansion stories down the line. Old NPCs come back fairly often, but changed as a result of their roles in the story that we see and the effects of that narrative outside our immediate scope. Hell, there's a main story boss from the base game (well, A Realm Reborn, the reboot of the base game but technically 2.0) who pops up like 3 expansions later and his growth of character makes absolutely perfect sense.

I'm too tired to look at the exact writing team at the moment, but I do know off the cuff there are at least a few frequent if not permanent folks on that team, and even if they rotated out, YoshiP has been director/producer of the game since, like, 2010. That's a consistent leader who is familiar with the game inside and out basically since day 1 (of dropping a meteor full of Bahamut on the world and resetting everything).

How many directors has WoW had? How many lead writers? A few, I'm sure. As far as I'm aware, there was never any "show bible" for WoW; nothing to guide development and narrative over the course of years and years. No consistent vision, no consistent team, no consistent direction. Oh also the expanded universe books and comics and oh right the original RTS games or whatever else to work around/ignore/retcon. If someone has a cool idea about a past character, for example, there's research to be done if that cool idea ignores canon or if a book made a throw away line somewhere or what have you. If the cool idea is greenlit, the retcons/asspulls begin. Because really, how often does WoW move a character forward without trying to change their past first?

That Blizz started putting out expansions with even the barest hinted of story connection is a bit of a miracle unto itself. I guess it's kind of like writing fan fiction vs a published book. Fan fic often goes a chapter or two at a time before publishing, with the author kinda making it up as they go along. The draft versions of published novels might work like that, but there's a whole ass process of making it all cohesive before it hits public view.

Or maybe I'm way off base. I don't know. I worked 12 hours today and it's late and I'm tired. Do with that what you will.

[melzas]

Warcraft's story/lore has always been medicore at best and because of a nature of mmo rpg games where story telling is limited by gameplay you shouldn't expect fantastic, prize-awarding stories.

It's just there as a background. Fallen Paladin trope in form of Arthas and demon invasion in form of Legion was awesome because you were 15 years old kid that was easily impressed not because the story was actually good. It was cliche and copy pasta, just like the rest of WoW story. The difference is that now you are an adult and have sentimental and emotional connection with that story. WoW classic barely has any story. TBC is probably THE WORST story they've told, mindlessly throwing all favourite characters under the loot pinata rails for no reason. WotLK story is extremely cliche. You really think story of a paladin go evil is something new?

So yeah, every time I see these posts about "bad WoW story, yadda yadda Danuser bad, Blizzard changed" I just cringe. The story has always been bad, you just grew up and expect better when reality is that WoW never even pretended to be about "good story".

[Polybius]

Warcraft's story/lore has always been medicore at best and because of a nature of mmo rpg games where story telling is limited by gameplay you shouldn't expect fantastic, prize-awarding stories.

It's just there as a background. Fallen Paladin trope in form of Arthas and demon invasion in form of Legion was awesome because you were 15 years old kid that was easily impressed not because the story was actually good. It was cliche and copy pasta, just like the rest of WoW story. The difference is that now you are an adult and have sentimental and emotional connection with that story. WoW classic barely has any story. TBC is probably THE WORST story they've told, mindlessly throwing all favourite characters under the loot pinata rails for no reason. WotLK story is extremely cliche. You really think story of a paladin go evil is something new?

So yeah, every time I see these posts about "bad WoW story, yadda yadda Danuser bad, Blizzard changed" I just cringe. The story has always been bad, you just grew up and expect better when reality is that WoW never even pretended to be about "good story".

You need to read the old stories. The new plotlines and dialogue are worse. It’s like watching Sharkboy and Lavagirl. They had great characters to use but they shit the bed with Nzoth and Sylvanas.

[Shadowferal]

I don't consider anything beyond a good half of MoP for my rewrite of the lore. There was just so much of it between the old lore and up to that point. An immense grand tapestry of small patches of well-written material that should have made a larger better fleshed out world, long before any errant thought of hashing it out with outer space demon/titan/gods war.

[loras]

This is not a topic discussing a singular lore event, some particular story or even a whole expansion story line.

Its more of a generalistic topic about Blizzard writing methods and how the players react to those, from relatively normal responses, to complete "going ham" states.

Also what i wanted to touch on specifically is the way some fans treat the writing team. Aka the "they fucked up so badly that we shouldnt demand anything "fixed" because its impossible and players will never be happy with the plot".

This stance arguably pisses me off more than any kind of contrarian , tribalistic "us vs them" fans, because it implies that because of Blizzard screwing up, we should be more lenient to them and basically accept their shit and then wait patiently for another spoonful and hope this time it will be less soupy and maggoty.

If on any other job, hell, in MOST other writing teams (for other franchises) you screw up so badly you CANT fix it... You get fired , your position replaced and you get a bad rep and a fine from the corporate. At least thats how everybody seems to operate. You break something - you fix it IF they allow you to try and fix it, or pay up and get out of the office tomorrow at 10:00 with all your stuff, no bonuses.

Why the hell then Blizzard , fucken "rock star team" suddenly became an exempt from the rule, and should be allowed an unlimited amount of second chances? Actually, we dont really see that much motion in their writing department, aside from Afrosalami being kicked out for being a freak and a few others all leaving roughly at the same time due to the same accusations, not related to their performance but more to their atrocious conduct.

And "players will never be happy" is subjective as hell, fuck, Legion was mostly praised by fans and it was made by "modern" Blizz. So they CAN produce a "working" expansion story, even if its cheesy and holds on the old plots and characters. Class Halls for example were surprising gust of fresh air in the stale Bog of Blizzard. And then they devolved into Covenants which seem like a downgrade actually.

Because that's not how the real world operates at all.
Frankly the usual modus operandi is to either hide the evidence or go arrange a fall guy, if no option for ignoring it exists.

Of course ostensibly everyone operates as you say, but i've found practice to be quite different.
Leniency is the norm, Blizzard is not the exception.

Beyond that there is the problem that effectively no real objective standards for "good" writing exist. Yes you can look at all manner of more or less technical stuff like internal consistency of world, characters, build-up, etcetera, but in the end all that materially matters is the degree to which people like something. And that doesn't need to be related to any technical qualities at all, rendering the entire discussion moot.

And that's the issue here i suppose: Understandable (and shared) frustration at perceived shitty writing, that you have no say in at all.

So do yourself a favor and give them the only message they can receive by not paying a dime for shitty stories, whether directly through money or indirectly by acting as a livelier npc in their world to "make money" there.

[melzas]

You need to read the old stories. The new plotlines and dialogue are worse. It’s like watching Sharkboy and Lavagirl. They had great characters to use but they shit the bed with Nzoth and Sylvanas.

They already shat bed with Illidan, Kael'thas and Vashj in TBC, giving them retarded one-liners, dumb ass story and wasting great characters back then already.

The whole Nzoth and Sylvanas outcry is ridicolous, because Blizzard already did the same in TBC... Do you want me to remind you what they did with Anub'arak in WotLK? One of fan favourites of W3? They gave him 0 story developmenet and then killed off in a meaningless 5 man dungeon! And after that they brought him back in a raid 2 tiers later giving no explanation wtf is up with that. And even after that, they still didn't give him any development, it was just, hey here is Anub, kill him again for loots.

Oh and the great story of Argent Tourny. Let's have a fucking festival in front of Lich Kings seat of power, such great story telling man. Where are these great plotlines you are talking about?

I swear people dimmed by rose-tinted glasses are the worst "fans" a franchise possible could have. This game plotlines were always mediocre at best. Some old bits were good but we still get good small bits, like Drustvar or Revendreth storylines. But cliche and ruined characters have been in forever too.

[Sanguinerd]

For me it's not so much the writing itself thats bad (though it leaves a lot to be desired) it's that we do not get enough of it and then the waiting in between patches before we get to get the next part. It just does not work imo.

Also when it comes to an expansion like Shadowlands it just feels like a lot was cut for whatever reason. The entire Jailer / Primus thing just doesn't make any sense. Same with N'zoth and Azshara only getting a patch, it's just not enough.

[Al Gorefiend]

What is also subjective is whether the writing is good or bad in the first place because not everyone agrees. I have always felt the lore in this game was at the level of interesting but best not taken too seriously or literally. Shadowlands and the covenants was one of the more interesting periods for me too so not everyone hates it. I sometimes think the reasons so many hate this expansion is simply because hating the game and developers is all the rage nowadays. It would be ridiculous to start firing people just because a rabid fanbase is looking for any excuse to protest and determined to never be satisfied again.

Wish everyone felt this way about all works of fiction.

[DatToffer]

I also notice this dynamic sometimes :

> Blizzard introduce new character / gives development to one character
> Community hates it (sometimes even rightfully so)
> Blizzard gets cold feet and doesn't give any more development to new character / develops character in another direction
> Community complains the character receives no development / the development is erratic

Wish everyone felt this way about all works of fiction.

Sadly, once you've invited roleplayers to your setting, you know they are gonna get really invested.

[MsSideEye]

Thing is, it's completely possible to respect what the franchise was and explore new venues at the same time. The community blows up when writers try to 're-create' loved parts of old lore in a different direction. Sure there are die-hard Star Wars fans that adhere to the original Trilogy like some divine prophecy but total outrage only ensued with how Luke was portrayed in EP8 (which was so disconnected from the original character that the actor himself said it felt like someone else).

Shadowlands is hated for a similar reason imo. It touches upon established pieces of lore and actively changes the meaning and context, and usually not in a good way. The epicness of the Lich King fight or the struggles during WC3: FT is notably diminished when they were all set out by Zovaal. Retconning the Nathrezim to be his servants changes the context of many WC3~WotLK story arcs. Some point out that the Titans are also cosmic entities that were added in later but when Titans were established in Vanilla they weren't responsible for designing the events of previous Warcraft games. Rather, they were involved in new, previously unexplored aspects of lore such as the ordering of the world.

This is the direction that I think the writers should take, leave the established parts alone and explore new venues, rather than saying 'you know all those cool events of the past? Well they all happened because of this guy here!'.

That's just the thing. I'm always for one finding a good balance between the two. If you make something too similar, what was the point of making a new product in the first place. If you're making it to different, how does it relate to the original at all? It's a hard thing to do when it comes to either sequels, updates, or remakes. You can't just ignore the original like it didn't exist, but you also can't be so beholden to the original that you're afraid to push out to new ventures.

WoW's big problem has always been the 'bigger bad' come down the way. We killed the Lich King! Oh, but wait, it's because the Burning Legion that he was evil all along! But the Burning Legion only exists because of this one Titan who went crazy. And this one titan went crazy because of Zovaal! And Zovaal did it because of ANOTHER evil coming up! It get's tired after a while. It's one of the reasons why I always praise Pandaria, because it was CONTAINED. There were relations and other things that these characters and events could connect to (The Klaxxi and their Old God), but otherwise? It felt like everything that happened in Pandaria was because of things that were IN Pandaria or brought there by the Horde/Alliance.

Blizzard's biggest shortcoming in the writing department is likely the lack of forethought.

This. More so than anything else, it feels like Blizzard doesn't really think that much about the future when it comes to some of the projects they invest in. The whole 'realm of the dead' idea SOUNDS cool on paper, but when you think about it, how does it really work when you remove the very aspect of life and death in a franchise? It's like 'Oh, it doesn't matter if I die, I'll just go and end up as a holy soul or a spider creature or something when I get to the Shadowlands'. Not to mention how many religions in Wow Kinda have now been proven to be invalidated by the very existence of Shadowlands.

Now, not to be that guy again, but FF14 has a few things that sets the writing on a good trajectory. There's a very consistent group of NPC allies the player character works with, who grow and change with the events of the game. And pretty much everything that happens has lasting consequences that we keep feeling throughout the expansion stories down the line. Old NPCs come back fairly often, but changed as a result of their roles in the story that we see and the effects of that narrative outside our immediate scope. Hell, there's a main story boss from the base game (well, A Realm Reborn, the reboot of the base game but technically 2.0) who pops up like 3 expansions later and his growth of character makes absolutely perfect sense.

This is the biggest problem WoW has had, in my opinion. We don't have a subset of characters we're getting to be with constantly, that we can watch grow and change. And those we do get that have that happen, we won't see for expansions at a time. Anduin, Adrmial Taylor, and Lillian Voss were all really good characters that I felt that I could follow them and enjoy traveling/doing stuff with them, but they disappear right as when something interesting happens and we don't know when we'll EVER see them again.

No consistent vision, no consistent team, no consistent direction. Oh also the expanded universe books and comics and oh right the original RTS games or whatever else to work around/ignore/retcon.

Here's the thing for me. A retcon ISN'T a bad thing. Sometimes, the old ideas for a story just flat out don't work and you need to either handwave it or throw it away. You can't always help it. But the problem is when you Retcon something and don't do your work to try and make the new retcon function in with the story that's been presented with you thus far.

Like, let's be entirely honest as far as 14 is concerned. Hydalin and Zodark being Primals? That's a retcon, since I'd be willing to bet that wasn't planned back in ARR. But the reason why everyone is alright with that because it made sense within the world as it had been constructed. Because whose to say that gods that live off prayer and worship, even the ones that the main players/characters call to, aren't Primals. WoW stumbles on this because their world doesn't matter as much to them and if something isn't liked? Well, no one plays through Burning Crusade anymore anyways, so who cares if the lore there's been changed.

Warcraft's story/lore has always been medicore at best and because of a nature of mmo rpg games where story telling is limited by gameplay you shouldn't expect fantastic, prize-awarding stories.

FF14 would beg to differ.

It's just there as a background. Fallen Paladin trope in form of Arthas and demon invasion in form of Legion was awesome because you were 15 years old kid that was easily impressed not because the story was actually good. It was cliche and copy pasta, just like the rest of WoW story.

Part of what made that story work is that it was the first time it was being told in a video game instead of a dungeon master in your D&D session. Though yes, I do agree that a lot of people latch onto those stories when they were younger. I point back above to my Star Wars point.

You really think story of a paladin go evil is something new?

There's a saying about how there's only 8 stories in the world and all others are just variations of those 8. I don't agree with the idea, but at this point it's not about doing something new, it's about doing something WELL. Having a paladin go evil can be a perfectly engaging story, even if it isn't new, but it has to be presented well. Just going 'Oh, this evil sword turns you evil by you being nearby' isn't presented well. Having a character like Arthus, who you see slowly descend from Heroic figure to Lich King, is presented pretty decently well back in WC3 from what I recall of it.

The problem is when the rest of it isn't presented well, or in a lot of WoW's setup, just kinda ignored/skipped over these days for the sake of 'faster leveling'.

Wish everyone felt this way about all works of fiction.

I don't, honestly. Fiction can do a lot for people, especially when it comes to helping make who they are. It can define them, inspire them, lead them to be better people. It can also help them cope and understand themselves better. Is it good for you to go head first into it and not remember that it is, at the end of the day, fiction? No. But I feel like you can take fiction, fantasy, and written materials of the like and use it to give you more life.