Blizzard story writing and way people react to it.

[Kallisto]

i wish with how lore became... but no i actually cared about it since wc2 days, it was generic fun back then, wc3 retconned a lot
and i like how u escaping from answer, because it is fact: pandas are a joke that went too far
That doesn't mean MoP is bad exp, it is probably most solid exp for class gameplay, lore is another story, started as joke, ended actually good (also i hate how i was forced to ally with alliance against Garrosh, if i had choice, I'd stand with Nazgrim over anyone else)

Problem is that MMORPGS generally can't have major conflicting arcs where one group went with option A, second with Option B. Everything has to be following a linier path overall. That's why the whole Sylvanas loyalist fell flat on its feet as it did. It was never really meant to happen and only came into play as 1-2 quests which were basically "Do what the rebels are doing." and an epilogue (also an npc doing a "Hail Hydra" style whisper to you after denouncing Sylvanas openly).

A single player RPG fine, siding with Garrosh/Sylvanas would actually work out because there isn't a need for everyone to be on the same plot thread, different cinematics, ending and plot for said game with a sequel going "This ending was the canon one.". But an MMO, it really doesn't work out.

[Biglog]

I don't blame the writers (which I think are excellent), but the in-game story has always been a bit disjointed from the story the writers want to tell. The books are great. But in-game, it often feels like a jigsaw puzzle where 3/4 of the pieces are missing. Maybe it's just in the application of the story to game mechanics. But in-game, too many storylines are left unresolved, go nowhere, or contradict logic. Calia is one that comes to mind that made no logical sense in-game. Or the bombing of Theramore, which was a critical point in the WoW story that impacted major characters long-term, but was just a 2 second cutscene with barely any explanation in-game.

Another issue is that in the past Blizzard kind of acknowledged that in-game was difficult to fully tell a story, and would suggest reading the books if a player wants to learn more and fill in the gaps which the books did a good job of. But recently Blizzard has said they want players to be able to get the full story without reading the books. That concerns me that this disjointed situation will grow. Even if you aren't big on reading novels, I would suggest picking one expansion and reading the accompanying book for it. It will really open your eyes to how much is skipped in-game, and where things take an odd turn with the in-game story just to make game mechanics fit.

So rather than blaming the writers, I think it's more of a shortcoming by the devs in translating what the writers create to the game.

[geco]

I don't blame the writers (which I think are excellent), but the in-game story has always been a bit disjointed from the story the writers want to tell. The books are great. But in-game, it often feels like a jigsaw puzzle where 3/4 of the pieces are missing. Maybe it's just in the application of the story to game mechanics. But in-game, too many storylines are left unresolved, go nowhere, or contradict logic. Calia is one that comes to mind that made no logical sense in-game. Or the bombing of Theramore, which was a critical point in the WoW story that impacted major characters long-term, but was just a 2 second cutscene with barely any explanation in-game.

Another issue is that in the past Blizzard kind of acknowledged that in-game was difficult to fully tell a story, and would suggest reading the books if a player wants to learn more and fill in the gaps which the books did a good job of. But recently Blizzard has said they want players to be able to get the full story without reading the books. That concerns me that this disjointed situation will grow. Even if you aren't big on reading novels, I would suggest picking one expansion and reading the accompanying book for it. It will really open your eyes to how much is skipped in-game, and where things take an odd turn with the in-game story just to make game mechanics fit.

So rather than blaming the writers, I think it's more of a shortcoming by the devs in translating what the writers create to the game.

So wouldn't the problem be that writers write stories that can't be translated into game mechanics?
Or that it has nothing to do with what is already raised in the game. For example let's look at the history of Varock. How are you going to put that game into mechanics?

Then there are things like treaties that are simply never written or the concept of Honor. Things that are 100% the work of the writers and that they don't do.

And finally we have the books that instead of filling gaps. They only strive to make that information gap even bigger. As it happens in all of Maiev's.

[Shadowferal]

The manuscript needs to be written well before translating it ingame.

[MsSideEye]

i wish with how lore became... but no i actually cared about it since wc2 days, it was generic fun back then, wc3 retconned a lot
and i like how u escaping from answer, because it is fact: pandas are a joke that went too far
That doesn't mean MoP is bad exp, it is probably most solid exp for class gameplay, lore is another story, started as joke, ended actually good (also i hate how i was forced to ally with alliance against Garrosh, if i had choice, I'd stand with Nazgrim over anyone else)

How does the fact that they started a joke matter to anything, especially when we're talking about LORE and STORY? It doesn't matter how they STARTED, it matters how they eventually were put into the game. You want to know what else started out as a joke and has gone on to become a multi-milion dollar franchise? The Ninja Turtles. That started out as a full on parody of Daredevil and has become what it is today because that took off.

You act like just because something started off as silly that means it's worth nothing and that's simply not the case.

They seemed to have made an attempt with Yrel. It was half-assed that become total-assed imo...but there was progression.

I feel that if it wasn't for them abandoning WoD have way, it could have been something special. While I still think the 'Alternate universe that we kinda just ignore until it's needed again' part of Draenor is stupid as hell, the first bits of Yrel's story was excellent. And then... they kinda just left the game on it's own for months on end with a major patches only major contribution was Twitter integration. I still, to this day, do not understand why with all the hype behind it and everything that Blizz just abandoned WoD like they did.

I think it's the medium in which they have to tell their stories is a factor. WoW story can only be told so fast, broken up in patch cycles and expansion cycles where the story is told to us by chunks at a time instead of at a more natural pacing. Then there's the major problem of the WoW team splitting the story into so many different formats. So to get the full story of Shadowlands you needed to read the books, play the game, read their short web stories etc.

But I think the biggest crime to WoWs writing lately is that they can not juggle storylines worth a damn. So figuring out what happened to a character unrelated to dragons isn't going to happen for another 2 years.

FF14, if not some other big name MMOS, have shown that it IS possible to tell a long, connecting story over the course of several patches and expansions. The problem comes with the fact that Blizz doesn't have one singular narritive, that they've got different writers who work on different zones, and that they're not limiting the story itself to the game. Did you know that the only material of 14's story that's out there for other people to get is an Encyclopedia and a bunch of little short stories that you never actually need to read to understand everything? Compare that to WoW, which has full on novels that you'd need to read to get the most out of some stories, and others which explain why some characters suddenly become Evil McEvilson.

One thing that I feel makes it hard to invest in some Blizzard character is the constant threat of "And then he/she went insane" being dangled everywhere. I'm not saying grey characters are bad, or even that characters that are somewhat unhinged can be extremely interesting, but with Blizzard it feels like any character can get the raidboss ball passed to them at any moment.

There's an older youtube music video from a comedy group I saw YEARS back that makes fun of this very fact. I don't remember WHERE it is, but the chorus went like this: 'Crazy and evil, stark raving mad. They used to be good guys but now they are bad! Blizzard needs a villian, so what do you do? Now you're crazy and evil too!'

Blizzard has ALWAYS gone down with turning some of the biggest characters in their series being good guys turned evil. Arthas, Malygos, Yrel, hell, even Sargeras and the Jailer was once a good being as well. Having a character fall isn't a bad thing, but it's the consistency in which they use that plot point that hurts a lot of WoW's stuff.

I don't blame the writers (which I think are excellent), but the in-game story has always been a bit disjointed from the story the writers want to tell. The books are great. But in-game, it often feels like a jigsaw puzzle where 3/4 of the pieces are missing. Maybe it's just in the application of the story to game mechanics. But in-game, too many storylines are left unresolved, go nowhere, or contradict logic. Calia is one that comes to mind that made no logical sense in-game. Or the bombing of Theramore, which was a critical point in the WoW story that impacted major characters long-term, but was just a 2 second cutscene with barely any explanation in-game.

Another issue is that in the past Blizzard kind of acknowledged that in-game was difficult to fully tell a story, and would suggest reading the books if a player wants to learn more and fill in the gaps which the books did a good job of. But recently Blizzard has said they want players to be able to get the full story without reading the books. That concerns me that this disjointed situation will grow. Even if you aren't big on reading novels, I would suggest picking one expansion and reading the accompanying book for it. It will really open your eyes to how much is skipped in-game, and where things take an odd turn with the in-game story just to make game mechanics fit.

So rather than blaming the writers, I think it's more of a shortcoming by the devs in translating what the writers create to the game.

That's just the thing, though. It's disjointed not because it's hard to tell an on going story narrative in an MMO (It's not), but because of how they do things and who decides what's put into the game. Most authors worth their salt wouldn't finish up a zone in game, much less make it a full NCIS parody, then drop everything from that entirely for the rest of the game. Blizzard does this CONSISTENTLY, where once you finish a zone, don't expect to see those characters again for an expansion, at the VERY least.

That's not even ignoring the fact that writing for novels and writing for video games are two very different things. Just slapping a novel into the game isn't going to work, since you've got to think of dungeons, raids, the actual quest rewards, the player experience, among other things. This is why when Christie Golden was announced to actually be writing for the game itself, I responded with a rather lukewarm 'meh'. I'm not a huge fan of her writing as is, the way she portrays characters and events feel almost flat to me, but her focus before that point has always been long form novels. How does someone go from that to shorter experiences like WoW's questlines? And that's not even mentioning what happens when it's clear that Blizz themselves are cutting off losses where they can, like they did in Shadowlands.

[sam86]

How does the fact that they started a joke matter to anything.

there is a reason that they say first impression is everything...
ninja turtles started as dark comic that only connect with daredevil in origin, they were never presented as joke, in fact the cartoons turned them to a comic-child related product that are more joke than serious
regardless u comparing entire franchise with a part of a franchise, wow had many good solid chars, and many jokes (heck they have entire zones as memes), but that's it: pre-pandas, a fart joke best hope is to get a quest or 2, not an entire exp
Let's not forget how pandas in wc3 changed massively to kung-fu ripoff to appeal to more customers, eye color change body change and samurai-inspired removed to appeal to big brother winnie the pooh, so yeah pandalands had many problems, but again i admit the exp gameplay is most solid, probably had most fun in them playing any class, and last exp i actually loved being healer with so many abilities and oh-shit cds that blizz removed and f8cked healers so hard that even in legion couldn't play them

[Paperfox]

I don't blame the writers (which I think are excellent), but the in-game story has always been a bit disjointed from the story the writers want to tell. The books are great. But in-game, it often feels like a jigsaw puzzle where 3/4 of the pieces are missing. Maybe it's just in the application of the story to game mechanics. But in-game, too many storylines are left unresolved, go nowhere, or contradict logic. Calia is one that comes to mind that made no logical sense in-game. Or the bombing of Theramore, which was a critical point in the WoW story that impacted major characters long-term, but was just a 2 second cutscene with barely any explanation in-game.

Another issue is that in the past Blizzard kind of acknowledged that in-game was difficult to fully tell a story, and would suggest reading the books if a player wants to learn more and fill in the gaps which the books did a good job of. But recently Blizzard has said they want players to be able to get the full story without reading the books. That concerns me that this disjointed situation will grow. Even if you aren't big on reading novels, I would suggest picking one expansion and reading the accompanying book for it. It will really open your eyes to how much is skipped in-game, and where things take an odd turn with the in-game story just to make game mechanics fit.

So rather than blaming the writers, I think it's more of a shortcoming by the devs in translating what the writers create to the game.

I've heard that there are two teams - basically one works on the even numbered expansions, and the other the odd numbered expansions.

I think this would explain a number of things, like why the overall stories are disjointed, why we never go back and visit with certain characters, and why the new Big Bad is a FotM.

[MsSideEye]

there is a reason that they say first impression is everything...
ninja turtles started as dark comic that only connect with daredevil in origin, they were never presented as joke, in fact the cartoons turned them to a comic-child related product that are more joke than serious

Part of the original point of the Ninja Turtles was poking fun at the serious, over the top, and dark nature of comic books at the time, SPECIFICALLY Daredevil, where several elements were pulled from to make their characters (The Ooze, Splinter, the Foot clan all being things that were flat out inspired/ripped off from what was there in Daredevil). Being dark and gritty doesn't change the fact that it was supposed to be silly, considering... you know... NINJA TURTLES.

regardless u comparing entire franchise with a part of a franchise, wow had many good solid chars, and many jokes (heck they have entire zones as memes), but that's it: pre-pandas, a fart joke best hope is to get a quest or 2, not an entire exp

Oh yes, a fart joke's best hop is to get a quest or two... which is why we've had that same joke of a quest where we're literally dealing with FECES, either having to pick it up, sift through it, or use it as a quest reward. And how are Pandas a 'fart joke' if you flat out admit that entire ZONES in WoW itself are little more than just walking jokes themselves?

Let's not forget how pandas in wc3 changed massively to kung-fu ripoff to appeal to more customers, eye color change body change and samurai-inspired removed to appeal to big brother winnie the pooh, so yeah

And here we are, ladies and gentlemen, someone who has proven they don't pay attention, look, or even think about things before they say it. Let's look at the facts, shall we?

Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne came out in the year 2003 which is, just looking from a quick google search, where Chen Stormstout was put into the game during the Orc campaign. A Pandaren Brewmaster, the entire point of the class was a tanky, drunken kung fu master style of fighter inspired from the region he came from, that being China.

Kung Fu Panda, the movie staring Jack Black as Po learning to become a Kung-Fu Master, didn't even EXIST for another 5 YEARS. Even ignoring the fact that the original artwork done for the Pandaren showed more Samurai style of things, which was made because the artist in question was just had a KID and wanted to celebrate their birth, the idea of a Martial Artist fighting Panda was something they had done way before hand.

And this was ALL before Blizzard became big enough for China to even be interested in GAMING, much less Blizzard, to even look their way.

Oh, and that's also even mentioning that Samurais? Those are JAPANESE. Kinda actually MORE fitting to make them use Chinese Martial Arts then have them use themes and a style from a completely different culture.

pandalands had many problems, but again i admit the exp gameplay is most solid, probably had most fun in them playing any class, and last exp i actually loved being healer with so many abilities and oh-shit cds that blizz removed and f8cked healers so hard that even in legion couldn't play them

The only problem Pandaria had are people like you, who couldn't see past their own biases and instead turned their nose up at it, and an extra long time in the last raid, which it's not even the FIRST expansion that was guilty of that. Even now, with you flat out admitting that you ENJOYED the damn expansion, you still parrot the same rhetoric about your hatred for the Pandaraen as a whole. I'm honestly bewildered how anyone who actually played through Pandaria, actually sat down and went through it's stories, could STILL be convinced that they, their lore, and their existence in Warcraft still amounts to nothing more than a 'Fart Joke that Blizzard like the smell of'.

[Shadowferal]

there is a reason that they say first impression is everything...

There aren't many playing the game today that care about lore as a whole, let alone care to know how pandaren came about.

[Itisamuh]

While you're not wrong, but i think you laser focus on that, the main plot.
Wotlk in particular had a bunch of different plots going on and the, compared to modern questing, less linear questing made that possible.

For example, you have a questchain in Howling Fjord that deals with some pirates robbing the graves of some Vrykul Sailors, which are now super pissed.
Turns out, those Vrykul sailor are the Kvaldir and gives room to speculate whether the Kvaldir, who appeared on the other side of Northrend, turned up because of those pirates which dug up these artifacts.

It doesn't shove the connection in your face, the player has to make it for themselves but these things still work on their own without having necessarily put those pieces together.

Another example would be Grizzly Hills, questing in there has very little connection to the Lich King itself, yet was still enjoyable to a lot of people.

The bottomline is, previously WoW gave enough escape room that even when the mainplot sucked (and without fail, it very much did), where story and lore could shine or at least be enjoyed.

With their modern storytelling and heavy focus on a single plot, that just completely goes away, it's all about the Jailer, Sylvanas, yadayada, it all hinges on that plot thread.
And if that falls through, the entire setting falls through.

Blizzard puts all their eggs in one basket, and then is surprised when eggshells fly past their faces.

Ah yes, I do see your point, and definitely agree that they tend to work best on the small scale stuff, or at least not hyper focusing on one thing. That might be part of why I loved Drustvar so much, it felt pretty disconnected from the rest of the game and was simply its own mystery, with a chilling atmosphere that is nearly unheard of in this game. I just disagree when people attribute Blizzard sucking at large scale story telling to mean we should also go back to being nameless adventurers. At some point, after dealing with a million different threats, I would demand some sort of recognition. Legion was probably the best story expansion in my eyes, it came closest to pulling off a big story, while still having a lot of side plots.

[Feanoro]

And here we are, ladies and gentlemen, someone who has proven they don't pay attention, look, or even think about things before they say it.

Comments that won't age well. Try reading what he said.

The original Pandaren and the ones present in the RPG material were presented as grim and stoic with an obvious Japanese samurai aesthetic. Kung Fu Panda came out in 2008, and MoP in 2012. The Pandaren were revamped in hopes of taking advantage of KFP's popularity, shifting to jovial, food loving, barely serious parodies compared to the original version. One of their racials is called "Bouncy", for heaven's sake.

That's where the criticism of MoP being KFP comes from, not your lecturing about people's biases, but Blizzard actually redesigning the Pandaren for cheap laughs and hoping to ride a movie's popularity.

[Cracked]

Tbh the lore of modern WoW is such a hodgepodge of location skips, time skips, retcons, undos and redos that it's no wonder it's the clusterfuck that it is. Go read a book is not a valid precondition to understanding what the hell is happening in the game.

I've long thought Blizzard should do WC4 just to tie up the story and explore something new, followed up by an expansion like 3-4 months later, get some fresh blood into WoW while you're at it. But that would have been too good.

[Kralljin]

I just disagree when people attribute Blizzard sucking at large scale story telling to mean we should also go back to being nameless adventurers. At some point, after dealing with a million different threats, I would demand some sort of recognition. Legion was probably the best story expansion in my eyes, it came closest to pulling off a big story, while still having a lot of side plots.

Whil i agree that you cannot go back because of threatcreep, which is difficult to avoid, i think it just goes back to that such stories work poorly in an MMO, because the biggest player accomplishments have always been a group effort, but within the story the player is treated as the guy that some did X or was the "chosen one" whom without nothing would've been possible, rather than what it actually was, a group of extremely competent people.

Obviously, this is an inherit issue to the MMO genre, but Blizzard fully stepped into it with extremely poor telling of it, Shadowlands is again a great example, where you are just inexplicably become the chosen one for a realm you've never been to and the connection why you are so special is never truly explained.

It's also difficult because veteran character walk the same path as new character, i guess it make sense when my 15+ year old character gets praised left and right...but that alt i've created 5 days ago also now suddenly gets showered in "Chosen one" praise, despite only doing basic quest content.

[MsSideEye]

Comments that won't age well. Try reading what he said.

And let's see just how brilliant your own contribution is to think you've got the upper hand.

The original Pandaren and the ones present in the RPG material were presented as grim and stoic with an obvious Japanese samurai aesthetic.

I don't know what's worse here: The fact that you think it's completely OK to completely misrepresent one culture by taking the ideas of it's neighbor and slapping it on them (Read: No, it really fucking isn't), or the fact that you think that ANYTHING in the table top game should be taken as hard fact. Because, yes, something that 9 out of 10 players never even heard about even when Warcraft 3 was at it's height of popularity should be just as important to the lore as anything else!

Hell, even when directly asked about how canon the RPG books were, the answer was this:

No. The RPG books were created to provide an engaging table-top role-playing experience, which sometimes required diverging from the established video game canon. Blizzard helped generate a great deal of the content within the RPG books, so there will be times when ideas from the RPG will make their way into the game and official lore, but you are much better off considering the RPG books non-canonical unless otherwise stated.

Sooooo, yeah... you're way on the wrong here. Oh, and Added benefit? Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne came out almost a full month before the RPG book was published, which means your argument is even MORE pointless.

Oh, and even MORE to add? Here's the image of the original Pandaren as depicted by Samwise Didier, who did it after the birth of his daughter.



Yeah... that's really grim and stoic panda samurai right there.

Kung Fu Panda came out in 2008, and MoP in 2012. The Pandaren were revamped in hopes of taking advantage of KFP's popularity, shifting to jovial, food loving, barely serious parodies compared to the original version. One of their racials is called "Bouncy", for heaven's sake.

So now that I've completely decimated your earlier point, let's talk about this one!

Using W3 as the basis then of the Pandaren, as the first real time they were used seriously, Chen is depicted as a jovial, friendly character whose entire focus is making his new brew. Now, even ignoring the fact that a single character does not a race make, the fact of the matter is that we don't see a 'grim and stoic samurai' here. We see a friendly, if not CUDDLY, panda bear whose all about a fine drink who has several jokes about alcohol.

And actually, with me saying that, let me bring up another point that y'all seem to be forgetting. Blizzard was always at it's best when they combined serious, character defining storytelling with offbeat, goofy humor.

Everything from the Orc grunts in Warcraft 3 having a freaking Yoda AND Kermit the Frog joke to Alliance players in Exile's Reach using a Boar that's been grown by Gnome technology to fight Undead, part of Warcraft's appeal is the fact that you can have a dark, important story along side college humor about how silly everything can be. And that's when it was at it's best, when it could point at itself and laugh.

That's where the criticism of MoP being KFP comes from, not your lecturing about people's biases, but Blizzard actually redesigning the Pandaren for cheap laughs and hoping to ride a movie's popularity.

Now here's the deal: I won't deny that Kung-Fu Panda had some influence on Mists. This is the same company we're talking about whom is well known for taking ideas, be it story, gameplay, or UI wise, from other companies and individuals and putting them into the base game usually with their own level of spit shine. But to go and say there wasn't already a precedent for making Pandaren a goofy, more humorous is just flat out wrong.

To whine and continue to push the idea that the Pandaren were some form of hard as stone bad asses because of the RPG book just makes you look like the joke.

[Feanoro]

I don't know what's worse here: The fact that you think it's completely OK to completely misrepresent one culture by taking the ideas of it's neighbor and slapping it on them (Read: No, it really fucking isn't)

I had no idea that I created the Pandaren and am therefore responsible for their cultural influences. I also had no idea that the FICTIONAL Pandaren were supposed to be a direct one to one relation to a real world culture either. No other Warcraft race is a direct relation, why are the Pandas special?

Save your outrage for something real.

or the fact that you think that ANYTHING in the table top game should be taken as hard fact. Because, yes, something that 9 out of 10 players never even heard about even when Warcraft 3 was at it's height of popularity should be just as important to the lore as anything else!

Good thing I wasn't talking about their canonicity, but their creation and being drastically changed from their early form.

Sooooo, yeah... you're way on the wrong here. Oh, and Added benefit? Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne came out almost a full month before the RPG book was published, which means your argument is even MORE pointless.

I would be wrong, if I was saying one word about canon rather than the creative process. Since that's not the case, you keep on beating that strawman if it makes you feel better.

Yeah... that's really grim and stoic panda samurai right there.

Goodness me, your picture (cut due to forum rules about quoting pictures) depicts Japanese dress and weapons.

So now that I've completely decimated

The point you made up and tried to claim I made rather than what I actually said? You sure showed that strawman!

Using W3 as the basis then of the Pandaren, as the first real time they were used seriously, Chen is depicted as a jovial, friendly character whose entire focus is making his new brew. Now, even ignoring the fact that a single character does not a race make, the fact of the matter is that we don't see a 'grim and stoic samurai' here. We see a friendly, if not CUDDLY, panda bear whose all about a fine drink who has several jokes about alcohol.

So because Chen is jovial and friendly, all Pandaren should be, even though a single character does not necessarily represent the entire race. Do you routinely contradict yourself?

And actually, with me saying that, let me bring up another point that y'all seem to be forgetting. Blizzard was always at it's best when they combined serious, character defining storytelling with offbeat, goofy humor.

Everything from the Orc grunts in Warcraft 3 having a freaking Yoda AND Kermit the Frog joke to Alliance players in Exile's Reach using a Boar that's been grown by Gnome technology to fight Undead, part of Warcraft's appeal is the fact that you can have a dark, important story along side college humor about how silly everything can be. And that's when it was at it's best, when it could point at itself and laugh.

So you argue that Blizzard makes jokes... but you get upset when people point out the jokes about the Pandaren that Blizzard makes? Consistency doesn't seem to be your thing.

Now here's the deal: I won't deny that Kung-Fu Panda had some influence on Mists.

Except for the part where you did, merrily screeching about bias and "people like you" (Particularly amusing considering you stop short of calling people bigots. Hypocrite much?).

To whine and continue to push the idea that the Pandaren were some form of hard as stone bad asses because of the RPG book just makes you look like the joke.

Since we've already determined you don't go for consistency, I can see why it wouldn't be a problem for you to see them retconned into what we got in MoP.

You seem to take this awfully personally, but a little secret for you. Not everyone likes the same things as you, and that's perfectly fine.

Another secret for you, the reason the Pandaren stopped featuring towards the end of their own expansion and have never been used since? The Chinese government was pissed at the portrayal of panda creatures as goofy alcoholics. Maybe you should go scream at them.

[MsSideEye]

I had no idea that I created the Pandaren and am therefore responsible for their cultural influences. I also had no idea that the FICTIONAL Pandaren were supposed to be a direct one to one relation to a real world culture either. No other Warcraft race is a direct relation, why are the Pandas special?

Save your outrage for something real.

You must REALLY think yourself super important if you think I'm accusing you of being responsible for the cultural influences. No, I'm accusing you of being Ok with it. Which is the entire point: It's not to be Ok to see something that's Chinese, comes from China, and go 'DUH, LET'S GO MAKE IT JAPANESE INSTEAD, BECAUSE THAT'S MORE POPULAR'. It's racist, it's stupid, and you've yet to prove yourself to the contrary.

In the case of the original artwork, I put more the blame at the artist either not knowing any better, or (Which is the more likely of the two), just wanting to do a picture to celebrate the birth of his kid.

Good thing I wasn't talking about their canonicity, but their creation and being drastically changed from their early form.

Then WTF are you even DOING pushing yourself into the conversation in the first place? This is a LORE THREAD about the Pandaren in an argument about HOW THEY WERE CREATED. Going and sticking your nose into things because 'Oh, the TTRPG is a thing' isn't a viable reason and, as I have ALREADY proven, not even how they were depicted in their earlier actually set in game example.

I would be wrong, if I was saying one word about canon rather than the creative process. Since that's not the case, you keep on beating that strawman if it makes you feel better.

Second verse, same as the first. If you're going to be using a book source that is 1) Not representative of actual material being talked about and 2) has been flat out stated to not be accurate to said material in the first place, then what are you even DOING here?

Goodness me, your picture (cut due to forum rules about quoting pictures) depicts Japanese dress and weapons.

Oh yes! I never denied that! If you were actually paying attention or... you know, thought behind things? You'd realize I was making fun of you for going on about the 'Grim and Stoic' Pandaren when THAT was their original idea. Tell me... is it the dragonflys the you find so grim? Maybe bright oranges had become a stoic color without my knowing! I think a bit more fluffiness will show us just how dark they are!

The point you made up and tried to claim I made rather than what I actually said? You sure showed that strawman!

Says the one whose still pushing the idiotic idea that Pandaren were changed in some intrinsic way because of Kung-Fu Panda.

So because Chen is jovial and friendly, all Pandaren should be, even though a single character does not necessarily represent the entire race. Do you routinely contradict yourself?

Do you routinely ignore the entire point of that sentence? Which was to admit that while Chen, who is our ONLY real exposure to Pandaria/Pandaren before Mists, shouldn't be the representative of his race... that your whole 'Grim and Stoic' Pandaren ideal is no where to be found? That's kinda the entire point there: That the idea of that is NO WHERE to be found in either the original picture depicting the Pandaren OR in the first ever use in an actual Warcraft game.

So you argue that Blizzard makes jokes... but you get upset when people point out the jokes about the Pandaren that Blizzard makes? Consistency doesn't seem to be your thing.

My problem was never the fact that Blizzard makes jokes or the fact that the Pandaren started out as one. The whole point of my discussion with @sam86 was the fact that just BECAUSE something started out as a joke doesn't take away from the depth, importance, or overall quality of the story that came after. It seems reading comprehension doesn't seem to be your thing at all.

Except for the part where you did, merrily screeching about bias and "people like you" (Particularly amusing considering you stop short of calling people bigots. Hypocrite much?).

There's a myriad of difference between 'Oh, they took a few ideas that they felt fit their property' and 'We wholesale ripped off this idea and put it in our game'. You, sir, are arguing for the later. I stated the former.

Another secret for you, the reason the Pandaren stopped featuring towards the end of their own expansion and have never been used since? The Chinese government was pissed at the portrayal of panda creatures as goofy alcoholics. Maybe you should go scream at them.

Yes, because it had nothing to do with half their player base pissing and moaning about the fact that they were stuck in 'Kung-Fu Panda land', the fact that the Faction War was front and center and kinda one of the big points of Pandaria, or the simple matter WoW as an MMO NEVER goes back to old established locations for Future expansions. The only one you could even remotely argue in that case is WoD and we all know how THAT turned out.

Could the Chinese government have been pissed at Blizz for how they handled Pandarens? Fuck if I know. What little I turned up from google on the subject talked more about how they were Ok with Mists as a whole. But then showing proof doesn't seem to be your kind of deal.

[Aresk]

You do realize you actually point out how inactive the Night elves are in the exact same post you said they had 'many events', right? And what, pray tell, are these events that we actually see and MATTER between the Sundering that happened at the War of the Ancients and the plot of Warcraft 3? And no, having a random 'Oh, they fought this War in Y time' doesn't count if there's no reflection of it in game. Lore only matters if it has IMPACT on the story. No one cares if Night Elf General #346 died 8000 years ago in the fight for the badlands if it's never actually mentioned in game and there's no reason FOR us to know it.

The War of the Satyr and the War of the Shifting Sands both occurred between the War of the Ancients and WC3, with in-game impact. The latter was important in the Ahn'qiraj questlines, while the former has had an impact in about half of the expansions (Classic, WotLK, Cata, Legion, BfA) and has become inextricably linked to the Gilnean storylines through the curse of the worgen.

[Feanoro]

No, I'm accusing you of being Ok with it.

So you're angry that I'm not angry with Blizz for creating a fictional race of panda men in a way that you think is appropriate? Uh what?

It's not to be Ok to see something that's Chinese, comes from China, and go 'DUH, LET'S GO MAKE IT JAPANESE INSTEAD, BECAUSE THAT'S MORE POPULAR'.

And guess what? I DIDN'T CREATE THEM, so bitching at me about their creation is absurd. You're upset about it, go complain to Blizzard. Also, fucking lol at "something that's Chinese". Real world pandas are animals. They are not Chinese people. If you're going to start calling people animals, we're definitely done here.

It's racist, it's stupid, and you've yet to prove yourself to the contrary.

Let me see if I've got this right. Because I'm not outraged over Blizzard creating a fictional race, I'm a racist. Already saw you're not consistent, going to add "logical" and "coherent" to that list.

In the case of the original artwork, I put more the blame at the artist either not knowing any better, or (Which is the more likely of the two), just wanting to do a picture to celebrate the birth of his kid.

So shouldn't the artist be the target of your rage? Shouldn't you be screaming that he's racist and stupid?

an argument about HOW THEY WERE CREATED.

Yes? Whether something is canon or not has nothing to do with the real world creative process. The point was to show that Blizzard's ideas on them changed.

Says the one whose still pushing the idiotic idea that Pandaren were changed in some intrinsic way because of Kung-Fu Panda.

Now here's the deal: I won't deny that Kung-Fu Panda had some influence on Mists.

Might want to read your own posts.

Do you routinely ignore the entire point of that sentence?

The burden of making yourself clear is on you. You stated that Chen "shouldn't be the representative of his race". So far so good. Yet you then turn around and say that the Pandaren in MoP should be portrayed like Chen, because he set the precedent. That's contradicting yourself.

The RPG books came after WC3. They gave us more information on Pandaren and their culture, of which Chen was not a typical example. Thus, the creative process in the real world did include those ideas. You don't get to pretend they never existed. Are they non canon? Sure, and that's not a problem, nor does it have jack shit to do with discussing the real world creative process that developed the MoP Pandaren.

There's a myriad of difference between 'Oh, they took a few ideas that they felt fit their property' and 'We wholesale ripped off this idea and put it in our game'. You, sir, are arguing for the later. I stated the former.

I'm pretty sure I know better than you what I think. I never said they "wholesale ripped off" anything. I said they changed the Pandaren from what their previous material said to more closely reflect KFP. They made no secret of that, they made JOKES about doing it! Seriously, you can stop screaming at the strawman any time.

Since I really don't expect much now that you've decided I'm somehow racist for not being outraged over someone else's creation, I don't think this is going to go much further. Who knows, you might surprise me and make a coherent argument, but I'm only expecting more wildly self-contradictory nonsense.

[Shadowferal]

Hmmm...a lesson to be learned from Lorewalker Cho;

[MsSideEye]

The War of the Satyr and the War of the Shifting Sands both occurred between the War of the Ancients and WC3, with in-game impact. The latter was important in the Ahn'qiraj questlines, while the former has had an impact in about half of the expansions (Classic, WotLK, Cata, Legion, BfA) and has become inextricably linked to the Gilnean storylines through the curse of the worgen.

Now if only these things were actually shown in game instead of being written about in books and shoved into the games after the fact to explain it all (If not made up on the spot in game, since I don't recall Satyr's being all that big of a thing originally). Still cool, though, that you're actually able find something that they did

we're definitely done here.

Oh, I quite agree. When you're just cherry picking and taking my own words out of context to make yourself look right, well, I gotta do the same thing any half sane person does: Ignore them and move onto better things in my life. I've already done this to several twisted individuals on this forum.

What's one more?