Blizzard lore insanity

[VladlTutushkin]

Lately i was talking with a friend - sort of a Warcraft newbie, who barely knows lore past Warcraft 3. And as we talked his questions made me realise how insane and bipolar WoW lore “messages” are. But lets try and dissect that:
1) Plots in games or any fiction really dont necessarily need a “message”. Or it can be subtle and weaved through whole plot in a hidden, concealed way.
2) But WoW obviously always pushes some strong “key messages” with its plots. The quality of those or their delivery however... is beyond lackluster. Also they usually “last” about as long as a glass of beer during Octoberfest or a wax sculpture on a hot grill.
3) In BfA they seemingly tried to tell us two completely conflicting “messages” - one being that “war is hell” and that peace is so fucken worth it that even stepping on your own throat (or the throat of your allies) is acceptable price for it. And that any warmongering , even retaliatory one and justified are WRONG, EVIL and “LEAD TO DARKNESS”. Examples are of course Tyrande with her plot being heavily fused with messages of “vengeance bad” and her desire to fight for her people literally killing her from inside (aka “night warrior power” tearing her body apart.). While Shandris who “forgives but not forgets” (which is extremely cucked btw, since that means you always retain the shame but never actually gain the “drive” for revenge or comeback.) portrayed as reasonable and good leader. Same goes for Anduin with his endless second chances and peacemongering. On the horde side we can point out Baine of course and Saurfang ALTHOUGH retroactively they are less guilty of that since they managed to end the conflict before Sylvanas turned to “order 66” and finished the horde as she planned to do after Alliance was dealt with. Hence, all things considered they stopped the rigged game before they lost their money and came out without a great win but also without a total loss.
4) But at the same time they also push the “genocide is kinda okay if you had some awesome-sauce plan that only 9000 IQ megaminds can understand” or “war crimes are fine since war is heck and all is allowed” (since your enemy will totes forgive you if you feel bad later and will not escalate it into a “nuclear scenario” when pushed into highest desperation by holocaust.). Everything is fine and dandy with you if you just say “sowwy” after you are done skinning someone alive or performing an intrusive cranial surgery on them while they are still alive or raising entire village with all the people still in and so on. Basically any act of aggression, even those of extreme, over the top brutality and cruelty are forgivable (and MUST be forgiven) on the basis that you felt a bit uneasy or even awful afterwards. Also any retaliation is wrong , even verbal one since that makes you a BIGOT and a raaacist possibly.
Those two messages have obvious conflicting points which can be simplified to “any aggression bad, no matter the reason or justification” or “any justification or flimsy reasoning can justify an aggression and makes it 100% forgivable and also makes it a moral obligation of your victim to forgive you.” Which are direct opposites of one another. So... is that a case of Bipolar Disorder in the Blizz?

[Super Dickmann]

The main throughline is that any sort of proactivity and personal grievance is always wrong. Every good guy is motivated only by being good, nothing else. This is a long-standing thing but has gotten worse over time. Where before it was Tirion getting the kill and focus vs. Arthas despite the two having no prior story whatsoever and Tirion only opposing him because that's what paladins do, now it's Tyrande and Genn being sidelined vis a vis Sylvanas for a focus on people who only pursue her out of obligation and because they're such nice dudes rather than anything else. That is the message - be motivated only by selfless abstractions, people's deaths in the pursuit of them are irrelevant provided peace is achieved. Attachment to anything else is wrong.

Where this clashes is that such things are cripplingly boring to write for and don't make for spectacle. They also don't match up with the game which is based completely on conflict and can thus never implement the lesson as its systems don't allow it. Ditto, for both entertainment purposes and out of necessity, they often put focus on the caricature-tier villains or even flirt with actually nuanced motivation, simply because they're the engines through which the actual strengths of the game come through. Hence, contradiction.

[Arrashi]

Its not really about being bipolar as much as blizzard desperately aiming for certain "themes", that often times go completely against other parts of game.

I think its safe to say that warcraft is worst "anti-war" war game, and the fact that they try to push that pro-peace "war is bad" theme while sending us to kill 10 alliance soldiers for our box is hilarious.

On top of that you have obvious pandering to certain groups while being almost as morally bankrupt as disney, something that culiminated in sad washed-up vampire talking about "difficult e-sport moment" while showing his puppy eyes and rainbow pin.

[VladlTutushkin]

The main throughline is that any sort of proactivity and personal grievance is always wrong. Every good guy is motivated only by being good, nothing else. This is a long-standing thing but has gotten worse over time. Where before it was Tirion getting the kill and focus vs. Arthas despite the two having no prior story whatsoever and Tirion only opposing him because that's what paladins do, now it's Tyrande and Genn being sidelined vis a vis Sylvanas for a focus on people who only pursue her out of obligation and because they're such nice dudes rather than anything else. That is the message - be motivated only by selfless abstractions, people's deaths in the pursuit of them are irrelevant provided peace is achieved. Attachment to anything else is wrong.

Where this clashes is that such things are fairly boring to write for and don't make for spectacle. They also don't match up with the game which is based completely on conflict and can thus never implement the lesson as its systems don't allow it. Ditto, for both entertainment purposes and out of necessity, they often put focus on the caricature-tier villains or even flirt with actually nuanced motivation, simply because they're the engines through which the actual strengths of the game come through. Hence, contradiction.

Rather moronic approach since personal or “wider personal” investments like for example - desire to avenge your loved ones, defend your country, serve your liege (if you put a lot of trust into them) or even uphold principles of your religion (given if those are good principles and not child sacrifices) are often main driving forces of Heroes. And i am not even talking “grey” heroes i am talking the Classical Hero trope. And historically speaking motivations of personal type often intertwine with “greater good” if your enemy is “evil” for example both Allies and USSR were far from good or even good allies but they came together to stop Nazis which ultimately saved the world from racial cleansings and whole lovely package of fascism.
Or more personally - my great-grandfather was a tank engineer in Red Army and was about as petty as it can be - kicking corpses, looting, kicking injured or captured germans and so on. He was also a huge bigot towards them. But he was motivated by the fact that half his family got mowed down by said germans and his homeland was under siege so in the end he is one of many heroes and despite his less stellar acts he was fighting to save others from similar fate that befallen his family.

[Super Dickmann]

Rather moronic approach since personal or “wider personal” investments like for example - desire to avenge your loved ones, defend your country, serve your liege (if you put a lot of trust into them) or even uphold principles of your religion (given if those are good principles and not child sacrifices) are often main driving forces of Heroes. And i am not even talking “grey” heroes i am talking the Classical Hero trope. And historically speaking motivations of personal type often intertwine with “greater good” if your enemy is “evil” for example both Allies and USSR were far from good or even good allies but they came together to stop Nazis which ultimately saved the world from racial cleansings and whole lovely package of fascism.
Or more personally - my great-grandfather was a tank engineer in Red Army and was about as petty as it can be - kicking corpses, looting, kicking injured or captured germans and so on. He was also a huge bigot towards them. But he was motivated by the fact that half his family got mowed down by said germans and his homeland was under siege so in the end he is one of many heroes and despite his less stellar acts he was fighting to save others from similar fate that befallen his family.

Oh, I'm not disputing that, you're entirely right. I'm more explaining what the message is and why it mangles the stories they try to tell. Having a personal and a righteous motive are not exclusive to anyone who has half a brain or who's spoken to a real human being. And personal motives are more compelling than entirely abstract ones. It's not schizophrenic intentionally, it's just that they're trying to do something that's both impossible and very dull so they fight against themselves.

[Nynax]

The external push for fiction to have Real World relevant narratives (whether by fans or by politics) has ruined a lot of Blizzard storytelling as of late. The bests novelists build a world and write narratives based on each character's personality and perspective from beat to beat; sometimes even being surprised by where their own writing takes the plot. That is good story building.

Blizzard doesn't do that. Blizzard writes like fan-fic and decides where the plot is going to go from top down, then forces the writers to "make it work." Biggest reason why it just doesn't feel organic and everything seems forced now.

The outside influence has also caused them to lose the "morally grey" that used to make older Blizzard games more enticing. It's not "okay" for Garrosh to be a Warchief that does only what is good for the Horde and damn everyone else! 21st Centurery sensibilities tell us that's a horrible kind of leader! But I'd argue it makes more sense, and is more interesting, for the Warcraft universe to have a Horde that is focused on power.

What I love about the Starcraft story is that those 3 factions tended to act by what they each felt was best for them. That created a lot of interesting conflicts. WoW has lost most of that.

[Tharivor]

4) But at the same time they also push the “genocide is kinda okay if you had some awesome-sauce plan that only 9000 IQ megaminds can understand” or “war crimes are fine since war is heck and all is allowed” (since your enemy will totes forgive you if you feel bad later and will not escalate it into a “nuclear scenario” when pushed into highest desperation by holocaust.). Everything is fine and dandy with you if you just say “sowwy” after you are done skinning someone alive or performing an intrusive cranial surgery on them while they are still alive or raising entire village with all the people still in and so on. Basically any act of aggression, even those of extreme, over the top brutality and cruelty are forgivable (and MUST be forgiven) on the basis that you felt a bit uneasy or even awful afterwards. Also any retaliation is wrong , even verbal one since that makes you a BIGOT and a raaacist possibly.

I agree that Blizzard suffers from bipolar messaging but this message you're projecting here is simply not present in BfA's narrative at all. It is never implied in any way shape or form that genocide is ever justified, that Sylvanas' patented 9d-chess master plan (give me strength!) is anything but pure evil. There is in short absolutely no messaging whatsoever that justifies anything Sylvanas does nor that implies any war crime is moral or permissible. What you are very oddly interpreting as "genocide is fine" is actually the exact opposite taken to the absolute extreme- basically killing and violence is so evil that even doing it against enemies that recently tried to genocide you is bad. Its a silly message I agree, but not contradictory to the first- rather its the first taken to ridiculous extremes .i.e. see Jaina's "attacking when we have an advantage and winning the war would make us as bad as them". Thats what you're supposed to take away from the narrative- that violence is so evil that its even wrong as a punishment for past violence. Its only justified against cartoon evil villains who won't say sorry .i.e. Sylvanas.

Where the contradiction comes in is that Blizzard still wants to simultaneously hype players up around faction pride and rivalry, which flatly contradicts the idea that any violence between factions is never justified. This inconsistency is most obvious in the Horde war campaign where your character switches from one moment happily killing the alliance, to the next moment having a moral quandary about a single Alliance prisoner, but it can also be seen on the Alliance side where war against the Horde goes from justified to unjustified in a blink of an eye. You're supposed to be excited about fighting for your faction to make you buy the game, but then once you play it you're supposed to suddenly realise that actually thats wrong and the Alliance and Horde should be best friends.
This is likely motivated by marketing and the need to hype the playerbase to sell the game- the exhaustion of most of the famous bad guys like Sargeras leaves faction rivalry one of the few ways to get the playerbase excited, even if it contradicts Blizzards intended messaging of faction peace.

[Zulkhan]

Blizzard's top developers are so morally bankrupt that is not even funny, at this point. We had plenty of real-life situations recently that undeniably proved that, alongside their monumental hypocrisy. That is just flawlessly reflected in their games, since they indeed obsessively push a "pro-peace" narrative while marketing, at the same time, the faction war as something "cool" and "badass".

"Hey look here customer, wanna fight for your faction and smash some Allies/Hordies? Jump to the hype train and buy this goddamn expansion" only to then act half-way like they really intend to deliver "messages" and remind us for the ?th time that people should stop fighting and band together...after the ?th war they artificially created for marketing over hilarious reasons.

[Nynax]

I agree that Blizzard suffers from bipolar messaging but this message you're projecting here is simply not present in BfA's narrative at all. It is never implied in any way shape or form that genocide is ever justified, that Sylvanas' patented 9d-chess master plan (give me strength!) is anything but pure evil. There is in short absolutely no messaging whatsoever that justifies anything Sylvanas does nor that implies any war crime is moral or permissible. What you are very oddly interpreting as "genocide is fine" is actually the exact opposite taken to the absolute extreme- basically killing and violence is so evil that even doing it against enemies that recently tried to genocide you is bad. Its a silly message I agree, but not contradictory to the first- rather its the first taken to ridiculous extremes .i.e. see Jaina's "attacking when we have an advantage and winning the war would make us as bad as them". Thats what you're supposed to take away from the narrative- that violence is so evil that its even wrong as a punishment for past violence. Its only justified against cartoon evil villains who won't say sorry .i.e. Sylvanas.

Where the contradiction comes in is that Blizzard still wants to simultaneously hype players up around faction pride and rivalry, which flatly contradicts the idea that any violence between factions is never justified. This inconsistency is most obvious in the Horde war campaign where your character switches from one moment happily killing the alliance, to the next moment having a moral quandary about a single Alliance prisoner, but it can also be seen on the Alliance side where war against the Horde goes from justified to unjustified in a blink of an eye. You're supposed to be excited about fighting for your faction to make you buy the game, but then once you play it you're supposed to suddenly realise that actually thats wrong and the Alliance and Horde should be best friends.
This is likely motivated by marketing and the need to hype the playerbase to sell the game- the exhaustion of most of the famous bad guys like Sargeras leaves faction rivalry one of the few ways to get the playerbase excited, even if it contradicts Blizzards intended messaging of faction peace.

Imagine if the horde narrative wasn't "genocide is bad" but that "burning down your enemies home and families instead of conquering through combat is dishonerable beyond recovery." And so the rest of the war campaign was the non-Forsaken races going far out of their way to "fight with honor"out of a need to prove their worthiness as warriors, creating a growing rift and frustration in Sylvanas who wants them to fight dirty but cannot reprimand the entire horde culture.

Then, what turns up the faction conflict to 10, on the Alliance side you have the opposite events. While Anduin trys to focus on lofty ideals and "genocide is bad" all of his troops and generals are like "fuck that noise, did you see what they did to Darnassus? You think they won't do that to Stormwind if they get the chance?" Then the Alliance war campaign has the troops on the ground fighting dirtier and dirtier while simultaneously being repremanded by their superiors for being dishonorable, creating a rift.

BFA then becomes about an out of touch Anduin seeming to not care about the pain of his subjects, and a Horde desperately trying to cling to their identity while being helmed by nihilisitc "pragmatist." The war starts because of the hordes dishonor but escalates because of the Alliance dishonor; and at the end of the day both factions hate each other for being despicable.

[Super Dickmann]

@Nynax

Don't make me sad thinking about what could've been. There's this end bit in A Good War where Saurfang laments how the sheer scale of how horrific Teldrassil was means the Horde as a whole will be culpable and like it or not, now it's victory or death so they'll have to push on. That's the story that would have checked out and it makes leagues more sense than this farce where the Alliance forgive what happened while the Horde are lemmings that never mention it.

[VladlTutushkin]

@Nynax

Don't make me sad thinking about what could've been. There's this end bit in A Good War where Saurfang laments how the sheer scale of how horrific Teldrassil was means the Horde as a whole will be culpable and like it or not, now it's victory or death so they'll have to push on. That's the story that would have checked out and it makes leagues more sense than this farce where the Alliance forgive what happened while the Horde are lemmings that never mention it.

They still COULD have "made it interesting" in some ways. Its still a bit vague , i am not done thinking but... Well, Alliance is by all definitions holy martyred now, well, then RUN WITH IT. Make it into something interesting, a Feature. Like... Horde begins to literally lose "propaganda war" and not in a limp dicked, purely dumb luck way Anduin "convinced" Saurfang but like, intentionally using the "holier then though" ways to subvert more and more of neutral Azerothian factions and even some horde clans/societies to "convert" into Alliance. Eventually starting to roll over the horde by sheer weight of numbers and demonization of their enemies. Then there might have being sort of "fall of USSR" with the horde but even worse since now everybody sees "horde" as pure evil (that shouldnt be a purely objective stance, merely a fruit of propaganda) and it turns into "convert or die" situation where horde has to either somehow break the "machine" and stop the conversion or band together and fight back against vastly superior foe AND show that they are not a blight on Azeroth and not a "living cancer that only exists to destroy and consume".

- - - Updated - - -

The external push for fiction to have Real World relevant narratives (whether by fans or by politics) has ruined a lot of Blizzard storytelling as of late. The bests novelists build a world and write narratives based on each character's personality and perspective from beat to beat; sometimes even being surprised by where their own writing takes the plot. That is good story building.

Blizzard doesn't do that. Blizzard writes like fan-fic and decides where the plot is going to go from top down, then forces the writers to "make it work." Biggest reason why it just doesn't feel organic and everything seems forced now.

The outside influence has also caused them to lose the "morally grey" that used to make older Blizzard games more enticing. It's not "okay" for Garrosh to be a Warchief that does only what is good for the Horde and damn everyone else! 21st Centurery sensibilities tell us that's a horrible kind of leader! But I'd argue it makes more sense, and is more interesting, for the Warcraft universe to have a Horde that is focused on power.

What I love about the Starcraft story is that those 3 factions tended to act by what they each felt was best for them. That created a lot of interesting conflicts. WoW has lost most of that.

Well, Horde did went for power several times already. Problem is that conflicts like that are too... Much for WoW to handle. Like it or not the best it can do are "border disputes, small faction dickery aka Despoilers VS Arathor" and so on. Because escalation cant lead to anything in WoW. Nobody can win realistically and nobody can lose for real. I hate to admit it but "game of thrones" just fated to fail in WoW.

[Super Dickmann]

They still COULD have "made it interesting" in some ways. Its still a bit vague , i am not done thinking but... Well, Alliance is by all definitions holy martyred now, well, then RUN WITH IT. Make it into something interesting, a Feature. Like... Horde begins to literally lose "propaganda war" and not in a limp dicked, purely dumb luck way Anduin "convinced" Saurfang but like, intentionally using the "holier then though" ways to subvert more and more of neutral Azerothian factions and even some horde clans/societies to "convert" into Alliance. Eventually starting to roll over the horde by sheer weight of numbers and demonization of their enemies. Then there might have being sort of "fall of USSR" with the horde but even worse since now everybody sees "horde" as pure evil (that shouldnt be a purely objective stance, merely a fruit of propaganda) and it turns into "convert or die" situation where horde has to either somehow break the "machine" and stop the conversion or band together and fight back against vastly superior foe AND show that they are not a blight on Azeroth and not a "living cancer that only exists to destroy and consume".

The setup isn't a lost cause. I give it a lot of shit, but it could've worked. Maybe not be satisfying for the factions but check out in terms of logical character motive. Anduin might want peace, but neutral factions will turn - the siege of Undercity would have the Argent Crusade as the surprise actor against the Forsaken, thus leading into more focus on their Lordaeronian identity instead of it being brushed under the rug. Saurfang instead of turning around would be obligated to stick around because of Lok'tar Ogar and driving the Horde to keep on fighting since he'd be afraid if they didn't they'be wiped out. Give Baine the Saurfang role - have him coordinate with Anduin about ending this since they're idealistic enough to want to sweep it under the rug. Sylvanas in turn you could have her either be the ultimate cynic or keep her current motive but her gambit have actually paid off in terms of forcing the Horde into this fight.

[VladlTutushkin]

The setup isn't a lost cause. I give it a lot of shit, but it could've worked. Maybe not be satisfying for the factions but check out in terms of logical character motive. Anduin might want peace, but neutral factions will turn - the siege of Undercity would have the Argent Crusade as the surprise actor against the Forsaken, thus leading into more focus on their Lordaeronian identity instead of it being brushed under the rug. Saurfang instead of turning around would be obligated to stick around because of Lok'tar Ogar and driving the Horde to keep on fighting since he'd be afraid if they didn't they'be wiped out. Give Baine the Saurfang role - have him coordinate with Anduin about ending this since they're idealistic enough to want to sweep it under the rug. Sylvanas in turn you could have her either be the ultimate cynic or keep her current motive but her gambit have actually paid off in terms of forcing the Horde into this fight.

Maybe. But what does that mean in the end? How this war should even end? Blizz "starting" it was the worst idea they had since... ever i guess. Especially with crap like they kept pulling all the way through the story line. It just has no realistic conclusion outside of... I dont even know what. Even temporary truce is very unlikely after sheer levels of messed up crimes horde went through. Or they can make Alliance into complete suckers and eternal losers (as they did for the most part). But even then its retarded since nobody in their right mind would side with Anduin on "peace". So, maybe if Anduin got completely dethroned and killed or imprisoned or maybe stripped of all titles and exiled then something interesting might have happened.

[kansor]

BFA then becomes about an out of touch Anduin seeming to not care about the pain of his subjects, and a Horde desperately trying to cling to their identity while being helmed by nihilisitc "pragmatist." The war starts because of the hordes dishonor but escalates because of the Alliance dishonor; and at the end of the day both factions hate each other for being despicable.

Nice contrast, that would make for an interesting story.

The setup isn't a lost cause. I give it a lot of shit, but it could've worked.

No, I don't think it was doomed at all. People were really excited for the concept of all-out faction war, presales were huge.

I think there are basically 3 stories you could have told:

1) As it is now, the war starts with Horde aggression, in a pre-emptive strike to secure their azerite supply. Play up the resource war theme. Like I wrote here, I think the current resolution actually works decently if you frame it as a cynical coup narrative. Although that might be a little out of step with the concept Nynax suggested, since in the linked post I assume Sylvanas is popular for her savage tactics and Anduin is machiavellian, while Nynax sees Sylvanas becoming unpopular for her lack of honor while Anduin stays goody two shoes.

An interesting end under Nynax's idea would be if both Anduin and Sylvanas were deposed -- Sylvanas gets kicked out in favor of the Honor Council, while Anduin, seen as too soft and weak, gets effectively deposed when the people clamor for a strong military leader (Turalyon, the returned hero who beat the Horde in the 2nd war, is the obvious choice). Drama would imply that the two deposed leaders somehow end up meeting. And you could go to the conclusion from there.

2) Flip the order of Battle for Undercity and Burning of Teldrassil and have the Alliance as aggressors (probably a crusade to set Calia on the throne of Lordaeron). This has the advantage of providing some contrast -- having the Horde yet again be the aggressors is so repetitive and aesthetically ugly. In this case, the "coup" storyline doesn't work as well, because Anduin convincing the Horde leaders to oppose Sylvanas reads more as blackmail if the Alliance started the war. Ironically, I think this option, where Sylvanas didn't start the war, allows for a more straight-faced story of her crossing the line with atrocities and getting deposed for it -- at first it's justifiable revenge, but then...

You could kind of make the coup thing work (we'll make peace if you ditch Death Lady) but I don't know if it would have the same impact.

3) Really make it that N'zoth is behind the scenes manipulating and corrupting people to create the war, so that his enemies kill each other off. This isn't mutually exclusive with either option above but does call for a different kind of ending. It may not be a very strong ending -- if you were only fighting because you were manipulated, the war may not have told you much about each other -- but it at least ties N'zoth into the xpac. Maybe in this ending there would be azerite WMDs as the climactic tool of totally destroying each other, which N'zoth wants. Azerite bombs stacked on the Vindicaar to be dropped from orbit, giant azeroth bomb in the goblin Stormwind cannon, Jaina going through with her idea of flooding Orgrimmar, you would have to bring it to a climax where total mutual destruction is at stake.


I don't mention Sylvanas's "kill as many people as possible to get power so I can 1v1 the Lich King" motive as a factor because that's a trite, nonsensical asspull.

[Powerogue]

What are you talking about? The WoW story is completely coherent. Just watch the Game Grumps learn about it! (starts 5:49)

[Vargrik]

The external push for fiction to have Real World relevant narratives (whether by fans or by politics) has ruined a lot of Blizzard storytelling as of late. The bests novelists build a world and write narratives based on each character's personality and perspective from beat to beat; sometimes even being surprised by where their own writing takes the plot. That is good story building.

Blizzard doesn't do that. Blizzard writes like fan-fic and decides where the plot is going to go from top down, then forces the writers to "make it work." Biggest reason why it just doesn't feel organic and everything seems forced now.

The outside influence has also caused them to lose the "morally grey" that used to make older Blizzard games more enticing. It's not "okay" for Garrosh to be a Warchief that does only what is good for the Horde and damn everyone else! 21st Centurery sensibilities tell us that's a horrible kind of leader! But I'd argue it makes more sense, and is more interesting, for the Warcraft universe to have a Horde that is focused on power.

What I love about the Starcraft story is that those 3 factions tended to act by what they each felt was best for them. That created a lot of interesting conflicts. WoW has lost most of that.

This is the best explanation.

[Athredas]

I'm still convinced that Blizzard messed up from the get go by simply not writing Horde as the bad guys. It really is just a red version of Alliance at this point, stripped off anything and everything that made them unique.

[Vargrik]

I'm still convinced that Blizzard messed up from the get go by simply not writing Horde as the bad guys. It really is just a red version of Alliance at this point, stripped off anything and everything that made them unique.

Maybe, but doesn't the real world have opposing sides, each one seeing each other as "evil"?

[LemonDemonGirl]

This is the best explanation.

It 100% is. Hit the nail on the head!

[Varodoc]

The external push for fiction to have Real World relevant narratives (whether by fans or by politics) has ruined a lot of Blizzard storytelling as of late. The bests novelists build a world and write narratives based on each character's personality and perspective from beat to beat; sometimes even being surprised by where their own writing takes the plot. That is good story building.

Blizzard doesn't do that. Blizzard writes like fan-fic and decides where the plot is going to go from top down, then forces the writers to "make it work." Biggest reason why it just doesn't feel organic and everything seems forced now.

The outside influence has also caused them to lose the "morally grey" that used to make older Blizzard games more enticing. It's not "okay" for Garrosh to be a Warchief that does only what is good for the Horde and damn everyone else! 21st Centurery sensibilities tell us that's a horrible kind of leader! But I'd argue it makes more sense, and is more interesting, for the Warcraft universe to have a Horde that is focused on power.

What I love about the Starcraft story is that those 3 factions tended to act by what they each felt was best for them. That created a lot of interesting conflicts. WoW has lost most of that.

Garrosh was an horrible leader. He didn't care about the Horde, he only cared about pure-blooded orcs. He was a tyrant who shattered the Horde with his decisions. He even admitted to Thrall that he wouldn't make for a good Warchief.