WoW's story needs to go back to being more like Exile's Reach

[Makabreska]

the cancel couture made Chris Metzen retire and leave blizzard permanently. i don't know how we are going to go back to a mop style story telling. putting the cart before the horse there. you guys are so out of touch with reality none of this makes any sense.

Tell me more about being out of touch with reality, when Chris retired due to mental issues way before cancel culture even became a thing.

[Cosmic Janitor]

BFA was just... Rough. Some hidden "okayish" gems here and there with things like the Blood Trolls and Uldir, the Drust and so on, and Shadowlands looks like it's emphasizing the weak points of Legion's demon respawning crap by demistifying how death functions, but we'll have to wait until the story is over before we can make a fair judgement. Personally I think tackling the function of death for a storyline is an extreme risk that should be avoided, especially as an expansion that isn't intended to conclude the franchise, but here we go.

Exactly my thoughts as well. I just see no payoff here, at best we break the shadowlands in a way that everything we did was meaningless and death is unknown again, at worst we take out all the emotional stakes (which were low to begin with). It's one of these things that should be handled with utmost care if you write a fantasy world, yet Blizzard just hastily cobbled together some lore here in hopes it might work out. I don't have high hopes for it ending well tbh.

[FelPlague]

Yeah we have been that since Vanilla, you think normal people could have beaten even the first boss in Molten core.

Cannonically hundreds of people took down most of the first raids. bassically lore wise back in vanilla there was not really "champions" there was just massive armies. and from those armies champions arrose. many people died in molten core, but those that lived then went to blackwing lair, and of those who survived then went to silithus, and many died, but of those who survived then went to naxxramas.


(Although cannonically alliance cleared naxxramas and horde cleared blackwing lair and alliance cleared aq40 while horde cleared aq20)

[LemonDemonGirl]

I'd be really happy with more stories written like how Zandalar was. You go to an anciet city, ask their king for help (maybe even befriend a Death God along the way), and then discover that they've had a major problem all along. And then, you become friends with all of the islanders, and they join your cause

[Relapses]

I will never understand the importance of story for people in a video game where the primary gameplay loop is killing internet dragons for imaginary loot.

[Kokolums]

I will never understand the importance of story for people in a video game where the primary gameplay loop is killing internet dragons for imaginary loot.

Its possible you could eliminate all flavor text, names, etc. and just label things as "unit#477981" and raids would be an empty room like Argent Tournament from Wrath where each unnamed thing popped up as you killed them. And instead of loot, you just have a power number and your power goes up a little bit. Totally bare bones.

But then again, you yourself took the time to give your some sort of anime avatar on this forum so I doubt you'd like it.

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Yeah we have been that since Vanilla, you think normal people could have beaten even the first boss in Molten core.

Killing one boss in Molten Core is a far far far far cry from beating down entities that threaten the whole of reality.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Killing one boss in Molten Core is a far far far far cry from beating down entities that threaten the whole of reality.

If C'thun was never killed in Vanilla that could have happened by now. Had he broken out and succeeded in corrupting Azeroth, that would have paved way for the Void Lords into our reality.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The zone is good for anyone starting up wow and thats the point of it, not some big continuation of wow's story. I do find it amusing somehow people think MoP was the best of everything(Literally ignoring all the other things people moaned about back then).

[Relapses]

Its possible you could eliminate all flavor text, names, etc. and just label things as "unit#477981" and raids would be an empty room like Argent Tournament from Wrath where each unnamed thing popped up as you killed them. And instead of loot, you just have a power number and your power goes up a little bit. Totally bare bones.

But then again, you yourself took the time to give your some sort of anime avatar on this forum so I doubt you'd like it.

I'm curious as to where I suggested they should eliminate all story from the game.

Moreover, what the fuck is the relevance of somebody's avatar? Excuse the fuck out of me for not having a CHAD non-anime avatar my guy.

[Kokolums]

Yes and no. It was the usual bullshit americanized disney version of priates.

I've said before that the long-term goal would be to sell ActiBlizz to Disney. So continuing to write like its a Disney story helps complete that future sale.

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If C'thun was never killed in Vanilla that could have happened by now. Had he broken out and succeeded in corrupting Azeroth, that would have paved way for the Void Lords into our reality.

From the way it was explained to me, we didn't kill C'Thun. We just attacked a very very tiny part of C'Thun and just kinda drove that part back a bit. At least, that was the story in vanilla. The lore was later revised that we killed C'Thun or something.

[iamthedevil]

Nope, that was added in Warcraft 2.

The backstory for Warcraft 1 is simply, "no one knew where these creatures came from".

Yeah but that still makes them aliens.

Actually, it stated in the wc1 manual that the orcs were brought to azeroth, so no, not wrong:

"The battle left both combatants drained, but Medivh held enough power to banish her from his sight, and command her never to return. His magiks were strong enough that even she cannot break this bond, and so can offer no aid in his downfall. The traveler also informs King Llane that it was Medivh who was responsible for the coming of the Orcs to Azeroth. During the battle with his father, he inadvertently opened a gateway to the domain that they, and many other foul creatures, call home. The Orcs are disciples of chaos, however, and not even Medivh has the power to control them."

Here's the whole manual https://wow.gamepedia.com/Warcraft:_..._Humans_manual

It also lists other things like demons coming from a portal to the underworld. So yeah, interdimensional aliens has been around the whole time.

[FelPlague]

Yeah but that still makes them aliens.

Actually, it stated in the wc1 manual that the orcs were brought to azeroth, so no, not wrong:

"The battle left both combatants drained, but Medivh held enough power to banish her from his sight, and command her never to return. His magiks were strong enough that even she cannot break this bond, and so can offer no aid in his downfall. The traveler also informs King Llane that it was Medivh who was responsible for the coming of the Orcs to Azeroth. During the battle with his father, he inadvertently opened a gateway to the domain that they, and many other foul creatures, call home. The Orcs are disciples of chaos, however, and not even Medivh has the power to control them."

Here's the whole manual https://wow.gamepedia.com/Warcraft:_..._Humans_manual

It also lists other things like demons coming from a portal to the underworld. So yeah, interdimensional aliens has been around the whole time.

i wouldnt call demons from hell aliens, as that is what they were originally hinted at being from cause of the whole ya know.. literally summoning demons thing. but yeah i wouldnt call people coming from hell aliens, but i guess ya could?

[iamthedevil]

i wouldnt call demons from hell aliens, as that is what they were originally hinted at being from cause of the whole ya know.. literally summoning demons thing. but yeah i wouldnt call people coming from hell aliens, but i guess ya could?

I mean an alien is essentially just a thing from another place.

Definition of alien

(Entry 1 of 3)
1a : belonging or relating to another person, place, or thing

Interdimensional makes it much more alien to me. Then it's like super alien lol.

[Evaddon]

Smh, if you want to be a simple adventure go play classic. That isn't the story anymore, and we can't go back. We've done to much to go back to collecting boars asses and fighting the Burning Blade.

Rather the story is good or bad is completely subjective to that of your personal understanding of whats going on what lead up to these events and is ultimately irrelevant outside of your bubble

[Kokolums]

Smh, if you want to be a simple adventure go play classic. That isn't the story anymore, and we can't go back. We've done to much to go back to collecting boars asses and fighting the Burning Blade.

Rather the story is good or bad is completely subjective to that of your personal understanding of whats going on what lead up to these events and is ultimately irrelevant outside of your personal bubble

The current situation is ridiculous and jarring. The writers clearly want to just throw all current lore characters into the trash and create a new set of lore characters every xpac. However, their hands are tied because Thrall, Jaina, Baine etc. are required which obviously frustrates them to no end because they want to tell tales now about reality-threatening monsters but racial lore heroes have no place in that. So they literally make them sit down in Oribos on their butts and twiddle their thumbs. Its hilarious and sad. Blizzard writers are at war with their own lore.

[Zigrifid]

sorry but exiles reach lore isnt that great (for me at least) a low lvl end up killing a dragon >.> nah dude

[Vargulf the Happy Husky]

i'd like to see an expansion of just local baddies running amuck. why not a raid of gnolls in elwynn that have grown in strength since we've all been out killing psychic old gods and the literal gods of death?

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Smh, if you want to be a simple adventure go play classic. That isn't the story anymore, and we can't go back. We've done to much to go back to collecting boars asses and fighting the Burning Blade.

Rather the story is good or bad is completely subjective to that of your personal understanding of whats going on what lead up to these events and is ultimately irrelevant outside of your bubble

at the same time, this guy has a point

in the end i would just like to go back to being a normal adventurer, not Captain Azeroth, but i get why we can't

[Evaddon]

The current situation is ridiculous and jarring. The writers clearly want to just throw all current lore characters into the trash and create a new set of lore characters every xpac. However, their hands are tied because Thrall, Jaina, Baine etc. are required which obviously frustrates them to no end because they want to tell tales now about reality-threatening monsters but racial lore heroes have no place in that. So they literally make them sit down in Oribos on their butts and twiddle their thumbs. Its hilarious and sad. Blizzard writers are at war with their own lore.

That remains to be seen, and you're speculating on a small fraction of the story that we have right now. Its not over, will see how this all plays out.

[Dimmak]

I found the Exile's Reach story intro to be more compelling than just about any Shadowlands stories outside of maybe Revendreth. Exile's Reach feels grounded and relatable. You're a soldier with a small makeshift camp, rallying some allies and scouting the zone. You then deal with an Ogre problem and uncover some use of necromancy that ends in a fight with a dragon. The whole time I got that old school DND adventure vibe and enjoyed it quite a bit.

When you do something like Shadowlands, the story deals with eternity, ghost people, civilizations that persist in the afterlife on these pocket dimension islands... hard to really give a shit tbh. I like vampire stuff so Revendreth was enjoyable, but everything else is so out there it feels like background noise.

We need to get back to MoP style storytelling imo.

Except SL is actual amazingly deep stories dealing with far more than this guy wants to steal that guy's land. Ardenweald rebirth, the horror the is Bastion, the insanity of Maldraxus... and then there's Revenderth. Yes the jaoler is the big bad but it's nice to see some textured problems that are not hey the horde are being genocidal again.

[Broken Fox]

Some of yall probably watch DBZ to see goku farm raddishs

Hell yeah. Those were the best episodes.

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I don't think thats what they believe......like at all. Seems like projection

I dont know. BFA definitely felt like the writers just binge watched Game of Thrones and thought "we can do that!!"

They succeeded if they were trying to emulate the last 2 seasons, at least