Warcraft makers know cool, know to do a great start, crap at fleshing out their lore

[ravenmoon]

And not great at finishing either.

Let's be fair.. Warcraft has done a lot of cool stuff, how they've borrowed from popular fiction meshed it into a unique version of their own, and made it look cool.

They are also great at starting things, creating new content, setting up and introducing races, with unique styles, attractive aspects, zone and world...

But let's also note that the detail never gets far past the introduction where it either peters off, or they failt o be able to develop it into something special. They've not been great at properly continuing most of the stuff they've started, and whenever they've come to it later, to build on it, it's had holes, gaps, and come off as rather sloppy.. almost like when you were a kid, you read and saw the cool stuff, but could never be bothered by detail that explained it or fleshed it out, so you were fine with books that skipped that "boring" stuff.


The great thing about adventure and rpg game sis often that detail can usually be inserted and expounded on in the world via npcs, lore object info, texts (legion was their best effort at this - yeh) and off course their story telling development, which again has some very cool moments, but very little depth.


Question is, how can they plug their weaknesses in a way that is economical without losign their strengths? If you were head of development at blizzard and you noticed this issue that's making a lot of your mostly adult audience very unsatisfied ( face it, most of us were children when we started this, and we are fully grown, many of us with our families) we are the biggest demography that plays the game (because it's outdated engine attracts less and less young people who don't care about detail).. yet the makers fail to grow their story and their presentation with their playerbase, and so alienate us further.

While the encounters can be fun and exciting, and once you like a style you are probably going to stick to it( so gameplay you're good - unless you fuck it up big time - which you occasionally do, but tend to fix - same can not be said about the tale they tell, which face it, this is the type of game that requires a good story, it's not just enough to have good raids, all that art , presentation, abilities and "cool" it's the story that makes these relevant, and actually can be the strongest asset when managed properly.

People when they get into something, whether if it's the fun of it that drew them in, or the social aspect, they want to nkow a lot more about it. The more interesting your world is and the more you properly flesh it out and tell those stories explain those things, the more they're interested because they are spending so muchtime.

Failure to see this and properly execute or rather leave it in the basic stage like they have done for nearly 20 years - while everything else has developed greatly is a massive fialing. Art developed greatly, the score developed greatly, the coding, and tech developed greatly, the systems developed tenaciously and aggressively to keep pace.. the story?.. no.

We got new stories, we got more stories, but not better quality, not greater depth - shallow cool. And sorry it's not enough.

I can't be waiting 20 years on and still don't understand fully how night elves are connected to the arcane and all their classes, - priest, mage and druid can cast arcane moon and star spells, like they can use night magic to shadow meld - (no explanation in game btw - just like the balance druid has none -) with 20 year old lore that tells me they started studying the well , discovered Elune through it (hence arcane connection - their dark elf portion) and developed from their.. yet 20 years on, Elune is now a life goddess that has more to do with forests than other aspects?

Talk about relevant information still in the dark while information that probably shouldn't ever be revealed or disclosed is instead focused on. and not with depth either..


How would you fix it?@

[Throwme]

How would you fix it?@

I wouldn't. Because I don't care enough to even start thinking too much about things that do not matter for gameplay.

[Blackmist]

Sylvanas wakes up and sees Nathanos in the shower.

Phew, it was all a bad dream.

[Paperfox]

Story has always taken the back seat compared to gameplay.

- When you get a quest, the one page dialog box contains a summary of what you need to do.
- The 'journey' through the all the zones in the SL took 5-7 hours.

While I'm not sure it can be fixed, here are my two cents:
Have one small team who are in charge of the main story arc, and they have to approve everything that can affect it. Short stories that affect a character can be written independently.
Give players the opportunity to dive into aspects of the story, like why someone did or did not a thing.

[dunkl]

Personal stories, smaller stories, intimate experiences, about us or new/familiar (non powerful) characters, exploring, investigating, traveling, documenting, experimenting, connecting, forming theories etc.

WE should have had our own person encounter with Elune in a blank dream, to have that moment of grace and attachment so that when bump into her again someday, it will be like a reunion of sorts, always knowing she's out there somewhere but never fully knowing everything about her. And she should never ever be revealed, not even a voice, and certainly not in a voice we can understand. We should be surrounded be her in a warmth or moonlight, and have that experience to guide us on for another time.

WE should have accidentally or after a long quest chain have been the ones to discover/uncover a lost Titan, who had hunched over and became a mountain after eon, or who rises from the beneath the sea with the very tip of his head a mountain, we should have eventually found, woken it up/freed it, and exchanged a frightening yet calm stare with one another before it left the planet in a phase or by head into space.

Your character is standing near the edge of an extremely tall cliff overlooking the sea, and a giant stone structure rumbles and rises before you. At first it looks like rocks with plants and trees growing on it, maybe it's dripping with water having come out of the ocean. Your character's eyes dart all over the enormous structure, in attempt to take in and make sense of the mountainous thing they're seeing. Your character is shaking with fright while bracing in a singular stance, mouth agape. The thing lowers itself to to become eye-level with your character on the cliff, and finally in focus your character realizes he's starring eyes to eye with a real titan. A titan with seagulls flying around it as they would an island or giant ship or statue, seaweed dangling and dripping from it stony skin. The titan's eyes, massive boulders with holes for pupils. As the titan moves slowly, it's voice or language is undefinable, having never been heard before, it's like makes an ancient, whimsical sound, like crackling rocks, steam engine tunneling through an avalanche. *BOWOOooooo~crackling rocks~echoing grumble~WhOWummb~crackling rocks~playful tuba bellowing through crackling ice* This is the first true time your character has seen or interacted with a moving mountain of myth and legend. It extends a bridge sized finger to the cliff. You hesitate but it's boulder eyes instill a trust in you that you makes you cautiously know to cross. It takes you a minute to cross his finger and spread before you is a rumpled stone land - his hand. BwoWOOO~bock~wock~TOOOoo! It brings it's hand up to it's face, knocking you to your feet. It smiles a a crackly smile and places you back onto the earth. Standing in the ocean, head touching the clouds, it turns and fades into the background as it walks away. Your character, standing in awe, not sure what it just witnessed, but knowing they just made contact with a titan!

I think that would be a pretty epic and meaningful (if it's a cut scene that follows a long quest chain for a long lost original titan), first meeting between your character and a fable. Back in vanilla, this is always how I thought we'd meet one - a god like being waking up or rescued, finally appearing before us and bestowing a gift of thanks by letting us see it. An almost animal or instinctive being, humanoid yes, but with an intelligence beyond us, not needing or using words, and almost playful like a mighty, whimsical monk-like robot friend. After clues, hints, legends, etc, and very little being known about ancient mysteries, having a brief and memorable sighting such as this would and should be the way we and our characters experience and minimally unravel wow.

Us being the ones (or witnessing a character who we accompany being the one) to experience such mysteries in small, emotional, glimpses is a way to not only show the story unfolding, and sprinkles backstory, moving the storyline along while giving us explanation, intrigue, knowledge (which also move the story forward), but most of all it was done by or through us, so the experience is meaningful and memorable. what they do now is cringe and forgettable. What they di din vanilla was made us wonder, yet be a part of the world, and explore and learn and grow (literally grow as we return to our homes to learn new and better abilities), and piece together puzzles and put the world together as we went through it). we were part of the world, uncovering it's past, present, and future. Now we're just being told what to care about, which means not only should we not care, but it proves the writers do not consider us as players, fans, customers, etc. And if they are not writing for the game, the world, the story, themselves, us, fans, customers, players, then I don't know who they are writing for but worst of all it's all empty and meaningless. It's becoming all spectacle, no heart.

Sylvanas should have had a scene with her approaching her soul (or soul's alter, prison, etc) and had a quiet, reflective moment. Or, she should have entered where her soul was being kept after all these years and considered merging with it, and we are there to witness he decision, and we have to leave her alone because it's an inmate moment, and we don't' know what she chose until a patch or so later when she appears either still undead self or lookin like a blood elf. It would provide interested, especially it stakes were involved. OR, her sister could have been on a mission/quest this whole expansion to find her sister's soul an reunite it with her, because unlike everyone else, she is the only one who can still believe there is good in her, that would have ben powerful quest chain, and we could have gotten flashback glimpses of them playing together in the pretty woods around Silvermoon as children. It would have been emotional reunion not just of sisters but of the past, and of body, mind, spirit. WE could have been integral to assisting with that and therefore invited into that storyline, and cared, because it was important and emotional. Having Sylvanas's soul being thrust back at her? On a platform with lights an noises and distraction all around so we couldn't' even focus on that one very important thing we've been waiting decades to see, her reunite/merge with her soul? It happened during someone else's scene almost off camera! As an afterthought! Like her or not, she deserved, the story deserved, a moment with her remincing or considering becoming whole or continuing on, or wearing her soul around her neck and head around the world to right wrongs until she felt she'd atoned enough to merge with her soul. Anything but no they had her major scene that we've waiting many years for simply done by a character we don't' care about, with not intimate moment of her reflecting on her past or finally approaching her soul.

this proves the writers don't consider us or care what the story or we deserve, and if they don't do it for us, them, the game, then I don't know but I think some of my above suggestion are quality and would make engaging, compelling atmospheres and experiences to make you want to log on and a part of the world again. I think they take popular franchise, movies, shows, etc, and try to make them similar to those in attention span and spectacle, because anything deeper, they think people will yawn. But event though many franchises are 'successful' money-wise and have fans, they are forgettable and ruin themselves by not taking care, by not taking themselves seriously and doing al they can to consider the game, world, story, us, and what they'd be proud of. All spectacle, no heart. Nothing memorable, meaningful, deep, poignant, immersive, emotional, gripping, intimate, worthy. All spectacle, no heart.

Another thing that could help and might take are structuring of their production line, I don't' know how teams are directed but if a team is told to do this cinematic or quest chain or a book, etc, they have to work with on another, but I think OUR experience as fans and players isn't considered, otherwise they'd break that story production teams up into even smaller increments and designate many, many teams that each consider us along the way, this way someone can design a quest chain that will be intriguing, and and invite us in to the questions and curiosities, and the next team over can work closely with that team while designing cinematics, or gameplay, etc, that connect and offer immersive experience, and so on and so on, so at the end of that section, we've been considered the whole way and therefore it will be at least something better than them just telling us what to care about and designing around that. They can even have team that flows between all the teams whose main focus is to consider us and let the teams know when they're being too this or not enough that, with our experiences in mind. I think Pandaria had the best and most memorable flow of quests, zones, cause and effect, cinematics, game play, etc. Eveytng felt complete, mysterious, inviting, welcoming, and like I was part of the world and affecting the world as well, and that the smaller stories of pandaria gave me an attachment to peculiar races, fun foods, great music, a whole atmosphere and lore that was completely it's own while connecting to the larger lore out there on known azeroth. Brilliant. They need to welcome us into the game with that kind of structure behind everything.

[ravenmoon]

Sylvanas wakes up and sees Nathanos in the shower.

Phew, it was all a bad dream.

It worked with Dallas

[I HATE CHAOS]

I think they know how to craft a world not a narrative.

The background elements are good the plot is nonsensical. The covenants from the players perspective are evil and exist to serve the gods not mortals. Rather then that interesting story we get thanos

[T-34]

How would you fix it?@

Blizzard has since day 1 put gameplay above everything else. If you go to their "mission statement page" then "Gameplay first" is mentioned first. You can't find anything about "story", "consistent story" or "lore" there.

So this "lore/story-problem" can only be fixed if Blizzard turns in to a completely different company and starts designing WoW with "Story first" in mind.

So to answer your question: Unless Blizzard changes radically and start making games with a completely different design philosophy then the best solution to this "problem" is to not take the lore to seriously.

[Smallfruitbat]

If I had a time machine... I'd go back to Legion and stop the constant expanding of the universe. Make the big bads like Sargeras and KJ undefeatable.

[Triceron]

If I had a time machine... I'd go back to Legion and stop the constant expanding of the universe. Make the big bads like Sargeras and KJ undefeatable.

technically they are undefeatable as long as they're not killed in the twisting nether. Every 'defeat' is merely a setback.

But I wouldn't doubt if Blizzard later throws in some even more ancient corrupted First One master who sends his forces to free Sargeras from the floating pantheon prison, and we get another Burning Legion in Space expansion as a result.

[Smallfruitbat]

and yet, they are seen as defeats and so Blizzard need to find something or someone bigger and badder for us to face next time.

[Triceron]

and yet, they are seen as defeats and so Blizzard need to find something or someone bigger and badder for us to face next time.

Or they recycle the same ones while giving us bigger and badder ones.

Just this expansion we faced Kel'thuzad for like.. the 3rd or 4th time now.

[Smallfruitbat]

Or they recycle the same ones while giving us bigger and badder ones.

Just this expansion we faced Kel'thuzad for like.. the 3rd or 4th time now.

It's just like that meme where Arthas is laying there saying 'Is it over Father?' and he gets the reply 'No, the server resets every Tuesday' or similar.

I think sometimes, we defeat entities which by levels of power we perhaps shouldn't. But then Blizzard do like to wring every last second of screen time out of some characters.

[brinkber245]

Cool? Are you kidding me?

[Cosmic Janitor]

The lore is not the issue, even the story itself is not entirely irredeemable, it's the way they tell their stories that is an utter failure. Pacing, exposure, narrative cohesion, the plotting of the story, all of them are failures.

[ravenmoon]

Blizzard has since day 1 put gameplay above everything else. If you go to their "mission statement page" then "Gameplay first" is mentioned first. You can't find anything about "story", "consistent story" or "lore" there.

So this "lore/story-problem" can only be fixed if Blizzard turns in to a completely different company and starts designing WoW with "Story first" in mind.

So to answer your question: Unless Blizzard changes radically and start making games with a completely different design philosophy then the best solution to this "problem" is to not take the lore to seriously.

Shame they didn't realise they aren't mutally exclusive.. gmaeplay is first, but art and music is sitll top notch in this game, despite gameplay first.


I just don't think they cared enough to make the effort to make the lore work very well in this different type of game to the RTS.

[Dellis0991]

Sylvanas wakes up and sees Nathanos in the shower.

Phew, it was all a bad dream.

Yeah don't need that mental imagine at all.

[ravenmoon]

Personal stories, smaller stories, intimate experiences, about us or new/familiar (non powerful) characters, exploring, investigating, traveling, documenting, experimenting, connecting, forming theories etc.

WE should have had our own person encounter with Elune in a blank dream, to have that moment of grace and attachment so that when bump into her again someday, it will be like a reunion of sorts, always knowing she's out there somewhere but never fully knowing everything about her. And she should never ever be revealed, not even a voice, and certainly not in a voice we can understand. We should be surrounded be her in a warmth or moonlight, and have that experience to guide us on for another time.

WE should have accidentally or after a long quest chain have been the ones to discover/uncover a lost Titan, who had hunched over and became a mountain after eon, or who rises from the beneath the sea with the very tip of his head a mountain, we should have eventually found, woken it up/freed it, and exchanged a frightening yet calm stare with one another before it left the planet in a phase or by head into space.

Your character is standing near the edge of an extremely tall cliff overlooking the sea, and a giant stone structure rumbles and rises before you. At first it looks like rocks with plants and trees growing on it, maybe it's dripping with water having come out of the ocean. Your character's eyes dart all over the enormous structure, in attempt to take in and make sense of the mountainous thing they're seeing. Your character is shaking with fright while bracing in a singular stance, mouth agape. The thing lowers itself to to become eye-level with your character on the cliff, and finally in focus your character realizes he's starring eyes to eye with a real titan. A titan with seagulls flying around it as they would an island or giant ship or statue, seaweed dangling and dripping from it stony skin. The titan's eyes, massive boulders with holes for pupils. As the titan moves slowly, it's voice or language is undefinable, having never been heard before, it's like makes an ancient, whimsical sound, like crackling rocks, steam engine tunneling through an avalanche. *BOWOOooooo~crackling rocks~echoing grumble~WhOWummb~crackling rocks~playful tuba bellowing through crackling ice* This is the first true time your character has seen or interacted with a moving mountain of myth and legend. It extends a bridge sized finger to the cliff. You hesitate but it's boulder eyes instill a trust in you that you makes you cautiously know to cross. It takes you a minute to cross his finger and spread before you is a rumpled stone land - his hand. BwoWOOO~bock~wock~TOOOoo! It brings it's hand up to it's face, knocking you to your feet. It smiles a a crackly smile and places you back onto the earth. Standing in the ocean, head touching the clouds, it turns and fades into the background as it walks away. Your character, standing in awe, not sure what it just witnessed, but knowing they just made contact with a titan!

Touching peace, reminds me of a scene out of legend of Zelda, , seen similar things in SWtor, where a short scene using in game assets can actually convey such emotion.

I do like your take on the intimate experience, and Eluen too, how cool it woudl be where your character was the first to experience this sort of being.

Anyway, I'm glad they are getting their cosmology sorted, even if i think it's just weird, buut you need to know where all your big forces are, you don't necessarily need to reveal all of it.

I think that would be a pretty epic and meaningful (if it's a cut scene that follows a long quest chain for a long lost original titan), first meeting between your character and a fable. Back in vanilla, this is always how I thought we'd meet one - a god like being waking up or rescued, finally appearing before us and bestowing a gift of thanks by letting us see it. An almost animal or instinctive being, humanoid yes, but with an intelligence beyond us, not needing or using words, and almost playful like a mighty, whimsical monk-like robot friend. After clues, hints, legends, etc, and very little being known about ancient mysteries, having a brief and memorable sighting such as this would and should be the way we and our characters experience and minimally unravel wow.

Us being the ones (or witnessing a character who we accompany being the one) to experience such mysteries in small, emotional, glimpses is a way to not only show the story unfolding, and sprinkles backstory, moving the storyline along while giving us explanation, intrigue, knowledge (which also move the story forward), but most of all it was done by or through us, so the experience is meaningful and memorable. what they do now is cringe and forgettable. What they di din vanilla was made us wonder, yet be a part of the world, and explore and learn and grow (literally grow as we return to our homes to learn new and better abilities), and piece together puzzles and put the world together as we went through it). we were part of the world, uncovering it's past, present, and future. Now we're just being told what to care about, which means not only should we not care, but it proves the writers do not consider us as players, fans, customers, etc. And if they are not writing for the game, the world, the story, themselves, us, fans, customers, players, then I don't know who they are writing for but worst of all it's all empty and meaningless. It's becoming all spectacle, no heart.

Sylvanas should have had a scene with her approaching her soul (or soul's alter, prison, etc) and had a quiet, reflective moment. Or, she should have entered where her soul was being kept after all these years and considered merging with it, and we are there to witness he decision, and we have to leave her alone because it's an inmate moment, and we don't' know what she chose until a patch or so later when she appears either still undead self or lookin like a blood elf. It would provide interested, especially it stakes were involved. OR, her sister could have been on a mission/quest this whole expansion to find her sister's soul an reunite it with her, because unlike everyone else, she is the only one who can still believe there is good in her, that would have ben powerful quest chain, and we could have gotten flashback glimpses of them playing together in the pretty woods around Silvermoon as children. It would have been emotional reunion not just of sisters but of the past, and of body, mind, spirit. WE could have been integral to assisting with that and therefore invited into that storyline, and cared, because it was important and emotional. Having Sylvanas's soul being thrust back at her? On a platform with lights an noises and distraction all around so we couldn't' even focus on that one very important thing we've been waiting decades to see, her reunite/merge with her soul? It happened during someone else's scene almost off camera! As an afterthought! Like her or not, she deserved, the story deserved, a moment with her remincing or considering becoming whole or continuing on, or wearing her soul around her neck and head around the world to right wrongs until she felt she'd atoned enough to merge with her soul. Anything but no they had her major scene that we've waiting many years for simply done by a character we don't' care about, with not intimate moment of her reflecting on her past or finally approaching her soul.

Ah hah, this sort of committment or meomnents are needed too. There was a glimpse of this in legion when Ysera dies, touching heartfelt, but so brief. I know they are challenges to doing full scale ceinematics like this, but the story expression of these moments, especially te bigger ones aren't really captured as much as the cool stuff is.

BUt part of my issue is the detail too.

this proves the writers don't consider us or care what the story or we deserve, and if they don't do it for us, them, the game, then I don't know but I think some of my above suggestion are quality and would make engaging, compelling atmospheres and experiences to make you want to log on and a part of the world again. I think they take popular franchise, movies, shows, etc, and try to make them similar to those in attention span and spectacle, because anything deeper, they think people will yawn. But event though many franchises are 'successful' money-wise and have fans, they are forgettable and ruin themselves by not taking care, by not taking themselves seriously and doing al they can to consider the game, world, story, us, and what they'd be proud of. All spectacle, no heart. Nothing memorable, meaningful, deep, poignant, immersive, emotional, gripping, intimate, worthy. All spectacle, no heart.

Another thing that could help and might take are structuring of their production line, I don't' know how teams are directed but if a team is told to do this cinematic or quest chain or a book, etc, they have to work with on another, but I think OUR experience as fans and players isn't considered, otherwise they'd break that story production teams up into even smaller increments and designate many, many teams that each consider us along the way, this way someone can design a quest chain that will be intriguing, and and invite us in to the questions and curiosities, and the next team over can work closely with that team while designing cinematics, or gameplay, etc, that connect and offer immersive experience, and so on and so on, so at the end of that section, we've been considered the whole way and therefore it will be at least something better than them just telling us what to care about and designing around that. They can even have team that flows between all the teams whose main focus is to consider us and let the teams know when they're being too this or not enough that, with our experiences in mind. I think Pandaria had the best and most memorable flow of quests, zones, cause and effect, cinematics, game play, etc. Eveytng felt complete, mysterious, inviting, welcoming, and like I was part of the world and affecting the world as well, and that the smaller stories of pandaria gave me an attachment to peculiar races, fun foods, great music, a whole atmosphere and lore that was completely it's own while connecting to the larger lore out there on known azeroth. Brilliant. They need to welcome us into the game with that kind of structure behind everything.

I always felt that allowing players to play a hand in the designing process too could create infinite more stories to and encounters while still provide set information, but neither is there

The easier is providing best information. woW NPCs are mostly un-interactable, where in most games, they actually provide a lot of info and lore when you click on them for those who want to know more, it's there.

Not to mention in game tomes. remember the novel Stormrage? What if in MoP expansion, it dropped as a tome in game you could actually read of the event ? or an abridged version that would wet your appetite to go by the book.?

I've always felt that they should have designed tools where players can give quests to others, and NPCs too can auto generate, that the game itself would allow story and quest teams to easily program an NPC to say a certain thing, change a certain character or NPC to give a quest so they don't always have to submit the proposal to an IT team who then has to program it in, which makes changes and additions much harder to do.


I don't know what their process s is at the end of the day, but I'm sure it could be improved...but then there might be engine limitations.

However these guys have rebuilt their engine several times before... so ... I don't get it, their software engineers, coders, artists, score writers and systems game designers are top of the range, why is creative so far behind..?

And it's not as if the warcraft concepts, at least the earlier ones MEtzen use to bring up were bad? I mean i loved the night elves, so he did things write, liked the WC2 story and wc3 when I played them (i joined after wow was released and then went back to look at them), so they know how to start a race and do it really cool, with interesting things, that sound amazing, but when it comes to fleshing it out to truly show that this si really special. it's like they lose interest, cant' be bothered or don't know how to fully realise that thing, the few times they've taken it further, like their cosmology attempt, it's been wonky and weird.. some bits good, some bits amazing, but many bits also .. "huh"?

[Piamonte]

I think they know how to craft a world not a narrative.

The background elements are good the plot is nonsensical. The covenants from the players perspective are evil and exist to serve the gods not mortals. Rather then that interesting story we get thanos

Yes, exactly this, they are great ay worldbuilding, terrible at storytelling.

[Myradin]

Or they recycle the same ones while giving us bigger and badder ones.

Just this expansion we faced Kel'thuzad for like.. the 3rd or 4th time now.

To be fair, Kel'Thuzad is a lich, a type of undead D&D designed to effectively be a recurring villain.