Page 7 of 9 FirstFirst ...
5
6
7
8
9
LastLast
  1. #121
    Herald of the Titans
    7+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jan 2016
    Location
    Narnia
    Posts
    2,573
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidax View Post
    Really?

    There are plenty of great games with token story, Warcraft itself started as such. Game wins by having interesting and catchy gameplay first, story shmory - vast majority of players don't give a damn, so lets get that fable out of the way there.
    Eh, I'd argue that they're equally important depending on the genre. Warcraft Orcs and humans was polishing the entire RTS concept of the day, so a token story about some random demonic horde (remember when they were literal demons?) invading a world was all they needed.

    In an RPG setting, I think story is much more important (please note that I didn't finish that sentence with "than gameplay").

    No, the foundation of every game isn't story, thats a blanket statement and every blanket statement is wrong. But pretending that story isn't important for any game is equally fanciful. (Also note that said stories don't need to be complex, or even good. Just catchy or interesting enough to make you care about the characters, world, quest, whatever.)
    Last edited by AcidicSyn; 2022-05-19 at 07:08 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Minikin View Post
    "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never....BURN IT"
    Quote Originally Posted by Kathandira View Post
    You are kinda joe Roganing this topic. Hardly have any actual knowledge other than what people have told you, and jumping into a discussion with people who have direct experience with it. Don't be Joe Rogan.

  2. #122
    Quote Originally Posted by Iain View Post
    It's true that Tolkien wrote short stories, amongst which the introduction to the Hobbit, and many of which relating to this fictional Nordic world. But it was only later that he decided that this Hobbit was living in this same world and consolidating these works together into the Hobbit.
    That's what I said?

    While he called it a sequel in the Foreword, it was in the sense of publication, not tone as was discussed at length in his published letters. The Lord of the Rings has a far more serious tone and makes countless references to the stories and lays (as he was a professor of such literature, he actually composed some of his material in the lay poetry format) of the Elder Days that he had been developing since at least 1917 during his army service. Saying that Middle-earth was born with the Hobbit is understandable, but ultimately incorrect. If that's not your stance, my apologies for the misunderstanding.

    This is not to disparage Tolkien. Far from it, it shows that his world was in constant flux, a living thing that grew and evolved over time. It shows how simple concepts can expand into rich textured tapestries that people can get lost in.

    World of Warcraft can still be like that. Despite anything that's been written before.
    I didn't assume you meant it as disparaging, just that reducing it to a children's story sequel is oversimplified and incorrect. The world of Arda (of which Middle-earth is only a part) definitely grew and evolved as you say, and should certainly serve as an example of what can and should be done in world building. It requires though that the authors passionately care about their world (Tolkien worked on his mythos right up to his death), and the current WoW writing team doesn't appear to have anything even remotely approaching that commitment.
    Quote Originally Posted by Alex86el View Post
    "Orc want, orc take." and "Orc dissagrees, orc kill you to win argument."
    Quote Originally Posted by Toho View Post
    The Horde is basically the guy that gets mad that the guy that they just beat the crap out of had the audacity to bleed on them.
    Why no, people don't just like Sylvie for T&A: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ery-Cinematic/

  3. #123
    The story won't be good again period

  4. #124
    Quote Originally Posted by cparle87 View Post
    Remember when it was Ghostcrawler or Metzen who were blamed for everything and people said the game wouldn't be good again until they were gone?
    Exactly. Everyone thinks one person is responsible for the "fall of WoW", usually pointing to the wrong person, and how the game will be "great" once that person leaves.

    It was said about Kaplan, about Ghost Crawler, about Ion... but surpisingly never was Tom Chilton even though he was Ion and Ghost Crawler's boss at the time they started being hated on. And let's not forget the charming terrorist threats made against Ghost Crawler where Blizzard was going to arrange private security for his family's safety over this kind of crap.

    Congratulations though, you ended the thread on the first comment. My hats off to you Sir or Ma'am.

  5. #125
    Quote Originally Posted by Feanoro View Post
    It requires though that the authors passionately care about their world (Tolkien worked on his mythos right up to his death), and the current WoW writing team doesn't appear to have anything even remotely approaching that commitment.
    On that I sadly have to fully agree.

    It's not that I think these writers don't have any skill. I just think they're pursuing a wrong target. It feels as though they're writing for a Netflix show that desperately tries to get extended for one more season and devil may care about what happens in that next season, as long as it gets extended.

    But that's a linear story. It's a chain of plot beats that the player spectates in. It betrays what people play MMO's for. People aren't interested in what Anduin is going to do next. Sure the like to discuss it, and content-creators like to analyse and speculate about it. But that's mainly because that's the only thing Blizzard is giving us to chew on.

    An in-game cut scene isn't exciting to a player. What's exciting to a player is wandering through a forest that feels familiar but then get chased off the path by a bear and stumble into dank and gloomy ruins where something clearly happened a long time ago, but its not clear what exactly.

    And it might be that the player will never find out the actual historical events behind that place. As long as the writers wrote the reasons, and created this place deliberately, they can keep it secret forever, it still gives players something to let their imagination run wild on.

    Same with faction tensions in the game. These don't ever have to be resolved, and they definitely don't have to be resolved every time at the end of an expansion. It's perfectly fine to let feuds fester or escalate without any resolution. That's how the real world works as well. Conflicts flare up and die down again, then some trigger rips open an old wound and the drama continues.

    All of that never happens in episodic stories. Episodic stories can't linger in an interesting situation, they have to constantly conclude it and move to something else. In a MMO that means a location is just cardboard scenery for a single story that the player embarks on and then finishes without getting any reason to return to that place again.

    As long as WoW authors aren't being told that lore suits the game better than episodic plot beats, it remains hopeless.

  6. #126
    Quote Originally Posted by Iain View Post
    An in-game cut scene isn't exciting to a player. What's exciting to a player is wandering through a forest that feels familiar but then get chased off the path by a bear and stumble into dank and gloomy ruins where something clearly happened a long time ago, but its not clear what exactly.
    I have to hard disagree. I don't know any players who've ever given a shit about walking through forest #3124 to see bear #33 and ruins #214, but a high quality cutscene/cinematic? Gets the community buzzing for days discussing all the little details about it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Addiena
    Whats the saying .. You have two brain cells and they are both fighting for third place !

  7. #127
    Quote Originally Posted by Villager720 View Post
    All we ‘know’ is that Alex forced the Burning of Teldrassil, which could have been an interesting story beat - or used to generate complex stories. The fact that the story has failed horrendously on everything since demonstrates a profound lack of creative talent in the writing team. They’ve had years to come up with anything sensible and failed.
    Blaming Alex 5 years out is ridiculous.
    Stories are set in stone 2-3 expansions prior to their release. BFA cinematics was more or less done 5-6 months prior to the release of Legion. The entire BFA plot is essentially Alex having a meltdown that Garrosh was killed and his hate boner for Sylvanas. While at the same time pushing to the forefront the Orc character he put into the game as a balance to the alliance character Field Marshal Afrasiabi (Saurfang was basically Alex's Orc self insert).

    By the time he was removed in 2020 the Shadowlands main plot was already set in stone for a long time. At least a year. Everything from there on was basically meant to fix what the rapist did. Did it work? Not really but you don't go "well he shattered the thing beyond repair we should just accept it and give up.", when none of the creative team wanted this in the first place.

  8. #128
    Quote Originally Posted by Stickiler View Post
    I have to hard disagree. I don't know any players who've ever given a shit about walking through forest #3124 to see bear #33 and ruins #214, but a high quality cutscene/cinematic? Gets the community buzzing for days discussing all the little details about it.
    You're not wrong, but it's exactly what I'm trying to get at. A cut-scene gets uploaded on YouTube and everyone gets to have their opinion about it. Good cutscenes get buzz, bad cutscenes get even more buzz. It is easy to form an opinion about it and throw it on the Internet.

    That's not the same as being excited about something.

    If you enter a place that leaves you impressed or leaves you with an uncanny or ambiguous feeling, then how do you share that feeling? How do you express that hunch you have about it? Maybe a content creator picked up on it, but maybe that same content creator isn't sure their audience shares that feeling and won't make that video.

    Cutscenes are like Chris Rock getting slapped by Will Smith, or the Amber Heard trial. Everyone gets to have their take on it, it's perfect tabloid material. Blizzard can do the same with characters. Anduin could kiss Jaina and the Internet would blow up about it, but did it truly make the game any more exciting to play?

    I hope this clarifies the vast distance between a gameplay experience and online buzz. I truly believe that Blizzard is being misled by the way the community responds to their choices purely by the virtue of that the superficial stuff is easier to respond to.

  9. #129
    Quote Originally Posted by cparle87 View Post
    Remember when it was Ghostcrawler or Metzen who were blamed for everything and people said the game wouldn't be good again until they were gone?
    Never saw some1 complained abiut metzen, but ghostcrawler was the dude they blame for everything they disliked in gameplay. I miss ghostcrawler. You could askes him something and he mostly answered, if he was allowed to.

  10. #130
    Quote Originally Posted by saixilein View Post
    Never saw some1 complained abiut metzen, but ghostcrawler was the dude they blame for everything they disliked in gameplay. I miss ghostcrawler. You could askes him something and he mostly answered, if he was allowed to.
    There's a reason Thrall was called Green Jesus, people were bitching about Illidan and Kael for years on end and why we call Sylvanas's story direction the Kerrigan.
    Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.

    Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.

  11. #131
    Quote Originally Posted by saixilein View Post
    Never saw some1 complained abiut metzen, but ghostcrawler was the dude they blame for everything they disliked in gameplay. I miss ghostcrawler. You could askes him something and he mostly answered, if he was allowed to.
    The whole Green Jesus thing. People basically did to him what they do to Danuser now. Except replace Nathanos with Thrall. Just a lazy self insert for the writer to persue his wish fulfillment fantasies. /s
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

  12. #132
    Bloodsail Admiral Smallfruitbat's Avatar
    7+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2014
    Location
    Khadgars' Tower
    Posts
    1,017
    Quote Originally Posted by Kallisto View Post
    Stories are set in stone 2-3 expansions prior to their release. BFA cinematics was more or less done 5-6 months prior to the release of Legion. The entire BFA plot is essentially Alex having a meltdown that Garrosh was killed and his hate boner for Sylvanas. While at the same time pushing to the forefront the Orc character he put into the game as a balance to the alliance character Field Marshal Afrasiabi (Saurfang was basically Alex's Orc self insert).

    By the time he was removed in 2020 the Shadowlands main plot was already set in stone for a long time. At least a year. Everything from there on was basically meant to fix what the rapist did. Did it work? Not really but you don't go "well he shattered the thing beyond repair we should just accept it and give up.", when none of the creative team wanted this in the first place.
    But what was wrong with Sylvanas torching Teldrassil? In essence, it didn't need 'fixing' I say this as an unapologetic Night Elf fan.

    The explanation of why and the fact she lost her shit because someone told her she couldn't kill hope were poorly done. I liked it as a story point, it was an act of war that went too far. Where I had a problem with it was explaining that poor traumatised Sylvie was doing it for our own good. You say the creative team didn't want the situation in the first place but that was what they had to work with, they just bullheadedly went in a direction that tried to mitigate the damage of the situation, instead of embracing it.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidax View Post
    Or people need to get a tiny bit less cringe. nitpicky and stalker-like. I mean bruh, that is your issue there? A frikkin' twitter post or two?

    So he likes a specific character, big whoop - did not stop her from being yeeted into the maw after she realized she was a major fuckup and a pawn all along.

    /shrug
    What I'm saying is that Danuser posting stuff like that on Twitter attracts attention from people who are already unhappy with the direction the story is going in and adds fuel to the fire.

    I don't care what he posts on his Twitter feed, but I get why people are calling for his head. Personally, I think he and his team have done a poor job with the delivery of the material they have had a hand in and for that reason I think he needs to be replaced. Now, if the reason for that poor delivery is due to budgeting constraints or higher ups saying 'Sylvanas is our cash cow we still need to milk her, make her look good again' then every other lead is going to have the same problems, in which case Blizzard need to get out of their own way.

  13. #133
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidax View Post
    Really? There are plenty of great games with token story, Warcraft itself started as such. Game wins by having interesting and catchy gameplay first, story shmory - vast majority of players don't give a damn, so lets get that fable out of the way there.
    The story doesn't mean anything to you.
    You don't speak for the "vast majority of players."

  14. #134
    Quote Originally Posted by Super Dickmann View Post
    There's a reason Thrall was called Green Jesus, people were bitching about Illidan and Kael for years on end and why we call Sylvanas's story direction the Kerrigan.
    The saving grace is that TBC didn't really have much of a story to begin with. Illidan and Kael didn't do much, so there wasn't much to complain about, other than them not doing much. It was only WotL when the game slowly started to become story-driven. And indeed Illidan's return in Legion was when there finally was something for the community and content creators to chew on.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    The story doesn't mean anything to you.
    You don't speak for the "vast majority of players."
    I'm not sure. It's difficult to gauge where players stand on how much they invest into this story. Just because something is easy to voice opinions about doesn't mean people actually care that much about it. Likewise, just because people find it hard to articulate and express their views on a particular thing in the game doesn't mean they don't care deeply about it.

    It's not just game design either. It's everywhere. Our public discourse doesn't necessarily reflect our stakes anymore. It's better to look at our conversations as the foam on top of the cappuccino rather than the cappucino itself.

  15. #135
    Quote Originally Posted by Iain View Post
    The saving grace is that TBC didn't really have much of a story to begin with. Illidan and Kael didn't do much, so there wasn't much to complain about, other than them not doing much. It was only WotL when the game slowly started to become story-driven. And indeed Illidan's return in Legion was when there finally was something for the community and content creators to chew on.
    You're misremembering the period. Kael, Vashj and Illidan didn't just not do much, they went from the heroes of the RTS expansion, which was the most interesting bit of story the franchise had done up to that point (and probably still is, but nevermind) to cackling insane villains we raid on so poorly told a pretext that even years later you've people taking the people how we didn't know why we mugged Illidan. These were characters with huge fanbases and people were livid about it. This is notwithstanding shit that only people who played WC2 would care about, like how Zul'jin went from a main Horde hero to being killed by a redneck meme character, retcons that have since been forgiven, like the draenei, or that would only pay off in how bad they was later on, like fixing the Sunwell (by way of manga tie-in characters of course) and turning the blood elves into discount high elves on the wrong faction. TBC is a complete shambles and its only saving grace is that so far in the franchise's life span no one cares since the majority of the people who were mad then have left and the majority now were introduced to it while the game was for factors unrelated to its story, at its gameplay peak and thus grandfather in its flaws.

    Unlike Wrath, where only the blandness of its take on Arthas and killing Ner'zhul off-screen, along with the bad habit of hero characters introduced with Tirion have aged poorly, while some of its most maligned choices like there always being a Lich King have ended up being for the better and the overall worldbuilding is among the peak of the franchise, TBC has only managed to get worse with age and even setting-wise the main interest has been visual, with virtually all aspects of Draenor lore coming either from WoD or Chronicle.
    Last edited by Super Dickmann; 2022-05-20 at 02:07 PM.
    Dickmann's Law: As a discussion on the Lore forums becomes longer, the probability of the topic derailing to become about Sylvanas approaches 1.

    Tinkers will be the next Class confirmed.

  16. #136
    I am Murloc! KOUNTERPARTS's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)
    Posts
    5,537
    I very much so *love these threads with such "hot take" opinions on the state of the game being a certain way and can only be fixed or changed one certain way, proposed by the OP of the thread.


    It's no different than the "homeless? just buy a house." meme at this point.






    *by love I really mean "audibly groan at"

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by saixilein View Post
    Never saw some1 complained abiut metzen, but ghostcrawler was the dude they blame for everything they disliked in gameplay. I miss ghostcrawler. You could askes him something and he mostly answered, if he was allowed to.

    It does not matter who is in each respective position that oversees which respective aspect of the game. 100% people are not satisfied 100% of the time with what they are given.


    Change out Metzen with Danuser, then Danuser with ______. Same song and dance, varying intensity of complaints.

  17. #137
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidax View Post
    Really?

    There are plenty of great games with token story, Warcraft itself started as such. Game wins by having interesting and catchy gameplay first, story shmory - vast majority of players don't give a damn, so lets get that fable out of the way there.
    I think there's enough games in the trashbin with interesting gameplay to also make a case that there needs to be something more to make it stick. There's a mix and IMO every game needs to make sure their gameplay AND their overall theme needs to work to make them stand out from the rest of the rank and file masses of [insert game].

    IMO, the games need to make sense within themselves and stick to it. If a game is going to start out 'serious' it better stay serious in general and not go off the rails like Sam unless "Serious Sam" is their actual goal. Doom Guy hit different when he's trying to pull of a Duke instead.

  18. #138
    Why do people blame Afrasiabi? Afrasiabi disappeared in the middle of BFA, everything else is Danuzer's fault even if he had to deal with Afrasiabi's mess. Bfa had a strange plot and problems with the motivation of the characters, but at least it felt like Warcraft, unlike SL. I also think that Afrasiabi planned to kill Silvana either in BFA or at the very beginning of the SL, but Danuzer, being her main fanboy, saved her and she lived to the very end of the SL (and most likely will return in the future). Literally the first thing Danuser did when he took over was to change the dialogue between Garrosh and Sylvanas. He removed word bitch from there, justifying it with the fact that people play the game with their children, but in reality he just does not want anyone to insult his waifu



    Not to mention people are expecting something good from Dragonflight because we get to see Danuzer's vision. there will be nothing good, Danuzer does not care about everything that came before him. Turns out centaurs existed before the War of the Ancients and were strong enough to fight dragons in the dragons' fucking homeland. All that awaits us is even more stupid retcons

  19. #139
    Quote Originally Posted by Iain View Post
    It's not just game design either. It's everywhere. Our public discourse doesn't necessarily reflect our stakes anymore. It's better to look at our conversations as the foam on top of the cappuccino rather than the cappucino itself.
    While I can accept that it's more about the overall picture, the foundation should be about the underlying story. Otherwise what's the point about factions, classes, races, characterization? You're paying money to just login and kill things? I submit the fact that the lore has gone afu off the deep end but should that be encouraged? To not care about such an aspect of the game? Business-wise it's cheaper, less work to manage.

    hmf...I think Thrall should have sacrificed himself in defeating (not killing) Deathwing.

  20. #140
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    While I can accept that it's more about the overall picture, the foundation should be about the underlying story. Otherwise what's the point about factions, classes, races, characterization? You're paying money to just login and kill things? I submit the fact that the lore has gone afu off the deep end but should that be encouraged? To not care about such an aspect of the game? Business-wise it's cheaper, less work to manage.

    hmf...I think Thrall should have sacrificed himself in defeating (not killing) Deathwing.
    To me it feels like Blizzard is writing their story -as told throughout the campaign and cutscenes- at the detriment to what you're referring to as the underlying story.

    The underlying story is this tapestry of subfactions, each with their own culture and history, at odds or in alliances with each other. This requires a lot of worldbuilding. It wouldn't be fair to say Blizzard is neglecting their duty to build such words, they do. But they certainly are keen to push all of that to the background for the sake of whatever Magni and Thrall are up to now.

    I would be perfectly fine if Blizzard were to drop this overarching story, or reduced it to a formality (like with Onyxia in Vanilla) to give more exposure to all these mundane beings living in their world. Give the player more content in regards to exploring villages, fortresses, markets, covens and cult hideout, and less content about chasing around protagonist faction leaders.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •