Isn't it unecessarily juvenile that they only go for the "bigger and badder villain"?

[ParanoiD84]

The problem with mmos and villians is that the heroes or so called player characters cant loose so there is zero feeling of threat anymore it's just the next big bad after the next and we stomp them all with borrowed powers or help. They had the chance changing that in sl with the jailer winning and remaking reality but nope he was stomped easily enough in the end like all the others and you already know they are going to loose.

His arc was also pretty much thanos with the stones too so not interesting at all and in the end all we got was again that there is a even bigger bad coming.

[sykoex]

It makes sense because vanilla enemies aren't just weaker in the lore, but their combat mechanics are also way simpler. If you released the Sepulcher raid in 2004 it would be impossible for gamers of that era to complete it.

[epigramx]

It is kind of hard to scale things in a game where there is a mode that has guaranteed success.

Your post made me realize what an extremely interesting experiment would be, for a game like this to have the heroes literally lose at the end of the expansion/game.

It might fail but it has a chance to be a new paradigm.

[Celement]

Your post made me realize what an extremely interesting experiment would be, for a game like this to have the heroes literally lose at the end of the expansion/game.

It might fail but it has a chance to be a new paradigm.

Problem is people hate that. Wod has two story lines. If you raid mythic you stop cho'gall and kill the archimond( not sure how its spelled).

If you don't raid mythic cho'gall doesn't die nor does the general of the burning legion.

[Zendhal The Black]

Almost all shonen anime suffers this...

For example at the start of Naruto, main characters had to train hard AF to do some basic stuff, time skip some episodes later and they are suddenly throwing moons at each other

And wow went with the same way that you allways need "stronger" villain

[Sansnom]

The problem is the WoW dev team, not the medium, and tbh this bigger baddy rule is unnecessary from a storytelling pov. Every bigger bad we fought we had help. The WoW champions are not that strong, they have awesome teamwork and great help.

I kind of disagree the problem lies with the WoW dev team.

If you tell the the current player base there will no more levelling, not more character power progression, just merely storytelling, the game would probably die within a month.

Why are people repeatedly raiding? For the story? For the gaming experience? No. It is primary for loot and power progression. The whole game is driven by loot which is turns results in gaining more power. That is driving force.

There is nothing wrong with that but WoW is entering territory that few games that has reached.

A person can only reread the same novel, rewatch the same movie so many times.

Just my opinion.

[Nzx]

This is always how persistent storytelling has to go. You can't have Harry Potter start the first book going toe to toe with Voldemort, and you can't take him back to knowing nothing about his invisibility cloak once he's dealt with Voldemort either. Iron Man struggled with another human being in a suit in the first couple of movies, before he went toe to toe with a titan that could obliterate half of existence in Endgame. The only way you can come back from that is to kill the character, which is impossible in a game where the players are their characters, or to time travel, which is almost always completely panned as a "retcon" or a cop out.

How does my Paladin, who was punched in the face by a world soul and the Jailer, go from that back to struggling to kill a kobold? Wibbly wobbly timey wimey amnesia and now I'm on an alternate universe Azeroth, my character has no idea how to hold a shield anymore, and none of the NPCs know who I am? I can see the clickbait Bellular "Blizzard ABSOLUTELY loses the PLOT????? Retcon character power nerfs........." already.

[ClassicPeon]

It seems like that from a narrative standpoint: vanilla is nothing compared to shadowlands; bunch of weak humanoids and others fighting each other and some minor demons; and now you somehow fight with forces that can change the multiverse with a snap of their fingers.

What's wrong with going small, since it's not really the bigness that matters, but the quality of the journey?

Ragnaros, Cthun and KT are minor?

You are probably mistaking the tech and graphic limitations back then for them being "worse".

[unfunnymeme]

No, this is only neccessary from a game mechanics standpoint for an MMO. They always need bigger baddies to kill for loot. Hence MMO's don't lend themselves to good storytelling, period. Game mechanics dictate what the lore can do.

This isn't even necessary for an MMO or game in general.
Just understand that yes, that quest mob kobold that just took 20% of your health before it died is weaker than the demons you were slaying last expansion and understand it's simple game mechanics.

There is 0 need for a grander enemy each time. It's very easy to come out and say "Yes, you're killing bandits slowly because it's a new dungeon, not because they're stronger than Thanvaal and his infinity sigils".

[Loveliest]

You're more or less echoing the sentiment the nigh-entire fanbase has been espousing since.... WOD, Legion?

That is definetely not the entire fanbase. I would argue that there are more people in the "I defeated LK and now I save bunnies?" camp. Personally, I want to be an epic hero, not a lowly mercenary doing menial tasks.

[Sagenod]

That is definetely not the entire fanbase. I would argue that there are more people in the "I defeated LK and now I save bunnies?" camp. Personally, I want to be an epic hero, not a lowly mercenary doing menial tasks.

I did say the nigh-entire fanbase, which could be inaccurate as well I suppose. Though many players do agree with the sentiment and furthermore, don't you think there is a wide area of creative freedom between hunting animals and saving the universe?

[Swnem]

I kind of disagree the problem lies with the WoW dev team.

If you tell the the current player base there will no more levelling, not more character power progression, just merely storytelling, the game would probably die within a month.

Why are people repeatedly raiding? For the story? For the gaming experience? No. It is primary for loot and power progression. The whole game is driven by loot which is turns results in gaining more power. That is driving force.

There is nothing wrong with that but WoW is entering territory that few games that has reached.

A person can only reread the same novel, rewatch the same movie so many times.

Just my opinion.

Yes, there is plenty wrong. They can't do good story, yet they keep trying to while not fully committing. They are better off just going back to the vanilla and tbc formula of not having an overarching story and letting players just explore and find their own adventures.

Either way i reject your premise as there are mmorpg's out there that prove you premise false. It's possible to have great storytelling and great mmo loot power grind. Some that do it in a less frustrating way as well. The biggest of these is actually more popular than WoW, so i think it would hardly "die in a month" if WoW had more commitment and better systems to deliver It's story and keep it consistent and persistent between xpacs.

If other mmo's can do it with less funding, then 100% the problem is the wow dev team.

[epigramx]

How does my Paladin, who was punched in the face by a world soul and the Jailer, go from that back

You only to talk to us about your feelings. Nowhere do you prove that your feelings (of wanting to be always stronger) are that necessary to be satisfied.
E.g. people may want the realism of a character becoming weaker after an accident or after old age or after landing on an island with new ways.

[Nzx]

You only to talk to us about your feelings. Nowhere do you prove that your feelings (of wanting to be always stronger) are that necessary to be satisfied.
E.g. people may want the realism of a character becoming weaker after an accident or after old age or after landing on an island with new ways.

Lol what? This has nothing to do with my feelings. It's totally illogical for any of our characters to go back to struggling to kill Hogger at this point. If you want to call it "old age" then our characters have to eventually die, or else it's still illogical. If they suffer an "accident" then you have to logically explain an accident that was irreversible in a world where, again, our characters were punched in the face by a world soul and/or healed by another player's priest to the point they had no injury afterwards.

Iron Man can't create a suit out of nanobots and fight Thanos one on one and then go back to struggling to design an arc reactor and fighting terrorists with AK47s. Harry Potter can't defeat Voldemort and then go back to struggling with first year students in duels. The only explanations for these sorts of things are out of the question - no one wants their character to develop amnesia and forget how to hold a sword, that's a cop-out, and even if it wasn't the only logical arc of that story is regaining their memory and you're back to square one. If you decide that player characters age, then the only arc that story can follow is that they get older and older and therefore weaker until the point they can't fight anything anymore, and then you no longer have a game.

[shadowmatrix]

What's wrong with going small, since it's not really the bigness that matters, but the quality of the journey?

That requires players to pay attention to the journey. Go back and really pay attention to most expansions and you will see the players constantly dealing with small threats while working towards the big bad, in shadowlands we don't really actively go against the Jailer until we've dealt with four zones of smaller enemies.

[Sableye]

That is definetely not the entire fanbase. I would argue that there are more people in the "I defeated LK and now I save bunnies?" camp. Personally, I want to be an epic hero, not a lowly mercenary doing menial tasks.

I think it depends on what the type of threat is and how much the 'heroes' are needed. Legion was I think the first expansion where from the start with the legion dropping down everywhere and azeroth's armies only barely holding them back at broken shore, the heroes were directly responsible for the buildup for the push against the legion, and even then it was only for some phases of the expansion like the return to the broken shore since the battle for the nightwell was as much player driven as driven by the two elf factions as well but the players had to revive illidan while that was happening. BFA kind of tried this as well but didn't really stick to the theme much since azurite and the recovery of it from various far flung locations became secondary. There is a certain trend with blizzard's writing to start an expansion with a narrative of exploration only to end up with a big baddie showing up as they flesh out the writing. The only major exceptions I guess would be WoD, cataclysm and Wrath but then WoD killed off its big baddie before it was over with

Writing for a game as large and ongoing as Warcraft is exceedingly difficult and I don't blame them for sometimes changing course when things don't work but sometimes the story does feel like they maybe should have fleshed it out a bit before committing to the expansion

[Sluvs]

I don't particularly care if it is juvenile or not. Even though I do prefer smaller scale stories.

I care if it is good. And for the last couple of expansions, it hasn't been, at all.

[ohwell]

It seems like that from a narrative standpoint: vanilla is nothing compared to shadowlands; bunch of weak humanoids and others fighting each other and some minor demons; and now you somehow fight with forces that can change the multiverse with a snap of their fingers.

What's wrong with going small, since it's not really the bigness that matters, but the quality of the journey?

It's actually more juvenile to fight small threats once you've faced down a literal elemental lord, 2 dragon siblings, an old god and his insectoid army, and a lich with an army of undead.

[Wreckage827]

Almost all shonen anime suffers this...

For example at the start of Naruto, main characters had to train hard AF to do some basic stuff, time skip some episodes later and they are suddenly throwing moons at each other

And wow went with the same way that you always need "stronger" villain

I was about to say the same exact thing, look at pretty much any anime and it contains the exact same concept. Dragon Ball (all iterations including Super), Naruto, One Piece the list goes on. The problem with people's concept of power level is that power level is thought of as how powerful an entity is with regards to magic or so on, even in FF they have to have some villain that has more power than the previous. Power is not just the power that they hold in terms of magic or strength it is also the power they hold over in regards to how many people approve of them. The juvenile notion is to think that there will never be someone who is bigger or stronger than the previous bad guy whether it comes from popularity, true strength, magic power etc. To say that good storytelling does not need a more powerful foe is ignorant of the fact that there will always be someone who saw how the previous villain failed and attempt to overcome their failures with more power in other forms.

[plz delete account]

I agree.

Blizzard has (or maybe had, we'll have to see) this notion that BIG = EPIC!!!!! so we got Deathwing which was handled about as badly as it was possible to be and became a big joke at the end of Cataclysm once we saw the raid. The problem really is that Blizzard is artificially deciding in advance what is and isn't supposed to be EPIC!!!!!. That can almost 100% be laid at the door of Afrasiabi who killed off a lot of established lore characters because that's EPIC!!!!! and big, bad monsters who are also EPIC!!!!! No one yet has been smart enough to see the problem so we get more world-destroying events—EPIC!!!!!—and character deaths with little time spent on building up replacement lore characters. Because back stories are generally not epic at first.

It was a sad attempt to recreate that moment in BC when you walk into Outland for the first time. I would actually say that this bizarre attitude about all of this has been a bigger problem in the game than any amount of system talk. It absolutely is juvenile and precludes doing a lot of smaller, interesting stories because, well: "We can't have that. It's not EPIC!!!!! enough. Go bigger. Go badder. Be EPIC!!!!!. Because when we promote this expansion we'll be saying the word EPIC!!!!! out loud at least every 100 words or so. So it must be."

It's hack, amateurish story-telling that ignores common sense (which even a fantasy story needs) and substitutes brainless size for thought.

It's one reason why I think Mists is more fondly remembered in retrospect. Many of the stories that supported the expansion generally were smaller and played together very well in a narrative sense. That was Metzen. He is missed.

8 mentions of EPIC!!!! And you summon me. What do you need from me?