Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Thomir]

They need to focus on hype moments and aura farming instead of woke bs like "character development" ew

[Nymrohd]

The story is really holy & tankadin propaganda. We are distancing ourselves from ret paladins as the superior specs. Seems Blizzard took the Discord shutting down joke so far, they are just making retribution in lore actual morons.

- - - Updated - - -

They need to focus on hype moments and aura farming instead of woke bs like "character development" ew

Why the fuck is "character development" woke now? Touch grass

[COBRAstriker]

Character 'development' only through words and dialogue is not development, it's soap opera tier garbage

For example, in Arator's story he says that he felt the wrath of the Light himself, and it even left marks on his body. Is this at any point shown in the game? Or is it something he just tells you and you have to accept? That's a pretty big claim to make considering what we know about the Light so far and well, without showing, it's hard to take it serious

From my pov, instead of retcons and mischaracterizing Turalyon, they should have used Arator for introducing the concept of Lightblinded or that the Light can corrupt. It makes even more sense, if he's supposed be the son of light and void, and one could frame it as the Light acting unusual around the presence of void, as if the Light is trying to overpower his 'evil', void half. Arator should have been the one going berzerk on the Amani, with Turalyon being the voice of reason, akin to Arthas' brashness and Uther's more calm and calculated approach. Instead they wrote absolute slop

[Thomir]

Fuck I hate these forums

[Kilpi]

They need to focus on hype moments and aura farming instead of woke bs like "character development" ew

Lol "woke bs like character development". It really has become a term meaning nothing at all and whatever the duck you want.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

he didn't start talking about his feelings or emotions or expressing daddy issues. Likewise for Terenas, he didn't have a mental breakdown and started to scold or berate his son in some petty family drama. No, the entire interaction had very little dialogue and ended with a single line, 'Succeeding you, father' followed by him killing his father (actual event taking place with consequences) and that little interaction is more poignant and memorable than all.these walls of texts about feelings and emotions they keep dropping on players nowadays

For clarity, — I'm fairly certain you're saying exactly this, but I'm basically expressing this as clearly as possible to get your back ahead of mistaken replies I suspect you'll receive, — the problem obviously isn't characters expressing emotion strongly inasmuch as that they can only express emotion through insufferable walls of text and bringing the story to a grinding fucking halt to work through their emotional issues. I'll second the post you're replying to re: this framing being inappropriate for the medium, but I'll go further and say books or other written mediums can still handle this sort of thing better with less insufferable grinding halts to the narrative, since good writers typically understand that showing usually being better than telling is a basic rule of storytelling. Better yet, good writers understand that multiple things can happen at once and a character can work through or express their emotions while other things are happening in simultaneity cf. Sam and Frodo between the ring's destruction and their rescue.

Even when we go into the exceptions where telling can come over showing, I'm inclined to go to Borges, a writer that's a great favorite mine. His writing is usually introspective, concept-heavy, and necessarily event-light, often written through inherently expository framing devices like fictional academic articles. At the same time, his writing on account of being competent also neatly intersperses its introspection throughout the conceptual meat it's engaging with instead of regularly interrupting itself with a meandering blunt statement of precisely how the author is feeling about something. Obviously, this is also significantly helped by the fact being a good writer also means his prose is strong and the concepts he tackles are deep enough to sustain interest in their exploration, as opposed to the introspective components of modern Blizzard stories consisting largely of mouth-breathers agonizingly outlining their every vapid pseudo-thought while musing on Teletubbies morality.

[Biomega]

You're right but the question is why does it have to be like this?

It's complicated. There's lots of obviously screwed up facts we can point to in many industries, but simply identifying them is by no means a solution. Examples include the Peter Principle, marketing skill being valued over product skill, etc. The reason for why these can't easily be solved usually being "it's too much effort" and the same is true here.

Keep in mind how these writers get to be writers for these products: someone hires them to be that. But the people who decide on what writers to hire aren't writers, they're managers - usually middle managers somewhere, not executives. They got to that position through a particular set of skills, but very rare do these include a critical understanding of writing. They tend to be results-driven and buzzword-laden MBA-style skills designed primarily to function in an industry-agnostic corporate structure, i.e. they're not about the product but they're about the company. The reasoning being that irrespective of the product, at some level all companies of a certain size operate more or less the same, and so people are trained with an eye towards that. And of course with an eye towards metrics, which are heavily driven by KPIs and other benchmarks usually orientated around a short to mid-term profit that shows up on books and in statistics.

These people are not qualified to gauge writing proficiency, but they are qualified (some might even say: susceptible) to identify marketing-speak and buzzwords in others, because that's how they themselves operate. So young writers coming in are incentivized to market themselves accordingly: to hiring managers, not to writers. They are not going to get a job by being creatively brilliant, they are going to get a job by being team players who understand the vertical fluidity of a corporate structure in which everyone is a part of a larger machine on board a ship with many captains and what's really important is to pull at it together and build team spirit and stick to company values that project a positive brand image fostering quarterly growth targets. And all such vernacular.

Writers get hired if they're good at ticking the boxes the managers want to see ticked, and that is any number of things - but usually not "knows and understands the intricacies of narratology".

Clearly it doesn't sell, at least for a franchise like Warcraft.

Well, that's not immediately evident. WoW has never been a paragon of narrative - the writing has always been kinda shit and basic. And while I would agree that it has gotten worse, so have other things; and it's not as simple as laying it all at the feet of the writing. Would WoW shoot up into the sky with a million new players if the writing was stellar? Probably not.

And so we're back to "too much effort", as the prevailing corporate attitude towards this tends to be not about wanting great writing, but about wanting writing that's just good enough for low-effort vetting and hiring of average writers, which is something that's very easy and ego-flattering for those in charge because it speaks to their skills; rather than them admitting that they lack the skills needed to hire brilliant writers. So both in terms of money and in terms of ego, there is HEAVY pressure not to improve this.

Because let's face it: while audiences like to talk about great writing and how they miss it etc., most of them wouldn't know good writing if it came and sucked their dick, either. The feedback mechanism of consumer response tends to not react very strongly to the quality of the writing, as long as it's within a fairly broad spectrum - i.e. they'll hate on REALLY TERRIBLE writing and they'll reward REALLY AMAZING writing, but for the most part, they're just going to be okay with most stuff in between. And by "be okay" I mean strictly in terms of allocating their purchase decisions - when asked, many will say they want great writing, they just won't spend their money that way.

This is by no means a problem exclusive to Blizzard or exclusive to video games, but is rather a very embedded, very complex problem of nearly all entertainment media. It's very difficult to even identify properly, let alone solve - in part because despite all their protestations, consumers just don't seem to care enough.

They may take to the forums to say how shit the writing in WoW is, but then go right back to playing and paying. And while it's not as easy as quitting over every little thing (obviously) the larger trend so far has been "slop is okay, I'll keep paying for it". And companies therefore have very little reason to improve things, even things that are very obviously improvable.

[Skildar]

Velen stating that the sunwell is a conduit of the Light through the sacrifice of their Naaru is not wrong as Lor'Themar's comment about how it's more than that and has always been. It used to be so powerful the well had created a consciousness ready to make arcane love with Kalecgos... I understand that Bob doesn't appreciate people implicitly telling him that the Blood Elves well was just a font before the end events of BC

[micwini]

It's not the writing, it's the vibes.

[Raetary]

Man, this thread has really turned into a dumpster.

It's not even entertaining to watch all the arguing anymore, just depressing.

[Santandame]

Man, this thread has really turned into a dumpster.

It's not even entertaining to watch all the arguing anymore, just depressing.

The discussion is a reflection of the dreadful story. What are you expecting? Everyone to be celebrating this awful writing? People are justifiably voicing their concerns with the direction the story & writing is taking.

Zones are great, no doubt. They’ve been celebrated apart from the comparisons to years older, better zones, which is fair enough.

Housing seems excellent; which is getting heaps of praise justifiably so.

Addon apocalypse could go either way.

Class pruning remains to be seen, I understand both sides of the argument.

Writing, however, is dreadful. It cannot and should not be defended.

[COBRAstriker]

Well, that's not immediately evident.

I mean, it is? Views on cinematics are down considerably, it's not a natural decline. A lot of forums used for lore discussion have died. I don't know about NA, but EU lore forum is on life support too. RP community has been decimated. Horde RP barely exists anymore. Content creators who were passionate about the setting and some of these characters and who used to make content around that, just out of sheer passion, have pretty much all quit. Fanart or cosplays of newer characters is pretty much nonexistent. Word of mouth is gone too. In the past, we could point to cool cinematics or characters, but those are not a thing anymore. Culturally, WoW is in shambles, and it's precisely because of the writing and cinematics. I always agreed with the fact that WoW never had deep writing, but it made up for it with cool characters, the rule of cool being dominant and cool cinematics. Now, the writing still hasn't improved, in fact it's even worse, but even things which used to be cool are gone, and with that, a large chunk of the playerbase

[AOL Instant Messenger]

It's not the writing, it's the vibes.

I wouldn't say so. While the aesthetic has definitely degraded, and in a way that's been to the detriment of the setting and its identity, I think this statement is too absolute. Grinding the story to a halt to have us lead an intellectually and emotionally stunted 30-something who was previously characterized as a functional adult (I theorize he suffered brain damage during Legion) on a journey to learn about the established mechanical basics of the force he worships feels as much like a problem with the writing as the spirit and aesthetic.

... actually, you know what just occurred to me? Why is Arator, the mature adult with no strong connection to Thalassian culture, our elven paladin representative who struggles with learning about the Light and tries to combat ancestral grudges against trolls instead of Salandria?

[Lady Atia]

I mean, it is? Views on cinematics are down considerably, it's not a natural decline. A lot of forums used for lore discussion have died. I don't know about NA, but EU lore forum is on life support too. RP community has been decimated. Horde RP barely exists anymore. Content creators who were passionate about the setting and some of these characters and who used to make content around that, just out of sheer passion, have pretty much all quit. Fanart or cosplays of newer characters is pretty much nonexistent. Word of mouth is gone too. In the past, we could point to cool cinematics or characters, but those are not a thing anymore. Culturally, WoW is in shambles, and it's precisely because of the writing and cinematics. I always agreed with the fact that WoW never had deep writing, but it made up for it with cool characters, the rule of cool being dominant and cool cinematics. Now, the writing still hasn't improved, in fact it's even worse, but even things which used to be cool are gone, and with that, a large chunk of the playerbase

I mean, forums in general are dead cause you know, Discord exists. That has nothing to do with "bad lore" (which WoW doesn't have since BfA lol).

[COBRAstriker]

Man, this thread has really turned into a dumpster.

It's not even entertaining to watch all the arguing anymore, just depressing.

It's hard to be positive considering how the story is right now on Alpha. Turalyon being mischaracterized and his own character development retconned, Arator being a very poorly written character, Calia, who is despised by every forsaken player making a return, Garrosh being brought back only to shit on him while at the same time bringing Sylvanas back, possibly paving the way for her full redemption/return despite her commiting even more heinous crimes than Garrosh. I mean.. it's really bad

And most importantly, I'm again not seeing any cool moments. It's just walls of text upon walls of text that take all agency from you, and instead just tell you what you should think or feel

[micwini]

I wouldn't say so. While the aesthetic has definitely degraded, and in a way that's been to the detriment of the setting and its identity, I think this statement is too absolute. Grinding the story to a halt to have us lead an intellectually and emotionally stunted 30-something who was previously characterized as a functional adult (I theorize he suffered brain damage during Legion) on a journey to learn about the established mechanical basics of the force he worships feels as much like a problem with the writing as the spirit and aesthetic.

... actually, you know what just occurred to me? Why is Arator, the mature adult with no strong connection to Thalassian culture, our elven paladin representative who struggles with learning about the Light and tries to combat ancestral grudges against trolls instead of Salandria?

Yes, but the writing doesn't matter. If the writing keeps being shit, but they bring back the vibes, im sure you'd see less complaints and more people feeling like the game is 'cool' again.

[Reive]

It's not the writing, it's the vibes.

it's both

/10chars

[Skildar]

Garrosh being brought back only to shit on him while at the same time bringing Sylvanas back, possibly paving the way for her full redemption/return despite her commiting even more heinous crimes than Garrosh. I mean.. it's really bad

I've missed this bit of news... They're bringing Garrosh back in some kind of flashback?

[Garrac]

Was gonna psot my new Zul'Aman map mapping out all of the zones, but it does seem like it would go totally unnoticed now in favour of dumping against Blizzard. Guess I might do a whole new thread.

[Raetary]

I've missed this bit of news... They're bringing Garrosh back in some kind of flashback?

Nah, one of the new Arcantina quests has Gamon ask us to go to AU Draenor (which shouldn't be possible) and defile Garrosh's grave so he can get confirmation that he truly is dead.
Gorgonna is also there and makes the point that orcs occasionally go there (somehow) and spit on him.

It makes no sense and is unnecessarily vitriolic.