Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I can't help thinking how badly they're fumbling it. Instead of ruining Turalyon, they should have used Arator to explore the idea that Light can corrupt, especially given his light/void dynamic. It should have been Arator who is the younger, inexperienced, brash, hotheaded, even overly zealous guy in the face of existential threats unfamiliar to him. A desire to 'prove' himself in front of his veteran parents, with his father being the voice of reason and restraint. Instead, Arator is the naive, emotional guy who feels bad every time a troll which tried to kill him dies, while his father is the made the zealot. So instead of getting 1 thing right, they get 2 wrongs

Not a bad alternative. If we had to cleave closer to what Blizzard is going for (yet another "innocent young voice of reason seeking truth"), I actually think Salandria would work fine in Arator's place since she'd come off as markedly less stupid because she's much younger and her naivety would make sense, but if we want something more original in WoW's context, I think your idea works well.

[micwini]

Lorna Crowley also calls the orcs greenskins (based) during the invasion of Gilneas. The hilarious thing is, they removed the word from the voice acting but left it in the text.

The problem is, these writers are legitimately unhinged and out of touch with reality. They cannot fathom the idea that it is perfectly acceptable for a character to be discriminatory towards an invasive, violent alien race who repeatedly engaged in horrific warcrimes.

I mean they're sympathetic towards invasive violent aliens IRL as well, so you might be on to something.

[Santandame]

people really just be in here repeating asmongold talking points from 5 years ago lmao

The last few pages you’ve had nothing productive to add apart from completely misquoting people or just reducing their points into your own twisted notion - for what? Because you disagree? Actually bring something productive to the table aside from this disingenuous nonsense.

[Ashahalasin]

people really just be in here repeating asmongold talking points from 5 years ago lmao

Seek professional help.

[Raetary]

I mean they're sympathetic towards invasive violent aliens IRL as well, so you might be on to something.

Jesus fucking christ.

This is precisely what the fuck i meant earlier.
No amount of shit tier writing justifies the tolerance of such blatant vitriol and obvious fascistic dogwhistling (though this post is more like a giant blowhorn)

I mean really, you might've as well have thrown a Sieg Heil in there too for good measure.

[Santandame]

Jesus fucking christ.

This is precisely what the fuck i meant earlier.
No amount of shit tier writing justifies the tolerance of such blatant vitriol and obvious fascistic dogwhistling (though this post is more like a giant blowhorn)

I mean really, you might've as well have thrown a Sieg Heil in there too for good measure.

Yeah, definitely a wild comment.

[Lieutenant Commander]

It's a shame because I like most of the things they are doing in Midnight, except how godawful the writing is. It's gonna ruin the experience as a whole.

[Monkal]

people really just be in here repeating asmongold talking points from 5 years ago lmao

Yeah I decided to disengage from this thread a couple pages ago when the usual suspect said being in a wheelchair was "worse than death" when talking about Khadgar. Then the discourse just kept devolving into a lot of basement takes and the thread lost its purpose.

[micwini]

Jesus fucking christ.

This is precisely what the fuck i meant earlier.
No amount of shit tier writing justifies the tolerance of such blatant vitriol and obvious fascistic dogwhistling (though this post is more like a giant blowhorn)

I mean really, you might've as well have thrown a Sieg Heil in there too for good measure.

From your post, you dont even seem to grasp the meaning of half the words you used.
Imagine replying something like this when all I do is point out what rhetorical bag the writers fit in, based on the writing they put in the game.

I just wrote out an observation, nowhere have I stated what my opinion on it would be.
The more people like you project your hateful assumptions on others, the worse the world will become.


This is a good example of why the writing is shit btw. People make assumptions and get offended on the tiniest comment and blow it out of proportion. And this is 1 message from me, 1 individual. A corpo has to deal with millions of users.

[Jastall]

You wouldn't catch Blizzard having characters speak like this about Sylvanas, certainly not with Arator vouching for her.

Sylvanas is still a very popular character with the overall fanbase, for a variety of reasons. Garrosh is mostly popular with a subset of lore grognards that Blizzard hasn't been listening to for more than a decade, and it's not like shitting on him hasn't been a sport since Mists where they literally made him Hitler.

Yeah, it's bullshit and Sylvanas should stay in the Maw forevermore, but she's a hot elf chick and Garrosh isn't, soooo...

[Santandame]

It's a shame because I like most of the things they are doing in Midnight, except how godawful the writing is. It's gonna ruin the experience as a whole.

It’s a tricky one.

I think the zones are very, very, very good. Silvermoon looks amazing despite it not quite being on par for me with other cities in game. I think Voidstorm is gonna be a miss but I’m happy to be wrong upon launch.

Addon apocalypse I’m on the fence about. I don’t use too many addons to begin with but I’m concerned about Elvui support stopping.

Class pruning I’m fine with. I did some research earlier and I’m quite happy with how a lot of them are headed.

Housing looks excellent and I’m extremely excited for it.

Prey I think will be good at launch but flying and gear will trivialise it. I’m interested to see if it’s reiterated on in further expansions like Halfhill Farm -> Garrisons -> Order Halls and Scenarios -> Torghast -> Delves.

The writing is most certainly going to sour it for me though. The writing for WoW has never been great. But the vibes from MoP, WoD, Legion and BfA were still excellent despite poor to average writing. Midnight doesn’t seem to have those vibes, from what I can see so far.

[COBRAstriker]

Sylvanas is still a very popular character with the overall fanbase, for a variety of reasons. Garrosh is mostly popular with a subset of lore grognards that Blizzard hasn't been listening to for more than a decade, and it's not like shitting on him hasn't been a sport since Mists where they literally made him Hitler.

Yeah, it's bullshit and Sylvanas should stay in the Maw forevermore, but she's a hot elf chick and Garrosh isn't, soooo...

Too on the nose to bring Sylvanas back and treat her with surgical gloves and then shortly after, take a dump of Garrosh. That quest with Garrosh also makes no sense lorewise, it's full of inconsistencies and breaks all established lore, Garrosh aside

A lot of people also like Garrosh. The quest is in poor taste and its only purpose is for some writer to show their hate towards a character who died more than a decade ago and who literally disenchanted himself from the game in Shadowlands. It's petty and pathetic

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The only reason I am okay with the "Cozycore" is because it may mean RPers might get a crumb out of the Roadmap. But, yeah. They're are completely spellbound at the prospect of a super cozycore Warcraft and we're kind of seeing that throughout the current Narrative presented.

The trend towards cozycore in fantasy is especially unfortunate because both using a utopian background or future for a setting can be useful and interesting respectively.

With respect to preexisting utopia: obviously this part is well-established and is kind of the direct antecedent to the cozycore trend, with Tolkien being one of the bigger examples (though naturally not the earliest). The reason it worked with Tolkien is because the threat to the Shire's peace was immediate and severe and because the Shire's idyll was both used to give the protagonists something to protect and lose and contrasted with the comparatively more violent (albeit heroic) world still marred with corruption that made up the bulk of the story, while it doesn't work well with a lot of bad, conflict-averse fantasy because the conflict can get muted and the threats made cosmic in a way that makes them feel distant.

With respect to future utopia: I think, done correctly, reform stories and even (arguably especially) utopian fiction can be very interesting. It's just that the generation that's most immersed in that happens to be extremely conflict-averse and scrupulous in a way that can gimp their exploration of these topics, especially where the (in my mind requisite) component of challenging the audience or making them uncomfortable with the reality of different cultural norms comes in.

I'd actually argue the conflict-averse, hardline cozycore writers do worse and more egregiously what Moorcock (I think very inaccurately) alleged Tolkien's work did: they create worlds and stories intended to comfort the audience and reinforce moral attitudes in vogue while presenting these ideals with very limited legitimate moral challenges (in this case liberal rather than conservative). I actually have a thread where I talk a bit more about Moorcock's Epic Pooh essay (section II, under the spoiler tag). I'll copy/paste what I wrote there under a collapse tag here, too.

Spoiler: 

To get a good idea of where Moorcock stands, his 1978 essay Epic Pooh outlines some of his thoughts about the fantasy of Lewis and Tolkien: he believes that the fantasy of his time effectively served to comfort rather than to present a challenge to the reader or to outmoded socio-political conventions and was heavily predicated on politically-conservative romanticism.

I think there's plenty of points on which you could reasonably challenge Moorcock's claims: Tolkien was undoubtedly strongly influenced by socially-conservative romanticism, but Tolkien's work is hardly unchallenging.

He was still a World War I veteran (as much as he fervently denied it influenced his writing), so it's fairly obvious his writings wouldn't be entirely unchallenging: despite his belief in objective morality, the moral fallibility of otherwise-noble people is a major theme in Lord of the Rings, and his idealization of a romantic agrarian idyll is accompanied by the understanding that those returning to such an idyll after leaving to defend it may never be able to properly readjust to it.

While I know Moorcock meant more to refer to Tolkien’s worldbuilding tending towards restoration instead of destabilization and being unchallenging in a political sense rather than accusing Tolkien’s writing of altogether lacking any nuance, Moorcock’s case is still far short of airtight because Frodo eventually leaving the Shire with the elves and Gandalf demonstrates that someone might be unable to really return to their pastoral idyll. That sense of irreparable loss and alienation resists a totally consolatory reading.

I'd also argue that a lot of fantasy nowadays — modern Warcraft, especially post-Dragonflight, very much included — actually better fits the accusations Moorcock levies against Tolkien, just with the underlying political biases changed. Some kinds of modern fantasy I've seen, namely the mass-appeal kind and the New Wave D&D kind with all its cognates, seem fixated on escapism and the comfort of the audience. In an era of safety tools, long content warnings, high moral scrutiny of fiction etc. it becomes increasingly difficult to challenge or transgress against what the audience holds sacred. You could even argue some new-wave fantasy promotes the political status quo by way of secular individualism.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

I mean they're sympathetic towards invasive violent aliens IRL as well, so you might be on to something.

The Xenomorphs and their Alien Queen were only violent because humans went into their planet and hive and stole their eggs or started using it as a mining site. They have the right to go ham on the humans in order to defend their home.

[Xilurm]

I mean they're sympathetic towards invasive violent aliens IRL as well, so you might be on to something.

Comments like these make any argument everyone else makes against bad writing completely redundant. The devs see stuff like this and go like "oh well who cares if they don't like it since they're racists."

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

Sylvanas is still a very popular character with the overall fanbase, for a variety of reasons. Garrosh is mostly popular with a subset of lore grognards that Blizzard hasn't been listening to for more than a decade, and it's not like shitting on him hasn't been a sport since Mists where they literally made him Hitler.

Yeah, it's bullshit and Sylvanas should stay in the Maw forevermore, but she's a hot elf chick and Garrosh isn't, soooo...

Team Sylvanas here.

But I like Garrosh too as a villain cause I like his ambitious personality.

Maybe too ambitious for his own good cause he thought turning a splinter of the Horde into the True Horde would be enough to conquer the world. Also wanted to invade Azeroth while fighting against multiple factions on Draenor at the same time.

[Jastall]

Too on the nose to bring Sylvanas back and treat her with surgical gloves and then shortly after, take a dump of Garrosh. That quest with Garrosh also makes no sense lorewise, it's full of inconsistencies and breaks all established lore, Garrosh aside

A lot of people also like Garrosh. The quest is in poor taste and its only purpose is for some writer to show their hate towards a character who died more than a decade ago and who literally disenchanted himself from the game in Shadowlands. It's petty and pathetic

No more or less on the nose than having the guy unearth forbidden artifacts then hide in his underground bunker to declare war upon all the lesser races whom dare stop his superior species from taking their vital space, with a final FLR wing literally called Downfall in case anyone thought they were being too subtle.

Aside from literally one cinematic in WoD, the writing around Garrosh has always been shit tier and the writers have obviously never liked him except as a free source of conflict. I'm not going to lose sleep over them taking yet another dump on the character, even if the writing of the quest IS pretty egregiously bad and I hope it gets removed.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Well, Arator is obviously on a journey to understand it better. Also the light doesn't always make him wrathful does it? It makes it when he is fighting and thinking of combat, or hostility. The light just intensives that feeling. Though he should be somewhat accommodated to it from his legion time in the order hall. Perhaps the increased power from the sunwell, or the voidstorm is overwhelming to him. I don't know.

From seeing more of the questline he seems to think the light is only about wrath and fighting, he's easily has the worse understanding of the light of any pally ever.

[micwini]

Comments like these make any argument everyone else makes against bad writing completely redundant. The devs see stuff like this and go like "oh well who cares if they don't like it since they're racists."

No it doesn't. People only reading words and not the message is the problem. Writing is bad, because people can't understand it when a phrase becomes even slightly more complex than it just meaning what it says. My comment is the proof of that.

People, some people, instantly assume all kinds of things with that comment. They let their assumptions and hate go wild and then you get replies completely missing the point of the comment and attacking the poster.
People who can actually read would notice that the entire comment is just commentary on how the current writers put their ideologies in the game, using current real world parallels. Nothing more, nothing less. Someone saying "dogwhistle" just openly admits that they assumed all kinds of things while reading the text.

[Biomega]

The trend towards cozycore in fantasy is especially unfortunate because I think, done correctly, the reform stories that accompany them with respect to WoW and even (arguably especially) utopian fiction can be very interesting. It's just that the generation that's most immersed in that happens to be extremely conflict-averse and scrupulous in a way that can gimp their exploration of these topics, especially where the (in my mind requisite) component of challenging the audience or making them uncomfortable with the reality of different cultural norms comes in.

Time and a place for everything - but that doesn't mean EVERY time and EVERY place for anything. Cozycore and Hopepunk are both great and interesting genre movements, but that doesn't mean they should be overriding directives. It's not like WoW was ever really grimdark, even in its early days. Gritty, yeah, but always in a bit of a silly way, too. So there's nothing to really course-correct, this was always mainstream as fuck.

And I agree completely: taking WoW's story in some new directions is a good thing in the abstract. The whole Orcs vs. Humans shtick has long since outlived its usefulness and something beyond the constant and somewhat petty territorial warfare was absolutely warranted. Explorations of political and ideological systems etc. are all great ideas for this kind of world-building.

But the pillow-fort mentality of hyper-sanitized narrative is not only a turnoff for fans of the franchise's more gritty past, it's also counterproductive and self-defeating. Garrosh calling Sylvanas a bitch isn't an endorsement of misogynist rhetoric. He's an asshole. Assholes say shitty things that make you not like them. Similarly with the greenskin slur - you're supposed to find that startling and objectionable. These characters are being racists, for various reasons; and that doesn't mean that is a good thing.

It really drives me up the wall that somehow we have come to a point where people have apparently lost the ability to discern what is a character's view and what is a writer's view; for whatever reason, there's many theories as to why. What are people saying, that any time you write a character that's a murderer you are endorsing murder? Or downplaying the severity of murder? Or implicitly condoning murder? Because that's exactly the kind of arguments I hear from people, except substituting other words for "murder".

And don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely for holding authors accountable, and absolutely for demanding critical engagement in fiction. But critical doesn't mean sanitized. If you don't trust your audience to be able to handle a problematic term or topic, it means you don't trust yourself as a writer to convey that term or topic in a critically appropriate way. Or, by extension, that a company doesn't trust their writers to do so. Why? Because they know the people ultimately responsible for oversight and management aren't up to the task. So they just do heavy-handed white-out crusading to cleanse anything with potential for offense that they aren't functionally adult enough to properly evaluate.

Fuck shit like that Jade Witch control-F replace editing. Do they think we're idiots, or do they think they're idiots? Or both?