Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[KOREAN DAVE]

nah, that's cope. I play both, FF14 kills WoW in terms of story and respect for your time. Also, i like raids in FF14 way better than anything in WoW and having all classes on a single characters. The only parts that WoW wins out is the transmog system (not actual the looks, but the system), the number of races choices, and the historic lore, though FF14 lore is quickly catching up. Since i don't do M+ or PvP i can't rate that, but i like FF14 dungeons better than WoWs.

XIV is the end result of designing a game for people who don’t want to play it. The gameplay systems are beyond dated and awful. The raids are cool but you’re getting 4 raid bosses every 10 months. The .3 second delay makes combat and movement feel awful. The only thing going for it was its narrative and turns out the team doesn’t actually know how to create a new story that’s as compelling as the original.

If story is what you like about MMOs then sure, I suppose XIV beats WoW, otherwise WoW is absolutely ahead of XIV in every other metric.

[Nymrohd]

The story isn't about the Alliance. It is about CHARACTERS. It's about Alleria, Arator and Turalyon, not about Stormwind and the Quel'dorei. There is an Alliance story in Midnight and that's the Void Elf story in Eversong and Voidstorm as well as the Sons of Lothar story in Arator's Journey (though I guess that's Horde as well now with Eitrigg). Then again there is tons of Blood Elf story in Eversong and Zul'aman. And yes, Arator (and Umbric) are there for the main campaign of Eversong but there is double the amount of side quests than there are main quests.

[Super Dickmann]

The story isn't about the Alliance. It is about CHARACTERS. It's about Alleria, Arator and Turalyon, not about Stormwind and the Quel'dorei. There is an Alliance story in Midnight and that's the Void Elf story in Eversong and Voidstorm as well as the Sons of Lothar story in Arator's Journey (though I guess that's Horde as well now with Eitrigg). Then again there is tons of Blood Elf story in Eversong and Zul'aman. And yes, Arator (and Umbric) are there for the main campaign of Eversong but there is double the amount of side quests than there are main quests.

No one seriously made this point about Thrall in Cataclysm and no one made it about Sylvanas in Shadowlands without being laughed out the park and it's because it's obviously wrong. A story about two Warcraft 2 Alliance heroes, themselves archetypes of the heroic human paladin and the exotic elf wife and their son dealing with being a stranger to (partly) his home is an Alliance story. It is told from the outside Alliance perspective of Quel'thalas, hence why you kill Forsaken in the Windrunner Spire for looting the Spire for signs of Sylvanas (i.e the same thing you're doing) where they were allies in Ghostlands and why in MGT's remake you help Umbric beat up Rommath's guys regardless of faction.

[Nymrohd]

No one seriously made this point about Thrall in Cataclysm and no one made it about Sylvanas in Shadowlands without being laughed out the park and it's because it's obviously wrong. A story about two Warcraft 2 Alliance heroes, themselves archetypes of the heroic human paladin and the exotic elf wife and their son dealing with being a stranger to (partly) his home is an Alliance story. It is told from the outside Alliance perspective of Quel'thalas, hence why you kill Forsaken in the Windrunner Spire for looting the Spire for signs of Sylvanas (i.e the same thing you're doing) where they were allies in Ghostlands and why in MGT's remake you help Umbric beat up Rommath's guys regardless of faction.

I understand that is how you perceive this but nothing about Alleria's story moves the story of the Alliance. Umbric DOES move the story of the Void Elves since everything he does is about the void elves' grievances with Silvermoon and Rommath so I guess I should move MGT together with his Eversong and Voidstorm quests as Alliance storylines. But the fact that Arator thought that Turalyon not confessing he hit him to his wife during an all out war and will probably say something stupid during the Voidspire raid and cause Alleria to fall is not a story that involves the Alliance; it's their own family drama. It's not even told with the Alliance on the background. If you weren't compelled to perceive things in this binary and you saw this as fiction set up in real life, how would you see it? Would a story about three Germans living in Paris be a German story or a story about those three Germans? Is the Amani Pass story an Alliance story because part of it is about Arator and Turalyon or is it a Horde story because it is about how the blood elves react to the Amani?

[Vakir]

@Super Dickmann

I get the apothecary stuff, but keeping Varimathras rather than just disposing of him eventually is still a bridge too far for me.

I blame the reason I think a lot of this stuff happens - a lot of the WC3 era writing and lingering status quo at its end is in opposition to a lot of the conceits for a long term MMO trying to accommodate in factors that don't help with the rest of a gameplay function. The Forsaken were an incredible curve ball addition to the Horde but there's a lot of baggage that came with it. (Which is to say the MMO would've been great to target a different status quo and time period, not that it should've conformed more to where we were left in WC3 with being given two mostly generic good factions with regards to that version of the Alliance and Horde)

The Forsaken were so much cooler when they were a rogue faction of the entire spectrum of the Scourge rather than undead humanoids and a token named abom or banshee or two. Same with the Illidari - a power faction of a pre-Horde Blood Elves, Naga, and pre-retcon Draenei now reduced to 500,000 "elite few" Demon Hunters and permanently irrelevant troop dispensers.

But now I'm just complaining rather than speculating.

[Nymrohd]

@Super Dickmann

I get the apothecary stuff, but keeping Varimathras rather than just disposing of him eventually is still a bridge too far for me.

I blame the reason I think a lot of this stuff happens - a lot of the WC3 era writing and lingering status quo at its end is in opposition to a lot of the conceits for a long term MMO trying to accommodate in factors that don't help with the rest of a gameplay function. The Forsaken were an incredible curve ball addition to the Horde but there's a lot of baggage that came with it. (Which is to say the MMO would've been great to target a different status quo and time period, not that it should've conformed more to where we were left in WC3 with being given two mostly generic good factions with regards to that version of the Alliance and Horde)

The Forsaken were so much cooler when they were a rogue faction of the entire spectrum of the Scourge rather than undead humanoids and a token named abom or banshee or two. Same with the Illidari - a power faction of a pre-Horde Blood Elves, Naga, and pre-retcon Draenei now reduced to 500,000 "elite few" Demon Hunters and permanently irrelevant troop dispensers.

But now I'm just complaining rather than speculating.

Keeping the WC3 factions would have made it possible to tell a far more interesting story. Problem is, it would never be viable to tell the story from 5 different sides. How do you justify making faction questlines for that many factions when they can barely do it for 2

[Vakir]

Keeping the WC3 factions would have made it possible to tell a far more interesting story. Problem is, it would never be viable to tell the story from 5 different sides. How do you justify making faction questlines for that many factions when they can barely do it for 2

Oh, it would be impossible. I just also think the solution wasn't to strip the intrigue and/or loot pinata them.

But as I said, if it could be done all over again, I wouldn't have started it right there. (Big story threats like the Lich King would obviously still be in the background, not gone) But it also may have not been as successful if they hadn't.

[Super Dickmann]

I understand that is how you perceive this but nothing about Alleria's story moves the story of the Alliance. Umbric DOES move the story of the Void Elves since everything he does is about the void elves' grievances with Silvermoon and Rommath so I guess I should move MGT together with his Eversong and Voidstorm quests as Alliance storylines. But the fact that Arator thought that Turalyon not confessing he hit him to his wife during an all out war and will probably say something stupid during the Voidspire raid and cause Alleria to fall is not a story that involves the Alliance; it's their own family drama. It's not even told with the Alliance on the background. If you weren't compelled to perceive things in this binary and you saw this as fiction set up in real life, how would you see it? Would a story about three Germans living in Paris be a German story or a story about those three Germans? Is the Amani Pass story an Alliance story because part of it is about Arator and Turalyon or is it a Horde story because it is about how the blood elves react to the Amani?

Screentime is zero-sum. Any story spent on the human paladin and how he and his son deal with the Alliance defeating the Horde and him personally defeating the Horde's Warchief is time not spent on said Horde. The same extends to perspective. The story of Midnight isn't primarily Alliance just because every lead character save Liadrin has been in the Alliance and in wars against the Horde for longer than the mythical new players of this game have been alive, but because they engage with the story of an existential threat to Silvermoon et al and an occupying army of the Light from an outside perspective. To take your example, a story about Germans in Paris is in any case inherently different from one if they were Parisians, because making them Germans, which is to say outsiders with particularly cultural baggage is already a narrative choice. From then, the story may center on this or pivot to exploring their purely personal dynamics, but it will always be an element, as otherwise it would not be included.

To translate this scenario, the mere fact that Umbric deals with getting back to his home and the reaction of the Blood Elves (especially Rommath) to him and what his represents wouldn't be alone in making it an Alliance story. What makes it an Alliance story is that Umbric is the protagonist, he is the one with the arc to overcome the prejudice and prove his skills have worth, we follow him as we beat up guards and overcome Rommath and then the snafu with the void breaking in. If, instead, Rommath were the protagonist and we followed him as he dealt with the necessity of tolerating someone he finds repugnant, cleans up his mess, sets up wards etc. the physical aspect of the story is the same, but its thematic weight and narrative focus is drastically different.

In the Alliance-perspective story, you need to explain and tour the city of spiders and have the beacon of all that is good, Anduin, have to tell you they're people just like him. In a Horde-perspective story, this would be a base presumption, and you would immediately engage with another aspect - honor in battle versus a shortcut that subverts who you are(Anub'azal and orcs), finding power and meaning in what's at first a curse and slavery (the Ascended and Forsaken). The first story is told, the second isn't.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

XIV is the end result of designing a game for people who don’t want to play it. The gameplay systems are beyond dated and awful. The raids are cool but you’re getting 4 raid bosses every 10 months. The .3 second delay makes combat and movement feel awful. The only thing going for it was its narrative and turns out the team doesn’t actually know how to create a new story that’s as compelling as the original.

If story is what you like about MMOs then sure, I suppose XIV beats WoW, otherwise WoW is absolutely ahead of XIV in every other metric.

This!

WoW is way better than FFXIV in everything. The characters and style of FFXIV are also horrible.

There's a huge gap from WoW being 1st to the 2nd best MMORPG that WoW alone is greater than the other MMORPGs combined. Only thing that's going to take the crown away is a WoW 2 that won't happen or perhaps a nice big well done Starcraft MMORPG and that's only a big maybe since Starcraft ain't as big as what it used to be. Final Fantasy, Fallout, Star Wars, and Elder Scrolls are huge popular franchises and they still failed to get close to WoW's power in the MMORPG department.

Azeroth is easily the most interesting and long lasting world out of all these franchises.

[milkmustache]

Keeping the WC3 factions would have made it possible to tell a far more interesting story. Problem is, it would never be viable to tell the story from 5 different sides. How do you justify making faction questlines for that many factions when they can barely do it for 2

I mean, sort of apples to oranges. They managed to make faction questlines work great just 7 years ago, it's only a recent issue. I'm sure if the intention was to add Illidari, Night Elves and Forsaken as their own factions at Vanilla launch, it'd have worked out very well.

[Nymrohd]

Oh, it would be impossible. I just also think the solution wasn't to strip the intrigue and/or loot pinata them.

But as I said, if it could be done all over again, I wouldn't have started it right there. (Big story threats like the Lich King would obviously still be in the background, not gone) But it also may have not been as successful if they hadn't.

Honestly maybe it would have been easier to just keep two clearly heroic factions in the Thrall Honor Horde and classic Alliance and not do additions like Forsaken, Blood Elves and Night Elves. Maybe allow them as Neutral heroes that choose to join either faction. Eso does that; you can play as an Imperial with one of the three factions (the Imperials being the main enemy faction at launch).

[allegrian]

The issue is that there are two options for her returning as the proper leader, not just de facto or leader in spirit. A d that is either reverse SL, in which case she is evil and we are counting down to Sylvanas Raid Boss 2.0, Domination Boogaloo.
Or she returns as Goodvanas from the end of SL. In which case the leader of the Forsaken is not the Sylvanas they used to have. But a new character who just looks like, and has the same name as Sylvanas.

Forsaken and sylvannas fans like sylvannas mainly because she's a sexy goth edgy elf, she can return a bit less evil and they wouldn't care, as they didn't when she became full evil in bfa.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

Keeping the WC3 factions would have made it possible to tell a far more interesting story. Problem is, it would never be viable to tell the story from 5 different sides. How do you justify making faction questlines for that many factions when they can barely do it for 2

The Warcraft franchise has so much potential that they could just do a few sperate stories in alternate timelines and still be amazing. Like a Warcraft 4, AU WoW, Regular WoW, and Hearthstone for 4 different games with 4 different timelines.

[allegrian]

Like, Alliance players have no voice in that question.
Would Sylvanas return or not - it is Horde business.
Horde can't decide who will reign in Stormwind either.

They need to make characters at least bearable by both factions, or they'll have to either kill or retire them as they've been doing lately. Sylvannas is too hated by the alliance to make sense as a neutral hero character unless they put in some work and makenit clear she's not the same sylvannas anymore.

[Nymrohd]

They need to make characters at least bearable by both factions, or they'll have to either kill or retire them as they've been doing lately. Sylvannas is too hated by the alliance to make sense as a neutral hero character unless they put in some work and makenit clear she's not the same sylvannas anymore.

The thing is, they really messed up with Alleria. They should not have had Alleria immediately try to recruit the Blood Elves for the Alliance (and end up recruiting the Void Elves). Instead the story should have been entirely about revisiting her people, maybe even making it clear that she will not be able to pick Turalyon over Silvermoon if it ever came to it. And should have been a story the Horde could also see. She could have been positioned Neutral.

For instance I did not mind questing with Thrall while on Alliance outside the Cata scenario and I only hated that Scenario cause Aggra's voice acting was so damn grating.

[allegrian]

The thing is, they really messed up with Alleria. They should not have had Alleria immediately try to recruit the Blood Elves for the Alliance (and end up recruiting the Void Elves). Instead the story should have been entirely about revisiting her people, maybe even making it clear that she will not be able to pick Turalyon over Silvermoon if it ever came to it. And should have been a story the Horde could also see. She could have been positioned Neutral.

The story of alleria coming back to SM and getting exiled from there is literally a horde exclusive quest in the Nightborne recruitment quest line

[Vakir]

This!

WoW is way better than FFXIV in everything. The characters and style of FFXIV are also horrible.

...yeah, no. Heavensward, Shadowbringers, and the launch content of Endwalker are gobsmackingly good stories with some of the best music, characters, writing, and localization I have ever seen - not just for an MMO, but period.

The gameplay is another contentious topic entirely. But I think it's disingenuous to throw out all of the rest based around personal preference and a less gameplay heavy experience.

This isn't a dueling games thread, but if there's one thing WoW could learn from, it's the level of focus and verisimilitude put into the story - not the type of story, though.

It should not try to replicate the bones of that story. It's incompatible with the Scions as a concept and the political vibes that they're put into that are way less pulpy and more grounded outside of the obviously mustache twirly Empire who have an entirely different reason for existing.

But if you compare Chronicle to the lore bibles of XIV, it's frankly fucking embarrassing. The latter feels way more fleshed out in terms of actually giving timelines and backgrounds with different histories while obviously Chronicle can't decide what the fuck it is.

That being said, Blizzard has always been gameplay first. Even the RTS games were very broad with stories to give fun gameplay variations and scenarios. So it's obviously pick your poison given the state of the story now. It's vastly more fluid and has a more defined gameplay loop and you're not going to exhaust patch content you're waiting 4 months for in about 30 minutes (unless you're a Savage raider).

[Nymrohd]

The story of alleria coming back to SM and getting exiled from there is literally a horde exclusive quest in the Nightborne recruitment quest line

Oh it was in the Nightborne one? I thought it was in the Void Elf one

Still, I think there was a way to write Alleria and make her clearly Neutral

[Vakir]

The problem is, no matter how you write some of these characters to try to make them neutral, WoW is broad with the idea of playing an "experience" and very "costume as character" for racially defined values or perspectives.

Alleria still has predominantly High Elf experiences, had a High Elf aesthetic until TWW, and is fundamentally disconnected from the modern Blood Elf experience and story beats. She still "feels" Alliance. She'd still feel that way even if she wasn't with a guy who was commander of the Alliance for multiple years - but she is.

Same with Thrall in Cataclysm. They said on record with CDev that they thought they could get away with him being seen as a neutral character, and it's important to remember that Thrall circa 2010ish was an obscenely popular character across faction lines. But even if you cut the part where he obliterates a dozen Alliance ships in the goblin starting experience, no amount of Earthen Ring tags or cutscenes about casting aside your differences will change that he feels fundamentally Horde, which further gets in the way of enjoying an extended therapy setting and wedding if you're disinterested.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

They need to make characters at least bearable by both factions, or they'll have to either kill or retire them as they've been doing lately. Sylvannas is too hated by the alliance to make sense as a neutral hero character unless they put in some work and makenit clear she's not the same sylvannas anymore.

I'll rather have them just focus on how cool the characters are and not too worried about what the ingame factions think. Like I'm be completely fine with Elisande suddenly leading the Nightborne, Azshara in her Highborne coming back to lead the Night Elves, Blackhand for the Orcs, Sylvanas for Forsaken, Valeera for the Blood Elves, Yrel for the Dranaei etc.

...yeah, no. Heavensward, Shadowbringers, and the launch content of Endwalker are gobsmackingly good stories with some of the best music, characters, writing, and localization I have ever seen - not just for an MMO, but period.

The gameplay is another contentious topic entirely. But I think it's disingenuous to throw out all of the rest based around personal preference and a less gameplay heavy experience.

This isn't a dueling games thread, but if there's one thing WoW could learn from, it's the level of focus and verisimilitude put into the story - not the type of story, though.

It should not try to replicate the bones of that story. It's incompatible with the Scions as a concept and the political vibes that they're put into that are way less pulpy and more grounded outside of the obviously mustache twirly Empire who have an entirely different reason for existing.

But if you compare Chronicle to the lore bibles of XIV, it's frankly fucking embarrassing. The latter feels way more fleshed out in terms of actually giving timelines and backgrounds with different histories while obviously Chronicle can't decide what the fuck it is.

That being said, Blizzard has always been gameplay first. Even the RTS games were very broad with stories to give fun gameplay variations and scenarios. So it's obviously pick your poison given the state of the story now. It's vastly more fluid and has a more defined gameplay loop and you're not going to exhaust patch content you're waiting 4 months for in about 30 minutes (unless you're a Savage raider).

Even Shadowland WoW is more interesting and better than those.