The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Eurhetemec]

Questing through Cataclysm again and oh boy. The frat bro culture stench was really all over the game back then

It is easily the grossest and most sweaty frat bro WoW has ever been, and it's 100% because they had a literal attempted rapist frat bro (Afrasiabi) in charge of the expansion.

It was incredibly obvious at the time, too. People are sometimes surprised by it, but entire zones are just coke-addled frat bro fever dreams (Uldum and Hyjal particularly), and I complained about this a lot back then (as my guildmates would attest). I will say literally the very first people I ever saw buying WoW, when I went to pick it up at midnight launch at a Walmart in Indiana, absolutely were Notre Dame frat bros - indeed they brought the Walmart out of copies, I had to buy it from a Target the next day, so they've always been part of the audience, but Cataclysm was when it was obvious they were running the show (WotLK has some greasy frat bro fingerprints, but only on a few bits). It's sad because some of the Old World is still fucked up by Cata trash.

MoP has little bit of the frat bro thing in places but it's very obvious it was a counter-reaction to Cataclysm, it's much more genuine and heartfelt and has less ironic distance, and the humour tends to be more "in-setting" and less "LOL ISNT THIS DUMB AND META" (and even where it is meta it tends to be witticisms rather than entire quests) or, god help us "LOL LETS RE-ENACT THE ENTIRE PLOT OF AN INDIANA JONES MOVIE". MoP actually feels closest to DF in terms of how much is heartfelt/honest-seeming, in terms of the writing.

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Just seems like social media influence tbh...

Play the game without looking too deep into that stuff and I doubt anyone would view it like this.

Nah you're completely wrong. I called it out for this at the time, and I was right to. It's nothing to do with "looking too deep into it", it's to do with entire zones full of cretinous trash quests and absolute idiocy - Hyjal and Uldum particularly. It's blindingly obviously unless you're completely 100% incapable of thinking about the media you're consuming critically. This was long before "social media influence" was a thing, so you're just flatly wrong.

As I said earlier in this post, when you put a literal frat boy in charge of WoW, a man who never grew up, and who Blizzard was literally covering up the sex crimes of, what do you think will happen?

[Nymrohd]

Just seems like social media influence tbh...

Play the game without looking too deep into that stuff and I doubt anyone would view it like this.

I meant opt out of Wow-related social media. Then whether someone thinks WoW has gone woke is irrelevant unless you are already looking for things to be outraged yourself while playing (and if you've gotten that deep in the rabbit hole from either side, there is no one saving you anyway)

[Makabreska]

What was wrong with Hyjal?

[Nymrohd]

Nah you're completely wrong. I called it out for this at the time, and I was right to. It's nothing to do with "looking too deep into it", it's to do with entire zones full of cretinous trash quests and absolute idiocy - Hyjal and Uldum particularly. It's blindingly obviously unless you're completely 100% incapable of thinking about the media you're consuming critically. This was long before "social media influence" was a thing, so you're just flatly wrong.

Anyone who thinks Hyjal, Uldum and Cataclysm leveling stories which are full of media references for Gen X/Older Millenials has anything to do with social media influence is probably so young they cannot perceive anything BUT social media influence.

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What was wrong with Hyjal?

No idea. I think the worst offenders are Uldum and Redridge.

[Santandame]

What was wrong with Hyjal?

Nothing. I can’t even think of any meme quests at all.

[Makabreska]

No idea. I think the worst offenders are Uldum and Redridge.

I mean, these two zones were heavily based on a famous movie characters and their adventures, and they did it in a pastiche form. Sure it was jarring and immersion breaking, but I didn't really hate it. Quest-lines themselves and their structure were pretty fun.

[Santandame]

Uldum suffers because of the potential it had. It was a zone heavily hyped since classic and was enshrouded in mystery. It delivered massively in terms of aesthetic but it definitely felt underwhelming in terms of story and narrative in parts. The Harrison Jones stuff was meh but wasn’t egregiously bad. The Tol’vir stuff was alright.

I remember the theories regarding Uldum. How it seemed that the wall was built to keep something monstrous within and that it was close to breaking out. A shame really.

[Eurhetemec]

What was wrong with Hyjal?

Hyjal has a bunch of trash in it, and the quests in general are coke-addled - the baby bear trampoline bounce quest is the most obviously coke-y quest though. It's just completely against the tone of the entire zone and what's supposed to be happening - but there's loads of that in Hyjal, just everything being dragged down to stupidity, and every NPC behaving like a shouty moron.

Uldum is an incredible offender though, just unstoppable. I don't think WoW will ever reach that level of dumb ever again (nor feature Bonus Weird Racism like that did).

Anyone who thinks Hyjal, Uldum and Cataclysm leveling stories which are full of media references for Gen X/Older Millenials has anything to do with social media influence is probably so young they cannot perceive anything BUT social media influence.

I'm not sure if they're young or just a revisionist/in denial, because there's an awful lot of the latter going on lately with WoW.

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Uldum suffers because of the potential it had. It was a zone heavily hyped since classic and was enshrouded in mystery. It delivered massively in terms of aesthetic but it definitely felt underwhelming in terms of story and narrative in parts. The Harrison Jones stuff was meh but wasn’t egregiously bad.

It was absolutely egregiously bad. It's the worst quest writing WoW has ever, ever had. They even tie you up at the end because god forbid the player character not get deprotagonized for absolutely no reason. Calling it "meh" is like calling the Star Wars Holiday Special "meh" - I mean, people have said, but it's a ridiculous position.

It's not just that though - they Bonus Weird Racism with the Pygmies (like what the fuck, this was 2010, not 1980!), and they also just half-arsed absolutely everything they possibly could about the quests in that zone (weirdly BfA did a much better job when it revisited it - I think that was BfA right?). The dungeons are cool and loreful, but they just stand in stark contrast to the ruin of a zone people had been excited to see for years.

[Makabreska]

Hyjal has a bunch of trash in it, and the quests in general are coke-addled - the baby bear trampoline bounce quest is the most obviously coke-y quest though. It's just completely against the tone of the entire zone and what's supposed to be happening - but there's loads of that in Hyjal, just everything being dragged down to stupidity, and every NPC behaving like a shouty moron.

Literally don't know what are you talking about. The entire zone story is about pushing back Firelands forces by resurrecting and uniting Ancients. Everything was done in a serious tone. You named one silly (and generally well received) quest in a big zone, but stuff like that is literally in every expansion. I see zero "frat-broing" or "coked-up" there and all your posts seem like one pent up, gigantic overreaction.

[Eurhetemec]

Literally don't know what are you talking about. The entire zone story is about pushing back Firelands forces by resurrecting and uniting Ancients. Everything was done in a serious tone. You named one silly (and generally well received) quest in a big zone, but stuff like that is literally in every expansion. I see zero "frat-broing" or "coked-up" there and all of this seems like one gigantic overreaction.

So tell me, do you see any "frat-bro-ing" or "coked up" in Uldum? Because if you can't, it explains your entire perspective, frankly. Given that you actively seem to like things which are by your own description "jarring and immersion-breaking", though, perhaps we can guess.

[Makabreska]

So tell me, do you see any "frat-bro-ing" or "coked up" in Uldum? Because if you can't, it explains your entire perspective, frankly. Given that you actively seem to like things which are "jarring and immersion-breaking", though, perhaps we can guess.

We are not talking about Uldum pal.

You sound really personally offended by these quests.

[Eurhetemec]

We are not talking about Uldum pal.

I am asking a question, so either answer or don't, but don't be as evasive as fuck, that's just sad and ridiculous and doesn't help anyone.

Do you see Uldum as coked up and featuring frat-bro-ing? If not it's really simple - you could literally never see that no matter how obvious it was.

[Makabreska]

I am asking a question, so either answer or don't, but don't evasive as fuck, that's just sad and stupid.

Overreacting continues. Cata was 14y ago and you are still offended?

No, I saw nothing of what you described. They tried to insert famous movie chars and moments in the zones, and they overdid it. ZERO about coke and frat-bro, because Blizz has been doing stuff like that since day one of WoW, implementing pop-culture references. Not sure why you act like they spat in your face.

So now you, why Hyjal is as bad as you say? Beside that one bear quest, of course.

[Ersula]

We are not talking about Uldum pal.

You sound really personally offended by these quests.

You sound personally offended someone made a fairly neutral observation.

Most popular in a dead filler season

lol cataclysm classic just came out. Although that does align with my theory Remix was created to kill classic.

Not to mention here's the trick to engagement: People complaining >>>> Silence. Live service gaming is essentially a form of sadomasochism.

[Eurhetemec]

You sound really personally offended by these quests.

I was. Afrasiabi took a fucking giant stinking shit on WoW. Cataclysm was the worst expansion Blizzard ever made, and it killed BOTH the guilds I used to play with. Indeed barely anyone's guild seems to have survived it intact (there were a few, but it was mass extinction level). It crashed WoW's population. It was an insultingly badly designed expansion on virtually every level and the shittiness of the quests is really clear evidence of how awful and stupid the leadership of WoW was at the time.

As soon as I played Uldum, I knew we were utterly fucked, because it was like they'd found they absolute shittiest elements of WotLK, like laser-targeted them, zoomed and enhanced, and built the entire expansion around them, and that turned out to be completely true.

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So now you, why Hyjal is as bad as you say? Beside that one bear quest, of course.

I'm sorry there's obviously no point trying to explain it to someone who can't see it even in the case of Uldum - that's why I asked, so I could gauge whether there was a point. You're apparently genuinely incapable of understanding, and even if I explained in extreme detail with specifics (which would require me to go play Cataclysm zones, something I don't want to do), you'd never accept it, because you just can't see it, no matter how obvious.

I act like they spat in my face, as you put it, because they essentially killed WoW with Cataclysm, killed what was great and fun and special about it, and you can try and excuse that by saying "Well it's just a more extreme version of stuff they already did", but frankly they'd been trending away from that, for the most part, and then they ramped it up to like 10x worse than it had ever been (and not just in those two zones - a whole lot of Cataclysm is like that to a greater or lesser extent). The quests alone didn't do it - they were a symptom of a larger problem.

[Makabreska]

I'm sorry there's obviously no point trying to explain it to someone who can't see it even in the case of Uldum. You're genuinely incapable of understanding, and even if I explained in extreme detail with specifics (which would require me to go play Cataclysm zones, something I don't want to do), you'd never accept it, because you just can't see it, no matter how obvious.

Sure. But remember you just nicely shown us that you hate Cata on a personal level simply because your guilds died back then ("mass extinction" lol ok). So your arguments boil down to a subjective "trauma".

Man, Cata Classic must have re-awakened all these "painful" memories, eh?

[Eurhetemec]

Sure. But remember you just nicely shown us that you hate Cata on a personal level simply because your guilds died back then ("mass extinction" lol ok). So your arguments boil down to a subjective "trauma".

Man, Cata Classic must have re-awakened all these "painful" memories, eh?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm capable of hating things on multiple levels, and you pretending desperately that this is "just personal" is laughable and shows an inability to muster any kind of real argument, desperately searching for ad hominems instead. I hated Cataclysm long before it killed my guilds, because it was trash design. It took the very worst of WotLK and made it worse. That's why it was so bad. As I've said, the quest writing was merely a symptom of WoW being run into the ground by a terrible person with terrible ideas.

And you can giggle inanely at "mass extinction" but it's flatly correct - relatively few guilds survived Cataclysm, and WoW's population went into a steep decline which even the drastically superior MoP couldn't arrest. Many of those people never came back.

Man, Cata Classic must have re-awakened all these "painful" memories, eh?

Yes? What's your point? It seems like you're engaging in some kind of rather lame attempted bullying/cruelty? They're not going to give you a prize for that.

[Nymrohd]

Cataclysm absolutely demolished guilds but that had nothing to do with its content and everything to do with the guild leveling system.

[allegrian]

Hyjal is disappointing as a zone, it's all fucked up and it doesn't feel like a night elf ex-capital. Amirdrassil is much better although they could put more buildings.

I hope once we get a kalimdor revamp in the future we get a true treehouse city with nordrassil or hyjal, closer to canon nordrassil as shown in chronicles.

[Santandame]

It was absolutely egregiously bad. It's the worst quest writing WoW has ever, ever had. They even tie you up at the end because god forbid the player character not get deprotagonized for absolutely no reason. Calling it "meh" is like calling the Star Wars Holiday Special "meh" - I mean, people have said, but it's a ridiculous position.

It's not just that though - they Bonus Weird Racism with the Pygmies (like what the fuck, this was 2010, not 1980!), and they also just half-arsed absolutely everything they possibly could about the quests in that zone (weirdly BfA did a much better job when it revisited it - I think that was BfA right?). The dungeons are cool and loreful, but they just stand in stark contrast to the ruin of a zone people had been excited to see for years.

It isn't that deep. Your mistake was going into World of Warcraft, a game known for being campy, ridiculous and cartoony and expecting it to be the pinnacle of storytelling.