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

[Reive]

>Metal and Edgy game cultivates a loyal playerbase of people who love metal and edgy things for 18 years and then suddenly goes full disney, with progressive characters and kid-friendly writing

I really wonder why people struggle to accept the new lore


Let's not talk about the quality of the dialogues and the writing in general. The plot in modern wow only works if everyone is an idiot

[Viridiel]

Like, for Yrel, notice how people begun to like her more when she was the villain of the Mag'har intro story? Really edgy.

Absolutely. I think that combined with the fact that enough time passed for the outrage to be forgotten, so all that was left was the character she had become right at the end (that we helped her to become). I bet the same will happen with Anduin, now that he's more competent and in control. By the time we visit Avaloren he'll have a more positive reputation.

It remains to be seen with Arator. I have a feeling the whole expansion is going to be about his relationships, more or less. It's hard to tell at this stage how his character arc is going to go.

[Enrif]

>Metal and Edgy game cultivates a loyal playerbase of people who love metal and edgy things for 18 years and then suddenly goes full disney, with progressive characters and kid-friendly writing

I really wonder why people struggle to accept the new lore


Let's not talk about the quality of the dialogues and the writing in general. The plot in modern wow only works if everyone is an idiot

Most WoW Players only every experienced WoW. Some still have played WC3 before (Jaina, Thrall the core idealists of the game at the time).
Sorry, there is no edge here

[Reive]

Most WoW Players only every experienced WoW. Some still have player WC3 before (Jaina, Thrall the core idealists of the game at the time).
Sorry, there is no edge here

You need balance and contrast. Anduin used to be interesting because he was an outlier. Now everyone is a different shade of anduin. The setting has been neutered

[Enrif]

You need balance and contrast. Anduin used to be interesting because he was an outlier. Now everyone is a different shade of anduin. The setting has been neutered

Really?

Talanji, Xal'atath, Geya'rah, Rommath, Lor'themar, Turalyon, Rexxar, Kurdran, Liadrin, Tyrande, Alleria, Locuswalker

and these are just at the top of my head. People blow the thing completely out of proportion.

[Super Dickmann]

We were explicitly told that Harandar is "within Azeroth" but doesn't exist in any particular place. I haven't seen anything in-game to corroborate that other than the fact that the haranir can travel to and from it very quickly and from any location on the planet, but that's what we were told by the devs.

The other roots were severed from their trees once the Old Gods' infestations were noticed, to stop it from spreading. Teldrassil happened suddenly and especially traumatically.

Sure, but that's mostly in the sense of it being a pocket realm. The people and the roots there are physical things. They react to thoughts, dreams, etc. but they aren't them, and specifically we know that they're tied to Azeroth's, since that was her cradle. But those other trees were corrupted by the Old Gods, who also want to corrupt her. Teldrassil was traumatic to a people, but as far as the world itself was concerned, it has no cosmic importance. It was made and destroyed within a few decades and in fact, was corrupted for a while too. None of what makes Teldrassil politically important to the surface should have much relevance to the cave night elves we see or to the world as such.

[Reive]

People blow the thing completely out of proportion.

No they don't. The story has been disney tier garbage since dragonflight. The vibe of the game is completely different

[Super Dickmann]

Thrall, Yrel, Anduin, Arator = Idealistst that strife for a better world and struggle doing so

Garrosh, Illidan = egoistic pricks that don't care for others, only how they are in the right

I wonder if this tells you more about the people that complain about these characters. People that never grew out of their edgy phase. And while there might by some things to criticize, it is way overblown with how most people see these characters.

Like, for Yrel, notice how people begun to like her more when she was the villain of the Mag'har intro story? Really edgy.

Yes, the game sold itself on high camp and PG-13 edge. Thrall, equally as much a standpin for the writers message about world peace and harmony in the RTS and terrible had he kept that direction, also wears armor called the Doomplate, swings a hammer called the Doomhammer and goes on about blood and honor (for all of one RTS). Thiis is all quite obvious.

But that being aside, the main thing that makes Thrall work in the MMO is that he fails. He doesn't succeed in achieving world peace, the setting does not conform to his goal, neither does it for Jaina, at least until BFA. The setting actively struggles against what they mean to achieve. Anduin and his twin, by contrast, are written to be metaphysically right, not just morally right. The story and other characters contort to make very, very clear not only that they're right, but that they succeed at most every turn and when they do fail, that it's a pyrrhic loss brought on by how the world was too sinful to appreciate them, which is very quickly corrected.

[Dracullus]

Feels like this thread is completely hijacked by individuals who act like someone is constantly pissing in their cereal.

[Super Dickmann]

Incidentally, I checked warcraft wiki investigated and found this concept art of Dimensius. It's so far so standard, but the color scheme of it and the fleshy red orange growth in the background doesn't much look like what they went for with K'aresh, which mixes white, purplish-black and blue. It does however look a lot like the Voidstorm.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I absolutely hate how we have NPCs running around with us during questing in the last few expansions. It is essentially telling you that your character doesn't really exist, it is Dagran/Anduin/Arator that is actually doing these quests in canon.

I mean this has been the case since the Warcraft comics came out in 2007 and has continued into other things for years up through atleast legion.

Think you did the Thandol Span quest? No that was Varian. Killed Ony? Varian. Got the ashbringer and Cleared scarlet monastery killing Mograine? Nope that was his brother. Did MC, BT, or TB? Nope that was members of the black harvest with there groups, got thunder fury? Nope that was some dwarf. Ran the order halls and got the artifact? Nope here’s the real leaders at the end cleaning Sargaras sword.

Adventures are canon so they can make up new Npcs who really did it without them being major lore characters before hand, but our characters never have Been.

[Skildar]

BfA and Dragonflight exacerbated what was happening in digestive doses for a while. But since every Aspect has been turned into incorruptible forces of good, despite a quest hinting heavily at how even Alexstrasza is supposed to fail Tyr. If they're not admitting flaws it's because their opponent is profoundly evil. And if they are admitting flaws then there will be no cost. Even faced against terrorism, Blizzard will manage to have a character make a speech that will settle the dilemma.

I think people also complain because the ruses that we've used in the past like assholes in order to set two factions against each other to come out on top (i.e. by planting one's banners on the other people corpses) is letterally what is being done against us in Arathi Highlands but magically doesn't work because gods forbid we start a battle between the Alliance and the Horde. Our factions representants have become immune to any negative emotions and temptations to use their power when they have the upper hand to settle a score or negate a threat.

Even in the aweful BfA short story by Golden, Sylvanas' and Saurfang's plan are thwarted by the simple fact that Genn acts against his character definition and is supported by Anduin who, as always, is wiser than the rest of the leaders combined. They even manage to find a legion of volunteers to act as Kamikaze soldiers for the rest of the troops to launch a king murder mission on a neutral Kingdom without anyone going against them on the plan... I've enjoyed the Dazar'Alor raid a ton, mechanically and esthetically one of the best experiences the game had offered but hell the whole Alliance side is just "this is the right road and everyone is on board, let's do whacky nonsense".

So going from there to Pelagos becoming the God of Gods of the underworld and Aspect Dragons becoming incarnation of righteousness... It's a slope I've yet to see any Blizzard dev acknowledge. On the contrary they double down on it in the latest Chronicle book. I know I've cherry picked a lot of obvious bad writing moments but it's painful sometimes to see where the story goes. They've even managed to neutered Locuswalker... Thankfully we still had Ve'nari to save us.

[Elronas16]

Feels like this thread is completely hijacked by individuals who act like someone is constantly pissing in their cereal.

Thank you, that's exactly how I feel about most things about Midnight.

[Scyth]

Was doing delves on beta and realised the Arcway is now a delve called the Darkway lol, that's so cool. Hopefully they do a delve in Suramar in the future as well.

[Nymrohd]

I've enjoyed the Dazar'Alor raid a ton, mechanically and esthetically one of the best experiences the game had offered but hell the whole Alliance side is just "this is the right road and everyone is on board, let's do whacky nonsense".

Thank you, that raid was so stupid. Alliance achieves their actual target at the opening cinematic by sinking the fleet. The rest had absolutely no point or reason to happen. Just leave and let the Horde explain to Rastakhan why it is so smart to align with them as he is looking at his sunken fleet that the Horde did nothing to protect.

[Santandame]

Thrall, Yrel, Anduin, Arator = Idealistst that strife for a better world and struggle doing so

Garrosh, Illidan = egoistic pricks that don't care for others, only how they are in the right

I wonder if this tells you more about the people that complain about these characters. People that never grew out of their edgy phase. And while there might by some things to criticize, it is way overblown with how most people see these characters.

Like, for Yrel, notice how people begun to like her more when she was the villain of the Mag'har intro story? Really edgy.

It’s not about being edgy. It’s about characters that have intrigue, layers and depth to them.

Garrosh was an egotistical, racist asshole. That doesn’t change that the character had depth. He had a very clear character arc, with very clear motivations which were satisfying for his character.

Aside from Anduin and Jaina, which WoW heroes have any sort of depth? Even Anduin and Jaina’s depth is quite surface level. Rastakhan had potential. He was killed off a patch after he was introduced.

Blizzard evidently have a huge, glaring issue when it comes to writing characters with any depth. The villains tend to be a little better on this front (not much) but the heroes are terrible.

Stereotyping and generalising people that are fans of the villainous characters as edgy teenagers that either haven’t grown out of that phase or as egoists themselves says more about you than it does those people you’re stereotyping based off of your own conjecture.

There are plenty of fantastic heroes and protagonists across every medium that are beloved by fans so your assertion holds no weight whatsoever. Examples being Aragorn, Ned Stark, Fitzchivalry Farseer, Kaladin Stormblessed, Darrow O’Lykos, Drizzt Do’Urden from the literary side of fantasy; and the likes of Commander Shepherd, Arthur Morgan, Kratos (GOW 2018 onwards) and Geralt from the video game side of things. The list could go on and on. Want to know something very interesting about each of these beloved heroes that I’ve listed? Each of them have glaring faults. It makes the characters relatable. It helps us connect, to empathise. It’s why Anduin is the best written WoW protagonist.

It’s not an imaginary psyche issue of the fans that you seem to think it is. There are MANY beloved morally good characters in fiction. It’s very clearly a Blizzard issue. They cannot for hell or high water write decent protagonists.

[Cheezits]

Was doing delves on beta and realised the Arcway is now a delve called the Darkway lol, that's so cool. Hopefully they do a delve in Suramar in the future as well.

I am a little miffed at how many of the delves are just reusing outdoor content this time, but reusing the Arcway really annoyed me. I find that and Archival Assault incredibly and utterly lazy.

[GeometryWizard]

What's going on with the writing in this expansion? This is highlighting all the misspellings and incorrect grammar but the actual flow of the writing itself is like the sentence structures of a grade schooler. Yeah it's beta but that means less and less as the patch cycle gets more and more rushed and the only stuff that's been getting fixed is what's been shared and made fun of on social media

Even beyond that it's the way that every character describes things the same way with the same words. The Titans call what they do ordering and proclaim things they like are Ordered, Sylvanas calls it ordering, the haranir call it ordering. Every character always calls this brand new Light-filled rage mode they just made up for Midnight as wrath or being wrathful, they always use the word wrath over and over. It's like their vocabulary is shrinking more and more and every character is reading off a script of cliff notes instead of feeling natural in the slightest

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Blizzard evidently have a huge, glaring issue when it comes to writing characters with any depth. The villains tend to be a little better on this front (not much) but the heroes are terrible.

The dumb thing is blizzard doesn’t actually have a problem writing depth they’ve done it multiple times in the last few expansions, they just don’t use those characters and instead replace/focus on shallow ones.

In DF for example we had Sabellian, Arrogant as a black dragon should be but who’s main focus was taking care of his brood like he’s been doing since TBC and wanting to make a place for them in the world while looking down on Wraithon who’s never done any thing for the good of the blacks. But Ebonhorn the guy with no connection to the flight and no personally of note comes in and steals his place as the leader because he’s as bland as dish water.

Same with the General in TWW trying to stick to the old Nerubian ways and having to commit treason to hold to those ideals because the way the new Queen is doing things is wrong. But he gets like no screen time because Alleria has to be dumb for most of the story time instead.

[Ereb]

>Metal and Edgy game cultivates a loyal playerbase of people who love metal and edgy things for 18 years and then suddenly goes full disney, with progressive characters and kid-friendly writing

Wow has NEVER been metal and edgy wtf? lmao that's some crazy cope right there

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Feels like this thread is completely hijacked by individuals who act like someone is constantly pissing in their cereal.

That's most threads in this wasteland of a website