Has WoW gotten "too" family friendly?

[thottstation]

I miss heavy metal WoW.

That was it's appeal.

[Al Gorefiend]

WoW was always extremely PG with its graphics. The Undead look as spooky as they did on Nightmare before Christmas. The blood is ketchup packets bursting outside players chests.

[Jastall]

Slavery and implied rape is something i'd rate as pretty dark.

And i didn't deny that, but i think what is featured in Wrath is again, rather relatively understandable, as something such as torture isn't something that is commonly featured in games, let alone in a "good" light.

Because Shadowlands is simply overplaying it by being that cosmically over the top.

I personally find this fundamentally odd how this discussion is always taken as "dark vs. light".

Warcraft wasn't this extremely edge, but it's not like it was all sunshine and rainbows, the style of Warcraft in my mind was one shaped by 90's Metal albums (and Samwise incidentally drew albums for Metal band(s)).
Modern WoW simply no longer delivers on that, when tries to be edge it instantly goes completely over the top but then on the other end of the spectrum also completely overplay the lightheartedness.

I think Classic had both elements, but overall it delivered more on a grounded fantasy adventure and wasn't as extreme on both ends (or at least, more sparringly).
And i think that's what some people criticize about DF, it's not about trying to be overly edgy for its own sake, but delivering a more grounded fantasy adventure.

When i think of Warcraft, i think of an Orc Warrior in rugged plate armor yelling "For the Horde" while charging into Battle, while on the other side you have a righteous Paladin wanting to smite the foes of the Alliance.
That's not dark or edgy, it's also not "light hearted" but it's Warcraft to me.

Shadowlands went too heavy in the Maw, true, to the detriment of the story. Maldraxxus and Revendreth had more than their fair share of vivisection, torture, eternal punishment and such without going brazenly over the top. I found the Venthyr especially handled those things pretty well, using theme of crime, punishment, debt and atonement purposefully as part of their narrative so that none of it feels gratuitous. The killer aesthetic certainly helped me like them too.

Samwise's artwork is just about the only place where WoW committed to the whole heavy metal aesthetic. Elsewhere the setting was resolutely bright and colorful in terms of palette and feel, even in WC3 which was 18+, and in terms of themes it was heroes vs villains pretty much all the time with the plucky heroes coming out on top in every story that wasn't The Frozen Throne. Bad stuff happened, sure, but most of it is relegated to side-quests and never very graphically at that.

This really feels like the convos around the start of Mists. The setting's going to come to big Orcs smashing things, we're just taking a pause in happy fun dragon land for half an expansion.

[Nerovar]

Dragonflight is literally full of Pixar crap ripoffs. If you quested through this expac you can’t seriously tell me it wasn’t intentionally dumbed down to some dumbdumb friendly pile of happy rainbow sunshine friendship land. It’s nauseating, especially the voice acting. My god every time I fly over one of those Instagram river raft world quests and hear that blood elf talking about “fluffy animals” I lose 10 brain cells

When I took the boat to the Dragon Isles during the 3 day trial period Blizzard handed out I was expecting the crew to start singing any second. Didn't help that first questing hub looked like an actual circus either. Had zero desire to look at anything after that.

[shane brannigan]

I miss heavy metal WoW.

That was it's appeal.

I miss that too when the game felt like the old samwise didier art.

[Biglog]

Agree with the prior post that this debate has been around since Mists. It's not going to change anytime soon though. They try to ride a fine line of staying cartoonish while also mixing in the more spicy elements. So it's always been a hodgepodge of fluffy animals and the dragon/fantasy element.

Really this whole discussion has been an issue going back to the start of Fantasy. In it's early days the D&D magazine Dragon came in a brown wrapper like Playboy because it would sometimes have Frank Franzetta cover art of women in skimpy armor that was considered spicy. So Fantasy has always had this question around being appealing to all ages, while not overdoing the blood/gore/sexy elements. And Blizzard is happy to keep WoW more "all-ages" while having the Diablo franchise for the Mortal Kombat finishing move ripping the heart out stuff. It is fun to imagine a WoW 2.0 in the Diablo vein though.

[Varodoc]

I really do feel perplexed by the people here who think DF is identical to MoP. The difference between DF and MoP is that MoP's pandaland joke theme was counter-balanced by the faction war. In one of the first quests, you see Alliance commander shooting down escaping peons under influence from the Sha. You see Alliance and Horde commanders kidnap civilians and children for force labour under Sha influence. The introductory cutscene literally has Garrosh order his forces to conquer Pandaria.

DF has none of this. The introductory cutscene has Turalyon/Baine promise that they will be buddies buddies with each other and not hurt a fly (so the players literally come to Dragon Isles just to have fun and be friends, meanwhile players went to Pandaria for conquest), one of the first quests is some cringe nonsense about lighting a literal fire of friendship and love and cooperation. Because everyone are friends and buddies now.

DF is truly the first expansion that feels like some cringe rainbow dreamland where everyone are buddies and friends. It's some Disney-level shit.

That introductory MoP quest where the Alliance commander, under influence from the Sha, orders her troops to gun down the retreating peons (with the sea even turning red from all the blood) is darker than anything in DF so far.

[Kralljin]

I found the Venthyr especially handled those things pretty well, using theme of crime, punishment, debt and atonement purposefully as part of their narrative so that none of it feels gratuitous.

It's offtopic but my major issue with Revendreth in particular is the fact that "sin" and "atonement" are very moral concepts and thus usually tied to a respective culture.

Someone such as Zul'jin ended up in Revendreth, despite the fact that Forest Trolls still worship him as an idol, it's basically the universe telling Forest Trolls "you're on the wrong side".
What is immoral, a sin or in need of "atonement" varies from culture to culture but Revendreth very strictly imposes a "this is bad" mentality onto a broad range, which just seems very odd for a place (The Shadowlands) that should be above mortal constructs of morality.

even in WC3 which was 18+

I would love to see an official rating of Warcraft 3 that has it sitting at 18+, because if that was true, then most people that are now in their 30's wouldn't have been allowed to play it at launch, as it came ot in 2002 and thus anyone born after 1984 wouldn't have been allowed to play it.

ESRB lists Warcraft 3: Reforged at Teen, which is around ~13, which seems in line with every other Warcraft title (barring Hearthstone).

and in terms of themes it was heroes vs villains pretty much all the time with the plucky heroes coming out on top in every story that wasn't The Frozen Throne.

There's literally two campaigns in RoC where the bad guys win.
First in the Human campaign, by corrupting Arthas, then by Arthas leading the Scourge.

Even the Orc and Night elf campaign have a some morally not clear cut issue with both Grom and Illidan.

Samwise's artwork is just about the only place where WoW committed to the whole heavy metal aesthetic. Elsewhere the setting was resolutely bright and colorful in terms of palette and feel

I plainly disagree, it may be bright in the sense of palette usage, but it wasn't necessarily all sunshine and rainbows in terms of what you're dealing with.

Again, nothing overly edgy, but your regular fantasy stuff, fighting bandits, proving your worth in a hunt, fighting the enemy in some minor skirmish, etc..

[shane brannigan]

the whole "by fang or by Claw" line hurts every time I hear it.
it reeks of rainfurrest. almost 20 years the dragons have never said that, now it's a thing.
A weird concerning thing, you know given the subcultures propensity toward deviancy, and what happened at blizzard.

[Karreck]

Not everything has to be grim dark. Dragonflight is fine. It's a welcome breath of fresh air after the stagnation of death, torture, and corruption themes of Shadowlands.

[Jastall]

It's offtopic but my major issue with Revendreth in particular is the fact that "sin" and "atonement" are very moral concepts and thus usually tied to a respective culture.

Someone such as Zul'jin ended up in Revendreth, despite the fact that Forest Trolls still worship him as an idol, it's basically the universe telling Forest Trolls "you're on the wrong side".
What is immoral, a sin or in need of "atonement" varies from culture to culture but Revendreth very strictly imposes a "this is bad" mentality onto a broad range, which just seems very odd for a place (The Shadowlands) that should be above mortal constructs of morality.

I would love to see an official rating of Warcraft 3 that has it sitting at 18+, because if that was true, then most people that are now in their 30's wouldn't have been allowed to play it at launch, as it came ot in 2002 and thus anyone born after 1984 wouldn't have been allowed to play it.

ESRB lists Warcraft 3: Reforged at Teen, which is around ~13, which seems in line with every other Warcraft title (barring Hearthstone).

There's literally two campaigns in RoC where the bad guys win.
First in the Human campaign, by corrupting Arthas, then by Arthas leading the Scourge.

Even the Orc and Night elf campaign have a some morally not clear cut issue with both Grom and Illidan.

I plainly disagree, it may be bright in the sense of palette usage, but it wasn't necessarily all sunshine and rainbows in terms of what you're dealing with.

Again, nothing overly edgy, but your regular fantasy stuff, fighting bandits, proving your worth in a hunt, fighting the enemy in some minor skirmish, etc..

Revendreth seems to deal more with people that have huge personal failings rather than just those who did bad things. Hence why Kael is there but Vashj somehow isn't despite being being objectively worse than him in terms of using bad means to serve bad people. Of course it's all a bit arbitrary as well but still, I like the concept. As well, the Arbiter seems to be the only part of the machine that's supposed to be above morality. The rest isn't.

My WC3 box has a 18+ sticker on it, at least. Maybe that's just in Canada but I'm pretty sure the ERSB is all of North America.

And regular fantasy stuff like, I dunno, fighting dragons? It's not like all we're doing in DF is making soup.

[Kralljin]

Revendreth seems to deal more with people that have huge personal failings rather than just those who did bad things.

Eh, that's largely a semantic argument in my view, because basically every dead character that previously appeared in Revendreth has done some bad shit.

Which character has some personal failings and who has done some bad shit seems pretty interchangeable.

Hence why Kael is there but Vashj somehow isn't despite being being objectively worse than him in terms of using bad means to serve bad people.

It's speculation whether Vashj went through Revendreth as far as i know.

By her own words, she went straight to Maldraxxus.

My WC3 box has a 18+ sticker on it, at least. Maybe that's just in Canada but I'm pretty sure the ERSB is all of North America.

Not calling you a liar but i can't find any verification on the Internet for that and i'd be surprised that the game passed as teen in europe but 18+ in NA, because i just dug out my old WC:3 box and it said it's for 12 and upwards.

I found this by googling Warcraft 3 Box art and in the bottemleft says Teen.

And regular fantasy stuff like, I dunno, fighting dragons? It's not like all we're doing in DF is making soup.

If you believe that Warcraft style hasn't changed, fair enough, i'm not going to convince you on that, it's subjective after all, i'm not going to write essays about something where another person can just turn around and go "no, i still disagree".

I think it has changed, i think Warcraft / WoW used at least made serious attempts to stay a bit more grounded in terms of fantasy, that also didn't try to be that deep in its story, because that's not what it was suited for.
Modern WoW for my tastes simply goes off on the extremes on both ends, on the one side you have Shadowlands where it really tries to be edgy for its own sake, but on other end you have DF that simply lacks this original "metal" appeal of Warcraft.

[Jastall]

Eh, that's largely a semantic argument in my view, because basically every dead character that previously appeared in Revendreth has done some bad shit.

Which character has some personal failings and who has done some bad shit seems pretty interchangeable.

It's speculation whether Vashj went through Revendreth as far as i know.

By her own words, she went straight to Maldraxxus.


Not calling you a liar but i can't find any verification on the Internet for that and i'd be surprised that the game passed as teen in europe but 18+ in NA, because i just dug out my old WC:3 box and it said it's for 12 and upwards.

I found this by googling Warcraft 3 Box art and in the bottemleft says Teen.



If you believe that Warcraft style hasn't changed, fair enough, i'm not going to convince you on that, it's subjective after all, i'm not going to write essays about something where another person can just turn around and go "no, i still disagree".

I think it has changed, i think Warcraft / WoW used at least made serious attempts to stay a bit more grounded in terms of fantasy, that also didn't try to be that deep in its story, because that's not what it was suited for.
Modern WoW for my tastes simply goes off on the extremes on both ends, on the one side you have Shadowlands where it really tries to be edgy for its own sake, but on other end you have DF that simply lacks this original "metal" appeal of Warcraft.

Uh, you're right it's T for teen. Could have sworn it was M but I also found my copy (and far too much dust) and it's T. My bad then.

As for the Warcraft feel, the universe is too large for me to say "this in particular is Warcraft" now. For some it's Orcs vs Humans, for others it's Arthas, for others still it's a party of adventurers against dragons and demons, so on and so forth. It's like Warhammer, the setting's too broad for me to say that 40k must have space marines grimly fighting Chaos or it's not 40k. The metaphysical shenanigans of Shadowlands can be made to fit the setting just as much as the more down to earth war story of BfA or the comparatively light-heartedness of Dragonflight so far. All that matters to me is how well that setting and story are written, and so far DF while mediocre blows the main story of both BfA and SL out of the water so I don't mind.

Not that I don't have issues- the DF centaurs are far too nice to be centaurs for example- but it takes a lot more than that to take me out of the experience. We're nowhere near TBC, WoD or SL main story levels of bad.

[Nerovar]

It's offtopic but my major issue with Revendreth in particular is the fact that "sin" and "atonement" are very moral concepts and thus usually tied to a respective culture.

Someone such as Zul'jin ended up in Revendreth, despite the fact that Forest Trolls still worship him as an idol, it's basically the universe telling Forest Trolls "you're on the wrong side".
What is immoral, a sin or in need of "atonement" varies from culture to culture but Revendreth very strictly imposes a "this is bad" mentality onto a broad range, which just seems very odd for a place (The Shadowlands) that should be above mortal constructs of morality.

Revendreth is a good example of Shadowlands overall half-baked world building. The afterlife ends up serving as a further justification that the bad guys we killed were really objectively bad guys according to the rules of the universe. Zealots? Evil. Conquerors? Evil. Trolls that want to retake their homeland? Evil. We are lead to believe that there is this transcendental moral good programmed into the fabric of the universe but its origins never get explored. If you follow this concept to its logical conclusion it would effectively mean that entire races and civilizations would be consigned to Revendreth/the Maw for having different beliefs or simply for following their nature. It strikes me as exceptionally (albeit unintentionally) bleak compared to more traditional fantasy universes like LotR where e.g. even the base and irredeemably evil Orcs won't face some kind of spiritual (possibly eternal) punishment.

[Zodiark]

we've been riding dragons since burning crusade.

The occasional one off moment isn't bad. In TBC you had Nether drakes which aren't real dragon dragons. Aside from that nowadays it's a common occurrence. When something is commonplace it becomes mundane. In the Waking Shores when you first make it to the initial starting hub and Wrathion and the Majordomo arrive the NPC is like, "Incredible!" I mean this WOULD be incredible if it was like hardly seen before in game... But this kinda stuff is commonplace.

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I'm certain that WoW is build on volume and sub numbers. It's kinda the main income. And you only have declining group of 30+ year old people right now. And we need the fresh people, who are currently playing whatever lame-theme game. It makes sense how the art turned out.

If it was Diablo Immortal, Lost Ark or something else - that's a complete different story. It probably sucks to be a student with no money, trying to enter these games. But WoW is about the mass with a direct and observable impact ingame.

Yeah I agree any MMoRPG needs subscribers but I would love to see some metrics for how many younger new players actually start new subs. At it's height WoW had like 12 million active subs during Wrath. That's a LOT of potential 30+ years olds who also potentially had kids who played with their parents who are nowadays also 30+ years old. Those people will have children soon themselves who might start playing to enjoy the game that THIER parent's parents played. My Son who is 6 can't wait to start playing WoW, my mother-in-law who was 57 helped get ME into it back in 2005. Do you see the trend here? It's families of the initial 12 million who are keeping this game alive NOT new subscribers.

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I miss heavy metal WoW.

That was it's appeal.

Yeah well that kind of theme became TOO niche for Blizzard and later Activision-Blizzard.

[Compher]

The big bad blue demon in WC3 was defeated by being hugged by a bunch of bright blue fairy spirit things called "wisps"... It's always been pretty family friendly.

[Varodoc]

The big bad blue demon in WC3 was defeated by being hugged by a bunch of bright blue fairy spirit things called "wisps"... It's always been pretty family friendly.

Was that before or after the genocide of an entire city full of innocent people? I can't quite recall.

[HansOlo]

The occasional one off moment isn't bad. In TBC you had Nether drakes which aren't real dragon dragons. Aside from that nowadays it's a common occurrence. When something is commonplace it becomes mundane. In the Waking Shores when you first make it to the initial starting hub and Wrathion and the Majordomo arrive the NPC is like, "Incredible!" I mean this WOULD be incredible if it was like hardly seen before in game... But this kinda stuff is commonplace.

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Yeah I agree any MMoRPG needs subscribers but I would love to see some metrics for how many younger new players actually start new subs. At it's height WoW had like 12 million active subs during Wrath. That's a LOT of potential 30+ years olds who also potentially had kids who played with their parents who are nowadays also 30+ years old. Those people will have children soon themselves who might start playing to enjoy the game that THIER parent's parents played. My Son who is 6 can't wait to start playing WoW, my mother-in-law who was 57 helped get ME into it back in 2005. Do you see the trend here? It's families of the initial 12 million who are keeping this game alive NOT new subscribers.

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Yeah well that kind of theme became TOO niche for Blizzard and later Activision-Blizzard.

But you can't build a buisness, where people would pass on WoW as some family heritage(sprinkle it a ceremonial M15+ run).

I think you know what's up with the theme at this point. It even supports your own thesis.

[Compher]

Was that before or after the genocide of an entire city full of innocent people? I can't quite recall.

Doesn't matter, this thread cherry picks what they want to remember, it was just like one expansion ago where an entire city's population was burned alive and yet here we are.

[Varodoc]

Doesn't matter, this thread cherry picks what they want to remember, it was just like one expansion ago where an entire city's population was burned alive and yet here we are.

In case you hadn't noticed, OP is explicitly referring to Dragonflight, and I, Myself, even noted how BfA had plenty of gruesome moments. I didn't cite Teldrassil, but I cited the slaughter at Brennadam.

This thread isn't talking about ALL of modern WoW, it's talking about DF specifically. We're all aware that Teldrassil, Brennadam, and even the Broken Shore were gruesome and dark moments in Modern WoW.