Has WoW gotten "too" family friendly?

[ArenaDk]

Bloody fitting that you pick Redrige.

A crucial point in the Redrige quest is that you have to convince John J. Keeshan in the first place to help you out.
Which he refuses, because, according to him

Just to be clear, we're talking about Lakeshire here, a town that has been threatened by Orcs since pre Vanilla (as Stonewatch Keep was destroyed sometime before Vanilla) and those citizens that have formed a militia to protect themselves against the Orcs have spat on John J. Keeshan because...he killed Orcs?

This doesn't make any sense whatsoever, it's just there to draw a Rambo parallel.

And then there's this Meta humor such as a Paladin remarking that he sometimes waking up one day and that the light got some weaker (get it? Pallies getting nerfed?) or that he should stop being a Pally and start focusing on just being a Warrior (get it? he's rerolling?)

If you didn't have enough of Meta humor, i can also point you towards Hillsbrad, with characters such as Johnny Awesome (a reference to Twinks, as in being a femine male and a boosted Alt), Orkus (overleveled character in a lowlevel that actually bought all their stuff) and Dumbass (utterly incompetent player).
Or the Durnholde Syndrome, because the two Orcs you rescued during Vanilla didn't develop an attachment to their captors but to their literal chains.

Finally, let's not gloss over Westfall and its extremely dated references to CSI:Miami, with a character spouting one liners and putting on shades multiple times.

1. This Rambo referneces also just gives us a bit more flavor that maybe not all humans share one opinion? Why is it impossible that some call him orc killer?

and all the other zones you mentioned dont have the focus on the refs but mention them for a few quests : THE HORROR OH NO

If you recap the westfal story you dont say : A episode of cia miami but rather : How the wars and negelect goverment of stumind lead to poority in westfal which allows tribal clans to take over tge coasts and a revival of the defias lead by a new vengence who are using the wrath of the people to get what they want and recruit new memebers

[Soimu]

WOW is a meme game and family friendly yet i find it funny that the main theme of the game is racial hate and war towards others that are different ).

[Kralljin]

1. This Rambo referneces also just gives us a bit more flavor that maybe not all humans share one opinion? Why is it impossible that some call him orc killer?

Okay, let's break that down.

You live in a town where you had to form a militia because you're under attack by Orcs, said Orcs alreay have taken over the local keep and even brought in Siege weapons to damage the nearby bridge.
Also some Townsfolk were already captured by the Orcs as prisoners.

Do you think a reasonable amount of townfolk would chastise any soldiers that is fighting the Orcs?

And if unironically believe that is somehow a remotely rational stance, to criticize the soldiers based on completely unfounded claims, you're lying to yourself for the sake of the argument.

and all the other zones you mentioned dont have the focus on the refs but mention them for a few quests : THE HORROR OH NO

In Hillsbrad, you re encounter all those npc's i've mentioned quite often, Orkus even later on plays a crucial in the story of that zone.

If you recap the westfal story you dont say : A episode of cia miami but rather : How the wars and negelect goverment of stumind lead to poority in westfal which allows tribal clans to take over tge coasts and a revival of the defias lead by a new vengence who are using the wrath of the people to get what they want and recruit new memebers

I could also recap the Uldum story by saying that you've denied Deathwing a crucial piece to activate a doomsday device.
It's factually true, but it leaves a lot untold of how things went down.

Disregarding that said reference was clearly not a terribly bright character, as you've very early showed him a red piece of clothing and a pamphlet talking about something "rising again", where he clearly does not put 1+1 together - in Westfall, the area where the Defias brotherhood used to rule.
But sure, always fun being ordered around by characters that don't have the slightest clue.

[Thalstan]

This is not really a change in WoW. I mean, at first, there was a bit of confrontation with the dragons, but that was explained away. That said, IN THIS WORLD, dragon are mostly the aspects of the world protectors. They have been raised by the Titans to guide and protect the world and have a much longer "view" on how this will be. Let's face it, compared to the aspects, our lives are as short as mayflies. For all that we do, in the game, they know that our deeds will be forgotten, our cities will burn, and we as individuals mean almost nothing. Their only friends are each other, because they are the only ones that will be around in a few hundred, or a few thousand years unless some upstart adventurer ends their life early.

I think they have come to realize what they think is worthwhile. Don't mistake kindness though with weakness. I am sure that with any fight against an aspect would be truly awe inspiring (see Deathwing fight sequence), and I really don't what to know that a pissed off Alexstraza (sp) would be capable of.

[ArenaDk]

Okay, let's break that down.

You live in a town where you had to form a militia because you're under attack by Orcs, said Orcs alreay have taken over the local keep and even brought in Siege weapons to damage the nearby bridge.
Also some Townsfolk were already captured by the Orcs as prisoners.

Do you think a reasonable amount of townfolk would chastise any soldiers that is fighting the Orcs?

And if unironically believe that is somehow a remotely rational stance, to criticize the soldiers based on completely unfounded claims, you're lying to yourself for the sake of the argument.

In Hillsbrad, you re encounter all those npc's i've mentioned quite often, Orkus even later on plays a crucial in the story of that zone.

I could also recap the Uldum story by saying that you've denied Deathwing a crucial piece to activate a doomsday device.
It's factually true, but it leaves a lot untold of how things went down.

Disregarding that said reference was clearly not a terribly bright character, as you've very early showed him a red piece of clothing and a pamphlet talking about something "rising again", where he clearly does not put 1+1 together - in Westfall, the area where the Defias brotherhood used to rule.
But sure, always fun being ordered around by characters that don't have the slightest clue.

Ou forget how humans in wow work. Specially with the teachings of the light i could see some being unreasnable benevolent. There are rarely average humans but mostly extrems , either to passive or to radical. But I agree with you fully its very unlikely but also it isnt impossible so this one line wont break my immersion.

Hillsbrand sadly i dont have fully in my head so it hard to talk about it sorry. But I assume fro. vague memorys the main focus of the area was worgen vs undead.

And yes you would be right with that recap. The Indiana references were not the main focus of the area but rather a small part mid zone to lighten the mood a little and bring something else into the desert. In my opinion the explorer league would been a more clean parody for that one but they didnt exist yet but the idea behind it was a good refresh after doing the same stuff for the same people.

And funny enough a friend of mine didnt knew it was a reference ( we still laugh about that ) and he enjoyed it from the view of it just being a normal wow questline and it didnt stand out for him until we asked

[Kralljin]

Ou forget how humans in wow work. Specially with the teachings of the light i could see some being unreasnable benevolent.

When it came to Orcs, there's rarely any (Alliance aligned) human that has been portrayed as benelovent that's not named Anduin or Jaina.

The Indiana references were not the main focus of the area but rather a small part mid zone to lighten the mood a little and bring something else into the desert.

...Deathwings "man" in Uldum was Commander Schnottz, a reference to Adolf Hitler, alongside pointless other references such as him looking for his Desert Fox, him being a "Furrier", "Fashionist" and wanting to decurse his Underling "Gobbles" who has been turned into a turkey.
Oh and he has a German accent, because why not.

And Brann calls Harrison Jones "Junior", just because.

If this was a one off quest like Grizzly Hills, i wouldn't have brought it up, but Harrison Jones related quests soak up a significant portion of Uldum, which deals with the fact that Deathwing is trying to claim the Coffer of Promise, an artifact seemingly related to the Re origination device.

[Zodiark]

I mean did you even see the Incarnates? They look quite scary. Not terrifying no, but that is just not the artstyle of WoW. The game's graphics are always a bit more cartoonish then realistic.



You can't just pick a random series and apply it's dragons as "this is how dragons are". As fantasy creatures they are how the respective writer wants them to be. GRR Martin's dragons are more like a mixture of nuclear weapon and bird of prey, without a human-like intelligence to control their power. In WoW they are in general more human and use visages because most of them have been tasked with helping the mortal races.
In a Pen&Paper I was playing dragons were some of the most highly magical creatures existing, with powers and spells that a human could only dream of and the intelligence to match that power. They make a guy like Wrathion look like a bumbling bafoon.

Point being, dragons are not the same in all franchises. They change depending on their role for the story. In WoW their role is mainly "helper" and "protector" and someone like Alex is clearly shaped by her role as Mother of all Life.




All of that is likely gonna happen now where we have the Incarnates out. Raszageth alone was able to change whole weather phenomena across azeroth, it is quite possible that Iridrikon will have created entire underground lairs soon and the ice dragon might make an entire new island (much like Jaina did). If Galakrond returns he is likely gonna command Decay magic, so acid and poison is very feasible.

You are right about Dragons NOT being the same in ALL franchises. But lets look at this a little closer shall we. Vox Machina was created by Critical Roll. Which is an RPG company based on traditional tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons. The way the Dragons are in that game ARE how they more or less appear in the aforementioned tv series.

Dungeons and Dragons based the attitudes of Dragons themselves on forlklore and mythology. Dragons if ever there were such creatures would be much closer to the malevolent entities described in the tales of old. However with fiction you have a number of things going on. First is how the society see's the thing being described in the writing, second is what the writer can sell to the audience. These things change as society changes. 50 years ago if you wrote dragons the way they are written in modern WoW storylines it would have been a much harder sell. Now this generation is more accustomed to making the things we fear into the things we now call friends.

My point is that with storytelling in general weather it be in WoW or a TV show or anything might be better off narratively if they KEPT the villains actually villainous.
Instead of turning everything into an anti-hero first, then a Hero second.

[Efcharisto]

While WoW has always had funny references and some lighthearted aspects, it also had lots of dark, gloomy, even edgy aspects to it as well. Those latter mentioned aspects have definitely been getting toned down for some reason based on what I have seen.

WoW has always had a lot of stuff that was lighthearted and silly. It has always had bright colours and cute animals. It has always had a Teen rating. There are darker and gloomier moments for sure and while some eras have had slightly more of it than others, that's never been the primary atmosphere of the world. Nor can I think of anything in the history of WoW that could be described as "terrifying," so I think if that is how you remember it, perhaps it is not the game that has changed, but you. Historically, this game tends to make tropey, over-the-top mustache-twirling type villains far more often than it has ever managed to make anything I'd describe as remotely scary.

I don't think Blizzard is catering to children. I think Blizzard is catering to players that are old enough to not be obsessed with proving their maturity by only consuming dark content. I don't think the game is childish and -- if I'm honest -- games that are trying too hard to be dark and edgy are the kinds that make me cringe; like a teenager who wants to prove how grown up they are. I'm an adult and I know I am, so I'm not very threatened or concerned because a cute animal or poop joke shows up sometime. Some stuff isn't "for me" but that's just as true of many aspects of real life as it is in video games. I'm just here to have fun and as long as the gameplay is compelling, it is filling that role.

Ultimately, if these lighter things bother you and what you want is a dark and terrifying game, there are a lot of other video games and genres that would scratch that itch much better than WoW.

Dark and gloomy was definitely the primary atmosphere for TBC and WoTLK. It wasn't a slight difference. In fact some of the instances where the atmosphere broke from that were kinda jarring because of it. Legion had some of that going for it too obviously. But I think even then I think there was more of a balance.

There were definitely more instances of the game from vanilla up until cata that would have been rather frightening to small children too. Sure, it's never been terrifying to adults but it has definitely had some creepier or at least more ominous environments than what I am seeing in the past couple expacs.

There have historically been a BIT more mustache twirlers than truly menacing villains. It's kinda always been complained about. But recently it has DEFINITELY been turned up more.

If you genuinely don't realize the game has started catering more to children while using your exact description as a sort of smokescreen for it... lol. You might be a bit TOO secure in your adulthood.

The balance has been lost, man. Idk how you haven't seen it... or how you can honestly stomach it. There's always been more to WoW... to WARCRAFT than just the gameplay. I have noticed more and more who expect less from Blizz over the years and I don't think it's helped things.

[MrLachyG]

Movies and TV shows in the past 20-30 years have tried to make dragons kid friendly ever since puff the magic dragon.

Smaug from the Hobbit trilogy, the dragons from Reign of Fire (horrible movie but still), King Ghidorah (you could definitely argue is a dragon) are a few that I would hardly call kid friendly... I think you're a bit backwards here. Are you watching kids movies like Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon and thinking that's how all dragons are like? because that's definitely not the case. There are good dragons and evil dragons. That's basically it. Just because there are more good dragons than evil ones doesn't magically make the evil ones disappear.

also, dragons in the Bible? really? Dragons don't exist, so yeah I don't know what drugs they were smoking when they came up with that in the bible but yeah they're mythical creatures. Next you'll be carrying on about unicorns and how they're all represented as good, pure creatures

[Palapop]

From questlines like Stalvan, Last rites, Wrathgate, Hellfire "path of glory", Hillsbrad forsaken questlines, crypts, catacombs, kings emissaries, knights, village folks all across EK... etc, etc, etc....

To things like: nasty students having food fight infront of Academy dungeon entrance. Bullies stealing cards from other "students".... disgusting.

Yeah, I know WOW have always had goofy things/characters/questlines.... But goofiest thing we had was "Mrrgl" (w/e spelling) king in disguise in Borean Tundra.

WTF is this now?!

I like DF so far. But questing through Dragon Isles was..... beyond cr*ap experience. Everything felt like it was a kinder garden show.

Not to mention vocabulary NPCs use and voice acting (which is beyond bad in DF) its just out of Warcraft's touch.

[Aleksej89]

When is the last time Warcraft had anything frightening?
Even the whole BFA genocide was mostly off screen and hidden.
Warcraft definitely got more kid friendly over the years (mainly because clueless execs think kids will be into Warcraft), but it was never serious to begin with.

Gotta agree as far as voice acting goes, its beyond awful for all the dragonish characters.
One thing is to have a joke of a dragon (chromie) speak like that, but a whole other is to have an entire expansion of dragons speaking in such a way.

[dirtboy]

The childish tone has always been a part of WoW, but in DF it's cranked up to 11. But this is a trend in almost all games and media in general. And yes, it's terrible. I blame Joss Whedon.

[owbu]

Looking at MoP, I think we should probably wait a couple of patches before we declare something too light.
If it's used to contrast the decent into darker themes, I think showing the audience a happier time at the beginning works really well.
Most of the expansion that start with a big escalation lose steam after the intro scene, because you can't possibly keep up "we will all die RIGHT NOW!" for 1,5 years.
See: Legion having its big invasion in the first hour and then you help grandmas over the street in the tauren area. Or the Lichking threatining to kill you RIGHT NOW during leveling 15 times, so when you see him before ICC he has lost all menace.

[Santas]

It is and it disgusts me, here's hoping it won't be like this going forward, though something's telling me it is.

IMPORTANT EDIT: Looking back, even during Metzen era and even in D3 (which he was also involved) the villains did have this cartoonish air to them, like they keep appearing all the time, threatening you etc. Arthas did it too. So let's not pretend that this horrible writing of the bad guys is a new thing.

[Boddhi]

It makes the most money like that. So it not too something. It’s working as intended for those who create it.

[username993720]

When is the last time Warcraft had anything frightening?
Even the whole BFA genocide was mostly off screen and hidden.
Warcraft definitely got more kid friendly over the years (mainly because clueless execs think kids will be into Warcraft), but it was never serious to begin with.

Gotta agree as far as voice acting goes, its beyond awful for all the dragonish characters.
One thing is to have a joke of a dragon (chromie) speak like that, but a whole other is to have an entire expansion of dragons speaking in such a way.

The Drakonid with the teenager voice.

Let's be honest, though. Sindragosa's voice was awful in WotlK. I think the same voice actress does Raszageth as well.

[Simulacrum]

Dragonflight lore is made for childless women by childless women. It's no wonder it looks and sounds like a Minions flick.

WoW used to have a "dadrock" aesthetic to it, which was silly as well, but silly in a 'cool' way. Now, WoW is silly in a pathetic, coping wine aunt sort of way. You really have to be mentally ill or a woman to not be revolted by it.

[Doffen]

WoW was always family friendly.

Except when those Highmountain Taurens got spiked to death...

[cozzri]

Dragonflight lore is made for childless women by childless women. It's no wonder it looks and sounds like a Minions flick.

WoW used to have a "dadrock" aesthetic to it, which was silly as well, but silly in a 'cool' way. Now, WoW is silly in a pathetic, coping wine aunt sort of way. You really have to be mentally ill or a woman to not be revolted by it.

They are appealing to the demographics that actually spend money on the game. The real ones use third party sites

[potis]

Dragonflight lore is made for childless women by childless women. It's no wonder it looks and sounds like a Minions flick.

WoW used to have a "dadrock" aesthetic to it, which was silly as well, but silly in a 'cool' way. Now, WoW is silly in a pathetic, coping wine aunt sort of way. You really have to be mentally ill or a woman to not be revolted by it.

Haha, it feels that way doesnt it? And you cant even discuss it calmly cause you are gonna get flamed.

I am all for the sexual harassment problems reported 2-3 years ago, and the changes but when it gets cranked up to 11, it simply becomes annoying.

Luckily i couldnt give a rats ass about anything, as long as there is a new raid in the 6-8 month gap as always, i am happy but there are some cringeworthy moments in game, same as in most series now where you simply go "YES WE GET IT, WOMAN POWER, FIGHT THE PATRIARCHY, FUCK OFF".