What’s also a problem with the ‘Been around forever’ main NPCs is that they keep clinging onto nostalgia, yet ALSO don’t actually explain any of the stuff that, like, isn’t actually in game anywhere?
Baine and the Maruuk is a clear example; newer players won’t have been around to get “Ah, yes, the Tauren don’t like Centaur and a lot of their starter stuff related to this” and even some longer term but non-WC3 players will be like “What’s Baine going on about with the Centaur and capture and stuff?”
There’s a ton of backstory that works quite well and is decently fleshed out, but that doesn’t matter jack when none of it is in game!!
If your lore is not in the Primary Medium, whether that be Video Game or Film or whatever, then you, as a writer/creative, are Failing. That is it, plain and simple. If your audience have to go out of their and look up/wiki not obscure bits and bobs but key building blocks of your lore, you have Done Goofed Up.
(Halo was also super guilty of this, the story was passable but atrociously told and the games were carried by the gameplay alone)
I hope they give me an option to use the old UI. This is not a prediction, but a desperate plea, a prayer for playability.
I’m also very much opposed to a world revamp. My computer can barely run the Dragonflight zones, I don’t want that to spread.
If I am to make actual predictions, and not just hopeful wishes, I think the UI will get even worse, and that the new zones will be even worse optimised.
Saw redshirtguy talking about another leak that was supposedly called Lands of Conflict (so named after the old RPG book of the same title), included an EK (but not a Kalimdor) refresh, and Khaz Algar was a subterranean zone underneath EK.
Dunno how much I buy it (probably not at all) but at least it wouldn’t be a mysterious island shrouded in mists…
It’s something that has marched hand in hand, in exact lockstep IMHO. Power creep is a good example, the more powerful and bombastic characters are made, the higher the stakes have to be in the narrative - the more minor characters are killed off to generate an impact. But then Blizzard have to one up this because well, a precedent has been set. Where do you go after bopping a literal embodiment of death?
Jaina is the most glaring example. Though with that said, I think the night warrior stuff was one of blizzard’s better implementations of a power creep. Just a shame it went the way it did.
BFA gutted the Horde roster of side-characters, Forsaken especially. There’s been no real attempt to generate new characters, which is an utter shame. The story is just shrinking in terms of characters and the focus on said characters has narrowed with it.
Underdark is probably the only “new continent” concept I could get behind, because there is already established lore they could play into, with Old Ironforge, Gnomeregan, Earthen and Nerubians.
An entirely underground expansion would be a risky move though.
I would accept Underdark if it means I get some Deep Roads-core stuff with ancient Dwarven ruins and hundreds of tunnels that have either been caved in or lead to other areas.
Something that’s 50% underground zones, 50% above ground could work. They could expand on existing races like skardyn, drogbar, the various Old God servant races. Ancient dwarf holds from before the time of Ironforge would be litty.
and it’s a lot more creative than just saying “oh hey there is a continent over here nobody saw before” which we’ve done twice
we know there is stuff underground because we’ve dealt with it before, we just perhaps didn’t know the full extent of it because we listened when we were told not to delve too deep
