That has nothing to do with creative writing which is what this thrread is about.
If all characters are carbon copies of each other, no matter if they’re all good or evil, then it’s becoming boring.
There has to be variety of personalities, motivations, priorities and such and keep the player engaged.
Especially in fantasy world, where it’s meant to be one massive sandbox where we’re supposed to experiment with various concepts.
A game called “Warcraft” should tackle all kind of ways to instigate all kinds of conflitcs.
Personally, I never had more fun when I played tabletop RPG and I played chaotic neutral character. Where I was allowed to act whatever I wanted. I could one day be generous, another day I would be total douche.
It was incredibly refreshing, and I miss that in WoW. Where you had truly distinct charactes, with great personalities, that are memorable.
And hard to make interesting story when you have writers that try to be as much safe and politically correct as possible. No wonder modern entertainment dies.
We can only hope that the story will become better with Danuser and Golden gone. The fact that he worked on the second half os SL and on DF says A LOT. Oh, and Metzen will also be back.
Danuser was story narration designer and seeing what he did with SL and how he stomped on years of WoW franchise with his fanfic concepts shown that he was not fit for the job.
I don’t know how much Golden had to say, she claims she only wrote dialogues for cinematics and some menial stuff, and ofc wrote books.
But at the same time she said how she was pushing Calia to be a thing, and how she favours the likes of Anduin, Baine and Jaina, becuase these are characters she is the most comfortable with.
I don’t know if she was the one who pushed it, but it’s clear and obvious that Blizzard has their pet characters who are constantly in spotlight, while others gather the dust and are irrelevant to the overarching plot.
I only came back to see what Darkspear Heritage questline will show, and I will not be there for TWW and who knows maybe next 2 expansions as well.
The Cosmic threats bore me to death. The marvel-like characters that act like superheroes annoy me as hell.
The little things that I care about- stories that expand on the world, on the cultures of playable races are mostly gone. It shouldn’t be that I have to wait 2 expansions to know what “my homies” are up to. It shouldn’t be that plenty of playable races are stuck in the limbo becuase the spotlight is on the likes of Alleria and Anduin goind on adventures.
I don’t even like them, nor I am interested in these stories. These are their personal journeys and I have no dog in this fight.
Especially when Anduin’s plot is balant copy of SL one.
He gets captured → The evil entity wants him for his grand plan → The evil entity tries to convert Anduin (this time to void), edgy elf female is involved.
You can’t make this up.
And in all this I shouldn’t feel like I am completely out of place among these Alliance characters. I’d like for Horde to have their own story and motivation to go on this campaign.
That’s a fair point. Whenever things went away from the faction conflict, the Horde was usually not more than a support cast, and 11.0 doesn’t seem to be an exeption in that. Maybe they’ll do something with Thrall, but that’s not exactly drawing Horde cheers as it used to, with good enough reason.
Taking Alliance into account this one seems kinda out of place, though. We’re getting huge chunks of dwarven, human and high elven lore here, in a way that could actually be a cool addition to the world, instead of undermining it. I get that these are the wrong races for you, but for me it doesn’t really sound like they are doing the wrong thing here.
And since you’re taking about the whole of the World Soul Saga, I’d say it might become less one-sidedly Alliance focussed over time. Those quilled half-troll things might well get more Horde involvement than dwarves and the holy “human” empire from the other side of Azeroth, and we already now that Midnight will prominently feature a re-done Quel’thalas, which should include troll stuff as well as Belves. A Northend that’s not all about Arthas also has potential for Troll and Tauren stuff. And then there is all the stuff we don’t know about that will come through the patches and their zones…
I mean, I get cynicism and pessimism on the story, but I’m not quite sure what you’re asking for here. I’m saying that even though I fully agree with you on this one:
What these idiots do is quite irrelevant to me. And it wouldn’t be more relevant if they were gnomes instead of humans and elves. Which is why I’m not really judging the suitability of the addon by that. The “main plot” is far, far less relevant to me than what they are actually permanently adding to the lore here, and how they are linking it to the stuff we had before. And on that front I’m not exactly hyped yet, either, but I do some moves in directions that could be interesting.
I’m not saying to remove it. Alliance can have it, and they can explore it to their heart’s desire. What I’m saying is that there should be a separate stuff for Horde.
Let’s have a Tauren lead the initiative on behalf of Earth mother, let’s have goblins there to assit them with digging technology, let’s have Trolls trying to find Dark trolls. Let’s have Shadowmoon clan trying to find a way to combat the void.
These aren’t trolls. These are furry nelves Wimbert.
So strange retcon, on the way…
Ugh… I sense another Amani villainbat incoming.
This is why I am not a fan of character driven stories. The plot should be more about stablishing a threat, or initiative, and selecting a team/group/ you name it to lead the campaign. To establish how our factions are dealing with incoming problems, what they want to gain there, what stake is there, and why they should be there to begin with.
I shouldn’t be there and be like “Sooo… you actually don’t need me here, I can go back home now?”
Istill remember vividly Jade forest and Vash’ir becuase of how we were introduced to this zone and how we progressed through it.
Sounds nice. I don’t disagree. Did we ever really do it like that in Warcraft, though? I’m totally down on Horde and Alliance as non-antagonistic different perspectives on the same plot, but I really can’t remember an example of that happeing in WoW since… maybe parts of Wrath, I guess. And that was a looong time before Shadowlands.
I’m not saying that they should’t do it, I’m just saying that it’s a strange expectation to bring to this game at this point.
Well, both, that’s the point of the half-thing.
I’d say I don’t know why it had to be elves/humans again, but looking at player numbers… I guess there is a reason…
Agreed. But to be honest, at this point I have no idea how much that applies to WW. We’re mostly looking at the datamining concering the main plot for now so… I’m not surprised that what we see is focussed on the named characters that are on the same “save the world”-mission as we are. I get that there isn’t a focus on the factions here, but neither was there one in Vash’ir, which you highlighted as a positive example.
Indeed, surviving the sunken ship, gaining a foothold, finding out about the local siutation and how it connects to the bigger threat that bought us there and stabilizing it, before we get closer to the main threat seems to be pretty much what we are doing here as well. Sure, there’ll be some character drama that I’d prefer not to have with the characters that were already tainted with poopy plots that came before, but I didn’t sound that character-driven, yet. Stuff is happening around us, and we don’t really have much choice in how we react. Anduin is going through his crissis, while the plot is happening, the plot isn’t happening, because Anduin has his crisis.
I’d prefer a clearer role for the player character in general, but once again, that’s an old problem for WoW…
WoD had it. Both Horde and Alliance lead a charge against Iron Horde but then went separate ways. Horde assited Frostwolf and Laughingscull clan, while Alliance assisted Yrel and even Shadowmoon clan.
Then Legion came and plot was all over place. But I guess in Suramar questing you had nelves and belves helping there without attacking each other.
Half bat, helf nelf. There is nothing troll about these guys, maybe besides tusks, but Quilboars also have tusks.
If there were meant to be half trolls then they’d resemble them more.
But there was focus on factions, you met with survivors of your own crew and desperately tried to survive at the bottom of the sea, you made a bond with fellow soldiers. Nazgrim was a great guy to hang around with, and Alliance with Taylor.
Both did the quests in the same zone, and at times had exact same quests, but still tried to form their own path. And since both of them were in hopeless situation it meant that even if they were technically at war, for the sake of survival they ignored each other.
And I’m fine with this approach.
I wish it was true, but it’s not the same. Devil lies in details. The Horde ended in Vash’ir becuase they were sailing ships to attack the Alliance and unintentionally clashed with a sea monster. They were victims of their own circumstances and had to work around it, forming a bond between those who survived and hoping for the better.
Here? Horde doesn’t really have a story, don’t reall have a motivation to go there. Dalaran was clashed, ok bad story, but Dalaran was always more affiliated with Alliance. So it’s understandable that it affects Alliance more.
But Horde deserves some different set up. Alliance can have her Alleria.
Horde could use some new Tauren hero, or use Jevan Grimtotem and in similar fasion trying to find group of willing Tauren to join the call of Earth mother.
Instead of going with Alliance. We go on a trip together with Goblins in a fasion of “Journey to the Center of the Earth”. People say that Horde doesn’t have any big names anymore. It’s a good time to start building them now. Take some no names and give a memorable adventure, show new faces, new personalities, have a story that is fun!
Alliance can have a story about “inner demons”. But Horde already had plenty of that, and I would like something that is positive in it’s nature. I’d go the route of having a Horde team that is a little careless, a little too bold, and has a tendency of causing problems but having good and high spirit to face any challenge.
And what would be purpose for a player?
Tauren said : The Earthmother calls, There seems to be something nfarious going on in the deep underground. Better stp it before it affects out people. Perhaps we will need extra aid, so we will need you to get reinforcements quickly, but why not join us in this expedition?
Goblin said: Hey… you want to visit the Undermine? Cradle of the all goblinkind, want to get some riches for yourself? Even if we won’t find anything of value we will pay you, you cannot complain for bad company.
Darkspear trolls: We might go there too, just three of us for now, chieftain asked to check if there is any trace of other troll kind, we recieved information that some could be still hiding in there. (I’d give one shadow hunter from Nazmir, Zekhan and Norsala from Cata, so 2 shamans to help in underground mission).
The less troll content we get it measn they won’t be abused after Blizzard tried their best to make them look like poor losers all the time they show up.
-low.