Retail gameplay is good, there is no doubt in that. I can fully understand that people play retail for the gameplay, m+, PvP or raids. I can understand the collectors since retail has lots of content from previous expansions to farm.
However for people like me where the main interest is the setting, the journey, the adventure, I don’t have any interest in WoW retail.
I can write an essay here on why, but I’d rather keep it simple and short.
Retail’s setting isn’t worth traversing through. I’m constantly being held by NPCs, have to babysit or cheerlead for the “main characters” and the world doesn’t feel dangerous at all, removing the thrill of exploration completely.
I would much rather prefer to carve my own path, while retail’s storytelling is like sitting front row through a soap opera, a bad one at that. Almost everything feels neutered.
But yes, gameplay is top notch and interesting no doubt. But I have to ask myself if I want to run myself through multiple dungeons where I have no interest in the setting.
I share those interests and I don’t feel like you.
But then again, I’m not someone who needs a world to ‘feel dangerous’ to enjoy it.
I can just bask in the enjoyment of finding an awesome vista or a funny easter egg hidden away in a corner of the map. For me exploration is about finding new things; whether they’re funny, beautiful, epic or whatever doesn’t really matter, as long as there’s something of interest for me.
I enjoy the story but I got to do each one when it was current, bar Vanilla. I started in TBC and it was still a very linear journey at that stage. There is just too much game now to experience everything as it was intended back then. It would make levelling far too slow and arduous. People just wouldn’t want to play. The bulk of the player base is only interested in getting to end game. Less care about the story, never read quest text etc. There is nothing wrong with either approach.
Legion was probably the best story for me, I really enjoyed that expansion. Some others have been hit and miss.
I too started back when TBC was current, as Puny said, it was very linear back then as you can experience yourself if you go on the classic servers.
Though I do enjoy the story each expansion brings.
Actually on occasion it drew a tear from me sometimes. Other times I burst in laugh from the goofy things that happen, and other times I feel like this “Ah yes!” when the story hops back and you see things turn out well for those other characters.
For that reason I am happy with follower dungeons and raids, pure for the storytelling.
The high end PvP, M+ and raiding I will leave to those who are way better then me anyway.
I just want to enjoy my time as well, getting drawn into the world of Azeroth and see how the story and things unfold.
I was really invested in the story then Shadowlands came - then the current expansion was the final nail. I no longer care for any of the characters anymore.
I like the lore and the over-arcing narrative. I don’t like the actual storytelling or storylines. Sometimes there are some “moments” in the story, usually a cinematic or fancy questline, that stand out, and I appreciate those. But the hundreds and hundreds of quests littered throughout an expansion? They’re pretty forgettable.
After the terrible storytelling the writers done to Arthas and bodied probably one of the most well written characters in history to a mere flame for a female character lead that was the nail in the coffin for me.
You don’t kill an established characters legacy like that to simply give a poorly written undead elf “Who once was a really well written character” a chance in the spotlight with a terrible speech while Lorderons probably future queen Jaina if he didnt go down that path sits in the background getting 0 say on the situation alongside the man who reared him into a paladin.
So sadly unless this expansion pulls out some really good writing I’ll continue to not be bothered.
The story reflects real life in a lot of ways. There are great attempts right now in real life to get rid of national barriers and patriotism and all sorts of dissident viewpoints. We have to come together as humanity to save the planet! It sounds so great on the surface but the hypocrisy is insane, e.g forcing us to have bottles with corks attached while the policy makers are rocking private jets. Or limiting our water usage while millions of litres are used per day to cool underground data centers and in cobalt mines to polish the ore.
Also notice how the game is using more and more the word “community”? We have to come together and establish a utopia!
It is a touchy subject to delve further into on this forum. But ever since SL I see this more and more that the game reinforces the RL narratives and end goals.
I rarely play videogames for the story. WoW had some pretty cool lore in the past, but it was never the reason i played, i always played for the gameplay. In my 25+ years of gaming, only a handful of games keept me hooked through their story. If i want a good story, ill watch a movie or read a book.
I’m fine with it for the most part, for better or worse… but got tired in DF of all the side stories where every other character seems to be a “minority” where they have to emphasise their relationships.
Was so OTT to the point of being obnoxiously done so, especially for that questline where Commander wussername Dractyr was discovering her persona alongside Chromie [who as a Character I absolute hated after the whole questline leading to and during Dawn of the Infinite where the storytelling was for toddlers…].
Yeah I get what they were going for but there was no balance in the quests. I feel that ultimately it undermined their own goal because it alienated a lot of the players from the story.
But Blizzard is not known for NOT straying to extremes.
This has been a theme in storytelling since ever. And it is really convenient, maybe even mandatory, story “tool” for an MMO, certainly for wow. It doesn’t necesarilly reflect any real world politics.
In order to save the world, we all have to come together to defeat:
Algalon
The Lich King
Deathwing
The Legion
N’Zoth
Jailer
This has been used so many times it has actually become a point of mockery.
The Big Bad threatening Player Characters with destruction used to be something exciting. But over time, we’ve seen this play out so many times that it’s just laughable now.
We all know there are no stakes in any such threat, we’re gonna win and move on to the next patch.
There are definitely epic overarching stories in the game, Nelves f.e.:
Losing Telldrassil in BfA
Planting a new tree in SL
Getting Amirdrassil now
I think that’s really epic.
There are enjoyable small scale stories too, Pandaria has many of them. And from leveling in couple zones, dungeons and raids, Cataclysm seems pretty epic overall.
The story lacks tension because we always win. The story could definitely continue even if Player Characters lose but that would require severe consequences for any character engaging in such a story.
The closest to this was WoD, where we sacrificed ourselves to close the portal from the Draenor side and became stuck there.
They could have completely prevented our characters from getting back to Azeroth until the story led us back there but they didn’t have the balls to do it and Khadgar opened a portal to SW … which completely killed all my excitement.
Imo, the story ultimately lacks grip because it’s set in an MMO.