I certainly think that WoW takes the Warcraft story and tells it in a terrible way. It introduces some themes and elements that are awful within the established universe. And sometimes, when it has something that appears good, it fumbles and falls and the result ends up being a mess.
There’s a fantasy universe, like Tolkien’s middle earth, or J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter, or George Lucas’ Star Wars, where you feel all the ingredients exist for amazing stories to unfold. But more often than not, Blizzard aren’t capable of turning that rich fantasy universe of theirs into compelling stories in a game medium.
Friends & family? Sure, but WoW has a ton of other story problems on top of that.
These days, whenever I play a non-Blizzard game, I always come away with a feeling that the story told was way better than anything Blizzard have presented in recent years.
I would say that the last time Blizzard told a solid story in a video game was StarCraft II. Everything since then is either meh or downright terrible.
I think Blizzard told excellent stories in the past. Warcraft III, Diablo II, StarCraft II, they all convey a compelling story I think. Nothing that wins prizes, but it’s solid enough to be memorable in a good way.
I personally don’t think it’s fine that they suck so hard at it these days. They prize their games as premium triple A titles. That comes with an expectation of quality in all areas. You don’t get to just suck miserably at something as paramount as storytelling. There’s no excuse for that. Even if we’re just here for the gameplay (which is mediocre as well these days, but that’s another topic), you’ve still forked enough money over to Blizzard to expect a decently put-together story. Being satisfied with anything less is simping to the extreme, and I don’t see the rationale for that kind of perspective.
We differ on viewpoint there.
I’m fine with the story because I’m simply not that invested.
I can take it for what it is and put it aside with an ‘oh well’.
For me the overal aesthetic of the zones and such is MUCH more important to me than the story. And in that regard I enjoy DF.
The story for me stopped in WOTLK and since then i read the quests once and see whats its about and just move on. I just like the gameplay aspects and art now that is what keeps me going for last 19 years.
Well… Elements of it.
I don’t think it outright sucks, because I’m more numb towards it.
I don’t care enough to think it sucks. It’s just there.
If that makes sense?
I suppose apathy is worse than hatred in some ways.
In SL I did hate the part of the story of Zereth Mortis and how the ancient ones are robots that program life across the universe. I HATED that.
So… In a way I cared more about SL’s story than I do about DF’s story.
But not really in a positive manner, of course.
I don’t know why you bother replying so much. These forums have been taken over by the woke mob for a very long time. They try to bait you with stupid passive aggressive posts meticulously making sure they do not use any word that will get them banned in the hope of getting people they gang up on banned which they celebrate because they have nothing else in their life going for them.
Just put them on your ignore list or stop posting on the forum since devs literally don’t care anyway.
WoW is no longer Warcraft and every real Warcraft player knows this which is why people like me have left the game and also why they could not shut up about “coming home” in their expansion reveal. WoW is on its way out and the reason why Metzen is doing the saga thing is because he wants you to feel like this is the final chapter of Warcraft and you “should be there” for the ending. It’s just FOMO.
I have gotten to 61 in DF and am completely tired of the quests. They are boring and make no sense. Wrathion tells you that you should fight Dracthyr to build reputation with them because they love fighting and yet the quests are about relationships and how they identify as which caters again to the woke mob. In America last week there have been states that literally ban woke terms from all political documents. Give it a few years and it will be eradicated permanently and then Blizzard will reverse their absurd Body 1/2 change as well.
If you want a real story play FFXIV. In FFXIV dragons are a warmongering race from another planet that fled to the player planet because they were invaded by a machine AI race but once settled they started another war on the player world because their eyes give power and people wanted them. That is how I imagine dragons. Not this absurd nonsense here.
I was just questing through The Emerald Dream some minutes ago, doing a quest involving some Druid who can’t sleep. So you have to fetch him a blanket so he’s more cozy, his hearthstone because he can’t sleep without it. And in the end you have to sing him a lullaby.
Like, what in God’s name is this crap?!
It’s brain vomit.
Who seriously plays WoW in 2023 and goes through a questline like that and goes. “Yep yep yep! That’s the good stuff right there!”
It’s garbage.
Even the gameplay is just 2004 quest development of simply kill and fetch objectives involving random monsters and random McGuffins.
Premium game experience…
No, it doesn’t.
You have to fanboy really hard these days (and I’ve been there and tried) to make a case for WoW’s story – to any degree or in any aspect – being comparable to other semi-decent average run-of-the-mill video games and the stories they present.
It’s just crap.
The small stories are crap because they are either mundane to the extreme, or childish beyond the absurd.
And the big and epic stories, well…see recent discussions on that I guess. It’s just crap.
I mean, I’m a 36 year old guy. I don’t turn the television on to watch Dora the Explorer or the Teletubbies, so of course I’m not going to be compelled by a video game that presents a story theme and gameplay experience in a similar vein.
I mean, do people who watch kids’ cartoons play WoW? I would wager not. So why does Blizzard write stories that would fit such people??? I don’t understand. It misses the mark so much in terms of knowing your audience.
Fair be it. But as soon as we remove the discussion from you personally, and any other oddities in the playerbase, it’s quite clear that amongst people who actually do want the story experience to be good, and who are Blizzard’s audience for telling their story, they fail so hard. And it’s not a once off oops! It’s like a solid decade of Blizzard storytelling that’s total garbage.
True. However, what I think they really want is different themes and subjects.
Not really a better story, since it’s never been good.
Would some random violence, edgy dialogue and badass posing have made DF’s story better? I tend to say ‘no’. But it would have probably been liked a bit more overal.
I don’t think they have any clue as to what they want.
I remember during the fallout of Blizzard’s scandal there was one of the former quest writers who explained how working at Blizzard had been. She had joined Blizzard and had been tasked with writing the initial leveling quests for Bastion. She just got some rough pointers in terms of creative direction, and then she was otherwise left to herself to just make something up. So she did. And when she needed the senior management to approve of her work or suggest iteration she was always ignored or rebutted. So she ended up quitting and the rough work she had made was just implemented into the game as was. No real direction or iteration or anything.
And when I play the game today, I often get the sense that it’s the same process that turns out the current story quests. They’re just random bits made by different developers that don’t seem to have much direction, so make completely random and varied things, which often comes across as overly generic and sort of a rough first iteration, rather than an attempt at a serious Warcraft story and game experience.
I would challenge anyone to make a case for Blizzard having any kind of story direction in WoW these days beyond the main narrative (which they screw up anyway, so execution is lacking as well). There is none to discern. It’s just random stuff thrown into a pot.
I wanted Legion story to be more epix that is for sure Antorus could have been so much more.
Same with the last patch in BFA just felt lack luster.
For all its faults SL did have one or 2 good story arcs but yeah same old same old as for Emerald dream i like the zone but again could have been a expac and better story.
