Retail story telling

Community General Discussion
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There is nothing wrong with including characters into a storyline, but the way retail is doing it is in my eyes not the reason why I got into World of Warcraft.

I got into World of Warcraft because of the various races, cultures and settings that clashed together. An open world with adventure everywhere, zones to explore and reputation to gain. There were so many things happening around the world of Azeroth that made it so appealing to me in the first place. The exploration is immense.

Retail does not provide any of that in my eyes. It fails to deliver an interesting foundation. All you do is you follow the same batch of NPCs. You’re not allowed to venture out on your own. Constant story drivel by terrible voice acting, a terrible rollercoaster you just have to sit and endure.

I had never experienced older expansions, and it was refreshing to see Wrath of the Lich King launch. The big bad is ofcourse the Lich King but the story is being driven by a multitude of elements. You arrive at the garrison of your faction, a bunch of quests for you to pick out, other holds to travel to if you prefer that. There’s just a sense of freedom and adventure I saw that I haven’t felt with retail in a long time.

Retail’s setting just feels like the world is centered around a dozen characters and that’s it. Tough luck if you’re not interested in the soap opera. The feeling of Warcraft completely lacking… just feels like a different game at this point.

Another example, I installed retail to do the heritage quest lines on both human and orc.
You’d think that the humans would branch out on the history of the human kingdoms, instead we’re playing detective with Mathias Shaw and Vanessa Vancleef.

The Orc heritage questline, thought I would see more focus on the different clans that have been watered down thanks to the addition of the Draenor Orcs from WoD, instead the heritage is focused around Thrall and his family. A few named Orcs here and there with dialogue that basically said “we haven’t forgotten about these characters, quick update on them, but here’s Thrall’s son!”

The World of Warcraft is more than a few dozen character’s and the constant soap opera surrounding them.

Might sound negative but I’d rather hear the backstory about the local Ogre warlord that took over a cave or a nearby ruin than this constant fixation on these characters. It doesn’t make the game feel alive at all.

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I have been saying the same thing for years.

World of Warcraft was about a world, a massive world sprawling with various peoples, cultures, places, histories. They clashed, they fought, they worked together. Some of these cultures had prolific characters that might get involved if there was a threat big enough.

You, the player, were just a guy. You were helping out, earning your keep, holding the line, helping your people and faction and eventually, other factions. It felt large, open, diverse, complex and interesting. Much like the real world actually. It is this vastness of scope and variety that makes a world feel alive.

And now? Yes, it’s a soap opera with a group of protagonists - a cringy band of goody-two shoes with no personality - and you, the player are both the universe’s greatest champion and most pathetic sidekick to the real protagonists.

The cultures have all but evaporated, the racial identity is all but gone. We’ve all become part of one giant, uniform blob called ‘Azeroth’ and we fight whatever cardboard cutout villain there is this week to fight. It’s ironic that the people ‘writing’ this stuff can be so pro-diversity and yet completely fail to show what that actually looks like.

The world feels tiny, small. Insignificant, distance no longer exists. Everybody just teleports all over the place. Only Orgrimmar and Stormwind still matter. The scope of it all is miniature and the the world feels… empty as a result. Like nothing matters anymore.

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Ye, it’s true. WoW currently occupies an unsatisfying middle ground in their story delivery. They didn’t push hard enough into MSQ territory like FF14 did and they also moved too far away from their own free form overworld design like they still had in their first couple of – highly praised! – expansions. So, we’re left with nothing definitive. The story is kinda there but lacks any oomf effect and side quests are also kinda there but there aren’t nearly enough, and they all do nothing and provide nothing.

It doesn’t change that much for me. I didn’t start playing WoW because I loved the lore or the story, I was just glad that it was around. And when WoW lost it, I could only shrug. But still, if we could have storytelling in BC/WotLK style with perfect side/zone quests and environmental storytelling or in WoD/Legion style with nearly perfect overarching stories, writing, and voice actors delivery, it’d be much, much better.

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To me the storytelling in modern wow is just too grandeur for my liking and its the main reason why i prefer classic wows small scale far more.

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No. It wasn’t always like this, and it doesn’t have to be like this.

The first expansion with an overarching campaign, passing through the zones, was Warlords. Before that, each zone was free to have its own story, and we adventurers were free to pick and choose our path through them.

Even in Warlords, the game didn’t force us through a rigid campaign. We could still pick and choose. And in Legion. And in BfA.

Only in Shadowlands (how fitting!) did the tyrannous Campaign take its Final Form, forcing us through exactly the same quests in the same order all the way around the expansion before we were aliowed to start endgame activities.

And we have it again in Dragonflight.

It is not good.

I hear praise for FF’s MSQ. Maybe they do that well. Blizzard don’t, and I certainly have no faith in the current writing team to improve their quality.

Blizzard are famous for taking ideas from elsewhere and producing them with extra polish. The MSQ is one idea that Blizzard have taken and just screwed up.

They should stop. Give up. They are not going to make satisfying long-form stories. They should go back to satisfying little ones - the kind they used to do long before they crashed and burned on the Panderverse version of Dragonflight.

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No it’s not, I don’t know when campaign quests were introduced, but they were not always around.
Do not spread lies.

Edit: I see the comment above mine pointed out the same lie.
I’m still leaving this comment.
I’ve had enough of the "it’s always been this way"crowd even if they are simply misinformed.

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