Stop making NPCs trauma dump

Community General Discussion
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I play a fantasy game for the fantasy world and story. I don’t play to have NPCs trauma dump on me and barely talk about the story and environment we’re in. I got enough of crap in IRL without having to now unconditionally listen to their problems. I’m here to escape and get enthralled into a fantasy world; so let’s stick to focusing on that.

More show not tell when it comes to ‘feelings’ because for the most part, we can understand the feelings without it being lectured to us. I don’t need to have an introduction to feelings to understand being held captive probably isn’t the most chipper of experiences.

A few times now I’ve had quests where the NPCs focused more on feelings, than on the damn lore. Like… I want some dialogue on this place, the people, the ruins, explain the history. Get me enthralled, I want to know.

Besides that, some of the dialogue on ‘feelings’ is just incredibly childish, unrealistic and almost written like a childs movie. It’s both bad writing and obnoxious. Please stop.

Edit:

Just to clarify; I’m not exclusively talking about Trauma dumping, but about how I feel there is too much focus on emotions, feelings, depression, anxiety, love, friendship, trauma etc. to the detriment to the story, and is quite often done in a way that just makes me roll my eyes so far back into my head they might just fall out. It needs to be toned down and refocused back on the fantasy universe we play in.

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Do you have any examples?

Because if somebody is being held hostage I don’t expect the topic of conversation to be

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My character was held hostage against their will enduring that questline with the Scale Commander discovering her Visage. :weary:

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While I personally agree, we also have to remember that not all WoW players are adults (the game is 12 and up), as well as ~50% of all players having an IQ of <100 (simply because that´s what the word “average” means, no insult intended, but if someone wants to take it personally be my guest, I still have room on my Ig list.)

Therefore if it´s not written in such a way that a 12 year old with an IQ of 70 can understand and relate to it, you might as well not write it at all. :beers:

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I would argue that focusing on such depressive things is unnecessary, especially because children seem to be more focused now in advertising. A video game should not be the place and time for processing such intricate phenomena as personal traumas. Schools are already filled to the brim with their “social emotional learning” BS and “measuring happiness”.

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I agree, but I wasn´t speaking to that but rather commenting on the criticism of the intellectual level of the dialogue in general being “childish”. That is in fact true, but ther is also a very good reason for it, since if the dialogue were significantly more highbrow ca. half the players would understand even less of the story than they already do. :beers:

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Yeah this was not a go at you, rather just commenting on the fact that more and more games want to deal with traumas and outright morbid topics in teenage games. I´d rather they kept that stuff out of the game entirely instead of trying to accommodate children to the concept of trauma. I realized I had something akin to a trauma in my late 20s. Let children be children.

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That line was specifically talking about the Night Elf Heritage questline where they talk about the sister being held captive there in the past and how the brother feels sad about it, how he thinks they shouldn’t be there because it could be difficult for her, how Maiev can relate etc etc. I barely got anything on explaining what on earth this underground base was, which was surprising large and I had no idea about. Just dialogue on exploring feelings, Maiev overcoming her prejudice on mages, and sister and brother love.

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Emotions are kind of important. I dont see how any story would work without them.

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Not saying to have none. Just saying the focus on it is way too much. It needs to be reigned in, and refocused on the fantasy world, not deep diving on each characters individual feelings.

Since Dragonflight it’s just gotten silly.

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While I understand your point of view entirely, I also want to remind people, that story characters having trauma can be quite entertaining when done right.

But Blizzard hasn’t really been able to make it authentic so far.

Like, best example we could name was the cutscene from Uther/Sylvanas in SL. I don’t know of any “better” example yet (because that cutscene was “borderline minimum” in exposition).

Edit: I perhaps should specify, I speak of ingame depiction. Not cinematics from outside the game or similar.

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Gul’dan story were pretty traumatic and tragic, it were also coolest story so far ive seen in wow, as of what comes to whichever this topic is for in current wow I have no clue as I only play pvp and dont read any quests or do any quests. I only comment related that tragics are as much part of fantasy and storytelling as anything else.

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This was trauma story narration done well!

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This is a more interesting cultural development than it seems.

Take the first Star Wars movies. After Luke returns home to find it destroyed, he sees the charred skeletons of his aunt and uncle. Trauma. He has a brief moment of sadness at a table covered in a blanket, some sympathy from Leia, and the whole thing is never mentioned again.

When I saw this movie, it’s not that I thought this was plausible or healthy (or not). I just thought, “That’s what people do.” This is called social referencing, when you pick up cues from others on how to behave or react to a given circumstance. In the new Star Wars movies, the characters never stop talking about their various emotional problems.

Attitudes toward mental health have obviously transformed since the 1970s. People generally agree that openness is more positive than keeping everything boxed up, a là Skywalker, who is soon almost driven to the Dark Side by suppressed rage.

The thing is, there’s a middle ground. Luke didn’t have to whine about it. He just needed a few short lines of dialogue here and there that showed he was still wrestling with it. The problem with the way WoW (and the new Star Wars movies) do it isn’t that they do it, it’s how. Most of the time it’s just far too mawkish and sentimental. The writing is very, very bad. They place these moments far too front and centre, but they would have more power (Luke with his blanket) is they were off to one side. They also tell us what to think / feel, rather than allowing us to feel the natural empathy and pity that makes this storytelling powerful.

This isn’t even necessarily good for mental health. Insisting that trauma is traumatic has the effect, via emotional contagion and social referencing, of making the trauma even more traumatic. Downplaying it without dismissing it can be a very powerful way to react.

So yes, I basically find myself irritated by the general trend towards what amounts to the crude mining of raw emotion to hit some kind of spurious metric or storytelling algorithm. But it’s zeitgesity. People are self-involved these days far, far more than they were in the past, partly because they see characters in movies and pop stars do it. Taylor Swift, anyone?

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Most story are about trauma and tragic and enduring overwhelming odds, people like read this kind of storyes and underdogs being triumphant in the end and the like. Its more interesting I guess than if the story were about everything being great and easy for some protagonist, I imagine that story wouldnt sell as much as some tragic writing usually in almost any story made. Theres almost always some troubles and tragical characters in any story, punisher, wolverine etc type storys are more common than everything being easy for the main character. Usually there is some trauma and loss that they are dealing with and overcome and triumph as underdog, perhaps best storyes are those were everything also doesnt go well for all like main characters dying cause its more realistical than that everyone survives or will be okay.

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The Dwarf/Dragon on the Edge of Ruby Life Pools.
Sit a while. (Not 100% on the quest title).

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I think a very good trauma sequence for a story character in a movie I have seen was from “John Carter - Between two Worlds(?)”.

Both emotional, epic and good exposition with almost no dialogue mentioning said trauma. Just visual/musical story telling for almost the entire scene.

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Remember Alamo? Nobody walked out that fort as winner :sweat_smile:

But jokes aside, most story are about trauma and tragic its drama. I like the ones where “good guys” dont always win or that there is no bad or good guys at all just neutral like more realistical would be. Everything being just well for main characters would be pretty boring storywise also I think. Wow had enough amounts of everything that makes a story, anything less from either ends of spectrums would make it onesided. I like if theres some characters experiencing trauma, I think its normal.

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oh my god that’s awful, she seems to have transformed you into some horrible rat creature aswell!

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