Tragical turn of events 
I can name one :
All the quest chain of Calia Menethil. So much feelings there. Not enough substance.
To the point that I still dont understand why or how that lady is there. All so that the Forsaken can reflect on their sins and make a democracy.
And I would expect the new leader of the Forsaken, the sister of Arthas himself… would have something more impactfull other than what was given to us.
BORING.
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I agree with you OP, it’s getting tiresome at the moment. And it’s also because Blizzard just can’t tell this kind of story properly, they make it some kind of childish story, and NPCs that bombard you with sad faces and long monologues in cinematics
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Characters having traumas is not a bad thing to have in game. With all the horrifying things happening in wow stuff like ptsd would be normal.
But the way alot of it is written is just so badly done. Instead of showing someone who clearly is struggling they have to spell out every little bit to the player just feels like i am talked to like i am 4.
Npcs in wow traumadumping feels comparable to helping a complete stranger on the side of the road change a tire, and the stranger then suddenly starting to talk about their childhood trauma for an hour
Especially concidering most characters who trauma dump to us the player are not even close to us. People with severe traumas dont tend to trauma dump to complete strangers they just met.
Its just very lazy bad writing. Similair to the amirdrassil raid cinematic. Can’t have subtle things, everything has to be made clear word for word even if it results in the characters sounding weird instead of them having a proper conversation
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DF was prolly wrote by some purple hair mtf they/them. That’s why everything sucks in it.
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Tell that to the Empire Strikes Back, the best kid-friendly Sci-Fi movie of all time that established Star Wars universe as a franchise and played a huge part in creating modern pop culture.
Audiences don’t like to be patronised.
To me it feels more like the writers only ever watched marvel movies and anime. the way characters presented like marvel heroes and meanwhile its all about the power of friendship and family like its some generic anime all while everything feels lighthearted.
Even to the point that characters and factions will forgive the most heinous stuff like genocide and happily fight along the other faction. The night elves should be very bitter and vengeful about the genocide of teldrasil
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You mean in the throne room where he was threatened to have his sister converted to the dark side? Had nothing to do with “suppressed” rage, he acted out of fear that turned into rage… yet discipline still won. It’s an actual virtue.
We can safely go back to WoD and see how characters were dealing with their trauma. It was superb, much better than the trash we’ve been given ever since.
Lets not devolve to insults on the devs or anyone, and certainly not malicious labelling. Keep it respectful.
I agree. Two big examples come to mind. Taelia when we meet her in BFA. And the Night Elf Heritage questline.
I wish whoever wrote the Draenei heritage and the Man’ari questline wrote the Night Elf one too.
1 Like
I think they also took some inspiration from the fast and furious franchise then.
Insult? Are you happen to be a transphobe?
It wouldnt suprise me tbh
Sorkon, this will not happen anymore in WOW. I think Blizz is more interested in checking boxes in politically correct agenda instead of offering a good fantasy story. WOW has become game full of NPC who are crying all day long, sing Kumbaya and say sorry for the past and we are all heroes and champions who figth with the great evil during the day and during the night we write poems about our emotions.
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And I’d prefer if it wasn’t written at all in this case. This is exactly what is wrong with Warcraft writing. They want to copy much better literary works while at the same time writing things that an average sponge would still be able to follow. Instead of engaging the players they tone content down so much that even the “average” player will stop following the content because it is boring and nonsensical.
I’m happy to have grown up with a lot of children’s and young adult content that did not treat the audience as idiots. I would very much like my games to stop patronising its playerbase and instead focus on giving us engaging content again. I know Blizzard’s writers struggle with writing anything challenging, but at the very least I’d like to have the simple, but effective writing like we used to have in WC3 - WotLK back.
Edit:
In my humble opinion, it’s a combination of different factors:
- A lot of graduates today do not seem to have experience or even respect for the great works of the past. To be blunt, when your main inspiration is fan fiction levels of tripe I would not expect the resulting writing to be great either. So I fully agree with your assessment that the writers most likely will draw from “mid” level of writing at best.
- Companies these days tend to hire young and inexperienced people with little actual experience. They will fill positions with the cheapest people available to maximise profits. This results in people who do not really know how to write for a particular medium, and maybe will even have trouble getting their work in line with other people’s works. They might be thrilled to work for a big name company, but lack the confidence (and skillset) of someone who would be more beneficial for this position. After a couple of years, when they have the experience, they will leave the company and look for a better position and we are back at square one again.
- All writing needs to follow particular guidelines and regulations on how many particular people you will need to have in your content, and in which roles. Furthermore, the portrayal of specific population groups is highly regulated. This results in very predictable characters, as you will already know their “personality” (or lack thereof) by just looking at them.
These are things that plague a lot of modern media these days. I am not sure if this will ever really change going forward.
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They want dark story without the repercussions or consequences
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We get your intentions behind that sentence. Such things are only going to devalue the conversation and critiques here. It doesn’t help.
Turns out he’s a he and has no hair. Prolly just wanted to watch the world burn. Ofc one man cannot be responsible for such atrocity without the aid of a proper dei team behind him. I’m pretty sure we could still find someone with the features I mentioned earlier somewhere behind the scene.
Also not writing out everything word by word is healthier for the story. Look at the forums now compared to many years in the past. There barely is any speculation about characters anymore because its perfectly clear what they will do and everything will turn out fine and everyone will be friends . All due to characters personality being 1 dimensional and spelling every emotion and thought they have out word by word, even to strangers.
Having more speculation would also also more freedom with what the characters could do. Trauma dumping Mary sues are just too predictable to do anything interesting
The writers lost the plot after BFA.
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