I was referring more to them striking the right emotional core.
Sure.
But to what end? To tell what story?
I quite like the story they’re telling, because I appreciate the symbolism and the message it carries.
They’re tapping into some dark emotions by burning Teldrassil, especially if you’re playing a Night Elf, and they’re using it to tell a story about moral ideals. That works for me.
What kind of story would you have liked them to pursue instead with the burning of Teldrassil?
This is mass entertainment. Great for you that you can appreciate the themes. I don’t care about them at all. And a story that goes over many people’s heads, be it because they disagree with the message, or are too stupid to get it, isn’t one that’s suitable to a broad audience.
And I’ve already told you repeatedly what kind of grand plot I want to see from Blizzard: None. They can get as artsy as they like with some side quests and limited storylines. But following that has got to be optional. If the story is greatly diminishing the enjoyment of the game for relevant parts of the target audience, it shouldn’t be there.
Firstly I dont need to buy in the be the greater person trope for my character, and why should anyone care about a character who has manacingly abused PC and everyone around her, just because she had a personal drama and now that she could be of any use to PC, why not just use her and discard her like she was presented for so long to do the same
Seems a bit extreme. If you’re just playing WoW for the gameplay or don’t appreciate a certain storyline, then just ignore the quest texts, skip the cutscenes, and do the objectives for the rewards.
It works fine when I play on alts. But perhaps that’s just me. Anyway, fair enough.
I think Blizzard’s stories are more directed to you and not your character per se.
Why should anyone care about Sylvanas? Well she’s a wonderful character to tie a lot of emotion onto. And I think Blizzard likes taking the audience aboard an emotional rollercoaster as a certain character goes through a developing story. Arthas, Illidan, Garrosh, Thrall, Sylvanas, and so on. They all have a story development where your emotions about them change throughout.
Personally I think it’s pretty boring that WoW often just kills off any character that moves into a space where it can be a potential raid boss – because then it becomes a raid boss.
It’s somewhat dull that that’s the outcome every time. And I think it feeds into an annoying player perception, where any character that isn’t likable should just be killed off according to the upset players.
A game like Final Fantasy XIV gets quite some praise for its story in which the characters aren’t discarded as soon as they’ve had their one time in the spotlight – they stick around.
That worked before. It doesn’t work anymore, with grand cinematics around every corner, and NPCs following you around and spelling out any nuance you might have missed, often expecting you to let them finish before you do anything else.
Also, it worked when all the story wasn’t just one big story. It mostly is now. That’s what I want gone.
No she isnt, her whole character is built on a tragic story of getting dealt a bad hand, but what she does is she turns around and becomes the exact same thing she was trying to fight originally. This is the reason why she fails to deliver any sympathy towards her even in her last moments. And I see why should we as players get invested in her own personal story, when she has burned all the bridges to come around and feel any remorse to her, just because we as viewers find out she has been mistreated all this time.
I think that’s getting ahead of the story. I don’t think Blizzard have presented a story – so far – where the expected emotion toward Sylvanas should be sympathy.
Pity perhaps. Not sympathy.
Well her personal story just adds understanding, doesn’t it? She sees her existence as a curse – goes haywire as a consequence.
Same with Garrosh. Has some daddy issues on Outland – gets a bit megalomania.
And obviously the story is that she hasn’t burned all her bridges. It’s all that hope she cannot kill and that mortality she holds onto. So there’s something there.
I think it’s getting a bit ahead of the story to start criticizing it for where you think it’s going and what emotional response Blizzard expects (sympathy).
Right now she’s just a character with a tragic background who’s recently done some really bad things and who’s even more recently had a change of heart. And that’s where we are right now.
I don’t think the natural emotion at this point is sympathy.
Pity, as said. Or Anger. Hate. Frustration.
Maybe later on we get to the sympathy part of the story, but it will take some steps to get there, if that’s where the story is going. Not sure.
I feel like Arthas worked so well because we got exactly what it says on the tin. We witnessed the whole story of how he became the Lich King and it made sense.
With Sylvanas, we only ever really knew the Banshee Queen and now we’re suddenly supposed to care about the Ranger General. Moreover we had to wait years for the conclusion of her story, to the point where only the most diehard fans or haters still cared- and then it wasn’t even good.
Back in 2003 I had to make a decision. Everquest 2 or World of Warcraft. Both had big communities anticipating the release of these games, though Everquest 2 was the sequel to my beloved Everquest and I resolved to give it a try. So I committed to that community and began participating in the forums.
The lead Community Manager back in those days was a posted named ‘Moorgard’, or Steve Danuser in a far earlier incarnation. I left EQ2 soon after launch and came to World of Warcraft, but I never forgot Moorgard. He was an affable enough poster on the forums, though I remember being mad at him for his cheerful post when he revealed they were scrapping EU servers and basing all of them in the US instead (he spun it as a postitive that it meant more people could play together, EU players found it wildly insensitive).
If you’d told me though he’d be one of the lead writers on a major video game a decade and a half later, I’d have been shocked. Now, perhaps he rose to that position of narrative authority on merit but to be frank, given Ion’s current position, I’d wager Danuser is another person who excelled in a previous role promoted into a position he should not be in.
And yes, the entire Sylvanas story is madness. If it ends up with Tyrande on ANY level forgiving Sylvanas, then Danuser will have officially crossed a line. Not all anger is poisonous, not all hate is unjustified and to forgive some crimes is as damaging to a person as holding onto anger. Genocide is literally unforgivable. Nobody should be expected to get over it. And you are not made a better person by being forced to forgive someone due to narrative diktat.
Oh I’m not saying they’re comparable. I’m just saying that WoW’s tradition of simply killing every character once the opportunity presents itself is… boring.
It gets a bit silly that on one hand the community complains that the story is boring, predictable, cliché, and so on – and on the other hand asks for the exact same story outcome every single time: “Kill [insert character I don’t like]!”
I think other games are better at telling stories that don’t always result in the same outcome. And I gave FFXIV as an example of a game that doesn’t kill off every character just because the opportunity is there.
I kinda disagree. I can’t think of any villain character whose survival would have made things better. Non-player factions are another matter. I do think it’s a real shame that Blizzard declared Alliance and Horde to be the rulers of the world, instead of just two players among a number. I would really like to have additional actors in the world. That actually act. Forces that you can never ignore, and that can be your ally against one foe, and enemy against the next.
…But that might be reaching to far. A whole faction for the villains would be nice, but not totally necessary, I guess. What they do need, though, just like any prominent character that’ supposed to stick around, is a supporting cast. And that’s another area where Blizzard is kinda failing. Sylvanas had Nathanos, at least, but elsewise most big baddies were just sitting around on their lonesome, waiting to be killed. Which is kinda stupid, considering they were creating 8-12 raid bosses anyways, so why not delve into their relationships a bit, before we murder them all? Sometimes Blizz remembers that there should be some reason why we are attached to the bosses we fight, but they very seldomly remember to make their life have meaning to other characters in the world.
And there is no reason to keep villains around that don’t have a life of their own.
idk, ever since I’ve played Neverwinter Nights, I’d say, given the “benefits” that the “good” characters get in terms of how others refer to them, and other opportunities opened, it’s way harder to be “evil” and get to heaven.
To never consider that any character or place is more important than the others. Other characters are not tools to push a narrative for the favourite one. Not in a game with persistent world.
