So … what happened? Did everyone just decided to collectively drop their grievances and forgive eachother?
Sorry I assisted in burning down one of your capitals and raising it into the ground?
Let’s look back towards vanilla. 4 years after the events of Warcraft 3. We still have Nazgrel pressing onto Thrall to not trust Jaina Proudmoore and the humans. His worry being confirmed after a fleet of Kul Tirans landed in Durotar and settled in an abandoned castle.
In TBC we finally go back to Outland to discover that the Alliance forces that were trapped on the planet were still there, and active. Yet they seemed a bit weird and their humour is a bit nihillistic and edgy. Figures, they were trapped on a hostile, alien world for countless amount of years, not knowing if they were even going to see their family back again, let alone their planet. Their PTSD was showing hard. Quite a bunch of them were happy to see some beer from Azeroth in the inn for that reason…
Where’s all this detail in Shadowlands and Dragonflight? Where’s the grim dark essence of War? Everytime you were questing somewhere in Azeroth you were constantly reminded that war was brewing everywhere. How war affected a person. People, races had their grievances, they all had their reason to distrust a certain race, yet look now. The first thing you’re ordered by that fraud of a sergeant is to introduce yourself to the faction you’ve been at war for over a decade with.
Hence why I think people find this setting to be immature, childish and whimsical. Its missing the consequences of a wartorn world. Its missing the realistic aspect of what war does to people. We’re all just magically forgiving eachother singing kumbaya?
Maybe one of the reasons why I often heard people say it doesn’t feel like Warcraft at all?
I know some writers still have it in them, with the Dwarf questline.
Just because its a fantasy game doesn’t mean you have to throw the realism completely out of the window.
The main storyline so far has been treated straightforward and serious as they can get, with the Primalists as a clear cut enemy force, although I do wish they could get some more depth and expansion (although TBF I haven’t done the rest of the optional stuff from AS/TD and a bit of OP, so maybe there’s some story for them there?). The side quests typically are light-hearted, or any campaign quests have the lower stakes where it’s needed, e.g. Wrathion and Sabellian bickering when they’re transporting eggs in the wagon, Chromie’s timeline stuff in TD.
Also, what’s the dwarf storyline you’re referring to?
He sticks out because he doesn’t suck. He sticks out because in a land where everybody is on happy pills despite the holocaust happening every 2 years, he’s the only one showing grief, pain and slowly mending wounds. Even then, he admits he can’t even remember the name of one he loved long ago, lost to the years flown by. And that he can’t recognise home anymore. It’s a heartfelt, maybe relatable moment that - while it maybe embraces melodrama a little too eagerly - actually shows a human moment, instead of just another NPC blabbing about fluffy rabbits or whatever.
It’s a good example of how worldbuilding can be in the smallest things. His quest is only dialogue and yet a lot of people know ‘That old Dwarf’. Telling.
Your main post is on point. You might attract some ‘Wow isn’t serious/Serious is bad/No more grimdark’-replies but WoW used to be more militant with its lore. Not always shying away from showing how its word affected its people.
WHAT? Where do the 5 years come from? That’s a huge leap forward.
Oh I just looked it up. Apparently Shadowlands lasted 2 years, and Dragonflight has a 3 year gap.
That’s never done, such a big gap. Damn. I hope Steve Danuser knows what he’s doing with that one.
They chernobiled themselves in to near-extinction
Though they fought valiantly to save their beloved city, Gnomeregan was lost and nearly eighty percent of the gnomish race was wiped out during its fall. The ragged survivors fled to the safety of Ironforge
80%!
The Elves lost 90%
Good thing the Gnomes "won’… immagine the loss
And it’s not… It’s showing a place that was literally seperated from the rest of Azeroth for 10,000 years. People are happy the place woke up! Deal with it.
I’m sure that the reason for it waking up at this time is quite nefarious and we can go back to being all angsty and dire soon enough. Enjoy this moment of joyous exploration. And if you can’t: At least let others enjoy it.
But no: “If I don’t enjoy it, nobody can because me me me.”
That’s the true core of it, isn’t it?
That’s some kind of low quality world building, considered that in the 4 year gap between Warcraft 3 and vanilla:
Orgrimmar was built
Stormwind was rebuilt
Tauren settled in Mulgore and constructed Thunder Bluff
Blood Elves reclaimed parts of Silvermoon
Undead settled in the sewers of Lordaeron and transformed it into the Undercity
Compared to SL and Dragonflight:
Thalyssra and Lor’themar get married.
I would say, given that we have never had 3 discount deals within the month of a launch of a new expansion, and that we never even had a trial within a month of launch, with Blizzard not reporting sales numbers this time, I’d say that’s a great indicator to know that a lot of people got hooked off.
How?
If 2 people get fed chocolate cookies every day for years and person 1 has said that ‘I like chocolate cookies, but I’d like something different for a while. I’m kinda fed up with those chocolate cookies for now.’
And then they get fed different cookies. Finally after years.
And person 2 starts crying and stomping his feet. ‘I WANT CHOCOLATE COOKIES I DON’T LIKE THESE COOKIES!’
Does such a situation sound fair to you?
Because that’s basically what’s happening.