It’s funny you bring those up because those questlines weren’t an upgrade from the vanilla storyline and they were universally hated.
So game’s been woke and HR since 2010?
Why do you even bother at that point? Waiting for change for 14 years
Not everything got affected by Dave Kosak’s horrible writing, just those two zones and Uldum got universally ruined with his pop culture reference.
That being said, the story and the writing has been going down. To answer your question, I haven’t bought Dragonflight and I haven’t bought TWW either as a result.
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I’d say it’s inconsistent. Like it has been since vanilla, more or less.
Because it prob was near enough, the new writers are very woke and ‘safe’
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Look at Uda’s examples. That’s what I was replying to.
Sigh. No, I’m not going to do so, because you are talking about something completely different. You don’t like inclusivity. Fine. I’ll accept that, but I’m not going to debate something that I never said or implied.
WoW used to be about these over-the-top epic moments, peppered with either sillyness and humour or some dark themes here and there.
That’s still the case (although the epic moments have been sparce since DF). Except now they also address different themes. Has the overal ‘feel’ of the game’s dialogue shifted over the years? Yes it has. And I’m fine with that. But again: That was NOT what I was talking about.
I was talking about realism. WoW has always lacked that. And it was fine.
It’s still lacking that. And it’s still fine.
It’s the themes that are used to convey these unrealistic storylines or moments that are the issue for some people - as you’ve proven with your replies.
That was all I was saying.
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What’s funny is the male equivalent of that word has been used repeatedly since, even during the most recent expansion.
The backlash against Sylvanas being insulted harshly was exceptionally performative.
Do you know what ESG is? That’s why companies go woke now. It’s compounded by the fact women were being harassed in the Blizzard offices before so now they are overcompensating
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Oh but i am honest about that. I like those quest lines, and there are a ton of those in Mereldar like the one you go to eat in the generals house or play with orphans.
But they happen between a period of “calm” in the setting. And they make sense. So after a battle, people want to relax a bit and that is what they do. They go to their house to cook dinner with their daughter and invite you to tag along.
I have always complained about this. The storyline that hurts me the most is the Garosh one.
Garrosh began in Nagrand with daddy issues. Once the truth about his dad was told to him he got super proud about “honor and glory” and became a super cool warchief of the horde (in Cata). Yeah, he was a bit agressive but he was also honorable. Then MOP came, became a racist for no reason with the message “orcs are OP” and then he ate the heart of an old god.
So the overall story is: My father was a douche for making orcs drink the blood of Manoroth and I want to make him proud by continuing his legacy. So I will drink the blood of an old god.
Makes no sense. Its unrealistic.
For sure. But in a state of emergency or in a warzone thing like that SHOULD have consequences. Because if you can do “whatever” with out consequences then there is nothing at stake. Death (of you, NPCs, soldiers and civilians) starts to loose its value.
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Fair enough.
I guess that makes you special as well (as discussed in another thread). Because a lot of people aren’t like that. They don’t want any ‘cooking with your daughter’ content in WoW.
I agree.
Please understand though: My reply wasn’t solely targeted at you personally. But there’s a noticeable increase of threads such as this one, where the complaint is kept ‘general’ and they clearly aren’t sharing their true agenda.
Honestly; for me personally, in WoW death already lost its value. That’s what Shadowlands accomplished: It ruined death.
But also: For me the list of NPCs I don’t want ‘lose’ is very, very, very short.
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Ah, the age-old ‘Why does everyone sound so polished?’ debate! It’s true that WoW’s writing has shifted over the years. Some NPCs now lean toward a more inclusive, professional tone, which can sometimes feel like it’s smoothing over the sharp edges that made Azeroth’s characters so memorable.
That said, I think it’s also about balance. While there are definitely ‘HR-approved’ NPCs, you’ve still got plenty of grumpy goblins, sassy trolls, and morally questionable undead kicking around. Maybe the writers are trying to appeal to a wider audience while keeping some of that old charm intact?
What kind of NPC personalities do you miss? The grizzled veterans? The irreverent jokesters? Share your thoughts—who knows, Blizzard might be listening!"
Its just virtual signaling, lets be honest. Even under pegi12 Garroshs remark towards Sylvanas is regarded fine (it was so rare that this was the reason why it got so much attention back in Cata in the first place. And it is still regarded pegi12 if the strong language is infrequent).
Their argument was that it was “out of character” and Blizzard did get called out for it (a lot). Its not like it flew under the radar as well to top it off.
Also we still have a certain NPC in Northrend call a women a worker who performs certains services during the night time. In both retail and classic
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I would like to discredit this train of thought not out of selfishness or some personal grievance with you, but simply because there have been important examples that prove that this is more or less false or at least, not as true.
What is the most popular, or highest-grossing videogame of all-time worldwide, being bought non-stop by (unfortunately) people of all ages ever since its release in 2013?
You guessed it, Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5). GTA has been one of the most popular gaming series throughout its entire run and let me tell you, these games are not at all a niche. WoW is far more niche than GTA, both in terms of gameplay and everything else.
Grand Theft Auto is offensive as hell to some people, since it attacks basically every single social group and ideology and satirizes it to dust.
Rockstar has made a point of not taking any prisoners in regards to that. What does this show us? That for a game to be popular, it just needs to be a good game made with passion and care. Another example.
Assassin’s Creed. Personally I find its entire philosophy and social commentary dumb as hell and yet I own all the games of the series. Why? Because they’re good games and that’s as far as it goes.
While I understand the corporate standpoint, I do not agree with it and cannot respect it. It does more harm than good and the percentage of people who might’ve been alienated had the game not been so neutered are but a teensy tiny fraction of the playerbase. I sometimes see arguments against this reality on the forums and/or reddit, but never in the ingame chats. And it is important to note that the crushing majority of players just play the game and go about their irl stuff, not ever bothering with r/wow and the forums. We here are an exception.
Also as a closing statement, I will say this… When you are everyone’s friend, you really are no-one’s. Same thing happens when you try to market to everyone, especially when you’re too afraid to add “flavor”.
Just fyi woke doesn’t mean kids friendly, there is tons of so called “woke medìa” who isn’t pg12 lol.
IMO it lost its value in 2004. Simply because I dont buy the “im the hero” so I get resurected every single time.
In hindsight, I would prefer that character death be managed by the bronze dragonfight. Similar to the Loki Series with the TVA. They teleport you back an instant in time so you can do what you need to do because that way you keep the “timeline” intact.
Which is kind of where they are going now with the TWW storyline. And I dont see why they cant ret-con this, because it would solve so many issues.
It would make death, resurection, and necromancy keep its relevance. Including the shadowlands. But at the same time make the idea of wiping 400 times to a boss make some sense.
Oh this has been going on for such a long time now and you just noticed? World of Warcraft was always aimed at a niche audience and now they (Blizzard) are trying to bring it over to a broader audience. Does it work? Maybe. Do the design choices that come with it cater to the current audience and make you enjoy that which you loved for years? Probably not. In the end it’s all about money at this point and less about passion from this company. You would need a time machine to relive the experience people had when WoW came out back in the day.
A (live service) game is not defined by the game itself, but the people behind it and those who keep it alive. Those people who made the game in the fantastic monster it was back in the day are long gone already, so does the soul of the current state of the game.
At least I find myself coming back to community driven events like the anniversary event and new content releases (just to hop on that hype train again every once in a while).
You’d rather not want to play the game only to read quest logs, contents and NPC dialogue. At least not for current content anymore in the broader sense for the War Within. This is just my personal experience, knowledge and thoughts about the matter “Why does every NPC feels like it was written by HRM?”.
gen z boss and a minii, gen z boss and a minii
In fairness, whilst Garrosh calling Sylvannas that was funny, it wasn’t very WoW themed.
Everything is now made for the oversensitive and easily offended generation and weak individuals, sadly
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Then you should compare it to a similarly marked game.
GTA is pegi18 whereas WoW is pegi12, which basically means Rockstar can do whatever they want and still sell their game, Blizzard can’t.