Personally i do wish i could play as a simple mercenary/bounty hunter/adventurer rather than a bastard child of superman and WH40k god emperor.
The main story in wow has been so over the top for years now that i don’t even care about the main plot anymore.
There is something fundamentally wrong in writing if you care more about turnips in your MoP farm than new lore characters and the “great evil” that by the end of the expansion goes down like a sack of potatoes.
Or just preference?
Look, if you think about it logically it would not make sense to be some random peon anymore.
As i said before, it’s one thing to complain about story development, but another about the story power progression, in a game like wow, to always be at the same stakes it would not make sense.
Unless the adventurer you are playing right now is not the same as it was in classic up to right now. Which it’s strongly implied that you are indeed playing the same character.
Though i do like the short storylines in zones those are often more engaging and have more interesting characters than following Jaina/Anduin/Thrall into the battle for umphteenth time.
You can have compelling stories without having to be superman.
In fact, if anything, introducing overpowered characters (allies or enemies) can be very bad for the story/lore if handled incorrectly.
Example with N’Zoth. This dude is an old god. We should have been unable to do anything to him. Same with C’thun and all other old gods. The simple fact we can defeat them make them look like anything but a real threat.
Maybe the story (and the game) would have been much better if the stories revolved around conspiracies, treasons, etc around the theme of the control of azeroth.
We’d still be hunting people like Arugal, and maybe dire wolves, but after all these expansions, these people (like Arugal) would certainly have been much more involved in what is going on around azeroth.
We wouldn’t be able to do anything to n’zoth? He wasn’t even the strongest dude we have faced in the story, the strongest were in legion.
And in shadowlands it seems the power scaling is about the same, or even higher, which would actually make more sense considering the story at this point. After legion n’zoth is kinda weaksauce. Not weak, but definitely not a massive threat.
That’s pretty much my point.
N’Zoth was depicted to be the least powerful of the old gods, if I recall correctly. But still an old god.
So, what are the achievements of the least powerful old god ? Why is he a threat ?
ok cool. /shrug
We can talk about gameplay, but the problem for me was that realistically, n’zoth was handled too late in the story, he would have been a massive problem before legion, but after that with threats such as the full might of the burning legion, argus, sargeras etc… it just falls flat on it’s face.
Anyway, i do not think that power level has anything to do with how well the story is written. Anyway, if the shadowlands pantheon really is as powerful as the titans are, then i think we are in for a massive spike in power, even higher than legion.
The moderate stories never went away. They are there. You still have to do menial tasks. In fact, not even 10 minutes within Bastion and you have to collect pelts to give to the broke stablehand and also to collect a cat’s favorite toys that she scattered around the place. You also have to collect a flower.
They are there.
Chris Metzen once said he thought of Blizzard as a hero factory.
Warcraft in particular doesn’t settle for the mediocre. If the choice is between something being cool or epic, it’ll go for super epic. Because that’s Warcraft.
Illidan wasn’t imprisoned for 8 years and 3 months. He was imprisoned for 10.000 years!
Onyxia wasn’t some horse-sized lizard in a cave. They scaled that girl up so she took up more space than any 18 inch monitor in 2004 could display, because it was epic!
There are other medieval fantasy universes out there that settle for more plain, down-to-earth adventures. But Warcraft has always gone for the epic fantasy that’s over the top.
For me that’s the appeal. It’s been the appeal ever since Medivh opened a dark portal to another world from which huge, oversized Orcs poured through.
Yea, the story was never low profile.
Even in classic the adventurers were taking on ragnaros and old gods etc…
lol. These are not really stories. These are chores.
Imagine going to the movie theater (or reading an epic fantasy book) and the heroes are basically tasked to collect the mess the cat has done. I feel like there should be an html tag </lol> just for that situation.
It does. Look at Dragon Ball Z and later. Basically, the story revolve around having a character that gets stronger thanks to some new powerup that yield very little emotional content or meaning (maybe with some exceptions, like Krilin’s death triggering the first super-goku).
But basically, stories like that where your characters get stronger because they have bigger health pool, they deal more damage, but they still use the same freaking razengan. ok cool. /shrug
Vertical power level progression can be handled very badly.
Meanwhile, you have stories, like… Spice and wolf, for example. Where your characters grow stronger because they realize stuff about the world, themselves, or their relationships.
In a story like wow, the conflict between horde and alliance (and more generally between all races/kingdoms/families) probably have much more story potential than the new bigbad that noone heard about before (looking at you jailer).
Dude, the story of dragonball was ALWAYS mostly about goku.
And recently they gave more space to other characters like vegeta.
It does not matter. That is simply how you choose to develop the story.
And at this point prolonging the war again would make no sense.
Warcraft lore is closer to what mythology looks like than other kind of fantasy (like name of the wind, where you hear the story of a dude who once was supposedly a vailliant adventurer in a world that is pretty boring).
That’s also the appeal for me. But, I think they kinda miss opportunities, sometimes.
Earlier, today, while helping jaina, thrall and baine as they were teaming up, I was thinking “they once again got along together… I’m wondering when horde and alliance are going to fight again, just because reasons”.
But Blizzard have an obligation to the lore.
If Blizzard creates a story aboutt the Lich King having powers over the undead in Warcraft III, then they’re also obligated to expand on that story at some point, when players ask the obvious question: “Where does the Lich King get his powers from?”
Again, Warcraft didn’t start out as a simple story of knights fighting bandits.
Blizzard started with an epic lore foundation of a portal being opened by a possessed wizard, from which poured orcs from another world.
That naturally breeds questions about who possessed the wizard, why are the orcs evil, and what’s the other world?
Where the story is today is just a natural continuation of plots from the past, all leading back to the beginning.
That probably explains why, as a god slayer, you’re cleaning up the cat mess right now.
I only just popped into the Maw before being DC’d but I was already beyond elite levels in terms of power, normal mobs were like butter for me.
Story wise it makes sense, the player is actually quite strong…
And again story wise due to the class I was never an adventurer to begin with.
Yup. But, I think you already saw this, as this happen very early in shadowlands story:
At some point, Jaina cloaks you and every of your allies under a dome, so you are invisible. Then, you get to “slalom” between enemies, while Baine, Thrall and Jaina comment on the size of the army of the Jailer and how we cannot afford to get caught.
Haven’t you thought : “I probably can solo these guys” ?
Then, later, while the teleporter from the first ones charges up, the Jailer sends “all of his army” at you.
And what happens is the following : you get to fight waves of 4 to 8 enemies, while the rest of the army of the Jailer, and the Jailer himself, awaits for you to be stopped.
Where’s the threat ? Why this situation was so desperate ? That looks like movies where you see the kungfu hero fighting against 100 people by waves of 2 or 3 guys.
I’m not sure why one should exclude the other, so long as it makes sense in the moment.
To me my character feels as heroic when helping some old lady out with her vineyard as when defeating a mighty dragon and saving the whole world. Both are acts of a hero.
Superman saves the world and prevents a car from crashing. Both are heroic deeds, even if the powers of Superman qualify more for the epic stuff. But it doesn’t exclude doing the down-to-earth deeds.
Thanks, it’s always nice to get a good laugh once in awhile
I agree, but if you read quest text, the “go clean the cat mess” stuff is usually handled in a such way that it looks like a NPC giving their own chores to you, because they’re too lazy.