WoW getting more childish?

Lore Story
21

Guess it depends how one should see grim settings. There are plenty of those stuff in the Shadowlands, but it is quite right in that how they are represented is either too incredibly lacking or not at all that convincing.

Now, i’m not gonna die on this hill and say that WoW needs to have more bloody content, more dismemberment, more mature content like overly detailed additions of edgyness and grisly features because that would just be silly - not to mentioned horribly ineffective - but there should be a little more boldness to the nature of what these dark elements should be.

22

I don’t think I quite understand what is meant with childish here. The story and how it is presented certainly is ridiculous and silly. But I feel it’s very far from stuff I’d find suitable for children.

Bastion tries to have a discussion about free will and is quite focussed on ideological strife and betrayal. They certainly do it very badly, but nothing about that idea is childish.

Maldraxxus is full-on body horror with corpses, blood and pus everywhere, and people treating slaughter like a joke. They are certainly making light of it, no question about that, buit those are not elements you could ever put into a childen’s story.

Ardenweald isn’t that childish or Disney, either. Indeed, most of its stories come down to tragedies, where the characters have to let go - or even personally kill - something they love dearly. I certainly hated the tone there, and the fairies that are supposed to be a counterpoint to the sad tone are mostly just annoying, but the zone is not child friendly.

And Revendreth is a straight-out torture realm where you are asked to personally help with the punishment of souls, and where it is made very, very clear that there isn’t much that is fair about the way the punishment is dealt out there. The delviery of that story is flat as can be, which certainly makes it hard to take it seriously, but it’s not the subject matter that is childish here.

And I really hope I don’t have to explain why the hellscape of the Maw is not supposed to be childish. It’s frickin’ WoW hell, with all that entails, and nothing is making light of that.

So I really would take the word childish out of that discussion. Ridiculous or silly should work well enough, and be more fitting, since it’s really more about the execution than the basic concept here. And I certainly agree that the comedic relief that WoW always included isn’t landing anymore, if it ever did. The humour is not only flat and obvious, it’s stretched out over months, where it loses all the charme it might have had. It’s bad enough to listen to a bad joke once or twice, but it really gets annoying if the same bad joke is repeated hundreds of times through the months. It’s one thing to have that stuff in a quesline that you play and forget, but as a feature race, like the stewards and the fairies are, and tied into the daily content… well, even people who found them charming at first might be happy to have a “cho-hooke 10 stewards to death” quest now.

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23

I wouldn’t say it’s childish.

Shadowlands is a very dark place. I feel like WoW story in general is presented in a “casual manner” but with deep dark tones.

A first, superficial look at the game, will not tell you much, unless you’re really looking to analyze and pay attention to the story.

There’s not much to like about Shadowlands. There’s a lot of eye candy… and that’s about it. The denizens of the death realm are either miserable or twisted into something messed up.

It’s not a story I would tell my kids at bed time, that’s for sure.

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24

It is age 12+ so they cant make as brutal and dark stories as other games that are 18+

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25

An undead afterlife. I thought undeath was an afterlife of its own. Being undead in the “real” living world actually meant something. If you’re in the realm of death aren’t you per definition dead?

On the topic at hand, I do feel like World of Warcraft has gotten more childish. Yes, the graphics have always been kind of cartoony but they were also quite gritty. Compare old Tirisfal Glade to the revamp in Cataclysm. I much preferred the old aesthetic with the dilapitated buildings, rather than the new Frankenstein-esque aesthetic. It was eerie seeing corpses hanging from the trees in the woods. It really felt like a place where a great tragedy had taken place.

I’ve also revisited Scholomance in Classic TBC and upon reaching the isle of Caer Darrow I remember thinking to myself how this place used to give me the creeps, but how I have since then become disillusioned and hardened. Even so, walking around on that island alone managed to make me feel uneasy. Just entering the place, seeing that weird face carved in the wall as you enter the keep, hearing the rythmic heartbeat in the ambient music… it’s very effective at what it does. The two ghosts right outside of the instance tells a harrowing tale of how they were butchered inside. It’s simpler storytelling – but much more effective than anything I suffered in Shadowlands. The fate of two humans was way more interesting than “the fate of all lives in all dimensions and realities”. Go figure.

I never felt this playing through that zone. However, what you wrote made me think of Thaddius – one of the bosses in Naxxramas. Throughout the raid you will hear people plea for help and the voice acting is genuinely bonechilling. That screaming stops when you kill Thaddius. Now that is effective storytelling. The boss even says “thank you” when it dies, which is almost… bittersweet in a very horrific manner.

… and one final example. C’thuns one voice line where he says “your heart will explode” is much more terrifying than any generic bs N’zoth spouted. I’d say there are many examples to show that World of Warcraft was a lot less childish back in the day.

3 Likes
26

I totally agree, the presentation sucks, compared to what they had before. But my point was just that it wasn’t because they were shying away from more adult content. I am sure with the right kind of preparation stuff like “hide in that pile of bodies, or they’ll get you” could have been a moment that stayed with you for some time. They just didn’t manage to create the right mood for it. and you’re right a more subtle approach did work better for them in the past. For some reason they seem to feel a need to explain everything that’s happening directly now, so that even the most inattentive of players can follow it. But that seems to come at the cost of a lot of immersion.

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You think you do ©

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/n5o0v8/ah_yes_childrens_week_where_morally_questionable/

but you can take the children there. (comments are good there too IMO)

what could possibly go wrong?

gl hf

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28

Not more childish and not that different in tone. It fits perfect to the rule of cool, to their comic book story telling. What I’m trying to say is: WoW’s story was never great and has gotten worse over the years.

SL and Bfa are worse in my book and very stupid, especially from a story standpoint. Yes. Massive retcons (and a lot of them), the Jailor is very bland and not engaging as an enemy, the destruction of the afterlife and multiple faiths etc.

It’s a mess rally. Pushing pve and everything “cool” before the story was always to come back to bite them. This is the result of it and I can’t see it getting better (soon).

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29

The Kyrian isn’t the Light… How many Naaru have you seen in Bastion?

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I might have missed it but where does it state in the story that you fade in Ardenweald if you stop being “happy” ?

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It’s more the fact that the Winter Queen, (so ‘The State’) is quite happy (Well, she’ not happy, but willing) to have some of ‘her children’ euthanised in their sleep, because there isn’t enough Anima (so food) to feed all of them.

It’s pretty chilling when you look at it like that… Not really kiddie-friendly…

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32

Ah! Yes I agree, while I won’t name it there have been quite grim, sad and similar situations irl as well, it isn’t childish at all.

I beleive wow hasn’t gotten more childish but darker aspects are hidden beneath colorful “scenes” to make them less noticeable. At the end as you said Ardenweald “looks” happy and colorful but only when you think about it you see how grim it actually is.

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They should just be honest and call Shadowlands “Trip down memory lane”, because what ever story they have in there is just terrible.

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