WoW story becoming increasingly ridiculous

Lore Story
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[Insert dire predictions of how 8.3 will screw over the Kaldorei even more, and her coming day of triumph against the naysayers]

The War of Thorns for the Night elves was essentially like sending the US military to go fight in Florida, minus their air support, nukes and naval support and losing to some grand South American Coalition. (Got nothing against people from Brazil etc. but it was the most apt comparison I could find) . No doubt the US ground forces will put up a huge fight, especially the USMC but they still lose. Somehow.

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I honestly think it will only get better from here. Call me naive but I truly don’t think they can top genocide and Night Elven dark rangers/wardens.

Hope springs eternal. :blush:

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Desperately checks the date Come on come on, let it be 1st April, come on………COME ON!

Ok.

Naïve is not the word I’d use. I used to think much like you do. In fact I thought the WoT was the end of the decline with the Darkshore Warfront being the rise up. Nah. 8.2 PTR drops. Tyrande got her vengeance for the Night elves. Yeah I lost patience at that point.

My hope rests with Warchief Baine and the reformation of the Horde to purge the Scourge 2.0 fanatics.

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Exactly my point. It’s so gosh darned grim right now that any future development has to be better.

What more could they do to you?!

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Void Night elves. Elune is a Void Lord. Malfurion takes a spear to the back. Tyrande loses badly to Sylvanas 1v1 despite being powered up by a deity to be her aspect of vengeance. This being after Sylvanas was losing to Malfurion before Saurfang arrived.

Or just write the Night elves effectively out of the story like with Azshara :rofl: Don’t forget to gloss over Teldrassil like it never happened and we’re all buddy buddy after Sylvanas is gone.

Never ask the question of ‘How could it get any worse?’

Oh oh, Night elves forget how to do archery. Hyperbolic? At this point, I honestly don’t know. 12 months ago if someone had said that we’d have risen non-humans to join the Forsaken - it’d be considered silly. Laughed at even.

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This is why I let out a sigh of disappointment during Tyrande’s ascension quest.

Because I know there was no possible way that Blizzard was going to deliver on the hype based on their record.

There is a general bad trend with fantasy writers to introduce massive powerups for certain characters, only to have said massive powerups become largely ignored and/or inconsequential for the story.

When introducing something in your story, a decent writer should always have in mind how to use it and how to play with it - otherwise why introduce it in the first place?

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To facilitate gameplay.

WoW is a game. I’m sure any writer at Blizzard could produce a 500 page manuscript on Tyrande’s ascension to Night Warrior. But when the game producer comes and says:
“You get 10 quests in Darkshore, 2 months to collaborate with sound, art, and other departments, and then we ship the patch. And no, we’re not making the text box any bigger than it already is.”
…Then that’s the framework the writer has to work with.

WoW’s in-game storytelling will always err toward existing in a kind of summary form, because the emphasis is on pushing new content out as quickly as possible. Blizzard are not taking their cue from George R. R. Martin and spending years writing the next installment of their running masterpiece. They’re trying to be faster than that.
It does mean that the story plots often progress slowly and at irregular paces and rather disjointed from each other. But again, that just goes back to the fact that WoW is gameplay-driven and not story-driven. And the upcoming gameplay dictates that everything takes place in Nazjatar and Mechagon, because Blizzard likes to theme their patches and expansions, so Darkshore and the Night Elves will have to wait. That’s just the way the game format is.

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yeah. agreed. the writers aren’t totally blameless, but development and management are just as - if not more - in the wrong here.

as i said before: pick a patch, any patch that has come and gone or is currently happening or even in the future. guaranteed a dedicated mind can stretch the plot to become worthy of an amazing expansion.

edit: twitter patch doesn’t count.

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I actually liked cataclysms story more than wrath or bc. Wrath and bc just butchered a ton of well known characters, at least deathwing made a lasting impact and ragnaros is always good fun.
Story has always taken a backseat in wow though. Ever since vanilla the faction onset was trash, and illidan as a followup to elemental lords and old gods was pretty scuffed.

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atleast bc they had somewhat of viable excuse of thinking they might not ever get a chance to use them again. But now its like theyre inttionally making it worse and worse the story.

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Not to flog a dead horse, but I think the story has a certain charm - up to a certain point. We begin Vanilla as Joe Schmuck, Squire from Northshire or Garr Skullstomp, Orc Whelp from Durotar (or <insert race + class here>). We’re nobodies - a person who decided to take up an old rusty axe or cracked wooden hammer and make our mark on the world. We hunt boars, we help guards deal with small problems.

We venture out into the world.

We see all these small stories, battle dragons and put an end to the master of the dread citadel of Naxxramas. We’re adventurers now, powerful and capable, but there are mightier heroes in the world. The likes of Thrall and Malfurion, legendary warriors like Saurfang and Bolvar. And this really was the feeling until around Cata.

Now we’re moving on from being adventurers. Our exploits are the stuff of legend! We dared enter the Black Temple and defeat Illidan. We banished Kil’Jaeden, we helped defeat Arthas, the Lich King! How do you go back to grunts bashing in heads on a battlefield? Legion, for me, was peak.

This is it - the End Game. The factions tried to stop the Legion and were crushed. The orders realise that differences divide us and unless we stand together? We shall surely fall. So Horde and Alliance, Human and Orc, Draenei and Blood Elf, they all put aside their differences. You gain LEGENDARY weapons people have desired since Classic! Paladin’s get the darn Ashbringer baby! YOU ARE THE SUCCESSOR TO MOGRAINE! Yes you can turn Demons to ash, go for it! Fight ten at a time! You are THE HERO!

And then the Legion were defeated. The faction war resumes. We go back to grunts and footmen bashing in each others skulls. Where do you - the hero - go from here? You’ve just fought Eredar Lords, endless tides of demonic filth, a goshdarn Titan (albeit weakened and with help)! It doesn’t feel right. I go into Vol’dun and kill some Ranishu, some scarabs. I fight some Blood Trolls. My LEGENDARY weapon is inert because reasons… My feats mean nought in the face of these Quilboar in Stormsong! Ye gods, not the Quilboar!

And here the charm fades. This is why I feel the story is a little weak. It’s taken several big steps back. If anything, I’d say BfA should have come before Legion, the natural peak of the storyline. I was the Highlord of the Silverhand; Humans, Dwarves, Draenei, Tauren, Blood Elves. We were brothers and sisters, aligned against evil. I was their Highlord, their unifier.

Now I murder them and their friends because… Sylvanas said so?

Eh.

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Yeah it was pretty big mistake to make player One and Only from One of Many. What you described perfectly described the consequences of that error.

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