I wanted to ask what has happened to WoW storyline so far as I play Midnight after not playing since Shadowlands. As people said it get better since dragonflight was good. As I play Midnight I am just dissapointed. I share a few observations so far, could be some spoilers but I won’t name anything.
All the story I have seen lacks testosterone so far, it’s like watching a 3rd rate anime / teen coming of age series. First 3 episodes are just trauma could I really do something etc then it gets going. I mean it can work if you do it sparingly but it’s just everywhere, every story what gives. It was ok I guess first time Anduin went through it, but it has been done at least 3 times now, and no it’s not getting better the more you use the trope. And conveniently the main chars that have already built up the said power in previous expansions are stuck and not present really in the story so far.
Sunwell Warcraft 3 called and wants it’s story back, it’s better there. Anything new coming as well or is it just reuse story time.
The messaging I mean sure I get you do messaging female power and all that but how come 3 of us are attacking a shadow monster and doing nothing to it and out comes a female troll and cleaves it clean in half with one swing. Makes little sense even less so later as she will be one of the teen coming of age stories. And why is every main char like this? I mean male or female it’s like the hero has to do the heavy lifting and then they get all the credit. I mean sure but at least have them do something too not just magically appear at right moments. Blizz please lay the messaging a little more thin it might work better.
Honestly I cannot stand the story I skip cutscenes it hurts my soul.
Apologies for any misspellings English is not my native language.
The era of Warcraft where sweaty nerds wrote about slightly clad action heroes that impressed with their feats of strength and will were already on their way out for a long time, when Blizzard caught its own sexism scandal during Shadowlands and reoriented. This is the age of the HR-friendly middle-aged catlady explaining how cooperation, self-care and openness to others are what brings you success against the darkness. If people told you that things got better after Shadowlands, that says they prefer the inoffensive corporate blandness over the cosmic world-building catastrophe that WoW had become around Shadowlands, nothing more.
It all started with marvel girl bosses. That failed
Star Wars. Woke failed
Star Trek woke is failing
Woke isn’t inclusive of everyone, it’s inclusive of work people and ignores / shuts out the lore that built the game and the people who loved it
Don’t stop with the rainbows and the flowers in the trading post. Have a balance. I’m very welcoming of the lgbqt people, but they’re not welcoming of people like me and want to force their ideology on everyone.. to the detriment of whatever it is they’re are trying to force change on
I already saw the shift of tone in last patches of shadowlands, it was just when the scandal was on.
Bfa’s lore killed horde itself but id still say there were some wow feeling left at start of shadowlands.
I personally hated last 2 expansions it was almost unbearable but atleast midnight has somestuff in it that i can actually even like.
The sad truth is the world of warcraft as we know it is dead, lore at the moment is boring rewritten overly safe with exact same patterns coming up again , it is heavily predictable
and “woke” is mostly bs ignores the bigger issues what we have, corporations kicking out all the talent and then hiring cheaper ones in place that haven’t got skill or sense of the original material and tries to write something they think is “good”
every playable race within the faction has been heavily sanitised at this point and the faction war is blamed as an excuse to reduce two distinct campaigns into a single, streamlined experience
but that doesn’t make much sense, since a faction war isn’t needed to have distinct agendas and goals for each faction
as i feared, the removal of unique faction campaigns has simply led to a curated experience where the alliance and alliance coded neutral characters dominate the screentime…
the more inhuman races are barely present, though if they do show up they get plunged into the sanitisation chamber as we’ve seen with the goblins and amani
even the alliance isn’t really spared since gilneas no longer has a king, genn stepped down and handed over control of his homeland to tess, who doesn’t even have the worgen curse
the night elves and gilneans had a shared enemy and forged a cool bond together that is now just swept away and not given any focus
instead of the forsaken coming to help reclaim gilneas, it should have been the night elves
I think this concept is a big part of the problem we ware having here. What is “progress as a race” if not moving closer to modern (western!) ideas of liberal democracy and human rights? Everyone moving in that same direction is not a good thing at all, if the contrast between the groups is what made things interesting in the first place. In characters a lack of progress might be boring, but the same just isn’t true for “races”. And even with characters, once their journey is finished, and there is little to improve on, the character becomes rather boring and is usually delegated to the background or even killed off, in favour of screentime for new characters that have yet to deal with their flaws. You can’t do that with worldbuilding features like the races, so “progress” is dooming us to stick to them, even when there is nothing more to say.
Peoples changing over time isn’t bad, and can be interesting, but no direction of change should be narratively privileged as “progress”.
In this case i ment that it kind of makes sense in story perspective, it wasnt anything at all about how forsaken society works
Basically Forsaken have been from start have had enemies everywhere which lead em to be more and more agressive, and this kind of trying to make amends with old enemy works for change.
But i disagree heavily with the council and everything else around the race now, change doesnt mean that people forget everything what has happened before logically they would still have t heir edge and huge population would be most likely even sylvanas loyalists still
It creates such an boring world and nonsensical when everyone is building somekind of democracy and leading people are cardboard cutouts for total peace and friendship
these things are really complicated things and there is nuances but in truth i doubt in this modern writing landscape it will ever get to that level
…how is that not changing how Forsaken society works, though? I’d say the aggressive paranoia was quite central to them, and they were much more interesting when they had that, than now, leading to more interesting racial plots. And since I rejected “progress” as a criterion for the quality of a change, those would be my replacement criteria.
They were and they were the most interesting race because of that but doing the samething for 20 years , and main thing about em was the lich king conflict.
And they havent just been completly antisocial in past considering blood elfs
I dont know i might be horrible explaining what i actually mean here and it causes misscommunication
Basically what i more imagine what the change would be that they would be shaking hands and wielding dagger behind their backs kind of politics. Rather than the full blown agression in the past and that would write good stories too
The story is a reflection of the deteriorating moral values of the western culture. Duty, honor, sacrificing to preserve what you inherited and build upon with gratitude to past generations - gone.
Also modern stories for some reason shy away from having a clear cut good and bad side and now everyone is misunderstood or has a perspective - “modern” lord of the rings orcs for instance …. It’s lazy and there always has to be a punch line even in serious situations. And when they try to be serious characters just come out as whiny children.
The modern story team were given an amazing IP with a vast world and captivating stories, races, locations, but they can’t even stand on the shoulders of giants.
shades of grey writing isnt modern we already had that in ancient times. Im personally seeing modern writing issues being that its overly safe products for corporations to market
I will never understand nostalgia whiners. Like the story was never good things are just different then 20 years ago because as kid it is easy to be impressed.
the story had its moments of brilliance and no, it isn’t just about nostalgia
a lot of the key events in warcraft 3 alone paid off with numerous plot threads that impacted multiple playable races and gave them ample of material to work with
these days the vast majority of playable races are completely neglected as well as an entire faction
Lots of people don’t comprehend when something is bad until there’s the pinnacle of it, which is why they repeat their mistakes again and again.
It’s like the Star Wars sequels
Lots just think Rise of Skywalker is the terrible one, when The Last Jedi was the start of the wound, which Force Awakens prepped it up with cleaning it with an alcohol swab before the stab.
But no, they only see the damage. Then when it happens again? “We totally didn’t see it coming!” with a surprised pikachu face.