I happen to be one of those people who never really liked WOW much and thus never played it. Not to mention that being subscribed would take a lot of money, especially where I live. I must say, however, that in the past few years, I often check on the latest development in the WOW story. And no wonder! After all, in follows up on the epic story of Warcraft 3. I do not think there are many people on this forum who dislike the latter. I wonder, however, if the same is case for WOW. Frankly, I do not think that MMORPG genre is a very good vessel for a great storytelling compared to RTS, nor that WOW can match W3 in this regard. Now, it all makes sense for Blizzard, as they earn a massive revenue from WOW, so blaming them is not on my agenda in this thread. Some plot-related elements that annoy me in WOW are:
- Top Warcraft characters effectively playing second-fiddle to player characters. I prefer the focus staying on the real Warcraft characters
- A new Lich king was crowned for a really weird reason. I do not see how a leaderless Scourge is any stronger than when it is led by one of the strongest and talented characters in Warcraftâs lore.
- Garrosh, who was a major character in 3 expansions feels completely bland. Not to mention that he murders one of his subordinates for killing civilians one day and drops what is basically a nuke on an entire city soon after.
- Tyrande and Malfurion going berserk after a World tree that only stood for few years was burned down, while the Burning Legion did pretty much the same thing on a much larger scale. Not to mention that many elves who loyally fought for their kin suddenly flip and join Sylvanas, because, reasons. In general, many characters feel like empty shells that act according to Blizzardâs whim instead of acting in accordance with their character.
- Time travel/Parallel Universes: This is very subjective, but I greatly dislike such features, in part because it makes virtually every event potentially reversable. Just imagining what even the potential use of such story devices could mean for the Warcraft world makes my head spin.
- Death of a multitude of major characters is tied to the raid system. Personally, l consider these deaths to be way more immersive inside cinematics and large-scale battles rather than using a bunch of anonymous âchampionsâ. You can of course disagree with me on this.
- When designing WOW, Blizzard wanted to split the playerbase into 2 halves and so artificially put every race into huge factions which are unrealistically cohesive, stable and even centralised⌠and this all was somehow accomplished in less than a decade. No race has tried to stay even remotely neutral, which, considering that both factions are in one way or another in a state of perpetual total war either against eachother or against âinsert current threatâ , would be something most of them would try to do.
So, whatâs your take on this? Also, once Reforged is finally released, how open is this community to custom maps and campaigns that disregard Post-Warcraft 3 lore and instead choose to start where The Frozen Throne left off? I am asking partially, because I am curious, and partially, because I might try to make my own campaign and have no idea whether people would want that or they would simply be confused by the retcon.