Every time we turn around another culture is hit with tragedy; this is the hallmark of WoW.
Maybe I’ve been desensitized or maybe I came to terms or maybe it just how its being depicted, but the NE issue are as meh as any other race being hit with the tragedy bat.
BTW I wasn’t replying to you unless you’re Ethriel. Talk about plot twist.
I think this is one of those scenarios where we’re going to have to seperate the art from the artist. Yes file down those obvious points that are bluntly unacceptable and certainly try to do better going forward, but generally I think we’re either going to have to take WoW as it is or leave it. It’s less like a cake and more like a house of cards, pull out one card and the whole thing might come crashing down (I know some people’s instinct is that bringing it all down would be preferable at this stage, but realistically Acti-Blizz isn’t going to slit the throat of their golden calf.)
Name me one where a playable race had to be on the receiving end of it in playable content in an MMORPG - and yes, as I have gone over plenty of times, those items do matter. Tragedies that are hidden in backstory just do not matter when it comes to how audiences take them. (Which includes the cataclysmic invasion that the Night Elves suffered in Warcraft 3)
I can think of two - the Forsaken with Lordaeron and the Zandalari with Dazar’alor - and in each of those two cases, I just as stridently argue that they need to take their territories back and hit back. There is however, context that prevents a direct comparison with a race that has been dealing with this same flavor of content for a decade.
Gilneas twice.
Fair point, that makes three - and that’s something I shouldn’t have left out because I am also pretty consistent in advocating that Worgen need remedial content as well.
You just shouldn’t do these things to playable races in a rivalry-focused MMORPG - you create resentment and dissatisfaction because of the personal identification with races and the factions they belong to.
Its really hard to see it from your point of view when you seemingly believe that the developers have a personal grudge against NE. Like that kills your entire stance for me.
You mention playable races, but there are fans of races outside of playable. I’m not sure why playable race is the baseline. You’re into RP right? You can easily rp as someone that was part of the Shatterspear or Lordaeron, and why does tragedies that are the backstory don’t count?
I’m more of a consumer of a good story, no matter if my favorites are crapped on. You mention the NE were humiliated and punished, well maybe that’s the point? Maybe that’s the point of any race that is humiliated and punished in the story, to this day I still enjoy the culling, invasion of Quel’thalas, purge of Dalaran etc etc from a story telling point of view.
A story isn’t just its text. A story is in its storytelling - what gets presented, how it gets presented, how its beats line up with the medium of presentation, and how it considers its target audience. In video game writing this is especially important because the game has the objective of delivering feelings of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. If your story fails to consider these elements, or in the case of the Night Elf narrative, actively works against them - it’s a bad story.
As for the personal grudge. I have been suggesting for years that the developers have had biases against them because they’re in the Alliance (during a time when Warcraft 2 fans who liked the evil Horde concept - even if they had to make it technically lose at the end of the story - were calling the shots), and because they’re a female facing race. That fundamentally, the Night Elves were being made to repeatedly lose because the devs were too insecure about having their hypermasculine orcs lose to feminine elves. I was told that this was ridiculous because there’s no way that Blizzard could play host to the pervasive culture of sexism that would be required for this.
Well, it turns out that there was a pervasive culture of sexism. Who knew, right?
Except there isn’t a singular artist and the lore is constructed in such a way that we can actually purge some of the problematic lore.
Again
The world of Azeroth is worth saving because the ingredients were always there for a perfect story.
The writers simply led the milk curdle, the flour spoil, the eggs rot, and both the frosting and the decorative fruits have also gone bad.
Removing the frosting and fruits is easy, and the heat kills the bacteria of the ingredients, but choices have to be made.
Like I said before I could just be insensitive because of the many many many tragic race stories throughout wow to feel that NE are special cases.
I feel that plenty of races we love are humiliated, but I also think its done to tell a good story.
No doubt, but there are certain story beats that certain developers spearheaded. I don’t think we have enough information to link any of those people directly to a specific story beat. Especially hypermasculine orc regularly beats up female elf race story beat.
Imo, cancelling people is stupid. If he gets lucky enough to be rehired, it is really unlikely that I will monetarily support whatever projects he is involved with. Other than that?
I am a fan of Marylin Manson’s music even though I am not a fan of Marylin Manson as a person.
I disagree. I think the proof is in the pudding. Blizzard showers the idea of Orcs defeating elves with resources and hides the opposite in transmedia narratives or discloses that it allegedly happened in response to questions. That’s a very clear bias and we now know the reason for it.
As for your allegation that this propped up a “good story”, you are in an extreme minority on that position. Dissatisfaction with WoW’s story reaches far and wide, and it’s not limited to Night Elf fans.
Oh I think we have plenty of information for that story beat. Anyone remotely familiar with Nelf lore and story can see the blatant sexism that permeates the way Blizzard writes, not just the Night Elf story, but Warcraft’s female characters in general.
I think I have a friend who wrote a thesis on it for their literature class/degree or something.
True, but that doesn’t make it easier to ‘cancel’ a single contributor, it makes it harder since it would be difficult to weed out everything he contributed without also destroying or altering things that are nothing to do with him.
Your cooking metaphor aside, there are going to be parts of the game that can and should be changed retroactively and going forward, but there are also parts that likely cannot or simply won’t be changed due to the realities of cost and programming. For those moments we are going to need to learn to separate the art from the artist, and either accept it or reject WoW entirely.
Nah I think the most solid solution is to realm reborn wow. As more stories are coming up it’s just getting worse and worse and worse.
Even better because now from the onset we could have Kul Tirans and Zandalari and whatnot from the onset. Your KT character starts in Kul Tiras but is sent to Theramore immediately to go assist Jaina. Zandalari character starts in Zuldazar but is sent to Stranglethorn to help with Hakkar.
I don’t think Activision is going to shell out the money to give WoW the kind of make over that Square gave FFXIV.
For one thing, FFXIV was only three years old when they did that, not nearly twenty. For another, I think Activision would rather make cellphone games than MMO’s.
That depends purely on if Bobby and the other execs below him like Trump Yes Man and Bush War Crime Eraser get removed along with Enabler JAB
That they’re likely to do this doesn’t make it the right move - from an ethical or business perspective, if you ask me.
The latter is an easier case for me, so I’ll make it - Warcraft as a franchise is dying due to years of mismanagement and maltreatment, not because its old. Franchises have a longer shelf life than products, and can reset the product lifecycle, and when they get old enough, they have an inherent brand equity that, if handled correctly, will bring people back to playing your game, and making you money.
But if you don’t make the investments to make that happen, you won’t reap the rewards. As for Blizzard’s other properties? They don’t come near WoW, and you can see that reflected in the financial statements. It would be a very bad move if you ask me to just let this franchise die.
COD makes more money than WoW tho?
Like if they killed WoW and inverted these resources to CoD they’d make more money probably
More resources do not necessarily equate to a better product. The profit maximizing level of output is where marginal cost equals marginal revenue, and COD is probably there. They have immense market share, their games are successful, and they do well in their space.
Warcraft on the other hand very obviously suffers from a wide range of problems, a lack of resources being one of them. It also plays in a different space from COD, and attracts different kinds of players.
How about NE victories against against hyper-masculine orc? Is this also linked to the same people/person? How are you cutting this lore pie and linking certain parts with certain people? It gets really murky for me.