@Dardillien – just wanted to get this in before I forget it when I read the rest of the replies to this:
The game, unfortunately, doesn’t allow for people to opt out of content, and there are many, MANY players who don’t want to be part of the “gray and evil” crowds. Several of my RP characters wouldn’t actually do a lot of things in that vein, but because there are quests and rewards, and you can’t continue forward without doing them, it gets done OOCly.
The point being, I don’t know that WoW is meant to teach players to be morally gray or evil; showing it happening in the game? Yes. Players actually being that? Not really. And the few times that we’ve gotten those choices recently (I don’t recall there being others before BFA,) they don’t really seem to have much impact on our future gameplay and choices therein.
I’ve maintained that the day that an MMO offers choices that actually affect the way we interact with the world and the outcomes are defined by that–is the day we will have reached a new height in MMO gaming. This is very hard to do right now, and no company has wanted to try and iterate upon it because it would take a LOT of work writing out all the various different choice variants and their eventual outcomes, but to then also have them exist in a contiguous world in which players continue to get to play. And by that, I mean that their choices actually create eventualities within the game world that other gamers have to deal with and respond to. And I honestly don’t think that’s possible right now. The only way it will ever be even remotely probable is with some dedicated AI technology adept at writing quests and adapting gameplay–both, on the fly. Either that or as quaterly, monthly, or bi-weekly installments that radically change the game so that if you’re not constantly playing in the world, you’ll never get “the whole story.” It also requires for developers and writers to have an idealized story arc in mind that can be changed by player actions and decisions.
One of the ways Blizzard -could- do this is by adding factions to the game. Allowing players to join neutral factions for instance like the Cenarion Circle, the Argents (because they keep changing their name designations,) the Earthen Ring, etc. Or allowing them to join evil organizations like the Syndicate, the Scarlets (because they also change their name designations,) the Royal Apothecary Society, the Old Gods, or even more recently Sylvanas Loyalists. But this would require having teams (and money,) interested in developing story-lines and quests that were specific for those factions. You can still tell the story like you do now, but if, for example, you see more interest by players playing through certain scenarios, you can iterate on that in later patches or expansions while still maintaining your overarching story goals.
It would be a lot more difficult to do, and it would definitely take either more time, more manpower, or both, and hence why I feel like the things you are asking for are things that, while neat, just aren’t feasible in the current iterations of MMO’s. I could very well be wrong, too. I know a lot of people have hyped up FFXIV, but I couldn’t get through the starter area. Still, they say the story is well written. That said, I don’t know how nuanced it is.
Lastly, I do think the writers are trying to write more nuanced characters, and I think that’s a good thing. We’ve seen some darkening of Anduin, for instance, in a few little in-game snippets, though the latest book gives some good insights into where that might be going. I get that a lot of people dislike there being this kind of character development outside of the game, though. Unfortunately, I have yet to see Blizzard manage those nuances in game in the ways they have been in outside books. If it can be done, I’d like to see it, but so far…as far as I’m concerned, most of their attempts at this come off to players as ham-fisted or others seem out-of-the-blue inconsistent.
This is why I keep saying that in-game ‘lore’ books would be nice–to have historians recording things with bias (obviously) but also giving us some in-the-game proof of ideologies and the in-game peoples’ versions of “the story.” That way, when our personal views differ from how the writers view the world, we can at least look at those books and go, “Oh well…I guess most people thought X. And while my view is clearly different, this is why Y and Z happened.”
Mostly, though, they’ve done that in sources that aren’t in the game, like books, comics, shorts, short stories, and audio dramas. And while I mostly keep up with a lot of that, many people either don’t know it exists, don’t want to pay for it because they’re all ready paying for an MMO and feel they shouldn’t have to study outside sources to get that information, have a hard time absorbing written material as opposed to visual, or can’t afford it.
I do think a lot of story directions have been alluded to in past books and materials, and sometimes in the game; and I do think there are moments of gray, characters of gray, and obviously evil in our WoW universe. It’s just rare that we get to participate in it with our player characters. And for the most part, I’m pretty happy with that. I get that there are players like you and others, though, that want something more. I just don’t think WoW is going to be the game to deliver that experience for you, unfortunately. Not in its current iteration.
