The moment was pretty epic, I don’t share this pathological self hatred of my own character.
4 Likes
To be fair, i rather watch my character do stuff then watch any of the named character’s do stuff in BFA/Legion.
Even if it’s cringe, i rather see that then Jaina using a giant ship to clear the blight, or Pretty boy blond king mass res people in combat.
Which i would argue from a Power Fanasty stand point, they kinda dropped the ball on that by focusing on named characters like Illidan, Slyvanas, or Khadgar.
Isn’t the point of Power Fantasy games is to center around the player, playing them?
2 Likes
That one I didn’t mind. We were still a cog in the war machine.
We haven’t been simple adventurers since end game of vanilla; you don’t kill Rag or take out Naxx as some mindless mercenary. The lack of self awareness in this thread is palpable.
6 Likes
FWIW, MMORPGs in general struggle with this.
GW2’s story is an isolated single player thing that pretends you’re the only one that matters. Very blatantly.
FFXIV’s story isn’t as isolated but you’re still effectively playing the chosen one – everyone else is nameless adventurers that -occasionally- help you.
ESO’s story is, again, an isolated single player experience like GW2. At least from what I’ve played so far.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but SWTOR is much the same thing as GW2 and ESO, no?
Like, I get it. It’s easier to make a more involved and complex story if you pretend only the player matters. You can give them choices, you can make them leaders, you can give them cool moments, and ultimately, many people just prefer to play as the hero of the story to begin with.
But I like MMOs to be as immersive as possible, and handling the story like that doesn’t work for immersion when there are thousands of others online on a given server at a time. it’d be nice if the default wasn’t to treat the “main” story like a separate single player game.
WoW is probably the least offensive in this regard [at least now that we’re out of WoD and Legion]. Unfortunately, I don’t think WoW has good story content to begin with. Too campy for my tastes. I enjoy the world though.
2 Likes
It’d be really nice if in Shadowlands we weren’t “The best champion” and we got there to realize that actually we’re trash compared to the big hitters and the only reason we can fight them is because we have allies.
It’s fun to occasionally be “the hero”, but you know how One punch man is bored with being super OP and would like an actual challenge? It’s sort of the same for us in wow. We’ve literally fought titans and old gods and crushed them. Can we just be soldiers or have a lich king type guy who doesn’t really care about us lol
SWTOR was sort of like that. The difference was that you were pitched as the only one that mattered in your class, but it acknowledged the other classes and their impact. Most of the rest were like “You’re the only chosen one, there are no other people at all just you”
serisoly the story is so bad. Even tumblr fan fic is better.
Champion, azeroth’s WOOOOOONS cry out for aid.
2 Likes
I don’t want to be sarcastically called a hero when I’m not one.
Swtor is a story focused mmos so it mostly does the same but since it has a heavy focus on actually decent story and many of your character’s actions changing things it makes the game highly replayable and also there’s differences depending on classes.
In swtor you get to choose who you are as a character, in WoW you are just a brainless drone hero
Treating the player like they’re a central character in a shared world is pants-on-head stupid.
2 Likes
Ehh. I didn’t say that WoD, Legion or BFA are particularly good power fantasy stories.
Power fantasies in MMOs are always bad. Always.
Keep them in single-player games.
2 Likes
I don’t know, Guild Wars 2 comes to mind of an example of an MMO that does Power Fantasy better then WoW. 
I do agree they are at their best when their in single-player games, but i don’t think it should stay exclusive to single-player games. If you could make it work in multiplayer like you have in single-player or vice versa, then it’ll would work basically.
Saying Guild Wars 2 did Power Fantasy better than WoW is like saying it’s better to have the flu than to have food poisoning.
MMOs are shared worlds. Power fantasies tell the player the world revolves around them. It can’t be done, it won’t be done, and telling the player they’re the big hero for doing content everyone has access to is participation trophy nonsense.
To be fair, i only said that cause Legion and BFA did them horribly to a point where Guild War’s 2 looks better in comparison. If WoW isn’t Legion and BFA, then i wouldn’t say that. WoD comes to mind to competently achieving that before it’s sudden and underwhelming death.
It can be done at all. It needs to be done great.
You can do a looter shooter, it needs to be done great.
You can do a single-player hero game like overwatch, it needs to be done great.
You can do a mobile game on PC, it needs to be done great.
You can do a city builder/Sims game on Console, it needs to be done great.
Nothing is prohibiting nobody from doing it.
Not in an MMO. You can’t simultaneously tell someone they’re the world’s champion and to ignore everyone else having the same core experience.
“You’re the Ashbringer, champion! So is that guy. And that guy. And that girl. And whatever that thing is, but they’re the Ashbringer also.”
Squeezing a single-player power fantasy in a shared world always has been, always will be stupid.
6 Likes
Did they really remove this? That really shows they considering it the “wrong” option.
Most modern mmo’s play like single player games so the power fantasy is fine.