Sometimes I wonder what Blizzard writers are aware of and what is just accidental.
Just because something isn’t zoomed in on doesn’t mean it’s not there. Sort of like how in Star Trek, the Federation is actually a Fascist regime. You don’t really hear about that, but it is quite evident, and I am not sure if the writers of Star Trek did that on purpose of just accidentally made a case in favor of fascism.
Warcraft is the same way, real arguments can be made for things like, The Alliance being an institution of human Imperialism. The Horde’s tendency for war mongering and aggression rooted in it’s founders being Warlords, and those founders being idolized as a cultural staple despite Thrall trying to rebrand the Horde as something different. Thrall actually being more culturally similar to humans as opposed to orcs leading to several of the cultural, civic and logistic issues the Horde would face later down the road.
The fascinating thing is these unspoken things really make other things a lot more understandable and explain why certain things have happened this way.
And here is the real confusing part… Some of these solutions are good from a story telling perspective, but may still not be what a particular fanbase wants for their favorite race or faction. It might be easier for some to say “Well Blizzard is bad at writing” rather than admit all the heroes of the Horde are War Criminals who shouldn’t be role models. So perhaps Blizzard doesn’t bring these solutions to light for that reason.
Regardless though, we are left with the conclusion that Blizzard is epically bad at writing story. Either they continuously misrepresent their own characters and factions, or they willfully allow these inconsistencies to exist because they don’t want player backlash. When they are getting backlash regardless.
I 99% agree with all you say with the exception of (and I quote):
Cause dear, the bad writting was PRECISELY making Thrall commit such a retarded choice as to put the embodiment of all those bad cultural behaviours (A.K.A. Garrosh) in charge of everything (especially when we consider Thrall was SO invested in reverting to pre WCI Horde era -obviously before WoD obliterated the staust quo of the Orcs as a pacific culture- he took his people and made them walk through a penance road).
The complain is not about “perceived” villain batting of Old Horde Heroes, is about making the Horde NPCs worship as heroes those very same characters the NPCs aknowledged in previous games as anything but heroic. Oh and villain batting the recent ones with potential to not end up as saturday cartoons.
the most shallow, poorly handled story thread in all of World of Warcraft
I agree with the message of your post but on a tangent I will have to conflict this tiny part, because the Old God bullcrap is and always has been even worse than the garbage that is the faction war.
I sat out most of it because I knew I’d despise it from the very moment it was announced. I unsubbed last like, February, and only came back a month ago with a single 15$ payment to see what the patches actually did.
For the record I despised them just as much as I thought I would, with the exception of Wrathion still keeping his personality and Uldum coming back being genuinely enjoyable footnotes (I always did like the Tol’vir).
Incidentally that $15 sub runs out in like, 20 minutes.
Wise man, indeed you gained more than lost by proxy of dissasociating with this circus (though Uldum STILL puts me to sleep -though not as quickly as Argus does-).
You might have an argument for TOS since Kirk’s Federation was clearly a capitalist society, but you’ll have to work to justify that designation for the Next Generation shows. Since Earth of the future was never intended to be visited by Roddenberry, the actual brass tacks of Federation economy were never explored.
This isn’t a thread about put war back into warcraft, Half the issue with the current story is the way the two factions end up going back to war in the first place. I mean Saurfang was supposed to be an old soldier that was apparently going to put Garrosh in the ground for taking the Horde to war. Yet Sylvanas comes to him and basically tell him “oh well we have peace now, but hey a few generations from now do you think that will still be the case” and he simply agrees.
Blizzard writing is too forced to simply make characters make decisions that they have wouldn’t have.
While at the same time characters that have massive amounts of motivation towards continuing the war are constantly having their motivations changed so they agree to “break the cycle” nonsense
It would be nice if the game could provide choice for the players on who to side with on little faction schisms like this. The little sidequests for Sylvanas loyalists were a step in the right direction but it’s clear that Blizzard took two steps backward when they were done. There should have been a choice on who to support with seperate questlines for each side, choosing to fight either Sylvanas or Saurfang.
Same goes with the Alliance now. Side with Anduin or side with Tyrande.
Unfortunately it’s still all part of the same Horde and same Alliance and such a thing would lead to seperation into different factions. I couldn’t blame Blizzard for not wanting to deal with that kind of mess.
The best thing for them to do when it comes to this is not do it at all, but that’s just IMO.
I disagree with OP. Moralizing the story is exactly what Blizzard SHOULD do. Adding moral quandaries to stories are always a good thing (in any game that isn’t a simple, mindless Shooter/GTA-style bloodbath.)
What I take issue with is NOT Giving the Player the CHOICE in their actions. Whether to follow along with the Story, Ignore it in favor of Sidestories, or actively fight AGAINST it.
It’s a single, linear story with no (real) effect that your choices have. It’s worse then reading a book only, you’re doing all the work but not getting to enjoy the story.
As far as complaining about writing, BtS grinds my gears.
At the time, and for a while afterward, I thought it gave great insight into Sylvanas’s internal process. Since it is a novel with a third person narrative, we get a glimpse into her mind that we rarely see. But even that was deceptive. I get trying to keep the story vague. But the actual thoughts of a character being a lie to herself? Is she like, a 4th wall liar, knowing we can read her mind in novel form?
She laments the death of Voljin and Varian, and regards them well. But at the end of BfA, she tells Loyalists that: “in truth, she cared nothing for the living.” Is she just lying to Loyalist to save face and maintain a stiff upper lip? Or was the author of BtS just blathering nonsense that was never meant to be consistent with BfA’s story?
In BtS, she regards her situation with a bit of pride. She reflects on being the first female to become Warchief. She also curses Voljin for naming her Warchief. But by the end of BfA, she actually already knew that was the plan anyway?
I guess that’ll learn me to expect a pre-expac novel to have any sort of consistency with the Expansion it leads up to.
This would be a lot more persuasive if you didn’t frame this whole thing as Blizzard having “lost its way” because of writers needing to “push their beliefs and politics into the game”:
So which is it? Is Blizzard failing because of their newfangled politics, or is the problem that they’re too derivative of themselves?
I agree that Blizzard’s moral outlook is uninspiring. But this “pOliTicS aRe rUiniNg vidEo gaMeS” cliché is crap.
its both, They’re writing is terrible as they escalated the conflict to have their war narrative but at the same time having characters like Anduin also lamenting about why the war is bad.
Part of the issue is the fact they made the Horde playerbase feel bad for choosing their faction by continually telling them their actions were wrong while giving them no option to do anything differently
At the same time they Make the Alliance the Morally upright faction however that feels just as bad as it feels we are also told to feel wrong for wanting any form of justice and prevented for actually doing anything.
Its annoying to have characters of both sides either ignore or simply brush over events that have happen in the universe like they are not a big deal or are easily forgivable. They need to stop hand waving away the parts of the story and characters they don’t like just because the writers don’t like dealing with them.
Don’t want to side track too much, but have to say you and me both for hating Old God stuff. I’m personally never a fan of Cosmic Horror in a fantasy world, especially if it was already made like Warcraft. Every time I’ve seen it added into plots it becomes a black hole of the plot sucking everything in. Usually becoming the big bad when there is already an existing villain, or doesn’t make sense with the setting. The execution is usually horrible, people go mad because LAWLZ!
Cosmic Horror usually works more on a personal scale, a smaller scale. That gives it time to grow, get personal, and get creative. Not huge fantasy battles like Lord of the Rings, or Warcraft.
I’ve seen Cosmic Horror handled poorly many times in video games. One thing I’m looking forward too with Shadowlands, having little to no Void and Old God stuff.