Death to the Grand Narrative

Lore Story Forum
1

While I was considering how to open this thread, I ran into this quote, which I’d like to share with you now:

“Writers should “get over themselves”, [Danuser] stated plainly. Instead of trying to saddle any single player with an epic destiny, the gameworld itself should provide a backdrop for collaborative heroism. Framing the narrative to promote teamwork, and creating narrative events that challenge the playerbase as a whole, allows for the epic tales writers crave.”

(Source: “Writing for MMOs: A GDC Perspective” - Kotaku )
(Sorry, you will have to google it. I am not allowed to have links in my posts)

I think Danuser was moving in the right direction when he said this. An MMO is a medium that every player will (and should) experience differently, but I think the epic tales have to go as well - or at least how WoW has realized them.

With that, let’s dive in.

Why do we play? A recap

A few months back, I required assistance to post this thing: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20761646737?page=1

I maintain the most important piece of that thread was the framework section. It demonstrates:

  1. That a video game’s story is a statistically significant factor in motivation to play that game;
  2. That players identify with and mold their behavior to a role in an RPG, regardless of whether they chose the role or not (Mimesis effect);
  3. That people play video games in general to satisfy the psychological needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy.

You can find the sources to the research I relied on in the link to the thread posted above.

The centrality of the role

The most important set of decisions you can make in the World of Warcraft is contained in the character selection screen. Here you choose how you will appear to yourself and others, and how you will play the game. You are defining, in part, your role in this vast world, and that is going to color how you are going to interact with it.

I say “in part” because Blizzard supplies part of that role for you. For example, Warlocks use fel magic, and fel magic is almost universally seen as a highly corrupting energy, often paired with gnarly things like stealing people’s souls and putting them in a bag. These facts supply context for the role you’re playing. Hence, as writers make story decisions, those decisions directly impact the roles that people are playing. For example: Undead were revealed in Before the Storm to be fragile to the point where the mere act of clapping imposed incremental damage to their body. I’m certain that undead warriors after that probably had questions as to how they could even survive combat.

The narrative therefore becomes even more important. As it changes, our protagonist changes.

Titanic: the MMO

I love the movie Titanic, particularly in the ingenious way they portray the character of Jack Dawson. You get this nobody who we get to like and follow. Then we hurtle that character through an absolute maelstrom of the carnage involved with the sinking of the famous ocean liner. You see people panicking as water crashes in through this giant glass dome, a poor Irish mother reading her children their last bedtime story, Febricio gets crushed by a smokestack, people freeze to death, etc.

But that was all raw carnage, and it starts to bleed together after a while. It shocks and horrifies us, but what really allows that emotional punch to land is when Jack dies. As we watch him sink into the black abyss, he really is representing those people, providing the audience with an emotional link to the tragedy they just witnessed.

….

… but what really allows that emotional punch to land is when Delaryn speaks to Sylvanas. As we watch the pain evident in her expressions, she really is representing those people, providing the audience with an emotional link to the tragedy they just witnessed.

Did I just praise the War of the Thorns or did I condemn it? I obviously love Titanic, so why am I upset now? It’s because I wouldn’t play Titanic: the MMO, and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t do it as a Third Class passenger with no chance of success. I don’t play video games to be the tragic victim. I play them for feelings of competence, relatedness, and autonomy - and the attempt at a grander narrative directly attacks those pillars. Specifically, they demoralized me and made me feel humiliated about my role, and had done so constantly in the past. That’s why I’m not subscribed as of right now, and while I would like to come back, I won’t until I feel like that situation is corrected.

Good Guys Win! Bad Guys Lose! ATVI Bears Prevail!

Despite my obvious and recorded biases, I think the Horde is dealing with a greater problem. That entire issue above of course appeared to serve a typical expansion bad-guy structure. The bad guy shows up and destroys something dear to you, then the scrappy protagonist has to pick themselves up and destroy the evil empire!

Good! Now, Alliance player, you get to be the good guy. Horde player, you get to be the bad guy.

Horde player 1: “I didn’t sign up for this! This was supposed to be the faction of underdogs who were trying to challenge the idea that they are mere monsters!”

Sorry, the narrative needs a bad guy. But Saurfang is going to redeem you, so you can he-

Horde player 2: “Hey wait a second. I WANT to be the bad guy. I even painted my car with the burning image of Teldrassil on it!”

Well, then I know you will enjoy overthrowing your warchief at the end of the expansion.

Tauren player: “Hey guys, um… my name’s Frank. Can I have something that helps to flesh out my role and make me want to play the game too?”

No - unless you count Baine. Now please sit down for the next nineteen years.

The Story Should be the Setting

A central narrative fails because it doesn’t give proper consideration for the fact that WoW’s “protagonists” are not Anduin, but a myriad of characters with conflicting motivations and goals. The video game protagonist is a sentinel, a kor’kron guard, a pirate from Stormwind, an ingenious goblin engineer, a bloodfang worgen, a proud tauren brave, etc. all at the same time. To make those people happy, changes in the story have to enrich those roles - not tear them down completely for shock value, not redefine them entirely because the story needs a bad guy, and not ignore them because they wouldn’t fit within the larger narrative. A larger, all-encompassing narrative, at least how Blizzard has expressed it though, just about requires that.

The way forward is to make the central story less impactful, and less important - have it sit in the background. Big things can still happen in the world, but there has to be respect for the different roles that players choose. I think the best way to accomplish this is to leverage what I feel Blizzard is best at: using questing to tell smaller stories about the world and the people living in it. Vanilla did this particularly well - but so did the opening salvo of MOP, where in that case, the faction war took a backseat for a while so that we could really learn about who the Pandaren were and how they lived. You were able to follow minor characters whose stories were able to begin, progress, and end.

Focusing in on smaller stories allows for those different roles to be defined and expressed without having to pigeonhole them into their use in the broader narrative. You can have one role fight bad guys, and you can have quests where you can choose to be those bad guys. You can use other quests to give us more of an idea of roles that the grand narrative doesn’t have time for.

The other thing I would add: stop destroying. Build. Don’t make a beloved character evil so that they can be killed in a raid. Make a new character in a smaller story and have them do evil things. Don’t demolish an entire race for shock value - show natural evolutions of their role to cope with the world around them through one or two quests, or even environmental changes. It doesn’t have to be resource intensive, but it should excite us and give us something to look forward to - rather than severing another link between the franchise and its fans.

If done correctly, this paradigm puts the focus back on where it should be:
creating and portraying a vast, interesting world filled with interesting people. Players can then fill in the rest with the quests they pick and the experiences they have, and feel good about who their character has become. So let’s set aside the epic narrative. Let’s make the world epic.

29 Likes
2

Good points. But is anyone going to read all that. Maybe post the intro and a quick summary of point and save the rest for a follow-up

2 Likes
3

THe issue here is that blizzard is trying to show wow can be the next song of ice and fire.

Which doesn’t play to the mediums strengths, of a western RPG, where you get freedom of choice. They seem to relish in culling the setting of fat, when they fail to realize all that blubber was what was stopping them from sinking into the icy, cold depths.

An Exploratory expansion i feel could work if you make enough factions involved in it, have goblins trying to set up some kind of mining colony, have the earthen ring investigate and elemental incursion that never got settled. The Explorers Guild and Reliquary could still be competing in finding treasures, and you could have a token Horde and ALliance force trying to map it out.

11 Likes
4

I think this is a good summary. I mean, the expansion is basically following the plot of the Legion, with the Horde replacing the Legion as the villains.

7 Likes
5

It sucks when your own character becomes powerless and hypocritical just to facilitate the story Blizzard wants to tell.

I think you express why I have loathed the narrative shift from Early WoW to now.

Originally, you explored a world. Each zone had its own collection of stories, and you participated in them for loot and experience but could rationalize why your character did it for any variety of reasons. (Usually for the universally-understandable reason of personal empowerment or not wanting to die.)

Since around Cataclysm the developers have treated each expansion like a comic book, with lead characters rotating through the spotlight. The game has become less about the PC exploring a fictional universe, and more about them watching character development of the NPCs.

It’s good to have both world-exploration and character development, but the big issue arises when the story is about the PC enabling the NPC character development without regard for the identity we have of our own characters.

Sylvanas burnt Teldrassil, but I helped. This might have been intended to lead in to an exploration of combatting virtues and world views by Sylvanas/Saurfang/Tyrande/etc - which might sound like an interesting book or movie - but my Honorable Orc was forced to sit idly by and watch children burn to death while I felt like this was a extreme transgression against his values.

My agency was destroyed by Sylvanas in BFA. Thrall didn’t even leave his throne room in Vanilla.

29 Likes
6

I could be wrong but it just feels like Blizzard is changing WoW from one single fantasy genre, into every other fantasy genre. It was the fantasy style of The Lord of the Rings with the Hero’s Journey to face your inner demons and conquer them. This was perfectly shown in Warcraft 3. Each faction had to commit to their own Hero’s Journey. The Alliance lost to their demons with Arthas and Garithos, but held on and made a comeback with Jaina. The Horde had to face their demonic past and conquer it with Grom representing both the fall and redemption. The Night Elves had to learn to cope with other races and stop being xenophobic, racist, and more forgiving shown with Malfurion, but still be a strong and proud warrior race with Tyrande. Even after each faction’s journey, they could not defeat the Burning Legion alone so they all banded together, faced their demons and became victorious.

Now with the new team since they wanted their own plot and style, they threw the meaning of Warcraft out the window. It was done since Burning Crusade and ended it with Legion. It’s trying to be political with A Song of Fire and Ice. However it mixes in Lovecraftian genre with mental problems and of course aliens. So now we have to have political problems with the opposing faction, while trying to stop the Purple Legion, I mean, Lovecraftian Aliens from invading and corrupting our planet, all the while we deal with mental problems that said aliens bring up within out minds, while trying to maintain that both factions are grey which Blizzard is failing at that which isn’t surprising. So now it’s a mixed pile of what-the-stuff that is contradicting, complicated, and confusing.

On top of that, the protagonist in Lovecraft stories is suppose to lose because going further into the rabbit hole due to curiosity enhances addiction which leads to further mental problems. So in the end we’re suppose to lose because that’s Lovecraft. However loosing in the end is the worst idea for a game 14 years and running. It works for short and fun games like Darkest Dungeon, not for MMOs or stories where the hero is suppose to win, because of the Hero’s Journey.

4 Likes
7

Amazing post. 100% agree.

1 Like
8

And my agency was validated. Not so much the burning children bit, but the bit about taking a war to the Alliance with no holds barred. And the bit about the Forsaken finally taking a bigger place in the narrative of the faction I’ve loved since Vanilla.

But I’m not ignorant to the intent. I’m supposed to hate it for whatever reason, despite this expansion supposed to be about a faction war? I have to just sit idly by and let everything that I’ve loved about the Horde since Vanilla (because these parts of the Horde have been a valid part of it since before WoW) be completely destroyed just because Blizzard decided I should like another part more? Hell no.

So if it sucks for your character to become powerless and hypocritical in the face of Teldrassil, we should avoid having that same thing happen again for both your side of the fence and mine.

1 Like
9

WoWs story doesnt know what it wants to be sometimes and often our player is given more spotlight than need be or were just errand boys for halfwits like Thrall or some other disposable character.

2 Likes
10

Yeah but Blizz only copies superficial elements of those named topics. Giant tentacle monsters fit right up the fantasy alley especially since its public domain. Now If Blizz ever took any proper writing notes from the stuff they copy and parody maybe their writing would be worth a damn.

4 Likes
11

The moral of the story is that Blizzard formerly wrote content you could opt in and out of. Unless you were one of those people that wanted to join a non-playable faction like the Scourge or Legion, most people wouldn’t feel a lack of agency throughout the Vanilla-Wrath experience.

I.e. Forsaken did some terrible things in Vanilla and Wrath, but that was voluntary leveling content and players had other options to level. You didn’t have to help create a new plague or test it on living subjects.

Now, doing Forsakenly-things is the meat of the Horde’s story. (Stormheim, Teldrassil, Warcampaign.) And there isn’t a way for players to opt out without skipping expansions or avoiding meaningful endgame progression and content.

The risk of a story focused on NPCs (like Sylvanas v Saurfang), is the story could stop being about the players.

6 Likes
12

Strikingly, none of the editors at Blizzard demonstrate this level of insight.

3 Likes
13

Really hope this thread gets some traction inside of Blizzard. Been playing the game for about 12 years now and haven’t complained about a thing. Seriously, everything else is fine, I guess. But the story seems to be going off the rails in such a weird way. Especially with the recent ret-cons to make Sylvanas as deplorable as possible. Quelle Surprise, another horde leader becoming a raid boss? Suppose so.

Not going to say much about Saurfang. I get why he’s popular but he’s not the orc for me. I find his particular brand of honor kind of narcissistic. But I have some personal biases there, admittedly. However, I do very much prefer Sylvanas’ pragmatism.

All of this is just the story. Combine this with consistently odd changes mechanically in WoW and several other games (permanent invisibility for Sombra. I agree she needed a buff, but DAYUM. Lol, bad example but you may get the point). I am starting to worry about one of my favorite companies.

I have never made a video game before, let alone something as complex as an MMO. With a game like that, the expected longevity has to change almost everything. So to be perfectly clear, it isn’t any particular game or facet therein that I take issue with. It is the downright wacky lack of communication. That is the kind of bananas behavior I’d expect from an indie dev.

Love you Blizz but you seem out of touch.

3 Likes
14

This exactly. I can’t imagine why they would think writing for the NPCs was a better idea than writing for the player’s experiences within the game. It would almost be better to have a joke quest after siege of Lordaeron where your character would be AWOL looking for Thrall or really doing anything to opt out. As a monk I’d like to think my character is just chilling on the wandering Isle watching the war from afar because that is the only option I have…

2 Likes
15

This is ultimately why I felt the “Savior” narrative in being a Garrison Commander and then an Order Hall leader is that it took the aspects of why we play a video game and focused chiefly on competence at the expensive of autonomy. If you were a Paladin you had to be the leader of your Order Hall. That’s what the game was presenting to you, even if you pretended otherwise. It forced you to share things with other players that maybe you weren’t supposed to, shoe-horning everyone into the role of “Paladin that establishes an Order with a Legendary Weapon”.

To say nothing of how the absence of that savior fantasy makes us feel weaker than we did before. I’m personally happy that it’s gone and that our role as the “Champion of Azeroth” is pretty much a backdrop at this point.

Personally, I’m fine with destruction. I play an Undead and losing Lordaeron gives me some motivation for why my character would hate the Alliance. What I think Blizzard needs to stop doing so much is recycle, and I actually think they need to stop building entirely new things when they have tried-and-true pillars to fall back upon. I don’t like building for the sake of it, unless we’re building on top of what we already have, and I really feel like all Blizzard wants to do is expand outward more and more to the point where the game might be stretched thin.

I wanted the Mag’har Orcs we recruited to be from Outland, not the alternate Draenor. And I was happy overall with the Nightborne and Highmountain stories, but only because we spent a big chunk of the game with them beforehand. I’m less satisfied with the Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei because we barely know them. The Dark Iron Dwarves, are the kinds of Allied Races we need more of. They’ve been with us a long time and are ripe for new development.

16

I hate the stupidity of the pointless destruction. It takes away from the setting more then it adds.

3 Likes
17

Depends on what is destroyed and whether or not it has any interesting consequences. Destruction for its own sake is as bad as building for its own sake too.

18

Because I’m a broken record, I once again point to Final Fantasy XIV as a game that successfully tells a compelling grand narrative, without sacrificing the importance of the playable character. They did this by making the narrative follow a much much smaller collection of characters that is outside the in game factions.

WoW’s problem is that well, they have an Alliance and Horde, who no matter what happens will always come to blows for one reason or another. While it is nice that everyone wants to dissolve the factions, the game just isn’t built like that so the two faction system has to remain. That doesn’t mean there can’t be a grand narrative with these two factions, but it would require said narrative to not include the Alliance and Horde.

So in an ideal world of 14 years ago when WoW was in development, the players would be “For the Alliance/Horde” for only about as long as it takes them to get out of their starting zones, then they end up joining some third party and whatever grand storyline they can come up with would not have to make concessions for the Alliance and the Horde.

1 Like
19

Insightful and beautifully written, thank you.

1 Like
20

I’ve been arguing this for years, OP, so I couldn’t agree with you more.

Blizzard has retreated from the possibilities of MMO storytelling to focus on a narrative that is written as if for a solo RPG…and lately not even that, with greater and greater emphasis on the NPCs.

We need the story to step back from the epic, apocalyptic conflicts and focus more on tales with local stakes, and that make sense for guilds and teams of adventurers. The massive player base is the singular opportunity that WoW’s writers have to work with, and they don’t seem to realize it.

2 Likes