Do You Like the WAY the Story is Being Told?

Lore Story Forum
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Big characters leading the story. Interpersonal drama. EPIC moments. Important landmarks destroyed in said EPIC moments. Heroic, inspiring monologues from every other character.

Meanwhile, the player is…there. Mostly tagging along and hitting stuff when told to by the main characters.

This has been the blueprint for Warcraft stories for quite a few expansions now, and as another forum poster put it,

Personally, I’ve never liked this style of storytelling, as it downplays the WORLD of Warcraft (of which the player is a part) in favor of HEROES of Warcraft and their personal stories.

I’m fine with our leaders getting the spotlight sometimes, especially during climactic moments where they logically SHOULD be fighting alongside us. But being the protagonists? I…kinda hate it.

But I’d hate it a lot less if Blizzard was actually GOOD at telling these grand, sweeping, character-driven narratives.

But they’re not. It’s awful. Everyone’s personality feels drained from them in favor of formulaic monologues. Half the cast is moping about in their feelings, and that COULD be a good thing if it was:

  1. Occasional
  2. Written well

But it’s constant and written terribly. Half the cast just bums me out with their teenage-level doubts and drama. Meanwhile, they’re too stupid and distracted to make intelligent decisions, and often come across as bumbling, bummed out bafoons, failing to recognize what’s going on long after the player has put the pieces together.

I much prefer the days where the story felt like an RPG about the player’s own adventures.

And you may think Blizzard is incapable of returning to this style, or that you can’t have that style of writing in a modern MMO.

But Blizzard writes like this all the time…in the side quests.

I know this is an old take, but relatively speaking the side quests are so much better than the main story in terms of player agency, worldbuilding, and personal storytelling.

I cane across a quest in the ringing deeps the other day, where it was just my characrer figuring something out on his own, without any larger than life leader telling him what to do. It was so…refreshing.

A part of me wishes the side quests were the entire game.

The main questline is so formulaic, so cringe, so melodramatic, and the leaders take up so mucn breathing room that I just can’t stand it anymore. XD

It’s not as bad as Dragonflight, where I had to turn off the voice audio, but it’s bad.

With all this in mind, I really gotta ask:

Does anyone like or enjoy Blizzard’s storytelling?

I’m not asking if you think, “it’s okay” or “it doesnt bother me” or “its fine the way it is”.

Who LIKES the way Blizzard tells the story?

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WoW is not Swtor, but still try to make you like the main character of the story.

I think that, it would be better for the story if the player was not relevent and that the actual characters did the things.

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No. Using big lore characters for everything means they’re not developing a stable of side characters, and it heavily restricts what they can do without making characters go through manic swings (Hi Jaina!)

Main characters having to do everything gets ridiculous at some points too (Baine Bloodhoof: Attauren at law)

It shrinks down a setting that is supposed to be on a global scale and narrows the focus down to a handful of dev favorites. We had a single expansion vacation from Jaina/Anduin being plot relevant and now they’re getting storylines about how sad they are.

It also exacerbates other issues, the Horde roster being culled to hell is worse because there’s no side characters primed to fill the gap, and zero effort was put into fixing that until this current patch

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Yes, if I didn’t I would just not play like BfA and SL. DF is my favorite expac so far, I dont like faction conflict and I dont want it all about me me me as some demi god muder hobo.

I feel more involved with these stories however the consensus here seems to only be acceptable to hate it so I wont bother going into any details.

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Not really. I’d prefer the big name characters to only be used sparingly. 90% of the time, I would prefer them sitting on their chairs handing out quests. As the Champion, the Maw Walker, the (insert class hall leader) my character should front and center doing the epic things. I don’t play RPGs to be someone’s sidekick.

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in terms of story SWTOR; ESO and GW2 are all miley better then WOW simply because they use cutscenes and the PC in better ways as center oaf attention. Extra shoutout to the Sith Empire cuz it never feels like Bioware plays favorties like Blizzard does for the alliance. But I always return to WOW in hope of my favorite stuff(Goblins and Blood elves) end up on the top somehow. That is all I am asking for.

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I mean, I have my issues with it, but not the same issues you seem to have.

BfA was a good way to tell the story… if I get your meaning… but the story wasn’t good. So what does that matter?

In BfA, I felt like one of many champions of the Horde, serving the Horde on various fronts, and fighting the Alliance where ever they transgressed. That was good - except the actual story of the Horde fighting itself and being saved by the Alliance sucked.

Meanwhile… in Legion, we were the wielder of the Artifacts and leader of the Order Halls… we were the stars of the show… it is recognized as one of the better expansions.

In Shadowlands, it was all about Tyrande, Sylvanas, and Anduin … and we were along for the ride.

I think discussing which method to deliver the story ends up tying itself to the story that is being told.

Oh. My. God. War Crimes was odious. I can’t even right now.

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What is this victim complex? If you like it you like it. I’ll probably disagree but no one is gonna yell at you or anything, lol.

So please go into detail about what you like. I want to understand your perspective, even if I disagree with it.

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I know YOU will be normal about it, but ive seen such a lack of emotional intelligence when it comes to this topic that I just know others will derail it into one of three arguments that are just on repeat here.

I understand the points you made and why you dislike it, however, I feel this game story has always had a lack of character agency and the other elements that I do like make up for it currently.

While you make good points, the rest of the hate crowd has just been saying exhaustingly ridiculous stuff lately. I just don’t feel the want to talk here anymore.

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Read Gaunts Ghost, Horus Heresy, Fabius Bile, Soul Hunter, Keepers of the Throne, Siege of Terra… all these (and i have 258 books) are brilliant stories. They are human in origin and human centric… what wow has is basically a really bad set of dungeon masters thinking they are clever by using modern tropes and memes and more concerned about making sure everyone attending the game are acting in a way that doe not upset the inner child of the Dev(s), managment, activist game masters, or the gas lighting players

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Every race except for human is badly lacking in characters outside their racial leader. Every time the story focuses on the big name characters it’s mostly humans with maybe Thrall and a token character of another race if we’re lucky, or Baine if we’re unlucky. I’m tired of following Anduin and Jaina around like they’re the main characters of Warcraft.

Dalaran getting destroyed was a very good thing for the setting though.

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Well, you know, isn’t this how it was in Classic? I’m not opposed to WoW having a more SWTOR/Final Fantasy esque form of storytelling, but I don’t think that’s ever been there for WoW.

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How the story is being told in Undermine so far is how I like it, Gazlowe is technically a big lore character but he’s a much more grounded one that needs to rely on us, the player, to be the muscle in combat situations. It’s a stranger in a strange land situation where we, the champion, are out of our depth in all ways except combat, so we need to navigate the new situation as we figure out what to do.

We’re important, and there’s a lore character or two there, but neither is overwhelming the other. It’s much more like the side content quest experience this expansion than the other main line ones. I also appreciate that it’s thoroughly a goblin story, Alleria pops up for a chapter but then skitters off again, but at the same time you can feel the influence of the other Horde characters on Gazlowe as he wrestles with his hate of Undermine.

I consider everything we’ve had since Shadowlands to be an improvement, granted, and I know they’re trying to find their footing with things. It’s especially difficult to do a hard reset on the way they write things, since the playerbase is much more volatile and loud compared to when they did the same in Cata.

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I love hearing Alliance perspectives on this issue.

I will say, as a dwarf fan I’ve been eating good lately. But as a former Draenei MAIN? Where are my space goats at?!

Why is this game so focused on humans, short humans, and pale humans with pointy ears? I mean come on its not like any of these races feel like non-humans anymore.

Are they just unable to relate to fantasy races? The people who are writing a high fantasy universe? Is it really that simple?

No?

In classic the people driving the story are the players collectively. I don’t remember Thrall or Jaina appearing even when it made sense for them to do so (like in raids). The main exception I can think of off the top of my head is Saurfang leading the war against the Qiraji, and even then the game focused mostly on the individual players driving the war effort.

I’m fine with larger than life characters advancing the setting in the background, or serving as quest givers, or fighting alongside us during MAJOR moments, but as someone who plays a lot of Classic, the story really comes across as the story of the WORLD and your personal, albeit small, role in it

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I think there should be a room for balance? Like, with Legion, which is considered more of a ‘Champion’-centric story, I feel like there was still plenty of progress being made for the main cast to shine and grow. Velen and Illidan got their time to shine. So did Turalyon and Alleria. Thalryssa’s storyline was incredible and we even got time for characters like Liadrin and the oft neglected (perhaps thankfully) Rommath.

I feel like my frustration with the current story comes from a couple things:

  1. The main cast is increasingly static and made up of a lot of ‘market-tested’ characters who don’t always feel like they know what they’re even doing in an expansion, often sucking up air from characters that should have a connection to the events. Like, I personally don’t want to quest with Vereesa, but Dalaran is such an incredibly central part of her story and it sucks she’s not around.

  2. Stories feel like they’re told in buckets now. We arrive in a place, solve all of their problems, and then they don’t exist anymore. And, sure, that’s fine for like the Tuskar in Azure Span. They’re just happy to be around.

But, for characters like Xal’atath, we should have Nerubians being around. They should still be part of her story because of what she did to them. And they’re not? I’d reckon once we ‘solve’ Undermine, outside of Gazlowe, we’re not seeing any of the gobbos, either.

  1. That also leads into the idea that villains aren’t given the time to be everyone’s villain anymore. Like, you look at characters like Arthas. Everyone wanted a piece of him and not all just because he wrecked one city. The main cast had a lot of characters who had different levels of connection with him and for different reasons. I think of the entryway to Icecrown and there’s so many people there for so many different reasons and they don’t even all want that fight to end in the same way.

In comparison, really, who is Xal’atath? I mean, I’m someone who mained shadow priest in Legion. I should feel the most personally connected to her as a villain, but she’s not my villain. Dalaran’s just another city destroyed for shock value-- something I’m increasingly numb to --and the only cast member that she seems interested in is Alleria. So, confrontations with her just feel like I’m in the background, mildly annoyed at my slow priest DPS, while she and Alleria are shouting at each other.

I don’t care. And there’s no one in the cast that seems to be terribly invested in her beyond ‘she’s a bad person who must be stopped’ and that’s… underwhelming? She’s presumably a multi-expansion villain. Where’s the pathos?

  1. They have this need to ‘solve’ everything. I get the feeling that some of this comes from newer writers frustrated they have to answer for overdue problems from previous expansions. But it ends up feeling like we leave every zone perfectly ‘handled’ and have no reason to ever return or care about what happens there. Character stories are neatly wrapped up with no hook for future development. Was Genn a compelling, complicated character? Don’t worry, we talked it out. He’s sorted out his feelings, so he can just show up to be Anduin and Tess’ puppy dad without any of that uncomfy baggage.

  2. Which leads to everyone sounding the same. And it feels doubly bad because we don’t have faction-specific questing anymore. Like, sure, I bet they find it nice they don’t have to spend time writing two campaigns and Johnny Human Paladin can finally level up together with Agatha Orc, but it means the smaller, more fun faction-specific characters that made up those faction questlines aren’t there anymore. And man, I just miss Forsaken quest-givers. I crave their specific brand of gallows humor. This tiny trickle of maybe one or two a patch, if that, does not bring me joy.

And that’s a giant, impenetrable block of text. But, yeah, that’s all basically to say I agree. I think the current story-telling makes for a bland main story quest that is hard to care about and while, sure, WoW’s writing has never been perfect, I think we wouldn’t be here arguing about it if there hadn’t been something that got us hooked to it to begin with.

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Or when it involves another race, or a new race, they’re written as humans. Example: long-lived Night Elves behaving exactly the same as the human next door, or Orwenya just getting on with it. The storytelling does not pause to reflect what a fantastical world this is and frankly it gets old.

I’m also really sick of Anduin. Maybe I’m hypersensitive to it and thus blowing it out of proportion in my mind, but it seems every expansion involves a plot where he goes missing and we have to chase him down - Mists, Legion, Shadowlands, and now TWW.

I’m also tired of his story essentially repeating and nauseum. He’s been emo, finding himself and coming into his own for multiple expansions - MOP, Legion, BFA, Shadowlands, TWW.

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Every word of this. So well put.

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Oh yes, the leaders rarely played a major role. It’s just from your post, I understood it as you wanting the characters to have a BIGGER role, than what they have now. Yes, I agree the PC seems like they’re along for the ride nowadays. In expansions like Legion, you were the Class Order Leader, the Commander, the champion, etc., and we all know you weren’t in Vanilla.

A common complaint is that people just want to be nameless adventurers again like they were in vanilla, and that necessitates having a smaller role than they did, say, back in Wod, and that itself is a smaller role than say SWTOR.

So sorry for the rant here, but I guess I was just kind of confused about the gist of your post haha.

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No need to be sorry. You make good points.

But yeah, I’m honestly fine with both the classic method AND the Legion method. I’d prefer some balance between the two honestly.

I’m pretty partial to the vanilla concept of “the playerbase COLLECTIVELY drives the story”, but some individual hero moments would be nice as well.

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I don’t want to be a nameless adventurer

I want to be the lauded champion that causes entire worn armies to regain vigor and morale just from hearing I stepped foot on their battlefield as an ally. I want to rub shoulders with the grunts, I want to work with squads, and preferably go back to a WoD style leadership role.

I don’t want to be the designated murder-agent on call for every lore figure in the series while they trauma dump on me.

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