We have Retail and Classic. Maybe I’m a bad searcher, but I didn’t find anything about a story mode. Has there been any discussion of a story mode? Basically start a toon and progress through quests/dungeons/raids to follow the story from Vanilla to now. Limited or no side quests, proly no professions. Maybe a lock on riding and flying till certain levels. Level by content rather than experience. Not a small project in my mind but so much of the groundwork is already there. Most likely all solo, so follower dungeons/raids. Opinions?
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you can do this yourself, right now. we don’t need a separate mode that 5 people would use.
Not to my knowledge other than the current raid. There’s a story mode fight that you can unlock for the final boss and you’ll fight with AI followers. But all it does is allow you to fight the final boss so that you can see the death cutscene and relevant info.
As far as old content, that can be farmed solo for the most part if you want to see the lore there. I don’t think they would revamp all of the old raids to involve followers just because they would have to program the AI for each one and that would likely be a lot of work.
You can basically do this now in Retail. I’ve got a guildie who has gone back through every expansion to play through each one, beginning to end, main questlines, dungeons and raids.
Now, my assumption is that you want to do this at level, so the problem will be dungeons and raids for you. So that won’t really exist for you.
You can limit yourself to how you get around if you want.
Not sure I’m being understood here, common for me. Yes, I can limit myself now with a new toon, but if you do not have a decent idea of the lore, you have to do some research to decide the next best way to go. Also, you will quickly outlevel the story.
Follower was a bad use of words, I did not mean carrying a supporting party with you, I meant solo and should have said it. Many solo old content now looking for specific drops. In story mode the difficulty could be lowered. Yes, there would be some fights that needed mechanics changed to be soloable.
In this world of moneytizing everything I would think Blizz could make this an option to your current account for another dollar USD each month (or rated to 3 month, 6 month etc). How many accounts are there?
Another silver lining is that people who skipped expansions could easily get caught up in the lore. If they were interested.
I think it can be reasonably argued that this MMO has become very solo centric. I would enjoy this idea but also think it could profitable.
Not that I have much hope of ever seeing it…
I feel so bad for newer WoW players.
The “proper” (in my opinion) way to experience WoW is to play through the expansions, in order, to get “the whole picture” as well as see which features stuck around.
Yet, I’m betting no one does this.
The old world is dead and forgotten. It wouldn’t feel like an MMO.
Boosts exist, etc.
They likely come in on Retail, and are somehow expected to become invested in characters and races, and a world they know nothing about.
I’d love for a “story mode” to exist, not for me personally (already a loremaster), but for those that are trying to catch up.
Maybe an expedited version of older WoW expansions with Retail quality of life, that won’t take too long to play through.
Other games have similar stuff. I remember playing through FF14’s older content at a faster pace.
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I understand the OP
Basically D3
Campaign mode
Adventure Mode
Retail currently is 3/4 adventure with a few gated campaign elements locked behind renown.
The problem is the persistent world and the adversity toward a offline mode whereby it’s just me going through the major story elements outside of group play or limited group play as in queueing for final boss like exile reach or Legion invasion or Pandaria Scenario
I disagree. The “whole picture” isn’t worth it. The story is a mess of retcons and contrivances. Neither are you really experiencing the game like in the “old days” due to different class design.
That’s inevitable. You only have so many players and the land mass keeps increasing every expansion. It’s impossible to have every zone be “busy”.
I think Blizzard has accepted this and now expansions are pretty much episodic. Everyone plays in the same (current expansion) areas.
The best lore for selling players on the various races is from vanilla and TBC outside the game. Maybe Wrath too. After that the inconsistencies, retcons, and just plain bad writing* become too much.
* Why is almost every main female lore character an angry violence-prone nut job?
The average person wouldn’t understand the story of WoW even if they tried
It’s told very poorly ingame
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the whole picture of this game is contradictions, retcons, and contrived nonsense with dropped plotlines.
And let’s be honest, how many people ever actually cared about this games lore?
And I mean beyond a surface level. I’m willing to bet most who play the game do so because the game is fun and lore falls to the wayside. Like even back in Cata in 2010, a massive chunk of the playerbase, to say the least, never read the damn quests.
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It used to matter to people a lot more in the past, before the retcons.
TBC, when Alliance got Draenei, there was a big outcry about it because we knew them as the Broken in Swamp of Sorrows- they were monsters made into an intelligent race, a lot of retcons occurred to make that happen.
As time went on, people have cared less and less because Blizzard itself doesn’t seem to hold lore/story in any kind of high regard. Shadowlands, for example.
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I don’t think a story mode could do the game justice but as someone who clearly remembers how they started and the past few years, the game does work pretty hard to ‘tie’ you into older areas to help you get a feel/taste for your starting areas.
I will in earnest say I’m glad they don’t take us too much into TBC/WoTLK because my first forays into those areas was confusing to navigate.
But yeah here’s a recap for me and where I got a feel as a late 2021 wow baby;
Exiles Reach: Some class lore and a feel for my faction.
BfA: ‘Horde is bad’, Save Kul-Tiras from our internal struggles. I did Tiragarde Sound + a bit of Stormsong + dungeons and was 48 ready for Shadowlands.
SL: Wait no suddenly we’re all mostly ok with each other up at Icecrown and Tyrande is very angry at Sylvanas and goes after her.
I get hints of what has happened in the past and that the faction war often divided the groups but that was largely over. I went to Ardenwield and learnt about all the past major raid bosses. I saved Kaelthas. I defeated Sylvanas and wore my belt of unity and legendary helmet and beat the Jailor in LFR. In the journey got. Information on Uther’s history with Arthas and many other heroes and villains.
DF: introduced a lot of new dragon lore but also touched on history with time rifts and the primalist and dragon aspects. You get teleported back to your ‘starter’ zone which was ironic for me as an exiles baby.
Basically they do show the history of the game but they keep things compact and relevant to not overload the player.
I spent with someone brand new like 4 days ago and they actually get a video recap upon starting the game also.
TLDR: Game gives the ‘seeds’ for learning about the history of it whilst not being overbearing. I do like the concept of a story mode but we get enough of a past feed that is relevant to our gameplay to let people who ‘want it’ be able to do it on their own terms.
Then they need to convert the level/storymode version of these into solo instances. No one does them anymore for any reason except transmogs or timewalking, but people do like to level through old content now and then on alts. Converting the storymode dungeons of these old expacs into "solo dungeons with non-elite mobs , while keeping timewalking options and legacy loot options for people doing transmog runs would still mean they are “relevant” for that sort of high level content too.