I don’t believe it is currently possible for WoW’s writing team to “Get me back”.
After playing FFXIV and experiencing an actually good narrative that has themes and says something, anything, I cannot play WoW the same way anymore. I come here to play a game. It’s just a game to me now. I come here to do the M+ season, collect cosmetic rewards to play dressup with my dollies, and maybe RP.
There are some interesting sidequests, there is some interesting lore and worldbuilding buried away from the main quest. It’s not bad, but it’s overall flavorless slop.
I’ll be sure to feel generically pleased when the generic orchestra themes play when the generic elf council is elected.
Best we can do is rewrite every single blood elf into being basically a generic Silver Hand paladin in characterization.
I wanna like it but it’s really annoying how they’ve defanged Geyarah and rewritten her (and Danath for that matter) into these ultra-conciliatory peacemakers. Geyarah should be one of the leading skeptics on the Horde side about the Alliance and light worshipers and the like but she’s just Thrall 2.0 in that questline.
Which IMO is a bit of a problem with Undermine(d) too; Gazlowe and by extension the Bilgewater got hit with the neutral bat in a big way and Goblins as a whole got pretty severely watered down by the story arc there; Gazlowe doesn’t really come off as an exceptional individual for having a bit of care for his people when the entirety of goblin society is led by his close buddies who basically all agree with his agenda.
That, more than anything, is the big issue with the whole story. Basically every character (except a few edgy Main Characters like Alleria and Turalyon) are on this same general trajectory of becoming neutral, toothless clones of Thrall. It’s just a bit flat and dull.
Remove the subplot about Varessa dissolving the Silver Covenant and instead play up the irreconcilable differences in beliefs and culture between the Rendorei, the Alliance high elves, the Sin’dorei, and the Night Elves. Don’t sacrifice cultural identity for the sake of “unity”.
On a larger scale?
Shelve anything and everything to do with Stormwind and the Wrynn’s unless it’s absolutely necessary - and if you have to give the humans some writing ---- let it be for outlying settlements and how they’re currently doing like Lakeshire, Southshore, Menethil Harbor, Darkshire, and Sentinel Hill. Stormwind can burn for all I care.
Prioritize non human stories in the Alliance. And for Gods’ sake give Gnomeregan back to the gnomes and take it out of the instance’d dungeon state that nobody plays through
Give the overworld a much needed “reverse Cataclysm” update. Not instanced, but like what we’re seeing with Quel’Thelas in midnight — part of the rest of the worldmap. Fix/rebuild all of the zones that have been destroyed over the years, in particular Darkshore.
Yeah. It’s tough that the whole ‘World of Peacecraft’ problem really is highly salient right now, because the people parroting it very often have agendas, but the current writing team is clearly just a little cripplingly afraid of conflict. Which is… common, in modern fantasy writing. It reminds me of a similar problem that seems to be happening in League of Legends lore, in which Riot seems to be on the cusp of more or less retconning the moral grayness of their Shining Human Paladin Kingdom because we just don’t want to deal with that stuff anymore.
It’s tough because I do think a correction was needed from the WOD / Legion / BFA-era ‘mean alcoholic edgelords writing a story where everyone hates each other and takes turns war criming each other’ tone, but Dragonflight on has been pretty clearly an overcorrection.
i think i’m finally at my limit. as a Belf main but always a Horde player first, i no longer recognize my favorite race and i don’t see my faction of choice represented in the story
Velves make my skin crawl, such a contrived, parasitic race stripping Belves of personality and relevance
i got to the Twilight Highlands but could not get past the first quest due to the lag, though i did read the quest text and listen to the extra dialogue and the writing is on the wall, that they’re yet again going to have an Alliance character berate and school a Horde character on their attitude, their past and present choices. it’s going to be a big “told you so” to Rommath about “putting our differences aside and working together”
i.e., giving up our capital city and any last shred of uniqueness
i have 5 days on my sub, i have the Midnight expac, i have no interest in the story or resubbing. i want to play TBC but i don’t want to give modern Blizzard a penny more, this sucks
Ias ive been sayign and expêctng since first anouncement
gonna likly see our leaders replaced and alliance oen,s installed ala 'queen" calia with arator being chosen of lighjt and shadow and saviour of all becuase PLOT
like rommath? - Umbric
Halduron ?. - Alleria (who was called ranger general multiple including portait for housing, same as calia being called queen, which just shows what theyree inetrnally seen as , same with wild elf haronir) OR its Vereesa
Lorethemar? well arator as leader of ALL elves
but as hrode like DO CUSTOMISATION MAKES SENSE ! as blizz said
yet cant even do belf or even velf ANYTHING for the belf lands expac, and cant get a new DH class for the horde (NB) and even void elf they put like as little effort as possible
I didn’t mention anything about the comment about being “detached” from the story, because it wasn’t the question. But it is totally true. The only thing that keeps me around is my guild and I’m playing increasing amounts of Final Fantasy XIV. If and when my guild runs it course, I’m probably gone.
I’m there also. I’ve been discussing whether I should even play Midnight with my bf. And while Quel’thalas looked great in beta, I did not enjoy the story at all. Because of it’s heavy focus on Alliance characters and not really much growth or focus on Blood Elves themselves. And with no Horde presence to be seen.
I feel like we are getting pushed out in favor of Alliance focus. And that seems to be who they want playing their game.
Now with the article about killing off more characters, after the leaks about the Sunwell becoming the Dawnwell for all elves and it feels like the core tennants of the game have suffered a death by a thousand cuts.
I thought housing would keep my interest, but endeavors have been a boring grind. And with the pruning of classes and all the errors, bugs and addon problems now. It just feels like a struggle.
Maybe I should leave the game to the ones they seem to want to make it for. Ones who love these latest moves.
I’ve played on and off since it launched but mainly as a solo player. The rich lore and story is what kept me coming back and lately the zone stories and smaller characters and their character arcs are what have been keeping me around. It’s hard for me to commit a specific time for raiding or more structured groups but I have found my way to have fun.
When narrative trusts breaks, one become detached from the story. You do not get emotionally connected when it doesn’t exist. The writer is trying to take you on journey but you no longer want to get in the car because you do not have a good feeling on where they may take you.
I’m wondering if focousing too long on the rule of cool and shock value have created a sense of desensitization and lack of cohesiveness.
If they stopped focusing on optics and safety and actually went back to telling a story about warcraft, instead of friendcraft, it would do a lot. For a while now I’ve been excited about Illidan returning as some demi-god form (fan theory he defeats sargeras and absorbs his power) but at this point I hope he stays gone, lol.
Totally agree. I think what they’re doing is focusing on Alliance because they intend to get rid of the Horde/Alliance factions and just have one major faction, story building would be easier and more linear for them this way and it would benefit from only building one major faction since the other faction would just adopt its momentum. Just a theory.
If they want one faction, they seem to be looking to just drop the Horde, leaving half the player base disconnected from the story, rather than combining the factions
If true, would feel awful for everyone but people that wanted the game to be neutral. Their neutrality so far is just Alliance focus. I would not see that changing if they did just delete factions. They love forcing their Alliance characters on us. And have since Legion. At this point, I just want them to be honest about it. They keep saying they are not doing that but every action runs against those claims.
taht be just alliance
but even smalelr now dont have to even think about say gnomes ever cause well no factions!!!
let alone for horde races/characters that already get nothing when blizz liek “has” to use them
I’m convinced that the expansion following The Last Titan will do away with factions altogether. We’ve had three expansions in a row where the faction conflict was missing, and I don’t think it is going to be revisited in Midnight or The Last Titan either, so that’s almost a decade of peace.
I think the writing team just decided it was too restrictive to write a narrative about two warring factions that have actual players in them who would be upset if their side was portrayed as the final losing side. So they can’t effectively ‘resolve’ the conflict in any way except an armistice to pursue some larger threat, or having permanent peace, which they’ve been steadily building the narrative toward for nearly ten years now.
I mean this is also just wrong, there’s a whole dungeon in midnight where you kill forsaken for collecting trinkets of sylvanas, Faction conflict is also the story of pvp. they aren’t afraid of doing it, they just want to do it in side stories to avoid getting people on their back.