The only quibble I have with this is that I don’t feel that it underlines enough that the story is tied in to the overall marketing for the game. It provides a sticky factor that makes the gameplay meaningful, and it can fill in for its weaknesses. It also must work with the gameplay in order to be effective.
To the extent that we have seen that break down, I would argue that other problems are as well becoming more visible. That nice cushion of brand equity is increasingly just not there.
Correct, but fun fact that’s the problem with the Geneva Conventions: they were approved on the basis that no country could retroactively sue any other country for war crimes, meaning Indigenous Territories couldn’t sue any American continent government, no Black people or African country could sue any European country (or the EU, later) for slavery, and more.
Mass murder of people was always universally wrong. What the 20th century changed is who gets to be “people” and the enshrinement of such in “international law”.
No you’re right, which makes it all the most interesting.
I have a working paper on the problems of “genocide” in WoW’s universe that’ll eventually be a chapter in the book; there’s no United Nations that can serve as a True Neutral Party (even though the UN Security Council is actually just Western Imperial Powers + Japan). Closest in-game UN-proxy is Dalaran for various reasons, and even then they kicked out their token “Other” (Aethas).
I just don´t focus on story cause it´s easier to point out irl proof in how much they DO ignore the very mechanisms set BY THEM focused in gameplay quality control (cause what do you think it´s the goal of the apha and beta testing?) When the population approved by their quality control policies A.K.A. alpha testing subjects tell them some stuff is problematic and this continue to happen in beta testing and the game even launchs WITH the issues detected weeks if not months before, the answer I perceive as a CTO myself is that their quality control policies HAVE a serious problem. Cause this shouldn´t happen in a company of Blizz´s caliber -they´re no third world micro company… they are a billion dolllar company ffs-).
The purge doesn’t compare but maybe if people stopped trying to retroactively justify a pogrom it wouldn’t happen.
Incidentally my main problem with the more hardliner nelf complaining is the whole “they’re deleting the race” thing; where were those dramatics for the Gnomes after Gnomer, the Draenei and the Sin’dorei started the game with a worse event in their history than Teldrassil, the Darkspear are pretty close. Like none of that stuff ever deterred people from whining about wanting playable alliance high elves as a core race.
I fully expect my kal’dorei characters to still be in my roster when SL ends, actually.
And frankly if you want to complain about the writers deleting the race, it’s on the writers, not on horde players
If you remove the reasons to play the race, that the race remains an option is not consolation. I also do not consider offscreen or RTS losses to be as significant as MMO losses where they rub your face in it, otherwise you’d hear me complaining about Felwood or the War of the Satyr. These items do not strike anywhere near as hard, or leave that sort of impression, especially when they happened before you made your selection.
To the extent that Horde players defend the actions of the writers in destroying the locus of investment and insist that nothing should change, I will call them out for that stance.
/offtop
With the way this topic seems to be handled by the devs, I fully would expect that a more realistic representation of the court in the setting as it is presented by the current dev team, would look like this
(sometimes I want the devs just do what they actually showed to do rather well, and make more of the story in the tone of Ardenweald theater. Imagine a story told from a PoV of Theotar on a shiny day. That could improve some of the plot lines)
gl hf
Sure. I blame them. “Insert entire book worth of insults and criticims”.
Now how do you fix a situation where the Horde has not once. but twice destroyed NE lands and cataclysm destroying whatever they didn’t?
The NEs are shown as weak, in disrepair, unable to defend themselves against any threat from the Horde in any meaningful way.
Even if the art team makes them a new city and restores their lands the Horde is still a constant threat that the Night Elves are totally unprepared to ever stop according to past events meanwhile gameplay restrictions requires Horde players and NPCs to eventually go back to NE quest givers to do one thing or another because much of wow lore is somehow related to the NEs.
How will we explain that suddenly the Horde that is directly responsible for much of the NE heartache can walk around like nothing has happened.
I blame the writers but I ask myself what can possibly Blizzard do to remedy the situation without the Horde players and fans saying they are being victimized, penalized or what have you if the NEs go any reparations or addressing of their concerns.
Or is the solution to let it all be. Give the Horde everything they currently deserve for their rebuilding while we leave the NEs and Alliance out in the cold once again because addressing their concerns penalizes the Horde in some ways?
You tell me because I am at a loss. I can blame the writers until kingdom come but its not really a solution.
I mean orc fatigue was real long before the WoD pre-patch, orc v humans is literally the worst part of Mists’ plot.
Also nobody is defending Teldrassil and the biggest things I see about Ashenvale is people not liking to be reminded that canonically the horde lost there (but with our genius writers I admit they’ll probably forget like they did after Mists)
I’m just going to add - I don’t want to play a Night Elf if this is how things are going to be. That’s the issue here. So sure, the option’s there on the character selection screen, but it’s been turned into a completely unpalatable one.
I don’t play video games to lose, and if that’s the only option for what I otherwise would want to play, I’m out.
I am just expecting the typical “Yeah but that 1/8 death ratio though” like honestly who cares what some NPC babbled about. The NE lands are still on fire and couple of patches those same Horde NPCs and NE NPCs will be singing kumbaya because if not the Horde player will be penalized.
Not saying this is true or not but it is the argument that is put forward.
This is a small point in comparison to the aspects that such an argument deliberately ignores, but I have not seen the citation for the 1:8 K:D ratio.
It’s like most zones in the old world are in a time bubble or something.
Cata Ashenvale sucks and a questing update would be nice but that’s a patch or expansion-sized undertaking with old world updates.
Do I particularly care about it not being a warfront when I despise the warfront concept and think any dev who tries to brainstorm another wpvp-focused expansion ever again should be given an intern whose only role is to slap them when they bring it up? No not particularly.
I’m going to say that if the development team can find the resources to humiliate us, like they did in the War of the Thorns and with the millions of dollars that they plowed into environment updates, commissioned art, and cinematics, then they can find the resources to build us back up.
They still happened. Once in Cata where it persists until today and again for BFA.
This doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter or if theoretically lorewise they got it back and it was fine again.
In fact it would be worse for Blizzard to revamp an area but to soon after destroy it again.
Doesn’t solve the Horde problem as I mentioned.
Still doesn’t explain about the political and security question of the NEs being at the mercy of the next Horde attack.
We can and are blaming the writers. What solution do you have? Because it seems even a little vengeance has become a quite a tricky situation for the NEs.
Because the proposals for vengeance are all over the place and range from “reset the borders to pre-cata” (I’m 99% for it although I won’t lie, including Winterspring and Azshara based largely on the quel’dorei’s great grandparents always seemed a bit maximalist to me, otoh goblin-ruled Azshara is an eyesore so it’s a wash for me) to “raze orgrimmar to the ground and commit even more genocides” which is frankly ridiculous, encouraging the devs to go further in race war nonsense isn’t going to fix anything about the plot.
editing: My 1% reluctance was mostly based on questing zones, which the new leveling system solves more elegantly than asking Tauren, Troll and Belf players to be happy they’re helping clear cut a forest.
I think the former of the two are coming from people who recognize that the game needs to be balanced, whereas the latter are expressing goals that the race probably should have, but that shouldn’t actually be realized if you value a sustainable game. Faction maximalism is of course, a two-way street.
But I wouldn’t take the existence of the latter as an occasion to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you agree with the first situation (sans Azshara, I think that’s unfair to goblins), then we probably line up on more than we disagree on.
Lets not jump from one extreme to another and humor the extremists. Erevien is one and no one takes him seriously and for good reason.
I doubt blowing up any Horde city is going to be satisfactory anyway. Land retaking and some cinematic that gives them an empowering moment is good enough. But honestly I am still waiting for my own Alliance themed Saurfang style cinematics.
Then rebuilding areas with some cool defences with some Horde characters making apologies and assurances that it won’t happen again is the best any Alliance has any right to hope for.
The war is over,
its a ceasefire. It isn’t by any account.
The permanent members include Russia and China, did you forget?
Any veto from a Security Council member voids any thing on the table.