They were also surprised that Night Elves had appeal at all going back to the earliest days. Aside from a few in the team that kept things in check, Warcraft was built by largely a lot of Warcraft 2 fans, who elevated the Forsaken because they wanted playable scourge, and liked the evil Horde. Only a few more evenheaded folks, I would argue people like Metzen, kept the restraints on so that they could build an MMO, with all that that implies.
As Metzen was being groomed for retirement, you could see their influences creep in, and we are now left with their legacy.
Will they reverse course? Likely not, but we can still signal that they absolutely must.
Miserable, but entirely true. The baseline, though, is that players and developers think of the game in different mind sets. WoW is a huge universe, and the developers try to chart a course through it like theyâre steering a ship. They canât stop at every island, every port, or attend to every whale or fish they pass.
Players, being an equally massive entity/group, are the sailors on the ship who desperately want to stop at that one port in particular to get some drugs from the locals, or buy small things made out of straw from that one merchant, or to go for that one particular whale they spotted.
Not so long as theyâve given up on the idea of developing an MMO as an MMO, no. The appeal of such a thing is to take your little canoe to wherever you damn well please, and if the gamerunners want you to park it on one island or another for a day, they had better make it worth your while.
Not: âI DESTROYED YOUR FAVORITE ISLAND, NOW YOU HAVE TO CARE ABOUT SKULLCRUSHER MOUNTAINâ.
Well, they did found dev time to add poop joke quests and pop culture references.
If they wanted to tell a dramatic story, that kind of suggests to me, that maybe it was necessary to actually focus on that and explore the topic? Like, idk, set up of the events, some structure to the narrative that is not âwhatever convenient at the time, and the rest - placed on the shelf indefinitelyâ, etc.
Well, canât really agree with that. Itâs not like the devs canât be clear with what they focus on, and take into account the player reaction to be sure that what the players see is what the devs wanted to show. There are somehow games where the players actually did enjoy the story part. Even MMOs (like Secret World, rather bad but story was praised; ff14 âremakeâ come to mind, Guild Wars has some storylines that were considered good).
Thatâs like taking a child to the largest carnival in the world and they find a small rock in the parking lot, and that becomes their favorite part. The carnival should be the main attraction, and it should fulfill the role itâs designed for.
They could be, but keep in mind- there are a lot of players now with a lot of different interests. Part of the issue is they try to rush these highly specific stories out the door, and then hurry us onto the next thing rather than exploring the narrative in depth.
Instead of giving us a wide variety of diverse stories spread out over a long period of time, Blizzard sells us highly specific stories that are rushed and last only a short time.
Edit: Iâve been playing a lot of classic, and finding that what originally drew me into WoW was how exciting it was to have so many different stories to jump into. Post Wrath, itâs all just a very small amount of a very few things, and itâs just not as engaging.
If the players are more interested in the rock than the attractions, then the attractions suck.
Thatâs all that needs to be said. If developers are having to force people to engage with their content, rather than that content being exciting and interesting on its own, something has gone deeply wrong.
Obviously you wouldnât care since all you do is trying to expose me of being another Night Elf fan, which I honestly couldnât care less about. Whatâs the point youâre trying to make even?
50% genuine confusion at why you even bother and 50% cause the best way to fight anxiety and depression is to try and excise yourself from triggering events or behaviours and your constant doomer rants across like 4 different websites canât possibly be good for you.
Iâm not posting on a Worgen or Forsaken character and making comments that arenât genuine about how everything is perfect in their story, am I ?
Nope, still going over my head sorry. No idea what youâre talking about.
This is my favorite thing about Exiles Reach. Itâs like âMaybe they just donât get why people like the Horde?â then you play that and realize oh, no, they actually totally get it and could write it at any point easily, they just donât care lmao.
Man I have no idea how the formatting on This nightmare works anymore and frankly I donât care
Blizzard isnât taking into account the point that their âbig attractionâ isnât working. If players are more hyped about Zappy Boi than your entire big box faction war expansion⌠like⌠problem!?! Maybe we donât want a faction war that demonizes half the players?!! Maybe!?
Well this poster is posting on a Night Elf alt to say that everything is fine right?
So if I did that, Iâd create a Forsaken chracter and say that everything is great for Forsaken in the story.
This is why I pointed out the main, well, and because the poster has a history of gross comments and trolling.
Sorry Vanforth, youâve been confusing me a bit. We seem to be saying the same things, but the way things are framed, it often looks like youâre defending Blizzardâs design decisions, which I know you donât intend! Just an observation.
I donât think it matters what race you choose as your avatar, saying the story is great would still be wrong.
Of course, if youâre just saying that you are personally fine with how things are going, thatâs different, but over all the story is far from great.
Adding token bosses isnât enough if the whole story around them is trash.
Agreed, and I think it is quite an apt metaphor. WoW literally is a carnival/Coney Island.
Itâs the same rides on repeat, everyone does the same activities over and over, and nothing new ever gets added. We quest, we do dungeons on repeat, raids on repeat, get garbage loot that is the same expansion after expansion - just with different numbers, and then thatâs it. Thatâs all, folks.
Oh, Iâm not defending Blizzard; donât get me wrong. I think theyâve become lazy, uninspired, and generally combative when it comes to their flagship IP and its passionate player base.
But, I do understand that itâs difficult to design things for large groups of people with any certainty of hitting all the nails on the head.
When I dungeon master stories for my RP groups, I know I wonât get everyoneâs interest, but I try my best to tailor things to their passions, and I avoid things that I know Iâve done before, or that were received negatively. Blizzard doesnât.
Blizzard says âeveryone wants to see the Horde be bad guys again. Letâs do it!â despite having been down that road in MoP.
Blizzard says âeveryone wants to see the faction war get interrupted by a greater evil threat again. Letâs do it!â
And then they make the shocked Pikachu face when people riot.
I wish we didnât have faction avatars for the forums; dear god.
People need to step back from their faction of choice and start thinking objectively, as a player, before being a pro Horde or Alliance individual. Both sides suck, the writing sucks, and the company only cares about your money. Stop fighting the other players because of who they choose as their avatar.
I donât want to give this more credence than it needs, butâŚ
The question is one of investment. A lot of people like to counter typical Night Elf complaints with âIâm a Night Elf fan, and I donât think that!â when said people at best have a tangential relationship with the race and arenât seeing things through the lens of a Night Elf main - which matters in an MMO because thatâs the point where you get into the kind of personal identification that gets people to say, consistently advocate for the Forsaken, or for trolls, or for any other playable race. At worst, the claims to fandom are deliberately false, and are instead Horde posters advocating for Horde things with a Night Elf skin.
Do I think Renautus is one of those bad actors? Based on her argumentation, I canât really say so. This is why I seriously want people to step back from this line of attack.
It always surprised me that the forums tie everything to the individual characters you post on as opposed to a singular username/Bnet account. To the point where a character name change can cost you years of old post history.
I remember the failed attempt at RealID which would (idiotically) post usersâ actual First and Last names, but simple Bnet account names wouldnât be too far I think.
Kind of sounds like gate-keeping to me. âYouâre not REALLY a âinsert raceâ fan so if you disagree with my opinions it doesnât matterâ is not a war chant I could really get behind.
Itâs one thing if someone actively hates on a race and is just trolling by acting otherwise, but I kind of doubt thatâs the case.
But the other side of this coin is that when players get so entrenched in their favored race, it sets of lines of division that can contribute to the combative and toxic atmosphere. And this isnât a dig at you or anyone else in particular, but rather a general observation.
When Iâm working with my ELA high school students, the first thing we talk about is objectivity vs. subjectivity, and the value of stepping back from a particular work and trying to view it from multiple lenses.
So while Kaldorei mains can be upset (totally), they too should step back and try to be objective, just as any Horde player should step back and look at things through the Kaldorei lens. Itâs a really important part of discussion and debate that so few people on these forums demonstrate a capacity for.
As a general rule of them, I never call myself a Horde player or an Alliance player. I donât associate with any specific race, and my avatar is the main Iâve had for the past few expansions, simply for recruiting transparency.