Sit down with Associate Design Director Maria Hamilton, Associate Game Director Morgan Day, Cinematic Narrative Director Terran Gregory, and host Community Manager Bethany Stout for a special WoWCast.
Hmm. I am genuinely curious. Because this arc seems incoherent so far. After listening to the cast, I understand the worlds now. And the worlds do look good. The feeling of war or threat to azeroth is not being built up. And Anduin is still a whiney child. No one would follow that.
I am so glad that they are finally correcting how they tell their story and also love that we can track side quest now on the map and yes we can do it right now but in terms of tracking them in modern zones they aren’t available only in TWW.
I’m glad that this development team is so excited about their new direction for the game. I’m not. They tend to forget that in their ham-fisted pursuit of a “wider audience”, there are people who have faithfully played for almost 20 years and made this game what it is.
So what is your complaint about the story exactly? We have a long term enemy that we have been interacting with for 4 x-packs and a catastrophic threat (Azeroth the titan) that has been specualated on for years.
Seems like pretty normal wow stuff.
I’ve also played this game for 20 years…and I have no clue what you are refering to
I expect Danuser-levels of suckage.
BlizZard is forcing people that want to use TBC normal flying to do the story but not DR.
They are contradicting themselves as always!
If you want us to care about story make the story interesting!
What a concept!
What makes me upset about the story, Only two expansion to me was done right. Legion and MOP.
9 out of 10 times. Blizzard misses the mark on it.
Warlords? Just imagine what could have been.
Shadowland? Again such a missed chance.
BFA? Horde vs Alliance is peak warcraft. Yet falls flat.
So Blizzard track record is pretty darn bad.
Come meet the new era of storytelling, same as the ol’ era of storytelling…
Id be less pessimistic if the only responses to reasonable story concerns from devs weren’t incredibly patronizing non-answers.
The machine is a huge letdown. The story isn’t phased in, it is just thrust upon you all at once in an easily skippable storyline. Delves don’t add anything to the story. Hero talents are just given to characters instead of having a build up or an explanation of the path. Anduin is a whiner and Thrall no longer acts like a big mean warrior. I again like the zones but the presentation is nothing new or exciting.
The entire idea of a game is that you can play a story. The story is more presented in cutscenes and spoken text instead of having the hero, you, be part of the progression. It is not seen from your eyes, but from everyone else’s and you are just there.
Among well reasoned and thoughtful replies to the OP, there’s one bit of “suckage” that stood out.
Already started in TBC with a lot of retcons. Just because many like to put on their nostalgia glasses, they don’t want to see it. But even in TBC, many things started to strongly contradict previously established lore.
Do they talk about the Horde version of the story, or is it just accepted that everything is the Alliance version these days?
Is there a lore team within WoW anymore?
I remember a while back hearing the lore team was dismantled lol.
I imagine that wasn’t a good idea in hindsight, unless they weren’t listening to the lore team at all.
If you hire developers who actually like the game and have played it, you wouldn’t need a lore team.
Nicely done and good walk through of what to expect! I do agree the local stories in TWW are quite fun and interesting and quest lovers I believe will enjoy quite a few! Also look forward to Delve progression as anything new like this always is fun to take on. Looking forward to the cinematics and how the story develops (yes people that like the story exist, or pay attention to it :O).
Alliance/Horde… Remember when the player used to be the focus and you were the one to out Onyxia, or save Marshal. After all these years of saving Azertoth, you are just an observer.
Last I heard, Anduin killed Onyxia, when he was still a small child.
We pale in comparison to the god-king anduin.
Sadly I don’t think we’ll get seperate stories within the factions anymore.
Alliance & Horde, as we knew it in the past, is over.
Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction to the BfA War Campaigns (Lady Sylvanas’s Edgy Adventure) and how poorly recieved they were.
But yeah, seems as of SL and DF, no more unique faction-wide stories.
Alliance and Horde just helping each other like best friends, genocide is just water under the bridge now lol.
Rolled my eyes hard when Forsaken helped Gilneans reclaim their land from the Scarlet Crusade.
And again when, on my Alliance characters, helped the Tauren/Baine in the plains.
So yeah, guess it’s been established though the narratives that both factions get to enjoy a singular story with token characters from each faction now.
Okay. How about alternating, then?
TWW will be the FIFTH Alliance-centric expansion in a row.
If Blizzard’s hack writing team refuses to deliver anything for the Horde half of its playerbase, then hire a Horde writing team.
You can keep the current team for the Alliance, or fire them outright, I don’t care.