It’s absolutely insane that you would pass judgement on the story after saying only one post ago
Is judgement only allowed in the positive direction? Or just your chosen direction?
Ah yes, the good old baseless “you dont like it because it’s not what you want” hand wave. Funny how in every instance of this cropping up, no one really demands any specific headcanon be told. I suppose the crime is actually just not wanting it to be bad storytelling, wanting characters and plot elements to make sense.
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No they really weren’t. They sabotaged their own lore as early as BC to fit blood elf paladins with a ridiculous plot device. They made Jaina go from a peace loving leader to a warmonger with the horde over nothing. Same with Yrel, which was the only good character the Alliance got in WoD.
And they also inceasly repeat the “fallen hero” trope in their games. Heck, the Diablo story is fallen heroes in an infinite loop. If you think Blizzard is an ace at story telling I dunno, you must be playing nothing but Blizzard games.
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Yes, they really were. SC1 and WC3’s campaigns in particular had critical acclaim.
I very clearly said PREVIOUS to WoW in the very sentence you quoted. Stop responding to me if you’re unable to read and/or unable to comprehend what I write.
I saw the Netflix documentary about He-Man! What a cluster that show was, the folks who put it together had no clue what they were doing and it really showed!
Still did really well though. 
We must have watched different documentaries.
On what planet did Starcraft and Warcraft III get “critical acclaim” for their story? I’d sure like to play those versions.
Sure Starcraft had (and still has) the best story in a Blizzard game sure but its writing, character development, world building, plot, directing, etc. was nowhere near the quality of Baldur’s Gate and Xenogears, two other games that were released on that same year.
And Warcraft III’s story was really nothing special. I mean it wasn’t bad, and I enjoyed the human and orc campaigns, but it was very standard and predictable. And again, looking at what else came out the year Warcraft III came out (too lazy to check but I think Final Fantasy X and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic were that year) there’s no way a publication that wants to be taken seriously would have given Warcraft III high praises for its story.
You were defending previous expansions in one of your older posts so chill. If you can’t discuss in a civil manner you’re the one who should stop responding and take a deep breathe.
Whether or not anyone likes this point, he’s right.
Actually trying to think of which character did it first.
A quick check of the various release dates, we have answer:
Kerrigan
Yep, the playable character from the original Starcraft who got captured by the Zerg and turned into the “Queen of Blades”. Novel for the time, but now it REALLY is getting repetitive.
From that perspective, Sylvanas isn’t Garrosh 2.0 – she’s Kerrigan 12.0 (didn’t actually count, but I don’t think I’m that far off). Heck, this isn’t even the first time Sylvanas has gone from a “good guy” to a “bad guy” character; that happened all the way back during Warcraft III.
I think we can actually start calling it a running gag at this point.
Blizz’ strong suit has ALWAYS been their gameplay (which makes what happened with BfA all the more baffling), and its continuous focus on online multiplayer. Thanks to that, I wouldn’t be surprised if their VERY dedicated playerbase actually hasn’t “branched out” and tried other games. They’ve never really had to… and one could argue that they’ve been put off from story-focused games simply due to unfamiliarity.
The great plots of some games could very well be incomprehensible to devout Blizzard fans, they’ve been stuck with the basic variety for so long they just can’t process it.
A few things there.
- The plots of SC1 and WC3 are DEFINITELY examples of the good “big dumb plots” that we know Blizz can deliver on.
- SC1 having the first “fallen hero” villain (Kerrigan) was novel… for the time.
- That over 20 years ago.
Times change, and people are expecting more.
Amusing little factoid I just pieced together.
Starcraft came out 7 weeks AFTER Xenogears.
Probably doesn’t mean much for a lot of people, but Xenogears is a game with a plot that was YEARS ahead of its time. Heck, you can still argue that no game has yet to approach the quality of the plotline contained within that game… though other games are FINALLY starting to get close, 20+ years later.
The gameplay, budget, and development time of the game weren’t that great even for the time and haven’t aged that well… but the plot was in a league of its own, and remains so to this day.
But yeah… the “fallen hero” isn’t anything new in a storyline.
In fact, these days? It’s barely a blip on the radar.
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I thought the cinematic was pretty good, until Sylvanas flew away like superman, that was dumb in my opinion.
- TBC: Nonsensical plotlines (Serpentshrine Cavern, Illidan), horribly misused characters (Vashj, Kael’thas, and Illidan), and “hints” that were never followed up on like those portals to other worlds that were never used.
- Cataclysm: Deathwing was a worthless Kaiju, Worgen and Goblins had no relevance in the expansion they were introduced (unlike Draenei and Blood Elves before them), Aggra.
- WoD: entire storylines were cut, “Draenor is free!”, characters were pointlessly developed after they were killed off (Mar’gok, Iskar) leading to well-developed or at least likable characters that had no purpose in the story, the Iron Horde was a pathetic flop of a villain organization that was crushed immediately with ease.
If you drag out any story it eventually becomes convoluted, repetitive and silly. This even happens to really good TV shows that are dragged out. Expecting a good story from WoW if it continues to build on the previous narrative is only going to be disappointing at this point.
I would not say WoW has amazing writing, but it is not terrible either (Except WoD, time travel is almost always a bad idea unless your story is built around it).
The main issue with the WoW story is it is fractured into seperate segments. Different stuff is happening from between the factions, races, classes, different stuff is happening between quest zones and game content, different stuff is happening between the game world, novels, comics, audio dramas, lore compendiums, etc.
This fracturing makes it hard to decipher what exactly is going on, and certainly different takes and level of writing quality to the various parties writing the details compounds this. The only good ways to actually understand what is going on is to digest all of that content or to watch/read lore breakdowns by those that do, which in itself comes with bias.
This is a difficult thing to fix though. Some of this stuff is fractured for a good reason. Novels are a great way to get into the details and to set up the greater narrative. Comics are good for short and sweet visual story telling and dramatics. Gameplay is alright and required medium to push forward the big events. Some events don’t make sense to be viewed from the player perspective.
Ideally, you should want all the content digestible from the game itself, but that is not always viable. Game assets are a lot more constraining to put together, and they can only put so much content in with their limited time frames, and I am sure most would prefer actual major game content to be being produced over a few dozen quests.
This would all be more simple to manage if the story was more straight forward. Intrigue and complicated story lines just do not work well when you can not guarantee all the story aspects can be digested easily.
Another big point is that ultimately the storyline will always be a slave to gameplay. We will never see the factions truly unite or even be at complete peace, because the game demands that the Alliance and Horde be at odds in some form or another. Nothing in the story can be so outlandish as to disrupt gameplay. Any player defeats must be cinematic of the villains somehow tricking the players into doing something for them, or if not that, whatever we failed to stop will never have enough of an effect to actually prevent the player from returning. Every major event must fit into the step by step delivery of major patch updates, and will always involve a raid, dungeon, etc, and ultimately the major string of current plot must be wrapped up in such a way that it can be set aside within an expansions time frame (2 to 4 dot patches, about 2 years), all to make room for the next big plot thread (which is half the time seemingly filler content so they can develop the more important expansions).
I am overall fine with BfAs storyline and where the greater story seems to be headed, but only because I digest it outside of the game itself and can expose myself to all the details in a ways that will make it make sense. But yeah regardless of the actual quality of the current story, the way they are presenting currently is terrible.
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