So going forward in WoW Story

Lore Story Forum
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So, Horde and Alliance conflict is pretty much over with as of BFA. The Legion is gone, the Outer Gods(erm, Old Gods) are gone, the Titans are back in action(I guess), the Emerald Dream is fixed up, Deathwing and his nonsense was dealt with, and lots of regional threats are taken care of. Next I suppose the ‘afterlife’ threat will be dealt with.

So what’s left on the threat index? The Scourge and… what else? The Void nonsense could be up to bat I suppose.

But really, do we want that? Aside from dealing with the threat of the Scourge forever(which I think absolutely should have already been done), do we want more big world-ending threats? Or are we looking forward to going back to the Adventurer style? Taking care of local threats, regional issues, all with no larger planet-killing nonsense going on behind it all.

What does the Story Forum goer think? Sick of Blizz’s attempt at big boy writing? Or keep chugging at big stories with big threats that require big borrowed power to deal with?

Personally I want decentralized power structures and contact with the player. I don’t want to meet the King, I don’t want to be that important outside of extreme circumstances(which should be VERY RARE). Hobnobbing with Royalty has become so common, that it doesn’t even impress anymore. I’m not a General, I’m not a Noble, I don’t own or control land or regions. I’m really starting to get the “Another settlement needs your help, here I’ll mark it on your map.” vibe from WoW, and that’s not something I like at all. I go deal with an issue and get shinies. But I don’t get land, or political power, or put on a council of Nobles, NOTHING.

So, I feel we are not being rewarded commensurately with what we are tasked to deal with. Easiest solution is to give me tasks that ARE commensurate with the rewards offered. Kill off a pack of Gnolls terrorizing local farmers? Shiny sword from above some old farmer’s fireplace and some gold pieces they made a collection for. Kill a GOD? I get to be a Lord and own a castle at least.

Just realized I split into two topics and got away from my original purpose. D’oh.

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Well, as is apparent here and amidst several other places WoW is discussed, people are starting to get fed up with the fact that WoW can only really tell stories about preventing the apocalypse or all out world war (nobody come at me with “it’s World of WARcraft”). So as you’ve suggested, yes - decentralized power and more focus on Azeroth are both things that have been requested a lot. It’s not good worldbuilding to constantly stack more and more things on top of your universe, and never revisit anything you’ve already established - it just lends for a bloated and unengaging franchise.

Do I believe they’ll do something like this - that they’ll decide to take a breather, and tell stories about centralized and local threats, rather than enormous ones where you are a godlike hero hopped up on borrowed power and temporary systems? Absolutely not. I believe we’ve established that WoW can only tell one kind of story - or at least one that they know will sell rather than take a risk - and we’re unlikely to deviate from it. A lot of people believe that the Light vs. Void expac is coming, and will probably take us to space, and quite honestly?

They’re probably right.

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Genuinely wonder how they’ll manage to get Horde in space.

Either force the factions to work together in the one Vindicar spaceship, or will they actually *gasp * give Goblins/Blood Elves the capacity to make spaceships or allow the Forsaken a necropolis that can go to space.

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I imagine they’d probably just reuse the Vindicaar to save time working on new art assets and the horde will ride in the trunk again.

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Personally, that’s what I would like to see.

I’d love for everything since Ny’alotha to have been a dream/nightmare crafted by N’zoth as it’s just been plain awful. It would be nice to come out of this as one of the void’s possible realities, and be awoke by Wraithon in a new Void infused world with everyday problems.

Kindof like being in an Emerald Dream.

I do not care for the Pantheons being these defeatable bosses as it makes their “underlings” feel weak and pointless moving forward. Aman’thul ripped an Old God out of Azeroth and threw it into space, Sargeras split a planet in two with one swing…

These beings aren’t meant to be defeated by mere mortals, even if they are impowered by Azeroth. (Unless Azeroth is a First One, being imprisoned by Aman’thul)

It just feels so hard to “go back” now. Is an Old God more of a threat than The Jailer in 10.0? No.

It started with Argus, I just slain a freakin titan soul, why do I fear Azshara? lol.

Or, it would be kindof cool to see a time skip coming out of the Shadowlands.

The Jailer conquers Oribos and the Champions must retreat to their covenant sanctums.

During the fight with the Jailer, he is defeated but destroys the First Ones portals in the process, Anduin, Baine, Tyrande and Bolvar escape, but Jania and Thrall are left behind with the Champions.

During the expansion prepatch, we figure out a way for us to escape the Shadowlands via our covenants and come back to Azeroth 50 years into the future. Anduin is an old man, and the world had forgotten the heroes since N’zoth was defeated.

The world needs every day help, but no more Pantheons and Titans.

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Would you say it’s the back of the magical space bus? lol

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Could always bring back the Infinite Dragonflight for more spins on the nostalgia wheel.

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It’s more a marketing situation. If it brings people in, i’m all for it.

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I agree, some concepts aren’t meant to be defeatable, such as a god or titan. At least by mortals. At worst it’s gimmicky. Encountering these things be rare so that they remain relevant and important. I felt a sense of that when interacting with the Winter Queen or the Archon; we need more of that sense of awe. I’d personally love some menial tasks in a beautiful environment, of which there is no shortage even in strictly the game’s first iteration.

I think expanding racial and/or class based quests would be enormously entertaining. I’d love to be more involved in the politics and restoration of Eversong and Silvermoon and fighting not as a “Champion of Azeroth” but as a blood elf.

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I think they could stand to take a look at the aftermath of some of the conflicts that have happened over the past few expansions. In Cataclysm, the unrest in Westfall was a result of the Alliance pouring so many resources into the war in Northrend. Well, since then, we’ve had a war against the Legion, then a war between the Horde and the Alliance right after that. What sort of civil problems are happening? How are the two factions dealing with their various client races? Both sides have a bunch of new people at their respective tables; how are they interacting with each other?

It’s a big universe, and there’s a lot of interesting concepts that can be explored outside of escalating, existential threats to the fabric of the cosmos.

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It’s definitely not lol we didn’t sign the treaty as factions.

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There’s an entire cosmology of threats to face, from Void, to Light, and all kinds of other realms. Multiples time a month, I’m absolutely shocked at how many people here haven’t read Chronicle, when it is literally THE foundation of all lore and all future storylines of the entire Warcraft franchise from Legion onward. It’s just assumed as pre-requisite that every person “engaged” in discussion here is acquainted with the Chronicle cosmology; a person literally can’t even coherently talk about lore without it.

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While I like the idea of getting back to Azeroth stories I dread the amount of vandalism that would result with the current ‘narrative design’ team.

QFT.

In one of their statements blizzard promoted bfa as the expansion to end the faction war, but they wound up doing the opposite. There is no treaty, just a cessation of hostilities and the only justification for not continuing it is war fatigue.

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Spacefaring undead… THAT is genuinely an interesting idea which would solve a lot of problems. They’re even better than robots, you don’t need batteries or generators for undead and they don’t need programming.

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I strongly suspect the next threat is going to be villain-batted Light and Light fanatics (hence the character assassination of Yrel). Somehow they want us to believe a naaru can be a major cosmic threat compared to Old Gods the size of mountains or a demonic Titan the size of a planet after a Prime Naaru got one-shotted by an edgelord fel junkie.

I think we might also face the Void (since there’s hints that Yogg Saron is making a comeback in Sha form like Y’shaarj did), and might even clam or end the Light vs Void conflict.

Not sure what comes after that, but I think it’ll involve Blizzard swinging the villain bat some more (most likely at the forces of Life, the Titan pantheon or Elune).

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Until an expansion from now when they’ve run out of old lore villains to ruin by serving as a lackey of a new Super Space Satan enemy they made up on the spot.

If people really think that they won’t return to the faction conflict for the 20th time, I’ve got a bridge to sell them.

“YoU hAvE tO HaVe ThE ‘wAr’ In WaRcRaFt aFtErAlL!”

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you know, BFA was so badly fumbled that a part of my genuinely kinda wants the same theme gone through all over again, just- (SPLUCH SPLORT SPLAT SPLUCK SPLAT SLPORCH)

(pulls self out of the big pile of rotten tomatoes that was just thrown at me)- competently this time. Here me out!

No one on either side is really satisfied with the conclusion of the last war. Plenty of the Alliance still demand the total destruction of the Horde. “How many times must we endure their honorless attacks? How many times will our spineless leaders make peace- a peace that NEVER LASTS- with monsters, treating their lives as valuable as that of their own subjects?”

Plenty on the Horde side either don’t realize or refuse to admit they were used/in the wrong in the first place, and that “They FINALLY could have won, if only several of their so-called heroes hadn’t sided with the Alliance against their own people- AGAIN!”

Anduin and Baine especially get cut out of their own faction’s re-organizing power structure. Like is MoP and BFA, both sides send expeditions to new lands to acquire new allies and resources to rebuild and rearm- for they’re both CERTAIN war will return. This time, we head to the unknown lands far to the west of Kalimdor and Pandaria. Maybe these new lands are quasi- Indochina, Indonesia and Australia? Let’s also reuse the leftover BFA villains- Azshara and Xalatath, who now possess the raw stolen power of N’zoth without his attendant mind and rule. They’re retreated to these new lands and started building their own powerbases there.

On the Horde side, a returned Magatha Bloodhoof (possibly under a fake identity and working with Xalatath?- sure it’s 'villain-batting a Horde character again, but she’s ALWAYS been a villain and since she’s not a hawt elf I promise that no nonsense) rallies the Horde dissidents who still crave ‘honorable’ battle. On the Alliance side, I’ve often suggested that they need a Tywin Lannister character who is evil, but smart and genuinely wants the Alliance to work and be the best and greatest power on Azeroth. And to him, that means destroying the filthy Horde once and for all. And with Anduin’s recent fall from political grace and hate towards the despoilers of Teldrassil still rages strong among the commers and soldiers, now is the time!

Speaking of GoT characters, the war campaigns on both sides would be much more political, less spying and sabotaging the enemy faction and spying and sabotaging various groups within you OWN faction. I want to it to be seen in-game WHY the peoples of the Horde and Alliance are supporting the leaders they support, showing and explaining their reasoning far more than in BFA’s weird disjointed way.

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I would kind of like to go back to content where we’re trying to conquer a savage new frontier. Some of the most fun and rewarding quests had to do with setting up new settlements or encampments and defending them from local threats. We kind of had that up to WoD and then that sort of story telling feel by the wayside.

The Horde and Alliance competing over claiming new territory rather than trying to blow up what each other already have might be a nice way to engage in more faction conflict while dialing back to levels that aren’t, you know, quiet so existential.

Having said all that I don’t mind the giant cosmic threats. I think most people are of the opinion we’ll have to deal with the Void Lords and the ‘Evil’ elements of the Light at some point. Probably going to be something to do with Sargeras and the demons again in the future. Anything like that is fine by me so long as it has a proper amount of build up and no more of this ‘Ooh, there’s a mysterious threat with mysterious motivations, that we mysteriously can’t tell you about but you should mysteriously care for some reason’ nonsense.

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Vindicar armed with Horde catapults for interstellar warfare?
Azeroth’s first galactic fleet will be unstoppable.

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“Oh, don’t worry about these asteroids. We have laser cannons and we can easily …”
“Not anymore,” the orc says resolutely, rips the crystal out of the cannon and hurls it at the asteroids with all his might.

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