So where did the Story went wrong?

Lore Story Forum
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So I have a little horde bias as horde is my main faction but ill try to tackle this from a very fair viewpoint.

So first off, I think this story went wrong right from the git go in bfa having the horde burn the tree.

This brings massive problems for both sides. First, you have many horde players rping themselves out of the situation. Thats bad. That means you over did it. Ask a horde player and they will say either character wasent at the war of thornes and just heard about it or their character was at the back doing something else.

Now for the alliance side, you are left with the problem of how do you exactly give them satisfaction in this story? Seems like many of the allys here wont be truly satisfied short of enslaveing the entire horde. Which cant really happen since this is a 2 faction game.

Now again form the horde side, how can you possibly offer the horde enough ‘redemption’? Thats not the kind of event you can just ‘forget’ about and will taint the horde for years to come.

Also on the horde side, our like only dynamic character, syl is prolly getting the axe this expansion. She went from prolly one of the best written characters in this game to prolly one of the worst. So then the horde only really has static and boring characters left. It may take years to rebuild our narrative. Also feels bad that yet again the alliance will prolly have to step in and help the horde.

Think of it like your arch rival having to come in and help you get your stuff together, all while wagging their finger at you telling you if it happen again ima beat u up.

From the alliance side, this was the perfect oppertunity for them to finally maybe have some conflict within their leadership and blizzard took a hard pass on it.

Just my thoughts.

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I’ve been following the story for a long time (WC3 is where I started) and while I agree with the thread that Cata made a lot of bizarre lore/story-telling choices (kill off Cairne in a book, Thrall messiah etc.), and WoD introduced some absurd elements.

But BfA is really where the story has gone completely off the rails in my opinion. Why are we introducing Wrathion and the Dragon Flights when we haven’t even addressed Bwon-samdi? Talanji’s revenge? The Night Elves revenge (for real this time?) The 15 other unresolved plot points at this time? Wasn’t this a faction pride expansion?

Too many unresolved plot points that take months to get from point A to point A-and-a-half and they’ve tried to shift the story to being more character drama focused, which is fine and dandy and makes for great cinematics, but they’ve chosen to only include a handful of characters (like Jaina who is now overexposed) and it’s just become an incomprehensible mess. Not even WoD was that bad.

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The one thing I don’t get about saying “it started to go down in cata” is that implies BC didn’t ruin characters for a lot of people and was mostly nonsensical.

Personally I view Wrath as the xpac that a coherent, long ranging, story became very important

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I am curious what, if anything, will be revealed after BfA of what went wrong in the story development.

We have a vague idea that in Cata they just had massive writing team issues. In WoD we know there was cut content. (Legion had some but wasn’t relevant in the end).

What about BfA? What happened? The biggest indication something went wrong imo was how they scurried to add in a Sylvanas loyalist option once they saw the fan reaction.

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35

I would love to get any insight into the dojo, I wish they would do a lore Q&A (an actual Q&A this time). Obviously one of the biggest factors has to be that this is the first full expansion without any input from Chris Metzen. But there has to be more going on. The writing is literally chaotic at this point. Do they think they’re doing a good job?

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World of Warcraft’s story is strongest as per it’s name… when the story is about the World. That is not to say that the story needs to be about the entire world, but instead about the various small stories that weave into the greater narrative about the world. It is one reason why Vanilla was so charming, and why certain parts of the game continue to be high points for people.

The nature of the medium of a story goes a long way to dictating how best to tell a story. A MMO is a very specific type of medium that brings with it a few key elements that really shape how much a story can, or can’t affect us.

The story is often weakest when the stakes are ‘the fate of the world’ because we as players know that the world is not going to be destroyed. There is no risk to a world ending threat because it can do nothing to us. It is no more dangerous than pointing a regular gun at superman it is something that often -has- to happen as part of the narrative, but at no point does it do anything than offer a set piece for the rest of the narrative to play out.

However, when the story focuses on much smaller risks that are distinct from the player character, then real emotional impact can be had. The player may be immune to narrative harm, but characters such as Runas, Riko, and the fate of a small human fishing village are not. These characters can have emotional arcs because we as the audience are ever uncertain to their fate. They could be saved by our heroics, or just as well not be. A town with no flight path and friendly NPCs is often in far greater danger than the world ever will be in as far as we are concerned.

This however stops being the case for certain ‘major’ npcs who we have some expectation that them dying will not be done outside of a major event, or cutscene. You can’t make me worry if Anduin is in trouble, because I know he’s not going to die in some level mid-point in level 90 questing.

The story is worst then when it deviates from stories we can invest in to stories that we can reasonably determine the outcome of ahead of time. Watching Anduin walk around Pandaria isn’t exciting because we know he is safe. However a previously-unknown dwarf is more exciting because we don’t know what will happen to them.

[Edit: And I think WoW classic proves this point nicely]

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Another part of the cataclysm issue was they had underestimated how long it would take to update the old world.

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38

The rumor I’ve heard, and it is just a rumor so take it with a tuck load of salt, is BfA is essentially two expansion concepts smashed together. One where we finally meet and deal with N’zoth and the naga and another that’s the faction war expansion. With Kul Tiras, Zandalar and plenty of flag waving. So I guess they decided that the naga couldn’t hold an expansion mostly on their own (snake fatigue?) and the faction war was a good enough reason to get us to the new zones in the first place.

But even then there’s a really weird… cheapness to all the faction related content. The war campaigns don’t really feature any mind-blowing cinematics, the voice acting drops in and out at weird times, and the conclusions are indecisive at best and pointless at worst. The Horde spends months getting a macguffin, Alliance steals the macguffin, macguffin is destroyed during the intro to BoD. Hurray?

The only other faction war related content is the warfronts, the other team in island expeditions and I guess the faction incursions. All of which are “bolt on” pieces of content which certainly doesn’t help the war feel all that more present and engaging.

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39

idk i kinda think the story is more interesting than ever now.

The old god stuff has always been rad as hell and they’re clearly working to keep it consistent and set the framework for future events to avoid more retcons in the future. I mean have you seen that big ol’ cosmic forces map? I can think of a bunch of shows that went on way too long that really would have benefited from some long-term structural story planning like that. It’s great!

Edit: I mean okay yes WoD was real real bad but the expansions immediately before and after were like the best ones ever. It wasn’t a permanent derailing, they got it back on track.

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I dont think there is any single point but WoD pushed us into overdrive with terrible story.

Legion also had major issues. The order halls were neat but they took too much of the main story. We should have had a faction story driving the major plot with the order halls being side stories.

So many races have massive grudges with the Legion and only the Draenei got any proper closure.

Where was the Orc story? I know we just finished WoD but the death of Kil’jaeden should have been heavily involved with Orcs. Would it have killed blizz to throw Saurfang and a few dozen Korkron on the Broken Shore or have him helping Illidan and Velen fight Kil’jaeden in Tomb of Sargeras? Where is the vengeance for Vol’jin we were promised? The Horde did nothing after that.

As for BFA the story died the moment they lied about the tree. We were told Sylvanas had good reasons for war and that the tree would by a big mystery. They lied so we could get yet another civil war story to fracture the Horde which destroyed all the good will and faction pride the announcement cinematic had built.

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I don’t think there was a particular event where the story went off the rails. I think that there has been a gradual shift in the way the story has been told that has taken it in a direction that doesn’t work very well for an MMORPG.

In Vanilla, the story was essentially there as background: it provided a setting but the emphasis was on the player experiences. In effect, the real story was generated by you and the people you played with.

This was a good thing!

But gradually, the story has shifted to increasingly emphasize the NPCs. Back in Vanilla, you barely interacted with the main NPCs; if you knew about them, it was mostly from playing WC3, or from out of game media. Now, though, they are the story focus. In game, they dominate cut scenes, cinematic, and quest lines.

The effect is that the player increasingly feels irrelevant to the story. We are, essentially, walking cameras through which the adventures of the NPCs can be viewed. This has also led to story beats that are about the conflicts between the NPCs, regardless of how they impact the actual players.

In a nutshell, the story is increasingly written as if for a TV show rather than a game. It is increasingly written as something to be watched rather than played. And the player’s own story has consequently becomes that of a passive witness.

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42

I mean we don’t really know her reasons exactly. She still knows a lot she’s not telling anyone. She seems to have some advance knowledge of events either from Xalatath or somewhere else that nobody else has any insight into. We don’t really know what she’s thinking or what her larger goals are. Do we?

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Its written like a single player game but without all the freedoms a single player game allows the developer.
So its hamstrung from the get go.

Not to mention Blizzard never bothers to explore half the characters and story lines more than superficial level. How hard is it for one quest designer to just put in some more work in forgotten characters or abandoned storylines.
Would it be so bad to see what the heck Tyrande has been up to for the past 2 patches? Like where the heck did she go?!

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Yeah it’s great. I honestly get most of my lore from youtube videos and just click around mindlessly while in game. This is how I’ve always played, I just didn’t used to need the youtube videos because I already knew the story as a simple continuation of Warcraft 3.

The story makes for some great youtube videos now. Don’t really know or care how it works in game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Take this worth a grain of salt. Looking at the current BFA story, in my opinion, there are 3 main issues.

Unity between character and player. Due to the nature of this story I as a player don’t have the same goals as my main character. My character wants to blow up a tree, I don’t have a reason to kick the hornets nest. My character wants to help Saurfang, I don’t want to after he abandoned the Horde. My character wants to be led around in the dark by Sylvanas, I don’t want to blindly follow. My character wants to save Baine, I don’t want to as I don’t respect him as a Horde leader. I’m sure Alliance mains, especially night elves currently, can rattle off a similar list.

Disconnect between sell and execution of expansion. I expected to have faction pride, but as Horde we’re being TOLD we’re evil. I was told morally gray. I don’t mind being seen as antagonistic to Alliance. I do mind when gaps like we broke Ashvane out of prison only for her to show up working with Azshara. WHY DID WE DO THAT!!! NOBODY THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA. Well maybe SOME player did, but not me…

The rate at which story comes out. This one is a bit self serving I admit, and it really ISN’T a problem. However, since the beginning of BFA I had the question “Why is any of this happening?” I’ve played the end of MoP. I know how that story went. I was told it’d be different, but every content patch seems to follow what I’ve already seen. That has led to, after EVERY story content release so far, me feeling like I’ve seen it before so WHEN will it be different. I don’t feel a need to “reflect” on what I’ve just seen. I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen it multiple times in this very game. When it feels monotonous, it feels bad. To top it off, the question of why, which was teased to me by the devs, hasn’t been answered.

I want to like the story, but I just can’t. This isn’t meant to bash the developers. Just meant to state my position.

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46

I always say BC was both the greatest, and worst expansion. The gameplay was best, bring the class not the player. Heroic was actually really hard for the average player. Prot paladins were on the rise and it was glorious. Flying mounts was introduced, which was great at the time, horrible now though. The gameplay was perfect.

The lore however, I’d still say 100x worse then any other expansion, BfA, WoD, MoP included. The game still is hemmoraging from all the lost potential characters, namely Kael’thas, it is still painful to me whenever I see Lor’themar in cinematics. That could have been Kael, hell there is a reason he is in HoTs and not Lor’themar. Even after all these years he still in Kael’s shadow so badly. Not to mention the entire potential of Kael vs Jaina missed sigh.

Vashj could have been a great tie in for Naga being helpful, instead all of them being evil drones to Azshara for some odd reason. Would be nice to have a Naga race or Allied race a long time ago. Either side would have been okay, just wished it happened.

Illidan … well let’s just look at Legion for fixing him getting killed.

I remember devoted Troll players were absolutely devastated being forced to kill Zul’jin, some even refused to participate in the raid at all. I wouldn’t be shocked that Troll players are still miffed about it, and can’t really blame anyone for holding those feelings.

All of WC3 heroes, and Zul’jin, were put through the blender, and the game still suffers for it.

Then there is the Draenei retcon, still hate it. It turned the main antagonists, the BL, from demons bringing hell from the afterlife into our universe, into roided out alien jocks with space ships. Mortalizing the BL all for the reason to bring the Void as the new baddies front and center. Betweem the Void being the main villain, aliens, and space ships, if I wanted to play Starcraft, I would play Starcraft, keep that stuff out of Warcraft! Not to mention the Void is basically the BL from WC3 but purple instead of Green. Why do the change and confuse and anger the old time players? Oh right all because the developers have a hard on for Lovecraft. It’s going to be nothing but Lovecraft from here on out, just like after WotLK and the constant Old God and Void stuff in Cata and MoP. Except this time it won’t stop and just keep repeating.

The retcon also made the Draenei into a mary sue race. An immortal race that’s good with magic, the light, technology, have a connection to the elements, did I mention they also basically never die to aging, and they were also chosen as the main force to lead the BL. What do they not have?

The only reason the Draenei retcon is wildly recieved as successful is because it is just a copy paste retcon of the Orc’s in WC3, both of which were done by the same person Chris Metzen. The innocent Draenei(Orcs) are tricked by a powerful entity, Sargeras(Kil’Jaeden), to start a crusade against the Void(Azeroth before the retcon) who recruits a devoted follower Archimonde(Gul’dan), and one that questions him, Kil’jaeden(Nerzhul). One Draenei(Orc) resists and says no, Velen(Durotan) and leads his people to salvation with what he can. The only difference was Velen was able to escape, while Durotan was forced to keep his people alive through hell. Both races are two sides of the same coin. Arguably this could have led the Orcs going back to their WC1+2 ways since having two races with identical stories may have caused complications. That and team Activision probably prefers the savage Orcs as opposed to the noble and honorable Orcs.

Top it off that retcon started the whole thing that Chris and his story team didn’t really care for the developed story of WC3 and even WoW in general. That retcon started the whole “the rule of cool” with the story. Which is why we see retcon after retcon after retcon, and even retcons in mid to late end part of an expansion that was developed at the start of the expansion, example being Legion.

So really the entire plot of WoW crashed and crumbled right out of the gate of BC. It has just been bleeding out ever since and wasn’t noticed up until Cata when things went into overdrive.

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47

Explicitly stating fantasy metaphysics and cosmology always cheapens a setting, lots of that happened in BC, Cata, and especially Legion.

There’s no mystery in the world somehow we know how it all works.

Too many cape comic character narratives.

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I agree, I don’t like the Draenei. They took established lore and flipped it. Then took every element of other Alliance races and rolled it up into once race. Strong fighters(dwarves) check, Powerful with Arcane(humans) check, technologically advance(gnomes) check. Sure they don’t really step on the night elves feet but they don’t really belong in the Alliance either(whole different topic).

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The game jumped the shark for me when the narrative pivoted from an open story for the player to explore to a faction leader centered cape-superhero comic.

I wont deny that vanilla and BC had their own issues, but their theme was exploring the world of Azeroth and Outlands, not watching in the background in some fanfiction take on how ‘cool and edgy’ said faction leaders are.

I never care for comics. Hell, i made fun of the people who were obsessed with them back in school. But WoWs narrative reminds me of the worst stories that made teachers ban doing book reviews on comics. They are so focused on ‘rule of cool’ action scenes that they forget to put a coherent story in the game.

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I’d say the rot set in as far back as Burning Crusade with the decision to sacrifice Illidan and Kaelthas to raid tiers.

These were extremely important characters in lore, not just to their respective factions, tied to important events and richly developed plot threads that were cut short with their demise.

Blizzard even seems to acknowledge this, at least with Illidan, inexplicably resurrecting the demon hunter four expansions after his initial demise only for the tatters of his suddenly resumed story to be left flapping pointlessly in Legions passing.

It’s cool when we as players get to participate in important story events through raiding content, but it’s less than satisfying story telling, especially when you’re being forced into excising important lore characters from the story for no better reward than gear that will be obsolete next tier and maybe a new collection of pixels to spawn beneath your characters behind for them to ride around on.

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