I mean, it is less about it being logical and more we’ve spent the past few In-Game years literally scrambling from one world-ending disaster to the next with barely a chance to scratch ourselves.
Azeroth’s only useful individuals disappear for two years, right on the tail end of multiple genocidal wars, with both the Alliance and Horde on the verge of economic collapse and massive changes and challenges to their leadership …
And nothing went wrong?
It would not surprise me to find out that the factions we curb-stomped back in previous expansions have regrouped, taken advantage of the power vacuum and positioned themselves as up and coming players in this bold now era, and when we come back … the status quo is that we tolerate them now because economically and militarily, we need them to keep the Mega Factions propped up in the Heroes absence.
Turns out we were the common denominator in all of Azeroth’s conflicts.
Turns out removing the roving population of murderhobos ready to slaugher entire species for a new pair of jeans resulted in a pretty significant cooling of tensions.
Also pointing out that lore-wise, we’re all playing the same figure in the story. We’re (the players) all collectively the Maw-walker/Commander/etc etc… there’s no actual mob of murder hobos tramping around commiting war crimes.
I disagree with that assessment as both Thrall and Jania were rescued from Torghast by “heroes from Azeroth” now. I know I just “missed the content”, but even NPCs refer to “Maw Walkers”, plural.
Definitely implying we aren’t alone in our escapades. Thus Azeroth just has a roving murderous band that has to be kept occupied less they just start casually killing quest givers in hamlets out of hand due to boredom.
I mean really, could Garrosh or Sylvanas have attained either of their goals if they didn’t have the backing of a vast array of highly skilled, highly suggestible, highly bribeable killers at their side?
Hmmm… they must have changed that then, because I definitely remember this being a singular thing.
Which makes SL even more stupidly written because the robots are like MORTALS CAN’T ESCAPE THE MAW!!!1… and then there’s multiple muderhobos doing just that. And as much as I hate these stupid titles every expac, it cheapens the uniqueness of the title. Maw-walker is supposed to be this mythical special snowflake apparently, but there’s several? No, just shut up about it and call me by name.
Maybe that’s what made me think that we were all this singular entity known as “special snowflake title”…
Really, I’m just tired of my character having Neo-itis. I want to go back to being a murderhobo. lol
I mean, the Primus legit leaves a copy of his Runecarver self to “aid those who still need it”, so story wise there was the implication others were “behind”.
This is what started the WoW story’s decline. Stop trying to make your players into the Chosen One and just let them be a part of the world, just one more mote of dust in the warm, lazy afternoon sun, and suddenly you don’t need to be jumping the shark every five minutes to try and stay relevant.
BfA might have been the best expansion in recent memory to just be a schlub. WoD had us playing a “commander” traveling to an alternate universe that normal people presumably didn’t access, Legion had us leading our own faction, Shadowlands has us as a magical hell-escaping hero going into the afterlife, but in BfA I could reasonably imagine myself as a normal person bumping shoulders with Boralus fishmongers.
At least until you have to interact with Magni but azerite was such a b-plot in that expansion that it is a lot easier to ignore than the fact that you’re in the afterlife or wielding the ashbringer
I’ll even be fine if the PC is still treated like a fancy hero, as long as the story clearly treats us as one of many other heroes.
I like being a random mercenary/wanderer who doesn’t attribute any in-game accomplishments to my character, but I know there are people who do, and it can be just as odd if NPCs don’t react to the player being somebody. Preferably, there should be some sort of herald or bard NPC that the player can talk to to set their preferences for “Yes, I’m that great hero” or “Nah, I’m no one important.”
The major NPC voice lines already use a generic ‘champion’, ‘hero’, etc even when the text uses the player’s name, so I think it wouldn’t be a stretch to replace the [playername] with something else and leave the voice lines generic.
AND they don’t even have to refer to us as Title all the time, no one irl calls people by name or title everytime they start a sentence directed at them, unless you’re in a court room or someting.
Actually when you think about it there are different heroes throughout the WoW story that come into play at later times.
Vanilla WoW - These are the OG heroes who have experienced everything
Burning Crusade - Blood Elf and Draenei heroes join and help with the events of Outland (All vanilla WoW storylines all happened before these heroes joined)
WotLK - Death Knight heroes join and help stop the Lich King (the events of Vanilla WoW and TBC have already happened)
Cata - Worgen and Goblin heroes join the factions as well as a new class of heroes as all the starting zones got revamped (so Vanilla, TBC, and WotLK all happened before these new adventurers started)
MoP - Panda heroes join each faction (again previous expansions happen before they start helping)
Legion - Demon hunters join the factions and help stop the Legion
BfA - Every allied race joins the factions with new heroes coming into the mix.
So yeah when you think about it there are several “groups” of new heroes that have showed up throughout WoW and began to help with the new threats and only the OG vanilla heroes have seen and been apart of everything. I thought this was cool.
I’m of the mind set that most of the major victories are canonically credited to a story character.
Maiev mercs Illidan
Tirion and the Argents merc the Lich King
Thrall mercs Death Wing
Varian, Voljin and everyone in SOO merc Garrosh
Grommosh and Yrel merc Guldan and Archimonde
Velen and the Army of Light merc Sargeras
Bolvar (the Maw Walker) and his Death Knights merc Sylvannas and the Jailer
Sure, if you do the content yes you the player character killed these guys. Yet take Legion’s class halls for example. Sure you’re presented as the hero but there’s actually a canonical story character that is the leader and artifact holder. Just go out to Sithilus and you’ll see all the actual class hall leaders.
Vanilla WoW feels like the only time we didn’t have a major lore character copying our homework and getting credit for it lol
Stay home in Azeroth and have our characters build a house…start a farm…get married etc. I’d play World of Warcraft Sims Edition over Shadowlands any day.
I’m sorry, you just gave me the most amusing mental scenario.
The player character just casually browsing the markets in Boralus and they turn and suddenly Magni’s there, peering out of buckets of dead fish, whispering “The woons!” ominously.
They did change it, which is funny (not in a good way) – “hey, let’s give players different experiences than the friends they came back to play with had… everyone loves a little dissonance in their brain when they’re relaxing with a game, right!”
