Warlord Storytelling was great

Community General Discussion
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Look, I’ll agree with you that how we got to Warlords was pretty cheesy and very shattering to the illusion of what World of Warcraft was; working with the time dimension does that to any story.

That aside – if you can discard the journey here – the storytelling of the inhabitants of Warlords of Draenor, their daily lives, their pains, and the many sorrows that occurred natural and unnaturally… it was amazing. By FAR the expansion showed the many struggles of war and loss, and it’s something that I absolutely love to be witness to. There are many things that really made me think,

“Wow, flipping orcs are awesome. They have guts and strength. They have “bad” characters, but they have heroically great characters, too. At their core, they share this bond of honor before all else, and if not that first then they go to redemption through sacrafice.” - And that’s why I feel that, next to Taurens, they’re the most honorable race out there.

But to bring you to a more ready example, and one that I just uncovered while doing random crap in my free time (8.1 patch slums)… The Fur-Lined Scroll.

When wondering through the icy lands of Frostfire Ridge, you come across a dead orc, face down in the building snow. Next to him, a scroll case just barely out of reach from his frozen digits. After reading it, it becomes readily clear that this was the last love letter sent to him from his mate.

You can explore the story more on your own if you wish, I won’t tell the outcome of what happens (it’s incredibly short anyhow, it’s just meant to set environment) but the short version is that’s its purely meant to tear at your feels, and it does so wonderfully. (Edit) Not to mention, the music compounded on top of this just really drives it home.

That’s just one of many examples in Warlords of how the writers paint a scene of strife and the strength to overcome to the ready/player. Amazing.

((Again, I’ll stress that I understand that the expansion lacked content past it’s initial release and storyline and that the Developers dropped the ball on integrating more content, but don’t let that overshadow what the writers did for the natural inhabitants of Draenor! We often lament how well the expansion’s artist did setting up a beautiful landscape only to be soiled by certain mechanics, but rarely do we ever give credit to the storytellers for the exact same thing!))

2 Likes
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Hated every part of warlords.
Not one part of it was redeemable nor worth playing thru ever again. Just my view but ick.

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Until Thrall pulled another kill steal on us… and yrel didn’t get any development. But how great was everyone pretending the entirety of the expansion didn’t happen after we killed Archemonde? Right? Like Grom didn’t commit a ton of war crimes?

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Literally, the best part of WoD’s story was that Legion happened.

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Little bits of narrative world building make all the difference to the feel of the game. Getting beat over the head repeatedly with quests pointing to a single story focus is exhausting. The problem as I see it right now is that every little thing keeps our attention on the war effort with very few quests to break that mold. The crazy troll guy that just wants to set up an inn in vol’dun is one of the few flavor quests that isn’t over taken with the “This will help us in the the war” objective.

All that being said, Warlords had a ton of this in quests, random items and even the rares. A lot of effort went into at least that one aspect of Draenor.

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I thorough enjoyed Warlords when it was out and current. You could ask my wife, I was ecstatic over exploring the quest from frostfire Ridge and heading outwards into Gorgrond, seeing what was happening to all the various Orc Tribes. It’s sad that you feel so much disdain against the story itself.

Another kill steal? Man’o’man… you really don’t get how severe and traumatic that scene was, how it drew a conlusion between those two, major characters. It was beautifully sad, the way that Garrosh saw his actions in response to what was ‘burdened unto him’ verse the way Thrall interpreted him to be just… weak of will. Even so, after that moment when Thrall reflected on the situation and absorbed Garrosh’s words, that it weighed on him so heavily to disconnect him from Doomhammer, and his place as a shaman. Dude, that whole cutscene. You have to be a little cold or naive not to see the pain there.

Yrel was victim to the lack of content and sudden shift in direction that the developers haphazardly ending the expansion without direction. I noted that at the end of my post. It sucks. I liked Yrel and I was hoping to see more of her growth. Sucked even worse that they made her into this crusade-bent lightraiser in this expansion.

Not persuaded. Give me more as to what you hated about the storyline…

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It meant nothing.

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Honestly. They could have executed Garrosh after MoP, and have any other Legion follower show up to bring about the Burning Legion, and the expansion would have gone on with no hindrance. WoD happened because they wanted Gul’dan.

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:expressionless:

Alright… so, what expansion do you think has great story plot to it?

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Wow questing and story telling has been terrible in every expansion. If you want real immersive questing with interesting stories play ESO.

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I really tried to like the story in Draenor; I mean I’ve read the books and enjoyed 'em so it should have been cool to actually play through the story with my own character and be a part of it. There were good parts, but mostly it felt to me like they were beating us over the head with the movie since that came out around the same time and covered the same time period. It felt more like a movie marketing ploy than a game expansion. Just my opinion, a’course.

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That’s just not even true. It has just declined significantly. The story telling up to cata was spot on, regardless of whether content missed the mark. The stories were congruent and thought out. Until cata… and then they thought of stories to justify the content not vice versa

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Legion. Didn’t need to feel grounded or anything, it’s fantasy. This is the big bad that has been in the background for years, influencing something in the story since day one. Finally actually coming face to face with them and making them our focus was fantastic. And to me it felt great to see the story progress as it did. We started from loss and worked our way to push the legion back into the portal from whence they came, and even then kept going to make sure it never happened again, all the while being a single mistake away from loosing it all. Yeah, not everything was great (Tyrande I NEEED YOU), but the structure felt right for me, and at the end of the day, it still has a huge impact on the story.

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Look I’m sorry I came off too strong or made you feel like I was insulting you or something. Honestly I shouldn’t care and I say dumb things late at night. But I stand by my opinion: WoD felt like a detour to pick up gul’dan. You can feel differently and should be proud of your opinion.

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Lol - Not really sure why someone would play a game where they hate the story plot? After that, you’re left with mechanics and while I like the game for the most part (BFA as an expansion is in last place right now, imo) it doesn’t really scream ‘better mechanics’ compared to other MMOs, so why wouldn’t you migrate to another MMO that executes mechanics well enough?

I don’t know, I’m sure you have your reasons. I just don’t think you’re being truthful. You don’t have any favorite characters? None of the quests ever appealed to you? Not even the Maghar Orc questline?

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You play this game for the story? lol?

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I mean yeah lot of people do. There are a bunch of rp servers cause people want to get lost in the lore after all.

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Don’t forget man, we man see your progress on WoW as far as raids and dungeons go. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: I’m not entirely convinced you play for anything BUT story, maybe the community? I certainly understand that. My guild is an extension of a family for me. Who knows, might not be your main, lol. I’m not hating, just pointing this out more to be funny about it.

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Lol what? So only reasons to play is either the terrible story or to be mythic raider?

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Lol Well, you still haven’t told me any other reason?