Well, I mean you came when Anya asked you to show up to defend her honor. Then you made a claim and I followed you along the path to see if you’d have the temerity to recognize that she did the exact same thing first.
To the surprise of no one, you didn’t take that option.
The fair maiden hasn’t even sent me nudes, the harlot.
I think it’s been well established that just about everyone has a severe dislike for the ‘rule of cool’.
We’re stuck in it for the long haul, though.
I’m fine with rule of cool when executed well, or at least in a way that’s enjoyable. The current crop of Blizzard writers go for rule of cool, but it seems like they think what they produce is high literature.
So the original post proposes a blanket term for the act of throwing in cool, edgy or impactful events without properly building up to them or establishing them as reasonable within the rules of the universe. That Blizzard’s writing suffers from this is not at all a controversial statement. Neither is the claim that this is bad writing.
Is it the worst type of writing? I mean, probably not. Politically stilted propaganda and misinformation is not going to give up that crown anytime soon.
But still, acknowledging both the term ‘metal writing’ and the phenomenon it defines as valid. What should we do to build off of this? What’s next? Is this just an observation or does this build to a proposed course of action or even just a desire for people to be aware and hold Blizzard to a higher standard?
At the end of the day is good or even mediocre writing the point of World of Warcraft, or is it just something that makes World of Warcraft more enjoyable?
I’d say it’s obviously the latter.
One of my problems with Warcraft is the lack of world building. I’m going to point to Warhammer Fantasy instead of 40k for my discussion.
WHF is based on ONE planet, but the settings seems so large because its authors acknowledge that its a big world. There are multiple named towns. There are multiple named cities. There are stories set on different parts of the world that aren’t the capital city. This is just the Empire.
Compare this to Warcraft where it’s only Stormwind. What about other large Alliance settlements of importance? At least Lordaeron had 3 with Capital City, Straholme, and Andorhol. If everything is in one basket then the writers can’t lose the basket or it’s all over.
Travel time also feels nonexistent in the setting. The journey is an important part of an adventure, I feel like there are just portals everywhere. Imagine how more powerful it would of been for Anduin and Jaina to walk away from Orgrimmar instead of taking a portal.
Warhammer 40k is also a Space Fantasy set amongst galaxies. So you’ve literally countless planets and inhabitants that you don’t have to try to definitively list out. Sure there’s important planets and people and ships but any fancy can be indulged. Just set it on a hitherto unmentioned planet with new characters if you’re testing the waters.
WoW’s setting is just a planet though with only two dozen or so really important reoccurring characters. So all the stories told have to feel coherent in that setting and a lot don’t.
Like I really enjoyed crushing Alliance beneath the burning iron of a Mag’Har doom wheel. Piloting one of those as it screams downhill devastating all in it’s path before it punches straight through a Kul Tiran barricade is a pretty fun reoccurring quest.
But it’s in the same story that’s trying to wax poetic about the tragedy of war and how violence begets more violence. It’s like if somebody made Michael Bay direct an interpretation of All Quiet On The Western Front. I can’t seriously muse mournfully about man’s inhumanity to man when it’s being made to look so fun.
Goldshire and darkshire, oh and the town in redridge
LAKESHIRE! It’s a flagged contested pvp zone in classic. lmao.
That’s the one
Sometimes the tonal shifts work, though, and when they do, that is one of Warcraft’s biggest strengths–that it has that variety. At its best, this is both realistic (real life is sometimes serious and sometimes absurd) and makes for a good gameplay experience (variety of tone keeps things interesting).
So while I agree that sometimes the tone contrasts don’t work, I wouldn’t want to see them solve it by going with a single tone all the time.
Oh, you’re the one who made them take our portals away! 
Darkshire got wiped out in Legion, remember?
Yeah and it was a event that happened to a well known town are you gonna say that warhammer never loses anything too
My dad works for Valve. I told him I didn’t like portals.
WH loses cities and towns all the time. That’s what great about it. They still have cities to lose. Norscan raids wipe out villages and Orc WAAAGH!s depopulate entire areas.
True, Darkshire was infiltrated, but the aftermath of Legion leaves its fate ambiguous. We might as well say Darkshire is still around because Blizzard conviently forgets what happens to its characters in past expansions. WARDEN STILLWATER!
Kul’tiras does a very good job establishing multiple towns in one zone. I wish Elwynn was updated like that with all the new Stormwind architecture.
“You can’t have your characters say how they feel! That makes me feel angry” - Robot Devil.
If done right, it could actually be pretty awesome. Like, we all know that they won’t give them racial-specific abilities, but a moon-aspected plate warrior fighting in the name of Elune and vengeance would be so rad.
It is a shame we can’t get racial variants on different spells. Zandalari and Tauren paladins could really use them. As would night elven paladins if they ever get added.
It’d also be nice if half my Zandalari druids’ abilities didn’t reference Elune and the Hyjal gods.
Would be a good way to expand the use of glyphs and make inscription fun again.
I still say class weapon restrictions should go down the toilet. Sure give massive benefits to using certain combos so we don’t get stuff like, say, warriors duel wielding wands, but Nelf Priest not having bows still feel wrong.
I don’t think the issue is so much rooted in “Metal writing” or making things particularly edgy. I like some of the more edgy aspects of the story. The problem is the edge becomes gratuitous when it doesn’t have the proper development backing it.
But I think that is a somewhat semantic argument, because you seem to hit the nail on the head here:
Blizzard has told us explicitly what their methods are. “Big story moments”. This makes sense in an MMO because the process is probably gameplay and mechanic design takes priority over story. Not saying it works exactly like this, but I can see the storyboard getting “Uldir, Dazar’Alor, Azshara’s Palace, Nyalotha” written on a piece of paper, and they just have to make it work.
And the problem with this is, those big story moments lose their weight when they are not supported by everything that happens in-between.
Dazar’alore being “Vengence for Teldrassil” doesn’t make any sense from a narrative perspective. But from the perspective of a dethatched developer, who’s entire job structure is connecting seemingly unrelated story points together in the context of Red vs Blue, totally oblivious to racial identity and nuance within the major factions… Then sure, I can see how they might think that.
The result is a lazy path drawn between point a and point b, leaving a bare bones skeleton of a story, feeling fake and hollow.
I will say it as long as it’s appropriate. BfA, was like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling.