The WoW cosmos used to be full of awe and mystery. We didn’t have a neat chart explaining how the universal forces worked, nor did we regularly chat with cosmic beings. The Titans used to be these grand god-like beings whose power and intelligence was far beyond our mortal comprehension. Old Gods created that fear of the unknown. But over time we got answers; lots and lots of answers. This makes the cosmos feel smaller, bringing it down to a mortal level. All of the sudden these cosmic beings are talking to us and needing our help and telling us how they couldn’t have done it without us. It feels good in the short-term, but over time that feeling gets watered down.
Remember fighting Algalon? He was a being made out of constellations who had an ability literally called big bang! He calculated our odds to near impossibility, yet we prevailed. That felt great not because we interacted with a cosmic being but because it also made the Titans even more impressive. The thing we learned is just how little we know about these entities.
I feel like much of this magic is lost as questions are answered, but fail to raise even more interesting questions about the universe.
Elune is one being that’s still shrouded in mystery. The worst thing Blizz can do is give her a humanoid form and say “heroes! Please! I need your help!”
You want this to be a never ending story where we never get answers and we just live out the “Please let me be a rando with no power so I can live out my fantasy where I do nothing but collect bear asses for rando quest givers?”
There’s a middle ground. You can have a giant, amazing story without constantly fist-bumping literal Gods and Goddesses.
The first time C’thun was revealed was so intense and horrifying. A wild descent into his chambers before you faced off with his EYEBALL. It was amazing.
Literally nobody cared that we 1-shot N’Zoth and were walking in Nyalotha. That really says something.
See the whole point is: You cannot be a nobody forever if you keep doing heroic stuff. You expect to drift off into the crowd after slaying Cthun, Deathwing, Illidan, Arthas etc.?
It’s common sense. At some point everyone’s going to take notice and begin depending on you.
That is why you become the Champion. It’s how a story works: It has a beginning and progression and an end.
You can do heroic and EPIC stuff and still not be besties with the mythological figures of the game that keep it interesting. We are not Gods. The President of the US doesn’t have tea parties with Jesus, yet he’s still important. Ya dig?
The point was that free will can’t be stopped with calculations. Cheesy but it made sense at least. The dragonsoul and Argus was bad story though. We shouldn’t be that powerful. And nzoth of course which was another dragonsoul basically.
After an expansion ends, characters don’t actually reference the fact that we were there slaying Arthas or Deathwing. They only reference that fact that they were slain.
At most, they say that we did some great things in the past. Some vague and non-specific great things. Aside from that, they treat us exactly the same as newly boosted lvl 60s who did none of that.
You want to be the heroic person who accomplishes impossible stuff and you want everyone to not treat you like a champion but treat you like “Lol git gud noob go get this item for this recipe”?
That is what the OP intends. To be a unnamed nobody instead of a champion. And yes you can have interesting stories without having powerful figures.
The problem is: We’re in the shadowlands in this expansion. It is supposed to be about powerful figures AND weak souls.
True. I agree with that. But Blizzard generally makes subtle references to these by making us the Champion or showing us some of the past deeds in Shadowlands where we were said to triumph against the other faction as the defacto heroic leader or something. Also Nzoth.
I agree with op, I think that in a way that having too many answers does take away from the mystery the WoW writers had created. A lot of the story surrounding the more powerful beings in WoW is made even more interesting by what we don’t know about them. Giving us this plain view of gods and Titans takes away from the awe they could inspire. Seeing somebody like Sargeras in full form that one time was an incredible sight and was a neat addition but like in shadowlands we have these powerful beings that almost seem like normal mortal npcs. Nothing is left of them that I’m interested to see. If Elune is winter queens sister then how amazing is she really. Is the night elves religion as interesting as they used to be all of a sudden? Lol
I also believe it is possible to be champions without all of the answers.
If the universe were kept a mystery .like in the past 2000yrs our wonderment of it would’ve kept going and so would the stories base it,that is the same applies to wow. We started peeling each layer of it til the last mystery. Now, we have no more theories to make another story.
It’s like if Elder Scrolls 6 was set in Akavir and made the Dwemer playable.
Sometimes - if not most times - the mysteries of a world are infinitely more engrossing than any explanation that can be offered.
It also doesn’t help that, in WoW’s case, the world of the game exists only as mechanics demand it to. Geography is informed by the systems rather than a world being developed, then those systems woven into it.
Instead, we have a jigsaw puzzle of purposeful set pieces.
Next expansion you get elevated to the level of a Titan and still have to go out and kill boars and clean up poop in a field all while ground mounts are locked behind a pathfinder…hic!
The thing is that the Chronicle books canonized the existence of the players as “a group of champions” and sorted who did what.
There’s no way that the current character we are playing is “just” an adventurer now. (outside of the allied races from BfA maybe)
Otherwise i agree fully with you, too much mysteries were revealed without having more to unfold.
For exemple, i don’t like what they have done to the Titans: They don’t seem THAT powerful now.
That’s my biggest fear now, you see i’m roleplaying a priestress of the moon and removing any mystery regarding Elune would take something away.
I said that too much mysteries were revealed without having something else.
For now it’s not the case for Elune:
By revealing in Shadowland that she is worshiped across the univers, we have now a few more mysteries to unfold.
But do i wish to have all the answers? Yes and no because if we have the answers, it will be less interesting on one hand and we will be disappointed in the other hand.
After all any answer is always under our expectations.
Bad example in my opinion - I don’t care about the Elder Scrolls lore because nothing ever happens and anything that does is retconned away or handwaved to irrelevance (lol “Dragon Breaks”), because the devs don’t know how to deal with their own storytelling. Like you said they’ll never reveal certain bits of world-building, so why hold your breath waiting to be awe-struck when it will never happen and they’ll string the franchise out another 30 years at least with nothing ever happening?
A mystery is something yet to be learned. If you care about learning, then having a mystery means having something new to learn. It’s only bad if the mystery is something that will never ever be revealed - then it’s not really a mystery but a tease.
