Because BFA was absolute dogwater and set, “Genocide against civilians and assassinating leaders of government because they might get tired of turning the cheek with you relative to all the other times you genocided them” as the standard for conduct in the war.
Meaning that at that point the Alliance could have killed the Horde to the last man and would have been completely justified in it. People didn’t hate the dark tone of BfA, they hated everything else about it. Especially with how Sylvanas- a character who was always the Machiavellian Schemer- was turned into a cartoon character to suit the plot. All of it was just bad. And it was made worse because what followed was Shadowlands.
And every major NPC in BfA came down with a massive 2-year case of the Stupids.
Poor Rastakhan. He died because he suddenly “decided” to send his entire army away, to fight an enemy that wasn’t even there, over a piece of land he didn’t even want.
You can do a darker story well or a lighter story not well, or vice versa–how good they are doesnt have anything to do with whether they are darker or lighter.
The expac didn’t go well because of borrowed power systems and covenant locks. The Maw wasn’t enjoyable because for a while we couldn’t even mount in it and the content was boring.
Aesthetic wise everyone is different. I thought the maw looked too bare until Korthia. Bastion was too bright. Ardenwheld a liitle too blue. Maldraxxus was my favorite area. But others hated it.
Because people are letting their impressionable children play then start yelling and blaming WoW for the bad stuff theirs kids pick up. Like how a child was allowed to play Grand Theft auto and killed his folks thinking they’d respawn… parents need to be aware of what their kids are playing. WoW is not a babysitter, it’s a game for at least teenagers and older not some five year old child. Blizzard getting blind sided by these angry parents claiming WoW is corrupting their child is why the writing is starting to fall apart into E10 sort of rating.
You know what, i agree. Darkshire should use a bit of darkening every now and then to make use of a torch.
Ya know, idk why but, i love how PS2 looking games does this thing where the fog is bright kind of, but everything you see near you is like dark. I love the contrast.
Caillou was cancelled in 2021 and I have a feeling all of their writers are now working on wow.
Really though, when you look at the story its easy to find fault in the tone and the theme and the characterizations because the actual craftsmanship is so shoddy. You can make great stories with any tone, the WoW story isn’t bad because of its tone, its bad because the people making it crafted it poorly. Its that simple.
That said, its natural to look back at when they were doing a better job and pick out story elements that are missing now. Truth be told I’d like to see things be less silly and cheery. But I was willing to give what they were trying a chance- unfortunately it just sucks.
I’m curious if half the posts like this go over the quests that are in the game.
“A parent giving her life to protect her child.” -Very beginning you have a dopey grandma voiced draconid kill itself for an egg.
The entire Wration-Sabellion Arc to finding out how things went down in Aberrus.
The younger dragon that went to go talk to the old depressed dragon about black dragonflight things and reflecting on all the problems he had with the corruption and losing the ones who were close to him to the point he couldn’t even remember their name.
The entire Dracthyr story, you know, brother against brother killing eachother because of one going off the deep end in delusions to claim a legacy.
Most of the fuzzy-wuzzy feel-good story beats do have contrasts present to go with them.
People make this argument all the time and its incredibly flawed. What you go into shows how poorly the narrative is crafted. They beat you over the head with the lighter aspects which lack any sense of subtly to the point of being cloying, and anything they do which might ground the story is easily lost to the background.
Just because the elements of a dish are all somewhere on the plate doesn’t mean the chef actually made the dish correctly.
Whenever Blizzard has tried to make things darker, the playerbase complains about it and Blizzard course corrects. BFA is a perfect example of this. We were supposed to get a gritty story of war and conquest. That’s why Teldrassil burned, that’s why the Undercity fell to Sylvanas plaguing it to stop the Alliance from taking the Forsaken capital. And you can still see fragments of it in places like Stormsong Valley, Voldun and Darkshore.
But the future of that dark and gritty expansion where war was everywhere and dark, disturbing things were happening in said war was quickly turned into a “Let’s team up and fight a big bad.” expansion because of all the negative feedback Blizzard got about the darker storytelling.
I mean, aside from the “Talk to the old depressed black dragon” quest chain, there have been plenty of dark story beats along the campaign, not hidden in the background.
Beginning of the campaign: First draconid you meet sacrifices itself.
First dungeon: Oh yeah, bad guys invaded dragon daycare and are converting all the whelps. And you kill them.
Second dungeon: Oh right, violent centaur politics.
Azure vaults: Oh right, tortured spawn of Sindragosa you have to put down.
Brackenhide: Rot-worshiping gnolls capturing and butchering tuskar and otherwise doing plaguevermin things.
Every encounter with Fyrakk goes poorly for the player and NPCs. Vaporizes some centaur. Almost kills Player/Wrathion/Sabellion. Almost kills Wrathion again. Almost kills Ebyssian. Kills a lot of the mole people. And that’s even before he goes Cartoon Evil in the Emerald Dream.
The entire Dracthyr/Aberrus storylines are pretty much dark themed with just Ebyssian there to throw a silver lining on things.
I don’t really think it counts as being ‘beat over the head’ with the lighter aspects when the good guys eventually win in the end, because that tends to be the case with every live-service game that plans to continue adding to the story.
This quest was great and the character was good, the bad thing is that there was no time to generate attachment to it.
Good arc but like much in Df it is plagued by narrative inconsistencies that could be associated with cuts or bad writing.
The best of Df 9/10
This was good but that’s it
Most of the good stories were secondary, where there were no trimming requirements, the main narrative is not at the level of many secondary ones, the blue flight missions were excellent for example.
But a few good side quests don’t make up for the mess and nonsense that often populates the main quests due to cuts.
