the wow player base has to have an average age in the 30s yet the story seems like it is written for children. the dialogue is awful and the characters are cringingly plucky and dumb. nothing about the new zones is exciting. nothing about the new story is exciting. did blizz learn nothing from the backlash after destroying stormwind (temporarily) and darnassus (permanently)? the gameplay is decent (especially since it seems like it doesn’t take as long to level to max as it used to) and the changes that have been made to allow dragonflight style flying in all zones are great but i’m indifferent to these new zones because i don’t care what happens to them. they seem like bland reskins and nothing interesting happens on them. i’ve been playing wow off and on for 20 years and the last time i remember liking the actual lore and story was wrath of the lich king. and it seems like the new writers do everything they can to take a dump on the legacy characters from the golden age of wow in favor of new characters that are hard to like. it just seems like the soul is lost from the game now. the core story and dialogue from the war within might be the worst outside of shadowlands, if not worse. is this one of the times when consultants and outsiders had more to do with the story than the blizzard stalwarts? are there even any blizzard stalwarts left? i love the core gaming experience that wow offers but i hate watching the story in each expansion since wrath get dumber and dumber and dumber and… am i alone here?
You’re definitely not alone. WoW’s main narrative has been criticized for years now for a lot of the things that you’ve mentioned.
For me personally, WoW’s storytelling shines best in it’s smaller characters and quests that lend a lot to the worldbuilding. I find it’s the minor quests that contain most of the realistic, heartfelt and more down-to-earth story beats that aren’t full of quippy one-liners and self-righteous Disney-esque caricatures that we follow around as goofy, badly animated side characters.
It’s worth remembering though that WoW’s story has always been mostly an afterthought over things like gameplay. People who pay attention to lore and play specifically for the story are definitely in the minority which probably explains why it always feels like an afterthought.
They story has lost its way since legion and some of that was also in some previous expacs. The main push of the narrative has been about shutting down conflict and making everyone get along. The gritty realism of the conflict has been boiled out and any interesting characters with grievance have either been killed off or have had any personality boiled out of them.
Now the faction conflict is gone a major component of the story has been removed so we are reliant on the new villain’s blizzard are making and frankly they are lack luster. Part of the problem with this has been the focus on a handful or characters the writers clearly been roleplaying as self inserts, so the villains never get the proper focus they need.
While Xal’tath is a better direction for the villain we just curb stomped her and allies without much loss. Even the destruction of Dalaran feels like an afterthought in the story as we didn’t really lose anyone important. Now we are left with no current enemy to fight as we just beat them all, Blizzard needs to introduce a whole new enemy for us to fight for the rest of the expac and make them threatening.
Blizzard needs to kill off some of the peacemakers and bring back some characters that actually want their enemies destroyed, Bring back faction conflict. Build up the Horde again without villain batting them and give them a separate direction to the Alliance that leans into their strengths, faiths and abilities that will put them at odd with the Alliance but also be a possible path for them to save Azeroth themselves. Blizzard needs to stop being lazy and go back to writing a two-faction game and have a real focus on the player and not on their own characters.
And for the Love of God no more cinematics about sad boys and orcs having a cry about how sad they are.
Been a lot of failing upwards, learning the wrong lessons, and overcorrecting throughout the years. Most of the old guard are gone (and good riddance in some of those cases). The sensibilities of those in charge of the story seem to have shifted drastically. Hoping Metzen’s return will promise better changes on the horizon, and I think it will, but we’ll see.
I’m not as disappointed in War Within’s story overall, apart from (as usual) hating most of the main characters—Anduin remains a narrative black hole imo, and Alleria is about as compelling as watching mud dry. The setting and world building stuff has been pretty on point, however. I was neither excited nor disappointed by the Earthen, but the Arathi and Nerubian stuff got me invested. All of which might have been a little more enjoyable if the game cared to remember that Horde is a faction with people who play it. I know they’re (regrettably, see: wrong lessons learned) allergic to faction conflict stuff these days, but Horde and Alliance remain the heart and soul of the IP, and it seems criminal to toss that out in favor of more generic, watered down, and homogenized fantasy slop.
I mean, people got tired of the faction wars since wrath. The most interesting thing about wrath wasn’t the faction war. Even the some of the most epic moments were with both factions. Who remembers the wrath gate, that was bada$$ and that was the horde and alliance united, until both got bombed by the forsaken.
The gunship battle felt so out of place during ICC that almost every guild I was in made fun of it.
I think they learned the right lesson, faction wars are done.
Factions themselves, they can finally tell stories without being hampered by trying to keep them equal because people play both sides.
The main narrative from bfa-DF is extremely bad. It seems to be getting betterish but is very much hampered by cringe dialogue. Still lots of good side quests. As always side questlines are where its done right for the most part.
People got tired of it being A Plot with the Horde as indefensible evil and the Alliance as untarnished good, but even that wasn’t until the end of MoP (which is still hailed as one of the best expansions, btw). The community certainly was not opposed to hostile factions back during WotLK.
Oh they 100% were. Even doing the argent tournament, things were fun until Garrosh had a meltdown. The faction war was always contrived in a way. After garrosh, they should have ended it but alas, they did not.
Tournament got clowned on for being a half-baked raid from the then “B Team” after the core got moved to Project Titan. People really didn’t like Garrosh for sure, but that isn’t an indictment of H vs. A.
Then there is the Legion end of life sentiment: Why would the community be clamoring for morally grey conflict heading into BFA, then, if they weren’t interested in faction conflict anymore? Legion had basically put it to bed at that point.
I think, at the very least, people are not interested in faction wars if BFA is the quality of writing we can expect. The unfortunate reality seems to be that avoiding that element results in narratives that largely forget or ignore The Horde.
Not really, we have two storylines coming up that is all about blood elves/high/void so there is one and the other is with the goblins.
This is why I disliked faction wars, they made all the races in said factions one story. Now that is finally done, we can just make stories about the races in the factions and not about the factions themselves.
But what I remember about legion most is not the faction conflicts but the class halls and the legion itself. Faction wars was such a backseat story I actually do not remember it.
Oh boy, more elf stuff. That’s what the Horde has been sorely missing—more cosmopolitan elf stuff.
Look at the three expansions that have followed BFA/Faction War. They are not telling faction/race stories (outside of going out of pocket to usually dunk on Nelves). I wish they were, because the rare glimpse of them we get are often fun (cleansing Lordaeron, heritage quests, etc.). If doing away with the faction stuff is supposed to open the door this stuff, why are we waiting four expansions to see it?
If doing away with the faction stuff is supposed to open the door this stuff, why are we waiting four expansions to see it?
Mostly because of how many employees were fired. Overwatch did not help blizzard at all and we can see it affecting other things in the company.
Bfa and shadowlands was also something that got a lot of people to unsub.
Edit: but shhhh about the elves stuff! There is someone here who thinks the elves are the horde
People just need to let go of the idea that the faction war was ever popular. The only time people actually like it was in Vanilla and BC, from what I can tell anyway, when it was just background noise to justify the battlegrounds and world pvp
Basically. It was fun in vanilla and TBC because there literally was almost no true story. It was basically, you’re blue, they’re red, go out and quest and do your own thing. You see x faction, kill or wave and pass. That was it. That was the extent of the faction war, other than some zones having resource fights like in mushroom zone in TBC or hellfire zone.
During wrath and all the story beats was more with horde and alliance aligning with each other than facing off each other, it got people asking why the faction thing was still happening.
Honestly, garrosh with the iron horde was fun because that was building up since wrath and it was because of the personality of garrosh.
After that, faction wars should have ended. Voljin should have never died and Sylvanas should have never been war chief.
Edit: saurafang really nailed what a lot of us felt like. He was doing the war but so tired of it all.
Nah, the H vs. A element was baked into much of the questing and zones all throughout basically… well, everything up until WoD, where it just got dumped into Ashran mostly.
People think Faction War is why BFA was so bad and it wasn’t. It was dogturd writing. If you write a compelling story, respect the characters and standing lore, people will gobble it up. Like, I get that no one liked their pickle and chewing gum lasagna (BFA), but that doesn’t mean lasagna is bad.
You can make it good all you like, a lot of us just tired of that story beat. I liked bfa more when it wasn’t about the faction wars. The drust was cool, the zala land with the blood cults was fun. Horde and alliance stuff? Same old same old, just worst writing.
Bfa had a lot of good writing. Trying to force a faction war is what ruined it. Contrived reasons with Azerite blah blah then Sylvanas going insane was just bad.
We’ve been eating lasagna for decades now. We want hamburgers now with French fries.
Outside of hardcore PvPers from back in the day, rarely have I ever heard anyone actually defend the Faction War.
The faction war stuff always felt like blizzard had to put it in just because of how it was in vanilla and TBC. It got lazier and lazier trying to find a reason to keep it going without it just going full on “screw it” mode.
Think this is the first time them really going “let’s just to actually evolve the story further”. There is going to be war in warcraft but it doesn’t have to be faction wars.
Because blizzard lost sight of what made the story fun. It was about big burly dudes and spell slinging wizzards doing cool fantasy crap and kicking butt while doing it.
Its been laden down with horrible HORRIBLE feeling touchy garbage, and muh ‘emotional development.’ Its boring, its lame, no one wants to, or is entertained by this garbage.
Wanna know how to make Midnight and The last titan amazing? Wanna know how to get everyone jazzed about it? Ill ptich you the cinimatic that would make wow shoot up to the top again.
Have XalaTOES start opening up protals to the void around major cities, and start leading attacks on it. Have everyone running scared and screaming, as death and shadow start showing up.
For the Alliance have anduin show up on the battle field, watching all the destruction and choas, and have him just get angrey, not mopy, not sad, not depress, just unbridled rage and retribution. Have him pick up a shield and his fathers sword and scream for azeroth or the alliance or something and basically cast mass res and then wade into the enemies and start slicking his blade around to make Ashbringer look like a match stick.
On the horde side have Thrall finally get over his elemental Dysifunction, pick up doom hammer, and scream Earth, and the ground starts to rumble, storm, and lightening starts striking the gorund, Fire, and molten lava surgers from teh ground, Heed my call For i am the warcheif of the horde! And then does a massive chain lightening and start beating back the void.
The entire first act of the plot is just them doing what they need to do and fighting a battle to protect their homes, no emotional feeling stuff, not romance stories, not helping wheel chair dragon, no ‘hey guys racism is bad im gonna explode my storm griffon into this booze barrals’ just bad a heros doing bad a things.
It works, its simple, its that easy.
I think the concept of faction conflict (particularly the calmer ‘cold war’ aspect of faction war) is popular because it means that we players get to see faction perspectives, and this framing requires that more story be funneled through the playable factions instead of a purely neutral experience. Therefore, it can make the game feel a smidge more personalized to the PC, because at least it varies based on your faction and that faction’s history.
That’s what I want out of faction divisions, at least. A case of two heroic groups that have different perspectives on the world and different past experiences to draw on - perspectives and experiences that lead them to not trust each other, and sometimes even clash violently, but ones that can be set aside to work together when things get dire enough.