Wow hasn't had a good story in a while

Lore Story Forum
21

Nah thats not why its popular its popular because the faction war itself is a crappy story device for a MMO.

Here is the problem with the faction war story, it only ever has 3 outcomes, none of which are good because it will either alienate half, or all your player base.

Out come 1: A clear winner and a clear loser, One side ‘wins’ the expansion which ends up pissing off the other side, and half your player base with it. One side ends up either loosing characters or land as a result and no one likes that because no one likes to play teh losing side.

Outcome 2: Pyric victory, one side ‘wins’ but with such great losses that you cant really call it a win, both sides end up losing a lot and characters are either killed off or dont do anything, it leaves neither side satisfied or happy with it.

Outcome 3: The stale mate, the one where nothing actually happens, no one wins, no one loses, it was all just a bunch of balking bakc and forth, no one wins here because nothing actually progressed or did anything worthy of note. Again, no one is happy.

If you look back at the game, the only times the faction war story worked was when it was a back burner story that was just going on in small conflicts in various parts of the world, winter grasp, ashran, the random pvp locations, stone talon. But a actual full blown faction war vs faction war is just pitting both players against each other which will jsut come down to a popularity contest which alwasy results in us putting aside the war to fight a bigger threat.

The faction conflict was a cool ghimic in 2008 when it was fresh, new, and no one was really doing it. In 2024 its kind of stale and lame now.

Just have it where Alliance and horde have a mutual peace treaty but that does not stop various small factiosn within each faction from fighting each other for various reasons.
Backburner side story? fine.
Main A plot or even B plot? Nah always fails.

6 Likes
22

That is literally what it is now right now. Only now we are fighting the void now. And that is an issue for everyone.

23

Yeah, and thats where it belongs and should stay, and every time blizzard tries to bring it out of that position it just ends up doing more damage then it helps.

24

Aye, at that point it isn’t even a faction war. It is merc groups fighting each other.

25

Which honestly is fine, just have various sub factions of the alliance and horde fighting for what ever reason.

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26

Bingo. War can happen, it just isn’t about factions vs factions but smaller groups coming for whatever they want. Could even be a mix of both factions creating their own group causing trouble.

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27

Just to be clear, Faction War as the centerpiece story is not a good idea. It needs to be a backdrop (and not really a war—more like posturing and the occasional skirmishes) to color the world. I just think it would be folly to toss out the team sports mentality that drives faction pride and has historically dominated and served as foundational to the world.

10 Likes
28

You don’t need horde vs alliance for that.

You can just make merc groups for that and have that in the background and you said merc group.

Team battle doesn’t have to go Away at all. Just it being with horde vs alliance is something it doesn’t need to be.

Imagine an actual mercenary system. Imagine them making world PVP about x group wanting y resource.

5 Likes
29

I would rather not take a jackhammer to conventional Warcraft themes in pursuit of more run of the mill fantasy stuff. I think distancing itself from those roots will not lead to a good outcome.

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30

Why do all of these ‘WoW needs better stories’ threads sound like lead poisoning?

Correct observation to some degree, terrible reasoning. The main stories have been a bit contrived and need a little work, but the real content surrounding them, the world building, have been pretty great. Not everything is going to be knocking it out of the park but they’re quite good. Zandalar and Kul’tiras as mentioned were amazing. Going through the rep stories in DF were good, were fun. The heritage questlines (while having clear winners and losers) have been a boon to the world’s story telling (and the orcs and draenei are carrying that team hard), the Arathi are compelling and tell real every day stories despite being in a very unique situation, the Nerubians and Kobolds are getting depth and story, we have real outstanding quests like Duroz and Kalgar in DF or Korgran’s shutting down for TWW.

The writing has gotten better, its become more indepth, it explores the people we come across more and more rather than just mindlessly hacking and slashing our way to a villain we knew and waited for years to see. There are improvements to be made of course, but it feels as if they’re aware of them.

2 Likes
31

Each their own. The theme of red vs blue is outdated. It worked in early 2000s. Now after all this story progression. It is old news.

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32

Bingo, the writing for races and what not got better. But too many people still view it in the lens of alliance vs horde.

I’m actually interested in the forsaken with Calia because it is going back to the roots of lorderon. But people don’t see it as that, they see it as horde going alliance. I’m not viewing it in the lens of factions, I am viewing it in the lens of their races story.

Forsaken vs remnants of the scarlet crusade in their heritage quest was fun. Not because it is horde vs alliance, it is because it is old lorderon vs undead lorderon.

1 Like
33

Mostly agree, except for the main character stable and their presentation. I always find myself investing in the sideplots (Arathi, Nerubian) but the Faces of the Expansion seem to be consistently insufferable.

3 Likes
34

Well, no one said blizzard can write main characters and meant it without breaking out in laughter. It is why their story telling is always regulated and better told in comics or novels.

35

Ill put it this way.

Blizzard writing a story is like building a house outta bricks.

The bricks are great, the bricks are the world building concepts, like Zandalar, or Arathi, or the Spider kingdom we are currently dealing with, they lay great and intersting bricks.

The problem is, the mortar, the stuff that holds the bircks together, that part? That part sucks. Thats thing things like explaining why the bricks are there, or linking them to gether in a coherent story.

Example. Ansurek, cool character concept…why are we killing her again? Shes shadow and she killed her mother…thats it? As a tier one villian shes a awful AWFUL character, espeically when you stack her up against Razageth and Danathrias.

Blizzards main issue with their modern writing is the same issue many modern writers have. They make these characters and concepts, and feel entitled for us to give a darn about them.
The expect you to care about the Alleria x XalaToes rivalry, but have not done anything to actually warrant us to care.
They expect you to care about ansurk as a Tier 1 raid villan, but she has done nothing to actually warrent it.
They expect you to care about Faerin and the arathi, when they have dont nothing to warrent us giving a darn about them.
They expect us to care about Anduins PTSD, AGAIN.

And thats my point, these characters are great quality bricks for a house, but the mortar that is meant ot hold them in place is rotten and bad or just non existent.

5 Likes
36

Alleria at the Priory gave me Sylvanas and Genn vibes.

I hate, hate, hate when the game forgets the protagonist is there. Alleria up here having her slay, queen! moment and then huddling over Khadgar so Anduin can come full circle to the bland boyscout who totally isn’t the same because he has been pouting for a few years I guess? Meanwhile I’m just drooling in the doorway, unmoved to act against an apparent existential threat because someone with a golden exclamation point didn’t pay me.

But hey, Khadgar is pretty much the only character that has been consistently, unobtrusively good imo, so it ain’t all bad.

Check back here next patch to probably see me having a meltdown over how much I hate Khadgar then.

6 Likes
37

I mean for christ sake she quoted a Pixar movie…

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38

Was Ragnaros any different? All of Zul’Gurub? Kael’thas and Illidan as sudden villains? Zul’Aman? Why was Ulduar even a thing? That isn’t a ‘modern’ issue.

Xalatath has been a known character, shown scheming, since her introduction in Legion and release in BFA. Alleria, for any faults, has been given that void connection to know that she’s up to something, that is the only one (for better or worse) who understands the void and can follow her. We’ve been told, explicitly, that this is now a 3 expansion long story. We are quiet literately still on chapter 1 of 9+ and Metzen’s involvement and direction of taking TWW from a single expansion into a saga isnt kicking in until next patch. So if it feels rocky, or shallow, and it does a little, there is far more coming.

Ansurek is just that, a tier 1 villain. Was there reason to care that much about Ragnaros? Gruul? Magtheridon? Naxx was very directly connected at least, but was legit a redo with some updated story.

The Arathi have been one of the primary forces holding back Ansurek’s forces, and barely at that. They’re a new unique kingdom out of nowhere. We’re the Tuanka any different? Yongol? Highmountain? Drakarri? Iron Dwarves? They put amazing care into crafting a new kingdom that has had near universal positive feedback that many wish can be replicated into current human kindoms, just as they did with Kul’tiras.

And big shocker, PTSD doesnt just poof away. They are trying to tell a story here with Anduin. Likable story or not, they’re not just going to say ‘everything is fine now, hes just sitting back on the throne like nothing happened.’

Yeah, there are more creative ways to make this happen. There are characters missing. There is some extra depth we’d like to see. But all of this caring and development for characters we just met is nothing new or different in the ‘modern’ story telling. Its always been as shallow as a puddle. Can cover a large area, and be pretty wide, but not that deep.

8 Likes
39

That is kinda my gripe with Anduin here. He should be a very different character, but he is basically just speedrunning a Thrall rehash while the narrative continues to warp around him to ensure he is correct and captain moral compass.

Same issue I had with Tyrande as well. They basically spin their tires and revert to the same character they were before, so why bother deliberately smearing them across every facet of a story?

5 Likes
40

The OP’s writing style and inability to paragraph suggests that they should mind their own glass house before throwing stones at anyone’s writing.

The stories and characters for the zones have been pretty awesome. If any valid criticism is to be made is that this expac is lacking in hooks for Horde players.

1 Like