To be fair, WoW has never struck me as a game that moulds to the story of our characters even a little. Games like SWTOR give you a bunch of meaningful conversation options that at times actually radically alter the story to fit your character. WoW has never been like this. You basically have the option to do the quest or to NOT do the quest. It’s never struck me as a game that supports character diversity. The “Adventurer” is pretty locked in to a single pathway, with the sole exception of this Saurfang arc Hordeside.
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Not to like make a thing of it but I’m curious why you made this thread here in realm forums? And why particularly this realm, do they not share these concerns on Khadgar?
Like, is it just about venting on a forum with more RPers or what?
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Maybe OP is RPing but chooses to focus on progression.
Maybe OP is planning to transfer to WrA and/or never made it.
Maybe OP forgot to switch to their WrA alt before posting.
Maybe it’s Maybelline.
It could be any of those or something else we haven’t considered, I’m just curious as to which.
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I dunno why off realm people sometimes show up but it is sort of interesting to note that the wra forums are the only realm forums which consistently show up on the “top threads” section of the forums. We’re the only realm that really seems to use them.
Maybe OP just was browsing the top threads and realized that WRA is a fun place to go kvetch about the story
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This is how I always felt too. I mean, it sounds like people generally loved Legion as a game, but from an RP perspective?
How many peoples’ characters take the game content: taking up a legendary artifact, becoming the highest authority among all members of your order, hanging out with Illidan, Velen, and Kadghar, braving the afterlife in defiance of Helia, and personally landing a blow on several major leaders in the Legion- and actually make that a part of their character’s IC backstory?
Not any I’ve met. Everyone just ignores that stuff as pure gameplay and they RP as having spent the expansion roaming around the Shattered Isles doing the odd job and fighting some demons as part of a larger effort, but not necessarily participating in any of the cutscenes. It’s almost like an entire thing that happened, but almost nobody was there for any of it.
So it’s really weird to me that in BfA, people are suddenly deciding that THEIR character is being forced to operate the siege engines that attacked Teldrassil or evacuate the citizens. That their character is being forced to do things in the War Campaign. That their character is being forced to choose between Sylvannas and Saurafang for the heart of the Horde. That their character can’t be who they were before because they’re being forced to kill members of the enemy faction in quests.
When in reality, your character is no more responsible for the burning of Tldrassil or attacks against the Vulpera than they are for recovering Ashbringer and slaying Kil’Jaiden. It only actually applies to your character if you decide it does.
I like to think it’s because the conflict this time is a bit more personal and character driven than WoW’s usual invasion of the X stuff, and when you get personable and character driven, people start to feel a lot more connected on a personal and character level.
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I looked at a random realms forums. They had two threads. Ever.
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It’s true. We are kind of a safe space for grousing about the story. And there’s enough eloquency between us that we can put into words what’s bothering us.
They’re good threads, Brent.
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I know I’m definitely not on the majority side. But I actually like how BFA is being written. I don’t get why so many people hate it so much, the only reason I ever really see is “THE HORDE IS MEAN AND I DON’T LIKE THAT” and no one really takes it further. Even though in the PTR there is a ton happening with horde leaders and such. My opinion of the BFA story is its being built as a jumping off point. They are using the expac to create a foundation for a ton of other stories, whether that is old gods, shadow lands, faction warfare, or something we haven’t seen yet. I think BFA overall has really good story qualities, is all of it stellar? Of course not! but legion wasn’t stellar either. I really enjoy watching the Bwonsamdi Plot evolve, and seeing more closely the threads of horde leadership fray and split. I loved watching Tyrande show how angry she was and the lengths she was and is willing to go to get vengeance for her people. This expac is a whole lot more than just Horde vs. Alliance and were very early on in the story of it as well. You don’t want the climax of a book at the beginning. It is my personal opinion, and I understand a lot of people differ on this, that this expansion is actually good, but coming off the heels of legion it fell short, and i’m okay with that. I love this game, and I have since I started playing over 10 years ago, i’m not going to jump ship just because they aren’t constantly amazing me.
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I think the biggest problem is that even if you don’t follow the “story” of what your character is doing in-game to the letter, it still feels really rewarding to have some kind of engagement with what is going on in the expansion, as a way to establish some common ground with other players.
So during Legion, almost no one would walk around claiming to have inherited the legit Ashbringer or that they are such besties with Thrall that he gave them the Doomhammer. But there was still plenty of room to tell your own little story of what you think your character would be doing to fight the Legion, even if they weren’t on the same level as the one High Priest/Netherlord/Archmage/etc.
But with Battle for Azeroth, that desire to engage with the main story has an unfortunate habit of trickling down and tainting even the most disconnected RP niches. If you play Horde, unless you have explicitly decided to 100% ignore what is happening, it’s hard not to feel complicit on some level.
Sure, you maybe you didn’t personally burn down Teldrassil or even fight in Darkshore… but short of framing your character as a pure freelancer with no allegiance to their faction or a vocal dissenter, it feels more than a little uncomfortable to try and have fun while nominally still supporting those events in smaller ways…
Now, that’s not to say that all Horde players are guilty of anything or “need to atone” for something that they had no actual choice in doing, but it makes hitting an enjoyable tone in RP so much more difficult with that hanging over your head.
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People, at large, are pretty thorough in explaining their distastes. That’s all I want to say.
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every day i hope the lightbulb over the hordies heads turns on and they get insight into why this is always the story
any day now
As for the rest? Honestly i’ve never actually seen people make a hard critique of wow’s story on the wra forum. It’s mostly lobbying for faction brownie points, occasionally someone like the op will notice something isn’t quite right, but no one can really put a finger on it other than “bad writing” when its very much intentional
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What I mean to say, is thats the only focal point of the story i ever see people focus on. I apologize, they do explain their reasoning for disliking that. But the BFA story is a lot bigger than horde vs alliance, even if it was marketed as that. Even the Horde vs alliance has really cool and fun pieces that people just ignore. The Alliance war campaign with Shandris and the blood prince was very cool for me, as an example of something people just seem to ignore.
There’s a number of folk who dislike it, who have also delved into why. I’ve seen discussions on almost every individual facet of the story both before and following BfA.
To be clear, I don’t mean to suggest it’s odd that people don’t see it much. Or don’t even come across particularly defined arguments, there’s lots of flinging and screaming all around.
But the talking points are around, all over the place, be it on the realm forums, GD, or other sites. While the large and obvious points get the most scrutiny, the smaller points aren’t being ignored, they’re just less obvious and less obtuse, so they tend to go more quietly.
If people are enjoying BfA, all I can say is, Great! But it’s not as if people don’t or have not combed through anything they dislike about it at whole with a fine comb.
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I mean, like, what was he going to say?
Do you really think he would tell the truth and be like: The Sylvanas villainy arc was decided by the game team five years ago as a vehicle to make Thrall Warchief again. We are well aware that most players hate it but we’re not about to change anything so suck it up buttercup.
Isn’t that…kind of what he said, though?
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While I generally get what you’re saying, the fact is is that BfA is most definitely emphasizing and prioritizing the faction war. The piece you mentioned, as you said yourself, was involved in the Alliance war campaign. Against the Horde. Which, according to that campaign, now includes the San’layn.
Regardless of how interesting that is, it still boils down to one versus the other. That’s the focus and will likely be the focus until Blizzard reveals it was the Old Gods pulling the strings or something.
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You know… I only read the summary on wowhead rather than actually watching it…
I hope I didn’t accidentally plagiarize Ion.
What i’m trying to get across is that I don’t understand why people are just now getting upset at Horde Vs. Alliance, its always been one of the biggest focal points of this game. Both War campaigns have amazing pieces of story. If people don’t like a story like Horde Vs. Alliance they need to find a different game. The duality and choices that both factions have to make has always been a major staple in wow, and its not gonna change.
For all intents and purposes this is, simply, incorrect, no offense.
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