WoW Lore

[titans_zealot]

Who here is angry/dislikes WoW Lore? I personally don't play right now but the largest reason why I started playing WoW was because of its world. Even though it's an MMORPG it annoys me a lot with the lore decisions they make (which I follow on). For example the way they killed off major characters very easily without what I felt much effort,build up, or story but very lazily like Tiron.
There is a leaked legion cinematic which I am not going to describe but if you have seen it, what happens to the main big guy annoys me because he is supposed to be super powerful.
What is worse is it's likely that other warcraft games (if they will be) mainly the destined warcraft 4 will use the same lore as WoW or not.

I know lots of people (from all ranges of warcraft) go through this and can relate but I want to know if I am missing something besides the fact its a MMO that has to entertain the millions of players.

 

[Chaosy]

There are plenty of BS in WoW lore, but overall it is great.
*cough* Twisting Nether transcends all realities *cough*

 

[Dr Super Good]

WoW suffered from lore inflation. Warcraft never had that much lore so they had to add as they went along.

This is pretty obvious if one was to ever make a time line of major events that happened in the universe. There are thousands and hundreds of year gaps until Warcraft III (which is immediately followed by WoW), which in 1 generation has likely more major events than occurred up to that point in the entirety of the history. Most of the dragon aspects were killed, evil changed its face dozens of times, cities were destroyed and rebuilt, entire empires crumbled and new ones formed, ancient forces abolished, the list just goes on and on of world changing events that occurred within years of each other, if not at the same time.

The reality is there cannot be any sequel to World of Warcraft, as the entire universe has been left with a pretty boring future seeing how much of the persistent history has been destroyed within 1 generation.

I am guessing Blizzard will make up some new IP for a Warcraft IV like game, as there is not much left they can do with World of Warcraft.

 

[titans_zealot]

makes sense

 

[Dadude123]

I sorta agree @titans_zealot .
But I wonder how exactly they could have done it better.
For example killing off big story characters like Arthas/LK in Wrath of the Lich King.

They did give him a special (difficult and epic) boss fight. A long wind-up fighting through the frozen throne dungeon. An awesome cutscene and even a cinematic.

I feel like our expectations were simply too high.
They could have let him escape or something, but fighting him again would feel like he would have been be recycled (and thus devalued).


Personally I think the WoW lore is mostly fine as it is, considering its enormous scope. It is difficult to get a perfect story going even when only one person works on it and there are no special concerns/needs that have to be fulfilled (for gameplay reasons). And WoW surely has more than one story writer and they all have to make sure the story enables some scenarios for gameplay reasons.


Going with the example of large bosses/character like LK or Illidan, what could they have done differently?

 

[Duke]

They turned it into some weird sci-fi fantasy with space ships, multiple dimensions and such. I would have preferred if they kept it more grounded. More like Warhammer fantasy for example. Light being from some space aliens.. I dunno, it just doesn't do anything for me, all magic and mystery is gone, everything is explained in some convoluted way.

 

[Dadude123]

Yeah it does feel a bit strange.
All the coming from space stuff to interconnect the worlds doesn't sit well with me either.
The daenei themselves are cool, a nice addition to the world, but the part about them coming from space doesn't really fit.
They could have made them come through portals or so, that's an in-universe theme that they had already going. Waygates and teleportation existed in WC3 already.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Going with the example of large bosses/character like LK or Illidan, what could they have done differently?

The player should never have been able to fight them at all. And if they did it should have been not to the death but rather the player trying to survive the encounter. They are major characters while the player is some nobody want to be hero. Even Diablo III characters have more lore merit than WoW characters as they are non-generic.

Think Sonic and Dr Eggman. Sonic never kills Dr Eggman who always gets away in some way or another... Think Mario fighting Bowser. Mario never kills Bowser, although he has temporarily reduced him to a skeleton on several occasions but that always was undone.

Kel Thuzard would be a prime example of a character that no matter how often people kill in WoW should just keep coming back in some way or another.

 

[Dadude123]

Hm, I didn't even think of that. Nice idea, I like it.

But lets think it through some more.
So lets say the player finds the LK at the top of the citadel. Now the raid would fight until he's at 0.1% and then what?

He says he's needed somewhere else? (In the middle of a fight..., sounds like he's fleeing)
Or an NPC (Terenas Menethil) helps and... I don't know, banishes him or holds him for a moment so the players can escape?
Something along those lines?


So the character doesn't die, and can potentially appear elsewhere again, right? Or would reusing them eventually be bad design for some reason?

 

[Chaosy]

I've said it for a while to my friends, by constantly powercreeping we've reached the point where the player is god-tier.
We've defeated the LK, Elemental Lords, Deathwing, old gods, void lords. I wont count World Souls since we had some titan help in that encounter.

If we have defeated someone like the LK what could stand in our way realistically? they had to powercreep to make it seem like a challenge.
This is why I do not think I will ever be hyped about a raid boss again, other than queen azshara possibly depending on how they portray her ingame.

For a change, it would be cool to fight a boss from 100% to 90% and then we lose and have to escape the raid or something.

 

[titans_zealot]

I've said it for a while to my friends, by constantly powercreeping we've reached the point where the player is god-tier.
We've defeated the LK, Elemental Lords, Deathwing, old gods, void lords. I wont count World Souls since we had some titan help in that encounter.

If we have defeated someone like the LK what could stand in our way realistically? they had to powercreep to make it seem like a challenge.
This is why I do not think I will ever be hyped about a raid boss again, other than queen azshara possibly depending on how they portray her ingame.

For a change, it would be cool to fight a boss from 100% to 90% and then we lose and have to escape the raid or something.

Agree

 

[Dadude123]

I've said it for a while to my friends, by constantly powercreeping we've reached the point where the player is god-tier.
We've defeated the LK, Elemental Lords, Deathwing, old gods, void lords. I wont count World Souls since we had some titan help in that encounter.

If we have defeated someone like the LK what could stand in our way realistically? they had to powercreep to make it seem like a challenge.
This is why I do not think I will ever be hyped about a raid boss again, other than queen azshara possibly depending on how they portray her ingame.

For a change, it would be cool to fight a boss from 100% to 90% and then we lose and have to escape the raid or something.

We had something similar to that in that one WotLK 5man instance.
Where you fight against some minions where forstmourne is kept, and then the LK follows you and you have to fight your way though some monsters to break ice walls.

When I think back, that was actually a pretty creative and fun instance!

I'm not sure, but I feel like at least one or two raid bosses were similar to what you suggest (insane hp, fight to 90%, then the boss flees).

So at the very least they were aware of having that option - as well as the technical/story means to do it.
Maybe they thought that the players expected (wanted) those important bosses to actually die.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I've said it for a while to my friends, by constantly powercreeping we've reached the point where the player is god-tier.

And yet player characters are still gathering poop for Panda farmers