Global Chat: December 25-31, 2011

@SgtBaker1234556

...accept, there's something very compartmentalized to how Blizz is approaching it's story telling when questing. It all seems to locked onto rails, and you're not allowed to get off of it when you accept the first quest. And each seem to be designed with one goal in mind: That is to get you leveled to endgame content status as quickly as humanly possible. Sure there's a story, but it's feels more like watching entertaining commercials before the main movie starts.

@SgtBaker1234556
I did play a Worgen up to level 60. The Gilneas storyline is left hanging. The Forsaken see more of a conclusion than those who roll Worgen.

The "redone" older zones are schizophrenic. Back when Blizzard announced they were updating the old world, they listened to the people who yelled constantly "don't get rid of this dungeon" or "don't get rid of this questline". Because of that about half of the quests in the older zone make no sense in a post-Cataclysm timeline.

There is also the issue of the constant retcons. Take for example the Dragon Soul. Neltharion (Deathwing) had it so it could not be used against him. That's why Rhonin could not use it against when he fought him. However, for the 4.3 patch and expediency so that Thrall can once more be the center of the story, that is completely retconned out. There is also numberous other examples.

And what about the situation at Andorhol? Where was the resolution? Where was Danath's return? Where was the conflict between him and Sylvanas over what she did to his nephew? Where was Kul Tiras? What about the growing conflict between the Argent Crusade and The Forsaken over The Forsaken continuing to replague areas the Argent Crusade has been cleansing? All of these things were talked about in beta and none showed up. Much less than half of what they talked about during Cata's beta showed up.

The Abyssal Maw is a great example of the poor storytelling as well. We have the entire Vash'jir zone setting up a story, the 5 person dungeon shows Ozumat whisking Neptulon away and then Abyssal Maw and it's associated 5 person dungeon(s) get cancelled with the explanation of "We think Neptulon's story is completed". How is it completed with his being taken?

Go to the game, or visit the forums. No matter where you go you begin to realize that the majority of players on WoW no longer have a clue about the story. If you try to talk about lore, you get laughed at. And of course Metzen's constant changes does nothing but encourage that type of thing.

For 2 straight expansions we have gotten half, or less, of the content talked about during their respective betas. But while story content has decreased, or retconned, there has been plenty of times to make pets and mounts for the pet store (for the record, I am not opposed to vanity items on the store, but it shouldn't take away from content development for the actual game, or give the appearance it may be doing so). Or they can come up with ideas to make WoW the first ever pay-to-pay-to-play game with how their original idea for Real ID grouping would be for an additional fee. Fortunately they decided that was a bad idea when everyone came out against it because a subscription based game should not be restricting access to in game content and features based on who is willing to pay more above the monthly fee.

@SgtBaker1234556

I agree with Lil as well, but I also want to point out something. Blizzard has been neglecting major story points in their game since Vanilla. One of the first, biggest ones I can think of is the Missing King quest line, the one where you attempt to find Varian Wrynn. It leaves off in a cliff hanger of sorts in the game, yet when it came time for him to return, instead of adding to the game a series of quests where we get to find out what happened to him, we ended up having to pay what... $60+ on a bunch of comics.

Then of course there is the sunwell trilogy mangas, which is the only way you'd know what the connection between Kalecgos and Adeena/whatever-her-name is, as well as the fact of who she was to begin with besides what you would learn in the game, which gives her the appearance of "one-off NPC retcon to bring back shiny well". Heck, the "traitor" you kill in the Bloodelf starting area has no real meaning unless you read the manga to begin with.

Blizzard's story has been scatterbrained and feels lazy as hell in the game, because they much rather outsource it all into books, mangas, comics, D&D books and so on. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just side stories here and there, but major events (like Varian Wrynn and his return) are left out.

HELL! I bet no one who was playing the game and didn't read those books would ever know that Varian Wrynn had been separated into two different identities for a time, and his crazy-warring attitude comes from him still reeling from that whole affair.

@DevilSei
Oh here is the absolute worse part of the Missing Diplomat questline. Not only was it finished in the comics after they said it would be finished in game, but it is still there in post-Cataclysm where it makes no sense. By the time your character is high enough level to get the quest, you have had some form of interaction with Varian at least once, if not multiple times.

When you get to the point of the ending of it is where it just get's sad. There's a new block of text where you get told essentially that this is old old news, and that Varian is back (which we already know) and that you should go back to Stormwind and see BOLVAR for the quest reward. Now this was about May when I did that, so I would hope it has been changed by now, but how sad is it that this not only made it 6 months after Cata's release, but somehow made it out of beta or even was written that way to begin with. I mean honestly, where is the quality control and did the person who wrote this not play Wrath and know where Bolvar was?

(For those who don't know, Bolvar was rather like regent for Anduin while Varian was missing and was in Stormwind Keep with Anduin and Lady Prestor [Onyxia]).

@DevilSei
Just a PS Devil, the sad thing is,the comics and magazine have been cancelled due to low sales. The Shattering sold rather poorly so it seems as if outside merchandise is going down for Blizzard which is indicative of losing the main core fan base.

@DevilSei
I didn't! I had no idea why the King had suddenly magically reappeared and I remember that day in WoW. I was on an alt and screamed in general "The king is back!" and I got responses like "LOL old joke" in trade, but was able to convince people to come to the keep and check. We had few dozen or so people standing around the king all asking the same the questions: "How did you get back?", "Where have you been?" ,"Why are you back now?". If you talked to him, all he would say is somethingly like "It's good to be back". It wasn't until someone who had been reading the comics logged on to make fun of us for not reading the comics and being ignorant of his return. Who also would not tell us what happened and instead said "go read the comics".

That return of the king, to this day, is still a huge disappointment for me. Not even some text in game about the return, on the King, in a book, in a quest.

@(Unverified)
I know what you mean. And the sad thing is the story is actually well written in the comics. It's like one day they decided to give up telling the story inside the game, and then constantly retconning other items.

Just a shame too cause it was such a wonderful story. So few people in the game actually know it. They just think Varian is a warmonger and The Forsaken are merely misunderstood. The nuances of what is really going on is completely lost.

@Utakata I think you can keep saying it. I agree.

I don't mind the 'hardcore' so much as I mind the gamification of the casual experience.

Casual play for me is experiencing the world and helping others in small ways. I don't want to prove myself on a sports-like team, nor do I want to repeat vapid dailies for second-rate rewards.

@Utakata
Well SolitudeZero and others want to attribute that to the "hardcore" and "elitist" but honestly, it's the 'elitist casual' who WoW has given rise to that does that.

The true "hardcore fan" of WoW never said "LFM for ICC, GS of 6000 required" because they didn't use gearscore.

And you are so right about Blizzard rushing everyone to end game. When a friend and I were leveling our Worgens this past spring, we didn't even use the XP increasing heirloom gear. Even without it, we quickly leveled up past the current zones so that the quests in them were grey. We still stayed and did them and followed the storyline path rather than skip zones because we wanted to see what the quest changes were, which ended up being disappointing because the mix between pre and post Cata timeline quests. This skipping over entire zones is just another example of them not really caring if a player experiences the story.

I think one of the major mistakes Blizzard has made in my opinion has been to increase the level cap, at least for every expansion. With the raising of the cap, it just makes it a rush to the next cap and makes all content previous irrelevant and obsolete. Not every new raid has to be an increase in gear. If BC had stayed at level cap of 60, Black Temple could have dropped gear that was no better than MC or BWL but could have gone been more beneficial say to a different spec for the classes.

@theBeast
Except it won't. The ones who actually do that are the "entitlement casual" set, not what is referred to as "elitist hardcore".

The ones referred to as 'elitist hardcore' don't go pugging raids. If they aren't full guild runs, it's because they are carrying people who are with them to buy loot that drops. It's the 'entitlement casual' who demands the achievment and a high gearscore because they don't want people who 1) really need anything so won't be as much competition for drops and 2) who already to some extent overgear the instance so can carry others (specifically the ones demanding the above things) and have a better chance to have some success in the instance.

The fact is, as the true Warcraft fan as left, this problem has gotten worse just as subs have declined.