Mists of Pandaria

erwtenpeller wrote:

Thrakha wrote:I feel that

Exactly.

Your likes and dislikes are legitimate, everyone has them. They do, however, not determine what does and does not fit into world of Warcraft. Only one divine force determines that; and that's Blizzard.

This is a fact. Something that can not be refuted or changed. It's not something you can agree or disagree with.

I think you're conflating my 'should' with your 'is'.

Whether there are or aren't pet battles in WoW is beside the point. We wouldn't be having this discussion if there weren't. Saying that they belong there because Blizzard put them there, is like saying, 'Well, this knife's in his kidney, and sure, that looks bad according to you, but if it wasn't meant to be there it wouldn't be there.'

My point is that I believe the Pet Battles shouldn't be in there. That they don't fit the setting. I can and do disagree with the idea that they genuinely have a place in the setting.

You can disagree with that, and I can disagree with you. My argument isn't invalidated by the presence of pet battles, though.

Yeah, that's the thing Thrak, I have many dislikes - as I stated previously - and I don't see them as a nice fit in the world but others do. My opinion isn't right, it's just one side of the die.

Our point is that you may feel they don't fit, but maybe 100thousand people believe they do fit. No one is right or wrong. Blizzard is the storyteller.

Thrakha wrote:'Well, this knife's in his kidney, and sure, that looks bad according to you, but if it wasn't meant to be there it wouldn't be there.'

Murder-by-stabbing is so not the same as a company being in creative control of their own creation.

Vaell wrote:Our point is that you may feel they don't fit, but maybe 100thousand people believe they do fit. No one is right or wrong. Blizzard is the storyteller.

Exactly! Which makes blizzard "right".

Which means they get to say what does and does not fit the setting.

Which means pet battles totally fit the setting.



Personally I'm in a perpetual state of "Meh" about pet battles. BUT-- It's very nice that we now have account wide pets and mounts!

erwtenpeller wrote:

Thrakha wrote:'Well, this knife's in his kidney, and sure, that looks bad according to you, but if it wasn't meant to be there it wouldn't be there.'

Murder-by-stabbing is so not the same as a company being in creative control of their own creation.

I think it is when you're referring to Dragon Age 2.

Vaell wrote:

erwtenpeller wrote:

Thrakha wrote:'Well, this knife's in his kidney, and sure, that looks bad according to you, but if it wasn't meant to be there it wouldn't be there.'

Murder-by-stabbing is so not the same as a company being in creative control of their own creation.

I think it is when you're referring to Dragon Age 2.

Exactly. Being the storyteller/writer doesn't put someone beyond criticism.

Perhaps the metaphor was a bit much. A better metaphor would be, it's like the aliens Steven Spielberg insisted in putting into AI and the latest Indiana Jones film. I'm sure Spielberg and some of his fans think they fit in wonderfully. That doesn't, in itself, invalidate the entirely subjective opinion that they suck mightily and that the films in question would have been better without them.

But pet battles seems more like you're complaining about how the person opposite you is eating bread, even though it doesn't interefere with your meal in the slightest.

It doesn't break any of the lore, it isn't included in any of the main bits of lore, it's just a fun little mini-game that is purely included for in-game mechanics.

Okay, shifting simile again...

No, it's like they're eating something incredibly garlic-scented when I don't like garlic.

My mini-pet screen has been entirely reconfigured to facilitate pet-battles.

My Lashtail Hatchling pet's name has been nixed because apostrophes aren't allowed.

And these dumb npcs keep cropping up in my questing areas, asking to set snakes on my pets.

It's not as non-intrusive as you seem to believe.

Stop ruining my immersion Thrakha

I can agree with Thrakha that pet battles doesn't exactly make sense in the IC world. But I'd also say that the issue is kinda lessened because Pet Battles isn't very mixed with the lore of the rest of the world. But then again, there are Pet Battle Trainers out in the world, so you could argue it's as legitimate lore as any of the class trainers.

To be honest, though, is anyone ever immersed in this game anymore? When people talk about storytelling in WoW, it's never got to do with how much atmosphere they've built or how immersed you've got in the game. It's got more to do with how much they like/hate Thrall or Garrosh, not with their actual experience within their game. Considering there are so many conveniences and "unatmospheric" PvE balance for instance, it's never really immersive. Considering Pet Battles harm immersion, something already damaged in WoW, you could say that it doesn't affect WoW's way of telling a story at all and has as much effect on the storytelling as corpse running does.

I'm not sure what everybody is talking about. I think pet battles fit into the game world just fine. Heck, I've pet battled IC before, and it felt perfectly natural.

Maybe it's because I have been yearning for a Pokémon MMO much longer than I have been yearning for a Warcraft MMO...?

Probably. I can only see it as a poor attempt at making minipets 'relevant', while they never needed to be.

To be honest, though, is anyone ever immersed in this game anymore?

Can't say I've been really immersed since midway WotLK, with the entire tournament thing and the increasingly apparent notion that they weren't going to deliver with the push on Icecrown. Cataclysm didn't help on mending that feeling, and I sort of just gave up when they came with the Pandaria reveal.
The game is just too inconsistent for me when it comes to setting an atmosphere. It will try its darnedest to be serious and then suddenly make a complete 180 and slap you in the face with some 'funny' pop/meme refference quest or take you someplace that's so obviously "Hey, let's visit [insert country/culture here]" that it hurts.

Nowadays immersion is more how deep I can work myself into the background lore outside the game than giving a hoot about what's within.

Oh Pet Battles - It just isn't for me. I personally like to keep my two guilty pleasures of Pokémon and WoW separate. They really just don't work for me in WoW, the feasibility of it is just mind-boggling to me at least - This is definitely one of those “marmite topics.”

Surely it is just a popular-culture reference and not exactly intended for IC/lore interaction?

Well - for me at least, I will not be rp'ing a forsaken-pet-master who is about to start the Pandaria league and defeat Tyrant-Master Garrosh.

I really liked the pet-battle thing at the start from an IC point of view.
I thought Rargnasha could raise his kid by sending him out to figth wild animel.
Boy was I dissapointed when the little gruntling wasn't allowed to fight critters. : /
Way to nerf orcish parenting blizzard.

Flo wrote:Probably. I can only see it as a poor attempt at making minipets 'relevant', while they never needed to be.

To be honest, though, is anyone ever immersed in this game anymore?

Can't say I've been really immersed since midway WotLK, with the entire tournament thing and the increasingly apparent notion that they weren't going to deliver with the push on Icecrown. Cataclysm didn't help on mending that feeling, and I sort of just gave up when they came with the Pandaria reveal.
The game is just too inconsistent for me when it comes to setting an atmosphere. It will try its darnedest to be serious and then suddenly make a complete 180 and slap you in the face with some 'funny' pop/meme refference quest or take you someplace that's so obviously "Hey, let's visit [insert country/culture here]" that it hurts.

Nowadays immersion is more how deep I can work myself into the background lore outside the game than giving a hoot about what's within.

Not sure I agree. Sure, it's a matter of sensitivity, but to me, depends on how you play the game. If you rush through it, barely reading the texts, the quests and getting as detached as you can be during it, then yes, it's in short a huge pile of chores to reach the max ilvl possible, with little to no story behind it. But, if you go through it with the right mind, then it's really immersive: the pop culture reference, when present, are tipically subtle, and don't compromise the story one bit. Even the most obvious and most slapped in face in the end are just detours(I think, to make two Cata examples at Oratio Laine in Westfall and the Harrison Jones questline in Uldum), but the basic lore is still there. They ruin immersion? Sure, but only if you expect a grimdark medieval atmosphere: but in all honesty, that'd make little sense. We have jamaican trolls and tinker gnomes, since vanilla and before. We have drunken dwarves and pervert succubi, we have space goats and ambiguous elves. I mean, even the so loved Wotlk is, visually to say the least, a rip off from LOTR with Norse inserts.

To be honest, my impression is though that most of the immersion has been killed with the utter ruination of the leveling experience, which has become a rush to 90. It's really hard to appreciate the story and feel immersed when you run through it without even looking at it.

The Daily quest chains that have come with the mists of pandaria patches have been the first story-lines that have had any sort of immersive effect on me.

Please, Story-telling has improved by 400% since Vanilla.

Since WOTLK, through Cata and pandaland, story-telling has been at an all time high, for blizzard.

The problem though is this: Not every story part is interesting for everybody.
Pandaland is god-damned rich with story. just most people aren't interrested in that part.

Wow ultimately is High-fantasy with a wink. It doesn't take itself to seriously, and its archetypical and bordering on cliché.
that's not my cup of tea, it was in 2004, but it isn't anymore.

but to claim that story-telling hasn't improved, and is getting worse? that's just plain wrong. blizzard keeps experimenting with new ways to tell the story. some fail, some work, but they keep adding new shit.

the problem thraska has, is that wow lore doesn't have any consistency with its own rule-set. making it seem; unrealistic. not because it is unrealistic, but because it doesn't adhere to its own rules, in favour of: this is cool, lets do that!

Which is an argument that has its merits, but i think; ultimately fails. mostly because wow is high fantasy, and tongue in cheek. And not something "we"(players) wish it to be.

ultimately, we're all playing a game, and want it to be something else.

I don't want it to be something else. I'm very content with the game as it is. I honestly believe MoP is the most fun and richest expansion thus far.

We know Erwt, you're starting to sound like a copymachine. ;p

Longknife/Decurius wrote:Not sure I agree. Sure, it's a matter of sensitivity, but to me, depends on how you play the game. If you rush through it, barely reading the texts, the quests and getting as detached as you can be during it, then yes, it's in short a huge pile of chores to reach the max ilvl possible, with little to no story behind it. But, if you go through it with the right mind, then it's really immersive: the pop culture reference, when present, are tipically subtle, and don't compromise the story one bit. Even the most obvious and most slapped in face in the end are just detours(I think, to make two Cata examples at Oratio Laine in Westfall and the Harrison Jones questline in Uldum), but the basic lore is still there. They ruin immersion? Sure, but only if you expect a grimdark medieval atmosphere: but in all honesty, that'd make little sense. We have jamaican trolls and tinker gnomes, since vanilla and before. We have drunken dwarves and pervert succubi, we have space goats and ambiguous elves. I mean, even the so loved Wotlk is, visually to say the least, a rip off from LOTR with Norse inserts.

I wouldn't call WotLK a LotR rip-off so much as an amalgamation of anything 'Northern' in any culture/fantasy universe ever. And sure, pretty much all races have influences from somewhere; asian refferences with the elves or hints of egypt in Ahn'Qiraj. Thing is that I never did mind those before, and could even find the humor in some of the more out there concepts. But then suddenly in Cataclysm I'm of part of a Warcraft CSI, visiting hobbit holes in the Highlands, feature in a Rambo movie (twice) and am then dragged through a zone that's so blatantly "Hey look Egypt(!) with Indiana Jones(!), watch us try and work this in(!)" when they've allready done that theme in a far less obvious manner?
Don't take me wrong, I've gotten off the 'needs to be grimdark' train after Metzen outright said that we shouldn't take it all too seriously, and I loved when Blizzard succeeded and did let the lore shine through (Stonetalon chain, Argent reclamation in the plaguelands, Feralas, the Centaur in Desolace), but all this refferencing just made me scratch my head more often than I'd ever used to.

Yes, yes, this is all down to my tastes having changed over the years and having unreal expectations of MMO-storytelling after tOR (yea, Agent chain was phenomenal) and the Secret World (try it, srsly), and I fault nobody for liking what it is today. I just feel the writing team is suffering an identity crisis, caught between wanting to tell a story where they're treading over into the grimdark so often, yet forcing themselves to keep it popular and ramming in 'the rule of cool' stuff at the same time.
Not even mentioning the uncertain back and forth in developing some characters; the hell's up with Tyrande, jebus.


But hey, I haven't played since the Firelands patch and most I know is from Wowhead or MMO-Champ, so forgive me if I sound like an archaic, broken record.

(EDIT: Amaryl posted while I was writing this, and makes good points, I'm just one of 'those people')

The storytelling has improved, sure. I still think the way it has improved is similar to the way a fart leaves a room. It's ascending from shit to ok.

WoW reminds me of the Elder Scrolls games. Brilliant atmosphere, great at building lore and some exceptional side quests. When it comes to the main story, the major plot that drives it forward, they need to hire someone new!

WoW needs an on-going legendary questline like so many other MMOs have. An instanced epic story mode that co-exists with your levelling.

Curious, I've only done one Deepwind Gorge so far, what's peoples opinion on the BG?

Coppersocket wrote:Curious, I've only done one Deepwind Gorge so far, what's peoples opinion on the BG?

as a concept and an idea it had potential, however I dislike the map size and complexity. I spent half a match watching my team members being lost and running in circles.

The resource idea is a good mainstay thats worked in AB, BfG and EoTs. The added twist of a capturable mine cart at each base? brilliant. But again, the map lets it down I feel due to its large size and complexity. It's gonna be a pain for RBG teams to learn.

Though who knows, the longer its out, the better it may get as people get used to it. I never liked IoC in the beginning, yet i'm now a master of it and count it as my Favourite BG.

Whats your view of it copper?

Amaryl wrote:Please, Story-telling has improved by 400% since Vanilla.

Since WOTLK, through Cata and pandaland, story-telling has been at an all time high, for blizzard.

The problem though is this: Not every story part is interesting for everybody.
Pandaland is god-damned rich with story. just most people aren't interrested in that part.

Wow ultimately is High-fantasy with a wink. It doesn't take itself to seriously, and its archetypical and bordering on cliché.
that's not my cup of tea, it was in 2004, but it isn't anymore.

but to claim that story-telling hasn't improved, and is getting worse? that's just plain wrong. blizzard keeps experimenting with new ways to tell the story. some fail, some work, but they keep adding new shit.

the problem thraska has, is that wow lore doesn't have any consistency with its own rule-set. making it seem; unrealistic. not because it is unrealistic, but because it doesn't adhere to its own rules, in favour of: this is cool, lets do that!

Which is an argument that has its merits, but i think; ultimately fails. mostly because wow is high fantasy, and tongue in cheek. And not something "we"(players) wish it to be.

ultimately, we're all playing a game, and want it to be something else.

I'm with Amaryl 100% on this one.

Krogon Devilstep wrote:

Coppersocket wrote:Curious, I've only done one Deepwind Gorge so far, what's peoples opinion on the BG?

as a concept and an idea it had potential, however I dislike the map size and complexity. I spent half a match watching my team members being lost and running in circles.

The resource idea is a good mainstay thats worked in AB, BfG and EoTs. The added twist of a capturable mine cart at each base? brilliant. But again, the map lets it down I feel due to its large size and complexity. It's gonna be a pain for RBG teams to learn.

Though who knows, the longer its out, the better it may get as people get used to it. I never liked IoC in the beginning, yet i'm now a master of it and count it as my Favourite BG.

Whats your view of it copper?

Well I found it all in all very confusing. I did it on patch day and my entire team had absolutely no idea about the objectives, including me.So we ran around like headless chickens trying to figure out what the fuck to do.

I've not really much of an opinion on it yet but it seems okay. Better than Silvershard at least as it's more focused on the players.

The new arena is cool, not played either bg yet.

Lexgrad wrote:The new arena is cool, not played either bg yet.

The new arena is rather lovely. the little platforms are great for ranged classes.