Warlords of Draenor - General Discussion

Are you removing stance of the fierce tiger for mistweavers/brewmasters in WoD?
Yes. Mistweavers get a new Crane stance for Fistweaving, in addition to Serpent stance.

ALL

OF

MY

BABIES

Bought time the Crane got some love for Monks :3

Cerik Ironforge wrote:

It is possible that the Alliance and Horde will work together against the Iron Horde at some point in the expansion.

Lol.

?

2edgy4peace?

Horde and Alliance uniting to fight a common evil. Very clever and original story writing.

Cerik Ironforge wrote:Horde and Alliance uniting to fight a common evil. Very clever and original story writing.

Fighting each other would conflict with the storyline though. Varian has warned the new Warchief not to raise hands against the Alliance, whom for now is the stronger faction.

Plus, uniting has been the thing since Wc3. Bit late to complain now.

That is rather generalised tho.

Horde and alliance fighting each other, Very clever and original story writing.

The point is not if they fight or are at peace or help, what makes the story is the why question, not the what question.

Horde and Alliance fighting eachother.

Very clever and original story writing.

Cerik Ironforge wrote:Horde and Alliance uniting to fight a common evil. Very clever and original story writing.

Thelos wrote:Horde and Alliance fighting eachother. Very clever and original story writing.

Given that they've already done both multiple times, I guess the idea is that they should just... politely ignore eachother this time around?

Since "originality" (I am in want of more scarequotes here) is the only creative virtue people seem to recognize nowadays, I suppose Blizzard is left with no other choice.

Or perhaps I yearn for something more than a black and white story with a recycled host of characters that represent nothing but the most mundane and basic concepts?

But no, as stated above this isn't Blizzard forte.

Sparkly graphics seem to be more appreciated than anything else.

Cerik Ironforge wrote:Or perhaps I yearn for something more than a black and white story with a recycled host of characters that represent nothing but the most mundane and basic concepts?

But no, as stated above this isn't Blizzard forte.

Sparkly graphics seem to be more appreciated than anything else.

I don't see what that has anything to do with two opposing factions banding together to fight a common foe.

I don't see how that is a "black and white story with a recycled host of characters that represent nothing but he mos mundane and basic concepts", or more importantly, how the opposite is or isn't. And how the sparkliness of the graphics and the appreciation thereof has anything to do with it. The folksy wisdom that pretty things are shallow and ugly things have to compensate by having a compelling story is just that: a folksy superstition used to justify the ugliness of things people like for other reasons then their supposed ugly-or-prettyness. "It's all right if it looks ugly - it's got a compelling story!" People who just arguments like that will invariably believe other-minded people use the same argument in reverse. They will  then condemn that argument, even though that argument - that pretty things don't have to be smart, because they're pretty - is never actually made, because it and its opposite - that smart things don't have to be pretty, because they're smart - are dumb to begin with and perhaps people who like pretty things are smart enough to realise that. Clever things are clever and pretty things are pretty; sometimes something is both pretty and clever, othertimes something is ugly and dumb; sometimes something is pretty and dumb and othertimes something is ugly and clever. Only a fool would suppose one excludes the other, or that the absence of one can be compensated by an excess of the other. Good things have either of the two, better things have both and bad things have neither.

i.e complaining about things being pretty is stupid, because things being pretty is good. Things being pretty is better than things being ugly; that's why we call one 'pretty' and the other 'ugly,' precisely because we prefer one over the other.

The reverse of pretty isn't 'clever'. That's a silly thing to say.

It seems to me these are just random incoherent complaints strung together for complaining's sake. The thing I can't ever get my head around is why it is that the people who are chronically cynical about the game keep on playing it.

Thelos wrote:I don't see how that is a "black and white story with a recycled host of characters that represent nothing but he mos mundane and basic concepts",

Then you should pay better attention because it's the same revolving story since the very beginning. It's simplistic.

Thelos wrote:i.e complaining about things being pretty is stupid, because things being pretty is good. Things being pretty is better than things being ugly; that's why we call one 'pretty' and the other 'ugly,' precisely because we prefer one over the other.

In this case, Blizzard puts more focus on a sparkly game, rather than a game with a compelling story line. You've said the graphics outdo the story yourself [perhaps not in the way I mean it, but it was there] previously and I'll be fucked if I am looking through your posts to find it. The story is a pile of shit.

Thelos wrote:The reverse of pretty isn't 'clever'. That's a silly thing to say.

Then perhaps you ought to stop saying it? I don't recall saying it.

Thelos wrote:It seems to me these are just random incoherent complaints strung together for complaining's sake. The thing I can't ever get my head around is why it is that the people who are chronically cynical about the game keep on playing it.

There's two answers to this. I've always played themes that have rarely been connected to the actual expansion lore [I've yet to be in Pandaria IC, for example]. I enjoyed Cataclysm environmental changes [not the actual storyline] and certainly took those into account during my roleplay. I was not active during the actual story aspect of WoTLK and therefore was not able to roleplay around the actual expansion, (though I did roleplay the concept of the Scourge later in Cataclysm in EPL).

It's essentially that Thelos, for the most part I've not participated in any of the shit story telling that Blizzard has brought down and actively avoided involving myself, aside from the impact of the Lich King [but that's just a story they yet again ruined that was excellent in WCIII].

Who gives a dick about the story-line of an MMO anyway? It's all about world-building, baby. A sparkling world.

Cerik Ironforge wrote:Sparkly graphics seem to be more appreciated than anything else.

Fuck yeah they are!

Cerik Ironforge wrote:It's essentially that Thelos, for the most part I've not participated in any of the shit story telling that Blizzard has brought down and actively avoided involving myself, aside from the impact of the Lich King [but that's just a story they yet again ruined that was excellent in WCIII].

If you don't participate in it, then why do you feel the need to complain about it?

That's the thing that I don't understand.

I also feel like we're not really on the same page as to what accounts as being a  'story'. Certainly in a MMO, the 'story' goes beyond a simple narrative structure that follows certain characters overcoming a set amount of obstacles in a determined amount of time. The bigger part of the 'story' in the MMO would consist out of world-building and yes, the shiny graphics. Pandaria is simply exploding with story, much moreso than any other part of period of Warcraft storytelling, and I'll be damned if it's going to be called 'bad' by people who haven't even attempted to appreciate it but only smugly condemn it from a distance without even giving arguments for their disdain. Am I supposed to just accept it's shit and simplistic because you say it is? Personally, I find the storytelling in Mists of Pandaria to be of a higher quality than it's ever been in Warcraft history and this includes the RTS games.

The 'simplistic themes' of the consequences of war - not just materially, but also psychologically, as manifested by the Sha - and the various ways in which they influence the land and the characters that inhabit it have been interesting to experience. I have had very interesting ideological debates IC about the content of the Mists of Pandaria storyline: mainly about the psycholgical damage war and suffering causes; if happiness is possible in times of war; whether it is better to hide said suffering from the populace and have the elite deal with it in the shadows, or have the populace partake in that responsibility; the difficulty of being neutral in a total war between two factions; whether it would be best to maintain a balance of power between these two said factions, so they keep eachother in check, or to try and tip the scales so that one side would overpower the other and the war could come to an end, etcetera.

The cast of characters in the Mists of Pandaria expansion have been varied and interesting, too. Wrathion has played an interesting part as a seemingly benevolent overlord who wishes to gain the power to subjugate the peoples of Azeroth in order to unite them against a coming threat, shying not from questionable means and getting noticably upset over Varian not choosing to curbstom the Horde. Teaming him up with Anduin gave us a very fun character duo who bounced off eachother really well. Lorewalker Cho has been a fantastic narrator and has managed to personify the wisdom of the pandaren marvelously, while Chen Stormstout embodies all the boisterous virtues that pandaren hold so dear in the flesh. Lastly, there's Taran Zhu, who represented one of the most interesting neutral factions to date: the Shado-pan, who actually did not bend over backwards for the heroes for a change, but had to be convinced of our good intention before they allowed us to help them.

But most importantly what Pandaria did was explore the nature of MMO storytelling in this meaningful manner: it explores what it means for a band of heroes to arrive on an unchatered continent and adventure in it, bringing war in their wake. The idyllic setting and the beauty of Pandaria itself works to reinforce this point: we, the adventurers, arrive at Paradise and in doing what adventurers do, corrupt it; we corrupt it with our quests and our mob-grinding. The players are, as it turns out, not always a force of good: we also bring destruction in our wake to wherever we go to quest. This, I think, is a meaningful exploration for what it means for the narrative of questing to be brought to a location.

As it turns out, it's not all smiles and rainbows: there's actual consequences to disturbing the peaceful equilibrium of the milennia old Status Quo of Pandaria. It's the players that unleash the ancient evils upon the world and it is the players that have to take responsibility for the mess they bring with them. The Sha are an embodiment of the negative qualities the adventurers carry in their souls; the destruction they unleash upon Pandaria is destruction that we have caused. The industrious advance of the Alliance and the Horde on Southern Krasarang and the horrors of war they unleash there brings to mind tales of colonionalism and the suffering that has brought forth, as well.

Mists of Pandaria should be celebrated for actually exploring some new themes in an interesting way, but instead it is discarded because of how it looks on the surface, while, ironically, this surface is part of the depth: it's exactly the perversion of the comical whackiness and idyllic scenery that comprises the essential theme of Mists of Pandaria: consequence. There is no better image for this than what happened to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms in the last patch. This is good, meaningful story-telling, utilizing the unique tools of participatory story-telling: there is no better way to hammer home the consequences of our actions than by perverting the very space we have spend so much time in during this Expansion, namely, the central zone of Pandaria. This perversion of living-space has an emotional impact that movies and literature, for example, simply can't imitate.

That's something you have to keep in mind about videogame storytelling: in the narrative of the videogame, the player character is the protagonist, and more importantly, the focal character. The soap opera mellodrama between NPCs is just fluff, much like the sparkly graphics and the music are. They're there to build atmosphere. The real meat of the story is how your character interacts with the world and the consequences of his or her actions. The main medium trough which this story is told is trough quests and instances. And that story has never been as good as it has been in Mists of Pandaria, both technically and thematically.

So yes, I'm saying that the storytelling in Mists of Pandaria was good, if not excellent. Here's hoping that Warlords of Draenor will be even better.

I didn't even think about the quests in MoP that way Pao, but I guess thats the experience bar and me not bothering to do them's fault. Now that I think of it though it really paints the picture in a bit more colour.

The thing is, ephitos's point is without basis to begin with.

Take a look at a couple of times the factions have worked together.... Say the Scourge war and Mount hyjal. Now it is hardly fair on blizz to say that they are just doing the same thing, there were huge differences between both cases, for example Tirion leading things, the "treason" of the wrath gate, the atmosphere, the enemy (Hyjal being legion leading things even though scourge were present too).

You can generalise on that one function in anything in life but it wont make apples oranges. To put it into irl high politc for you (as I know you like that) Look at the UK US relations, first world war, second world war and Gulf war (you choose which one). You gonna tell me that the relationship and situation was identical, same alliance and same relationship?

Read your quest text, kids. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

I was a big Mists nay sayer, but I happily put my hand up and say I was wrong. I very much enjoyed the expansion, and how they fluffed out the continent. The Mantid are possibly one of my favorite races in WoW. (Mantid for playable race!) And the amount of lore they sunk into them, and much of the other zones/races was pretty brilliant. I actually enjoyed doing Loremasters.

erwtenpeller wrote:Read your quest text, kids. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

Reading quest texts? Gurrrrl, so passé.

I have to say I can see where both sides are coming from, I mean Warcraft has had it's awesome moments in lore and despite Mist not really being to my taste (Felt a little too gentle.) I still enjoyed the expansion!

Not sure where this discussion of graphics and story came from.. It's like comparing how fancy your boat is to... how choppy the sea's gonna be when you set sail? I dunno, your talking about the same activity but the two qualities don't directly affect one another.

My hopes for Warlords of Draenor is to be surprised, I hope we see some interesting lore on the Orc Clans (Which Blizzard have already said they're damn well excited to show!) and some further information on The Draenei.

To be honest, I try not to expect too much from Warcrafts lore recently as well I'm kinda tired of seeing Green Jesus and Wolfheart King-Naruto show up and act bad ass with minor characters being used as plot devices or to buffer their cool factor.. so on the other hand I'm dreading what Thralls gonna be like in WoD, I hope they don't utterly smother us with Frostwolf sugoi-desu scenes...

But who knows! maybe we'll be surprised!

I'm just waiting for the hopeful scene where Thrall gets his arse kicked by Durotan I liked Thrall back in Warcraft 3, not quite sure what happened along the way to turn him into Green Jesus though... Cataclysm felt weird in terms of Thrall's part in it all in my opinion...

...Rant incoming.

Spoiler:

GET A HAIRCUT VARIAN, NO ONE LIKES YOU!1!

Sorry.