Should YOU Play The War Within? - Blizzard's War On Cynicism

The War Within is just around the corner but we cannot deny the WoW community remains very cynical of the game. As Blizzard steps into this expansion, what are they doing to win back the players and most importantly... Should you play it?
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Twitter: @Preachgaming
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Website: preachgaming.com/
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[@dylanpeterson4980]

It's hard to forget what happened with Shadowlands when Anduin's story is building off of it. Before and during Shadowlands I read every single quest in game. But as that expansion dragged on I hit a breaking point when the Lich King's Helm became a Burger King Crown. As a massive fan of where the story was going during Legion with subtle build up of the Lich King power for it to suddenly turn to dust. I just gave up on the story. Also they made Bolvar in Shadowlands look like a complete joke.

[@Tijuanabill]

It was BENEATH fan fiction. Even fans would have treated the characters better. If they turned this story in as homework, in a creative writing class, the instructor would pull them aside and encourage them to consider an engineering degree instead.

[@kapitan19969838]

Bolvar was not nearly as powerful as Arthas. It makes sense he got defeated by a servant of the Jailer

[@gamalielthomas8320]

@@dylanpeterson4980 “…a Burger King crown.” DAMN.

[@reeven1721]

Suramar at Legion’s launch is the best way they’ve ever delivered a story. Quests unlocked as you piled up rep and mana, but everything was there from the start, waiting for each player to grind through the zone at their own pace.

[@jacobmitchell9227]

Agreed 1000% I wish they would do a separate endgame zone like surumar again. Just don’t tie it to player power and make the rewards some sick cosmetics like teir set effects and mounts instead. Also we need a new auction house mount.

[@Adam-082]

Suramar was awesome.

[@generalzwinger3943]

At the time many players hated Suramar because of the stealth missions :D I loved it. It was a great change of pace from the other WoW content.

[@abbiejo6822]

@@generalzwinger3943an illusion?! What are you hiding?

[@dragocrafterr8286]

this this this

[@johnstajduhar9617]

There's a lot of reasons that WoW's stories don't work or land, but my one big (perhaps petty) hangup is just the voice direction in their cutscenes and quest dialogues. They all talk in bizarrely emphasized, weirdly projected voices that are clearly affecting portentous, weighty dialogue, but they don't succeed in selling it. They sound like characters from a Saturday morning cartoon, to make sure EVERYONE in the back of the room gets it. They sound like kids on a playground pretending to be a powerful wizard or warrior, not like a powerful wizard or a warrior. I can't think of the last time I heard one of the voiced characters just talk like a person would. Edit: Examples: characters in FF14 are pretty immediately recognizable by their register of speech, and I wish WoW would lean more into that. Emet-Selch, Y'Shtola and Thancred all talk about serious, weighty subjects, but their voices and tones are clear and familiar. WoW could really stand to lean more into the different registers and rhythms of their main characters, let them be like real people caught in a bizarre, fantastic world.

[@jeremywright9511]

Quite true. At any moment between someone's over the top rambling, I would half expect a commercial break in the middle of it akin to a cartoon, like you said.

[@CaptainIcebeard]

I think some of that saturday cartoon thing should never go away, because it's always been core to Warcraft. But it shouldn't be so pervasive. Taelia and Flynn both had quicker and more natural dialogue, and it worked great. They're both characters that I don't dislike, even though they came from a bad expansion.

[@CuddlyZombie]

I will be playing TWW because I'm pretty impressed with what Dragonflight's more relaxed endgame seemed to be, but I'm not invested in the story still for this exact reason. Bizarre emphasis is a very apt way of putting it, and while it can make for a "cool" cinematic, it gets hard to think of these characters as actual, well, characters. I can't conceive of their day-to-day life, or them talking over breakfast, or even having an internal monologue, or anything like that.

[@Sam-es2gf]

First noticed this mid BFA and couldn't unhear it. SL was so bad I quit and returning now I gotta skip the DF cinematics lol

[@BornFlunky]

Been banging this drum for years. Was starting to feel like the only person who noticed. Bwonsamdi and Flynn Fairwind are, somehow, some of the only characters who sound like they're not acting. Anduin's actor is starting to get there, thankfully -- he did great in the cinematic, and I've enjoyed him in the beta -- and Dagran II feels like a fresh addition. But everyone else... yeah, it's like they're voicing their own monologues.

[@g_satyros]

Danuser leaves and suddenly wow storytelling is improving.. Would you look at that incredible coincidence..

[@richtea7868]

Blaming one person for the poor story is pretty unfair

[@Lotheren]

@@richtea7868depends on how much he controlled.

[@CielBlanche]

​@@richtea7868 he was the head of story. dragonflight was described as 'his baby'. would it be unfair to blame the art director if the art was bad? the sound director if the music was bad?

[@preds43]

You do realize he left when the Worldsoul Saga got announced, yes? And that they were working on TWW even before Metzen came back, and Metzen liked the initial pitch? So don't blame Danuser here lmaooo He most likely worked with Metzen a bit before leaving, probably as a way of making sure WoWs story was on track for Metzen to continue from

[@Nami]

Dragonflight was the first expansion that came out under his creative direction. The fuck are you even talking about? You people just be sayin' shit, I swear.

[@Rakka5]

Here is the thing: The cynicism is there because it is justified. Blizzard has spent the last decade basically openly murdering everything we knew and loved about both WoW, and their other franchises. The balancing, the story, the characters, the quest designs, the fruit paintings, the botting, the WoW token in BC Classic...all this while they just gobbled up all the money and still kept getting more and more greedy. The story itself was ruined utterly and completely to the point where I don't think they can fix it without a full wipe. They turned Arthas, one of the most iconic characters in all of video gaming into a blue ball of smoke and went *poof*. That moment was when the legacy of Warcraft 3 was shattered to a million pieces. I have played Warcraft 1-2 and 3 on their release. I have played Vanilla WoW on release back in 2004. I could not care about the story in this game anymore after all that has happened. WoW and Blizzard had more "last chances" than any other MMO. And even now where they are so desperate about the state of the game that they had to literally drag Metzen back to try and fix it, EVEN NOW they slap a NINETY DOLLAR pricetag on the War Within """early access""" release version, which is just flat-out the official release date. "Come home" my left nut. Blizzard needs to work DECADES to earn back the trust they have destroyed. Until then, cynicism to the max. "Pretending" that the issues of the past do not exist is not realistic.

[@Carnagefiend]

This is about my exact feel about it. Uninstalled my entire library during Shadowlands, haven't given Blizz a dime since.

[@Carnagefiend]

@@ThatGuyOnFireKnownAsAndrew Agreed, I should have quit during Cataclysm. Better late than never.

[@gringbot]

Fr, I've actually installed bnet, thinking I'd get back into it about a month ago, and every other day or so I hop on, look at the wow screen and just get deflated at the idea of going through the staleness and disappointment all over again, and just go play another game, or just do something productive. WoW is just kinda a corpse and I need so much more than "It'll be good this time, we promise!" to bring me back.

[@user-ho5jt4hj5h]

Well, Metzen was actually a big reason for how WoW's story turned out, even though he wasn't responsible for SL or DF. However, the rest were all basically his fault, I never had hopes of him managing to fix the current stuff either.

[@eldrevo]

@@user-ho5jt4hj5h Metzen was responsible for Chronicles (which rewrote a lot of lore to make it worse) and story up to BFA (where it was not horrible, but already kind of weak most of the time). I think Metzen was pretty much sowing the seeds of wow's downfall for quite some time, and I can't trust him to magically fix it.

[@shadowmil]

I just don't care about WoW anymore. I see WoW trailer and feel no excitement, no joy, no intrigue. Not even cynicism or anger anymore. I just feel apathy and boredom with WoW.

[@garpten7772]

Same the only anger I feel is wondering how people keep falling for it.

[@Truthseeker-iz3dj]

Soloing final boss, gezz

[@matthsanchez1792]

I feel the same, but i keep trying... like waiting if someday i'll once again get hyped, start caring again, or something. I haven't played since the start of Shadowlands, i thought that TWW could bring me back even if only to see how things are going... but no, i still feel nothing, not even disappointment :/

[@luigi4297]

u care so little youre here watching a wow video and commenting on it oh nooo

[@Frozen_Death_Knight]

​​​@@luigi4297A lot of people have followed these WoW content creators for well over a decade now. Commenting on the state of the game is pretty natural in these sorts of videos when people we are familiar with are talking about WoW and why we should come back. A lot of us have completely moved on which can be shown in engagement numbers for WarCraft related videos. The day which the rest of us who are still commenting about the topic no longer do is a day that content creators like Preach will not look forward to as the audience keeps shrinking. To quote Medivh: "A warning has been given! Their fate is now their own..."

[@Monique-iz8lp]

It's nice to see things going in a seemingly better direction, but Shadowlands really killed any attachment I had to the world and the franchise as a whole, so at this point I can't take any of it seriously. I felt punished for being invested in the story and characters. I'm just glad the pandemic got in the way of me getting a Forsaken/Sylvanas full sleeve tattoo, because boy that would've been painful to laser off lol.

[@mewberthildimew9037]

Totally. I feel like Preach is always trying to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt, always saying that Shadowlands has potential with covenants, or Dragonflight has potential with dragonriding and redesigned talents and no borrowed power etc. I just can't muster that optimism anymore. I'm going to sit this one out for a few weeks and wait to see what the feedback is. It feels like Blizzard has such a high turnover rate that the staff keep repeating the same mistakes as their predecessors and learn nothing. It felt especially obvious looking at Diablo 4 that has seemingly learned nothing from the previous title and keeps repeating the same mistakes.

[@SlimeySludge]

anduin's awesome edgy character arc was built upon the bullshit that was the shadowlands. it's embarassing to even dare take any of it seriously lmao. hate it so much, without passion. its just resentment.

[@Imgone251]

@@mewberthildimew9037 To be fair, Dragonflight didn't have any borrowed power systems in it. Like Preach said, they tightened up the gameplay in Dragonflight, but the story didn't improve much compared to Shadowlands. I really enjoyed playing Dragonflight despite the weak story telling and theme. The improvements made in Mythic+, raiding, and many more core gameplay loops made it where Dragonflight didn't feel like a chore to play through. TWW brings many more QOL improvements, and I think the story will be exponentially better than Dragonflight. In terms of the World Soul Saga, I think TWW will be the weakest because it's the buildup to the story, but I think the next two expansions should have story telling on par with WOTLK.

[@nicolasgonzalez629]

@@Imgone251 bruh you are already justifying this story being weak just because it may get better later after you purchase more expansions, don't you realize that? that's the same pattern you all been trough these years

[@danielaxc2900]

God. Post-Legion, pre-Shadowlands disenchantment was so real. Then after the story got progressing, it was like one of those Tunnel of love rides except the further along you went the more you slowly came to realize you’ve been set adrift in a sewer tunnel. I don’t think I’ll ever do back either, I’d rather just remember the game for how much fun I had during Legion.

[@ninnoofthelastunicorn2693]

I have to agree with you, I cannot take these characters seriously because it feels like Blizzard never took them seriously. Having them ask us to suddenly care is a big ask, and they have a massive uphill battle for that. Frankly, I don't think they actually can make someone like me care, because they haven't shown us any reason to actually feel invested, but given us every reason not to

[@kewqie]

But Metzen!

[@starcallerthehax]

I'm one of the people that cares zero about storyline. Really never have in these types of games. What is undeniable though is that the core mechanics of the game in TWW are looking the best they've ever been. That's more than enough to keep me playing. If I want story, I'll read a book. I want a mythic raid or +12 challenge, and this is the only game that delivers on those things.

[@senndarkheart6143]

Have you seen the recent Metzen interview, "anduin" says gitty "our little boy grew up". Looks they do take them seriously.

[@mewberthildimew9037]

Blizzard, to me, is the prime example of the Ship of Theseus. All of the founding devs, the ones who birthed and coddled the Warcraft franchise, are long gone. Blizzard is such a massive company now, and AAA game dev has such a high turnover rate, that it feels like no one at the company gives a shit anymore. They just want a paycheck and a pat on the back for doing the bare minimum, it feels like no one actually cares about-- nor even UNDERSTANDS-- the legacy of Warcraft.

[@SlimeySludge]

anduin's awesome edgy character arc was built upon the bullshit that was the shadowlands. it's embarassing to even dare take any of it seriously lmao. hate it so much, without passion. its just resentment.

[@Trebolf]

As long as characters speak 3-4 words at a time, I can't take these characters seriously. It's overly dramatic and it makes them sound like a Disney villain.

[@Nami]

They haven't spoken three to four words at a time for the last two major content patches.

[@lens_hunter]

Kind of insulting to Disney villains lol

[@Yink0]

@@Nami It has still been like that. Every cutscene is "dangerous one liners". Although I guess the ingame stuff is more extensive at times, but they are still talking slow and like they are written by a 12 year old, but they also just can't turn all the characters 180 and change it, I get that.

[@Mako-zb7cc]

Yeah theres no nuance, all exposition its just not good. Asking the audience and playerbase to care again is such a spit in the face to me. Make your product good and believable and you should never have to ask.

[@bLuGhOsT_]

Disney villains are fantastic

[@Samedayservice1]

I’ll see how it is 4 years from now, WoW has to hit the gym and make people want to come back. It’s gonna take a while

[@netrimo589]

They don't have the goodwill or rapport to trickle feed us story. They need to deliver a complete story at launch, with a satisfying 'false peak conclusion' that we can basecamp at before people accept trickle feeding. It's very bold and frankly delusional of them to tell us to get the fuck back on the mountain and climb. They need to prove to us that we're actually climbing a real mountain this time and not just the same vertical treadmill they had us on before. The war within is their chance to do for story what dragonflight did for gameplay and they really only get this one chance to set the hooks or the followup expansions will be very painful for them.

[@eodyn7]

Nobody cares about you. BYE FELICIA.

[@Dracounguis]

Ignoring the big ass sword sticking out of the planet for three expansions was a huge mistake in my opinion.

[@madara657]

The devs were already working on the next expansion so they sacrifised the current one. This just happened 3 times and thus sword got ignored

[@CosmicCleric]

Or the huge hand/knee dents as well.

[@GGenoce]

What sword?

[@TRU3OGR3]

@@GGenoceThe Last Titan’s

[@NotTheWheel]

On the plus side Sargeras is doing numbers on the meters.

[@kaleiohulee6693]

I think it's fine wanting to take their story serious for a change, but you can't just build that on a foundation of rubble. It's been many years of garbage that a player has to wade through before anyone reaches whatever the new content is, the alternative being skipping a lot of it which creates an entirely different issue. Why would anyone new jump in at this point on vague promises things are "better" when new players wouldn't have a frame of reference to that anyway. Old players aren't just going to forget because it's convenient for Blizzard. What they really needed was a clean slate where anyone new or old would feel comfortable starting fresh. The baggage doesn't just go away the way they treated every expansion as almost a soft reset. Preach planning to play it self-blinded is pretty much the only way it'll be possible but that's not a realistic ask of most players that already left.

[@SlimeySludge]

well written. anduin's awesome edgy character arc was built upon the bullshit that was the shadowlands. it's embarassing to even dare take any of it seriously lmao. hate it so much, without passion. its just resentment.

[@Fleato]

it's all been whimsicle shit for years since legion. which was heavy shit. "MY PATH IS MY OWN" like illidan and the light and all that stuff is just great, everyone liked legions story. things were serious with touches of whimsicle. but when the whole story is quirky yadda yadda it jsut doesn't work. at least we've had time without Anduin, Anduin is the last character we've seen real seriousness from, the trauma of becoming a lich and all that. we should see some actual character emotion.

[@user-ho5jt4hj5h]

They literally killed N'zoth in BfA, but now they realised that "oh, we do need a void villain lmao" and instead reached back to a side character who used to be an artifact weapon in Legion. I mean, yes, there was foreshadowing for Xal'atath, but she doesn't work as a great villain, not even for a Harbinger. Maybe if DF's story was better written it could have built her up, for me however that didn't happen, because that expansion in narrative aspects was arguably worse than SL.

[@Cybertech134]

Watching the writers bastardize several of my favorite characters in Shadowlands killed it for me. I tried to enjoy Dragonflight, but the writing was so feminine that I realized the game and story weren't being designed for me anymore.

[@W1337M]

It’s time. Anduin and Thrall need to be put on testosterone replacement therapy.

[@necrobale]

I loved dragonflight for the revamped talent system, dragonriding, solo shuffle, etc. But a lot of the story was just as cringe and uninteresting as what came before. If you're telling me the people who wrote the story for amirdrassil are going to tell a compelling narrative I find that hard to believe. A lot of the story is toothless and frankly lame. I hope I'm wrong, I would LOVE to be invested in the story of WoW. It would make expansions so much more exciting but their storytelling needs to vastly improve.

[@Maria_Erias]

From what I understand, basically the entire writing staff for Dragonflight was fired, either as part of the staff cuts before Microsoft took over, or afterwards when Danuser and his cronies got canned. So, there's the possibility of new blood having been brought in for writing. Of course, if they're still using the same pool of potential employees that gave us the crop of DF writers, it won't really change much.

[@UltimateGamerCC]

it's a shame because the story as of 10.0 was good, a solid foundation, but then it slipped and fumbled around until it faceplanted... damn shame.

[@necrobale]

@@UltimateGamerCC Yeah I actually really liked raszageth.

[@UltimateGamerCC]

@@necrobale same, also Iridikron's intro was pretty good.

[@jnesis555]

@@Maria_Erias based on the recent interview with Metzen, the writing/creative staff already has established culture and he was just collaborating with them. if that's the case, we're likely looking at a chunk of the creative staff still doing their thing.

[@csimmeri]

About Anduin… people saying he’s a pussy is ridiculous. It shows how bad the writing is. Think about what the dude has been through. He was kidnapped as a kid. He’s been on the front lines of multiple wars. He lost his father at a pivotal moment in his life and had no time to grieve because he had a kingdom to run. He has been through plenty of shit that would have broken weaker men. Most people saying he’s a cuck wouldn’t last a day in his shoes. BUT the writing setting all of that up is so bad that people refuse to empathize with and are openly hostile towards a dude who has been through literal hell. Instead of a role model of masculine perseverance he’s just “sad boy anduin.”

[@mtbarnes1]

Yeah, hes been through a lot and all he can talk about is his feelings and how sad he is, that's why people call him a pussy. That and the fact hes been through nothing compared to every main character prior to Anduin becoming an adult. Also, lost his father at a pivotal moment in his life? lol what? You know what happened to Varian when he was a child? His father was murdered and storm wind sacked by horde; then when he actually became king his wife was murdered. Tell me how Anduin has had it hard again? lol

[@gscgold]

​@@mtbarnes1He literally just explained everything that he went through and probably more that he missed but okay tough guy whatever you say...

[@xXESproductionsXx]

And that's not even mentioning being possessed and having to witness his body that he has no control over do terrible despicable things. Anyone that thinks he doesn't deserve a mental breakdown is just a pussy themselves pushing that toxic masculinity

[@Tessa_Ru]

Tbh I think in this case, it wouldn't matter if the writing did it right. An audience that jumps immediately to "pussy, weakling" as soon as a story wants to explore vulnerability and strength in overcoming it, isn't really mature enough to want to engage with it.

[@Slipfish]

@@Tessa_Ru It absolutely wouldn't. MMO player reactions to the story in their respective games are just massive circlejerks. FFXIV isn't nearly as well written as people act like it is (for the most part). The writing of Anduin from BfA to the TWW cinematic isn't nearly as bad. Its just mindless circlejerking in both directions.

[@PainfullySubjective]

being spoon fed the story through periodic releases instead of having it there all at once to experience it at my own pace, killed the game for me :( it's a game, you're supposed to play through the story not wait for the next episode next week, this isn't a tv show

[@allbies]

That's what MMOs are. WoW was always that way. What you're asking for is Warcraft 4. Which I'd also want too if I had any faith modern Blizzard could make it. Same with SC3.

[@Pers0n97]

If blizzard "war on cynism" start with MORE GIRLBOSS focus in the story, then I fear they aren't going to win that war any time soon as they are clearly not understanding where the warfront is.

[@SparkyDiesAlot]

Damn preach, looking at those video clips of you in BFA and looking at you now. You look very healthy nowadays, you look great!

[@ozwoodsy82]

Branching out and not being fully tied to WoW has done wonders for the channel.

[@rodrigoa4506]

"it's like you're reading one page of a book every week" lol Mike they do NOT have an entire book's worth of material here, that's for sure

[@KirionF]

My cynicism came right back up when I saw the price tag.

[@DonnellGreen]

Mfs asking for $90 to play 3 days early and people on my server are bragging about buying it lmao you can't make this up, (The same people 3 hours earlier were melting down about Trump and Biden ruining economy) If it wasn't fun to push arena or mythic+ I would have been bounced

[@Kyderra]

It's that + a monthly subscription ontop of it. But in WoW's defense, currently if you want to play all content, like with a friend, even dragonflight or Season of discovery, and you dont care about the shiny new expansion, it's just that one subscription free for all of it

[@baro6447]

@@DonnellGreen the 90.. Tender.. Armor set ... its not all a ripoff... the early access is scummy but w/e

[@KirionF]

@@Kyderra If I wanted to play a 20 year old game, I'd play a private server. No offense, but even paying for a Classic subscription is offensive to me - considering I dislike classic. What has always gripped me in WoW is the evolving gameplay. IMO Legion is the best expansion this game ever released and before it was MoP. The modern gameplay is the only reason I even considered coming back for TWW, because I miss it and XIV can't scratch the same itch. Yet, I look at it and what do I see? 10 more euros than Dawntrail for basically the same shit and no pre-order bonus. If I was to compare it to the Digital Collector's edition, which is 10 euros more expensive than the basic TWW edition, I got early access, pets, a weapon glam, a leveling earring and maybe something else I forgot. It's INANE. Especially considering FFXIV offers you an Entry Sub for 10.99 which is the only sub you honestly ever need while if you wanna buy a single month of WoW you better be ready to fork 13 or 14 euros.

[@KirionF]

@@baro6447 90 bucks for stuff I got for 60eur with the Dawntrail Digital Collector's Edition including the Early Access. Trader's Tender is just an artificial currency artificially attached to your expansion purchase so that they can justify increasing its price that high and I suppose you fell for it. The tender just makes it even more scummy.

[@lawfrey3859]

I lost interest in WoW's plot when the narrative powercreep got too bad. Feels like a modern comic book situation where every new villain introduced has to be some multidimensional end of all conceivable and inconceivable reality-level threat. When Sargeras fell, tieing a knot on WoW's story as the original big bad and the Void Lords and whatever were suddenly hyped up as a threat that trivializes even him, I kind of hit "okay, I don't care anymore." I don't want to play the leader of the Justice League who gets glazed by every NPC as the world's savior. We used to save the day as competent nobodies, referred to on the Wiki as "a band of adventurers." Chosen One crap in an MMO just feels like they're aiming for the lowest common denominator's power fantasy regardless of respect paid to the authenticity of the setting. It also dictates who our character is for us, which I've never been a fan of either.

[@PaddyRoon7]

While it does make sense in the lore, as Sargeras' entire reason for becoming WoW Satan was to prevent the Void Lords from taking over the universe, from a storytelling perspective, they seem to come out of nowhere. They've never been seen in the actual game. There's also the problem of: What comes after this? The Void Lords, Sargeras' and all of Azeroth's Old Gods will be dead after this. Who's left? At some point they're going to have to create a new and original villain better than the fucking Jailer.

[@Dracounguis]

You say the gameplay got bad and the story got bad, but you forget to mention their deservedly horrible public image at the time too.

[@ZombieSlayerTakashi]

Thankfully, almost all those shitheads are gone.

[@mogalixir]

If the game was good, people would have cared about their public image at an appropriate level. Instead - we had a wailing and rending of garments.

[@cheapsta9397]

not the cosby suite!

[@Dracounguis]

@@mogalixir yup a lot more players would look the other way if the game was 10/10 at that time.

[@bills6055]

GW2 did a great job making you care about their characters. Twelve years on and the death of Tybalt Leftpaw is still memorable.

[@baystorm94]

Justice for Tybalt 😥

[@ricijs2000]

all he ever did was just sell apples....and thats all, dont ask further

[@CosmicCleric]

SPOILERS!!!11!!!!!! (j/k)

[@daze4135]

I bring 5 stacks of apples on every character to remind me of him and his sacrifice. Whenever someone throws a pull on slothasor by dropping the poison on the group, I spam link the apples to prevent myself from getting toxic

[@LordDinosaur]

I remember playing Dragonflight a couple weeks after launch, I was partially invested in Sendrax's character arc. I thought she'd be a partially recurring character throughout the expansion; maybe even being promoted to a captain near the end of DF. Words fail to describe how gobsmacked I was with how her death scene was given zero fucks by both the game and other NPCs.

[@Notacylon666]

I never played ANY MMO until I started playing during Legion. I've ONLY ever known cynicism towards WOW because I never had any nostalgia to warm me to the jarring aspects of learning how to play an MMO. I said this during BFA and I'll say it again here: WOW, like anything that sits on the shelf far past it's time, has become a festering monstrosity that only in name resembles the original, alluring product. I feel they're wasting TONS of effort trying to drag WOW into the future when they could just let the tattered old beast die and focus on something new; something that would redefine gaming like WOW originally did all those years ago.

[@thedude3004]

Preach is so high on hopium he is starting to fly, he even created his own headcannon.i have zero trust in blizzard after what they did to Garrosh and Arthas in shadowlands. There was so much missed opportunity there that I'm still salty about it.

[@The_Yukki]

Tbh Garrosh was the only thing I liked about shadowlands. >gets freed >I'd fucking do it again >refuses to elaborate >presumably disappears from the story for good so they wont fuck him up. Only thing that could've done better is a cinematic instead of a goofy cut scene.

[@MrJustinArt]

​@@The_Yukki Unironically the best cutscene in SL (way more memorable than the cinematics too)

[@Relhio]

They're trying to tell a story for players that will kick you out of the party because you did 1% less dps than a benchmark on some random website, of course this won't stick. Everyone that plays this game is conditioned for a type of story telling where weakness doesn't exist, god forbid Anduin doesn't follow in his father's footsteps and is a slab of manhunk that doesn't back away from anything. God forbid the aspects are weakened and desperate to restore their forces and not be these overpowered beings that can level entire continents by just lifting a claw. No, no, this is World of Warcraft, no weakness allowed here... only top dps and stronk characters.

[@marydanielle7183]

You can let it all go and review the expansion for us but that is not something we can so easily do. I have zero interest in jumping straight into this expansion. I played DF, got to end game and haven’t touched the game since. I am watching as people are getting into the war within to decide if it’s even worth trying. I may have already played my last WoW expansion.

[@Komischer0815nick]

yeaaahhh I honestly get why you felt bad for not giving the pre-questline a "fair shot". But tbh, you hit the nail on the head when pointing out that Blizz's writers brought that on themselves by memefying nearly all of the main cast for years. You cant expect players, streamers included, to just forget about that. We're not robots and will take past experiences into account. They have a lot of work to fo to make the story feel "non-meme-y" again. DF did do many things well gameplay wise and arguably lore wise, but when it comes to high stakes storytelling or character development, they still haven't picked the ball back up that they've dropped so long ago. And that will take time and effort on Blizz's part to win people who care about the characters back. Bottom line: Don't feel bad for seeing the characters as memes, it's what we've come to expect and it's not for us to fix. That still is Blizz's job. A hard one without much good will, but a doable one if they finally get some good writing done again. They'll just have to start delivering again, and consistently.

[@DonnellGreen]

Yep, As someone who would watch every cine, on every alt run, read most of the quest from (Wrath-BFA) I just skip the cine and quest reads now, The quest have been uninteresting reading wise and the Cinematics are corny and cheesy now. They wanna make emotional stuff now but its all baby-fied, They act as if all the Masculine Wrathgate and Wod cinematics weren't that. They already had that type of story telling and they shit it up, Stop telling and start showing.

[@jimmyvbuck1868]

Honestly it's too late to save the story, they have done far too much damage to almost all the characters I once cared about and I know for a fact they are not capable of fixing it, but I do appreciate they are trying (until they give up) but it won't get me back. Dragonflight was the first expansion since I started playing in Vanilla that I did not even try, I am just done and I know a lot of people are as well, they need a reset, they need a new story with new characters, they need a new game.

[@johnarildramberg3132]

I believe they are setting up a soft-reboot of some sort at the end of this worldsoul saga. That is my hope at least.

[@Vindicator1998]

This is such a terrible attitude You may as well abandon hopes of a new game because wow will be their focus for the next 10 years at least

[@blyat4842]

I don't know what more they could do for you if you don't like the store you don't like the story. They're not going to be nostalgia bait for the next 20 years. That's stupid. They're going to build upon the lore, they have to. The story is still very good if you compare it to other MMOs. Warcraft is still Warcraft; I'm always going to play it; I always like the story, and that's not going to change. To me, it sounds like you are burnt out. That's the majority of why our cynicism and it always has been; it's burnout.

[@markup6394]

A Realm Reborn for WoW... heh, I would actually consider playing that... But they had that change with Nyalotha and didnt go for it, so I dont see them do that any time soon...

[@markup6394]

@@blyat4842 The hell is this gaslighting bs? Are you a therapist? Call a spade a spade: WoWs story has always been bad and the only reason people said it was good was because they build on the fame and success that was Warcraft 3. The moment they had to move on from that, it went downhill from there. They had a few good moments like in Mists and Legion, but that was it. If you still like it, good for you, but dont pretent to understand why others dont share your enthuiasm.

[@eternity7040]

Another aspect that prevents me from taking wow's storytelling seriously is the in game cinematic direction. After Fyrakk at some point you go to the seat of the aspects to get congratulated- then a like 10s scene plays where your toon strikes a Heroic pose and like 50 dragons all fly up behind you out of nowhere as if they're fireworks, then the music goes huge for like 2s then cuts abruptly. It's ridiculously stupid and honestly to compare it to kids cartoons would be insulting the cartoons. Or the avengers 'everybody from wow's history teleports in for a 4 second friendship cutscene then immediately all vanish again when the cutscene ends'

[@lens_hunter]

Very proud to say that this is finally the first WoW expansion I will not be back for.

[@UltimateGamerCC]

wow, very sadge of you, fella, choosing when the game is improving to walk out after enduring the hell that was Shadowlands.

[@lens_hunter]

@@UltimateGamerCC I didn't. I quit a couple weeks into SL. Came back for DF, didn't like it much more. I'm not gonna give Blizzard 60 more of my dollars til they PROVE it's getting better.

[@riddert4966]

@@UltimateGamerCC The War Within might be an absolute flop, nobody knows yet

[@UltimateGamerCC]

@@riddert4966 absolutely not, the gameplay is tight, alt-friendliness is at a new high, zero chance.

[@JAlc-dw7px]

​​@@lens_hunterI think this is a good way of approaching literally every game. Let it come out, after 1-2 weeks start checking some reviews, what players are saying. If you see it appeals to you, buy, if not great, skip you saved 60 dollars check again in 3-4 months or next expansion.

[@eventyr8350]

I won't be playing WoW again, Blizzard these past years have done nothing to prove they deserve my money. Suddenly putting a big focus on story driven content feels weird when they have rewritten it so many times it's hard to keep up with whats's "Cannon". So for people to take the story seriously they will need to actually stick with it this time and hopefully avoid the typical WoW cliches -Alwats a bigger badie -Named character Plot Armor -give named charcters actuall consequences for their actions (looking at you Sylvanas) But i do hope the people that will play it enjoy themselves

[@tobek284]

Sylvanas should have been killed in shadow lands for her role and her actions lead into it.

[@RNS_Aurelius]

In BFA they brought Lilian Voss back. She was a fan favourite side character from Cata so people were excited to see her back. In order for it to make sense for her to serve the horde and Sylvanas, they butchered her character, her ethics and entire motivation just for what amounted to a meaningless cameo in a few quests that would've been better served by a new character. Things like this made me stop caring about WoW's story and characters because the writers clearly don't either

[@CrypidLore]

Few things, one Blizzard can never make the fanbase care about Anduin, it's a Sisyphean task that even Sisyphus would balk at. Two, frankly put the story writing has been god awful since before Shadowlands, and while the gameplay hasn't been terrible WoW is an RPG, RPG's don't succeed on JUST gameplay. Three, as time goes on it just seems like they heavily focus on monetization while neglecting every other aspect of the game, and focus on time gated content to force people into subbing longer to access the content.

[@Maria_Erias]

That focus on monetization is why I won't be playing War Within. The fact that you can't pay $15 for 30 days of game time is an egregious affront. You've either got to give your CC for a recurring sub (and the hope that you forgot to unsub before those 30 days are up so that Blizzard can steal some of your money) OR pay for 60 days OR pay $20 for a token, which is the $15 sub fee plus $5 in extortion. Their greed is going to be their downfall.

[@noluckALLHEART]

@@Maria_EriasApparently we’re calling people forgetting to unsubscribe to things theft. Actually braindead 😂

[@Maria_Erias]

@@noluckALLHEART That's like saying that picking up someone's wallet and keeping it when they drop it isn't theft. Talk about braindead.

[@noluckALLHEART]

@@Maria_EriasThat is not even remotely the same thing. If you ACCIDENTALLY drop your wallet the moral expectation is someone would return it. You don’t ACCIDENTALLY hit the fucking subscribe button to a video game.

[@Maria_Erias]

@@noluckALLHEART You can ACCIDENTALLY forget to cancel the subscription - i.e., forgetting to pick up your wallet. Check your reasoning.

[@TheTiodan]

Totally agree with the story being broken up in weekly chapters being extremely stupid. But I think theyre still doing this so you might stay subbed for this (which is dumb and sucks).

[@AMVmushroom]

The carrot on a stick method only works when the carrot isn't rotten

[@superhello443]

I think the War on cynicism starts by removing dumb frustrating systems like physical M+ keys. It should be a menu, it should be spammable, it should be easy to start again if something happens. Giving players the incredibly toxic ability to shit on your day by right clicking their own name and leaving party after a single wipe isn't a good step in fighting cynicism. Get rid of keys, they serve no realistic purpose. Have a menu with red text if your ilvl doesn't fit the key, and let players farm what they want. No one cares about open world / story cynicism. The problem with WoW is that you finish the fun little RP things in 10 hours, and now if you wanna keep playing meaningfully, you need to contend with the real cynics. The people who hate losing 10 seconds, but ironically enough, spend 10 hours a day playing a video game. The road ragers of the internet: WoW's pug world.

[@TheNichq]

WoW simply got too complicated and annoying to play. Especially raiding. Am I smart enough to play it? Yes. Do I want to? No. I just want something pretty easy and fun to come home and play. I dont need raiding to be as difficult as it currently is. Raids should be puggable imo, and Mythic raids should drop nothing but cosmetics and mounts.

[@TheNichq]

"Weve got Delves for people who dont want to raid..........but you wont get anywhere near the same ilvl." THATS THE PROBLEM Preach. Remove the damn ilvl from Mythic raiding already, and make it cosmetic only. Let people get the highest ilvl by playing solo if they want to. Its 2024. WoW needs to change its endgame. People simply dont want to raid anymore. Or, just make raiding way way way way easier to do.

[@UIMcocodog]

claims to be an mmorpg. only allows character progression via 1 route and resets progress every few months...... yea, thats just not it............ i would say go over there with arpgs but they dont even do the only 1 route thing.........

[@mw2984]

I think a lot of ppl forgot that one of the major reason WoW was so successful WAS the story and emotions we built up with Warcraft RTS. Story is the thing that touches our soul to be invested in something!

[@markup6394]

Amen.

[@DraphEnjoyer]

No WoW was successful because in Vanilla the presentation of story/questing was downplayed. Vanilla was pure gameplay. No cutscenes or npcs standing around tlaking while we follow them

[@TheNichq]

Most people that played WoW during its first year never played the RTS. My friends and I included. WoW was always about gameplay, and not story.

[@nobodyspecial690]

I don't think it's fair to say that you treat Wow and XIV differently, though I am glad XIV got you to reconsider writing off a character because of past interactions and respecting the story that is being told in this current plot as its own vehicle with nuance. I think the major problem is not something that's Blizzards fault for how a lot of people engage with World of Warcraft anymore. It's a problem XIV doesn't really have per say, that problem being that playing games on a stream is less about enjoying the game and more about putting on a performance with a written script. I won't assume to speak for your professional experience but a lot of streamers have expressed that streaming a game is nothing like playing it for yourself and there are games that they hate to stream but love to play and visa versa. The reason I say it's a problem with wow is because most people who aren't directly playing wow only interact with wow content vicariously through streamers (mostly because of a negative disposition held by the viewer) so when interacting with wow content it tends to be taken more non seriously and the characters fade away into tropes and quotes. Just like characters you haven't become emotionally invested in while playing XIV are best described by the memes the community or you the streamer make around them, like ARR Alphinaud or Wuklamat. Looking back through wow's history the writing has always been there but its presentation was the part that needed work and the last decade did NOT help wow any with building enduring characters or emotional bonds, literally we've abandoned nearly every character we've met as soon as the expansion is over, and Dragonflight isn't even new characters they just used shakily to poorly defined ones as load bearing figures. Magni is kind of the same as Wrathion in my opinion. A character utilized solely for interaction with the character in stead of an interface tab which then later gets an actual plot centered around them who then has to break free from the meme of their past usage. Personally I'm skipping TWW and waiting to see if it actually is an ARC as in, it is a congruent flow of time between TWW and the next expansion requiring participation or if its Blizzards tried and true, This is the current story, forget the old story, now this is the current story. I'm interested to see how they handle continuity going forward as it was the original classic trilogy's strongest point but then fell off a cliff post Cata.

[@ToHonorKnowledge]

Xalatath is just blizzard trying to get us to like Zoval. Literally the same character. Big cosmic baddie who’s secretly been controlling everything from behind the scenes since the beginning of time. Has knowledge of the world soul and the titans true plans, etc etc. lazy, bad writing

[@Ralinor666]

I'll pass on the Bore Within. I've already seen the strong women replacing all the male characters thing done before.

[@ZalcheMaar-rl9tq]

you did not answer your question in the title „should i play it“?

[@LittleListy21]

i started playing XIV with a childhood friend like two years or so before the big WoW exodus while i was playing WoW casually, and altho it took me a while to connect with things and for everything to click in place, i genuinely don’t see myself ever going back. i love WoW, played it for 15 years. but i don’t have the time to invest in it any more. i love that i have my character on XIV and if i want to tank, i can. want to heal, i can. this healing job/class is getting stale? i can swap to another one. granted, you still have to level every job. but it’s not a whole new character everytime i get bored of my current class. i still have all my friends list, all my mounts and minions and transmog and anything else i’ve collected. it’s virtually impossible for me to connect to any of my WoW characters now because in XIV i am my one character, and that is my experience with the game. i am invested in the world and the scenario and story and everything because i am playing an RPG with /my/ character and self insert. i don’t hate WoW (even if i really really dislike some decisions over the past decade or so) but going thru XIV and experiencing a huge world and sandbox that i interact with as one person? that experience alone makes me more invested in the story.

[@SlimeySludge]

as a wow player in past, i do miss having alts and their identity tied to it. IN ff14 i have two characters, an edgy strong man, and glamour barbie muscle lady. it's been nice to rp as either one and have people interact and clamor at how much they love (or love to hate the edgelord haha.) yeah even with Dawntrail's kinda wonky MSQ, the gameplay with ff14 and the right people make it way better than whatever wow can cook up.

[@The_Yukki]

Big exodus was roughly 2 years ago, if not 3 by now btw. Vaguely remember that cause I left during that time and after finishing 14 msq I pretty much left for 2 years cause I had no idea what to do after msq lol.

[@markup6394]

@@The_Yukki I mean... there has been more than one exudus ^^° From what I've heard, WoW players have always swapped over occasionally, and sometimes in waves. The latest exudus was in Spring/Summer 2021... which I remember fairly well because I switched in 2020 XD

[@ElderGamerX]

The problem for me is that after Shadowlands, I was hearing a LOT of the "WoW is back; WoW is on track: this feels like WoW again!" So I reluctantly tried Dragonflight, and had less fun there than I did in Shadowlands. At this point, I'm not sure what they could do to reinvest me in the world again. Considering my faith in the FF14 team's ability to write a compelling story has been shaken with Dawntrail, WoW has done less than nothing to convince me they're up for the task. Maybe I'll see if people are still hyped a few months in, but I don't think there's anything that could be done in one expansion release to fix how sour I am on the characters, the world, and the idea of being in WoW.

[@michaelpoulsen2862]

That's all well and good but I can't just erase my memory of everything that's happened before, if you can cool but I can't. EDIT: Though, of course I do hope it turns out good. Personally I'll wait a while still, but for everyone else playing I hope it's good :)

[@javanon]

The writing problem is fundamental, not just contextual. Look at the dialogue; you can hear the writer in every character. This sounds like the typical hyperbole, but they literally need to hire new writers to fix this problem.

[@nightc0red]

"They're really trying." Everything they've released has been a rehash of prior content or content that had to be immediately fixed or altered in some way. The Dark Heart and prepatch questline for their big "story" was all of 20 minutes worth of gameplay, if that. They cannot release a finished, working, or interesting product, either because of lack of time or lack of skill. I'm more and more sure that this will be my last expansion - only because I stupidly preordered - unless they fix their QA, CS, and adjust their development time to give this game and all its players what they deserve.

[@joshuamaurer9784]

"They're really trying!" I don't care. They've been "really trying" for years now. I'm done.

[@vir6487]

I feel one of the issues is that the story characters tend to be all talk but no show. One recent example is Tyrande on the Amirdrassil raid, she keeps shouting how she is going to fight to protect the tree and even straight out says (before you fight Smolderon) the line: "Amirdrassil awaits out defense... and Fyrakk, my wrath" like ooooh shet shes gonna join the fight? is she going to at least provide some backup mechanic during it? Nope. She proceeds to just stand idle for the rest of it and do nothing. Nice.

[@joeparas]

Going through the zones at the start of an expansion, doing your world building in the form of zone-specific quests, is a form of MMO exposition dumping that's just terrible. I have massive issues with how 14 tells its story, but I do appreciate that it's front loaded, giving them time to flesh out the world afterwards while prepping for the next expansion.

[@gamalielthomas8320]

That Blizzard is JUST NOW understanding that story is key…is embarrassing. You’re asking that players pay $50+ upfront and $15 a month for lackluster effort…and then wonder why everyone is leaving.

[@jakubpelikan2393]

It really isnt. Most people doesnt care about story at all. Reason why wow is failing is mostly its terrible mmo gameplay.

[@sirnonapplicable]

@@jakubpelikan2393 It's combat is the one thing it has over the majority of other MMOs, what are you talking about?

[@Cybertech134]

@@jakubpelikan2393 This is so false, it hurts. I used to be very invested in WoW lore and would come back just to experience the story. The Ny'alotha raid at the end of BFA and what came in Shadowlands killed it for me.

[@Ellonwyn]

I quit giving Blizzard money after the Blitzhchung incident. Every once in a while, I'll check in to see if they're improved as a company, but I haven't seen any proof yet.

[@nicholasburnett4139]

They need to use new characters already. 20 years and 10 expansions later and we're still doing trust-fall plots with Thrall.

[@Legodudeguy123]

They are though. Yeah we are going into the expansion with familiar faces but they are setting up new/obscure characters to be more prominent thru the next few expansions. Xal’atath, Dagran II and Faelin are just a few that are ether brand new or haven’t been relevant in years that are being pulled into the story.

[@Darkclowd]

​@@Legodudeguy123 who's faelin?

[@arvsta96]

​@@DarkclowdGoogle it

[@UltimateGamerCC]

@@Darkclowd Faelin is the dark skinned Half-Elf from the trailers, the Paladin looking chick.

[@SFTaYZa]

​@@UltimateGamerCCfailing indeed

[@lubo1358]

Every wow expanse is the same. You either like the game play loop of leveling, mythic+, and raids or you don't. There's way better ways to consume the lore than playing the mmo.

[@jolt187]

Playing wow for its story is like playing gw2 for its underwater combat

[@angrykagg421]

BRUH!!

[@SlimeySludge]

OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD DID THEY REMOVE UNDERWATER DUMB YET

[@sid4759]

It was an innovative attempt. I haven't played GW2 for a decade, but I still haven't found a game that has better underwater combat.

[@SFTaYZa]

​@@sid4759spyro 2

[@SFTaYZa]

@@sid4759 spyro 2

[@Hagiastheite]

For me the way in which Arthas was dealt with/ to in Shadowlands was a truly appalling use of the character and his arch across years. I lost interest in their story telling from then.

[@relogos]

When FFXIV or GW2 launches a new xPac I take a week off work and beat the main story and I'm happy. Can't do that for WoW unless I wait for the end of the expansion and then I'm so far behind on all the grinds that I just can't. I'm no longer a teen playing mmos for 16 hours a day. Players changed, WoW did not.

[@CielBlanche]

bro if you want to really give wow's storytelling a chance the minimum you need to do is play warcraft 3 for cripes sake

[@ruick78]

Your better off playong og Warcraft for story

[@sneakypeteog9968]

The answer is NO ...they doing " early access" for money... Fuck them never again will i buy a wow expansion....they don't even give you 30 days game time with base purchae ...joke absolute joke.

[@sct77]

Can we really say the game has "tight gameplay" when instacast gcds desync and skip back and forth in time all the time? Seriously, this has been a problem since at least Legion and they have yet to put any amount of effort into fixing it.

[@Koroar]

I'd honestly rather have another classic and TBC server cycle than any new expansion lol, retail is long dead to me, there's no soul anymore

[@helloarchives]

It's quite sad when a game from 25 years ago (FFXI Online) has better story telling then the big titan of the industry.

[@ub3rfr3nzy94]

Here's the problem with Anduin. People think he's a pssy because he keeps crying about stuff, and Blizzard doesnt let him voice his opinions to us. All we would need is a cutscene where Anduin explains how he blames himself for being weak and allowing the Horde to destroy teldrassil, he needs to explain how he remembers murdering innocent people and what it felt like as he killed them when he was turned into mini arthas in shadowlands. Because in reality, yeah, killing innocent people against your will is fkd up, but players dont see it that way because videogame. We need him to say it out loud. Blizzard has an issue with humanising it's characters. Everyone is calling anduin a pssy for being upset about something that is fair to be upset about, but to us it's a videogame and killing people isn't unusual. They need to ground the storytelling a bit more.

[@Kreeby88]

When I used to play I always cared about the story and it hurt when it got bad and convoluted.

[@Kreiger19]

I think I'd be more okay with them releasing the story in weekly chunks if they were *sizable* chunks. Right now, it's 15, MAYBE 30 minutes of story quests per week. As someone who plays WoW for the story, I want more quests and way more RPG

[@RuecianGray]

They would be better off releasing the entire story in huge chunks at the start of every season. 4-5 hours worth of story all at once, and let players do it at whatever pace they want. I don't know why they want to time gate it to weekly chapters. There is no benefit in that at all except to just hold back a good story experience. On top of that, the in-game cutscenes always use these cartoony looking characters. The new cutscene with Thrall and Anduin looks so good, it makes me want to listen and take them seriously. They need to do the in-game cutscenes with these more gritty realistic looking graphics. Even if they cant do it 100% because of time/budget, they could even do 70% of that quality and it would be SO MUCH BETTER than those cartoony cutscenes they do in game.

[@jakubpelikan2393]

Gameplay of leveling and straight up baseline content is utter joke. There is nothing memorable, mobs just die in 1 hit and you can barely meet any actualy players.

[@JMulls]

WoW to me has a few key problems that are REALLY hard to solve with it's current status. 1.) Distrust... we have been burned on WoW story beats for well over a decade with only a few blips of interesting stuff, you can't rectify that over night, it will take consistent, well-received storytelling and possibly an entire finished arc, to really turn the tide imo 2.) Storytelling... the cutscenes in game look laughably jarring and when the cutscenes devolve to just characters talking with awkward lip flapping it makes whatever they are trying to land, land awkwardly. They've gotten better at this recently but they aren't there yet imo They also just need to go back to an old reliable of warcraft storytelling, make it cool. Have the characters do cool things, with cool creature design, and don't shy away from having characters feel badass. A big reason there is a disdain for Anduin as a character, is, regardless of how the story went, he ultimately replaced a very cool leader of the alliance (varian) as someone who has no real blood pumping awesome cutscenes of him being a badass. He is either controlled, or gets overly emotional when they try and do scenes to give him these kinds of moments which ends up with them just not being what is needed to change the perception for this character imo

[@GuardianTactician]

The only cool things Anduin has done were his mass healing in the Battle for Azeroth cinematic, mind controlling an SI:7 agent in Jade forest (Mists of Pandaria), and shouldering the responsibility of leading Stormwind and the Alliance in Legion. That is what a priest or a good strong character should do, and I'll give him credit for that. But with Shadowlands, he was controlled and became a rudderless for too long. He spends too much time getting manipulated or outsmarted by others instead of being effective.

[@Danishdrums]

They should have focused on Tyralion rather than Anduin

[@JMulls]

@@Danishdrums Imo they just play on Anduin trying to get over trauma way too much and for way too long and constantly reintroduce new trauma for him to try and overcome when they need a big transition for the character where he overcomes it or at least heavily learns from it, and radically transforms as a character to step up and be the king the alliance needs and be that perfect middle ground between Varian and his child self imo

[@sxlg_32]

I hope they fix it, but I'm not interested. The IP is damaged, not just the game. In my opinion it needs a reboot and I don't trust current Blizzard to do it properly.

[@Skuimpie]

Thanks editor, spat out my drink when you put in the honey b lovely screenshot

[@TheChunkeyNinja]

it's not much but its honest work

[@Mikesusendsadasdc]

I wasnt expecting to see that......

[@veselinrankov7322]

I used to love the Warcraft story ever since WC3. After the butchery of all the characters from WC3 I have witnessed, I think I have developed some kind of PTSD. Jaina is the only character I still care about, mainly cuz of the Pride of Kultiras questline did a great job developing her character. Now every time she comes on screen I get worried what the writers are gonna make her say and do...

[@zapspiders92]

The absolute snooze fest of a cinematic tells me the story team don't get it. I want the cinematic to pump me up and get me ready to play WARcraft. I do not want to watch Anduin feel sad in HD. I do not want to play world of therapycraft

[@braules]

It pisses me off that The War Within feels more like a continuation of BfA than Dragonflight. In Dragonflight we're told "The World is Healing" and now we're being told "The World is dying." (again). It feels like 4 years of my life were robbed for 2 expansions that will not have any repercussions in the story. Blizzard could've skipped Shadowlands and Dragonflight and make TWW and there would've been virtually no difference. I was already finished with these plots, I had sealed them off my mind hoping their went away forever because god I hated BfA so much, and now they're coming back and pretty much everything seems a 1 to 1 parallel of what Bfa was and what it should've been, instead of Sylvanas you've got Alleria, instead of N'zoth you have Xal'athat, instead of Teldrassil you have Dalaran. I don't know. I just don't want anything from BfA to ever be brought up again, I was so happy in Dragonflight and this feels like a regression for me.

[@markup6394]

"In Dragonflight we're told "The World is Healing" and now we're being told "The World is dying." " - Sounds like every WoW expansion to me ngl ^^°

[@Alucard2356]

As a Draenei player, I absolutely refuse any story beats with Alleria until we talk about her eating a Naaru. If it has been questioned in a book, then I guess whatever, because I don't read the books. The game should be enough to answer stories. Ff14 does it, WoW can too with it's massive budget

[@JRileyD]

The budget mainly goes to pats on the back, raises, promotions and new material items(cars boats etc.) Companies that big don't put money back into the product they just milk it and apologize later for milking it wrong.

[@hellfrass666]

Early access and greed made me decide to not order. Remember Blizzard only listen when u vote with your wallet.

[@Noryll1327]

Honestly, I have basically no hype for TWW. But one giant problem that I think Blizzard has with the WoW expacs nowadays, is that they basically reveal nothing about what’s going to be in the expansion. What has been revealed for TWW outside of the usual dungeons, raids, and zones? Warbands that’s not content, just QoL. Hero Talents that are mostly passive and will be generally unnoticeable for most classes. And Delves that look interesting but it remains to be seen on if they’ll be compelling in the future. That’s it, for what will likely be a $50-60 dollar expansion. Obviously, they’ll have more systems and zones over the patches, but I don’t KNOW what we will get. I used to not think about it much but after shifting to FF years ago, it’s hard to be excited about any WoW expansion release because it’s completely empty feeling everytime nowadays.

[@Maria_Erias]

If they keep time gating the story content, it's not a $50-$60 expansion. If they break up the story and force you to play through chapters (or even sub-chapters) each week before hitting a wall and having to wait another week to see what happens next, they're artificially inflating it and forcing people to have to stay subscribed in order to just see the story. Which means that the $60 price for the expansion suddenly becomes $120+ if you're forced to remain subbed for 4 months just to see the story play out week-by-week because of timegating. OR come back at the end of the expansion to try to play through it all linearly, except Blizzard stopped doing that (intentionally, some would say) and now just have a bunch of quests from different patches shotgunned straight into the face of new/returning players, and trying to make sense of which quests come before which others, and how the storyline is actually written often takes a couple of third-party websites and a flow chart.

[@Noryll1327]

@@Maria_Erias Yep, that's a huge one too. I played Dragonflight for 1 month, unsubbed since the casual player experience was basically non-existent outside of repeating the same boring and poorly designed zone weekly's over and over again like the Feast and the Siege. Those weekly's are so bad I could go on a tangent about each one lol. But then I came back around the last patch to do some basic M+ with friends after they reworked the M+ progression. Holy shit, the returning player/new player experience of Dragonflight is fucking terrible. I just had like 20 quests in Valdrakken with no clue which ones unlocked what content or if some of them even actually led to anything. I couldn't even get to the Green dragonflight zone because I couldn't find the fucking quest for it even with looking it up. Like I get having the story progress in patches, but if you're content is so flimsy that you need to delay 2 hours of story content over 8 weeks to force extra sub time instead of letting the players experience the story cohesively, then I'm just not going to play the story at all.

[@Maria_Erias]

@@Noryll1327 I think my second biggest pet peeve about the patch-based storytelling (after the obvious money-grabbing scheme through forced subscriptions) is that Blizzard doesn't even know where the story is going, and so it winds up changing to the point where entire story beats are completely dropped or wind up getting obviously repurposed towards something else when whoever's writing the new part can't be bothered to read over the previous parts. If they're going to do episodic story content, they need to actually pay attention to how story-based MMOs like FF14 and SWTOR do it.

[@Noryll1327]

@@Maria_Erias Yes, exactly. They also feel the need to introduce a new zone every patch, which means they need some story reason to go to that zone. Which then means more shallow one-time characters and some weird contrived plot reason as to why we went there. It just feels jarring to the story as you're just jerked around to a new area again and again with very little actually happening. Like I enjoy that FF doesn't introduce new zones outside of like Bozja type stuff, because it means we will go back and interact with those characters we already have instead, like the cat couple in Shadowbringers. It gives them time to flourish into actual characters, alongside allowing us to see the repercussions of our actions as we revisit old towns and meet old characters again. It just feels like WoW wants to shove you to the next "ooo, aaa" moment every patch without any regard for a cohesive world or smooth story telling.

[@vulgaritar48]

Okay, but... Focusing on the story at this stage of WoW's life cycle doesn't fix or remove years' worth of messy and convoluted expansions, books, comics, etc that are the huge obstacle for new people who might be interested in giving this setting a try. Investing in this does not save WoW or address the new player problem. Saying "Oh, the story gets good in 300 hours" is not gonna get FF/narrative-interested players to try WoW. They need a hard reset. They need a fresh, clean start with a new narrative. End WoW 1 with something weighty. Give Azeroth a 200-year timeskip, keep some immortal or long-lived characters around, and start anew.

[@neverclevernorwitty7821]

To be fair, from the Metzen interview, it seems Metzen had VERY LITTLE to do with the story in TWW. He got back into Blizzard too far into the development in TWW with only an ability to (his words) "vector" the trajectory.

[@cwilliams6884]

the game has sucked for a very long time and blizzard has had plenty of chances to fix that. the time to quit giving blizzard any more chances was atleast a decade ago

[@aquastias]

Should you play? No. Absolutely not. Same thing as with every expansion, but this time don't play. Wait at least 3 months to see if the expansion is good, then decide if it is worth it.

[@Clouds23x]

Dragonflight story and writing was so bad that I will never read another quest in WoW or listen to anything NPCs have to say. Playing WoW for story is just stupid at this point.

[@Lexing187]

The pacing 100% breaks my immersion into the story.

[@bernardbor5897]

This looks like a dumpster fire. Blizzard is a mess from top to bottom. Chuck it in the bin with Disney.

[@86Corvus]

You are not wrong...

[@KamiSlayer86]

The Final Fantasy Story claws are in you now Preach. You go test the story for us and when you say its good I might come back to wow. But honestly, Shadowlands is the last I played and its going to take more to bring me back into the Blizzard fold with PoE 2 on the horizon and XIV being a bit weird atm, I trust they will figure it out.

[@booksnbooze7796]

If Metzen returning isn't enough from a storytelling perspective, then nothing will make you return. And that's ok, but it's basically over for you.

[@ectogamut]

I’ve been spoiled by the likes of BG3 and FF7R. I can’t get invested in most video game stories, even ones that are better than WOW’s

[@flech3025]

I will never play a WoW expansion where they make you pay extra to play the game on release day.

[@Dras7]

I disagree that dawntrail world building part was something to avoid. It for sure has problems and might not to be for everyone but getting only big set pieces with the plot moving 10000km/h all the time would be so boring to me.

[@neileo1540]

preach you look like an entirely new person, well fucking done bro so proud

[@TheNichq]

The endgame needs a MAJOR overhaul for me to consider coming back. Its still the same raid or die game its been since Cata. I need to see Mythic gear removed, and Mythic to be cosmetic only. Make Heroic drop the best ilvl. Then make raiding easier across the board. I want puggable raids and not raids that require 1000 add ons and voice chat.

[@---tq3pt]

I wish I could what you are able to do, I would love to be able to start again with no preconceived ideas but I can't I have thoughts and feelings about all these characters some good and some bad. I've bought early access and am excited to give the game a fair shot but in terms of story I'm hoping Blizzard really go above and beyond, there is a lot of people that would love to enjoy the WoW story again i'm sure but it's up to them to win us over. I also fear that people are just getting tired of giving Blizzard another chance, they have constantly let down their audience be it with WoW, Overwatch, Diablo, Starcraft (who?), Refroged etc. They have constantly at almost every turn spat in the face of their consumers, I think it's very fair that their work should be judged with a high amount of scepticism. I hope they prove themselves better over the course of the World Soul Saga.

[@thom3124]

I may change my mind someday but right now you have convinced me not to play TWW. I am going to just do my daily quests as usual.

[@CuthiePatootie]

The opposite also holds true. I got out looking for a good time, looking for fun and immersion and I find it. Even today when Vanessa betrayed me in the human heritage quest, I was gasping, "What!?" I read the books, I love the stories and the lore. For me? Shadowlands was too massive of a concept for me to fully enjoy, it felt less personal. But Dragonflight was really fun. However, I wish there was more. WoW has this tendency to focus on gameplay and give you bits of digestible story and say, "Here's a book for people interested in lore and rp." But FFXIV gives you all of it in game. "Here's a thousand hours of cinematics, deal with it." I would love double or triple the amount of lore and character development. Give me 300 more quests not "here's seven for this week, five for next, then one more and we're done for two months"

[@Vanishou]

As someone who did mythic raid in wow and now does savage in ff14. When I think about filling up my vault with 8 m+ (because it’ll give me an easier time in raid) that’ll take me multiple hours of something I don’t want to do just to raid 2 nights a week. I just don’t come back, because in ff I can maintain my character in 1 hour every week and then do what I want within the game. It doesn’t matter what they do with the story.

[@Freestyle80]

yeah ff14 such a magical game thats why its sitting at 57% positive reviews on steam

[@Ellemtee749]

@@Freestyle80 You think WoW would have any higher than 20% if it was on Steam? Nobody hates the game more than its own players :P That said, FFXIV is indeed magical - but certainly not because of the latest 10 levels of the MSQ. That was a dumpsterfire in many ways I could talk forever about, but I'm happy to see the feedback reflecting the state of it. Hopefully they change direction back to the winning formula! But, we need competition, and so I hope WoW picks itself up from the garbage bin, too. Nobody gains if either of the games have shit periods.

[@Freestyle80]

@@Ellemtee749 tf are you on about competition, WoW still has by and far the largest playerbase of any MMO but in your mind its a dying game because you follow negative nancys like Preach and Asmongold 😂

[@Ellemtee749]

@@Freestyle80 Are you in any way able to reasonably extract information from what you read, or what is your deal really?

[@Freestyle80]

@@Ellemtee749 are you able to read or just here to blab about how perfect ff14 is and lie about its actual player numbers?

[@IRedpunk]

Personally I'm done with Blizzard games. Gave them too many chances. Have fun to everyone going back

[@markup6394]

7:29 --- I f***ing WAS (!!!) invested in WoWs f***ing characters!!! And they butchered them!!! Story telling never was WoWs strong suit, but they had relatable characters you could root for. And then they ruined them! Changed them beyond recognition! Yes, I'm well aware that whether or not a character is ruined is not for me silly consumer to decide but if every bloody character that I liked turned into a grotesque parody of they were? Then yes, I will give you a piece of my mind -.- Dont get me wrong, sometimes I do wonder what kind of game WoW is today after four years... but then I remember, those characters that I used to like are still there, and I dont care anymore. Whenever WoW creates a fun character, you can be sure they find a way to ruin them. 10:25 --- The problem with Anduin. He had ALWAYS been a good character! And as they are wont to do, they ruined a perfectly fine character that already had several developments behind him - and still they thought "hey, how much more can we f*** this up?". After Shadowlands, they claimed things would be different now - and they sure changed, they just didnt improve. 12:40 --- WoW has always worked with forshadowing - they just never did anything with it. They would dangle that carrot in front of our faces only to laugh and say "ah, but it was never a carrot!" 18:24 --- Just tell me one thing when your experiment is done: will it matter when I start playing? Or will the WoW world have changed with the patches as usual? That quests are tied to patches and pre-patches and become unplayable if you missed them? Is the game running away from me, did Blizzard install the usual FOMO? Or can I actually and finally play that game at my own pace? I agree that expectations shape the result (funny to hear you of all people say that...), but as I mentioned before: unless they fix some points in their game design, there just is no reason for me to go back - even if they treat the story like they should going foreward. But you failed to explain one thing: Metzen never bothered to fix these issues when he was still in charge years ago - why should anyone bother to trust him to fix them now?

[@Thromash]

12:30 best part of the video ngl

[@CrusaderSmjolk]

Rewinded it a couple times lol

[@TheJoffgraham]

Until Holly Longdale herself tells me otherwise, I will always believe that a season was cut from Dragonflight which would have dealt with Vyranoth's face turn as well as the red Dragonflight. Every other Dragonflight got a story treatment except the red - it's obvious by omission that it was cut

[@Gnorfell]

They have got a very very very long way to go to redeem themselves in the storywriting department. As much as I am looking forward to seeing what they do with the future expansions, I remain hesitant. I hope it turns out really well, though.

[@Armadan7]

You nearly had me for a second Mike. I reinstalled and saw my account level squished with no idea where to go, chromie's expansion thing is a nightmare, the UI is a nightmare, the pacing is just gone. At least in the past i knew i had to level in order of expacks but now levels mean nothing and the whole games story is a jumbled morrass. The magic of Warcraft is gone, it's turned into cartoon Disney weirdness. I played the dragon expansion and felt the dragon aspects had no connection to the way they were in the books or in WotLK... Krasus was the last well written one and the game devs killed him off for nothing. These new ones are from a Disney version of Spyro the dragon. Trying to level was the magic of WoW, exploring crazy New zones, absorbing the music, seeing interesting quest lines that could take hours and reward you with awesome looking blues. Nagrand was the perfect encapsulation of how WoW used to feel to explore. Comparing it to DF's centaur zone is like hot dog water vs. the finest champagne. It's over man. Thankfully they refunded my purchase and sub, and I'm finally gone for good.