The story of World of Warcraft is trapped in an eternal cycle. Many players believe that the heroes should finally lose – including Cortyn.
World of Warcraft has endured like few other MMORPGs over many years. Nevertheless, the processes have become similar over the years, not only regarding gameplay but also story-wise. There are some recurring events that many players are now fed up with.
Here are some examples:
- Arrogant bosses who mock us “weak mortals” before getting beaten and defeated right after.
- The “Enough!” screaming of many NPCs who stun all players and then teleport to safety after almost being defeated.
- After each catastrophe, a larger one follows, which is always overcome.
Especially the word “Enough!” that many bosses keep using to stun all players and then escape has long become a meme.
Of course, this type of fight design serves a purpose because NPCs can still deliver monologues or dialogues while the fight is essentially “paused”. However, this technique has become so overused that it is wearing thin for many players.
When the Legion attacked with the pre-event of the associated expansion, everything looked like a major catastrophe. The whole world was attacked, chaos prevailed everywhere, many characters died, and places were devastated.
However, even if “from the story’s perspective” these places are recovering or have been completely destroyed, it is not visible in the world. A noticeable consequence of the last great threat is missing.
Here the reason is clear: It would be a lot of work to revise the old areas with each catastrophe, which would create more phasing, further separating players. So there are strong arguments against it.
However, this does not mitigate the feeling that all the threats are without consequences and that the game world can no longer reflect what has actually happened in the story. More and more information needs to be “thought out” when (which is especially important for role-players) the game world is more than just an accumulation of mobs to farm.
Immersion in the game world of WoW is becoming increasingly difficult if one is not only hanging around in the current areas of the latest expansion.
The wish for a defeat
A wish that occasionally flares up on Reddit is for a defeat. Despite all the efforts and defeated raid bosses, the heroes of Azeroth should come out as clear losers from an expansion.
Because this is another recurring “problem” in the story of World of Warcraft. No matter how great the enemy and how powerful the threat, in the end, it is always somehow averted. At the end of Legion, there was at least a “small” setback due to the sword of Sargeras, but that feels secondary in the current content of Battle for Azeroth and hardly plays a role.
That is why I hope that “Battle for Azeroth” does not end with us fighting N’zoth and defeating him. I hope we fail and this time not only face an apocalypse but actually experience it. At least his quotes already suggest that.
Surely, this would be a radical change, and old areas would not fit into the storyline again as they are not being updated, but it would be a fresh approach, something new and a storyline that would break the “status quo” a bit.
What changes would you suggest for the storytelling system of World of Warcraft? How could the storyline of WoW be better represented in the game world?
