A View From the Road: Screw Warcraft IV

[Byers]

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I keep naming Warcraft 2 as the darker, more brutal part of the franchise, and people keep trying to refute my points, using examples from Warcraft 3.

Whether or not severed bloody head icons in your inventory bag happen in every MMO or none, that doesn't make them "less mature".

You started out trying to argue that moving to MMO made it "less mature", and we're pointing out that it started out in the RTS. You seem to agree with the idea that it at least started in WCIII. So, actually, WoW simply continued the downward spiral started in the RTS games with WCIII.

Again, this is about WoW continuing the plot of WC, not what direction the franchise has gone in "maturity".

If you want to play Warhammer, play Warhammer. Don't expect the Warcraft franchise to conform to Warhammer.

The first warcraft game was originally supposed to be a Warhammer licensed game, but Games Workshop pulled the licensing and Blizzard had to change it somewhat. Both the first WC games had this Warhammer inspired world pretty intact, but when they started working on the third game, they went a different road, design wise, basically making the cartoony visual style from the older games (which in those days were basically as realistic as graphics could get) a conscious design choice to make the game look instantly identifiable to the earlier games. With this look came an apparent willingness to add more comedy and lightheartedness into the mix, perhaps because the last game was so grim, and they wanted to hit as wide of a market as possible.
According to what I've read, a lot of the people involved in the creation of the earlier WC games were no longer with Blizzard when it was time for the third game, which might explain some of these different design choices. (This is also why certain iconic things, like the voice of the human footman, was missing).

So when you claim I shouldn't look to Warcraft for a Warhammer theme, I feel I must inform you that you're somewhat off base. Because thematically, this is what a lot of us (as in early Warcraft fans) fell in love with about the franchise.

And while theoretically Warcraft is advancing their plot lines, I feel the first Warcraft games have as much to do with WoW as the original Star Wars trilogy had to do with the animated Ewoks cartoon series.

 

[John Funk]

The first warcraft game was originally supposed to be a Warhammer licensed game, but Games Workshop pulled the licensing and Blizzard had to change it somewhat. Both the first WC games had this Warhammer inspired world pretty intact, but when they started working on the third game, they went in a different road, design wise, basically making the cartoony visual style from the older games (which in those days were basically as realistic as graphics could get) a conscious design choice to make the game look instantly identifiable to the earlier games. With this look came an apparent willingness to add more comedy and lightheartedness into the mix, perhaps because the last game was so grim, and they wanted to hit as wide of a market as possible.
According to what I've read, a lot of the people involved in the creation of the earlier WC games were no longer with Blizzard when it was time for the third game, which might explain some of these different design choices. (This is also why certain iconic things, like the voice of the human footman, was missing).

So when you claim I shouldn't look to Warcraft for a Warhammer theme, I feel I must inform you that you're somewhat off base. Because thematically, this is what a lot of us (as in early Warcraft fans) fell in love with about the franchise.

And while theoretically Warcraft is advancing their plot lines, I feel the first Warcraft games have as much to do with WoW as the original Star Wars trilogy had to do with the animated Ewoks cartoon series.

If I wanted Warhammer, I'd play Warhammer. WC started moving into its own, away from its Warhammer-inspired roots in WC2, and had completely broken with them by WC3, reinterpreting the Orcs in a much more interesting light.

And I can't say for ALL of the staff involved in the earlier WC games, but you had the key personnel - Mike Morhaime, Rob Pardo, Chris Metzen, Shane Dabiri, Samwise Didier - on WC1 who are still involved in WoW. (I'm pretty sure that Chris Metzen was all of those iconic voices, actually. At least a few of them) The only real key designer I can think of off the top of my head that left was Bill Roper, and I'm not sure how much input he ever had on StarCraft/Warcraft as opposed to Diablo.

I've never once found the pop culture references to be a break from immersion. And the game is rather dark, especially in Wrath (Though it has its moments of levity). You're way overexaggerating.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

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True. What I was trying to say is that an MMO can't really grab me because of a lack of good and interesting presentation. It's just not interesting enough for me to actually try to follow the storyline(not to mention that it's probably complicated).
I stopped playing quite early on(my highest character was on level 33 or 34), but I still think that I should have found at least an indication of an overall storyarc by then, but I didn't, only seperate little stories for each area I explored and quested in.

You weren't paying attention, as you admitted, simple as that.

Humans: from Northshire, to Elwynn, to Westfall, Defias all over, you later learn it's about how the Masons weren't treated fairly after re-building Stormwind. The leader in westfall says, see if Lakeshire has any aid to offer, you get there, and they're surrounded by Orcs, they say "see what's up in Duskwood" and they've been surrounded by Undead. You come to find out all three regions are under-supported because the leaders in Stormwind are being confused by a lady of the court. Who turns out to be Onyxia who is causing trouble all over.

Dark Iron Dwarves are the overlying problem in Dun Morogh, Loch Modan, and Wetlands. With some orc issues as well. Arathi, Hillsbrad, and Altreac are the Human kingdoms that fell after Lorderon. The Undead in Tristfall are fighting off the Scarlet Crusade. Horde all throughout Kalimdor are establishing themselves in the area. Night elves are fighting to keep what was theirs and keep nature in balance.

 

[HK_01]

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True. What I was trying to say is that an MMO can't really grab me because of a lack of good and interesting presentation. It's just not interesting enough for me to actually try to follow the storyline(not to mention that it's probably complicated).
I stopped playing quite early on(my highest character was on level 33 or 34), but I still think that I should have found at least an indication of an overall storyarc by then, but I didn't, only seperate little stories for each area I explored and quested in.

You weren't paying attention, as you admitted, simple as that.

Humans: from Northshire, to Elwynn, to Westfall, Defias all over, you later learn it's about how the Masons weren't treated fairly after re-building Stormwind. The leader in westfall says, see if Lakeshire has any aid to offer, you get there, and they're surrounded by Orcs, they say "see what's up in Duskwood" and they've been surrounded by Undead. You come to find out all three regions are under-supported because the leaders in Stormwind are being confused by a lady of the court. Who turns out to be Onyxia who is causing trouble all over.

Dark Iron Dwarves are the overlying problem in Dun Morogh, Loch Modan, and Wetlands. With some orc issues as well. Arathi, Hillsbrad, and Altreac are the Human kingdoms that fell after Lorderon. The Undead in Tristfall are fighting off the Scarlet Crusade. Horde all throughout Kalimdor are establishing themselves in the area. Night elves are fighting to keep what was theirs and keep nature in balance.

Yes, I wasn't paying attention and I told the reason for it: lack of engaging presentation.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

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Yes, I wasn't paying attention and I told the reason for it: lack of engaging presentation.

Actually, you said your reason was lack of caring for the story in the first place because you wanted XP.

When I played, all it was was a series of quests that I did not care about because I only wanted the XP.

"All it was was a series of quests": Yes, and that would be the plot parts, so really, you're saying the whole thing was plot.

You can't claim it didn't give you plot if you didn't want it, or weren't looking for it in the first place.

 

[HK_01]

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Yes, I wasn't paying attention and I told the reason for it: lack of engaging presentation.

Actually, you said your reason was lack of caring for the story in the first place because you wanted XP.

The lack of care came from the fact that the story wasn't engaging(I mean the story of all the individual quests, because, as I said, I did not find an overarching plot).

You can't claim it didn't give you plot if you didn't want it, or weren't looking for it in the first place.

Well, I didn't find a overall plot in my time playing the game, maybe that's part of the reason I didn't care about it.

 

[MikeBBetts]

Great article. I also felt like the Northrend quests, if you played them all the way through, really felt like an amazing, epic single-player RPG storyline.

 

[Byers]

If I wanted Warhammer, I'd play Warhammer. WC started moving into its own, away from its Warhammer-inspired roots in WC2, and had completely broken with them by WC3, reinterpreting the Orcs in a much more interesting light.

And I can't say for ALL of the staff involved in the earlier WC games, but you had the key personnel - Mike Morhaime, Rob Pardo, Chris Metzen, Shane Dabiri, Samwise Didier - on WC1 who are still involved in WoW. (I'm pretty sure that Chris Metzen was all of those iconic voices, actually. At least a few of them) The only real key designer I can think of off the top of my head that left was Bill Roper, and I'm not sure how much input he ever had on StarCraft/Warcraft as opposed to Diablo.

I've never once found the pop culture references to be a break from immersion. And the game is rather dark, especially in Wrath (Though it has its moments of levity). You're way overexaggerating.

This "reinterpretation" of the orcs abandoned everything cool about them to begin with. Abandoning demonic powers for nature worship. Ditching the awesome and fearsome (yet flawed and believable) warchiefs for a Disney story about a gentle orc boy raised by humans. Replacing the awesome ogres and ogre mages with bipedal cows. No thanks.

I can't find the article I read about past Blizzard employees, but do know some of them broke off to form the now disbanded Flagship Studios (including the guy who were the voice of the human footman and the mission briefings in Warcraft 2). I Also know Blizzard North was shut down in a dispute with Vivendi, causing talent such as Matt Uelmen to leave, now working on the game Torchlight with other ex-Blizzard employees in Runic Games. Where all of this fits in, I have no idea, I mentioned it more as a theory regarding the different new design choices in their more recent games.

 

[Valiance]

lol lore. Blizzard hasn't cared and will never care when it comes to War3 and WoW, ruining or killing off any of the characters I ever liked. I'll be honest though, I do like Tirion, though all the cool Alliance characters are now just fucking "neutral" because they're too cool to exclude half the game's player-base from encountering. And he said it himself - he's seen orcs as noble as knights of stormwind, and humans that... Well, you'd know, I'm sure.

"While this argument is made slightly less relevant by WoW's phasing system letting players actually perceive the world changing thanks to their actions, it still comes down to a matter of suspension of disbelief."

Go fly around in Blade's Edge mountains with a few friends who were around at 70 doing Ogri'la dailies.

"Hail Loveshock, king of the ogres!" (30 seconds later) "Hail Skillstorm, queen of the ogres!)"

I fully support phasing, but they haven't had the time to fix every little continuity error, and just 1 is enough to piss off a player who gives a damn about that sort of thing, and there's so many that most players just don't care anymore and it's accepted and understood.

I don't see how they're gonna deal with this Cataclysm shit, because I mean, after Ulduar, we've DEFIED OUR VERY MAKERS, killed two old gods by now, and not much is more threatening than deathwing unless the pantheon themselves were going to...Well, whatever...

 

[Nuke_em_05]

The lack of care came from the fact that the story wasn't engaging(I mean the story of all the individual quests, because, as I said, I did not find an overarching plot).

Well, I didn't find a overall plot in my time playing the game, maybe that's part of the reason I didn't care about it.

You said you didn't care because you wanted XP. I'll quote you again since you seem to like to omit that very relevant statement.

When I played, all it was was a series of quests that I did not care about because I only wanted the XP.

You're apathy existed first because you were focused on XP. You didn't find anything because you weren't looking, and you weren't looking because you didn't care to look because you were focused on XP.

You didn't find an overreaching plot because you weren't reading the quests, because all you cared about was the XP.

 

[dagens24]

While I do agree with what the article is saying, I do still have some issues with cannon in the game.

1) Because of the balanced nature of the game the developers are forced to tell a story based on game mechanics rather then the other way around. You'll never see the Tauren leave the Horde to join the Night Elves with the Alliancce or vice versa because that would destroy the game mechanics. This puts a limit on the creative freedom the story tellers have.

2) Not everyone has the time required to play the highlevel raid dungeons. I've followed the story of the Lich King all throughout Northrend but I know I will NEVER get to experience the ending of the saga first hand. Sure, I'll read about it and maybe even see videos, but I will never be part of it because I just don't have the time to dedicate to the game to become geared well enough to play that content.

3) It is often unclear what is cannon within the game an what isn't. When a new expansion is released we are often left wondering who is dead and who is alive. Neferian is apparently still alive, but Kael'Thas is dead. Because the nature of the game is to kill all these boses Blizzard needs to make it more clear who is still active, etc. They are, however, doing a better job of this with their phasing technology, I will give them that.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject.

 

[oliveira8]

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I think that an MMO absolutely works for telling a story, and that Blizzard has only gotten better at it through the expansions. Even in Classic WoW, though - look at the buildup to AQ, investigating the hives, finding the mind-controlled priestess, fighting the Emissary and then learning all about the Twin Emperors / C'thun? Could it have been presented better? Of course. Was it still rather well-crafted? Yes indeed.

Re: Your last two points - WoW is WC4 for the purposes of moving along the storyline of the world, because that's what Blizzard wanted it to be. It is the next installment of the story. That's really not up for debate, I wouldn't think.

And I think commenting on how good/effective the writing is was rather necessary - it was an example to show that story can be told through what you do in a quest, rather than just the text when accepting/turning the quest in.

You are aware that a huge chunk of the WoW population NEVER EXPERIENCED THE AQ OPENING! How is that good story telling? It's not. A MMO doesn't work to introduce a full blown story. You can skip HALF of all the lore Blizzard gives you in WoW.

The fallen Paladin(forgot the name) in Plaguelands? You can skip his storyline and you still going to meet him later on. You don't need to go kill Ragnaros, theres no sense of urgency, the world is static, nothing bad ever happens. It's a bad story telling medium, cause you can skip huge chunks of story. The Horde gets silith in the Barrens? You can skip that. Theres Silith in tanaris and that weird place with the stealth t-rexes? You can skip that. All the quests in Silithus? You can skip that. But you still can go into AQ.

It just doesn't work as an effective story telling medium. The story is there is no interest in following it.

 

[John Funk]

This "reinterpretation" of the orcs abandoned everything cool about them to begin with. Abandoning demonic powers for nature worship. Ditching the awesome and fearsome (yet flawed and believable) warchiefs for a Disney story about a gentle orc boy raised by humans. Replacing the awesome ogres and ogre mages with bipedal cows. No thanks.

I can't find the article I read about past Blizzard employees, but do know some of them broke off to form the now disbanded Flagship Studios (including the guy who were the voice of the human footman and the mission briefings in Warcraft 2). I Also know Blizzard North was shut down in a dispute with Vivendi, causing talent such as Matt Uelmen to leave, now working on the game Torchlight with other ex-Blizzard employees in Runic Games. Where all of this fits in, I have no idea, I mentioned it more as a theory regarding the different new design choices in their more recent games.

I hate to fall back on the opinion card, but that really is just your preference. You act like the reinterpretation of the orcs completely removed their lust for battle or their ties to demonic magic (which it hasn't. See: Hellscream, Grom; Warlocks; Whatever that one racial ability is called). "Gentle orc boy"? Did you miss the part where Thrall brutally slaughtered Aedalas Blackmoore despite the guy being absolutely no match for him in combat? He's more measured than your average orc, but he's still got a temper.

The whole warchief/badass warrior thing is still there, but there's more to it than just that. But hey, if you want one-dimensional crazy brute barbarians who just live for battle (and seriously, nothing wrong iwth that), then that's your opinion and you are welcome to the Warhammer orcs. That just doesn't appeal to me at all.

I checked, and you were right that Roper was the Human Narrator in WC2. It's eluding me who Metzen voiced, but I know he did a bunch of the voices too.

Yes, some Blizzard North employees broke off to form Flagship, most notably Bill Roper. Blizzard North was then folded into the main campus in Irvine. But the man behind the WC lore and style from the beginning was Chris Metzen, with Samwise and Rob Pardo as other prominent influences. Roper was certainly influential, but less so than Metzen - he's the "core" of Warcraft, so to speak.

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I think that an MMO absolutely works for telling a story, and that Blizzard has only gotten better at it through the expansions. Even in Classic WoW, though - look at the buildup to AQ, investigating the hives, finding the mind-controlled priestess, fighting the Emissary and then learning all about the Twin Emperors / C'thun? Could it have been presented better? Of course. Was it still rather well-crafted? Yes indeed.

Re: Your last two points - WoW is WC4 for the purposes of moving along the storyline of the world, because that's what Blizzard wanted it to be. It is the next installment of the story. That's really not up for debate, I wouldn't think.

And I think commenting on how good/effective the writing is was rather necessary - it was an example to show that story can be told through what you do in a quest, rather than just the text when accepting/turning the quest in.

You are aware that a huge chunk of the WoW population NEVER EXPERIENCED THE AQ OPENING! How is that good story telling? It's not. A MMO doesn't work to introduce a full blown story. You can skip HALF of all the lore Blizzard gives you in WoW.

The fallen Paladin(forgot the name) in Plaguelands? You can skip his storyline and you still going to meet him later on. You don't need to go kill Ragnaros, theres no sense of urgency, the world is static, nothing bad ever happens. It's a bad story telling medium, cause you can skip huge chunks of story. The Horde gets silith in the Barrens? You can skip that. Theres Silith in tanaris and that weird place with the stealth t-rexes? You can skip that. All the quests in Silithus? You can skip that. But you still can go into AQ.

It just doesn't work as an effective story telling medium. The story is there is no interest in following it.

An MMO has to cater to many different types of players. And there are the people who don't play the game for the story, so they choose to ignore it or skip it. These are the people who wanted a "skip button" for the Brann Bronzebeard lore sequence in Halls of Stone.

The story is optional, because they recognize that not everyone wants to experience it. It doesn't change the fact that it is there, and if you follow the zones in the manner the quest flow is designed, you should experience it.

Granted, it's not all that effective pre-BC, and I think they recognize it. The zones have a much stronger narrative flow in TBC and especially WotLK, and the lack of flow is one of the main things they're addressing with Cataclysm.

 

[Serenegoose]

I definitely agree with the principle of the article. MMOs are too valid means of telling stories, and warcraft does so well, in a large amount of cases. Especially in the further expansions which consistently show their ability to tell a story in this context more effectively.

However, I've experienced the vast difficulty of putting together a group of people to run anything that requires more than 1 person that isn't at level 80 yet. This is a major problem, and it really needs solved. Every time I want to do a dungeon, I'm essentially consigning myself to a several hour wait, or a boost. And I hate boosts.

That doesn't, as I maintain, contradict the principle that you -can- tell an effective story via MMO though. Just that it's not perfect.

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

Pass and disagree. There isn't any progression just reskined NPC with repeat of same boring quest.

Warcraft and it's stories are just a cheap knock off of Warhammer. Yeah I'm that guy. troll blah blah blah.

Except... you're wrong.

And personally, I prefer Warcraft to Warhammer in pretty much every aspect. go figure

Yeah? Well? Our orcs are better and not liberal.
Waaaaagh!

I'd agree bar this: Blizzard seems completely intent on abandoning the story (or at least the good one) for a few dollars more, Worgen, previously said to be like a cross between a Werewolf and a Reaver from Firefly (without the rape) have now decided that healing potions will fix their addiction to ripping peoples faces off at lunchtime and due to those bloody night elves have decided that infecting Stormwind would be a wonderful idea. Oh, how I loathe those Worgen.

Some of the Questlines are brilliant though, you forgot to mention that

Spoiler

You had unleashed that Agent upon Zul'Drak in the first place

although if you were avoiding spoilers in your article that would make sense.

Besides, the Crusade is neither dangerous or fanatic, we are the Light's champions and shall purge the filth of undead from the world... Aside from the whole downside of the Lich King breaking us.

Finally: I like your picture.

 

[HK_01]

The lack of care came from the fact that the story wasn't engaging(I mean the story of all the individual quests, because, as I said, I did not find an overarching plot).

Well, I didn't find a overall plot in my time playing the game, maybe that's part of the reason I didn't care about it.

You said you didn't care because you wanted XP. I'll quote you again since you seem to like to omit that very relevant statement.

When I played, all it was was a series of quests that I did not care about because I only wanted the XP.

You're apathy existed first because you were focused on XP. You didn't find anything because you weren't looking, and you weren't looking because you didn't care to look because you were focused on XP.

You didn't find an overreaching plot because you weren't reading the quests, because all you cared about was the XP.

Stop assuming things. Seriously, it's annoying. I did read the quests, but they had no connection to one another and most of them were boring(bring me 20 gnoll ears and the like), so there was no reason to care about them. I naturally only cared about the XP and the reward if the epic story behind a quest is that there are a bunch of wild boars I have to kill. Wow. The lack of anything interesting made me only care about the XP, not the other way around.

 

[Bob_Marley42]

Yes it can tell a story.

I don't want that story to be part of the wider WC lore because a) I wasnt there and b) what happened to Illidan. Made no goddamn sense.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Stop assuming things. Seriously, it's annoying. I did read the quests, but they had no connection to one another and most of them were boring(bring me 20 gnoll ears and the like), so there was no reason to care about them. I naturally only cared about the XP and the reward if the epic story behind a quest is that there are a bunch of wild boars I have to kill. Wow. The lack of anything interesting made me only care about the XP, not the other way around.

I did not assume anything. I took what you said as it was written. You wrote your idea incorrectly.

You focused on XP because you didn't care, you should have phrased it that way "I focused on XP because the story wasn't worth caring about". You phrased it "I didn't care about the quests because I was focused on XP," the exact inverse relationship.

Don't blame people for arguing a point that you failed to communicate clearly.

That, or just don't change your story.

 

[Rack]

You say diluted. I say they're telling different parts of the story. Sure, the Abercrombie quests in Duskwood don't have anything to do with Arthas, or the Defias brotherhood, or whatever; they're about a creepy hermit tricking you into building his abomination for him. It's still a story, and helps flesh out the world more than anything else.

It seems like a fairly generous interpretation that several paragraphs about going down to the shops to buy some beer, going scrumping or cooking dinner still fits in the realms of "different parts of the story" If the story within an MMO is to have any real relevance I feel it is necessary to move away from the sweatshop writing system employed at the moment.

 

[MmmFiber]

Considering that with leveling at any speed at all you can get from 1-80 in 300 hours, thats still 300 hours. And yes, some will go much faster and some much slower. Probably a lot slower if you took the time to read every quest, follow every quest line, and then put it all together. Thats not even mentioning being lucky enough to group for the lower level instances. But yes, you can experience the story in wow. And yes, wow is the continuation(story-wise) of wc3. I will not doubt this.

But playing 300-ish hours plus the time it takes to gear up for endgame content which can take an annoyingly long time from bad rolls, retarded grouping, or playing an overfilled class on certain servers is not how I want my plot lines delivered. I just found it hard to care about the npcs. Everyone was the "hero." Me and Teebaggor just saved this bird from the bird-humanoids. Personally, i dont find that engaging.... I dont actually get to make an impact. Those wolves I killed to protect this family's farm have respawned in less than 5 minutes. Mr. Funk, you seem to find the mmo medium for telling stories as good. I simply do not agree. It all comes down to preference, I guess.