A View From the Road: Screw Warcraft IV

[John Funk]

It's okay. I don't play WoW, but I understand why certain people like MMORPGs, and I played some MMORPGs in the past and enjoyed them (somewhat). They aren't really for me, but neither is the Halo series.

I am more interested about how WoW is attempting to tell a storyline, in the hopes of predicting how Bioware plans on solving the storyline problem.

I always subscribed to the hypothesis that MMORPG storylines need to be "dynamic", that MMORPGs must let players decide the fate of the storyline itself, so that players begin to actually CARE and invest time into the storyline. There are two ways that I believe that a "dynamic" storyline could go :
*An PvP war, where the war between the many player factions IS the actual storyline, and victory for your faction leads to you unlocking certain new quests
*Certain major questlines that are only accessible during a small period of time (like, say, only in March 2008). If players complete this questline, then the next stage of the storyline is revealed. Fluff is changed to reflect how the players affected the questline, if they choose one way, the fluff is changed to reflect it.

Phasing leads to the impliciation that a "dynamic" storyline is not really needed; a static lineral storyline could very well be developed, where everything is already pre-determined instead of left to the MMO playerbase to decide where the storyline can go. Interesting.

I think that's exactly it. WoW is a very "designed" game. By that, I mean that rather than, say, give players the tools to set up their own content (EVE, original Star Wars Galaxies) the content is almost entirely developer-created. Blizzard has a vision for WoW that they want to be followed, and meticulously crafts everything in order to take the player through the world in a way that they intend.

Neither approach is inherently better or worse than the other, they're just different. But yes, I see phasing as precisely that - Blizzard is trying to become more adept at telling its own story through the game, and I personally think they're succeeding.

 

[Vitor Goncalves]

I play(ed) it for 5 years and its WORLD OF Warcraft, not warcraft, thats how I felt it. The maps are not right, the races alignement make no sense and actually the resume of the war made no sense at all. Why night elves joined alliance if they are not supposed to deal with other races unless in very exceptional situations, like when archimonde wanted to destroy the world tree.

Also look how blizzard is bringing to life all vanilla main bosses, Kel thuzad was first, then Onyxia, now will be ragnaros, nefarian and Cthun. I wont be surprised if hakkar, illidan, kael'thas, gruul or even archimonde, sargeras and kil'jaeden return. The game is becoming a recycling loophole. Where is the lore in that?

 

[Moffman]

This is probably way too old now for any one to read but the article gripped me due to the fact I do want a Warcraft IV despite being an avid WoW player. So why want Warcraft IV? It's a matter of satisfaction. In WoW you are constantly flitting in and out of story, some quests you strive to find out what Kael is exactly doing in the eye and other are kill boar coz me hungry. Where as Warcraft stratagy concentrates fully on the story being fed straight to you, because of this I really grew a soft spot for the relationship between Grom and Thrall, actually being quite touched by Hellscream's death (Yeah pretty sad I know), this made choosing horde the obvious step.

These relationships (until recently) were lost in WoW, why did Jaina and Thrall never speak ever? Only with the litch King expansion have we seen the story start to flourish again. I a gree with Mr Funk, you are truely drawn in to this story and every part was well thought out Varian's hatred for the orcs is evident as he charges at Thrall... depite the fact it's obvious he and sylvanis have just killed the traitor and Jaina, evidentally still good friends with Thrall saves him from Varian's onslaught. Great! Relationship is getting set back up! The death of the Litch king is also satisfying, after the encounter being shown a little cut scene of story. So I agree Wrath was a great expansion... However due to the elitists on WoW I personally have never experienced this... you must have 5.5K gear spec... sorry I dont play that much and the Blizz team say it's possible with my gear spec... nope 5.5k or never... a little agrivating. If it's me I'd let anyone come along, I really don't care about wiping tis for the fun!

However Warcraft IV would have told the story of Illidan a lot better in my opinon. Especially that of Kael and Zul'Jin. Kael unspeakably goes mad, thinking what he does is right for his people. What was satisfying about WIII was we saw his reasoning behind betraying the alliance and we simpathised with him because we saw the stroy through his eyes. Seeing his decent into madness through his eyes would be extremely informative, maybe Kael has good reason to side wih the Deamons. And Zul'Jin! ARGH! This was beyond frustrating... Hi Guys... oh you've sided with elves... DIE! So why does ZJ fight the alliance? Why didn't he talk it over with the horde? This once wise tactician thanks he stands a chance against the combined forces of the horde and the alliance, one fortress VS two continents. Even with devine intervention that's a stretch! And why why why does Raven tusk villiage STILL not know their hero is dead? A very unsatisfying end to a fan favourite. Plus all story is described in the trailer for this one, barely any in game. Sure torture would make me hate a race... but I'd seek out the alliance. The Horde forgave the elves for slaughtering hundreds of them, may be the humans can forgive.

In short. I want Warcraft IV for the way it tells story. It gives it more in depth and we gain a great understanding of our favourite characters which WoW did not do till Wrath. If they went back and made BC as good story wise as Wrath I'd be happy... but of course they never will hehe.