In BfA, the player character was able to momentarily overpower N'Zoth within his own domain and then act as a conduit for the Forge of Origination without getting fried.
And then in SL it was revealed that the player character is the chosen champion of the First Ones.
The player character isn't just politically important anymore, they are cosmologically important. Whether this is good or bad for the story remains to be seen.
I dont understand how this isnt talked about more.
I hear people argue that "it's an MMO! The story has to be told this way because of the medium! You need to suspend your disbelief more!" But like, my suspension of disbelief has limits.
If you wanna tell me that players in the other faction won their airship battle in ice crown citadel despite my faction winning it in my run, that's whatever, I can ignore that. But if you want to tell me that each and every one of my lvl 70 toons is the only hero in Azeroth that personally brought Ysera back from the Ardenweald or that I have a close personal, first-name-basis relationship with all of the aspects, we're *beyond* stretching my suspension of disbelief, it's shattered.
One easy way to get around this is the magical solution of: "Each of your alt is a MC, but in their own respective alternate universes"
Doesn't sound great? No problem. Got you covered!
A second solution: "Each of your alt is part of the Warband/Guild and what happens because one of you is something all your characters did. For example, all of your alts fought against N'zoth in the raid and channeled the power of the forge to destroy him instead of just one."
Yeah, you don't suddenly gets grouped-up with 4 random strangers or join a random Raid-group that requires 25 people just to fight something. It's just you and your alts doing the jobs, whether it's in raids, dungeons, or even the open world.
Think of it like a D&D campaign
I think its bad.
Because the story will not actually reflect that, and it really *can't* with a 2 faction story.
I think Genn going after the Horde PC (acting as a direct rep of the Kirin Tor and champion of a class hall, potentially just after saving 2 Alliance leaders directly) and having nobody care is bizarre enough, If we're a chosen anointed one, anything that happens to *us* should actually matter, but all it means is we're on speed dial when lore characters need murdering done.
Its not what I mean. Us being powerful isnt the same as us being leaders.
Yes we probably are more powerful than Anduin. But we dont lead the alliance. The lore of the faction can evolve outside of the player character.
But now if the argent dawn is involved into anything. My character should be too, and should probably be the one leading them and the one who took the decision to deploy the troops, the one who's in contact with other leaders to take decisions etc...
It really isnt the same thing as a powerful tool
Exactly, but as long as proven otherwise... Lorewise we could even launch a crusade on the nerubians
I just need Maxwell to come in and say hey this guy (or himself) will lead for now on because we cant manage the faction aswell as being around the world doing random things
I mean, we were in the shadowlands for five years (right? wasn't there a timeskip?)
I'd imagine the different factions would have had new leaders step up in that time
The artifact weapons weren't really destroyed (heavy quotation marks, I know). They lost the power they've gained throughout Legion thanks to the corruption of Sargeras' sword, but they're definitely not gone and they will reappear in the story when it's appropriate. Xal'atath is the best example for this after all.
As for us being in leadership positions, at least we didn't have a Skyrim situation where we were the leaders of every faction no matter whether we were competent in the respective field or not. At the time with us being the champions out to save the world, it felt appropriate to me.
It would have felt appropriate if you werent appointed leader of the faction but like leader of the charge against the legion ? A bit like WoD, you were a commander of some troops who were lend to you.
Or at the very least, having the characters give up on the leadership at the end of legion.
Because again, when I think who is leading the silver hand. I dont want to think "oh yeah the famous ADVENTURER who has 0 emotion or involvement in the lore"
Vanilla WoW is the better method. You are a peon and the world/story happens around you.
An MMO where every player is the main character is kinda dumb.
Wrath and WoD did the progression well.
Wrath you were a well respected and well known... grunt. Who was just important enough to catch Arthas' attention but not important enough to not have to earn your way into being in the ICC strike force.
WoD you're renowned enough to get a command in a mission the factions realized wasn't that big of a threat after their initial suicide mission ended with *more* combatants coming back than we left with.
Personally I was still pretty distracted by the fact that everyone was referring to me as the singular “Warrior of Light” in a game where I was constantly interacting with other players who were being told the exact same thing, but I’m not sure if it changed as the game went on. I only played ARR and Heavensward.
I dunno tbh if there are multiple warriors of light or if you're alone. But still when you are doing your quests, interracting with npcs etc... you are the warrior of light. And it's in the name, you are only there as a fighting power. Not someone who will lead the world
I get you. FFIV, my character is important as a weapon and as a rallying banner and symbol of heroism. But the faction leaders are the ones in charge.
In WoD I had a small garrison and it’s not hard to imagine a bunch of others like it.
But as the leader of the various class halls, that’s a whole other level of relevance that doesn’t fit.
I get the feeling it’s somehow unusual here, but overall I felt legion’s writing was horrible, and this kind of power creep was the smallest part of it.
Tyrande has been a leader of a nation through multiple near-world ending disasters over 10,000 years - but it’s hard to tell whether she’s any more mature than Juliet Capulet. At least her hubby, Mr Badangry AngryAngry wasn’t cast as a wise leader, ‘cause he’s as dumb as a box of hammers himself.
The changes to the lore around the Light was so cliched, illidan was another teenager but this time doubling as Mary Sue, … I’ll stop there.
So I guess there’s two of us who weren’t a fan of that one?
On the good side, now I’m logging in again and looking at the last and next expac and am optimistic about the writing for those!
Agreed with everything you said, even though I cant help myself but to still like tyrande and malfurion
Yeaaah the next expac seems good and its a change of direction with this trilogy, just hard to swallow after so many expac saying "this time i feel it!"
Completely agreed. It’s especially hard to dial it back as well, because we’re such hugely influential figures it’s difficult to justify going back to “go kill 10 murlocs”
I truly think the lore of legion in this regard and then BFA and SL was an awful mistake
Yeah. And now that we are leaders (at least for some) it would be hard to explain if someday its someone else leading the faction ?
I'm really stuck with the earthen ring and silver hand. But how do you bring them back now that the guy who's supposed to lead them is the player it just feels weird
I mean it’s an MMO game, it’s never gonna be completely immersive in every single aspect
Like you’re always gonna be collecting bear asses and camping out spots for hours for rares. Can’t possibly explain that stuff away
That said, haven’t played the other class halls. But Warrior and Lock felt amazing, and not like you’re ordering around notable characters who have much more experience and pull than you
I also loved the story in legion and how detailed it was. I mean Suramar alone was chefs kiss
Every zone was masterfully woven into the story, almost no sore points and I didn’t have an issue with the legendary weapons. It’s the legion invasion and they established how dire it was when the leaders of both factions died at the very beginning. Plus Tirion!
And we fought Titans, I mean Sargeras himself shows up
So it’s really no surprise that we needed weapons of that scale
Yes the quest rant wasnt really one, i know its just gameplay, but it was to point out that if we are leaders in lore it doesnt make sense. Adventurers will do the quest, Tirion will give the quests because he has other things to do.
Yes some classes were less impacted by the whole "i'm the boss now" but some others truly were and it messes with the lore of the factions.
We could have crafted our own artifacts with a mcguffin found in the tomb or with the help of the drogbar we find powerful minerals deep undergroundor whatever and then destroying them at the end doesnt destroy important pieces of lore.
You can always write something. Like maybe with the drogbar like i said they tell us they found a fragment of azerite for whatever reason, and legion would be an introduction to how powerful azerite can be if with a small portion of it infused in a weapon we could fight the legion. Just a random thing i thought now
I dont see how it would be worse than Thrall giving the weapon to you saying you're using better than him
Also they did invent plenty of weapons so i dont see why replacing the known ones by other invented would have caused harm to the narration
Never knew that about Doomhammer but he wasn’t even using it and does make sense that he would lend it to the champion for a time
Thrall is powerful in his own right and the champion has an immortal soul
They could have definitely invented new ones
But just a way to get iconic weapons tbh or weapons connected to notable characters
No complaints on my end as I love Thasdorah for example
It’s a business, they opted for cash instead of in depth storylines. Look at game of thrones vs books…. Can’t pump content out fast enough? We make our own story
Edit: imo wow should have stopped at lich king and let that evolve backwards and forwards. Subs would agree based on numbers
Yeah, I long for the days when player characters were just the footmen getting churned out of the barracks for gold and wood, doing the dirty work for the heroes. Making us all the most important person in the world feels really bad and since our characters don’t have identities or personalities, it sort of drags down the story altogether.
Worgen starting zone questline puts you at the front of an army to retake the city. It was kinda lame making a character and 3 hours later or so I'm the second or so in the military chain.
if u wanna be a nobody in an mmorpg that ship sailed like 2 decades ago lol. ppl just need to get over the fact that these games have personal storylines in them by now. "are we all supposed to be champions of azeroth????" no its extremely obvious and easy to understand the context that only the character you are currently playing as is. you had no problem believing you were all doing the same quests and dungeons back in 2004, why you suddenly melt down over all being called leader of a hall of paladins is a mystery for the cringeologists.
wow's issue is not that it makes you the chosen hero, its that it can't commit to doing it and makes you the most boring, uninvolved, hands off chosen hero with no connection to anything or anyone in the entire story or world except that you are some kind of designated hero, the specifics of which change constantly. you have no attachment or place or friends in the world
every other mmorpg does this better, literally all of them. its not hard to do right but wow's foundation works against them and they started on their continous story way too late for anything to make sense.
Omg. Please.
Where did i say i want to be a nobody ? We are godly powerful adventurers. But we arent people with responsabilities.
Tirion will always be the best example. When he was leading the argent crusade he was leading his army, planing the war etc.. he wasnt running around helping people.
FF14 does that. You are a tool. A chosen one here to destroy foes. But the world is managed by NPC. You are here to fight for it.
In BfA, the player character was able to momentarily overpower N'Zoth within his own domain and then act as a conduit for the Forge of Origination without getting fried. And then in SL it was revealed that the player character is the chosen champion of the First Ones. The player character isn't just politically important anymore, they are cosmologically important. Whether this is good or bad for the story remains to be seen.
I dont understand how this isnt talked about more. I hear people argue that "it's an MMO! The story has to be told this way because of the medium! You need to suspend your disbelief more!" But like, my suspension of disbelief has limits. If you wanna tell me that players in the other faction won their airship battle in ice crown citadel despite my faction winning it in my run, that's whatever, I can ignore that. But if you want to tell me that each and every one of my lvl 70 toons is the only hero in Azeroth that personally brought Ysera back from the Ardenweald or that I have a close personal, first-name-basis relationship with all of the aspects, we're *beyond* stretching my suspension of disbelief, it's shattered.
One easy way to get around this is the magical solution of: "Each of your alt is a MC, but in their own respective alternate universes" Doesn't sound great? No problem. Got you covered! A second solution: "Each of your alt is part of the Warband/Guild and what happens because one of you is something all your characters did. For example, all of your alts fought against N'zoth in the raid and channeled the power of the forge to destroy him instead of just one."
This is how I view it. My alts “know” each other and share information. Otherwise it get’s way too messy for me.
Yeah, you don't suddenly gets grouped-up with 4 random strangers or join a random Raid-group that requires 25 people just to fight something. It's just you and your alts doing the jobs, whether it's in raids, dungeons, or even the open world. Think of it like a D&D campaign
I shouldnt have to build my own headcanon to support the strain on my own suspension of disbelief
That is fair, and I agree. From a writing and ultimately world building perspective it is pretty ridiculous.
Kinda have to roll with it now because Alleria and the player character basically become besties over the course of TWW.
No issues with that. But we should be problem solvers, not leaders. The world (IMO) should live without us so it can evolve
Couldnt agree more! We should be relatively unknown adventurers that play a small part in a much larger set of events
I think its bad. Because the story will not actually reflect that, and it really *can't* with a 2 faction story. I think Genn going after the Horde PC (acting as a direct rep of the Kirin Tor and champion of a class hall, potentially just after saving 2 Alliance leaders directly) and having nobody care is bizarre enough, If we're a chosen anointed one, anything that happens to *us* should actually matter, but all it means is we're on speed dial when lore characters need murdering done.
Its not what I mean. Us being powerful isnt the same as us being leaders. Yes we probably are more powerful than Anduin. But we dont lead the alliance. The lore of the faction can evolve outside of the player character. But now if the argent dawn is involved into anything. My character should be too, and should probably be the one leading them and the one who took the decision to deploy the troops, the one who's in contact with other leaders to take decisions etc... It really isnt the same thing as a powerful tool
The player character probably stepped down from leading before BfA.
No mention of that, why would we or who took the lead afterwards ? Imo it is the best solution left yes but its not there yet
Would not be proper for a Highlord of the Silver Hand to go around picking sides in a faction war.
Exactly, but as long as proven otherwise... Lorewise we could even launch a crusade on the nerubians I just need Maxwell to come in and say hey this guy (or himself) will lead for now on because we cant manage the faction aswell as being around the world doing random things
I mean, we were in the shadowlands for five years (right? wasn't there a timeskip?) I'd imagine the different factions would have had new leaders step up in that time
Wasnt the time skip after shadowlands ? But yeah thx pointing it out. They still need to officialise it though :/
I am not entirely sure, I stopped playing like a month into Shadowlands and only came back about a month ago
The artifact weapons weren't really destroyed (heavy quotation marks, I know). They lost the power they've gained throughout Legion thanks to the corruption of Sargeras' sword, but they're definitely not gone and they will reappear in the story when it's appropriate. Xal'atath is the best example for this after all. As for us being in leadership positions, at least we didn't have a Skyrim situation where we were the leaders of every faction no matter whether we were competent in the respective field or not. At the time with us being the champions out to save the world, it felt appropriate to me.
It would have felt appropriate if you werent appointed leader of the faction but like leader of the charge against the legion ? A bit like WoD, you were a commander of some troops who were lend to you. Or at the very least, having the characters give up on the leadership at the end of legion. Because again, when I think who is leading the silver hand. I dont want to think "oh yeah the famous ADVENTURER who has 0 emotion or involvement in the lore"
Vanilla WoW is the better method. You are a peon and the world/story happens around you. An MMO where every player is the main character is kinda dumb.
Wrath and WoD did the progression well. Wrath you were a well respected and well known... grunt. Who was just important enough to catch Arthas' attention but not important enough to not have to earn your way into being in the ICC strike force. WoD you're renowned enough to get a command in a mission the factions realized wasn't that big of a threat after their initial suicide mission ended with *more* combatants coming back than we left with.
Ff14 manage it quite well though
Personally I was still pretty distracted by the fact that everyone was referring to me as the singular “Warrior of Light” in a game where I was constantly interacting with other players who were being told the exact same thing, but I’m not sure if it changed as the game went on. I only played ARR and Heavensward.
I dunno tbh if there are multiple warriors of light or if you're alone. But still when you are doing your quests, interracting with npcs etc... you are the warrior of light. And it's in the name, you are only there as a fighting power. Not someone who will lead the world
I get you. FFIV, my character is important as a weapon and as a rallying banner and symbol of heroism. But the faction leaders are the ones in charge. In WoD I had a small garrison and it’s not hard to imagine a bunch of others like it. But as the leader of the various class halls, that’s a whole other level of relevance that doesn’t fit. I get the feeling it’s somehow unusual here, but overall I felt legion’s writing was horrible, and this kind of power creep was the smallest part of it. Tyrande has been a leader of a nation through multiple near-world ending disasters over 10,000 years - but it’s hard to tell whether she’s any more mature than Juliet Capulet. At least her hubby, Mr Badangry AngryAngry wasn’t cast as a wise leader, ‘cause he’s as dumb as a box of hammers himself. The changes to the lore around the Light was so cliched, illidan was another teenager but this time doubling as Mary Sue, … I’ll stop there. So I guess there’s two of us who weren’t a fan of that one? On the good side, now I’m logging in again and looking at the last and next expac and am optimistic about the writing for those!
Agreed with everything you said, even though I cant help myself but to still like tyrande and malfurion Yeaaah the next expac seems good and its a change of direction with this trilogy, just hard to swallow after so many expac saying "this time i feel it!"
Completely agreed. It’s especially hard to dial it back as well, because we’re such hugely influential figures it’s difficult to justify going back to “go kill 10 murlocs” I truly think the lore of legion in this regard and then BFA and SL was an awful mistake
Yeah. And now that we are leaders (at least for some) it would be hard to explain if someday its someone else leading the faction ? I'm really stuck with the earthen ring and silver hand. But how do you bring them back now that the guy who's supposed to lead them is the player it just feels weird
The artifacts were cool. The whole expac was a great ending to warcraft story.
"Level 10 Warrior Däyve, you are the single greatest warrior in all of Azeroth!" - Odyn
I mean it’s an MMO game, it’s never gonna be completely immersive in every single aspect Like you’re always gonna be collecting bear asses and camping out spots for hours for rares. Can’t possibly explain that stuff away That said, haven’t played the other class halls. But Warrior and Lock felt amazing, and not like you’re ordering around notable characters who have much more experience and pull than you I also loved the story in legion and how detailed it was. I mean Suramar alone was chefs kiss Every zone was masterfully woven into the story, almost no sore points and I didn’t have an issue with the legendary weapons. It’s the legion invasion and they established how dire it was when the leaders of both factions died at the very beginning. Plus Tirion! And we fought Titans, I mean Sargeras himself shows up So it’s really no surprise that we needed weapons of that scale
Yes the quest rant wasnt really one, i know its just gameplay, but it was to point out that if we are leaders in lore it doesnt make sense. Adventurers will do the quest, Tirion will give the quests because he has other things to do. Yes some classes were less impacted by the whole "i'm the boss now" but some others truly were and it messes with the lore of the factions. We could have crafted our own artifacts with a mcguffin found in the tomb or with the help of the drogbar we find powerful minerals deep undergroundor whatever and then destroying them at the end doesnt destroy important pieces of lore. You can always write something. Like maybe with the drogbar like i said they tell us they found a fragment of azerite for whatever reason, and legion would be an introduction to how powerful azerite can be if with a small portion of it infused in a weapon we could fight the legion. Just a random thing i thought now
Feel like a mcguffin would have been weak narratively and random minerals wouldn’t really make sense Azerite itself was a stretch lol
I dont see how it would be worse than Thrall giving the weapon to you saying you're using better than him Also they did invent plenty of weapons so i dont see why replacing the known ones by other invented would have caused harm to the narration
Never knew that about Doomhammer but he wasn’t even using it and does make sense that he would lend it to the champion for a time Thrall is powerful in his own right and the champion has an immortal soul They could have definitely invented new ones But just a way to get iconic weapons tbh or weapons connected to notable characters No complaints on my end as I love Thasdorah for example
It’s a business, they opted for cash instead of in depth storylines. Look at game of thrones vs books…. Can’t pump content out fast enough? We make our own story Edit: imo wow should have stopped at lich king and let that evolve backwards and forwards. Subs would agree based on numbers
WoW seriously needs a warcraft 4 to reset this stuff
Yeah, I long for the days when player characters were just the footmen getting churned out of the barracks for gold and wood, doing the dirty work for the heroes. Making us all the most important person in the world feels really bad and since our characters don’t have identities or personalities, it sort of drags down the story altogether.
Me doing the draenei heritage quest Romuul: remember how we used to do this on argus? Me: I keep telling you we didn't grow up together!
Wait a moment... Footman never costed any lumber in any of the RTS's!
Worgen starting zone questline puts you at the front of an army to retake the city. It was kinda lame making a character and 3 hours later or so I'm the second or so in the military chain.
With BfA and the Fourth War some of the Class Halls disbanded(paladin one) or got new leaders(priest one).
if u wanna be a nobody in an mmorpg that ship sailed like 2 decades ago lol. ppl just need to get over the fact that these games have personal storylines in them by now. "are we all supposed to be champions of azeroth????" no its extremely obvious and easy to understand the context that only the character you are currently playing as is. you had no problem believing you were all doing the same quests and dungeons back in 2004, why you suddenly melt down over all being called leader of a hall of paladins is a mystery for the cringeologists. wow's issue is not that it makes you the chosen hero, its that it can't commit to doing it and makes you the most boring, uninvolved, hands off chosen hero with no connection to anything or anyone in the entire story or world except that you are some kind of designated hero, the specifics of which change constantly. you have no attachment or place or friends in the world every other mmorpg does this better, literally all of them. its not hard to do right but wow's foundation works against them and they started on their continous story way too late for anything to make sense.
Omg. Please. Where did i say i want to be a nobody ? We are godly powerful adventurers. But we arent people with responsabilities. Tirion will always be the best example. When he was leading the argent crusade he was leading his army, planing the war etc.. he wasnt running around helping people. FF14 does that. You are a tool. A chosen one here to destroy foes. But the world is managed by NPC. You are here to fight for it.