I can stand in Orgrimmar, and *simultaneously* see Saurfang (still alive) telling me i need to talk to Warchief Sylvanas *AND* Darion Mograine telling me Sylvanas broke the Shadowlands...
@@TankHunter678 they need to make it so that way when you enter the world as a new character, the world is that of vanilla wow before anything changed. Then the new player picks up different quests or travels through different time. Via Chromie or whatever the surroundings reflect that. So if you start the cataclysm timeline, everything changes, but do not include anything from future expansions like Shadowlands also tying into this they need to make a streamlined main story quest line that takes a player on a abbreviated journey through wow and all of its expansions.
@@leonardceres9061 Part of the problem is that WoW has kind of built things to be both too self contained but also reliant on out of game content. Which is why most of the time people do not even understand what is actually going on in an expansion unless they look at lore channels. There is no real cohesive narrative, just a bunch of zone stories loosely tied together which is a problem that just gets worse the more modern the expansion is. It is not like FFXIV where things from A Realm Reborn tie directly into events in every single later expansion in a cohesive singular story that builds on itself. Another problem is the mentality of the developers who see little value in leveling content and only really care about getting people to endgame ASAP. Which is why you barely get through a couple zones before you are booted out to the latest expansion.
It all started to go wrong when they put the story and lore in places other than the game. They had more story to tell in better ways and instead of making the game better, they stuck to a format that needed work and just blasted it into places where most people never see it. This made both the majority of players miss out on good story, and also reduced the average quality of story in the game.
It's part of a wider problem where most of the game takes place within a tiny sliver that is a patch cycle. To that end, the episodic soap opera in the game fits. It throws these vast world to the wayside. Far more interesting would be to tell the story like the way DOOM does it, by creating 'holograms' (obv in WoW that's ghosts) that visualise what preceded on that location before the player arrived, and then fill the world with those stories.
I really wish there was more voice acting in WoW in general. Even quest text. Just give me a PNG face with spoken dialogue under it, I don't even need animated models. Can we trick blizzard into doing it if we say it's a major accessibility issue?
That became more the case when their rival FFXIV which is built around a linear story started absorbing the large amount of people that WoW was losing. Which coincidentally is also the time around which they started doing more cinematic like cutscenes, compared to before where you were on the field and things happened around you.
Worse - it's heavily implied the player priest never told others outside the hall about her. Meaning that now it's our characters being STUPID and not sharing crucial info only they are privy to.
I read them. But that being said, I am on the Spectrem and I've been reading them since I was 15 when wow first came out. I still remember the Westfall storyline to this day-- how the masons weren't paid by the kingdom of stormwind and thus became the defias. But I will admit I am in the minority in a huge way.
I too tend to read them, (I'm one of the 9% of players that has completed the Higher Learning achievement, for example) but I totally missed that the Void Elves had gossip quest after you completed the quest chain...
I'm going to add this perspective, as dour as it is. I also warn that I am a lower fantasy enjoyer: I no longer care about WoW's story. The story has been mishandled so many times, with so many arbitrary additions, removals, retcons, and just general bad storytelling and world building that the well is so poisoned that I'm not interested in drinking from it. I don't really care how good the filter they install at the top of it is, the source is still that same poisoned well. WoW is like a beautifully created oil painting with tons of background appeal, a wonderfully interesting setting that has used pipe cleaner stick figures and Tonka trucks as characters on top of it that has smudged, ripped, and just damaged the painting. How many times have we essentially defeated god, gone to parallel dimensions, travelled through time, characters randomly turn face heel, or been utterly one dimensional and pointlessly inept at being evil, etc? Then, despite that, we still get asked (and actually do) to shift through feces as a little tee-hee for a smattering of coins. It's all just a little absurd. I know a decent handful of people who just don't bother to read anything not because they think it would be bad, per say, but that at this point it's all so disjointed and that they "Can't bother to keep it all straight." The tone has shifted way too much and in too many wild directions. The story isn't bad, it's just not consistent, and that's arguably worse.
WoW could do with having lore books that (a) are an achievement to collect, so you can see if you've missed any; (b) a library shelf in either your major city, or copied to a library in every expansion's hub; (c) account wide, if I happen to find one on an alt, I don't want to have to find it again on my main, and (d) accessible from your collection tab as "unread books" so you can read them whilst in e.g. a dungeon queue.
I love reading. I love playing video games. They are 2 completely different activities that require completely different mindsets. I HATE reading in my video games.
Honestly, haven't been able to say "Love the lore" since WoD. Cata was testing my love for it, but the primary story hasn't meant anything to me in a while (the Legion Artifact weapons are an exception and the individual stories for BFA were good in places). I miss the sort of story telling Warcraft II and III had.
@@bunnyfist4697 yeah there's a number of things in shadowlands that was very n poorly handled. I tend to think of the part where they said if they said they'd only bring up Arthas again if they were to take the time to do him right and instead they did not. Basically turned into a blue fart.
Very much agree, the old lore is great and the new lore still has potential, though it is declining. The story telling though is super whack, the best in recent times for me has been, the Maldraxxus and Primus stuff. Barely played DF but the tension between Wrathion and Alexstraza seemed good.
I'd say the issue with say FF14 quests verse Wow quests is 14 knows quests can be a chore so they tend to make them quick. Wow quests just are there as a chore that feel often disconnected from what the story is. Yeah there are 'reasons' for it but why do you need exactly X number of Y killed? What is the need for cleaning up poop on the ground? It just feels so much like a chore that to me they get old super quick. Even the best quests linked to maybe like some scenario just end up more often then not feeling more tedious then engaging.
@@OhNoTheFace You mean ARR? That doesn't really happen that much later on. It does that no more then most MMOs I've played including WoW. Trying to think of the last time it volleyed you back and forth like that and ARR is honestly the last time at least MSQ time I can think of. Maybe town segments can do a little of that (usually if its doing that its 'talk to NPC, go to that npc there, come back one and done) but again wow and other MMos I play do the same often in a way that makes some general sense.
@@OhNoTheFace I dunno, when they overhauled FF14 ARR, it was much improved compared to the original experience. You can also do the dungeons solo with AI party members now that are actually decent (not as efficient as doing it with actual people but the option is there). Also, after ARR, things do get much better.
FF14 also actually has a long term narrative and actually rewards you for getting invested in character arcs. Also their devs read actual literature for inspiration instead of straight up ripping Wonder Woman and avengers endgame for 3 patches in a row.
The Classic AI voice mod legit made playing it again so much better, I genuinely had no idea going through as a kid not being bothered to read but everything from world building to just the simple stuff like where to do the quest is all explained in the text. They should definitely have it as standard.
I came back recenty to WoW. Wanted to finish the story from BfA and then continue with the storry. Not possible. It is so hart do find the quest you need. They overlap and dont let you finish. So you have to spoiler yourself, then come back and finish the older questline. WTF!!! Some even end in HC Dungeons or in Raids. I spend so much time on wowhead searching. Why is it so hard to play the storry? I dont understand.
I read WoW quests and aside from the Dwarf on the ledge and the Orcs in the garden, the quest text in Dragonflight was retreading the last quest's conclusion, boring drivel, or a gay romance. Most of the writers are incredibly bad. Play Classic with the voice over addon - the writers actually tried to make the text interesting and funny and even the side characters had personality.
@@alexpribb yes he did, of which I strongly agree with. Which is why I didn’t mention anything about it. What I don’t understand is how gay romance is associated negatively with the other points. It’s a non-sequitur. It just sounds like they were uncomfortable with it. Which is fine, to each their own. But that’s got nothing to do with the other points. Imagine gay people saying “ugh straight romance AGAIN!?” It’s silly.
@@NickStrife again I have to reiterate, what’s wrong with it? Not being interesting is a problem of the writing itself, not the gay part. Majority of people (straights inuded) were extremely moved by the gay romance in the show The Last of us. Of course people were butt hurt because they think they’re being forced to watch it. They’re not. And that relationship was in the game too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I want them to stretch it back out to where it *was* also, but everybody kept yelling at Blizzard, "FASTER! FASTER!! FASTER!!! FASTER!!!!" And now the cadence is at such a breakneck speed that I don't give a shit anymore.
I'd like to see Chromie Time reworked as a crash course in Lore. Remove the 'Kill/Gather of ' grindy bits and squish together the main plots of all the xpacs so far. Insert key cut scenes and have narrators add context...subplots that were skipped for time, etc. Add some class/race heritage. Maybe the bronze dragons narrate first as keepers of the timeline. Unlock new POVs through achievements so reply stays interesting. Imagine if the narrator was an enemy. Same quests but now you're the villain. And at completion you have a Alt leveled to current content, you know how to fight, and why you fight. "Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch! I was there when it was written."
They say “Show don’t tell” but that also means “Tell shouldn’t be forgotten” showing doesn’t mean shit if it’s not actually showing anything of substance I.ex literally every scene with the Jailer In Endwalker they added optional locations where you can ask your npc followers more about how they feel or what they think about the location. You can just ignore them and go to the next question objective. It’s optional
My husband and I hate the original quest text UI so much, so we’ve been using the immersion addon which does a better job of showing a) whose talking and b) provides a readable backdrop (dark mode) that is adjustable on your screen. It also fixes the dialogue UIs for NPCs, including guards if you need directions. Its made questing not only faster but the ability to simply customise the font size and position of the text means we can read the quests better, which has helped him understand the story. So much of WoW’s storytelling would improve if they put effort into moving away from the old UI and modernised it to be more readable, similar to how ESO does theirs. That said, unless you’re a lore person like Pyromancer or into roleplay, or both, where quests can provide implications and impact, the majority of the people don’t actually care because they’re not doing it to be engaged, and with how illiterate the general public is becoming, with most people not being interested in long form content, it’s going to be a hard battle to try to make a player base determined to focus on just numbers going up and keys being smashed to bother to read. And people can say its a problem with modern writing but I’ve seen the same apathy in the old boys crowd, too, that if it wasn’t for the fact you were punished for not reading, they probably wouldn’t of read, either. Unless its a questline I am genuinely interested in, I prefer to simply read books or watch lore videos for games like WoW and ESO, simply because I can have them on in the background while I level alts. Which is another thing that Blizzard has to compete with is that WoW and ESO are MMOs that are great for having alts for, but slogging through the same content can become tedious. However, if you wish to hyper focus to play catch up, they don’t jarringly throw you into a space cutscene and toss you across two continents just for a main quest like FFXIV, which is what made me finally unsubscribe because playing catch up to keep up with friends, while fighting a levelling system anti-alt and forcibly slow, was detrimental to my time.
I would like to see a proof of concept using ai voiceover using immersion. Just to see if there was an engagement difference. If it is popular then it warrants paying for the actors to put the emotion and drive into the words ai cannot.
I do really love class/character history references with the NPC's you interact with. like with the Forming of the Forsaken council, if you're an Ally hunter who played during Legion you brush shoulders with Velonara and gain her respect to the point that even though she knows who you are in disguise, she has enough trust in you to know you aren't there to cause trouble so she doesn't expose you and even gifts you a full dark ranger outfit as thanks for helping her people reclaim their home, its doubly touching if you tried helping the edgelord confess his crush on her. its small and something that can be brushed over, but its like OH! you remembered me! hello friend! Like we should have been able to joke "you aren't going to make me get you stuff for another cloak?" to Wrathion or a "so long as it doesn't stop my heart again" to Khadgar. one of the things Blizz needs to add with Dialogue options is Middle ground neutral options and more options to be a callous dick to people, they kind of did this with the quest to lay that one boss to rest in a Barrow den and you have the option to try to persuade Malfruion to either let the sister 'bury' her sibling in the den or turn her away, or take the midground of Letting your factions Co-leader do his job without you stepping on his toes, I'm not going to tell my Factions Co-leader what to do. Dude's 10 000 years old and has a world of sibling drama BS under his belt, if he doesn't understand familial love then nobody does. I still wish Duroz Scaletaker had this kind of neutrality, hes an old sick orc who did awful things, with the only options basically being "no f*ck you" and "you can still make amends" was shitty, it'd be better if you could offer him some form of neutral solidarity like "I have lost count of the number of lives I've taken, including harmless critters that didn't deserve it, I have no right to judge you for what you did" and him responding with something like "the blood never washes away, you just have to learn to live with it"
Also more characters died than in the past 6 wow expansions. Its strange less named people died in several full on wars in azeroth than in a fighting tournament in outworld.
A hard narrative is something that WoW is historically bad at. If there was ever a time to utilize their "phasing tech" it's for these specific situations, why they continue to not do so is wild. For me, as far as a narrative goes, TWW signifies that they are simply doubling down into this avenue of gameplay that they both struggle to improve and appear unwilling to learn from their betters on. Their strength has always been short side stories that bring flavor to the zones you are currently in, and i feel like that is where they need to pivot their focus. Especially if they can't decide if we are the hero of azeroth or just some adventurer that nobody knows of at random intervals.
I feel this so much. I'm a new player. I like what I'm playing. But I already knew A LOT because of the amount of fanfiction I read (and the research of googling something I didn',t understand) But trying to keep up with it all with the decent grasp of knowledge I have. I would've turned off, I think, if I didn't have thought. And it's also not like Blizz doesn't make enough money to do so.
In 1885, Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story about an Englishman in India "eating crow" as a humiliating exercise in order to stay alive. The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes.
Maybe lore can give clues about boss mechanics or unlocking bonus modes. Like the journals from people who barely escaped or a friend who knew them before they turned bad. Randomized so each encounter requires more than reading wowhed, maybe a party collaboration. Nothing mandatory, but higher drop rates etc to make lore worthwhile
I get what you guys are saying, but at the same time I don’t want the story to be like FFXIV. In FF, I don’t feel like I am playing a game, it feels like I am watching a movie. So there must be a happy medium. Is Matt suggesting that Yoshi P also add a skip button?
unless its in a cinematic or npc spoken dialog, i have little to no clue what is going on. i dont think ive read a thing since day 2 when i got the questhelper addon
Matt needs a different haircut. If your going the grizzled beard route then the hair needs to match. A tight fade looks good with a bit shorter on top or just slick it back but don’t let it go too long.
One of the fundamental issues is the dissonance between gameplay and story. Gameplay? Time travel and teleportation out the wazoo, in fact, you probably take more portals in game than ships and gryphons. Time? You switch timelines like you do buses. The great never before seen evil? You defeat it the exact same way you did the one before - slap it with your mace, cast frostbolt hard enough and it keels over. There's only so many problems you encounter that are solvable by casting fireball before you stop paying attention to what the problem is and just go ahead and solve it.
I wouldn't say no one reads these, but it is true that most people don't. Those of us who play the game mostly for story, we do love finding out every bit of text we possibly can and go through it with a fine tooth comb
I read all of it, since Warcraft 2. But these videos and the general vibe in the community are trying to convince Blizzard to remove writing. It's already getting worse: in Dragonflight the writers started mixing "their" with "they're" and "its" with "it's". Everyhting getting worse. But at least now we have 357 different types of gems in Pandaria Remix
This is an issue as a newer comer to WoW that I really don't know how to fix, I've missed so much that it's hard to put what's currently happening into context
I think that's one thing that's missing - story-oriented cinematics. The best/most obvious example I can think of is the original cutscenes when you make a character and start in the racial starting area, there's a cinematic with that same narrator explaining your basic lore of the race you chose, why you are where you are and what's happening. As someone who started playing WoW during/after Mists, I've rarely seen anything comparable to the depth of an explanation given as that.
I read the quest logs but it should all be voice acted now. That and those novels.. Yeah, that needs to come in game or they need to do an animated series with that stuff in so that it's more accessible/easier to get to know said lore (If they stop retconning that is) It doesn't flow well at all, you get some parts VA and other parts just text to read and click okay. Entire quest system needs upgrading to be the same thing that flows. Short discussion type stuff that you're having a natural conversation with a NPC to get said quest would be a great help.
I read quests especially when you have had to do something non standard. For example "to make the worgen appear go to the barn and hang fresh meat on a hook and then wait in a bale of hay" and you didnt notice the fresh meat item or knew to make it work you need to stand at the meat hook unless you read the quest. That was fun, and quests like that are better than those that require no attention. However i know many people with bad english just asume "oh the quest is bugged" and quit. Personally i think we shouldnt cater to the lowest among players and we shouldnt abandon expectations of basic literacy. If people cant deal with a few lines of text every now and then then let them fail. Either learn or go away and let other people have their fun too.
I wish we had more voice acting in the game. Specifically for quests. The AI voiceactor addon for vanilla is awesome and I wish I could use it for the rest of the game.
I read it all. The people who can't/don't/refuse to aren't worth listening to. You see these people in work too - They are the ones who mess things up constantly, Who always need help from others, who never perform even at an average level. Someone who chooses that path is a literal NPC, You don't need to consider their feelings or preferences, they don't really have any.
I tried playing cata like an actual game reading the quests and had a much better time than when i skipped the quests. The problem is that it eats up a lot of time and I'm locked in place. Just make it so it's narrated as you move.
The other issue is, while we are all very entertained by the massive lore behind the game there is a much larger segment of the game that is not interested in anything expect how fast the tank can pull the next group so they can run through the dungeons without having even noticed what building/hideout or train station the were even in. I thought about this as I played remix last night because I ran into the Monk who follows you as you fight the monkey people.. and Everytime you click on him to turn a quest in he literally says "Hey, slow down for a moment!". I couldn't help but think that was Devs telling the zoomers to stop and play the game instead of trying to speed run a game with no end.
i will say while ff14 asks you to play the game much less in its msq than wow does in its story, i actually feel like ff asks you to like ACTUALLY play more if that makes sense? like i haven't played dragonflight so it's possible this is a bit better there but historically wow has been allergic to giving you mandatory content that requires you to actually play the game at anything more than a basic level (probably because of how salty the whole proving grounds situation was). like great example that solo scenario thing where you're trying to stop them stealing the ardenweald macguffin in shadowlands, there's a stage of that where you 'fight' sylvanas that COULD have been a slow realization that this is a losing battle like the fight with Zenos at the start of stormblood where you are actually expected to do a fight for a while even though you lose because of the story. but no, you just lose instantly and things move on.
Level 50 in cata... over 1500 quests completed. I use immersion add on for quest text and I read every single one. Also I've been level locking every 5 levels.
I disagree that Lore should be spoon-fed to new (and old) people. It kills every incentive to dig deeper on your own and become actually invested. Imagine if comic books had to call back to their heroes origin every time they release another issue, just in case someone new would pick up the comic line.
I stopped paying attention after Shadowlands. The lore I fell in love with, Frostmourne, Arthas, the Lich King, the Death Knights and WC3, all thrown through the blender and left in a heap of rubble that can never be salvaged. Blizzard took away my reason to care about anything beyond increasing my power level to make farming old raids easier. Unless they come out with a new DK order hall quest line that puts me back in a more villainous role like Legion did, I have no incentive to not spacebar through text or go somewhere outside of where the quest marker points.
Matt is unusually cogent today. Everything he says is absolutely correct. You've put your finger exactly on the problem. We need fewer easter eggs for the cognoscenti and more entry points for the new lore seekers. Dearkheart is a prologue for the new expansion. And therefore is a major opportunity to bring everyone into the story and not simply to wave at member berries as we walk by.
It would have been nice if during the void quest you hear zalatath whispering in your ear mocking the previous wielders or reminiscing on her past achievements. It wouldnt need to be long, just a sentence.
I haven't read a quest since TBC. I just read the next expansions zone story synopsis on wowhead during alpha/beta and blast through the leveling process. I don't want to read walls of text in an action RPG.
We live in an instant gratification society. Very view people take the time to read the quest text. They hit 'Accept' and then pop up the mini map and go to the blue area to finish the objective shown in the quest log list. My wife gained a priest for Legion (holy) and got the artifact weapons for the other specs. If I had to guess, she has absolutely no idea who Xalatath is. It's a societal issue. Not sure what Blizzard can do about it.
A Hoyoverse game’s story may not exactly always be the cleanest or have the best of story beats to begin with but they’ll always get the job done when it comes to the main quests exciting you and the side quests giving you something more (which is a lotta gut punches in the feels). Meanwhile it’s a coin flip if Wow’s story actually does excite you and makes you want to find out more or makes your face pucker up like you’ve just licked a lemon (queue dragonflights climax cinematics trying to be marvels avengers)
If every quest, every dialog was voiced everyone would know the story. Do you think that is too much money for Blizzard to spend? It would add so much quality to the game.
Say what you will about bathesda but I love the way they combine voice and text to create their worlds (excluding star field ) Its enough voice acting to make characters feel alive but the text gives you an endless well of narrative color. Add in some of the greatest environmental story telling and there is nothing quite like it. Also the story isn’t really about the main character so it feels much more authentic IMO.
I sometimes read the quests; when I am on a lore mood that is. But most of them bore me to no end. Like they are just an excuse to have me collect X of Y, or kill X of Y; is basically 3 paragraphs of I need this material for X (I don't care) or we need to weaken X force. Not much of interest to be honest. Makes me sad, cause sometimes I skip things I would actually would have wanted to read cause I am interested on the quest and lore but I didn't even notice we were doing something actually intetesting until I am half way in.
I wish there would be more talking heads. I’m not super into lore to read EVERY quest. But I do wish I understood it more. I watch all the cut scenes and talking heads.
While I agree with some aspects, especially the world issues. I also think it is the player's mentality towards story or the game overall that is a problem. "Go go go, lets grind! Fast! FASTER! Questtext? WTF is that?! Click!" I for one never had any trouble following the story, even back in Classic tbh. Then again, I was doing in-game archaeology before the profession existed.
It's fine if no one wants to read quest text, just don't take their opinions on the story seriously. Storytelling, on the other hand, is a valid concern that could be done better.
I do understand that they should have given more of a backstory for Dark Heart, but not at the expense of lowering the quality of the cutscenes. I'm sorry, but even the in game ones are looking really amazing. The facial expressions and the feelings the characters convey are a big improvement and a bit of a technical flex, considering the game engine and all the limitations they might face. High production cinematics is what makes this whole franchise amazing, in my opinion. Just look at the ones from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos... They are amazing for their time (2002).
I actually have slowed myself down again and began reading more of the quest. If it is clearly a kill 20 of name random thing... Then I skim and carry on.. but the campaign quest or any that seem to be including main characters I have decided to do as I did Back when we went through the portal the first time.
For real though, why did Sylvanas power up off screen and unknown to literally everyone? The biggest problem with WoW story telling is that the WoW story is Tell don't Show. Nothing actually happens in game we just get told about what happened. For example, we have to just read quest text bout why we are doing whatever thing, or Sylvanas breaks the helm in the Shadowlands Trailer, this never happens in game, we just jump to after they assume you saw the trailer. I shouldn't have to read 5 books to understand what's happening in the game. I've not problem with books but they should be supplemental.
I think part of the main problem is they just need less quests, would love to see the number of quests cut in half and just made more impactful. After accepting the 1000th quest after all these years it's hard to care no matter how good the story might be.
My friend has been asking me to come back to wow and I see waiting continues to pay off. No quests locked behind renown! I wonder what’s in store if I keep waiting. 😂
Thats a you problem. I read some of the vanila quests. THey were short and made sense. THey explained what were trying to do in the kurzen compound for example and why is there a band of rebel humans nearby in the first place.
They need a better way to tell the story, people are not reading a wall of text in game. It's not the 90's rpgs anymore. You think they would have realized this and adjusted already.
I find it hard to care about the story anymore thanks to shadowlands. Knowing it could all be retconned at any moment makes it difficult to care. It doesn't help that dragonflight's story was very meh.
So much this. I have no idea whats going on and I don't care. I remember a friend asking after the topic of me not caring if I knew why fyrakk was burning the world tree and my legit answer was, and still is, that he's some big fire dragon and burning the tree would be a really big fire. All I care about is killing him because he has an achievement and loot and fun mechanics lmao
@@FeralKoboldthe big secret you learn after getting into the lore is… that yes he is a big dragon that wants to burn a tree for no reason and the avengers have to stop him with color coded Stephen universe lasers. I loved the lore until WoD, but when every rock you turn over has maggots under it, you stop turning over rocks
I wonder if Matt has EVER given an example of anything good from a non-anime game or a piece of media. There are levels of terminal weebery that should never be reached by a human being.
Talking about the draenei heritage quest. I was surprised how good it was which had me thinking back on the night elf heritage quest and how dog shit it was in comparison. The draenei one was so much better. I agree on the voice acting stuff. Tons more of it would be great. Even more option when you click on npcs to explain things for people who wouldn't know the background.
The more I watch this type of analysis of WoW, the more I am reminded of how dated and old fashioned this game is, the story telling included, its never been great or ground breaking, but it made more sense early on. WoW is fun to play sure, the game is enjoyable, it’s a good game, but man if it’s not a skinner box scenario. Most don’t read the quest text because it doesn’t matter, theres no reason to invest, when in a operant conditioning chamber (i.e. live service theme park mmo) the only content that matters is the current content, why bother investing into the story (emotional, because emotions are energy expensive) when its not relevant to progress and will be replaced with a new chamber in a few months anyway. Some may play the game for lore sure, likely a minority, but I would hazard a guess that most get their lore fix from RUclips. I am not saying don’t play or don’t watch, it’s your agency, just pointing out the not so obvious to those who are stuck in the chamber.
Please add closed captioning, I can’t understand hardly anything he says. Bellular speaks perfectly, but his chubby friend sounds like he is eating his own tongue.
I cannot stand the voice acting and the annoying dialogue boxes everywhere in DF. We do not need more of that. Text works in elder scrolls, it can work here too
I still try reading when big new campaigns and such come out, but it’s so horribly bad I stop reading after a while. I’m not sure why we’re still on about this, when it seems like Blizzard already focuses on delivering voicelines or at least unvoiced chats between characters. The quest text is completely inane, and often just shows the stupidity of the overarching writing even further. Like reading an assignment made for a first-grader with an added touch of woke.
I can stand in Orgrimmar, and *simultaneously* see Saurfang (still alive) telling me i need to talk to Warchief Sylvanas *AND* Darion Mograine telling me Sylvanas broke the Shadowlands...
Have you completed those storylines with that character?
@@TheCommentFactory That is every new character's experience.
It's absurd.
@@TankHunter678 they need to make it so that way when you enter the world as a new character, the world is that of vanilla wow before anything changed. Then the new player picks up different quests or travels through different time. Via Chromie or whatever the surroundings reflect that. So if you start the cataclysm timeline, everything changes, but do not include anything from future expansions like Shadowlands also tying into this they need to make a streamlined main story quest line that takes a player on a abbreviated journey through wow and all of its expansions.
@@leonardceres9061 Part of the problem is that WoW has kind of built things to be both too self contained but also reliant on out of game content. Which is why most of the time people do not even understand what is actually going on in an expansion unless they look at lore channels. There is no real cohesive narrative, just a bunch of zone stories loosely tied together which is a problem that just gets worse the more modern the expansion is.
It is not like FFXIV where things from A Realm Reborn tie directly into events in every single later expansion in a cohesive singular story that builds on itself.
Another problem is the mentality of the developers who see little value in leveling content and only really care about getting people to endgame ASAP. Which is why you barely get through a couple zones before you are booted out to the latest expansion.
It all started to go wrong when they put the story and lore in places other than the game.
They had more story to tell in better ways and instead of making the game better, they stuck to a format that needed work and just blasted it into places where most people never see it.
This made both the majority of players miss out on good story, and also reduced the average quality of story in the game.
It's part of a wider problem where most of the game takes place within a tiny sliver that is a patch cycle. To that end, the episodic soap opera in the game fits. It throws these vast world to the wayside. Far more interesting would be to tell the story like the way DOOM does it, by creating 'holograms' (obv in WoW that's ghosts) that visualise what preceded on that location before the player arrived, and then fill the world with those stories.
I really wish there was more voice acting in WoW in general. Even quest text. Just give me a PNG face with spoken dialogue under it, I don't even need animated models. Can we trick blizzard into doing it if we say it's a major accessibility issue?
Yeah it is an accessibility issue! I can’t read? Never was taught? 🤷♂️😂
Sometimes Blizzard writes storylines like WoW has had a linear story that everyone has been guided through, despite being nothing like that
This is both a vivid truth and a dire tragedy. What a waste!
they both treat you as if you've read through all the lore while simultaneously adding constant flashbacks and info dumps.
That became more the case when their rival FFXIV which is built around a linear story started absorbing the large amount of people that WoW was losing. Which coincidentally is also the time around which they started doing more cinematic like cutscenes, compared to before where you were on the field and things happened around you.
Worse - it's heavily implied the player priest never told others outside the hall about her. Meaning that now it's our characters being STUPID and not sharing crucial info only they are privy to.
My priest ain't no snitch, plus the dagger said that she really liked me and I was and I qoute " totes cool and really the best"
I read them. But that being said, I am on the Spectrem and I've been reading them since I was 15 when wow first came out. I still remember the Westfall storyline to this day-- how the masons weren't paid by the kingdom of stormwind and thus became the defias. But I will admit I am in the minority in a huge way.
I too tend to read them, (I'm one of the 9% of players that has completed the Higher Learning achievement, for example) but I totally missed that the Void Elves had gossip quest after you completed the quest chain...
I'm going to add this perspective, as dour as it is. I also warn that I am a lower fantasy enjoyer: I no longer care about WoW's story.
The story has been mishandled so many times, with so many arbitrary additions, removals, retcons, and just general bad storytelling and world building that the well is so poisoned that I'm not interested in drinking from it. I don't really care how good the filter they install at the top of it is, the source is still that same poisoned well.
WoW is like a beautifully created oil painting with tons of background appeal, a wonderfully interesting setting that has used pipe cleaner stick figures and Tonka trucks as characters on top of it that has smudged, ripped, and just damaged the painting. How many times have we essentially defeated god, gone to parallel dimensions, travelled through time, characters randomly turn face heel, or been utterly one dimensional and pointlessly inept at being evil, etc? Then, despite that, we still get asked (and actually do) to shift through feces as a little tee-hee for a smattering of coins. It's all just a little absurd.
I know a decent handful of people who just don't bother to read anything not because they think it would be bad, per say, but that at this point it's all so disjointed and that they "Can't bother to keep it all straight." The tone has shifted way too much and in too many wild directions. The story isn't bad, it's just not consistent, and that's arguably worse.
WoW could do with having lore books that (a) are an achievement to collect, so you can see if you've missed any; (b) a library shelf in either your major city, or copied to a library in every expansion's hub; (c) account wide, if I happen to find one on an alt, I don't want to have to find it again on my main, and (d) accessible from your collection tab as "unread books" so you can read them whilst in e.g. a dungeon queue.
I love reading. I love playing video games. They are 2 completely different activities that require completely different mindsets. I HATE reading in my video games.
Love the lore BUT 99% of the story has no pay off...
Yeah, was gonna say great lore, terrible storytelling
Honestly, haven't been able to say "Love the lore" since WoD. Cata was testing my love for it, but the primary story hasn't meant anything to me in a while (the Legion Artifact weapons are an exception and the individual stories for BFA were good in places).
I miss the sort of story telling Warcraft II and III had.
I feel reminded of the Crown of Wills part of 'The Shadowlands Experience' where the hyped amazement instantly turns into depressive disappointment.
@@bunnyfist4697 yeah there's a number of things in shadowlands that was very n poorly handled.
I tend to think of the part where they said if they said they'd only bring up Arthas again if they were to take the time to do him right and instead they did not. Basically turned into a blue fart.
Very much agree, the old lore is great and the new lore still has potential, though it is declining. The story telling though is super whack, the best in recent times for me has been, the Maldraxxus and Primus stuff. Barely played DF but the tension between Wrathion and Alexstraza seemed good.
I'd say the issue with say FF14 quests verse Wow quests is 14 knows quests can be a chore so they tend to make them quick. Wow quests just are there as a chore that feel often disconnected from what the story is. Yeah there are 'reasons' for it but why do you need exactly X number of Y killed? What is the need for cleaning up poop on the ground? It just feels so much like a chore that to me they get old super quick. Even the best quests linked to maybe like some scenario just end up more often then not feeling more tedious then engaging.
It’s kind of funny how we start by cleaning up poo and killing wolves to slaying gods. 😂
Yeah ff14 quest are never quick. If a story thinks you should travel back forth 12 times because it makes sense narratively it will do it
@@OhNoTheFace You mean ARR? That doesn't really happen that much later on. It does that no more then most MMOs I've played including WoW. Trying to think of the last time it volleyed you back and forth like that and ARR is honestly the last time at least MSQ time I can think of.
Maybe town segments can do a little of that (usually if its doing that its 'talk to NPC, go to that npc there, come back one and done) but again wow and other MMos I play do the same often in a way that makes some general sense.
@@OhNoTheFace I dunno, when they overhauled FF14 ARR, it was much improved compared to the original experience. You can also do the dungeons solo with AI party members now that are actually decent (not as efficient as doing it with actual people but the option is there). Also, after ARR, things do get much better.
FF14 also actually has a long term narrative and actually rewards you for getting invested in character arcs.
Also their devs read actual literature for inspiration instead of straight up ripping Wonder Woman and avengers endgame for 3 patches in a row.
For all I know they put the new TOS in the quest text and I would have no idea what I've been agreeing to.
The Classic AI voice mod legit made playing it again so much better, I genuinely had no idea going through as a kid not being bothered to read but everything from world building to just the simple stuff like where to do the quest is all explained in the text. They should definitely have it as standard.
I came back recenty to WoW. Wanted to finish the story from BfA and then continue with the storry. Not possible. It is so hart do find the quest you need. They overlap and dont let you finish. So you have to spoiler yourself, then come back and finish the older questline. WTF!!! Some even end in HC Dungeons or in Raids. I spend so much time on wowhead searching. Why is it so hard to play the storry? I dont understand.
The crow is a carrion-eater that is presumably repulsive to eat in the same way that being proven wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow.
Ah, that explains “eating crow”.
And it's DEFINITELY not an American thing.
The voice acting part reminded me of how much more I enjoyed Disco Elysium once it became fully voice acted
I read WoW quests and aside from the Dwarf on the ledge and the Orcs in the garden, the quest text in Dragonflight was retreading the last quest's conclusion, boring drivel, or a gay romance. Most of the writers are incredibly bad. Play Classic with the voice over addon - the writers actually tried to make the text interesting and funny and even the side characters had personality.
What’s wrong with gay romance?
@@isolemnlyswearthatiamup2nogoodhe said other things as well.
@@isolemnlyswearthatiamup2nogood It's not interesting whatsoever to most straight people..
Is that such a shocker to you?. 😂
@@alexpribb yes he did, of which I strongly agree with. Which is why I didn’t mention anything about it.
What I don’t understand is how gay romance is associated negatively with the other points. It’s a non-sequitur. It just sounds like they were uncomfortable with it. Which is fine, to each their own. But that’s got nothing to do with the other points.
Imagine gay people saying “ugh straight romance AGAIN!?” It’s silly.
@@NickStrife again I have to reiterate, what’s wrong with it? Not being interesting is a problem of the writing itself, not the gay part. Majority of people (straights inuded) were extremely moved by the gay romance in the show The Last of us. Of course people were butt hurt because they think they’re being forced to watch it. They’re not. And that relationship was in the game too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I want them to stretch it back out to where it *was* also, but everybody kept yelling at Blizzard, "FASTER! FASTER!! FASTER!!! FASTER!!!!" And now the cadence is at such a breakneck speed that I don't give a shit anymore.
I'd like to see Chromie Time reworked as a crash course in Lore. Remove the 'Kill/Gather of ' grindy bits and squish together the main plots of all the xpacs so far. Insert key cut scenes and have narrators add context...subplots that were skipped for time, etc. Add some class/race heritage. Maybe the bronze dragons narrate first as keepers of the timeline. Unlock new POVs through achievements so reply stays interesting. Imagine if the narrator was an enemy. Same quests but now you're the villain. And at completion you have a Alt leveled to current content, you know how to fight, and why you fight. "Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch! I was there when it was written."
They say “Show don’t tell” but that also means “Tell shouldn’t be forgotten” showing doesn’t mean shit if it’s not actually showing anything of substance
I.ex literally every scene with the Jailer
In Endwalker they added optional locations where you can ask your npc followers more about how they feel or what they think about the location. You can just ignore them and go to the next question objective. It’s optional
My husband and I hate the original quest text UI so much, so we’ve been using the immersion addon which does a better job of showing a) whose talking and b) provides a readable backdrop (dark mode) that is adjustable on your screen.
It also fixes the dialogue UIs for NPCs, including guards if you need directions.
Its made questing not only faster but the ability to simply customise the font size and position of the text means we can read the quests better, which has helped him understand the story.
So much of WoW’s storytelling would improve if they put effort into moving away from the old UI and modernised it to be more readable, similar to how ESO does theirs.
That said, unless you’re a lore person like Pyromancer or into roleplay, or both, where quests can provide implications and impact, the majority of the people don’t actually care because they’re not doing it to be engaged, and with how illiterate the general public is becoming, with most people not being interested in long form content, it’s going to be a hard battle to try to make a player base determined to focus on just numbers going up and keys being smashed to bother to read.
And people can say its a problem with modern writing but I’ve seen the same apathy in the old boys crowd, too, that if it wasn’t for the fact you were punished for not reading, they probably wouldn’t of read, either.
Unless its a questline I am genuinely interested in, I prefer to simply read books or watch lore videos for games like WoW and ESO, simply because I can have them on in the background while I level alts.
Which is another thing that Blizzard has to compete with is that WoW and ESO are MMOs that are great for having alts for, but slogging through the same content can become tedious.
However, if you wish to hyper focus to play catch up, they don’t jarringly throw you into a space cutscene and toss you across two continents just for a main quest like FFXIV, which is what made me finally unsubscribe because playing catch up to keep up with friends, while fighting a levelling system anti-alt and forcibly slow, was detrimental to my time.
I would like to see a proof of concept using ai voiceover using immersion. Just to see if there was an engagement difference. If it is popular then it warrants paying for the actors to put the emotion and drive into the words ai cannot.
Immersion is a great addon.
Immersion is good, I also recommend Storyline on Retail, great addon too.
I do really love class/character history references with the NPC's you interact with. like with the Forming of the Forsaken council, if you're an Ally hunter who played during Legion you brush shoulders with Velonara and gain her respect to the point that even though she knows who you are in disguise, she has enough trust in you to know you aren't there to cause trouble so she doesn't expose you and even gifts you a full dark ranger outfit as thanks for helping her people reclaim their home, its doubly touching if you tried helping the edgelord confess his crush on her. its small and something that can be brushed over, but its like OH! you remembered me! hello friend!
Like we should have been able to joke "you aren't going to make me get you stuff for another cloak?" to Wrathion or a "so long as it doesn't stop my heart again" to Khadgar.
one of the things Blizz needs to add with Dialogue options is Middle ground neutral options and more options to be a callous dick to people, they kind of did this with the quest to lay that one boss to rest in a Barrow den and you have the option to try to persuade Malfruion to either let the sister 'bury' her sibling in the den or turn her away, or take the midground of Letting your factions Co-leader do his job without you stepping on his toes, I'm not going to tell my Factions Co-leader what to do. Dude's 10 000 years old and has a world of sibling drama BS under his belt, if he doesn't understand familial love then nobody does.
I still wish Duroz Scaletaker had this kind of neutrality, hes an old sick orc who did awful things, with the only options basically being "no f*ck you" and "you can still make amends" was shitty, it'd be better if you could offer him some form of neutral solidarity like "I have lost count of the number of lives I've taken, including harmless critters that didn't deserve it, I have no right to judge you for what you did" and him responding with something like "the blood never washes away, you just have to learn to live with it"
bruh the recent mortal kombat game had 5 hours total of in game cutscenes, it had an easier story to follow than wow 😂
Also more characters died than in the past 6 wow expansions. Its strange less named people died in several full on wars in azeroth than in a fighting tournament in outworld.
Lore tab, Lore tab, Lore tab! Did anybody say "Lore tab"?
A hard narrative is something that WoW is historically bad at. If there was ever a time to utilize their "phasing tech" it's for these specific situations, why they continue to not do so is wild. For me, as far as a narrative goes, TWW signifies that they are simply doubling down into this avenue of gameplay that they both struggle to improve and appear unwilling to learn from their betters on. Their strength has always been short side stories that bring flavor to the zones you are currently in, and i feel like that is where they need to pivot their focus. Especially if they can't decide if we are the hero of azeroth or just some adventurer that nobody knows of at random intervals.
The length of HoD was short, but the girth was perfect ;)
I feel this so much. I'm a new player. I like what I'm playing.
But I already knew A LOT because of the amount of fanfiction I read (and the research of googling something I didn',t understand)
But trying to keep up with it all with the decent grasp of knowledge I have.
I would've turned off, I think, if I didn't have thought.
And it's also not like Blizz doesn't make enough money to do so.
In 1885, Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story about an Englishman in India "eating crow" as a humiliating exercise in order to stay alive. The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes.
Maybe lore can give clues about boss mechanics or unlocking bonus modes. Like the journals from people who barely escaped or a friend who knew them before they turned bad. Randomized so each encounter requires more than reading wowhed, maybe a party collaboration. Nothing mandatory, but higher drop rates etc to make lore worthwhile
I get what you guys are saying, but at the same time I don’t want the story to be like FFXIV. In FF, I don’t feel like I am playing a game, it feels like I am watching a movie. So there must be a happy medium.
Is Matt suggesting that Yoshi P also add a skip button?
unless its in a cinematic or npc spoken dialog, i have little to no clue what is going on. i dont think ive read a thing since day 2 when i got the questhelper addon
Matt needs a different haircut. If your going the grizzled beard route then the hair needs to match. A tight fade looks good with a bit shorter on top or just slick it back but don’t let it go too long.
One of the fundamental issues is the dissonance between gameplay and story.
Gameplay? Time travel and teleportation out the wazoo, in fact, you probably take more portals in game than ships and gryphons. Time? You switch timelines like you do buses.
The great never before seen evil? You defeat it the exact same way you did the one before - slap it with your mace, cast frostbolt hard enough and it keels over.
There's only so many problems you encounter that are solvable by casting fireball before you stop paying attention to what the problem is and just go ahead and solve it.
I wouldn't say no one reads these, but it is true that most people don't. Those of us who play the game mostly for story, we do love finding out every bit of text we possibly can and go through it with a fine tooth comb
I've been saying his rant about having them tell us the story while we play since Wrath of the Lich King.
I read all of it, since Warcraft 2. But these videos and the general vibe in the community are trying to convince Blizzard to remove writing. It's already getting worse: in Dragonflight the writers started mixing "their" with "they're" and "its" with "it's". Everyhting getting worse. But at least now we have 357 different types of gems in Pandaria Remix
This is an issue as a newer comer to WoW that I really don't know how to fix, I've missed so much that it's hard to put what's currently happening into context
I think that's one thing that's missing - story-oriented cinematics. The best/most obvious example I can think of is the original cutscenes when you make a character and start in the racial starting area, there's a cinematic with that same narrator explaining your basic lore of the race you chose, why you are where you are and what's happening. As someone who started playing WoW during/after Mists, I've rarely seen anything comparable to the depth of an explanation given as that.
I read the quest logs but it should all be voice acted now.
That and those novels.. Yeah, that needs to come in game or they need to do an animated series with that stuff in so that it's more accessible/easier to get to know said lore (If they stop retconning that is)
It doesn't flow well at all, you get some parts VA and other parts just text to read and click okay.
Entire quest system needs upgrading to be the same thing that flows. Short discussion type stuff that you're having a natural conversation with a NPC to get said quest would be a great help.
I read quests especially when you have had to do something non standard. For example "to make the worgen appear go to the barn and hang fresh meat on a hook and then wait in a bale of hay" and you didnt notice the fresh meat item or knew to make it work you need to stand at the meat hook unless you read the quest.
That was fun, and quests like that are better than those that require no attention. However i know many people with bad english just asume "oh the quest is bugged" and quit.
Personally i think we shouldnt cater to the lowest among players and we shouldnt abandon expectations of basic literacy. If people cant deal with a few lines of text every now and then then let them fail. Either learn or go away and let other people have their fun too.
Regarding the thumbnail, I actually do read all the quest text. It's awful and I end up hating it most of the time, but I do read it. Always have.
I wish we had more voice acting in the game. Specifically for quests. The AI voiceactor addon for vanilla is awesome and I wish I could use it for the rest of the game.
I read it all. The people who can't/don't/refuse to aren't worth listening to. You see these people in work too - They are the ones who mess things up constantly, Who always need help from others, who never perform even at an average level. Someone who chooses that path is a literal NPC, You don't need to consider their feelings or preferences, they don't really have any.
I tried playing cata like an actual game reading the quests and had a much better time than when i skipped the quests.
The problem is that it eats up a lot of time and I'm locked in place.
Just make it so it's narrated as you move.
The other issue is, while we are all very entertained by the massive lore behind the game there is a much larger segment of the game that is not interested in anything expect how fast the tank can pull the next group so they can run through the dungeons without having even noticed what building/hideout or train station the were even in.
I thought about this as I played remix last night because I ran into the Monk who follows you as you fight the monkey people.. and Everytime you click on him to turn a quest in he literally says "Hey, slow down for a moment!". I couldn't help but think that was Devs telling the zoomers to stop and play the game instead of trying to speed run a game with no end.
i will say while ff14 asks you to play the game much less in its msq than wow does in its story, i actually feel like ff asks you to like ACTUALLY play more if that makes sense? like i haven't played dragonflight so it's possible this is a bit better there but historically wow has been allergic to giving you mandatory content that requires you to actually play the game at anything more than a basic level (probably because of how salty the whole proving grounds situation was). like great example that solo scenario thing where you're trying to stop them stealing the ardenweald macguffin in shadowlands, there's a stage of that where you 'fight' sylvanas that COULD have been a slow realization that this is a losing battle like the fight with Zenos at the start of stormblood where you are actually expected to do a fight for a while even though you lose because of the story. but no, you just lose instantly and things move on.
Level 50 in cata... over 1500 quests completed.
I use immersion add on for quest text and I read every single one. Also I've been level locking every 5 levels.
I will say the immersion addon helps me actually read more quest text. And not just furiously clicking (as much).
I disagree that Lore should be spoon-fed to new (and old) people.
It kills every incentive to dig deeper on your own and become actually invested.
Imagine if comic books had to call back to their heroes origin every time they release another issue, just in case someone new would pick up the comic line.
I stopped paying attention after Shadowlands. The lore I fell in love with, Frostmourne, Arthas, the Lich King, the Death Knights and WC3, all thrown through the blender and left in a heap of rubble that can never be salvaged. Blizzard took away my reason to care about anything beyond increasing my power level to make farming old raids easier. Unless they come out with a new DK order hall quest line that puts me back in a more villainous role like Legion did, I have no incentive to not spacebar through text or go somewhere outside of where the quest marker points.
25:37 the car chase in Terminator 1 where Kyle Reese explains the future and what a terminator is.
Matt is unusually cogent today. Everything he says is absolutely correct.
You've put your finger exactly on the problem. We need fewer easter eggs for the cognoscenti and more entry points for the new lore seekers. Dearkheart is a prologue for the new expansion. And therefore is a major opportunity to bring everyone into the story and not simply to wave at member berries as we walk by.
It would have been nice if during the void quest you hear zalatath whispering in your ear mocking the previous wielders or reminiscing on her past achievements. It wouldnt need to be long, just a sentence.
I haven't read a quest since TBC. I just read the next expansions zone story synopsis on wowhead during alpha/beta and blast through the leveling process. I don't want to read walls of text in an action RPG.
We live in an instant gratification society. Very view people take the time to read the quest text. They hit 'Accept' and then pop up the mini map and go to the blue area to finish the objective shown in the quest log list. My wife gained a priest for Legion (holy) and got the artifact weapons for the other specs. If I had to guess, she has absolutely no idea who Xalatath is. It's a societal issue. Not sure what Blizzard can do about it.
A Hoyoverse game’s story may not exactly always be the cleanest or have the best of story beats to begin with but they’ll always get the job done when it comes to the main quests exciting you and the side quests giving you something more (which is a lotta gut punches in the feels). Meanwhile it’s a coin flip if Wow’s story actually does excite you and makes you want to find out more or makes your face pucker up like you’ve just licked a lemon (queue dragonflights climax cinematics trying to be marvels avengers)
If every quest, every dialog was voiced everyone would know the story. Do you think that is too much money for Blizzard to spend? It would add so much quality to the game.
Say what you will about bathesda but I love the way they combine voice and text to create their worlds (excluding star field ) Its enough voice acting to make characters feel alive but the text gives you an endless well of narrative color. Add in some of the greatest environmental story telling and there is nothing quite like it. Also the story isn’t really about the main character so it feels much more authentic IMO.
I sometimes read the quests; when I am on a lore mood that is. But most of them bore me to no end.
Like they are just an excuse to have me collect X of Y, or kill X of Y; is basically 3 paragraphs of I need this material for X (I don't care) or we need to weaken X force. Not much of interest to be honest. Makes me sad, cause sometimes I skip things I would actually would have wanted to read cause I am interested on the quest and lore but I didn't even notice we were doing something actually intetesting until I am half way in.
I *care DEEPLY* about the story. I've been invested since Warcraft 2. But I have no idea wtf is going on. And it's not my fault.
I find myself enjoying these stories, but your criticisms are so spot on.
I wish there would be more talking heads. I’m not super into lore to read EVERY quest. But I do wish I understood it more. I watch all the cut scenes and talking heads.
While I agree with some aspects, especially the world issues. I also think it is the player's mentality towards story or the game overall that is a problem.
"Go go go, lets grind! Fast! FASTER! Questtext? WTF is that?! Click!"
I for one never had any trouble following the story, even back in Classic tbh. Then again, I was doing in-game archaeology before the profession existed.
It's fine if no one wants to read quest text, just don't take their opinions on the story seriously.
Storytelling, on the other hand, is a valid concern that could be done better.
I think it’s safe to say people don’t read in general unless it’s absolutely necessary.
I do understand that they should have given more of a backstory for Dark Heart, but not at the expense of lowering the quality of the cutscenes. I'm sorry, but even the in game ones are looking really amazing. The facial expressions and the feelings the characters convey are a big improvement and a bit of a technical flex, considering the game engine and all the limitations they might face. High production cinematics is what makes this whole franchise amazing, in my opinion. Just look at the ones from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos... They are amazing for their time (2002).
I actually have slowed myself down again and began reading more of the quest. If it is clearly a kill 20 of name random thing... Then I skim and carry on.. but the campaign quest or any that seem to be including main characters I have decided to do as I did
Back when we went through the portal the first time.
I have a controversial opinion; The story should happen in the game. I know, crazy.
For real though, why did Sylvanas power up off screen and unknown to literally everyone? The biggest problem with WoW story telling is that the WoW story is Tell don't Show. Nothing actually happens in game we just get told about what happened. For example, we have to just read quest text bout why we are doing whatever thing, or Sylvanas breaks the helm in the Shadowlands Trailer, this never happens in game, we just jump to after they assume you saw the trailer. I shouldn't have to read 5 books to understand what's happening in the game. I've not problem with books but they should be supplemental.
I think part of the main problem is they just need less quests, would love to see the number of quests cut in half and just made more impactful. After accepting the 1000th quest after all these years it's hard to care no matter how good the story might be.
The Draenei heritage quest line was my favorite piece on content in a while
this is where that one addon that adds AI voiceover for quest npc's comes in. i really want a retail version of it. i don't play classic wow at all.
My friend has been asking me to come back to wow and I see waiting continues to pay off. No quests locked behind renown! I wonder what’s in store if I keep waiting. 😂
Thats a you problem. I read some of the vanila quests. THey were short and made sense. THey explained what were trying to do in the kurzen compound for example and why is there a band of rebel humans nearby in the first place.
She fought orcs, she fought trolls, and there’s a chandelier. 😂
They need a better way to tell the story, people are not reading a wall of text in game. It's not the 90's rpgs anymore. You think they would have realized this and adjusted already.
The master class of telling a story with narration is Galadriel narrating the prologue to the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring movie.
yeah the problem is that it's written by and for the mentally ill, it's like watching a soap opera written by narcissists'.
I still read, on occasion but I play classic and sod, i imagine retail players would rather it be read to them
I only read it when using immersive
if it's an area/quest line I'm already interested in I read the quest
I find it hard to care about the story anymore thanks to shadowlands.
Knowing it could all be retconned at any moment makes it difficult to care. It doesn't help that dragonflight's story was very meh.
I am so disinterested in story I skip cut scenes. I just don't care.
So much this. I have no idea whats going on and I don't care. I remember a friend asking after the topic of me not caring if I knew why fyrakk was burning the world tree and my legit answer was, and still is, that he's some big fire dragon and burning the tree would be a really big fire. All I care about is killing him because he has an achievement and loot and fun mechanics lmao
@FeralKobold I enjoy the game play loop, that's enough for me.
@@FeralKoboldthe big secret you learn after getting into the lore is… that yes he is a big dragon that wants to burn a tree for no reason and the avengers have to stop him with color coded Stephen universe lasers.
I loved the lore until WoD, but when every rock you turn over has maggots under it, you stop turning over rocks
The stories clearly rushed because their maybe taking on so much in such a short timeframe.
I wonder if Matt has EVER given an example of anything good from a non-anime game or a piece of media. There are levels of terminal weebery that should never be reached by a human being.
Talking about the draenei heritage quest. I was surprised how good it was which had me thinking back on the night elf heritage quest and how dog shit it was in comparison.
The draenei one was so much better.
I agree on the voice acting stuff. Tons more of it would be great. Even more option when you click on npcs to explain things for people who wouldn't know the background.
Question to Matt: How does it feel to NEVER be wrong ?
I love all the in game dialogue and voice lines, I don't read shit
The more I watch this type of analysis of WoW, the more I am reminded of how dated and old fashioned this game is, the story telling included, its never been great or ground breaking, but it made more sense early on. WoW is fun to play sure, the game is enjoyable, it’s a good game, but man if it’s not a skinner box scenario. Most don’t read the quest text because it doesn’t matter, theres no reason to invest, when in a operant conditioning chamber (i.e. live service theme park mmo) the only content that matters is the current content, why bother investing into the story (emotional, because emotions are energy expensive) when its not relevant to progress and will be replaced with a new chamber in a few months anyway. Some may play the game for lore sure, likely a minority, but I would hazard a guess that most get their lore fix from RUclips. I am not saying don’t play or don’t watch, it’s your agency, just pointing out the not so obvious to those who are stuck in the chamber.
Please add closed captioning, I can’t understand hardly anything he says. Bellular speaks perfectly, but his chubby friend sounds like he is eating his own tongue.
Shots fucking fired...
I cannot stand the voice acting and the annoying dialogue boxes everywhere in DF. We do not need more of that. Text works in elder scrolls, it can work here too
I 100% skip them.
I always read cuz I’m into the lore of the world and it’s immersive to me…but I’m def in the minority
I still try reading when big new campaigns and such come out, but it’s so horribly bad I stop reading after a while. I’m not sure why we’re still on about this, when it seems like Blizzard already focuses on delivering voicelines or at least unvoiced chats between characters. The quest text is completely inane, and often just shows the stupidity of the overarching writing even further. Like reading an assignment made for a first-grader with an added touch of woke.
The shit should be voice acted in game... Its 2024, pay for some god damn voice actors.
just a thought... bring back lore walker cho XD
I do
AI voice addon ftw. EZ
I read most of it
I read it, it's mostly shit that makes no sense.
Improving story telling in WoW? Simple: Hire better writers.