Well the race is well underway and it has been amazing so far - can't wait to see what the last bosses have in store after Mr Crabs. But we couldn't let it pass without talking about the controversial Jailer cutscenes and what Mike is hoping for in 10.0. What did you think of the Jailer cutscenes?
I don’t mind, because people keep thinking this was the end of the Warcraft chapter, but it’s actually this chapter. I expected The Jailer to be but a small insignificant thing in the bigger picture to prevent something else. There is a reason he wasn’t as fleshed out as other WoW villains were. Personally, the lore wasn’t perfect but so many people exaggerate the small things. Personally, it was the best lore of WoW since and past MoP.
@@darknessnaxxion Literally every WoW boss says "I was only trying to protect you all from something bigger". This stupid ass trope is getting tiring. Nobody is thinking "this is the end of warcraft". The devs said it was the end of this arc, which started with W3, which is obviously BS. Nobody should be defending that shit like you are.
Lame. This expansion was supposed to be the closing chapter for a decade long ark. Whether that was even true (which we all know isnt), doesnt matter. The Jailer cinematics should have been a close. But they were not. Instead of putting the "old lore" to rest, as they claimed they would, the writers did the same old WoW-patented formula: foreshadowing the next big bad (something they did since MoP, or if you want to be generous since WoD). This cinematic was no closure, no explanation, no revelation, no nothing. They build the Jailer up to be the mastermind behind everything thats wrong in WoWs universe, he was "Titan +++", and then he commits the same stupid mistakes every other ordinary villian does: letting his enemies escape numerous times, taunting them, making grand speaches, pretends to be super mysterious, and then acts surprised when we hand his a**. Like... its lame. And I'm not only thinking that as a FF14 player, I played GW1 before WoW and some on and off GW2 during my "WoW carreer": both games (especially GW1) have by far superior storytelling and simply make sense (!!!) with what they're doing. I dont expect(ed) WoW to revolutionize MMO storytelling, but at least get good! This is just embarrassing.
@@Jonathan-fw6ty So what about Arthas, Deathwing, Garrosh, Gul’dan, Legion, and BFA, when did they say that? When did they say, “I was only trying to protect you from something else?” And they stated that they’re ending certain storylines that started in Warcraft 3. Also, technically we’re always trying to end the stories that started way back when WoW started.
Wrathion: "a divided azeroth cant stand against the bigger bad!" Sargarus: "a divided universe cant stand against the bigger bad!" Jailer: "a divided cosmos cant stand against the bigger bad!" Wow needs a new premise jesus christ
It really blows my mind how Blizzard went from a passionate company able to deliver immersive, well written and captivating stories.. to a narrative one-trick pony. Every fucking time, it's the same shit. "You fools, I did all these horrible things because it's the only thing that can save the world from the next big villain." At what point can we learn from actual, great storytelling out there, and understand that it doesn't always have to be bigger to be better. Some of the best villains ever written are just normal people with a twisted view on the world. They don't have to be the fucking "original one", "pre-historic times one", "elden god one", "cosmical entity one", for that to hold impact...
I think that part of the problem is that lorewise the player characters have become too powerful, we're practically fighting gods in every raid tier. I honestly can't imagine some of the end bosses of Vanilla raids being much more than mid-tier bosses in todays raids from a powerlevel perspective.
@@Derpleton14 Ironically, the direction they've gone is the most anime DBZ shit I can imagine. Ever bigger bad, need to power up, somehow the previous powering up isn't as effective so we find a new different way to power up. Rinse and repeat with each expansion being like a new anime story arc. People who watch Shounen animes know exactly what I mean.
@@Reldan Thing is, it CAN be dialed back. FFXIV had us fighting the literal end of the universe. 6.1 onwards will see us finally get to explore what we saved. I'm sure there will eventually be a bbeg, but for now the players will get to spend time as just an Adventurer, the very thing we started the game as before our journey got hijacked by the end of the world.
@@Ashtari I think that's the thing that Preach was hoping for in 10.0, but with them ending on a "bigger bad is coming!" note, it doesn't seem that's the direction they're heading. To contrast FFXIV wrapped things up with both a finality and the foreshadowing of things to come specifically focused around adventuring for the sake of it rather than due to a need to save everybody. Even to the extent that they've firmly established that your role (as Azem) in the universe is to explore and quest and learn - if anything what you've been doing playing galactic savior is out of the ordinary for your dayjob (Azem effectively washed their hands pre-sundering of the whole Hydaelyn/Zodiarc conflict and neither helped Venat nor Emet-Selch, choosing instead to do what they could to simply help people in need). Perhaps they'll dial WoW back with 11.0, but it sounds like the universe is still in dire jeopardy from Super Jailer, or whatever it is even the Jailer was afraid of, and that's fodder for at least one if not two expansions.
@@Zakjuh there is also the main baddie of EW, first introduced in the middle of the last patch, still has much more story, logic and motivations then the nipple guy
my main issue with wow is that it over the years went from "you can log in every day and have something to do" to "you have to log in every day and do something"
yup, instead of making you WANT to waste your time, they force you to. i still enjoy the game regardless, but it would be nice to not feel like if i miss a day then i am lagging behind.
thats like issue 42 on my list. basically everything they have added since Wrath came out has led to the current state of the game. every single bad aspect of WoW can be traced back to Wrath.
@@derpderpin1568 i dont agree with that then, that's you being a classic andy and not adjusting to change, because MoP and Legion was the two best expansions that WoW ever had, fight me.
I left wow during early shadowlands and it has been good to see that I've missed nothing. I got into FFXIV by watching you enjoy it and have absolutely fallen in love with the game. One of my favorites parts is that when I finished Endwalker I put the game down for a couple weeks to play other things. When I came back I wasn't behind in anything. It is a game that encourages you to have fun your way and not feel left out. It's glorious
My experience was much the same, I got to endwalker and got my pentamelded crafted gear to start raiding but had to leave the game for a few months because of life, came back and went back to raiding with the exact same power level as i had a few months back. Just killed P4S in a static and now have BIS gear.
Tbh it felt like my soul was drained after endwalker ended, it's like finishing a book you've been reading everyday for months (aka web novels that can go from dozens to 5k+ chapters), it was a part of you almost every waking moment and it's just ended, leaving me with a gaping void. Pretty much lost all motivation to do anything in it, even the panda raids which i prefer for a full release instead before starting, 8 more bosses, 2 more patches. I've been on probably close to my 3rd month away from ffxiv now, still keep sub running, but i think i need more time to digest it properly, I think i've gone through endwalker msq for dozens of time now from various streamers (Preach is the latest and possibly my top 2 msq streamers of all time, beside jesse cox). I'm quite glad and relieved that whenever i decided to return, I wont be too far behind if at all and can easily catch up (crafted gears become cheaper, alliance drops, tome gears). For all that it at least deserve a running sub while i'm away.
@@SimplyConeh Rastakhan, Talanji, Azshara(who yeah was a lore figure and had cameos but for all intents and purposes was a BfA character), Denathrius, Bwonsamedi, Devos, Zappy Boi were all decently to well written characters. They CAN do it but it seems the A plot, the main story, is lacking
@@bondsmatthew Even Argus was a great character, simply because he seemed "unwhole" like he was missing part of his soul or whatever, so the potential of developing the character was intriguing... But apparently they used him for something in the latest patch and I doubt it's fulfilling
at least with Lei-Shen, they didnt link him to the entire game, if they had simply made him the guy behind The Lich King and WC3 by itself, it would've been tolerable. but of course Blizzard screwed that by making all of the past 20 YEARS pieces on a chessboard that HE put into play, absolute taking the piss.
** Fair warning, Unfocused Rant about Blizzard Writing. :) ** I've honestly had these discussions with people for years now, and I'm happy to see more people are starting to ask the question of where Wow's story can potentially go next. I've never felt like growing threats to be larger and larger scales every expansion was ever required, I think there's so much power in the smaller, character driven conflicts that due to their grounded nature can allow the audience to show empathy for the villains and form some meaningful connection to them. I think a great example of this is honestly Vanessa Vancleef and Lillian Voss, they're both extremely minor characters, but they utilized their position, playing off events that played off previously in the story to strengthen their motivations and position themselves in a world we deeply understand and already are connected too. We don't need to waste time explaining anything about the Defias brotherhood, we already know them, we know how Vancleef died, and just adding the simple fact that he had a child was already enough to position her in a fantastic place to tell an emotionally driven story of a scheming criminal seeking vengeance against us by any means necessary. I asked friends back in legion what they'd think about the idea of wow toning back it's scale, I thought fighting world souls was already far beyond ridiculous, and I mentioned things like, going back to northrend and seeing 12 years later, what are the consequences of our actions? How have things changed? Which factions have assumed power and what happened to those we destroyed? Is there any frost trolls left and what does that culture look like after everything that happened in wrath? Forming raids and small scale stories, introducing new characters through these lenses is what wow needs. I've always referred to Wow's world building as "Spot light storytelling." There's so many fundamental, basic questions about the world that are left unanswered because the story only concerns itself with a handful of key characters and leaves everything else to rot. For a short term, focused story, this is fine, but if you want WoW to live up to it's potential, we need depth, we need to be able to explore niche ideas and corners of the world and know what people who might not be in the spotlight think and feel about current events. I use Silvermoon as an example of this. So much of that city is so ambiguous and poorly constructed. What's the High elf military look like? Who are the noble houses, what are the factions within the city, and what would their goals be? Does the city have a port? We're left to assume Silvermoon has a navy, Blood elf ships are common, but where is their port? Do they trade? Do they have any major Exports, or do they depend on specific imports which ties their economically to existing factions through some level of codependency? I've always found it funny that Silvermoon has had a Regent lord longer then any nation in real history. I think they forgot what that title even means at this point. In a society we're supposed to understand is power-hungry, Fairly egotistical and has a long history of Monarchy, the idea that no minor noble houses in Quel'thalas would be campaigning to sieze power is actually fucking absurd.
The problem is that nothing from wow is carried over from expansion to expansion. You continue to build the relationships with characters from FFxiv, even the side or minor characters. It makes the world feel more solid, it makes your interactions feel more impactful and that is something WoW just doesn't do. When I went through BFA and quit until shadowlands, I honestly couldn't even remember who the trolls were that were the focus for horde, couldn't name one. After playing through shadowlands, cant remember as I sit here what the names of the heads of the covenants are and likely I will never need to as they will never be brought up ever again. Same with the jailer, never to be used, talked about or mentioned ever again. They just throw away the story or any loose ends.
I mean there's plenty of characters that continue from expansion to expansion. Most of the cast of Shadowlands are old characters. BFA was a good mix of old and new, Legion was full of older characters, WoD was entirely comprised of prior established characters. I think the difference is you just don't care about them personally because wow is not a character-driven story. But the stuff with Jaina in BFA hit real hard if you were invested in Jaina's story.
@@SmugHomura I think that's a very WoW-perspective answer you've given. The "big characters" are not at all who Jon was talking about. In WoW you're either a cinematic trailer character or you're gone next expansion. Yes, there's the core group of Jaina, Thrall, Anduin, Sylvanas and the like, but very rarely are new characters added into those ranks, and almost 100% of characters not in those ranks are entirely and utterly forgotten about. Worse, WoW will bring up old favorites occasionally when needed, and then just have them sit around doing jack shit. Tell me more about Baine's love of the Shadowlands. Time stops for all characters that aren't headliners and even then it's only the "current" headliners that really matter at any given moment. Jon was talking about how in FFXIV, many characters from every single previous expansion continue to exist and their stories push forward. Is it every single NPC? No, but it's a very good amount of the names you remembered and cared about when they were in the spotlight. It's true that WoW isn't a character-driven story, it's also not a narrative-driven story, or a storytelling-driven story. It's an expansion CGI trailer-driven story, and I think that holds it back. "Using the characters you've built up over the years" isn't some foreign concept that only fits in FFXIV, it's a basic concept of telling any sort of tale. But WoW's entire development cycle is built upon throwing everything that came before directly into the fucking trash. Previous zones? Useless and forever irrelevant. Content added a few months ago in a patch? Bye bye, bitch! Legendary items you spent weeks or months obtaining? Sorry here's a green quest item that beats it by 50 ilvls on the very first quest you do. Headline feature of the expansion? Well it wasn't universally loved so instead of fixing it we trashed it halfway through the expansion. Villain motivations? Hero motivations? What're those? Those are for books and lore nerds. Alright, FINE, we'll add one line after you kill the last expansion boss that hints at a greater threat. Aren't we amazing? It's so fucking bad. And it has no reason to be. They should be growing their world, not shrinking and rebuilding it every goddamn patch. Every aspect of the game seems to get binned as soon as it's time for an update.
@@Xbob42 This. I was in love with the character of Yrel during WoD, and was really hoping we'd get to see her become a new mainstay. Then she randomly stays in alternate universe that we can never return to, except we do return to it and now she's a nazi. For five minutes. Then she's gone forever from the story *again*. Thanks, Blizz...
@@SmugHomura Late to the party, but I'll just echo what others have said. The issue is, Jaina and company are more like Michael Jordan type of characters. Would you be distraught if MJ was assassinated while playing a game on the court? Of course, especially if you're a fan or, imagine if you had an autograph or something or he was your role model or you had a photo with him etc. But, can you compare that to, say, Alphinaud? I deliberately choose someone who isn't easily liked on average. Now, you did say it's a difference in approach. But, I have to disagree there. Characters are characters and I think they are very much needed to tell any story, at least of this type. And, this is a flaw that follows Blizzard a lot. It's not even a new thing. For example, I played Blizzard games since early nineties, before they were Blizzard. So, wc1 and wc2 are etched into my soul pretty much. Still, Hellscream's cinematic in wc3 and other similar stuff, it does generate an emotional response in me, of course it does. But, masterfully written and executed ffxiv characters do so much more. And I am the blueprint for a person to whom Hellscream was intended for. This goes for pretty much every single character in Warcraft universe, apart from some side quest ones. I don't agree that what you pointed out is an excuse for them not doing the "etching" right.
Escalation can be a powerful tool for telling an interesting story (see the Wonderful 101, that game starts pretty mad and goes totally off the rails by the end) but it cannot be the only thing. It doesn't help that Blizz have already used practically their entire back catalogue of characters already, so whoever this new threat is is gonna get a single WoW xpac's worth of character development. Maybe it won't suck, but I'm not raising my hopes again.
@@KAMZA. We're already beyond the Pantheon though. Blizzard inventing these "First Ones" that act suspiciously Titan-eqsue in their mannerisms and technology, but are above the Titans in power is basically them retconning another layer above the Titans. So the Jailer and the Covenant leaders were all Titan power level, so now we're going ABOVE that because apparently the "First Ones" are even MORE powerful, and once they are beat it'll be the "FIRSTER ONES!". It's all retconning bullshit, and they have to stop doing it cause it legit kills peoples interest in the franchise to constantly be invalidating previous experiences.
@@CrashB111 Are the first ones more powerful than the Pantheon? I haven't followed the last few patches much, but my head canon was, that the first ones were parallel entities to the Titans
@@SimplyConeh Apparently half the abortion that is 9.2 lore lays out that the "First Ones (god what a stupid fucking name)" created each of the different pantheons for Order, Chaos, Death, Life, etc. So the Covenant leaders and Titans are on the same power level, and the First Ones are above them.
What you're putting out is great regardless. Your FF FC is scarily competent at roleplaying, cosplaying and even at interior design. I think with them alone, you could have a great time no matter what game you play.
Again a reminder: Arthas got literally deleted from existence, while Sylvanas, who was in the EXACT SAME SITUATION, got away with a redemtion arc. Fuck this.
Its even worse since Sylvanas even stands there preaching at Arthas about how shit he was while Uther and Jaina are just hanging around like "Yeah you tell him! Go fuck yourself Arthas!" It just blows my mind on so many levels how awful the story has become for WoW after growing up with the franchise damn...
If you really think about it, they didn't just get you to fall in love with Emet Selch in one expansion. The 5.0 story was all DAY ONE, release content for Shadowbringers. They got you to care about this character, potentially, within a couple dozen hours. A lot of people went from not knowing who Emperor Solus was in the lore, to crying about him within the same week. That is mental.
Part of what makes Emet-Selch work as a villain who's only there for one expansion is that while he only appears briefly in 4.4 and then extensively for 5.0, he ties back into existing lore extensively, which makes him an actually coherent villain. The Jailer is supposedly "responsible for" so much, but it makes no sense. Meanwhile, Garlemald makes more sense once you factor in the reign of Solus being what it is. And it goes on like that - Emet-selch himself only appears as one expansion's villain plus a stormblood cameo, but he had coherent setup beforehand, and the storytelling of the game makes it make sense. The FF14 devs have been relatively open about when they "finalised" certain plot beats, and you can see certain things they've had to slightly handwave where some details changed, but they had certain bits of the metaplot and metaphysics set. Meanwhile, WoW's current story is what happens when you discard the metaplot and base what happens next on "what's cool and what can we blag?"
Shadowbringers and Endwalker definitely take the overall story in a new and interesting direction, primarily due to Ishikawa taking over as lead story writer. The difference is that she's immensely talented and found ways to build off of everything that came before, tying threads up in satisfying ways and recontextualizing prior lore tidbits rather than retconning them. That's only something you can do though if you consistently respect your established lore and understand it thoroughly. The terrible things you've seen the Ascians do are far worse than Teldrassil, but through good writing you can still make them sympathetic with a coherent reason behind their seeming maniacal evil, even in the course of a single expansion, and without retconning things to make it so it either wasn't their fault or the thing we thought happened didn't actually happen after all.
Agreed. Though I think if Zovaal had more screen time, more dialogue, more reasoning and story & character development - he could have been interesting villain as it is. He was way too rushed and his motives way too muddled and unclear.
With Danuser at the helm, I'd predict the next step will be fighting against the Super Jailer, whose purpose will be inscrutable aside from "destroy all the things". Wacky stuff that makes no sense within the established lore will happen and get handwaved away. "Big Moments" will be manufactured with little or no setup and have no real weight or emotional punch. Perhaps they'll finally conclude a story that's been built up since The Lost Vikings.
Asmongold nailed it in his stream today. The best thing that could happen is that 10.0’s cinematic is just anduin waking up from a nightmare and Varian looks at him like “the jailer? Domination magic? Shadowlands? Anima? What are you talking about? The legion is invading again and also I’m still alive”
The jailer having only an expansion is not unfair. They chose to shoehorn a villain into lore and destroy their story. WoW is lucky that the gameplay (not the systems) is fun.
Wow is popular because of its systems, just not all of them. People love raiding, m+ and (maybe a bit less so) pvp. Also mount collecting, transmogging and stuff like that. People need to stop bitching that systems are a bad thing and there shouldnt ever be any. Because if that was the case you just have a sandbox mmo, which not many players actually enjoy. The daily shit is cancer i agree with that but that doesnt mean all systems are like that. If anything they should be more expirimental with their systems to try to hit gold again like they did with m+.
therein lies the issue with this entire expansion, they created it to "finish one chapter of the Warcraft story" it would've been better if they didnt even finish it and just moved on.
Really, why does anyone hold out hope for WoW? So long as this creative team is the same, same shit's going to happen. Ever since the old Blizzard folks left around Legion-time, it's just become embarrassing to watch the game stumble on and on.
@@btasty6042 Remind me of BFA, heard everywhere it was crap. I joined for the 3 last months and had an absolute blast for 2 months leveling all my characters and collecting the warfront armor sets. The last month was less pleasant (fighting rng for the last pieces of the sets was painfull). I wonder if I'll do the same for shadowland, putting aside all the negatives, I love how the classes play in this game.
Preach saying the word “Fandaniel” makes me giddy. I can’t wait to see how he reacts to the conclusion of Endwalker. Mike - your journey is just 3 months behind my own and I have to say FFXIV renewed my love of games in a way. Enjoy the remainder of the ride.
I want a 10.0 with the same tropes (example: THERE IS A BIGGER BAD! YOU ARE NOT READY FOR WHAT IS TO COME!) but the main characters are trope-savvy and they'll immediately point it out that it's been done, and instead of distress, they express exasperation.
I feel like WoW is that abusive Ex who tells you they changed, you remember the good times and give them one more chance, only to get hurt again. I'm having fun playing other games now. A WotLK classic would perk my interest, but based on BC classic and the issues there, I don't know if will work past the first few months.
Just think about it preach everything you've ever fought in game was the jailer's fault, onyxia, deathwing, lich King, Nzoth, Mankrik's wife all because of the jailer
Hey man I love hearing your take on the WoW story and development. Honestly if you just covered that and left out all of the ptr and patch stuff it would be awesome
Preach, great video. But im here for your hair updates. Your hair looks amazing and you should be thrilled. As a guy who's going through hair loss atm i would love to here how its felt having it come back. Any hopes for a hair update video?
I just resubbed to wow for a couple of months after a year or so of ff14. Its amazing how quickly you click through every quest dialogue or cutscene. There's like a year of story beats i havent kept up with, but its so easy to not give a shit and just get into the gameplay. Which is awesome fun, by the way. I really dunno if they can genuinely fix this. Even with the best intentions (my brains rewired to enjoy cutscenes and story), it took less than a few quest texts to get straight back into the habit. They should just stick with what they've always been good at: Telling story through gameplay.
So long as Steve Danuser is in charge of the story and the lore, I have no faith whatsoever in WoW being able to turn it all around. If I were in charge of Blizzard I would have fired him by the end of the first BfA patch. And if I were in his position when he inherited all of this lore, I would have done things so much different... because unlike him I actually respect what Metzen did before him.
I remember what Blizzard and WoW used to be. Arthas, Illidan, The Scarlet Crusade. Villains or factions, they felt tangible. These were villains that were well written, but also sympathetic. You understood how Arthas fell from grace, you saw how conflicted Illidan was dealing with power hunger and his brother banging the love of his life, you could see why literally ANYONE could join The Scarlet Crusade after seeing and experiencing the horrors of the Scourge. The Jailer was just some guy who couldn't explain himself to literally ANYONE outside of just wanting to "dominate" everything. There was no hint that there was somehow even a BIGGER bad behind him...and at that, HOW!? How could there be bigger bad BEHIND THE LITERAL AFTERLIFE OF ALL THINGS THAT EVER EXISTED!? We just BEAT life AND death itself...where the hell else do you go after that!? And the whole "it was the dreadlords the whole time" thing is so stupid that they somehow have this MASTER plan in motion that is SO master planned that not even they know what the hell "the plan" is.
I came back to wow for 9.2 (after being away, post SoD clear). I'm somewhat enjoying ZM because it doesn't feel like I have to be on EVERY day, even though there's certainly a benefit to do so. I know I'll have my rep high enough by the time I need to buy the memory for my second legendary (this coming reset), so eeking out that last bit of rep by hitting every single world quest and rare every day doesn't feel necessary. I can log on and make the decision to improve my character, rather than feeling like I'm forced to do it otherwise I'll fall behind. I sincerely hope they keep going in this direction. World content is something that should give moderate gains for relatively small amounts of work each week. No daily requirement, and no crazy long weekly. Short and sweet is how the world content should be, imo. The thing is, there is so much casual content in this game. A lot of people don't realize just how massive wow is. Sure, only a small fraction of it is relevant to increasing character power, but that's not the only thing you can spend time on in a video game. I've felt, for the first time in AGES like I can go do old world stuff just for fun (I'm working on 100% in AllTheThings on all classes, a big goal, but I'm enjoying it). It has actually helped me not to feel the grind (for current content) as acutely. Narratively, though, I 100% agree. This is two expansions in a row that Blizz has really shit the bed with the final boss. N'zoth died way too easily, and the Jailer felt like a throwaway enemy. Provide more context, provide more meaning behind what the villain does, and it will feel so much better to beat it. Sure, the Jailer has been routing souls into the maw, including those that Elune didn't save from the burning of Teldrassil (because she thought she was helping Ardenweald with the drought), but we didn't know he was doing that when it happened, so the deed was already done before we could tie it to the big bad responsible. The only other thing that had any impact at all was his domination of Anduin. The problem is we barely got to interact with Anduin after he was saved, so we don't really get to see the emotional toll it had on him. Also, what happened to all those super-realistic cinematics Blizz used to make? Now we only seem to get the ones using in-game models. I guess I just feel like Blizz has really dropped the ball lately. There are a lot of things they've finally caved on (it seems like this is something we have to say near the end of every expansion now), but getting the game closer to how it should have been from the start isn't enough to have a good game. If the way things are right now was how this expansion started (systems-wise), I think things would have been so much better. Then, they could have built from a higher starting position, possibly resulting in an actually good expansion.
There's just a point you need to sever off a connection, even if you have loved that person or thing and it was endearing to you for the better part of a decade. After seeing what they've done with the story, I have zero faith in the writers. Why would anyone be hyped for 10.0? This story is so butchered, it likely will never recover, even with a Microsoft acquisition and clearing house. Theoretically they could improve gameplay, and that may bring some people back for a bit, but I don't think this team is capable to make it happen, all I've seen is creative bankruptcy time and time again. This is from someone who attended 4 Blizzcons and played Blizz games like crazy for almost 25 years: I've moved on.
Yes, and unfortunately I've also given up on SWTOR. Why are American MMO companies so mismanaged these days? I started playing WoW in beta, and my husband and I went to the first BlizzCon as our belated honeymoon. It hurts to give up, but it hurts more to see what they've done to my beloved game world. I started playing FFXIV in January, and I'm enjoying it so much! I got halfway through Stormblood and then started worrying that I'd run out of story since I'm retired and able to play so much, so I began leveling one of each class.
Microsoft could save wow, if they retcon BFA and shadowlands, maybe even legion and warlords, to me the last interesting plot was wrathion warning us about the legion and garrosh before he was turned evil for no good reason, he remains to be a great hero of the horde
Show me an mmorpg that has class gameplay, raids and dungeons that are as good as the ones in WoW and I'll play it for hundreds of hours. I stopped playing Shadowlands pretty early on and I hate the mandatory grinds and the story, but I haven't found any games that come close for the instanced pve content... Holding out for Riot and I will follow along with whatever happens surrounding 10.0, but I can pretty firmly state that I will never preorder a game again
I suddenly had to think about how in awe we were (well, I was...) when first meating the Aspects. I read War-of-the-Ancients and knew part of the dragons' story. Given how far we've come, everything in the past seems insignificant now...
I’m just like- what is left to tell about WoW? What can make it better at this point? I still think Gorribal should’ve been an introduction Raid where we fight the essence of the sentient artifacts to later fight its essence
Copium take: Mythic secret cinematic bridging right before the "what is to come" line. Zovaal actually succeeded in ending eternity, but died in the process, we return to a reality where cosmic entities are either dead, comatose or powerless and we are aswell. Azeroth is returned to the pangean Kalimdor and we struggle to find our place amongst all the forces that remain - dragons, elementals, Aqir and perhaps void entities clawing to have a decent story (sorry, I'm still a N'Zoth fanboy and I want him to be properly fleshed out). Blizzard has already made the steps to not need areas in the same world by having Chromie time travel us around for leveling, why not just stay firm on present Azeroth being replaced by a remade one? Only thing is that it would be a giant undertaking to create all the areas, however I wouldn't mind a few impassable walls or instant death mechanics when attempting to traverse certain areas until they are opened up to us.
You guys remember the voice n’zoth had as a fish in the Azshara animated thingy? I wouldn’t have minded him being a bit like Emet during questing or maybe you’d say it would be more similar to a certain dragon idk please don’t get too angry that I dared compare these things
I don't think things will change. Danuser came into the lead writing position in early-mid BfA, and chose to use the rest of that expansion to sloppily wrap up many of the loose threads to justify hopping into his Shadowlands story. So honestly? I don't think he's invested in Warcraft beyond his own personal stories, so anything from Legion and earlier is basically off the table unless it's being rewritten. For all intents and purposes, the Warcraft story is over for me, because there's no one committed to continuing it.
If anyone wants good lore I have high hopes for guild wars 2’s new expansion. Guild wars has always crushed lore as they tend to focus on story more than say raids. Even with their living world type storytelling it’s still much better than wow. Heck guild wars 1 prophecies is still one of the best lore stories on any mmo ever told.
There comes a point where you have to let go before all your good memories are tainted by what the game has become. The sooner you move on and wish it well the sooner you can start loving those good memories without the weight of hoping it gets better.
In 10.0, you travel back in time in Dragon Isles, all the way to the foundation of the cosmos. You meet Zovaal and Primus. Then zovaal learns the future timeline. "I take offense to my portrayal as a megalomaniacal madman!" Please look forward to it :D
As a long time player who has stuck it out through SL I wanna respond that I certainly do not like having to log in every day to keep up with my mates (or rather, feel like I'm not letting them down). I like it best when I can raidlog on my evenings off and sometimes take a whole Saturday to play keys and what not. I'm willing to pay a sub for that, but they haven't given that since WoD.
My biggest clue if 10.0 is going to be worth it: New talent row/new class abilities, no more borrowed power. If I see another damn system that goes away with the expansion, I'm not going to even bother anymore, as it shows they still do not understand that our characters are THE most important part of an MMO.
I've never had lower expectations towards an upcoming WoW expansion. I just hope the story for it has not been written by the same people as BFA+SL. At this point I just hope they would stop releasing "expansions" and release an entirely new game with a new engine, modernized combat AND with the original WoW story.
Buddy of mine moved to FFXIV and ended up leaving once he hit savage *because* he didn't feel like he didn't have something to do every day. Like, I get it, there's a lot of content and it all isn't for everyone, but I do enjoy being able to step away and not feel obligated to do something. (He's playing LA now, instead.)
I don't think it would put off as many wow players as you think, making the story comprehensible, solo-able and more importantly skippable on repeat playthroughs, is just plain common sense tbh. Emet Selch stands as my greatest mmo villain to date, i both loved and loathed him simousltaneously.
What if it's not a "bigger baddie" but rather an all-out conflict that threatens to destroy everything? Literally being destroyed by everyone being too strong, rather than one aspect dominating?
I honestly didn't even bother to raid this tier. And that was before I watched this "ending" cinematic. At first, I adamantly left very early in 9.1. And thought I was done with WoW for good. Then, a few guild members asked me to play TBC with them this past February. They're friends, so I gladly played with them for a few weeks. Thus, I tried Shadow Lands once again. I had an active sub, why not? It held my interest for all of 4 days. Then when 9.2 dropped, I didn't even log in for it. This story direction sadly matched the rest of my shadow lands experience: Sub-par and not worth admission. The current state of WoW is a game I would not play for free. Let alone as a subscription. And after adoring this game for a decade, that statement makes me very sad. I had a small hope the Microsoft purchase might change the overall direction of the franchise away from what many of us view as a very, very negative direction. But, that remains to be seen. I'll believe it when I see it. And this "ending" to Shadow Lands has not been cause for optimism. I will try 10.0. I will give it one month at launch. That's it. It either holds my interest, or I'm writing-off the whole next expansion and perhaps finally the entire game. Because, of their pattern of behavior and the distinct direction of there game following Legion... well it's not a direction I want to go as a player. And I'm just done hoping and waiting they will "fix it". They very likely will not
I’m an ff14 player and never touched wow but when I was thinking of trying mmo, it was always among the candidates. I’ll keep looking at it through these channels and when I have time and money (I can’t afford only one game in terms of time and money and don’t want to do all in half way but one to the full), I want to try out if it seems good (and hope it will gain its power in the end. It’s good to have multiple options).
Mike has stopped showcasing wow fully, You'd do better just watching random streams on twitch since most youtubers on here are either extremely scandalous to bring clicks or literally bootlickers. During the FF 14 content draught that will come, you can just jump on WoW and do M+s But you'll have to deal with Its shit catch up and dogshit timegated grinds for X or you wont be able to access Y ... Just because. Right now Its a lowpoint and you'd be better off playing a SP game.
I miss playing my warrior, class I reroll to when I started SL to keep things fresh. But even that couldn’t help with the unfun gameplay design and content grind. Not even mentioning the aggressive community aspect in group content.
Not to defend the jailer too much, but I think people oversell the "Emet was just a one-expansion villain" a bit sometimes. A lot of what raises Emet from likeable to Great is the weight of his story, and how it reveals and builds upon plot points that started way back in ARR. The Jailer's genuinely a one-expac villain because he likely never existed before the writers tried to shoe him in via retcons, but while Emet only shows up for one expac, his story was probably already in the writers' general outlines for a long time before that. So I feel like it's a bit rude to the Jailer to expect anyone to care about him anywhere near as much as Emet, when Emet started the race long beforehand, even if nobody realized it at the time.
Exactly look how much people love arthus as the lich king still to this day the best baddie we have had in the best expansion the blizz devs have lost their way caterings for the 1% of the player base needs a full reset back to a wrath style expansion
yeah The Jailer as a whole was Walmart Thanos, sheer shit that they tied the past 20 years of Warcraft to, holy shit what a letdown. "this was all part of MY design, but i'm doing it to save the cosmos." what a load of horseshit...
if they do another big bad they need to go balls to wall bad. downright evil but justifiable and/or relatable to some degree. I feel like that was originally planned for the jailor but got scrapped early
Emet had a patch and a couple of scenes in Stormblood, meanwhile this Steroid Lego BDSM title man gets an entire expansion and somehow retroactively makes the entire Warcraft franchise bad. To be fair, the only reason why I know about this whole mess; since I never played WoW back in the day; was because they market this as "the end of the warcraft (1 lol) saga, from all the way back to RoC and the FT" when they had no business touching those story elements since they clearly don't understand how to build a proper villain, that doesn't somehow ends up reedeming himself/herself due to the need of building the next looming unknown threat that will surely bring the end of all because the last bad guy said it. Worst part is that the Jailer wasn't even bad according to that cinematic but there's no way you could have know that because there's no foreshadowing and every NPC and their mother is telling you that he has to be stopped, even tho "re-writing the rules of reality" doesn't even sound like something bad. You're forced to believe he will bring the end of the world while doing so because he's a bad guy, and bad guys do that because they're bad. It lacks so much that it doesn't even know what they want to do with any character in this expansion: 1) Sylvanas: Reedemed because we need her to keep the plot points and thematic story elements, as little as they are, going 2) Anduin: He......saved himself or smth? He had a cool cinematic but that's about it. 3) The Jailer: I want to say they were trying to make Warcraft Thanos, but he's honestly more similar to "The Arbiter" from that dead game called Anthic....Anthuc.......Anthem? Who knows..... 4) Arthas: He had no fucking reason to be even mentioned and no reason to end as a wisp. His ending is somewhat fitting but him being lectured by Sylvanas, the one person to fuck everyone up due to her believe in the Jailer's cause (I know, mind control and shit but that was lazily implemented so who cares) was just blatant favoritism. I know they like her that much, but come on. All she had to do was admit that she was becoming like him and that make her loath herself for it and that's it. So that's about it. The story is clearly rushed and uninspired but hey, at least the raids are cool from what I heard. Hope the people who are still playing are having fun.
You know what's the worst? The fact that by the end of the next expansion, they will bring back the Jailer. His body is relatively intact, they will reactivate him and REDEEEEEEEEEEM.
What is hard for people like myself is reconciling the great respect they have for you with the complete and utter lack of respect for the game and its developers and writers. People like me stopped playing not just because it wasn't fun or the story was ruined, but also because we just do not endorse Blizzard or WoW any longer. And with that comes the hope that enough people stop giving Blizzard money for them to be forced to change. Not just less money so they will kinda change in the short term but then go back to how things have always gone later. But I will say that if they somehow pull off a miracle, and either restructure the company or finally learn to not go back to their bullshit ways every time, AND 10.0 manages to actually be fun, and rewarding, and maybe has a story that isn't dogshit, then I might give it a try again. Shadowlands was supposed to be the absolute last chance, but if people are actually overwhelmingly happy with 10.0, I'll consider resubbing for a month. What is more likely, though, is that we will have more mandatory nonsense, more shit story, more shit gearing systems that took up development resources, and so on.
I dropped WoW early BFA came back because of friends then quit half way into bastion on release day and came back months later because of that itch but quit again becuase it just kept getting worse. At this point the next time I touch WoW at all will be 10.2 on the onus that they show they have fixed almost all their mistakes and learned from them properly.
Blizzard did a lot better when they weren't trying so hard to tell a deep, intricate story. Just give us a big damn villain and let us be big damn heroes.
Here's to hoping that 10.0 will reignite the love for the game. It's most likely more of a rekindling, rather than re-ignition... if anything. But WoW needs to stop with the FOMO. It's what is driving people away. If I have to do another Korthia, then that's it. If I have to fight another, bigger baddie... I am not interested. This is Marvel-levels of power creep going on. Thanos - Galactus - the beyonder - the one above all.... it's just getting ridiculous and unfun.
The biggest problem with story seems to be they relied too much on big surprise moment, the writing doesn't even know how to write an actual story anymore. It's like a whole movie made by trailer studio.
Hate to keep comparing this shit to Marvel but this would be like if when Thanos was turning to dust in End Game and he looked at the camera and said "Kang the Conqueror"
There’s going to be a bit of a shift in gaming I mean. Content creators by and large will move away from the boring games that make lots of money and focus more in games that have artistic vision. The boring games won’t go away, they will make bank forever. But I expect them to be talked about less and less.
i guess the thing that confuses me, as someone who tried really hard to get into xiv after leaving wow, about calls from former wow players for a more "grounded" story is that the most recent xiv expansions were (1) alternate universe time travel opposite day and (2) the moon (now a spaceship), the first ones (literally just the first ones from shadowlands), and the literal 'edge of the universe' all rolled into a single patch-i wonder why xiv can apparently get away with that where wow apparently can't.
It was properly setup and now that it's over, XIV is (hopefully) de-escalating with 6.1 onwards instead of trying to continue to escalate, that's the difference.
2 things: 1 - the stuff in FFXIV were built in solid foundations. The Ascians were established, the primals, Zodiark, Elidibus on the moon. And for each new stuff, it was built on those foundations. You can say that Legion did that as well. 2 - story presentation. Might've been one patch. But it was one patch with hours upon hours upon hours of cutscenes and dialogues. Emet selch on Stormblood patches alone had almost as much dialogue as the Jailer had through the entirety of Shadowlands.
You can get away with a lot of crazy concepts if your audience cares about the characters and the world at stake. For example, see what Marvel has done differently from the DCEU. If there isn't any level of emotional attachment, then you just have spectacle, and spectacle repeated over and over gets boring (see how many Hollywood big-budget sequels bomb). In older WoW, they at least tried to write some amount of character into their stories. Prior to WotLK, Bolvar was just the regent in Stormwind who stood around doing nothing until people came by for their Onyxia attunement. WotLK release gave him an active role in a Dragonblight questline and when the Wrathgate cutscene played, we felt for his loss (we wouldn't find out until ICC a year later that he survived). A WoW-original character that was active for maybe ten quests total elicited an emotional reaction when he died. The same expansion also introduced Garrosh, who would slowly transform over the next few expansions into a WoW-original villain. Some people hated Garrosh and everything he stood for, some people liked him, but he actually had a character arc and the audience had a reaction for him, good or bad. How do you feel about the Jailer? Do you feel anything over his demise? I didn't play Shadowlands so I don't have a personal anecdote, but the impression I'm getting from players that have is they're either indifferent or exhausted.
Roses are Red, violets are blue, My man's hairs are blooming You know that shit it's definetely true Sadly the eternity down Is going Like Blizzard clownfiesta, clearly nothing new . . . . We need a design shift, The faith in the Company Is long time gone But if 10.0 wow Will lift You know an unknown Adventurer we have to become.
There is a way to make this terrible ending a little bit better. Interpret his answer differently. It’s still a bad ending but it’s much better than what we got if you interpret it literally. Why did you do all of this? What if he just didn’t answer the question: he ignores it and basically told us to F off. Gave us the middle finger by not telling us why. Divided you all are doomed there’s a bigger threat coming. What if he’s just taking comfort and solace in his death knowing this bigger threat will get his revenge for him. Think about it he never explained himself to the other first ones or the primus he’s definitely not going to explain himself to mere mortals. We are so far beneath him in his mind he doesn’t need to explain anything. That would actually be in character for him too lore wise what little personality he has.
Don't even have to bring up Selch to show how boring the Jailer is. Look at Denathius: side-villain with only one zone and a raid, and he was a way more compelling character and antagonist than Zovaal, even with what little spotlight he was given. He tied better into older lore too (dreadlords).
I appreciate your respectfull but hard critique. I cant stand the disrespectul hate from other big Wow UA-cam channels, that then Wonder why they dont have a good connection to Blizzard. They disrespect the Team by galling stuff garbage etc but can still make a Fortune of Wow content without hesistation.
Well the race is well underway and it has been amazing so far - can't wait to see what the last bosses have in store after Mr Crabs. But we couldn't let it pass without talking about the controversial Jailer cutscenes and what Mike is hoping for in 10.0.
What did you think of the Jailer cutscenes?
I don’t mind, because people keep thinking this was the end of the Warcraft chapter, but it’s actually this chapter. I expected The Jailer to be but a small insignificant thing in the bigger picture to prevent something else. There is a reason he wasn’t as fleshed out as other WoW villains were.
Personally, the lore wasn’t perfect but so many people exaggerate the small things. Personally, it was the best lore of WoW since and past MoP.
@@darknessnaxxion Literally every WoW boss says "I was only trying to protect you all from something bigger". This stupid ass trope is getting tiring.
Nobody is thinking "this is the end of warcraft". The devs said it was the end of this arc, which started with W3, which is obviously BS. Nobody should be defending that shit like you are.
@@Jonathan-fw6ty what a shill
Lame. This expansion was supposed to be the closing chapter for a decade long ark. Whether that was even true (which we all know isnt), doesnt matter. The Jailer cinematics should have been a close. But they were not. Instead of putting the "old lore" to rest, as they claimed they would, the writers did the same old WoW-patented formula: foreshadowing the next big bad (something they did since MoP, or if you want to be generous since WoD). This cinematic was no closure, no explanation, no revelation, no nothing. They build the Jailer up to be the mastermind behind everything thats wrong in WoWs universe, he was "Titan +++", and then he commits the same stupid mistakes every other ordinary villian does: letting his enemies escape numerous times, taunting them, making grand speaches, pretends to be super mysterious, and then acts surprised when we hand his a**. Like... its lame. And I'm not only thinking that as a FF14 player, I played GW1 before WoW and some on and off GW2 during my "WoW carreer": both games (especially GW1) have by far superior storytelling and simply make sense (!!!) with what they're doing. I dont expect(ed) WoW to revolutionize MMO storytelling, but at least get good! This is just embarrassing.
@@Jonathan-fw6ty So what about Arthas, Deathwing, Garrosh, Gul’dan, Legion, and BFA, when did they say that? When did they say, “I was only trying to protect you from something else?” And they stated that they’re ending certain storylines that started in Warcraft 3.
Also, technically we’re always trying to end the stories that started way back when WoW started.
Wrathion: "a divided azeroth cant stand against the bigger bad!"
Sargarus: "a divided universe cant stand against the bigger bad!"
Jailer: "a divided cosmos cant stand against the bigger bad!"
Wow needs a new premise jesus christ
Didn't Thrall, Jaina, and Arthas all think the same way?
Medivh did the same thing back in Warcraft 3.
They're all referring to each other
i think they're all talking about same thing, but this phrase is so cliche and was overused, that we are making fun of it already.
its the whole premise period. They are all talking about the same thing. Its a giant MLM.
It really blows my mind how Blizzard went from a passionate company able to deliver immersive, well written and captivating stories.. to a narrative one-trick pony. Every fucking time, it's the same shit. "You fools, I did all these horrible things because it's the only thing that can save the world from the next big villain." At what point can we learn from actual, great storytelling out there, and understand that it doesn't always have to be bigger to be better. Some of the best villains ever written are just normal people with a twisted view on the world. They don't have to be the fucking "original one", "pre-historic times one", "elden god one", "cosmical entity one", for that to hold impact...
Don’t forget the abuse
I think that part of the problem is that lorewise the player characters have become too powerful, we're practically fighting gods in every raid tier. I honestly can't imagine some of the end bosses of Vanilla raids being much more than mid-tier bosses in todays raids from a powerlevel perspective.
@@Derpleton14 Ironically, the direction they've gone is the most anime DBZ shit I can imagine. Ever bigger bad, need to power up, somehow the previous powering up isn't as effective so we find a new different way to power up. Rinse and repeat with each expansion being like a new anime story arc. People who watch Shounen animes know exactly what I mean.
@@Reldan Thing is, it CAN be dialed back. FFXIV had us fighting the literal end of the universe. 6.1 onwards will see us finally get to explore what we saved. I'm sure there will eventually be a bbeg, but for now the players will get to spend time as just an Adventurer, the very thing we started the game as before our journey got hijacked by the end of the world.
@@Ashtari I think that's the thing that Preach was hoping for in 10.0, but with them ending on a "bigger bad is coming!" note, it doesn't seem that's the direction they're heading. To contrast FFXIV wrapped things up with both a finality and the foreshadowing of things to come specifically focused around adventuring for the sake of it rather than due to a need to save everybody. Even to the extent that they've firmly established that your role (as Azem) in the universe is to explore and quest and learn - if anything what you've been doing playing galactic savior is out of the ordinary for your dayjob (Azem effectively washed their hands pre-sundering of the whole Hydaelyn/Zodiarc conflict and neither helped Venat nor Emet-Selch, choosing instead to do what they could to simply help people in need).
Perhaps they'll dial WoW back with 11.0, but it sounds like the universe is still in dire jeopardy from Super Jailer, or whatever it is even the Jailer was afraid of, and that's fodder for at least one if not two expansions.
Emet-Selch didn't even have an entire expansion
He had a launch patch that was it.
Eh. Launch patch and arguably a few cutscenes in 4.4 and 4.5.
But your point is valid.
@@Zakjuh there is also the main baddie of EW, first introduced in the middle of the last patch, still has much more story, logic and motivations then the nipple guy
Yeah but the .0 patch in an FFXIV expansion has more hours of story than WoW does in 3 full expansions at least.
@@TheRayzorOne no it fucking doesn't lmao
my main issue with wow is that it over the years went from "you can log in every day and have something to do" to "you have to log in every day and do something"
yup, instead of making you WANT to waste your time, they force you to. i still enjoy the game regardless, but it would be nice to not feel like if i miss a day then i am lagging behind.
thats like issue 42 on my list. basically everything they have added since Wrath came out has led to the current state of the game. every single bad aspect of WoW can be traced back to Wrath.
@@derpderpin1568 i dont agree with that then, that's you being a classic andy and not adjusting to change, because MoP and Legion was the two best expansions that WoW ever had, fight me.
@@UltimateGamerCC I won't. I actually believe MoP to be the best, I've held this opinion since 5.3.
@@borek92 gimme mop with somethin like m+ to do with the homies and im sold
I left wow during early shadowlands and it has been good to see that I've missed nothing. I got into FFXIV by watching you enjoy it and have absolutely fallen in love with the game. One of my favorites parts is that when I finished Endwalker I put the game down for a couple weeks to play other things. When I came back I wasn't behind in anything. It is a game that encourages you to have fun your way and not feel left out.
It's glorious
Glad you found your place in Eorzea :)
My experience was much the same, I got to endwalker and got my pentamelded crafted gear to start raiding but had to leave the game for a few months because of life, came back and went back to raiding with the exact same power level as i had a few months back. Just killed P4S in a static and now have BIS gear.
@@mohidwaseem7997 grats man!
Tbh it felt like my soul was drained after endwalker ended, it's like finishing a book you've been reading everyday for months (aka web novels that can go from dozens to 5k+ chapters), it was a part of you almost every waking moment and it's just ended, leaving me with a gaping void. Pretty much lost all motivation to do anything in it, even the panda raids which i prefer for a full release instead before starting, 8 more bosses, 2 more patches.
I've been on probably close to my 3rd month away from ffxiv now, still keep sub running, but i think i need more time to digest it properly, I think i've gone through endwalker msq for dozens of time now from various streamers (Preach is the latest and possibly my top 2 msq streamers of all time, beside jesse cox).
I'm quite glad and relieved that whenever i decided to return, I wont be too far behind if at all and can easily catch up (crafted gears become cheaper, alliance drops, tome gears). For all that it at least deserve a running sub while i'm away.
@@ADKV95 soon there will be 6.1 patch with some fun quests like Hildebrand that can help you cheer up :)
Not even just Emet-Selch as a character that only had a single expansion, we even had this example in WoW: Lei-Shen, the Thunder King!
We also have more recent examples in Sire Denathrius or Elisande who were both great contained villains in my opinion.
@@SimplyConeh Rastakhan, Talanji, Azshara(who yeah was a lore figure and had cameos but for all intents and purposes was a BfA character), Denathrius, Bwonsamedi, Devos, Zappy Boi were all decently to well written characters. They CAN do it but it seems the A plot, the main story, is lacking
@@bondsmatthew Even Argus was a great character, simply because he seemed "unwhole" like he was missing part of his soul or whatever, so the potential of developing the character was intriguing... But apparently they used him for something in the latest patch and I doubt it's fulfilling
at least with Lei-Shen, they didnt link him to the entire game, if they had simply made him the guy behind The Lich King and WC3 by itself, it would've been tolerable. but of course Blizzard screwed that by making all of the past 20 YEARS pieces on a chessboard that HE put into play, absolute taking the piss.
Beats up a Titan Keeper and steals his power
Enslaves entire continent
Dies
Refuses to elaborate further
** Fair warning, Unfocused Rant about Blizzard Writing. :) **
I've honestly had these discussions with people for years now, and I'm happy to see more people are starting to ask the question of where Wow's story can potentially go next. I've never felt like growing threats to be larger and larger scales every expansion was ever required, I think there's so much power in the smaller, character driven conflicts that due to their grounded nature can allow the audience to show empathy for the villains and form some meaningful connection to them.
I think a great example of this is honestly Vanessa Vancleef and Lillian Voss, they're both extremely minor characters, but they utilized their position, playing off events that played off previously in the story to strengthen their motivations and position themselves in a world we deeply understand and already are connected too. We don't need to waste time explaining anything about the Defias brotherhood, we already know them, we know how Vancleef died, and just adding the simple fact that he had a child was already enough to position her in a fantastic place to tell an emotionally driven story of a scheming criminal seeking vengeance against us by any means necessary.
I asked friends back in legion what they'd think about the idea of wow toning back it's scale, I thought fighting world souls was already far beyond ridiculous, and I mentioned things like, going back to northrend and seeing 12 years later, what are the consequences of our actions? How have things changed? Which factions have assumed power and what happened to those we destroyed? Is there any frost trolls left and what does that culture look like after everything that happened in wrath? Forming raids and small scale stories, introducing new characters through these lenses is what wow needs.
I've always referred to Wow's world building as "Spot light storytelling." There's so many fundamental, basic questions about the world that are left unanswered because the story only concerns itself with a handful of key characters and leaves everything else to rot. For a short term, focused story, this is fine, but if you want WoW to live up to it's potential, we need depth, we need to be able to explore niche ideas and corners of the world and know what people who might not be in the spotlight think and feel about current events. I use Silvermoon as an example of this. So much of that city is so ambiguous and poorly constructed. What's the High elf military look like? Who are the noble houses, what are the factions within the city, and what would their goals be? Does the city have a port? We're left to assume Silvermoon has a navy, Blood elf ships are common, but where is their port? Do they trade? Do they have any major Exports, or do they depend on specific imports which ties their economically to existing factions through some level of codependency? I've always found it funny that Silvermoon has had a Regent lord longer then any nation in real history. I think they forgot what that title even means at this point. In a society we're supposed to understand is power-hungry, Fairly egotistical and has a long history of Monarchy, the idea that no minor noble houses in Quel'thalas would be campaigning to sieze power is actually fucking absurd.
The problem is that nothing from wow is carried over from expansion to expansion. You continue to build the relationships with characters from FFxiv, even the side or minor characters. It makes the world feel more solid, it makes your interactions feel more impactful and that is something WoW just doesn't do. When I went through BFA and quit until shadowlands, I honestly couldn't even remember who the trolls were that were the focus for horde, couldn't name one. After playing through shadowlands, cant remember as I sit here what the names of the heads of the covenants are and likely I will never need to as they will never be brought up ever again. Same with the jailer, never to be used, talked about or mentioned ever again. They just throw away the story or any loose ends.
I mean there's plenty of characters that continue from expansion to expansion. Most of the cast of Shadowlands are old characters. BFA was a good mix of old and new, Legion was full of older characters, WoD was entirely comprised of prior established characters. I think the difference is you just don't care about them personally because wow is not a character-driven story. But the stuff with Jaina in BFA hit real hard if you were invested in Jaina's story.
Sadly as a (forced because of raiding) horde player you missed most of Jaina's story in BFA and it sucked. :(
@@SmugHomura I think that's a very WoW-perspective answer you've given. The "big characters" are not at all who Jon was talking about. In WoW you're either a cinematic trailer character or you're gone next expansion. Yes, there's the core group of Jaina, Thrall, Anduin, Sylvanas and the like, but very rarely are new characters added into those ranks, and almost 100% of characters not in those ranks are entirely and utterly forgotten about.
Worse, WoW will bring up old favorites occasionally when needed, and then just have them sit around doing jack shit. Tell me more about Baine's love of the Shadowlands. Time stops for all characters that aren't headliners and even then it's only the "current" headliners that really matter at any given moment.
Jon was talking about how in FFXIV, many characters from every single previous expansion continue to exist and their stories push forward. Is it every single NPC? No, but it's a very good amount of the names you remembered and cared about when they were in the spotlight.
It's true that WoW isn't a character-driven story, it's also not a narrative-driven story, or a storytelling-driven story. It's an expansion CGI trailer-driven story, and I think that holds it back. "Using the characters you've built up over the years" isn't some foreign concept that only fits in FFXIV, it's a basic concept of telling any sort of tale. But WoW's entire development cycle is built upon throwing everything that came before directly into the fucking trash. Previous zones? Useless and forever irrelevant. Content added a few months ago in a patch? Bye bye, bitch! Legendary items you spent weeks or months obtaining? Sorry here's a green quest item that beats it by 50 ilvls on the very first quest you do. Headline feature of the expansion? Well it wasn't universally loved so instead of fixing it we trashed it halfway through the expansion. Villain motivations? Hero motivations? What're those? Those are for books and lore nerds. Alright, FINE, we'll add one line after you kill the last expansion boss that hints at a greater threat. Aren't we amazing?
It's so fucking bad. And it has no reason to be. They should be growing their world, not shrinking and rebuilding it every goddamn patch. Every aspect of the game seems to get binned as soon as it's time for an update.
@@Xbob42 This. I was in love with the character of Yrel during WoD, and was really hoping we'd get to see her become a new mainstay. Then she randomly stays in alternate universe that we can never return to, except we do return to it and now she's a nazi. For five minutes. Then she's gone forever from the story *again*. Thanks, Blizz...
@@SmugHomura Late to the party, but I'll just echo what others have said. The issue is, Jaina and company are more like Michael Jordan type of characters. Would you be distraught if MJ was assassinated while playing a game on the court? Of course, especially if you're a fan or, imagine if you had an autograph or something or he was your role model or you had a photo with him etc. But, can you compare that to, say, Alphinaud? I deliberately choose someone who isn't easily liked on average.
Now, you did say it's a difference in approach. But, I have to disagree there. Characters are characters and I think they are very much needed to tell any story, at least of this type.
And, this is a flaw that follows Blizzard a lot. It's not even a new thing. For example, I played Blizzard games since early nineties, before they were Blizzard. So, wc1 and wc2 are etched into my soul pretty much. Still, Hellscream's cinematic in wc3 and other similar stuff, it does generate an emotional response in me, of course it does. But, masterfully written and executed ffxiv characters do so much more. And I am the blueprint for a person to whom Hellscream was intended for. This goes for pretty much every single character in Warcraft universe, apart from some side quest ones. I don't agree that what you pointed out is an excuse for them not doing the "etching" right.
Escalation can be a powerful tool for telling an interesting story (see the Wonderful 101, that game starts pretty mad and goes totally off the rails by the end) but it cannot be the only thing. It doesn't help that Blizz have already used practically their entire back catalogue of characters already, so whoever this new threat is is gonna get a single WoW xpac's worth of character development.
Maybe it won't suck, but I'm not raising my hopes again.
Even the Wonderful 101's escalation had an end, a point where the story said, "And that's it, there's not a bigger fish."
It will literally be us vs the Pantheon and then it's game over
@@KAMZA. We're already beyond the Pantheon though. Blizzard inventing these "First Ones" that act suspiciously Titan-eqsue in their mannerisms and technology, but are above the Titans in power is basically them retconning another layer above the Titans. So the Jailer and the Covenant leaders were all Titan power level, so now we're going ABOVE that because apparently the "First Ones" are even MORE powerful, and once they are beat it'll be the "FIRSTER ONES!".
It's all retconning bullshit, and they have to stop doing it cause it legit kills peoples interest in the franchise to constantly be invalidating previous experiences.
@@CrashB111 Are the first ones more powerful than the Pantheon? I haven't followed the last few patches much, but my head canon was, that the first ones were parallel entities to the Titans
@@SimplyConeh Apparently half the abortion that is 9.2 lore lays out that the "First Ones (god what a stupid fucking name)" created each of the different pantheons for Order, Chaos, Death, Life, etc. So the Covenant leaders and Titans are on the same power level, and the First Ones are above them.
What you're putting out is great regardless. Your FF FC is scarily competent at roleplaying, cosplaying and even at interior design. I think with them alone, you could have a great time no matter what game you play.
His FC is a force.
Again a reminder: Arthas got literally deleted from existence, while Sylvanas, who was in the EXACT SAME SITUATION, got away with a redemtion arc.
Fuck this.
true that. and its the absolute worst kind of fan fiction. I just hope MS gets Blizz, cleanes up the shop and makes wow good again.
Its even worse since Sylvanas even stands there preaching at Arthas about how shit he was while Uther and Jaina are just hanging around like "Yeah you tell him! Go fuck yourself Arthas!"
It just blows my mind on so many levels how awful the story has become for WoW after growing up with the franchise damn...
If you really think about it, they didn't just get you to fall in love with Emet Selch in one expansion. The 5.0 story was all DAY ONE, release content for Shadowbringers. They got you to care about this character, potentially, within a couple dozen hours. A lot of people went from not knowing who Emperor Solus was in the lore, to crying about him within the same week. That is mental.
Part of what makes Emet-Selch work as a villain who's only there for one expansion is that while he only appears briefly in 4.4 and then extensively for 5.0, he ties back into existing lore extensively, which makes him an actually coherent villain. The Jailer is supposedly "responsible for" so much, but it makes no sense. Meanwhile, Garlemald makes more sense once you factor in the reign of Solus being what it is.
And it goes on like that - Emet-selch himself only appears as one expansion's villain plus a stormblood cameo, but he had coherent setup beforehand, and the storytelling of the game makes it make sense.
The FF14 devs have been relatively open about when they "finalised" certain plot beats, and you can see certain things they've had to slightly handwave where some details changed, but they had certain bits of the metaplot and metaphysics set.
Meanwhile, WoW's current story is what happens when you discard the metaplot and base what happens next on "what's cool and what can we blag?"
Speaking of slightly handwave, even Emet-selch's signature "slight handwave" has a payoff.
Shadowbringers and Endwalker definitely take the overall story in a new and interesting direction, primarily due to Ishikawa taking over as lead story writer. The difference is that she's immensely talented and found ways to build off of everything that came before, tying threads up in satisfying ways and recontextualizing prior lore tidbits rather than retconning them.
That's only something you can do though if you consistently respect your established lore and understand it thoroughly. The terrible things you've seen the Ascians do are far worse than Teldrassil, but through good writing you can still make them sympathetic with a coherent reason behind their seeming maniacal evil, even in the course of a single expansion, and without retconning things to make it so it either wasn't their fault or the thing we thought happened didn't actually happen after all.
Agreed.
Though I think if Zovaal had more screen time, more dialogue, more reasoning and story & character development - he could have been interesting villain as it is. He was way too rushed and his motives way too muddled and unclear.
they tried to go “smaller stakes” with the faction war in BFA, and look what that fucking got us.
With Danuser at the helm, I'd predict the next step will be fighting against the Super Jailer, whose purpose will be inscrutable aside from "destroy all the things". Wacky stuff that makes no sense within the established lore will happen and get handwaved away. "Big Moments" will be manufactured with little or no setup and have no real weight or emotional punch. Perhaps they'll finally conclude a story that's been built up since The Lost Vikings.
Also the Super Jailer was just genociding while laughing to stop AN EVEN BIGGER THREAT.
@@stevieblunder2656 12.0 - Attack of the Super Duper Jailer!
Sire Denathrius only had 1 patch and he was already a better villain than Zovaal
It’s insane that emet was actually just the first patch of the expansion. Where as the jailer had a whole expansion
Bro, even something as short as the Ruby Weapon quest line was hella short and yet I found it to be freaking amazing.
the lengths of misery a human can endure and still have hope is astonishing :D
if it wasnt, suicide rates would be even higher.
The entire point of Endwalker if you think about it^^
Asmongold nailed it in his stream today. The best thing that could happen is that 10.0’s cinematic is just anduin waking up from a nightmare and Varian looks at him like “the jailer? Domination magic? Shadowlands? Anima? What are you talking about? The legion is invading again and also I’m still alive”
The jailer having only an expansion is not unfair. They chose to shoehorn a villain into lore and destroy their story. WoW is lucky that the gameplay (not the systems) is fun.
To be fair, they probably could have actually done something half decent if they had 1.5/2 expansions to flesh him out.
Wow is popular because of its systems, just not all of them. People love raiding, m+ and (maybe a bit less so) pvp. Also mount collecting, transmogging and stuff like that. People need to stop bitching that systems are a bad thing and there shouldnt ever be any. Because if that was the case you just have a sandbox mmo, which not many players actually enjoy. The daily shit is cancer i agree with that but that doesnt mean all systems are like that. If anything they should be more expirimental with their systems to try to hit gold again like they did with m+.
@@highertest I think that that's what they were referring to as gameplay. The systems would be things like conduits, etc.
therein lies the issue with this entire expansion, they created it to "finish one chapter of the Warcraft story" it would've been better if they didnt even finish it and just moved on.
@@anonamarth4291 you are correct
Not only Emet Selch had only one expansion, he only had the base expansion, no patches.
Really, why does anyone hold out hope for WoW? So long as this creative team is the same, same shit's going to happen. Ever since the old Blizzard folks left around Legion-time, it's just become embarrassing to watch the game stumble on and on.
because i dont care about the story and m+/raids and some pvp is still so much fun
@@btasty6042 Remind me of BFA, heard everywhere it was crap. I joined for the 3 last months and had an absolute blast for 2 months leveling all my characters and collecting the warfront armor sets. The last month was less pleasant (fighting rng for the last pieces of the sets was painfull). I wonder if I'll do the same for shadowland, putting aside all the negatives, I love how the classes play in this game.
Because the content itself is still fun, to me at least. The problems with the systems and so on are just a means to an end for a much better time.
Preach saying the word “Fandaniel” makes me giddy. I can’t wait to see how he reacts to the conclusion of Endwalker. Mike - your journey is just 3 months behind my own and I have to say FFXIV renewed my love of games in a way. Enjoy the remainder of the ride.
I want a 10.0 with the same tropes (example: THERE IS A BIGGER BAD! YOU ARE NOT READY FOR WHAT IS TO COME!)
but the main characters are trope-savvy and they'll immediately point it out that it's been done, and instead of distress, they express exasperation.
I feel like WoW is that abusive Ex who tells you they changed, you remember the good times and give them one more chance, only to get hurt again. I'm having fun playing other games now. A WotLK classic would perk my interest, but based on BC classic and the issues there, I don't know if will work past the first few months.
BC Classic is doing great tho?
@@OfficialToonology Yea he's big tripping. TBC Classic has been a success lol.
Strong content, as always Mike. thanks a bunch. Enjoy your time in Hamburg, and the buzz around WF!
Just think about it preach everything you've ever fought in game was the jailer's fault, onyxia, deathwing, lich King, Nzoth, Mankrik's wife all because of the jailer
I bet the jailor is also behind barrens chat
@@grouchy88 damn you're right...he is to blame for thousands of Chuck Norris jokes
Where's mankirks wife?!
Her name is Olgra, dude, show some respect...
@@SimplyConeh honestly I forgot her name just not barrens chat asking for her location 😂
Hey man I love hearing your take on the WoW story and development. Honestly if you just covered that and left out all of the ptr and patch stuff it would be awesome
You new?
Preach, great video. But im here for your hair updates. Your hair looks amazing and you should be thrilled. As a guy who's going through hair loss atm i would love to here how its felt having it come back.
Any hopes for a hair update video?
I just resubbed to wow for a couple of months after a year or so of ff14. Its amazing how quickly you click through every quest dialogue or cutscene. There's like a year of story beats i havent kept up with, but its so easy to not give a shit and just get into the gameplay. Which is awesome fun, by the way. I really dunno if they can genuinely fix this. Even with the best intentions (my brains rewired to enjoy cutscenes and story), it took less than a few quest texts to get straight back into the habit. They should just stick with what they've always been good at: Telling story through gameplay.
So long as Steve Danuser is in charge of the story and the lore, I have no faith whatsoever in WoW being able to turn it all around.
If I were in charge of Blizzard I would have fired him by the end of the first BfA patch.
And if I were in his position when he inherited all of this lore, I would have done things so much different... because unlike him I actually respect what Metzen did before him.
3:41 “The Amongus Mechanics”
red vented in electrical
How many bigger baddies can we get? Pretty soon we're going to be battling the universe itself.
Mad respect to all the world first casters. Seems super difficult with how much downtime there is.
I remember what Blizzard and WoW used to be. Arthas, Illidan, The Scarlet Crusade. Villains or factions, they felt tangible.
These were villains that were well written, but also sympathetic. You understood how Arthas fell from grace, you saw how conflicted Illidan was dealing with power hunger and his brother banging the love of his life, you could see why literally ANYONE could join The Scarlet Crusade after seeing and experiencing the horrors of the Scourge.
The Jailer was just some guy who couldn't explain himself to literally ANYONE outside of just wanting to "dominate" everything. There was no hint that there was somehow even a BIGGER bad behind him...and at that, HOW!? How could there be bigger bad BEHIND THE LITERAL AFTERLIFE OF ALL THINGS THAT EVER EXISTED!?
We just BEAT life AND death itself...where the hell else do you go after that!? And the whole "it was the dreadlords the whole time" thing is so stupid that they somehow have this MASTER plan in motion that is SO master planned that not even they know what the hell "the plan" is.
I came back to wow for 9.2 (after being away, post SoD clear). I'm somewhat enjoying ZM because it doesn't feel like I have to be on EVERY day, even though there's certainly a benefit to do so. I know I'll have my rep high enough by the time I need to buy the memory for my second legendary (this coming reset), so eeking out that last bit of rep by hitting every single world quest and rare every day doesn't feel necessary. I can log on and make the decision to improve my character, rather than feeling like I'm forced to do it otherwise I'll fall behind.
I sincerely hope they keep going in this direction. World content is something that should give moderate gains for relatively small amounts of work each week. No daily requirement, and no crazy long weekly. Short and sweet is how the world content should be, imo. The thing is, there is so much casual content in this game. A lot of people don't realize just how massive wow is. Sure, only a small fraction of it is relevant to increasing character power, but that's not the only thing you can spend time on in a video game. I've felt, for the first time in AGES like I can go do old world stuff just for fun (I'm working on 100% in AllTheThings on all classes, a big goal, but I'm enjoying it). It has actually helped me not to feel the grind (for current content) as acutely.
Narratively, though, I 100% agree. This is two expansions in a row that Blizz has really shit the bed with the final boss. N'zoth died way too easily, and the Jailer felt like a throwaway enemy. Provide more context, provide more meaning behind what the villain does, and it will feel so much better to beat it. Sure, the Jailer has been routing souls into the maw, including those that Elune didn't save from the burning of Teldrassil (because she thought she was helping Ardenweald with the drought), but we didn't know he was doing that when it happened, so the deed was already done before we could tie it to the big bad responsible. The only other thing that had any impact at all was his domination of Anduin. The problem is we barely got to interact with Anduin after he was saved, so we don't really get to see the emotional toll it had on him.
Also, what happened to all those super-realistic cinematics Blizz used to make? Now we only seem to get the ones using in-game models.
I guess I just feel like Blizz has really dropped the ball lately. There are a lot of things they've finally caved on (it seems like this is something we have to say near the end of every expansion now), but getting the game closer to how it should have been from the start isn't enough to have a good game. If the way things are right now was how this expansion started (systems-wise), I think things would have been so much better. Then, they could have built from a higher starting position, possibly resulting in an actually good expansion.
There's just a point you need to sever off a connection, even if you have loved that person or thing and it was endearing to you for the better part of a decade. After seeing what they've done with the story, I have zero faith in the writers. Why would anyone be hyped for 10.0? This story is so butchered, it likely will never recover, even with a Microsoft acquisition and clearing house. Theoretically they could improve gameplay, and that may bring some people back for a bit, but I don't think this team is capable to make it happen, all I've seen is creative bankruptcy time and time again.
This is from someone who attended 4 Blizzcons and played Blizz games like crazy for almost 25 years: I've moved on.
Yes, and unfortunately I've also given up on SWTOR. Why are American MMO companies so mismanaged these days? I started playing WoW in beta, and my husband and I went to the first BlizzCon as our belated honeymoon. It hurts to give up, but it hurts more to see what they've done to my beloved game world.
I started playing FFXIV in January, and I'm enjoying it so much! I got halfway through Stormblood and then started worrying that I'd run out of story since I'm retired and able to play so much, so I began leveling one of each class.
Microsoft could save wow, if they retcon BFA and shadowlands, maybe even legion and warlords, to me the last interesting plot was wrathion warning us about the legion and garrosh before he was turned evil for no good reason, he remains to be a great hero of the horde
Show me an mmorpg that has class gameplay, raids and dungeons that are as good as the ones in WoW and I'll play it for hundreds of hours. I stopped playing Shadowlands pretty early on and I hate the mandatory grinds and the story, but I haven't found any games that come close for the instanced pve content... Holding out for Riot and I will follow along with whatever happens surrounding 10.0, but I can pretty firmly state that I will never preorder a game again
I suddenly had to think about how in awe we were (well, I was...) when first meating the Aspects. I read War-of-the-Ancients and knew part of the dragons' story. Given how far we've come, everything in the past seems insignificant now...
I’m just like- what is left to tell about WoW? What can make it better at this point?
I still think Gorribal should’ve been an introduction Raid where we fight the essence of the sentient artifacts to later fight its essence
Actually joining the Horde and Alliance together might be the only thing left for them to do, but would the game survive such a thing?
Copium take: Mythic secret cinematic bridging right before the "what is to come" line. Zovaal actually succeeded in ending eternity, but died in the process, we return to a reality where cosmic entities are either dead, comatose or powerless and we are aswell. Azeroth is returned to the pangean Kalimdor and we struggle to find our place amongst all the forces that remain - dragons, elementals, Aqir and perhaps void entities clawing to have a decent story (sorry, I'm still a N'Zoth fanboy and I want him to be properly fleshed out).
Blizzard has already made the steps to not need areas in the same world by having Chromie time travel us around for leveling, why not just stay firm on present Azeroth being replaced by a remade one? Only thing is that it would be a giant undertaking to create all the areas, however I wouldn't mind a few impassable walls or instant death mechanics when attempting to traverse certain areas until they are opened up to us.
Dont forget to bring your family some Franzbrötchen from a bakery. I bet your little ones will love them
(the soggy ones are the best)
You guys remember the voice n’zoth had as a fish in the Azshara animated thingy? I wouldn’t have minded him being a bit like Emet during questing or maybe you’d say it would be more similar to a certain dragon idk please don’t get too angry that I dared compare these things
i haven't played wow for over a year.But i will still watch Preach for that glimmer of sanity.
I don't think things will change. Danuser came into the lead writing position in early-mid BfA, and chose to use the rest of that expansion to sloppily wrap up many of the loose threads to justify hopping into his Shadowlands story.
So honestly? I don't think he's invested in Warcraft beyond his own personal stories, so anything from Legion and earlier is basically off the table unless it's being rewritten.
For all intents and purposes, the Warcraft story is over for me, because there's no one committed to continuing it.
If anyone wants good lore I have high hopes for guild wars 2’s new expansion. Guild wars has always crushed lore as they tend to focus on story more than say raids. Even with their living world type storytelling it’s still much better than wow. Heck guild wars 1 prophecies is still one of the best lore stories on any mmo ever told.
There comes a point where you have to let go before all your good memories are tainted by what the game has become. The sooner you move on and wish it well the sooner you can start loving those good memories without the weight of hoping it gets better.
Did the Jailer just pull an Abe Lincoln with that line? "A house divided cannot stand."
Quintus had 2 levels, 20% of one expansion
Actually Quintus had 5 quests, 2 of which he wasnt even the focus for
I still can't believe that the Lich King has been removed from the Warcraft story so casual, The Lich King was the main guy through WC3....sooo sad
In 10.0, you travel back in time in Dragon Isles, all the way to the foundation of the cosmos.
You meet Zovaal and Primus. Then zovaal learns the future timeline.
"I take offense to my portrayal as a megalomaniacal madman!"
Please look forward to it :D
As a long time player who has stuck it out through SL I wanna respond that I certainly do not like having to log in every day to keep up with my mates (or rather, feel like I'm not letting them down). I like it best when I can raidlog on my evenings off and sometimes take a whole Saturday to play keys and what not. I'm willing to pay a sub for that, but they haven't given that since WoD.
My biggest clue if 10.0 is going to be worth it: New talent row/new class abilities, no more borrowed power. If I see another damn system that goes away with the expansion, I'm not going to even bother anymore, as it shows they still do not understand that our characters are THE most important part of an MMO.
You doing the chubby bunny marshmallow challenge was too funny lmao
The barrel has no bottom is what I've taken from this.
I've never had lower expectations towards an upcoming WoW expansion. I just hope the story for it has not been written by the same people as BFA+SL. At this point I just hope they would stop releasing "expansions" and release an entirely new game with a new engine, modernized combat AND with the original WoW story.
Shameful is the best way to put it. Holy, even as some one that's not been playing since shortly after SL launch, I feel robbed.
Remember. Remember us. Remember that we once lived...
Such a cool way to go
What's wrong with just bringing back the Defias Brotherhood or some other minor faction for an expansion?
Blizzard need to stop trying to go bigger.
I only ever watch your WoW stuff my dude, I wish you all the best in your other content
smile and wave bois, smile and wave :)
Whoa whoa whoa, making UA-cam videos AND streaming during the race? This guy!
Buddy of mine moved to FFXIV and ended up leaving once he hit savage *because* he didn't feel like he didn't have something to do every day. Like, I get it, there's a lot of content and it all isn't for everyone, but I do enjoy being able to step away and not feel obligated to do something. (He's playing LA now, instead.)
I don't think it would put off as many wow players as you think, making the story comprehensible, solo-able and more importantly skippable on repeat playthroughs, is just plain common sense tbh. Emet Selch stands as my greatest mmo villain to date, i both loved and loathed him simousltaneously.
Hope he comes back to WoW with 10.0 :)
These patches NEED to be the size of an expansion.
What if it's not a "bigger baddie" but rather an all-out conflict that threatens to destroy everything? Literally being destroyed by everyone being too strong, rather than one aspect dominating?
I honestly didn't even bother to raid this tier. And that was before I watched this "ending" cinematic.
At first, I adamantly left very early in 9.1. And thought I was done with WoW for good. Then, a few guild members asked me to play TBC with them this past February. They're friends, so I gladly played with them for a few weeks. Thus, I tried Shadow Lands once again. I had an active sub, why not?
It held my interest for all of 4 days. Then when 9.2 dropped, I didn't even log in for it.
This story direction sadly matched the rest of my shadow lands experience: Sub-par and not worth admission. The current state of WoW is a game I would not play for free. Let alone as a subscription. And after adoring this game for a decade, that statement makes me very sad.
I had a small hope the Microsoft purchase might change the overall direction of the franchise away from what many of us view as a very, very negative direction. But, that remains to be seen. I'll believe it when I see it. And this "ending" to Shadow Lands has not been cause for optimism. I will try 10.0. I will give it one month at launch. That's it. It either holds my interest, or I'm writing-off the whole next expansion and perhaps finally the entire game. Because, of their pattern of behavior and the distinct direction of there game following Legion... well it's not a direction I want to go as a player. And I'm just done hoping and waiting they will "fix it". They very likely will not
Great to see Mike living such a passionate life
I’m an ff14 player and never touched wow but when I was thinking of trying mmo, it was always among the candidates. I’ll keep looking at it through these channels and when I have time and money (I can’t afford only one game in terms of time and money and don’t want to do all in half way but one to the full), I want to try out if it seems good (and hope it will gain its power in the end. It’s good to have multiple options).
Mike has stopped showcasing wow fully, You'd do better just watching random streams on twitch since most youtubers on here are either extremely scandalous to bring clicks or literally bootlickers. During the FF 14 content draught that will come, you can just jump on WoW and do M+s But you'll have to deal with Its shit catch up and dogshit timegated grinds for X or you wont be able to access Y ... Just because. Right now Its a lowpoint and you'd be better off playing a SP game.
I miss playing my warrior, class I reroll to when I started SL to keep things fresh. But even that couldn’t help with the unfun gameplay design and content grind. Not even mentioning the aggressive community aspect in group content.
Strange to see Preach covering a race to World 1st. Expected someone who's still invested in the game.
I am of the mind of, Hey I got exactly all I wanted. I'll be taking a break I'll be back in a few weeks, etc. I think that should be totally fine.
Not to defend the jailer too much, but I think people oversell the "Emet was just a one-expansion villain" a bit sometimes. A lot of what raises Emet from likeable to Great is the weight of his story, and how it reveals and builds upon plot points that started way back in ARR. The Jailer's genuinely a one-expac villain because he likely never existed before the writers tried to shoe him in via retcons, but while Emet only shows up for one expac, his story was probably already in the writers' general outlines for a long time before that. So I feel like it's a bit rude to the Jailer to expect anyone to care about him anywhere near as much as Emet, when Emet started the race long beforehand, even if nobody realized it at the time.
Wished Preachgaming did the daily preach, webshow or played different games. That was the content I liked the most.
The KEKW had me rolling. 😂🤣
Exactly look how much people love arthus as the lich king still to this day the best baddie we have had in the best expansion the blizz devs have lost their way caterings for the 1% of the player base needs a full reset back to a wrath style expansion
it's sargeras 2.0
Big guy see what the void can do, decide to kill everything ( unite everything in the death army) against void.
yeah The Jailer as a whole was Walmart Thanos, sheer shit that they tied the past 20 years of Warcraft to, holy shit what a letdown. "this was all part of MY design, but i'm doing it to save the cosmos." what a load of horseshit...
if they do another big bad they need to go balls to wall bad. downright evil but justifiable and/or relatable to some degree. I feel like that was originally planned for the jailor but got scrapped early
Personally I'd love *some* coverage of 10.0. Obviously it's about what Mike wants, but PG has generally been the best WoW related channel out there.
Emet Selch
Emet had a patch and a couple of scenes in Stormblood, meanwhile this Steroid Lego BDSM title man gets an entire expansion and somehow retroactively makes the entire Warcraft franchise bad.
To be fair, the only reason why I know about this whole mess; since I never played WoW back in the day; was because they market this as "the end of the warcraft (1 lol) saga, from all the way back to RoC and the FT" when they had no business touching those story elements since they clearly don't understand how to build a proper villain, that doesn't somehow ends up reedeming himself/herself due to the need of building the next looming unknown threat that will surely bring the end of all because the last bad guy said it.
Worst part is that the Jailer wasn't even bad according to that cinematic but there's no way you could have know that because there's no foreshadowing and every NPC and their mother is telling you that he has to be stopped, even tho "re-writing the rules of reality" doesn't even sound like something bad. You're forced to believe he will bring the end of the world while doing so because he's a bad guy, and bad guys do that because they're bad. It lacks so much that it doesn't even know what they want to do with any character in this expansion:
1) Sylvanas: Reedemed because we need her to keep the plot points and thematic story elements, as little as they are, going
2) Anduin: He......saved himself or smth? He had a cool cinematic but that's about it.
3) The Jailer: I want to say they were trying to make Warcraft Thanos, but he's honestly more similar to "The Arbiter" from that dead game called Anthic....Anthuc.......Anthem? Who knows.....
4) Arthas: He had no fucking reason to be even mentioned and no reason to end as a wisp. His ending is somewhat fitting but him being lectured by Sylvanas, the one person to fuck everyone up due to her believe in the Jailer's cause (I know, mind control and shit but that was lazily implemented so who cares) was just blatant favoritism. I know they like her that much, but come on. All she had to do was admit that she was becoming like him and that make her loath herself for it and that's it.
So that's about it. The story is clearly rushed and uninspired but hey, at least the raids are cool from what I heard. Hope the people who are still playing are having fun.
Have fun man
You know what's the worst? The fact that by the end of the next expansion, they will bring back the Jailer. His body is relatively intact, they will reactivate him and REDEEEEEEEEEEM.
All we have is hope and Blizzard is doing a great job of killing hope. They even make it a staple of their main story.
One expansion is still 2 years, thats plenty long enough to make us care about a story
What is hard for people like myself is reconciling the great respect they have for you with the complete and utter lack of respect for the game and its developers and writers. People like me stopped playing not just because it wasn't fun or the story was ruined, but also because we just do not endorse Blizzard or WoW any longer. And with that comes the hope that enough people stop giving Blizzard money for them to be forced to change. Not just less money so they will kinda change in the short term but then go back to how things have always gone later.
But I will say that if they somehow pull off a miracle, and either restructure the company or finally learn to not go back to their bullshit ways every time, AND 10.0 manages to actually be fun, and rewarding, and maybe has a story that isn't dogshit, then I might give it a try again. Shadowlands was supposed to be the absolute last chance, but if people are actually overwhelmingly happy with 10.0, I'll consider resubbing for a month.
What is more likely, though, is that we will have more mandatory nonsense, more shit story, more shit gearing systems that took up development resources, and so on.
I dropped WoW early BFA came back because of friends then quit half way into bastion on release day and came back months later because of that itch but quit again becuase it just kept getting worse. At this point the next time I touch WoW at all will be 10.2 on the onus that they show they have fixed almost all their mistakes and learned from them properly.
Blizzard did a lot better when they weren't trying so hard to tell a deep, intricate story. Just give us a big damn villain and let us be big damn heroes.
Here's to hoping that 10.0 will reignite the love for the game. It's most likely more of a rekindling, rather than re-ignition... if anything. But WoW needs to stop with the FOMO. It's what is driving people away. If I have to do another Korthia, then that's it. If I have to fight another, bigger baddie... I am not interested. This is Marvel-levels of power creep going on. Thanos - Galactus - the beyonder - the one above all.... it's just getting ridiculous and unfun.
The biggest problem with story seems to be they relied too much on big surprise moment, the writing doesn't even know how to write an actual story anymore. It's like a whole movie made by trailer studio.
Hate to keep comparing this shit to Marvel but this would be like if when Thanos was turning to dust in End Game and he looked at the camera and said "Kang the Conqueror"
There’s going to be a bit of a shift in gaming I mean. Content creators by and large will move away from the boring games that make lots of money and focus more in games that have artistic vision. The boring games won’t go away, they will make bank forever. But I expect them to be talked about less and less.
i guess the thing that confuses me, as someone who tried really hard to get into xiv after leaving wow, about calls from former wow players for a more "grounded" story is that the most recent xiv expansions were (1) alternate universe time travel opposite day and (2) the moon (now a spaceship), the first ones (literally just the first ones from shadowlands), and the literal 'edge of the universe' all rolled into a single patch-i wonder why xiv can apparently get away with that where wow apparently can't.
Short answer: Better writing.
Because the writing in wow is complete dog shit
It was properly setup and now that it's over, XIV is (hopefully) de-escalating with 6.1 onwards instead of trying to continue to escalate, that's the difference.
2 things:
1 - the stuff in FFXIV were built in solid foundations. The Ascians were established, the primals, Zodiark, Elidibus on the moon. And for each new stuff, it was built on those foundations. You can say that Legion did that as well.
2 - story presentation. Might've been one patch. But it was one patch with hours upon hours upon hours of cutscenes and dialogues. Emet selch on Stormblood patches alone had almost as much dialogue as the Jailer had through the entirety of Shadowlands.
You can get away with a lot of crazy concepts if your audience cares about the characters and the world at stake. For example, see what Marvel has done differently from the DCEU. If there isn't any level of emotional attachment, then you just have spectacle, and spectacle repeated over and over gets boring (see how many Hollywood big-budget sequels bomb).
In older WoW, they at least tried to write some amount of character into their stories. Prior to WotLK, Bolvar was just the regent in Stormwind who stood around doing nothing until people came by for their Onyxia attunement. WotLK release gave him an active role in a Dragonblight questline and when the Wrathgate cutscene played, we felt for his loss (we wouldn't find out until ICC a year later that he survived). A WoW-original character that was active for maybe ten quests total elicited an emotional reaction when he died.
The same expansion also introduced Garrosh, who would slowly transform over the next few expansions into a WoW-original villain. Some people hated Garrosh and everything he stood for, some people liked him, but he actually had a character arc and the audience had a reaction for him, good or bad.
How do you feel about the Jailer? Do you feel anything over his demise? I didn't play Shadowlands so I don't have a personal anecdote, but the impression I'm getting from players that have is they're either indifferent or exhausted.
Roses are Red, violets are blue,
My man's hairs are blooming
You know that shit it's definetely true
Sadly the eternity down Is going
Like Blizzard clownfiesta, clearly nothing new
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We need a design shift,
The faith in the Company Is long time gone
But if 10.0 wow Will lift
You know an unknown Adventurer we have to become.
There is a way to make this terrible ending a little bit better. Interpret his answer differently. It’s still a bad ending but it’s much better than what we got if you interpret it literally.
Why did you do all of this? What if he just didn’t answer the question: he ignores it and basically told us to F off. Gave us the middle finger by not telling us why. Divided you all are doomed there’s a bigger threat coming. What if he’s just taking comfort and solace in his death knowing this bigger threat will get his revenge for him. Think about it he never explained himself to the other first ones or the primus he’s definitely not going to explain himself to mere mortals. We are so far beneath him in his mind he doesn’t need to explain anything. That would actually be in character for him too lore wise what little personality he has.
Don't even have to bring up Selch to show how boring the Jailer is. Look at Denathius: side-villain with only one zone and a raid, and he was a way more compelling character and antagonist than Zovaal, even with what little spotlight he was given. He tied better into older lore too (dreadlords).
PREACH
I appreciate your respectfull but hard critique. I cant stand the disrespectul hate from other big Wow UA-cam channels, that then Wonder why they dont have a good connection to Blizzard. They disrespect the Team by galling stuff garbage etc but can still make a Fortune of Wow content without hesistation.