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Warcraft is coming up on it’s 30th anniversary, and with any franchise that old, there starts to be some growing pains in the story. If we want the franchise to keep going for another 30, we need to accept that it’s about time to start passing the torch.
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Credits
Warcraft 1 gameplay – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7U8mlfTDMc&t=2989s
Warcraft 3 gameplay – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwrx3dW8ZlU&t=5s
World of Warcraft gameplay – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNxgu5bueAQ&t=216s
Warcraft 3 Tyrande Gameplay – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6TbZeA_-Uw
Tess Rogue Campaign – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY8RJLh5pKk&t=23s
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00:00 Intro
0:48 The Problem
1:45 The Sylvanas Case
4:06 A Quick Message
4:45 My Story
6:08 The Varian Case
7:20 The Future
9:28 Outro
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New characters would be awesome, let the game continue cause there is many people who still love it.
I've been playing this game for a month now, and if someone were to tell me that this game's story is being written by a 9-yr old, I'd believe them.
The story isn't as complex, it's just too big, so big that more than half of the things don't make sense, plot holes are so huge Sargeras' sword couldn't plug them, and lore shields that keep things going just because they have to put JoJo's bizarre adventures to shame.
If Bliz is at all smart, they should be developing a viable way to make WoW continue or some iteration of a "WoW 2"
I have to disagree with some of this video. The past shouldn't be discarded but embraced, especially when it comes to fantasy worlds. Characters like Khadgar, Tyrande, Jaina, and Thrall must be constant characters in the Warcraft universe for all different reasons. Khadgar is Warcraft's version of Gandalf. It doesn't matter how old Khadgar is, we need an elderly mage because its a rule in any fantasy franchise. Tyrande and Furion are Night Elves which they are partically immortal so they don't have the flaws as mortals. I could say similar things about Thrall. I hate this "Ditch the old!" mentality because that same mentaliy brought us garbage like Rings of Power. There was a time where Blizzard and Warcraft had this attitude of "screw the past, lets give them something new" and that was during Mist of Pandaria which wasn't a good thing. I didn't like Mist of Pandaria because everything felt so foreign and it didn't feel like Warcraft or the traditional fantasy Warcraft should represent.
great points made.
I think you put it best when you said that characters need to have naturally endings. When it makes sense for them to end they should.
But I would argue that this includes WoW. WoW can't go on forever. There need to be a point where it needs to end. At least in my opinion.
Damn you made me feel old. I remember meeting Jaina and she was a teenage badass. Now she's in her 40s and the horde and alliance still tryin to start a war.
This gives the vibes like Naruto and Boruto. Naruto had his story, now its time for Boruto. What I think we need is more Cameo type of moments for the story to be great.
Remember proud Gilneans…our rightful king renounced his crown for depression and dementia finally set in…and after a lifetime of failures…Gilneas is finally in the "right hands"
A woman's hands!.
And no i have nothing against Tess…they actually made her look great but the way it was delivered felt hallow and unearned.
here's the thing
they've tried moving on and it's resulting in the game and lore feeling insanely hollow
the faction conflict was what drove the story
Garrosh Hellscream was a great motivator for that
but instead of bliz pulling a grand grom hellscream call back we got an execution and ever since then they seemingly just didn't know what to do
Thrall could have had his retirement
Garrosh could have remained warchief or potentially had a kid like Grom did
idk how to explain it but it just would have been way easier to build a story around him and his actions than what we got
Isn't it ironic? We complain about the ancient people who run things. Greyheads in politics, greyheads in economy, education, even the gaming industry. All these greyhaired oldies making all the decisions and not allowing fresh blood a chance at the reigns. Many of them are still competent and useful, but their undiminished roles prevent perhaps even better, younger folks from taking charge of the vision of the future. And yet, we continue to drag the walking near-corpses of narratives of characters around, never letting them rest.
That's what this video illustrates so well. Sometimes for the adventure to continue, some stories simply need to… end. It was put so eloquently and succinctly; they need "legacy." I think a lot of players aren't so much blinded by their favorites being around forever, as they are sort of apprehensive of what a replacement could mean. Look at the War Within preview of Anduin. The backlash he got for being a "crybaby." He's not like Varian. People are often afraid that the replacement will be some weaker or less-cool version of what they have known or admired. But without legacy, all we continue to get (from Blizz) is soft retcons and confusing plots. Eventually, the oldies-but-goodies will be so watered down they won't even resemble what we knew, anyway. We might as well take a chance on some changes.
Jaina lives long enough to broker a lasting peace between the horde and alliance, only to be betrayed from within and murdered in cold blood….
If we see another Thrall and Jaina teamup where they go "Its good to work together old friend" I will shit my pants.
I mean paying attention to the story leading up to War Within, they are finishing up the stories and bringing in a lot of New Character (Genns daughter, Merithra, Tyrande's adopted daughter) So I think this is already something they are working on. They're passing the Torch onto the new peeps, its obvious if you pay attention
What was good was the leveling process, i remember replaying the NE starting area over and over. Now we can just rush trough it. The story is there, but skipped. Characters feel empty
WORGEN WORGEN WORGEN!!!!!!!!!!!!
That the legacy characters take a step back is needed because the writers have no fucking clue how to write for them. They did all of the OG characters dirty over the years…
If they could write some new characters that people give a shit about…
As a majority Horde player I disliked Anduin basically the whole game, but the War Within cutscene did something for me and i'm interested in his story. However I agree, stop trying to think of weird things for these old ass characters to do and build some new good ones.
That being said, as far as antagonists go they did well with Xal'atath and Iridikron, now we just need some newer good guys (I wholeheartedly agree with Tess taking a more focal point for a while, but I don't care for Shandris). I'd love to see some horde heroes come up too.
I agree we need to let these heroes have a great send off, or a way to push the narrative forward. I hate to see them go because it feels like the last bit of Old Warcraft, but I also disagree about who should take their place. I think Anduin is a good replacement since he's been a prominent face since Vanilla, Tess is kinda new and harder to adjust to. If they wanted to move in this direction, it would have to be through the next expansion or 2
I would have loved to see Dranosh and Garrosh carry the torch their fathers left. Now two of Orcish History’s most prolific bloodlines are ended. It’s a little sad to think about. Arnok from WoD was Eitrigg’s son right? Orcs are really lacking for a new age of heroes
It's really about having a vision of the character development that spawns across multiple "titles", and deliver it properly.
Varian vs Genn or Malfyrande.
LETS GOOOOO! NEW VIDEOOOO!
But yes, i do think its time fornold heros to pass on the torch and many have. Saurfang to Zappy Boi, Ysera to her daughter, Varian to Anduin, and a few others. Its time for new names to put etched into warcrsft history and build up their own legacy.
Back when the War was the story they could kill characters like Lothar and Orgrim and add new ones like Thrall and Varian. It worked. Now there is no war, so the characters ARE the story. These same characters Blizzard keeps adding into Hearthstone, HotS, Warcraft Rumble, etc. Characters like Thrall and Jaina have outgrown WoW and became immortal, sort of synonyms for Warcraft. They can't just resolve their stories and replace them.
I just realized Jaina's like 43, at this point her hair must be white due to age and not the magic radiation
Tess is a secondary character no one cares about Imho.
Yes there was the rogue class quest (I don't consider Heartstone canonical to WoW), but is it enough?
Nope.
I had lot of talks about this topic with friends and i often mentioned that the best way they handled any of their characters it was Varian.
Because the moment his story arc was over his end not only was fitting it was also a benefit for Anduin to be free to develop as a character.
i've been saying this for EVER. i completely agree with whatever you say. i GREW UP with Sylvanas. to me she was the most epic character period. heck i even wished her to die on top of Oribos while sacrificing herself for Anduin. i was ready and happy for her to go for the smallest amount of redemption and an attempt to preserve her legacy. though i'm still happy that she's alive. WOW needs new generation of heroes and characters. like give Jaina someone to fall for and have a child.
Ironically, I think Genn and Tyrande were two characters who did not need to leave the story at this time. Genn stills serves a great purpose as Anduin's guiding uncle. Tyrande is the leader of an immortal people. There is no reason for her to take a back seat. Tess was thrown to the forefront out of nowhere, and the focus on her with the Gilnean reclamation really took away from Genn's story and hurt the narrative as a whole. Shandris is a good general, but there's no reason she should be made leader of the night elves. Characters like Thrall certainly should take a back seat, but Blizz won't develop any new characters for certain races to look to. The world as a whole has been neglected so much at this point that a reset is almost needed to move forward without more wonky sendoffs like those seen in 10.2.5.
Game is still fun. Unfortunately it’s a mob mentality to shit on it. Love the vids btw
"…they're still kicking around and pulling up to the raids"
Great writing to supplement thoughtful points. Love the content!
WoW2 when
As someone who also coincidentally started with mop while being 12, I have to wholeheartedly agree with how relatable and also organic Anduin's fate throughout the times felt! And it's also sad to see that he's somehow also one of the very few characters who actually got this treatment. Newer developments in story telling have me a liiittle bit more hopeful and I really do hope the story writers go continue to invest more time to properly develop other characters and make them shine.
((also as someone who used to be a huge Sylvanas fan, I hope she's gonna be in the Maw for a longer time and not have any additional arc(s) any time soon, pls.))
One thing that has always annoyed me especially when it comes to leaders and major characters is, very few of them have children or are married. There's also almost never any extended family ever shown of these characters. Almost none of them have any siblings, cousins or aunts and uncles. Which would make for interesting dynamics.
you and I are some of the few that like the fact wow is moving on to the other characters and letting the older characters take a break.
you started play in Pandaria, man you started when wow alredy died =)
I love your future forward approach to looking at the story. Here's to 20 more years.
Oh? Shandris is in control now? That's pretty cool, she was in WC3 but I don't recall what she really did but she had a unique texture on the model Sylvanis uses, nice to know she's trusted enough 🙂
Chris Metzen is already in the process to end this warcraft Era with The world soul saga.
The problem might have started with Legion. Why do i say this? It's simple: they started pruning there. But they also placed the player character before Legion into a spotlight.
The player character would never always remain a regular adventurer. I always knew that. I grew up with Warcrsft III. Played it on my dad's Dell laptop and a Compaq PC. This was the early 2000's.
And you're right. Certain characters are getting old. Malfurion and Tyrande needed to step back. The story at least set that up.
Tyrande's rage and hate, and Malfurion barely around or relegated to end of expansion and pre expansion events. He barely shows up in the middle parts of the story. Her rage was shown off as early as WC III, but was really highlighted in MoP, when the High King called her on it.
Genn just needs to step back. He's a great character, full of development, but he's had that. It's time to let him rest. Let his daughter rule Gilneas.
Anduin has had a journey. I was there for almost all of it, but I didn't get his Vanilla story. Never made it to post 60 back then.
The tauren had their leader switched at Cata a d Baine has been… shafted in the story. Give the damn tauren chief a story! Not sitting around in Orobos and not taking the fight to the Jailer.
The current writing team needs to step up. They set up stories, but hardly follow through, or it's a huge letdown.
I always imagined Jaina could retire and maybe have a little mage school in Boralus, being a mentor to the new generations of heroes.. it feels like it would suit her. Thrall could be hanging out with his family in Nagrand.. and so on. This would allow for new characters to become the forefront of the story, while still having the old characters somewhere out there in the world and use them IF something that's happening in the new lore is relevant to their life story