It's almost as if the workplace came to be dominated by a mentality that believes that listening to everyone's opinions and avoiding interpersonal conflict is more important than following a talented few individuals who have a strong singular tangible vision for the game's narrative. But why would that be, I wonder?🤔
This isn't a challenge for game design . This is a challenge for extremely poorly run companies . Usually publicly traded companies where the main focus isn't making good games . It's making monetization schemes and attaching a game to it
This also applies for the cosmetic side of things.
Where is the class fantasy? Look at how much effort went into making these stupid sailor moon outfits and weapons Vs a class themed “set” like the Light Avenger (Scarlet Crusade plate) set which only has 3 pieces, and no weapons accessories to go with it.
It’s ridiculous. The art team needs direction too. It seems like it’s “Yay that’s fun do what you want!”
Matt is completely right regarding the fact that WeW does NOT take advantage of making the fights a cinematic spectacle. 14 utterly humiliates WoW in this aspect.
What’s kinda quaint about this whole discussion is that while it’s indeed important to improve the quality of the actual story feel of world of Warcraft, at the end the day, does that even matter to the actual people who are spending money on retail WoW these days? The majority doesn’t care about plot, they don’t even care if the raids are actually that cool looking, they just want more mazes to run, more hamster wheels to spin. Not even the garbage from shadowlands could stop this exact group of paying customers from coming and keeping WoW afloat and not render that expansion an unmitigated financial disaster.
I look back and WoD did some things great. The "Lords of War" things were excellent for establishing a tone for some of the key characters. The zone themes were great. Each zone had that special ability choice thing, taking a follower out with you, and the theme in general felt great at the start. The garrisons as a theme were neat.. even now it's cool to see so many different characters I remember meeting or doing things with/for. Their major mistake was how tightly they integrated the garrison (and associated grinding) into the leveling/story progression.. for every single character and how grind-heavy the garrison and shipyard were at times. WoD was also cut very short but what was there did feel very much like a Warcraft game. DF feels different, not very Warcraft-like, even from the that opening cinematic and the theme song especially.
The worst thing is even after all the teams creating things, you've got too many teams reviewing. There's a whole 'diversity' team in the process now, which in practice is often there to sanitize the work of character
Have to be honest I can no longer stand this channel. I'll be leaving, all you do is whine about everything. I figured out what happened for me and it is Matt, since he joined you it has been mostly a whine fest. I still like the main channel as it still feels like old Bell but this one can fall off the face of earth.
There was a historian who got laid off in r/wow who gave us a small insight of what they do and how they do it and at some point he explains there's a big disconnect to the point that some people would just do something because "is cool".
No wonder why DF feels and reads like a really bad fanfic where the author went full self insert mode.
and this is going to get worse cause Blizzard have said they want to release wow expansions faster than they barely were able to before. Patches are going to get even more formulaic and copy-paste content as the skeleton crew on the current expansion have to rush to things in the roadmap with barely any resources as most of the dev team are already working on the next expansion
I think Fyrrak was a great fight. The problem is more with the theme of the raid itself. Similar issue happened in Shadowlands. Castle Nathria was way cooler than Sepulcher. In Dragonflight, Vault of The Incarnates is way cooler than Amirdrassil. It feels like Blizzard can't up the cool factor as raids go on, like they have a bunch of ideas and put their strongest one first, and then don't match it properly. I think for a raid to work, it needs to be cool even without the context. Amirdrassil is too white, too clean. Similar theme was handled much better in Legion's Nighthold – a clean, white city, yet it looks epic. Amirdrassil didn't feel epic at all. I hear Aberrus, but I skipped that gear season so I actually don't know. I pranced through the instance for some of the quests and it looked really cool.
What would make Amirdrassil epic is the narrative surrounding it, and I really don't think it landed – the ending was silly and the setup wasn't really there. Mechanically Fyrrak is an awesome fight. It simply doesn't hit the epic levels of Razsageth or Sire Denathrius – their arenas, their raids were simply cooler. I think fundamentally the idea of the raid in the emerald dream isn't a good one and Blizz probably did the best they could…. I think it would've been way more epic if Fyrrak actually burned everything down and we fought in the smoldering ashes of the Emeral Dream, but the story nerds probably wouldn't like that one.
The fact that something as big as reclaiming an alliance homeland for themselves didn't get a system like Isle of Queldanas is so fucking stupid.
How cant we have a side zone that was ALREADY DESIGNED AS A QUEST HUB have the same amount of effort as something that was made like 15 years ago is mind boggling.
Couldhave had NPCs that were relevant to the worgen starting zone making a comeback and referencing those events, get more of genn admitting he fucked up, reflecting on how crowly or whoever from SFK was wrong and such in his ways, but he was gilnean…… ALL of that good shit, just gone because they wanted to throw it into a last second expansion patch???? They couldn't have held this off as a side activity to START in TWW and have it be a side project for the WHOLE expansion?????
Iam Off to ff14 the Story and i mean real Story the world. ..wonderful.
It's almost as if the workplace came to be dominated by a mentality that believes that listening to everyone's opinions and avoiding interpersonal conflict is more important than following a talented few individuals who have a strong singular tangible vision for the game's narrative. But why would that be, I wonder?🤔
This isn't a challenge for game design . This is a challenge for extremely poorly run companies .
Usually publicly traded companies where the main focus isn't making good games . It's making monetization schemes and attaching a game to it
the only direction that was given in dragonflight was to make as many homosexual NPCs as possible and cut back on the war part of warcraft
Corporations are built on the concept of perfecting the factory. Art doesn't work real well in a factory framework.
This also applies for the cosmetic side of things.
Where is the class fantasy? Look at how much effort went into making these stupid sailor moon outfits and weapons Vs a class themed “set” like the Light Avenger (Scarlet Crusade plate) set which only has 3 pieces, and no weapons accessories to go with it.
It’s ridiculous. The art team needs direction too. It seems like it’s “Yay that’s fun do what you want!”
Matt is completely right regarding the fact that WeW does NOT take advantage of making the fights a cinematic spectacle. 14 utterly humiliates WoW in this aspect.
Matt, please go to a barber. They will shape up your beard and tell you about good products and ways to maintain it looking good.
You got a good growth so I respect growing it, but it's too untamed my friend.
WOD did incredible for gameplay based story telling and I'll die on that hill. At least in it's opening content.
So much of that was so damn hype.
What’s kinda quaint about this whole discussion is that while it’s indeed important to improve the quality of the actual story feel of world of Warcraft, at the end the day, does that even matter to the actual people who are spending money on retail WoW these days? The majority doesn’t care about plot, they don’t even care if the raids are actually that cool looking, they just want more mazes to run, more hamster wheels to spin. Not even the garbage from shadowlands could stop this exact group of paying customers from coming and keeping WoW afloat and not render that expansion an unmitigated financial disaster.
I look back and WoD did some things great. The "Lords of War" things were excellent for establishing a tone for some of the key characters. The zone themes were great. Each zone had that special ability choice thing, taking a follower out with you, and the theme in general felt great at the start. The garrisons as a theme were neat.. even now it's cool to see so many different characters I remember meeting or doing things with/for. Their major mistake was how tightly they integrated the garrison (and associated grinding) into the leveling/story progression.. for every single character and how grind-heavy the garrison and shipyard were at times. WoD was also cut very short but what was there did feel very much like a Warcraft game. DF feels different, not very Warcraft-like, even from the that opening cinematic and the theme song especially.
Why is Matt talking about yogg + lights? I thought the last boss was fyrakk 😂
Superbloom is way better then researchers under fire that was a trash event
The worst thing is even after all the teams creating things, you've got too many teams reviewing. There's a whole 'diversity' team in the process now, which in practice is often there to sanitize the work of character
Have to be honest I can no longer stand this channel. I'll be leaving, all you do is whine about everything. I figured out what happened for me and it is Matt, since he joined you it has been mostly a whine fest. I still like the main channel as it still feels like old Bell but this one can fall off the face of earth.
There was a historian who got laid off in r/wow who gave us a small insight of what they do and how they do it and at some point he explains there's a big disconnect to the point that some people would just do something because "is cool".
No wonder why DF feels and reads like a really bad fanfic where the author went full self insert mode.
Garbage developers who can't make new fun games.
Its also very disconnected to think wow has the same dev cycle as beluars unity game
Blizz can put out content fast or they can put out content good, they seemingly can't do both.
and this is going to get worse cause Blizzard have said they want to release wow expansions faster than they barely were able to before. Patches are going to get even more formulaic and copy-paste content as the skeleton crew on the current expansion have to rush to things in the roadmap with barely any resources as most of the dev team are already working on the next expansion
I think Fyrrak was a great fight. The problem is more with the theme of the raid itself. Similar issue happened in Shadowlands. Castle Nathria was way cooler than Sepulcher. In Dragonflight, Vault of The Incarnates is way cooler than Amirdrassil. It feels like Blizzard can't up the cool factor as raids go on, like they have a bunch of ideas and put their strongest one first, and then don't match it properly. I think for a raid to work, it needs to be cool even without the context. Amirdrassil is too white, too clean. Similar theme was handled much better in Legion's Nighthold – a clean, white city, yet it looks epic. Amirdrassil didn't feel epic at all. I hear Aberrus, but I skipped that gear season so I actually don't know. I pranced through the instance for some of the quests and it looked really cool.
What would make Amirdrassil epic is the narrative surrounding it, and I really don't think it landed – the ending was silly and the setup wasn't really there. Mechanically Fyrrak is an awesome fight. It simply doesn't hit the epic levels of Razsageth or Sire Denathrius – their arenas, their raids were simply cooler. I think fundamentally the idea of the raid in the emerald dream isn't a good one and Blizz probably did the best they could…. I think it would've been way more epic if Fyrrak actually burned everything down and we fought in the smoldering ashes of the Emeral Dream, but the story nerds probably wouldn't like that one.
The fact that something as big as reclaiming an alliance homeland for themselves didn't get a system like Isle of Queldanas is so fucking stupid.
How cant we have a side zone that was ALREADY DESIGNED AS A QUEST HUB have the same amount of effort as something that was made like 15 years ago is mind boggling.
Couldhave had NPCs that were relevant to the worgen starting zone making a comeback and referencing those events, get more of genn admitting he fucked up, reflecting on how crowly or whoever from SFK was wrong and such in his ways, but he was gilnean…… ALL of that good shit, just gone because they wanted to throw it into a last second expansion patch???? They couldn't have held this off as a side activity to START in TWW and have it be a side project for the WHOLE expansion?????