MoP the Story

[Theotherone]

So, one of my big issues with Cata was the lack of an engaging story in line; yeah Deathwing sucked and was all bad, but who gave a damn he wasn't around that much. I felt no connection to the story, hell I couldn't even tell what the story was outside of DW wants to destroy Azeroth.

However, I think Blizzard has done a great job with MoP. I actually feel engaged again. I wish the Klaxxi had a role in HoF, but that's kind of a small gripe. Now with Operation Shieldwall and Jaina coming back it's getting interesting. Also doing the Lorewalkers faction tells the history nicely; I think Chen needs a bit more development but think that's coming. The Shao Pan have a greater role to play and Varian is finally evolving as is Anduain. The Alliance is finally getting some love. Haven't gotten my Horde toons to 90 yet (87 on my DK now) so I have not seen much of the story from that side yet. But what I've seen I like so far i.e. not everything is solved by burte force.

I don't know, the world just seems rich these days, not dead and storyless as in Cata. What do you all think?

[sifuedition]

I pay very little attention to the lore, honestly, outside of what other people say about it. I find it funny that Blizz decided to NOT have an engaging meaningful "boss" as the protagonist and suddenly...the story actually gets better in popular opinion? Seems odd that not having a defined protagonist would make the story easier to make compelling, but...there you go.

Edit:
I wonder if the defined role they have given to dailies is the impetus here. Maybe they didn't invest much into the idea of questing story lines because so few did them before beyond whatever reward they could get, be that a tabard or arcanum or shoulder inscription. Since they realize players will "need" them for rep, valor and charms, maybe they just decided to invest more development time into it all for this expansion.

[Airowird]

I pay very little attention to the lore, honestly, outside of what other people say about it. I find it funny that Blizz decided to NOT have an engaging meaningful "boss" as the protagonist and suddenly...the story actually gets better in popular opinion? Seems odd that not having a defined protagonist would make the story easier to make compelling, but...there you go.

Vanilla didn't have a main antagonist and that had some pretty nice lore if you bothered to quest while levelling.

The problem with WotLK & Cataclysm lore design wasn't so much that it had a Big Bad looming at the end, it was that ALL the lore was tied into that final enemy in some way. MoP finally has factions again that aren't all linked to eachother. You don't need the Mogu/Troll arc to explain the Mantid/Klaxxi story and that isn't needed in the Horde/Alliance rivalry arc (although they both come from the same source, the Sha, they aren't really linked to eachother in any other way)

PS: tBC was kind of a halfway expansion, with Mag-TK/SSC-BT-Sunwell being one storyline and KZ, Gruul, ZA & Hyjal being all separate of the Illidan 'faction'.

[feralminded]

To be honest I actually felt like the story was kind of lax in MoP UNTIL the 5.1 dailies brought it back. The questing storylines from 85-90 really didn't grip me much outside of a few here or there (and most were actually in Jade forest ... towards the end the storylines got muddled and lost me). But I am horde so perhaps they just put better writing into the alliance this time. That said 5.1, despite the fact that I despise dailies, actually are using them well to tell their story and that much I can certainly appreciate.

One thing I kind of wish they would do would be to have a true max-level zone like we had in vanilla and BC rather than just pure levelling zones. I miss having questing to do (with purpose). They kind of fill this niche with the new daily hubs but they lack the scope and purpose of dedicated zones. I have extremely fond memories of silithus, Shadowmoon, and Netherstorm. Of course we're talking about the scope of the expansion as well ... I for one would prefer to go back to a 10 level expansion instead of a 5 level one. More zones, more content, more stories, more world. BC and Northrend both felt and certainly were bigger than Cataclysm and MoP ... they had to be ... and this simply made the levelling process feel more like a journey. Also when the journey is that vast with that many different possible paths to follow you end up with more interesting, and flavorful corners. Like the little side-reps you could find in both BC and WoTLK, or the amazing and neat things that sometimes happened at the end of zones that few people finished, etc etc. These kinds of things add flavor, mystery, and replayability to the content. In Cataclysm I levelled one character to 85 and I had seen roughly 75% of all the content. It was sad. Even in MoP it was a bit better but was still like 60-65%. In Northrend and Outland the number was closer to 40%. That's big ... huge even ... and it made a big difference on my will or drive to experience and explore the content a 2nd, 3rd, 5th time.

Also I feel like their zone design has gotten less and less innovative. Jade forest was honestly pretty stunning to look at from the ground up but beyond that none of the zones really did much for me. Kasarang, Townlong, and Kunlai were all notably uninspiring which made me sad. I still remember fondly many of the zones in BC (the majority of BC era players I know still list Nagrand as their favorite zone of all time, and Netherstorm was extremely unique and creative as were most of the zones). Northrend didn't have any serious knock-out like Nagrand (though they obviously tried with Scholozar) ... but I felt the quality and diversity in the zones did the expansion justice. Even in Cataclysm I have to give blizzard credit for Uldum being the most convincing desert yet in the game (though it needed to be bigger ... deserts are ENDLESS) and of course while it didn't QUITE work at least both Deepholm and Vash'jir were extremely inventive (actually I would say deepholm worked just the writing needed to be stronger ... I wound up not giving even a vague whiff of a shit about that faction). There were indeed times towards the end of Vash'jir that I felt like I was in some other magical world under the sea.

[feralminded]

A couple of other things I would like to see come back. I would like to have to "discover" dungeons again before you can do them. In fact I would like them to require a few trivial (soloable) quests to "unlock". Giving each dungeon more background only helps. The quests are kind of actually there in MoP, they just aren't required to do the respective dungeons and I found this a bit odd. Same goes for the raids ... it would be nice to know *why* I'm killing this sha of fear and who or why he/they are. I can't hold that one against Blizzard too much though because its actually remarkably rare we get any background at all on a boss in a raid ... but it's still really nice when it happens. As tiresome as it had become it was nice to know who and why Saurfang was there ... it made the fight mean just a bit more to me, at least for the first 3-5 times before it became just something else to kill.

[Aggathon]

Honestly I think that may be why Illidan and Arthas were such bamf fights. EVERYONE knew who they were.

[Tengenstein]

Things are looking good for Garrosh then.

[Theotherone]

Feral I agree with a lot of your points and feel the same way about the 5.1 dailies - I actually WANT to take Operation Shield Wall to exalted to see the story unfold. I'm on the Alliance side so far (horde dk is only 86 right now) and we meet up with Jaina and she asks our advice on whether she should keep the Kirin Tor neutral or join the Alliance and smoke the Horde. Don't know if story changes based on your answers, but that would be cool, but asking a lot. Garrosh is up to something nasty, it's starting to unfold.

For me Valley of the Four Winds, Jade Forest and Kun Lai Summit were the zones I liked the best, with Kun Lai up there at the top, I thought it was really well done, the whole K2-Everest thing, Grummles and a Yakwash - the Yakwash was the best I like the bugs, but not Dread Wastes so much. Would have loved to see the Klaxxi v. the Scourge.

For Cata the only zone I was really impressed with was Vash'jr, I thought it was beautiful, but hated questing there; although it is one of the zones I did all the quests in on one toon just to see the end of it. For BC I love Nagrand the rest I'm not crazy about, but it's always been a pass through expansion for me. In WoLK, my favorites are Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills (love the music) and Storm Peaks; although I don't think there's a more tedious quest line after the first time through then "They Took Our Men".

Back to MoP's story, I really had doubts as to how they'd pull off the whole "war is the enemy" thing, but I think it's coming along nicely. Varian is getting some character development, shame he's probably going to die at the end of the expansion; Anduain is coming along, but still a little wuss and the Pandarian's are fitting right in. Blizzard seems more focused on creating story threads for future use, which is a good thing if you like the story part of games.

I haven't finished the Lorewalkers yet, but so far I like how it tells the history of Pandaria - it's well done. I've gotten up to Jinyu coming from Murloks, the Mogul made the Saurok to fight for them, etc.

I can't say I'm too crazy about all the dailes either, but as you outgear them they go pretty fast, and provide a nice chuck of gold with enough alts. I have to say, I sort of pace myself with them, since I'm not really actively raiding yet I've not felt that "gotta gear and gotta gear NOW" push so I've been free to just fiddle about with different toons, different dailies, etc. It's kind of nice.

[Tengenstein]

I am disappointed that i have now finished the Dominance Offensive rep grind. I need more I need 5.3 NAOW! The horde side of things we've hardly seen Varian, Anduin is just a plot device for us, but Voljin's and Lor'themar have got themsleves properly set up, Lor'themar is actually someone we can care about now, he's gotten seriously badass, and Garrosh has gone megalomanic. I'd really like the Klaxxi storyline to continue, i want the old gods to return and have to grudgingly fight the klaxxi.

oh yeah and there 's pandas.

[Theotherone]

Damn, you're getting me psyched to level up my Horde toons to see the story from that side; I mean caring about a belf is something that I never thought could happen. You say "he", there are male belfs?

[Tengenstein]

All belfs are male, and have fabulous hair. Jaina right now , well she's as bad as Garrosh, worse maybe, at least Theramore was a military target. For the horde, I feel Anduin could have been used better, there was so much potential, but he didn't really do much except setup other characters plot lines.

[Aggathon]

So... you're saying I should start playing WoW with my sound on again?

[feralminded]

Yeah they sprinkled Anduin in a bit but they could have set him up more to be an ambassadorial type character similar to Thrall. I still suspect they are going to push him in this direction ... I mean the Tauren obviously like him and once Garrosh is out of the way the kinder, gentler horde will likely be more open to these kinds of things. That said it makes me wonder if they're just slowly warming us up to the idea that one day there will be no more horde or alliance. I mean if they get rid of Garrosh and Varian a whole bunch of the manufactured (for story purposes) anger starts to diminish. I guess Jaina is righteously pissed but she's always been one of the coolest heads in all of Warcraft so it would be very poor writing on their part to try and force her as a long-term antagonist of unification like they have with Garrosh and Varian.

[Ion]

Wait...there's a story?

Is there a video somewhere or something?

[Tengenstein]

As a horde player Jaina is going down, bitch has flipped her lid, westboro baptist style.

[Theotherone]

Wait, when I did the Jaina meeting I left with her being neutral and keeping her cool - you mean she actually shows some spine and goes for some payback?

I don't think the Horde are going to be so level headed in the end when Garrosh is gone; I mean you all still have Sylvanas to deal with, talk about your psychos - what a great cat fight Jaina v. Sylvanas.

[sifuedition]

Sorry, still can't top White She Devil and Sista Girl.

http://www.anyclip.com/movies/underc...ther/catfight/

[Maragor]

Honestly I think that may be why Illidan and Arthas were such bamf fights. EVERYONE knew who they were.

Could it also have been that many people actually played WC3:Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne...hence they felt more in touch with those characters and new the story much more deeply? Out of all the expansions, I love The Lich King the most. Why? Because I played as Arthas all the way from him being just a mere prince/apprentice paladin to killing Muradin, to stomping Illidan's ass to save the Lich King. I played a bunch of WC2, so I knew about DeathWing...but they didn't have his story delved into during the WC3 times.

[Theotherone]

Just finished the Operation Shieldwall quest line and I liked where it's going. Anduin has grown some hair on his peaches, Varian is showing leadership, it's about time they developed his character, and Jania, well, she's finally realized that the Horde is evil at its core. Can't wait for a great Jania/Sylvanas cat fight.

[Maragor]

I am an Alliance scrub...and Sylvanas would completely stomp Jaina. Wouldn't even be a competition.