serial orc enthusiast

Whoa, calm down! This is not a "dwarf house" for sale on the cash shop, this is a completely standalone aesthetic. After all, if it was a dwarf house, would the windows be blue? Anyways please pay up

every time someone whips out the "haranir don't know everything, it's all just speculation!" defense they should be reminded that they have a tablet that puts the Jailer prophecy to shame. at least he only "predicted" like 4 expansions instead of the entire world's story

There's a much longer thread you could do on how what retail focuses on now is solely measuring how Correct a person is and thinking that's the most intriguing thing possible, whether it's about in-universe knowledge or morality. Everything is prophecies and cosmic jargon and all of it is boring

"Too much Light can make you go crazy but too much void can also make you go crazy but a medium amount of Light will make you Lightblinded but you can still be saved but can Arator-" This is not a story this is someone trying to dramatize balancing the pH of your soil

DF had some leeway with heritage stories, but this whole saga is just a different member of the Windrunner family stepping up and Blizzard going "nobody else is allowed to do anything, it's THEIR turn" Elf unity was not done for those races' stories, it was done so they could all praise Arator.

Stromgarde Enjoyer@nilocor.bsky.social

This speaks to a larger issue with Retail’s writing imo. There is too much focus on individuals or new races driving the story, and not enough on the shifting dynamics of existing factions and cultures.

serial orc enthusiast reposted

Stromgarde Enjoyer

@nilocor.bsky.social

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What's wild to me is that this is their own post-mortem of the state of the game about 5 years ago and you can see how rapidly they're hitting almost every bullet point again. This was their example of a need to change course or die and we're heading right back there pretending all is well.

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People were less incensed during DF because there was a willingness to extend some benefit of the doubt. Now we can see no amount of feedback will change their ways: the current suite are biologically predisposed to making SL, not WoW.

serial orc enthusiast reposted

Replying to @portergauge.bsky.social

tapping the sign

just realized that the Forever devs put off doing their version of Quel'Thalas for too long and now it's going to be done with SC on the team

This is fascinating in that I think it's the first time they've indirectly acknowledged how much texture detail retail's art style has been losing in recent years? Should be a wake up call how much better the After images look compared to the vague blobs using as textures before.

WoW writers be like "Mom? We don't, we're not currently talking about Mom at the moment. There's this pair of floating hands - we need to focus on that, we're not sure where Mom is at the moment. Mom isn't really relevant to the plot right now, we need to address the floating hands first."

@emptyjerrycan.bsky.social

Ion: More Mom content? So, great question. Um, it's a matter of resources, and, um, resources are finite. We'd love to do more Mom content, absolutely, but - you know, the floating hand story, we have to do something about the hands. We're not really hearing a demand for more Mom, look - the hands..

serial orc enthusiast reposted

Dr. Kingston Junjle, PhD

@evilelf.bsky.social

Replying to @evilelf.bsky.social

They don't want what makes comic books great -- which is a throughline, start to finish, and archetypes that wear their hearts on their sleeve. Ignoring graphic novels and more nuanced takes on characters the ideal for a comic book character is a trope. Warcraft used to be this. It no longer is.

serial orc enthusiast reposted

Jeroen

22 Sept

Replying to @emptyjerrycan.bsky.social

Instead Zul'jarra is branded "the true strength of the Amani", and I'm left scratching my head what exactly it's supposed to mean. "The true strength of the Amani" is what, exactly? Putting your faith in the Loa? Bouncing back from being poisoned? Being older than your brother? Running faster?

Is this even a real sacrifice when even Blizzard acknowledges the vast majority of the well-liked quests are the side ones with no voice acting or cinematics? The budget is clearly not resulting in higher quality. VA is one thing but modern cinematics largely feel like redundant wastes of time.

Ian Bates@theredshirtguy.bsky.social

I remember back on twitter a dev explained what that means (though months ago so not in relation to the interview). Basically they said to go back to dual faction plots they would have to remove voice acting and cinematics (outside of maybe one or two).

How many modern cutscenes are just two characters slowly talking while the animators kick their feet about how they can animate nasolabial folds in a 22 year old game or whatever. Was it worth animating Arator and Umbric talking to each other in 12.1? What value is it adding compared to in-game chat

They've twisted themselves into this knot where they go out of their way to play to all of their weaknesses instead of their strengths and seem to justify continued failure as proof to dump more money into the futile effort. Sorry, you can't have faction content because of the Arator budget.

At a certain point constantly pointing out the team is bigger than ever but you also have no resources to do literally anything suggests your team has severe executive dysfunction or that bigger team count is padded out by an army of producers and directors that mostly spam Teams meetings.

Finished Forsaken Kingdom, no spoilers ahead. The strongest Warcraft experience in ages and feels authentic to WC3, right down to some very goofy Easter eggs and humor. Simple arcs done well and concisely, characters that make sense, elevating to a larger than life finale.

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My gripes: the maps are incredible artistry for WC3, but in Act 1 especially it can be tiresome doing all the side content with their size. I hit some bugs, including a nasty CTD near the very end. If you keep crashing at a late Act 3 boss, unequip all your on-hit effect gear.

Strange that there's no Intelligence hero to round out the trio, and the boss fights don't feel well designed for WC3. Fun tip: the 3rd hero's ultimate makes summoned units permanent if their timer expires during its uptime, so you can pretty easily spawn a giant army.

Yes, you can make comparisons to where retail is floundering. Garek is a far better character than the current batch because he is not the center of the world, far from it, and he doesn't try to be. Sylvanas is a side character because this is not her story. Lessons to learn.

15 Sept

tracking progress in Forsaken Kingdom by amount of time between characters voiced by Keith Silverstein

13 Sept

The only energy they take into work is the same that Afrasiabi had when he put Drek'thar into a wheelchair purely because he thought it'd piss Metzen off You can feel that level of childish spite overwhelming the game from BfA through now. They view the game as a tool to mock its fans.

13 Sept

It's increasingly baffling that every aspect of this IP is correctly telling you how awesome the WC3-vanilla WoW period of the Warcraft setting was and telling new stories in it while retail is like "we're running away from it as much as possible and we know it's sucked but give us another chance"

something to be said that undead players are so ecstatic about today because they get new content of their favorite race looking cool, somehow this is not a design focus for every single playable race as seen with blood elves in midnight

Anyway, I'll definitely resub to try Forever and see if it sticks. Classic has always been a one-and-done experience for me before, but this looks like it's giving an experience that retail isn't focusing anymore.

#lol #lmao

serial orc enthusiast@eternalseething.bsky.social

one of the only good writers WoW has reposting a rant about hating unnatural therapy speech in dialogue makes me feel bad knowing the people they have to work with, especially knowing those people are probably itching to kill off Astalor the second they think they can as retribution

I feel like there has to be a discussion about the Deviantart art direction of modern WoW races

7 Sept

With that recent interview, we now know this is true: they do not have any idea what is making it to final release because everything is segmented into isolated spreadsheets that Ion can glance at and check Story Quests off a list. You should expect anything they say about TLT may not be true.

serial orc enthusiast@eternalseething.bsky.social

have to add, leadership also seems to have no idea what even makes it to the final product. Maria Hamilton's description of elf unity at Gamescom is *nothing* like the final release. Paul Kubit acknowledges disappointment with it and tells ppl to play side quests that don't exist for more nuance.

7 Sept

I said before that they now view the lore as equivalent to gear, which is fully replaced every 6 months with little attachment to any one piece. It's as disposable as invasion slop to them.

4 Sept

I know they missed and hit the wrong elf and all but it's still not too late for the complete extinction of the Windrunner bloodline, the story can still be saved!

4 Sept

4 Sept

non-zero chance that Decent Dev is stonewalled from handling main story content by higher ups that don't have an ounce of talent in comparison and need to keep their jobs

3 Sept

WoW protagonists, who are now always intended to be correct and the arbiters of all morality, more and more coming off like sociopaths is a perverse turn for the company. I continue wondering if they've externalized all fault for the 2021 lawsuit to the players and think we need lecturing forever.

Portergauge 🏳️‍🌈@portergauge.bsky.social

Having *Liadrin* throwing out a "for Zul'jan" is the most insane place you could have possibly put that lol

3 years ago I wanted a world revamp, now I don't think anything would make me permanently quit retail WoW more than it. Yes, ruin Durotar for me. Make every orc say riveting lines like "go with honor and mercy" and "strength, peace, and honor". Make the Tiragarde humans the real heroes of the zone.

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I can't even joke about being morbidly curious to see what SC would do with the zone because she writes the exact same story every time she gets to work with legacy characters!

EVERY PAIN VISITED ON BLOOD ELF AND TROLL PLAYERS THIS EXPANSION, MAKE IT TENFOLD AND CAST IT UPON ME

I want my blood to pump as minimally as possible! I need green humans! Please forget the Lok'osh exist and do the reskinned human priests again! Make Jaina the main character! I demand as little danger and violence as possible! Every other NPC should be wearing glasses and say a Quirk Chungus line!

serial orc enthusiast reposted

Leafwilt 𓇢𓆸

@bogknight.bsky.social

29 Aug

Arator's story is insane for many reasons, the primary being people are employed as a creative writers to make it. Human beings wrote that professionally. They are paid a salary to do so. I'm kind of in awe.

26 Aug

Multi-racial protagonist with famous parents with unique power over multiple cosmic forces that is best friends with everyone on both sides and every notable character are part of his extended family of mentors that are all dedicated to his success as the chosen one. He is back.

21 Aug

Please also notice that the same expansion that suddenly reveals all the Amani actually hate Zul'jin is the same one that has the elves unify in the name of Anasterian, a leader previously portrayed as a moron whose isolationism and nationalism lead to the massacre of his people.