“Father, is it over?”
“At long last. No King rules forever, my son”
“I see ... only darkness before me”
Yes, WoW was never a game that took itself 100% serious. And that's a good thing. A bit of humor by breaking the immersion sells well. But over the years, the tendency to add ever more slapstick humor among the developers grew ever stronger. And I didn't approve. But until now, at its very core, World of Warcraft always was about things that matter.
Temptation
Power
Moral dilemma
Genocide
Love
Freedom
Family ties
Duty
Damnation
Personal tragedy
Mercy
Racism
Sacrifice
Secrecy
Good intentions
Redemption
Inevitability
Transformation
Prejudices
Slavery
...
What has changed with MoP is the core of the game. The immersion-breaking slapstick humor has finally taken over. And it now rules the game. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised after the numerous holiday events and the goblin starter zone. But while Goblins may have been silly on the surface, you always suspected something deeper inside them. With Pandas it is the other way round! Maybe Blizzard manages to make them appear serious on the outside, but they will always be silly at their core.
What's very interesting to note is this: I always criticized the direction the gameplay took since mid-TBC. The entire philosophy of World of Warcraft moved towards a place I didn't like. But what finally broke the camel's neck wasn't gameplay: it was the the style. Remembering what happened to Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, this may not even be such a big surprise. But hopefully it is a lesson for future developers: DON'T SWITCH THE TARGET AUDIENCE!
Meaning: Expand, don't reinvent.
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If you ever wanted to read a lot of comments that basically say 'no'. Here's a good link.
Do you think MoP will further accelerate the decline that started with Cataclysm? That's what I read out of your post.
ReplyDeleteKring, I'm not sure. But considering the public reaction towards MoP, the arrival of SW:TOR and Guild Wars 2, and Blizzard's obscure payment model, that's what I'd guess.
ReplyDeleteLet me paint a picture. You admit to the value of feeling in interpreting an MMO, no? I only know as much about the storyline of this expansion as the next guy, but tell me, would this story fit with your understanding of WoW's proper style:
ReplyDeleteThe two factions, freed from world-destroying terrors of the Scourge and the Twilight Cults, turn against each other. Even the presence of Deathwing could not hold back Garrosh's expansionist fury for resources and glory. Without Deathwing, he turns towards it completely, burning down even the city of the one human who consistently pushed for peace: Jaina. Enraged at this wholesale slaughter, Wrynn galvanizes the Alliance into an equivalent war machine.
Now, a new land arises out of the mists. Pristine. Rich. Populated by races who have kept their evils in check for thousands of years. The Alliance and Horde need the resources such a land presents. They send out their armies to claim it. When they land, they twist the population, whispering threats and coercion, turning race against race, bear against bear.
By the end, the players look at their bloodstained hands and realize that it was not the Old Gods who corrupted the Pandaren. It was not the Cultists that brought genocide and treachery to loving, peaceful lands. We are the source of this new evil. In fighting monsters, we have become what we fought.
Yes, I would approve of that, 'The Man'.
ReplyDeleteBut the presentation Blizzard gave doesn't allow me to believe this. How is Blizzard to translate any of the things you just described into gameplay? We know that they don't want too much PvP, like Alliance and Horde actually fighting it out. So what will the players do? Will they quest for the support of the Pandas by appealing to them?
There was nothing serious about that presentation Blizzard gave. It was clearly slapstick humor and silliness. And knowing how stubborn Blizzard is, I don't think this will change.
But even if they tried to change it at the last minute. How do they want to make me feel in any way serious while looking at Pandas? Sorry: Goblins are a thousand times as serious as Pandas.
The story of this expansion was not clearly explicated, I agree. Please point out a particular example you consider "slapstick humor."
ReplyDeleteA recent story on MMO-Champion basically said Garrosh will do just what I described to Theramore. The panels said that Wrynn will do things that will make "the Alliance WORSHIP him" (caps in original). I can only imagine a military response.
The overview described two races living alongside the Pandaren that will ally with the Horde and Alliance respectively. This supports my theory on the direction of the story.
Will it be lighter, funnier than Cata? Of course. After two expansions of grim, dark grimdark that would make a Space Marine weep poisonous tears, proper story telling requires a shift of pacing. You can't play a song at 11 forever. Will it be a story of gum-drops, unicorns, and frilly pink dresses? I doubt it. We'll see, though.
I won't venture so much into the details, 'The Man'.
ReplyDeleteThese aren't just any Pandas. They are being sold as Kung Fu Pandas very obviously. And there's no other point I need to make, really.
This seems like a poor way to go about making decisions.
ReplyDeleteNils: I'm going to shove my hand into this hive of bees.
The Man: Is this really a good idea?
Nils: Well, I enjoy shoving my hand into the fridge to get a beer. I won't venture so much into the details.
Hmm, that was uncharitable. I understand you have a firm position on this subject. But saying that you won't discuss the details basically means any detailed conversation cannot occur. If you're happy with monologue, though, then there's not much else to say.
Ok, look. There is no expicit joke in that cinematic. So, yes, I should probably replace the word 'slipstick humor' with another word.
ReplyDeleteBut this is arguing about semantics. You know how I feel about these Pandas and you know why. No discussion about semantics is going to change that.
Expanding on that, just adding a war doesn't make a story good or serious. Perhaps the word 'serious' is wrong in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAbout ten years ago some smart guy created great lore and this kept WoW alive until end of WotLK. Since then it has became stale. Yes, Deathwing is evil. I get that. But where is the tragedy? Where are the emotions? How do I identify myself with any particular figure of this story?
Just making Alliance and Horde go to war is cheap. Every story teller can do that. There needs to be more to stimulate emotions in players. Have look at the list of words in this post.
Moreover, of course, Blizzard says that there is going to be war. And after the first player reactions it will probably be especially fierce. But where is the drama? Where is the lesson?
So far this expansion's story is stale. And considering that, during Blizzcon, the best place Blizzard could find to reveal that Theramore is going to burn was a blue post, I do not expect this to change.
And now add Pandas to this.
Apparently WoW was never a serious game, but at the same time the last expansion, with entire zones full of pop-culture references, was grim, dark grimdark. ':) Quite impressive for one game to leave such utterly opposing impressions IMO.
ReplyDelete> We know that they don't want too much PvP
ReplyDeleteActually, the players doesn't want that. Otherwise the PvE servers would be empty.
The Man is right, this is turning into a monologue of yours against Blizzard.
ReplyDeleteWhatever they say or don't say doesn't stop you from raging against the game. Look at what you write:
Blizzard's obscure payment model
Go read the page of the special offer, it's very clear on how it works.
How is Blizzard to translate any of the things you just described into gameplay? We know that they don't want too much PvP, like Alliance and Horde actually fighting it out. So what will the players do? Will they quest for the support of the Pandas by appealing to them?
The game is pre-alpha, nothing sure is know about gameplay, so you just create whatever you want out of thin air, and then, surprise, you are against it.
They are being sold as Kung Fu Pandas very obviously.
Again: "I only see what I want to see and it's obvious and it sucks".
The immersion you feel in the world comes more from your attitude towards the world than from the world itself. In WoW the "world" has always been hidden well below the silliness and the cartoonish look. Personally, I've always found impossible to even think about roleplaying in that world. Worse, I cannot even imagine how it's possible to take it seriously.
Clearly you were able to, more power to you.
But when you say:
How do they want to make me feel in any way serious while looking at Pandas?
realize that this is a limit of yours and not a fault of Blizzard. You had no trouble taking seriously pink gnomes wielding two 2H axes, and seeing the story beyond it. Pandas are in no way different.
Go read the page of the special offer, it's very clear on how it works.
ReplyDeleteTell me, Helistar, what does it cost to buy that 12 months plan? When is the money subtracted from my bank account? Can I change to two six-months plans later on?
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Whatever they say or don't say doesn't stop you from raging against the game.
There is nothing that can convince me that Pandas are acceptable. This is not about logic, but about emotion. I can elaborate, and so can you. And we all do, it seems to me. That's fine.
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Again: "I only see what I want to see and it's obvious and it sucks".
So, in your opinin that connection with Kung Fu Panda is weak? Really?
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In WoW the "world" has always been hidden well below the silliness and the cartoonish look. Personally, I've always found impossible to even think about roleplaying in that world. Worse, I cannot even imagine how it's possible to take it seriously.
I disagree. And please acknowledge that this isn't about logic, either. There's no convincing here, only elaboration. What is absolutely certain, however is that WoW had a lot of people who like the lore, like to roleplay even (I don't) and generally like the style, the fluent animations etc.
This isn't unimportant for many players. Heroic mode raiders like you, of course, mostly care about the meta game and numbers. That's only natural. But please realize that you are part of a minority of all customers.
(If I may ask: When did you start to play WoW?)
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realize that this is a limit of yours and not a fault of Blizzard.
I do realize that. I am also unable to enjoy cold water instead of hot water when taking a shower. This is clearly a limitation on my side. However, it also means that the guy who sells the shower with hot water gets my money.
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Could you try to keep your emotions a bit more under control, Helistar? :). I want to enjoy arguing with you and that's difficult if you come across so hostile.
Nils wrote:
ReplyDeleteBut please realize that you are part of a minority of all customers.
Anyone who writes a blog is automatically in the minority. We care much more about the game than the average person. This means that you, too, are in the minority in many ways, Nils. Note that there's nothing wrong with this! (It's one of the reasons why I will follow a blog, in fact, because I can get a majority opinion just about anywhere.) But, if one wants to think about game design, it is crucial to realize your own thoughts are not part of the majority.
You said in a comment on my blog that I was "unable to understand the uproar about Pandas." On the contrary, I understand it very well. I just disagree for most people that it is merely about the Pandas, rather it is people looking for internal justification about how their own feelings have changed about the game. You are the notable exception, Nils, because your gut-feeling motivated attitudes on "immersion" certainly do explain your attitude about the Pandas. But, again, you are very much in the minority about this aspect according to my estimations.
Tell me, Helistar, what does it cost to buy that 12 months plan? When is the money subtracted from my bank account? Can I change to two six-months plans later on?
ReplyDeleteYou're kinda overreaching here, Nils. The FAQ is pretty clear. You aren't buying a year of game time, you're simply committing to paying for 12 months. Whether you do that via two 6-month game cards (cheapest overall), or via normal monthly recurrence (maximum flexibility), or some combination inbetween is irrelevant. I assume the default is that they bill you monthly, as I have heard the "Cancel Subscription" button gets grayed out once you sign up. If you cancel your credit card or whatever, they will probably send a collection agency after you, and/or ban your Battle.net account.
The only truly relevant question in my mind is how limited the "limited time offer" really is. Obviously if I go for the deal, I want for it to be as late as possible.
Azuriel, this is anything but clear. Doone on his blog said that you can still cancel your account, but then the D3 licence becomes invalid. Which would be kind of fun.
ReplyDeleteYou could get that thing, pay just a single monthly rate and play D3 for a very cheap price for an entire month. And quite some people, like me, have a very good chance to not play D3 for very long. So that might be a good idea for us, actually.
And that irrespective of whether I gain some Panda license at the same time :)
In any way we should agree that there's a lot of discussion on the bloggosphere about the details of that deal.
@Nils: the page linked by Azuriel is very clear: you have to commit to a 12-month subscription using whatever plan you prefer. I don't understand what is so complicated.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing that can convince me that Pandas are acceptable. This is not about logic, but about emotion.
....and you're calling my responses emotional?
This is why I suggested that you stop writing about WoW: the articles you posted while playing were informed, based on facts. Even disagreeing about the interpretation, the discussion would be about someTHING.
BTW I started WoW during WotLK, with the explicit aim of raiding (= game and not world). I knew Warcraft and a bit Warcraft lore from before. I've always found it to be the typical American-produced mishmash of stuff pulled out from random mythologies. (BTW for pandas, if I'm not mistaken, Pandarens where in the lore, and asked by the players, before Kung-Fu Panda existed).
About hot and cold showers, you pick what you prefer. But then you risk looking like a fool if you spend your time complaining about the one you DIDN'T buy..... So tell us about the games you play and why they're good instead of telling us how bad are the ones you don't play....
@Nils: the page linked by Azuriel is very clear: you have to commit to a 12-month subscription using whatever plan you prefer. I don't understand what is so complicated.
ReplyDeleteThat linked page is the FAQ that I had read before I made the very first post on this. Why don't you answer my questions? Why is there so much talk on the bloggosphere about the details of this plan? What happens if I unsubscribe during that year?
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This is why I suggested that you stop writing about WoW: the articles you posted while playing were informed, based on facts. Even disagreeing about the interpretation, the discussion would be about someTHING.
Excuse me? Are you pretending that my earlier posts weren't emotional? Are you pretending that my posts now are not based on facts? What kind of facts could I possibly have learned by playing WoW over the last weekend? My posts have always been based on facts and emotional. And they still are.
Twisting my use of the word 'emotional' is cheap, by the way. You can do better.
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BTW I started WoW during WotLK, with the explicit aim of raiding (= game and not world). I knew Warcraft and a bit Warcraft lore from before. I've always found it to be the typical American-produced mishmash of stuff pulled out from random mythologies. (BTW for pandas, if I'm not mistaken, Pandarens where in the lore, and asked by the players, before Kung-Fu Panda existed).
Telling me that WoW always was bad isn't exactly the best strategy if you want to convince me that it is worth playing now. I think WoW was once better. But, yes, I suspected that you started to play during WoitLK.
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About hot and cold showers, you pick what you prefer. But then you risk looking like a fool if you spend your time complaining about the one you DIDN'T buy..... So tell us about the games you play and why they're good instead of telling us how bad are the ones you don't play....
Telling bloggers what to blog about is always a bad idea, Helistar. I play the games I want to play and I blog about whatever I want to blog about. And if you don't want to read it: Don't read it!
You got that ?
It's explicitly spelled out in the FAQ:
ReplyDeleteCan I cancel my World of Warcraft subscription at any point during the 12-month term?
By taking advantage of this special promotion, you are committing to a 12-month World of Warcraft subscription, and you cannot cancel your subscription until the 12-month term of the agreement has ended.
I don't know where some of those theories came from but I guess they were made up based only on the announcement at Blizzcon. Or maybe the FAQ wasn't up then or maybe the questions/answers were being updating as time went on.
The case is finished though.
I agree in a way, Srosh. After talking about this for several days now, you and me finally understood this payment model and all the ramnifications.
ReplyDelete(Though I'd still like to know whether you can change to a 6-months plan after you agrred to the 12-months offer.)
Anyway. A payment model that requires its own FAQ and caused a lot of questions during Blizzcon is not exactly perfectly transparent.
A lot of the confusion comes from how these kind of offers are approached normally.
ReplyDeleteAt first glance, you would think it goes like this: "buy 12 months WoW (and pay upfront), get D3 free. That's it." For some this might have been preferable (like Spinks explains on her blog).
However, for most people this would've been a worse deal than what they're offering now (as there are plenty of people already having a running subscription, or a lot of gametime left).
This is not "buy 12 months right here, get D3 free" but "I vow to pay the next 12 months of WoW however I want". Now, for Blizz to be sure you can't just take the easy way out they require you to have a running subscription on your account (be it monthly, quarterly, half-yearly). And then they remove your ability to turn off the billing until the 12 months are over.
I wouldn't say it's not entirely transparent or obscured but that it is complicated. You are free to call that dabbling about semantics. :) Due to the goals it was set up to reach it has to be complicated otherwise it wouldn't work or be easily circumvented. For me, it's an important difference.
I also think that Blizzard is fully aware of this and discussed the other option as well ("pay $150 (or whatever), get 12 months WoW + D3") but opted against it. Partly because that would suck for those having gametime loaded up on their accounts (I'd love to see those statistics that I'm sure Blizzard always looks at, i.e. how many months does the average player still have left) and partly because an offer that doesn't make you pay right away is better than one that does, especially if it means to spend a considerable amount of cash.
I'm probably just a bit more cynical. But my thoughts were that they would hate it if you could pay up front. Most players don't want to have two running subscriptions at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIf they already have a monthly sub of WoW (that is fixed for an entire year!) they have a much lower chance of agreeing to a monthly sub for SW:TOR, too. This is emotially different from having payed up front. People forget about such past payments fast ;)
Nils wrote:
ReplyDeleteMost players don't want to have two running subscriptions at the same time.
If they already have a monthly sub of WoW (that is fixed for an entire year!) they have a much lower chance of agreeing to a monthly sub for SW:TOR, too. This is emotially different from having payed up front. People forget about such past payments fast ;)
Good thought. I think you're spot on with this one. But I would not hold this against Blizzard. At least it demonstrates that their marketing/strategic team is still working fine and made a smart move.
Haris Pilton (or whatever she was named) was the tipping point for me.
ReplyDeleteThat was when the little anachronisms and pop culture references went from rare and thus funny, and far too common and hitting me over the head.
-Michael Hartman
http://www.coinncarry.com