So much for updating my site more often...
Very recently, Blizzard released some new shorts detailing some plot for the latest WoW expansion. I have a...somewhat negative view of WoW, so I really haven't been following it, but these shorts caught my attention since they apparently infuriated so much of the fanbase that gaming sites (such as Kotaku, which I follow pretty frequently) were reporting on it. To summarize: the Horde and the Alliance are at war again. For some reason, Sylvanas Windrunner, an undead high elf, is the Warchief of the Horde. She attacks the World Tree (I'm guessing a new World Tree, since the World Tree was destroyed at the end of WarCraft III - we'll get back to this point later), kills a bunch of night elves, and sets the tree on fire. Now as far as I can tell, lots of the fanbase rage comes from the fact that Sylvanas just committed a war crime, painting her and the Horde as the undeniably evil side. For me, I think this new direction is stupid, but for different reasons. If you read my shrine to WarCraft III, you'll notice one of the biggest themes is the redemption of the Horde under Thrall and the growing alliance between the orcs and the humans. It's a paradigm shift from the somewhat simplistic premise of WarCraft I and II, where it was basically "good humans v. evil orcs." Sure, you could argue that the Burning Legion was just another evil faction for the now-good orcs to fight, but I'd emphasize that (1) the orcs becoming "good" didn't come out of nowhere, since WarCraft II went into some depth on the demonic corruption of the Horde, and (2) the undead were the more front-and-center villains, and they were led by less one-dimensional characters like the Lich King and Arthas. More generally, I'd emphasize that the story progressed. Something changed. And when WoW launched, they mostly dealt with loose plot ends from WarCraft III - Illidan and Arthas. And then...they ran out of ideas, which is something I said was inevitable when I reviewed the game. Nobody has great and interesting plot ideas forever. So what do they do? They revert Azeroth to the previous status quo. The Horde's redemption and return to shamanism? Gone - they become the villains who attack Jaina's nation and drive her to hate the orcs, undoing both Thrall's story arc and her own in WarCraft III. The night elves' noble sacrifice at the end of WarCraft III to defeat Archimonde? Nah, they just grow a new World Tree. The entire premise of Horde v. Alliance is tired old-hat. This is what happens when you make a game that needs to generate revenue indefinitely - the trend that got popularized with subscription MMOs like WoW. I hate this goddamn game. |
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