If you wanted to name two of the biggest successes of WoW: Cataclysm, the Worgen starting zones and the Blackwing Descent raid would be well and truly on the list. Both of them succeeded on many levels – the Worgen zone contains one of the best pieces of WoW Machinima I’ve ever seen, as well as a genuinely compelling story, whilst BWD ranks as one of the best raids from WoW, and certainly the best of this expansion.
But that doesn’t mean they’re flawless. And in two interesting posts from the weekend, two seperate bloggers independently explored what could have made them even better.
First up, The Renaissance Man is unabashed in his love of BWD – in all aspects but story. And so, he delves into the story of the instance – what could Blizzard have made clearer, and just why the hell was Nefarian back, anyway ?
“How are Nefarian and Onyxia back? This is really the crux of the issue. If you establish that Nefarian is back, then there’s pretty much a de facto reason to go kill him again. After all, not very many good guys are named Nefarian, or Nefarius, or whatever play on nefarious the favored son of Deathwing decides to go with this time. Kael’thas’ return was justified by the fact that you didn’t actually make sure he was dead in Tempest Keep, a fact that you rectify when you meet him in Magister’s Terrace by decapitating him. But you definitely took the heads of both Onyxia and Nefarian. You hung them from the gates of Stormwind for all to see. So how’d they get them back?
One of the key focal points of the expansion was Deathwing’s visit to Stormwind. People see it every time they log in, and it was the climax of the introductory cinematic. The towers are still molten, and the stature of poor Danath Trollbane is still being hauled back up from the lake. Those same towers that we hung the heads of Deathwing’s favorite children from, and soon thereafter, said children return to prominence, if a little worse for wear. That explains the how they came back. “
Not only had I not really thought of the lack of external story – which became obvious as soon as TRM started talking about it – but I also had no idea what it was. This post’s fascinating both as an analysis of story in game design, and just to find out exactly why Nefarian had his “only a setback” moment.
Meanwhile, Cassandri of Hots and Dots has been playing through the Worgen questline. It has a reputation for strong story, and that’s justified – but in a few areas it falls down. Cassandri explores what could have been if only the story had paid more attention to how momentous its events actually were –
“I think this sums up my feelings about the Worgen starting zone the most. The biggest, most life altering – personal – moments in my young characters life: being attacked, infected and presumably sure that you’re going to die soon or turn into a monster, changing into a Worgen, experiencing The Shattering of the world first hand… they’re all there but not treated and timed well to let you as a player really come to grips with them.
Why is there no quest or even a chat option when I can ask one of my quest givers in Gilneas City about my you’re-running-out-of-time bitten debuff?”
As I said above, I’m extremely impressed with some aspects of Gilneas – and I’d say the cinematics in the questline are some of Blizzard’s Machinima team’s finest. But Cassandri does have a strong point – the events of the storyline are earthshattering for your character, and it would have turned a very good storyline into an amazing one to focus on them a little more.
I’d say that’s particularly the case with the Shattering, actually. The Worgen questline is the only place in WoW, to my knowledge, that you get to live through the Shattering, and whilst that’s praise-worthy on its own, with a bit more focus on the human side of that event it could have been truly amazing. The fodder’s there to make your character intro rise above normal gaming and into actual, affecting story.
What do you think? Could BWD or the Worgen have benefitted from Moar Story?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
To be honest, i don’t pay all that much attention to lore, but I do notice when it’s gone– mostly because I guess it’s part of the “background” of the game that I take in subconsciously while I am playing.
I will note that I freaking loved BWD, I thought it was an excellent instance. T11 as a whole was some of the most fun I ever had raiding. The Renaissance man goes into that – good raiding. I actually thought the story was pretty memorable too, but maybe that’s just because I wanted to punch Nef’s face in the whole time. In a good way.
If you’ve never done BWD on heroic, you’re missing out– Nefarian’s dialogue changes from “Cookie cutter evil” to “hilarious evil.” The writer just went overboard purposefully and specifically addresses your raid and your raiding concerns. It’s so funny (imo). He sits there yelling at you the entire time, and some of his dialogue is just hilarious.
Zoning in on heroic mode, the dialogue changes to: “Mortals that fancy themselves HEROES have entered the Broken Hall! Oh, I do hope this ‘raid’ will amuse me more than the last!” I burst out laughing the first time I saw it. Now that was a writer having a little bit of fun with their raid dialogue. His absolute best moment was when he stands in the back during the Heroic Omnotron encounter. The change on heroic mode is, among other things, that Nef stands in the back casting spells on your raid and trolling you. I remember him saying something like, “You’d like to move out of that, wouldn’t you?!” and he roots the player in place….. oh, it’s so funny. I wish I could find quotes from the Omnotron encounter. Well, I guess some people found it cheezy, but I thought it was really amusing. BWD was so memorable because of him. I thought it was a ton more memorable than most other raids I’ve done which are like “boss, boss, boss boss… ok, dragon!” By the time you are done with bwd heroic you really, really, really want to punch nef’s face in. And his trolling never stops: “I hope you can swim… in molten lava!” Hehe.
They put someone with a brain on that instance for sure. It was so very memorable in every way.
My favorite was the arcanotron infusion.
“Stupid dwarves and your facination with runes. Why would you create something that would help your enemy?”
right before he kills anyone standing in the rune of power.
The quotes are in WoWpedia, I believe. I’m not sure whether they’re complete though – I have never done the encounters on heroic.
Nef has always meta-gamed a bit. Remember in the Rend Blackhand from UBRS: ” Foolsss…Kill the one in the dress!” and “Concentrate your attacks upon the healer!”
As always thanks for the link. That post was actually one that’s been sitting in my mind since Cataclysm release, and it wasn’t until the release of the Thrall book and the 4.3 5 mans that you could begin to see where they cut away from the original plan, and how BWD became a casualty of cut content.
With Fargo’s comments today on how the actual expansion’s content suffered heavily due to the revamp of the 1-60 content, it’s kind of vindicating to see that hopefully they’re learning lessons from where and why Cataclysm failed.
Hey Hugh, two good picks today.
I’ve only played WoW for a year now, and when I hit lvl85 and we did BWD, I remember asking my raid why we were here, what’s the story, and where are the quests?
I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who felt like there was a missing quest chain.
The second one has cemented that my next alt will probably be a Worgen, as the starting zone sounds much better than the pretty dated alternatives.