An entire expansion about dragons and not a single humanoid has been eaten whole by one. Unforgivable.

I miss the dark fantasy feeling of wow, now its full of furries and friendship, feels like a disney game tbh.

It’s not just WoW, so many games, movies, tv shows, etc. seem to have been dumbed down, with over the top campy humor and good vs bad, poorly thought out tropes, plot holes, bad logic, with an emphasis on feelings and fake emotions. I think it’s why Elden Ring felt so damn good. It was the complete antithesis of what entertainment has devolved into.

Vanilla WoW: "A few years have passed since the third war, which you saw in RTS form. Now a new generation of adventurers goes out into the world looking for fun. That's it. That's the story. That's literally the story; you're an adventurer, go adventure." Modern WoW: "Thousands of years ago, there was this ancient race, and they were created by this other ancient race, who were actually originally a different colour but then some ancient race tempted them with some evil powers and now they're red instead of turquoise, and now they've come back to get their revenge! Or have they? Maybe it turns out that they weren't here for revenge, they were here to protect us from an even OLDER and BIGGER evil thing that changed colour like 3 times, and here's what the big name NPCs have to say about it... wait, what's an adventurer?" Put simply, WoW forgot that plot is not story; they focused on story, and forgot that as an MMO, the plot is actually supposed to be the player's journey, nothing more and certainly nothing less. Because of this, the story used to be shaped by the urgency and agency of the player's journey - which is to say, the story was about people actually doing things, not feeling things or remembering things or discussing things. After all, the original Warcraft lore was "We need a story to explain why these guys are fighting these guys; we need them to be fighting though."

I've shared this sentiment about the direction of the Warcraft setting before, but here we go: The point of having a massive world with dozens of playable races shouldn't be having them all be reasonable, democratic or ethical. The appeal of the World of Warcraft is having the tribalistic conquerors, the creepy undead, the ambitious elves, the zealots, the spirituals, technocrats and imperialists living in the same world and the INEVITABLE CONFLICT that rises from these contrasting interests.

"Who is this for?" For the people on twitter thanking blizzard with teary eyes that they can buy a murloc backpack for 15 dollars for their in game character.

Old WoW = Designed by men Retail WoW = Designed by women

I remember reading a few of the WoW books and being blown away at how brutal some of the story arch's could be. Like Thrall's enslavement under Aedelas Blackmoore in his early years provided a great backstory.

One of the main problems of the Shadowlands expansion was being told way back in WotLK that if no one bore the helmet of the Lich King, that the Scourge would be left entirely unchecked and would devour the world. We never EVER had to deal with those consequences, because they were apparently forgotten the entire expansion. I think that part really killed the immersion of World of Warcraft because not even the people making the story could be bothered to make sure there was continuity with older lore.

WoW started going south when typical war strategies and events became too controversial to be put into the game. Like we all know, the Orcs used to be brutal, torturing their enemies, fighting their way through everything, raiding villages. Now they have a weird mustache, sip hot chocolate and post on Twitter. Night elves were all about silent assassinations, living in the shadows, prowling and mercilessly murdering their enemies, now they're all domesticated cats who can't even sharpen their nails without feeling some type of guilt. It's sad all around. By no means do I enjoy brutality or gore, but this is Warcraft, it's a core aspect, and they don't need to show it graphically for it to be implied, which is how it also used to be. Not anymore, though. I replayed the Silverpine Forest quest where Garrosh was talking to Sylvanas, and said "Watch your clever mouth, bitch". To my surprise, the "bitch" part was completely removed. It didn't carry the same weight. At that point, maybe they should've replaced the word with "princess"...

Great point about Thrall naming Durotar after his father being show not tell. Even calling their capitol city Orgrimmar, after a go-getting war-monger shows the Orcs priorities - even though they’ve tempered their rage, they still value the go-getting nature of a fighter

WoW became a cartoon anime game for pre-teens. There is no more Warcraft, it's just WoW.

“It doesn’t feel like Warcraft” that sums it up really in the most basic sentence

The biggest issue I have is that none of the factions or races have a purpose - they don't have a mission or a goal that's driving them. They just... exist. And then the next big bad comes along and they react to that and then they go back to existing. There's no identity to the factions except the look of the character models and the buildings (and that isn't even relevant because the capitol city is cross faction). It just feels like nothing of consequence really happens. It feels like a sitcom - something happens that episode and then it all goes back to normal.

It's unironically female writers. It's not that they're bad writers, it's that they've been brought in to write for the wrong audience.

The best time in WoW was when Garrosh and Varian were the leaders of their respective factions. THAT was WARcraft, not this carebear love and hugs joke we have today.

Best "player retention in years" just means you've ground the playerbase down to the ones who can't escape the maze.

LICH KING Bolvar in Legion, during the DK campaign has you forcefully raise people into undeath to become the new horsemen "Command him to rise!".. He has you attack Lights hope Chapel, raise a bunch of corpses and try to steal Tirions body from the Paladin order hall.. For the class mount quest he sends you to the Red Dragonflight, force-chocke someone to force information out of them.. He sends you to the Ruby Sanctum which had a hidden achievement for killing ALL the dragons there, after doing that he tells you "You are empty inside.. just like me..".. When raising the bones of the Red Dragon, he tells you to "Pervert it" with your Necromancy.. Bolvar in Shadowlands, after getting his face kicked in by a Mary Sue: "Oh noez Sylvanas is so super evil and strong we need to stop her 😱😭"

This can all be boiled down to one simple explanation... *Only a few of the original developers still work on the game and the rest have moved on or were fired.*

Oh boy, you know shit's gone from bad to worse when people start reminiscing about how much better WoD was...

The fact that there were no class specific questlines in expansions that would have made sense (i.e. a death knight questline in shadowlands) tells me everything I need to know about the creative talent of the team

Since Wrath, Blizzard has made so many changes in a attempt to widen their player community and turned wow into a "jack of all trades, master of none" game.

There's only one thing that would bring me back to WoW right now. A complete world wipe and rebuild based on OG game designs with modern graphics.

In classic, we were nobodies that wanted to be heroes. In retail we are all heroes that have nothing to do.

I think everyone has missed the crucial issue: The WoW devs hate their audience. They know the audience is mostly 40 year old bald men but they don't want that. They want younger people and women. Problem is, I don't think its working. Its just alienating their audience.

They went too big. Too complicated. Classic was down to earth. Immersive. Relatable. Simple. Fun.

Honestly the option to choose to side with Sylvannas and it actually having an effect (albeit a small one) on the player’s game experience was one of the best options Blizzard did. Where you allowed the players to choose in game their plot. Same can be said to an extent with the N’Zoth Corruption. Being able if you wanted to be straight up chaotic or borderline evil was a nice fresh of breath. Shame they havn’t expanded upon that.

Most people completely miss the reason. ESG is the reason.

Asmon is right about having certain characters you never directly interact with. Its exactly why in warhammer40k the emperor is so mysterious

"Your cool stuff should be heartfelt too" Made me think of that scene in W3 where Grom kills Mannaroth and frees his people. No words, all action.

Wokeness broke the world

To me the vibe was greatest in lich king, and I get how safe it is to say that but hear me out- they had dk starting quests where you kill your best friend in life. They have you raid entire villages. The scourge kill/convert entire villages. Everything felt important, and yet hopelessly distant. They also introduced phasing so you could change the damn landscape of entire zones based on your progression. Hands down my favorite.

It is not only masculinity, remember Jaina? She wanted to flood Orgrimmar and kill everybody in it? Or Sylavans? Until she got danusered? Lillian Voss during Cata? Even Vanessa vanCleef, Liadrin or Maiev were kinda badass. We just need better written characters, doesn't matter if male or female, as long as they have a great backstory and are represented in game.

What's going on is they have hired pronoun people with pink hair

In other words, if a new Warhammer fantasy MMO was made rn, with similar gameplay to WoW, a lot of WoW players would flock to it, because Warhammer fantasy is the embodiment of WoW's original cool factor. And no, we don't talk about the End Times.

I see World of Warcraft is turning into League of Legends style fantasy

"I think a character should never ever talk about their feelings in a wow cinematic." Old Soldier though...

Players: "We want war, torture, glory, hulking warriors, menacing warlocks and powerful mages! We want battle for conquest, triumph and glory!" Devs: "Okay, we will give you fluffs and huggy wuggys and a quest for peace for all races and factions. Azeroth will be a safe space for everyone." Players: "This is shit, fuck you." Devs: Surprised Pikachu Face

remember in blackrock they have dragons hanging on the wall by hooks. they wouldnt do that again now

When people at Blizzard stop reading Twitter accounts like Baal or Portergauge, maybe we can have a good story.

instead of zug zug it became hug hug

I LOVED the gritty tribalistic Horde, it was different to basic humans and classic fantasy. You played as the outcasts and monsters carving a life for themselves. The game is empty and soulless because they ran out of script and had to just write fanfiction. They also have you chasing seasonal goal posts like every other game nowadays.

I hated what they did to the Zandalari, and also hated how they made the Drachtyr another generic honor bound race. I'm not asking for Warhammer levels of hostility, but would be nice if they were a bit more unfriendly.

Im balding and just bought cargo... pants.

The truth is a lot of us don't care about the lore as much as the game but we still care about the vibe. We still want a badass Lich King or Illidan type character being badasses and not just characters that are constantly sighing and having calm conversations.

"profits doesn't care about ur feelings" - Activision blizzard probably.

I remember reading posts on the forums where people would actually be in their feelings about old story lines. It's a video game about factional warfare, and people are offended that there are some brutal characters in said game. No surprise the game has gone woke.

Lovecraft did a great job at abstract horror. He would describe the monstrosities and their architecture as being illogical, as if they shouldn't be able to exist in reality (he did it much better than that sentence), and because the evil is something so abstract and so unknowable to you, it's significantly more frightening than something quantifiable and describable.

Warcraft always had a great balance between hope and tragedy and a lot of the early art reflected that not only in Wow but in WC3 which outclassed its remaster. How you can look at the story of Arthas and turn the art into some Nickelodeon nonsense is beyond me. Grom Hellscream to a character that looks like a dull-witted overweight human with green skin.

As WotLK player, I haven't been invested in WoW's xpacs/storylines since Wrath... like after Cata, each xpac just felt like it was trying too hard - going bigger and bigger, more and more complex! I mean after Cata, you had time travel and different timelines, and space travel w/ steam punk looking space ships lol and at the end of each major xpac you're fighting some GOD. Wrath's story, as told through the Northrend questline, was just so localized and rich... Lich King was peppered throughout all the quest zones, making appearances in surprising ways. Eventually, all these quests and dungeons lead to ICC and there wasn't any complexity to it. Because WotLK didn't have a complex storyline, it didn't need to over explain anything and all the plot points wrote themselves. WotLK was so rich in lore. WoW hasn't been the same since.

My fave thing about WoW was leveling. Loved the journey. End game wasn’t for me. They took that away and so I lost interest- except I loved legion for the expansive stuff you could do as a chronic casual player.

You should only ever tip your toes in cosmic horror (or anything like that). Whenever you make it an everyday thing, it becomes banal, boring. And you can’t really relate to it either. It becomes nothing.

I agree with the arc with Wrathion and Sabellian. Wrathion was this proper badass who is doing everything in his power to stop the spread of corruption that doomed his father. Sab single handedly saved what he knew what was left of the Black Dragonflight by keeping them save in Outland and manipulating adventurers into killing the Gronn. Then in DF they both act like spoiled rotten babies while Ebonhorn is literally the only sane one. Hell I still can't get over how Sab thought a stupid spear would just one shot a Primal Dragon. All while both still, after knowing everything that happens, look up to their daddy and hope for his approval. It's so weird. I don't know why they went that arc. Such wasted potential.

The Dragonball comparision was spot on. Be honest with yourselves DBZ fans. How many times does Goku or whatever protagonist need to charge up and get more powerful until it reaches the line of absurdity. He's not saying the show isnt good or fun to watch. It's just that the power scaling has gone too far that it's just to much

Cyberpunk is also not even half the game they lied about it being all the way up to release. Cyberpunk 2077 is the new and worse No Man's Sky, but at least Hello Games owned up to their mistakes and have worked hard for years to make up for it and actually make the features they had promised and then some. On the other hand, CDPR marketed a game, sold 25% of what they said the game would be, never owned up to it (except for some bugginess), and now are *SELLING* DLC for a game they never finished in the first place. The worst thing is it's basically an M-rated PG-13 (or PG-16 at the most) game. EDIT: Oh and the fact that people act like just because they fixed some bugs that it's a better game now, is just sad. It's not a better game. It's still devoid of most of the content they talked about it having. I'd a linear game on a big map of a pretty city with nothing really interesting to see or do. And then people wonder why developers keep putting out broken, unfinished games that are missing features.

a character talking about how they feel is one of the cardinal sins of good writing. You are not supposed to be on the nose, like that. How a character feels should be evident to the reader/viewer in their actions and their dialogue.

I like my games full of toxic masculinity

World of Warcraft died with Cataclysm. They destroyed the 1-60 questing and replaced it with garbage quests. Then the destroyed the look of the characters and turned the Awesome Tauren into cartoon characters.

I enjoyed the slow paced combat of old wow. I like turn based rpgs. I like being able to sit down and relax while I play a game. New wow combat is just to much for what I want in a video game. Plus, totally agree. WARCRAFT should be gritty and based in battles between the horde and alliance.

I remember the BFA cutscene for the Darkshore event; where Malfurion strangles and buries a Horde alive.... It was so unexpected given the surprising, overly passive demeanour of the expansion and the Night Elves in Legion being rather fluffy and overly soft too. I was hyped. I thought there was a shift coming, Warcraft going back to its more badass roots. But nothing. In fact I think everything since that cutscene, for me at least, has been an embarrassment. To even call it Warcraft now is a joke. My roleplay friends on Argent Dawn delivered a stellar half year of Night Elf worldbuilding post Teldrassil burning though. Blizzard needed to take a leaf out the RP communities' books.

Modern WoW really feels like it's been completely taken over by what people imagine Californians are like. Everything is therapy talk and solving problems through discussing things. You can't have anything left that would appeal to the average man anymore because that's just how it is in current year (even though WoW was at its peak when it appealed exactly to that audience).

Modern wow is a lot like Disney star wars IMO. Its looks like wow but it just isn't the same thing anymore fundamentally.

Deathwings monologue in the Cataclysm Cinematic was so good

Being this early means I need to fix my sleep schedule

It is the same Disney did with marvel and starwars, they took a brand that 75% or so attracted guys and try to make it for everyone. But if something is for everyone it is for no body and just plain.

I'll tell you what happened to Warcraft......Feminism. Feminism happened.

As someone who loved wc3 and played wow "back in the old days" for me the biggest issue is how wow was a continuation of the warcraft where I was the protagonist I cared about Illidan, Arthas, Thrall because I WAS THEM I culled stratholme, I defeated the legion and wow was a continuation of all those stories I lived as a protagonist in warcraft 2 and 3 But the way the game progressed you're just a bystander witnessing stories happening to OTHER people And it's just impossible to care about those in the same way

I have never had as much fun in WoW as I did fighting Blackhand for the first time in WoD. That felt epic and badass and we're trying to outbadass this badass. Incredible fight.

As soon as the switch flipped from Wrath to Cata, something just felt off. It was obviously Wow but.. it didn't feel like Wow anymore probs due to the new engine just being different in a lot of details. For example the camera placement, or the size of the maps, or the weather effects, or the character models. This is without getting into core gameplay changes. And ever since they just got further and further away from "that" WoW we all fell in love with..

Ever since Baldurs gate I haven't touched another game, nothing even feels good anymore. Majority of my friends feel the exact same way, almost none of my "wow friends" log in anymore, yes they made a lot of changes but it was too little too late. The grit is gone, anything cool is gone, compare any other game nowadays with WoW, Blizz are just wayy too scared to do anything gritty, gory or simply dark anymore, it's all "pussy shit" sorry to say and this is coming from a girl. God i miss the old ruthless Sylvanas... Garrosh...Varian...

WoW isn't glory or death it's just hugs now

I think cosmic themes and systems only work if they are a backdrop for good characters and interesting conflicts between those characters. The factions should add some characterization too, different philosophies and ideas, and not all be California’s idea of right and wrong.

Too much diversity hires going on in the dev team. Stop hiring people because of their rainbow hair, or skin color and start picking the best people for the job.

Ranked pvp/arena with ZERO entry requirements…character level completely irrelevant. Gear provided by the faction for the battle. Players get free choice of free gear to match play style. Rewards are cosmetic, or have PVE or unranked PVP implications. Sign up, log in, play. New players of skill have NO ramp period. When they want to do PVE, they can simply just go do it.

Ideological subversion has many far reaching effects. The neutering of WarCraft is one of them.

The only thing that'll unsink this Titanic is a MASSIVE change in direction on EVERY level - More evergreen activities - More worthwhile core game activities - A massive change to the story and tone - A step away from tokens and systems and all the convoluted reward systems. - A better levelling experience - More unique feeling classes and playstyles - A consistent and engaging open world to adventure in - Moving away from a glorified lobby game and back toward a living MMO Will this happen? No, probably not. But I'm still curious to see if with Metzen, the ship will float some meters toward the surface, or if it'll just continue sinking.

Dragonflight lost me with gay centaur. Imagine the doggy style in that situation.

Funny how the aesthetics of videogames drastically changed in total opposition to how the actual world we inhabit evolved. IRL is more savage, violent and deranged yet all games are attempting to be extremely goofy carefree and cheerful.

Warcraft then: I have to slain this village of humans to earn honour for my tribe. Soycraft now(read in Chromie voice): With the power of friendship we can rebuilt this rainbow gyzmo magulator and save the scaly boys.

This is completely tangential to any point, but I love that Asmon says Wrathion is "one of the best new characters in the game" Wrathion has been in WoW for nearly 2/3 of the game's lifespan. He was added into the game 12 years ago. But for a lot of people, anything after Wrath ended is still "New WoW" regardless of how long it's been in the game. Not a problem per se, I just found that funny

This is what happens when you think that making a game more palatable for every single minor group of people that plays is the right direction and it never is.

The simple difference between now and then is: in classic wow game was not taking your hand and put everything for you on a silver platter. You had to explore, discover and read about lore while travelling. Now you have cinematic after cinematic. Nothing is complicated at any point and there is no more detail to what is happening.

The bald man has reawakened from his slumber to deliver content to his people. Blessed be this day and long live the bald man.

Millennial writers at their best. I used the dragonflight engineering wyrmhole and the text said "carelessly leap into the portal, you daredevil", so lame. All they had to do was put "leap into the portal". The people writing for the game are soft, so they write a soft story. I was also doing old legion wq and kept getting taken out from all the talking Illidan was doing at each quest. Like Argus would be creepier if they just shut up. My point is sometimes less is more.

The cutscenes should be something of a reward for completing a questline, something to look forward to because you know you're about to see an epic, brutal conclusion to the story you just were a part of. In Dragonflight every cutscenes is the same boring characters standing around talking to each other, they're like ads in the middle of a KZfaq video that I try and skip over as fast as possible. That's definitely not a good thing.

I'm just apathetic to wow because everything I learned from the lore growing up means nothing now. It keeps getting changed every expac and when a new story beat happens I can't take it serious knowing it will be different next expac

You can't expect the woke zombie trash that runs this game to write anything that makes you feel something, because they feel nothing themselves.

WoW was WoW when it was developed by men, now it's developed by femboys, trans and women. It's crazy that no one realizes this... Just look at recent interviews with the devs, there's always some rainbow hair colored dev talking.

They neeed to make it so that the player isnt the champion of the universe and youre able to take out 30 mobs in one go with little to no push back. I had to solo Steelsnap yesterday as a warrior and with a mixture of bandages, fears, parrys and luck i scraped it out with 17 hp. Those are the moments.

I have barely played WoW this year. This year has been the year of single player games for me. So many good single player games came out this year that felt like they needed my time rather than doing the same thing every day in WoW like it is a second job.

You look at all the tweets and interviews Chris Metzen gave, that guy WAS the vibe check of WoW, always has been. They lost him, they lost the vibe, it's never coming back unless he comes back. Now he has, but who knows if they will allow him to do what he did before. We'll see.

We sandwich 2-5 hours of questing with little narrative depth between 2-5 minute cinematics to explain some cool/crazy/complex cosmic narrative plot that they could have actually allowed us play out in a quest instead. They make us the Heroes of Azeroth and back seat us while the parents have a conversation at the kitchen table while peeking into the room we're in every now and then and petting us on the head for being a good boy.

blizzard systematically demasculating and tearing down every positive male character

That’s what happens when 90% of the OG blizzard devs leave.

The word Asmon is looking for is direction. In movies direction is extremely important, with a good film director making or breaking the experience for the viewer. There is a reason certain people love Christopher Nolan movies, or some like Quentin Tarantino, and sci fi fans love Neil Blomkamp's work. The direction of an artistic project is how it is supposed to make the person experiencing it feel. In terms of Blizzard's recent work, there has been a SERIOUS issue with how they want people to feel and what the end result ends up being. Most players would argue the last time they cared about the lore was in Legion. And I would argue that is the last time the game direction felt decent. The buildup to the other world of Argus, taking on these space opera style threats, Illidan and Velen going through their respective character arcs. WoW's story has never been S tier, but it was at least decent back then, with no "My secret plan is amazing", "No, MY secret plan is amazing", "Wait I did everything to protect you", "Wait I was controlled the entire time". They have stopped even trying to write decently, just aiming to do twist reveals constantly. Hiding the narrative from YOUR OWN PLAYERS just alienates them. There is no reason the story can't be shown to the players. It's not spoiling anything for us, just gets us more hyped. All it does it reduce the amount of time we have to be angry about a stupid decision. But WoW's problems aren't recent, I'd argue that it's narrative really was dying since WoTLK, considering how they wrote themselves into a hole. The general shift wasn't only to this twist asspull type writing, but also a general lack of what made Warcraft popular in the first place. And no the Warcraft franchise was never a gritty grimdark fantasy like Diablo like some people claim it was. The original RTS about the conflict between the races that made up the world, and the struggle between them, the alliances formed, things put aside for the greater good, and the seeking of power by individuals who desired it. These were epic conflicts between each group that changed each race fundamentally, forever. WoW's inception was placing a player character into this world, as a lone adventurer, journeying and murder-hoboing across the huge landscape and becoming a famed member of a group that took on some of the world's issues. It felt very cozy and relaxed, the stakes were not immense, you were helping the local townspeople with their problems, fighting against the alliance or horde for honor or justice, it was grounded. And then the game was done, or so we thought. Then came the next expansion TBC , dealing with one of the biggest events in the Warcraft universe. And then came the NEXT expansion WoTLK, dealing with the OTHER biggest event in the Warcraft universe. They moved through the biggest events in warcraft history like that, and for many people the story ended there. I understand they couldn't have milked those events forever, but to go through them so quickly, and with a very minimal buildup to the next expansion, it was a wasted opportunity. The following expansions invented a new big bad ultimate villain each time, there was definitely hype for cataclysm and its total upheaval of the warcraft world, and MoP, despite its overall goofy setting and tone, actually had some quite good writing put into it. After this came WoD, which writing-wise was horrid, people felt like everything was reaching levels of ridiculous and ofc they completely cut its development and killed the game at the time. But this killing was planned, and they triage-d WoD for what was to come... Finally came Legion, which was really the LAST effort for WoW, it was the "going all out, giving the players everything they want expansion". It dealt with the last thread of the burning crusade, the final threat of sargeras and his army that we had been dealing with. Bringing back all the old characters players loved, and what I mentioned above, with the direction being stellar for the average player. Ever since, the game has felt hollow with all of the actual threats the players caring about being dealt with; the characters they loved either gone, taken in a strange direction to basically assasinate them, or just forgotten about. The lore feels like it was written for a feminist teenage novel series now, rather than a gripping and power driven story. Keep in mind warcraft was NEVER a super dark ultra brutal story, but the current state of WoW feels like its completely afraid to touch anything but the most placid of subject matters. And it comes back to direction. Somehow, someway, the game has ended up at this point. Maybe it's to appeal to shareholders, maybe its the influence of the newer developers on the game. But whatever the reason is, it does not resonate with the players and longtime fans of the franchise. This is the same reason Starfield feels bland and hollow versus the world of Cyberpunk 2077. In order to make your players feel SOMETHING you have to make some sort of a stance, make some sort of conflict or opinion, and bring it to a resolution, not just have the "new" big bad who wants power like the old big bad. It's the same reason why Marvel movies have fallen out of favor, with no more complex characters, just the same old tired stories with the new flavor of the month minority to appeal to more demographics. This is why games like Cyberpunk and Red Dead 2 have become so popular, and are reknowned for their complex, grittier, more emotional stories. They are polarizing to some, but they hit raw to the core human experience. But as we know, for large companies like Blizzard and Bethesda, they are simply just too afraid of taking any form of narrative creativity or stance in order to appeal to the most amount of people. If you stand for everything, you stand for nothing.

I think we just shifted too far into emotions first actions barely ever, and I'm usually the first person to WANT characters to emotionally connect to. Asmon was right about Zappy Boy being a good way to do emotions first for a character but I'll help him out and say Saurfang made me give a shit about him in those same cinematic and he was waaaay more action first talking after. You know everything he feels just from his acting and expressions and it makes you care immediately even as hes crushing some soldier's head

The opposite of love is not hate. It's apathy 😢

They tried to copy FFXIV without understanding why human characters were done so well there. That game shows you how its characters are dealing with trauma, failures, and uncertainty based on how they act in the stories they're attached to. Thancred's arc in HW over the loss of Minfilia wasn't him telling you over and over again what his backstory and current emotions are. He finds out someone important to him is missing, sets about to find her, learns he might not be able to bring her back, is clearly distraught but still continuing the mission, and then when Urianger's gambit brings everyone together to speak to Minfilia he goes through a range of emotions in the cutscene before telling her how proud he is of her since he knows she's meant for greater things. ALL of this is done through our perspective seeing a man go through stages of grief. It's similar to Raubahn's arc. Or Emet-Selch. Or Ardbert. Hell, one of the reasons FFXIV's story hasn't been hitting recently is because they're getting sloppy in how characters tell instead of showing. Meanwhile modern Blizzard started bad and continued to be bad.

I remember when the undead captured people and tested the plague on them to see what would happen.

the lack of men is killing all media imo.