Breakfast Topic: What's your one wish for Mists of Pandaria?
by Olivia Grace 
Mar 16th 2012 at 8:00AM
OK, we all know it's coming. There have been exciting releases like the female pandaren silhouette hitting the web, with a promise of more come March 19. Blizzard is fielding a really strong marketing focus this expansion, giving us tidbits of information, leaving us wanting more.
So I bet we're all starting to imagine what the new expansion might bring in our chosen favorite aspect of the game. You may think my main role here is writing Breakfast Topics, but actually I'm a PvP columnist and that's my focus in WoW, so my wish would be PvP-related. Now, you may think I'm whining or complaining unnecessarily, but I'd really like to see Mana Burn taken out of the game. I know, I know, it has a long cast time and is mana-expensive to cast, but I hate it. I hate being CC'd and mana burned. So that's my one wish.
What's yours? You're only allowed one, but it could be anything, anything at all. Use your imagination! Want all the retro raids in the Raid Finder? Wish for it! Want to see a huge statue of Lady Sylvanas in Orgrimmar? Hmm, I might swap Mana Burn for that ... I have a bit of a girl crush on Sylvanas.
So I bet we're all starting to imagine what the new expansion might bring in our chosen favorite aspect of the game. You may think my main role here is writing Breakfast Topics, but actually I'm a PvP columnist and that's my focus in WoW, so my wish would be PvP-related. Now, you may think I'm whining or complaining unnecessarily, but I'd really like to see Mana Burn taken out of the game. I know, I know, it has a long cast time and is mana-expensive to cast, but I hate it. I hate being CC'd and mana burned. So that's my one wish.
What's yours? You're only allowed one, but it could be anything, anything at all. Use your imagination! Want all the retro raids in the Raid Finder? Wish for it! Want to see a huge statue of Lady Sylvanas in Orgrimmar? Hmm, I might swap Mana Burn for that ... I have a bit of a girl crush on Sylvanas.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
Pyromelter Mar 16th 2012 8:03AM
My one wish is for all major lore moments to be seen and playable in-game, and not in an outside novel, especially if it involves the death or petrification of a faction leader.
wow Mar 16th 2012 8:24AM
I love how you feel the need for that clarification, at least it shows a little nuance in the lore :)
And I also support the sentiment - "in game or it didn't happen" may be a bit strong, but it's starting to feel like the game is there to support the books, not the other way round.
Lignar Mar 16th 2012 8:43AM
I agree with this, except it's difficult for a book to enjoyable if there's no 'meat' to the story. Boring books tend to not do well.
I want a spectator mode in PvP and in raids. Not one that anybody can just jump in, they need to be invited (or at least on a friend list etc). It would be nice to for someone on the bench to get a better look at a raid encounter than they get in strat vids. And spectator mode for PvP? It would be a second Blizz game in the esports world.
deymorin Mar 16th 2012 8:47AM
Can't upvote this enough. I love the story of wow and I've been trying to read the books. But they are just so... BAD.
TonyKP Mar 16th 2012 8:52AM
Hear, hear!!
Cataclysm wouldn't have been nearly as bad for me lore-wise if it hadn't been so "You wake up one day and find the world destroyed and Cairne dead. Somehow."
Calicia Mar 16th 2012 8:59AM
This. A thousand times this.
A little less pop culture stuff (a little goes a long way) and more real lore.
Luotian Mar 16th 2012 9:51AM
Can I ask you all something? And I'm serious:
How?
People don't like cut-scenes, they hate the voice-acting in WoW, how exactly is Blizzard supposed to tell that kind of story? And, if they did somehow make it into what would feel like the most contrived quest in the history of the game, would you honestly read the quests?
DarkWalker Mar 16th 2012 10:40AM
@Luotian:
I believe the problem with cut-scenes is that they can't be skipped. Find a way to make cut-scenes skippable - and, perhaps, even allow players to repeat them at their convenience, just like the Wrathgate and LK's demise - and they might be much more appreciated.
zackwbrandon Mar 16th 2012 11:39AM
People love cutscenes that don't consist of taking the camera away from the player to show them the area they are already in with every quest. Wrathgate remains one of the most beloved parts of Wrath, and the DS machinimas were really good too. More cinematic cut scenes (but by no means every other quest - perhaps as Zone or major lore questchain toppers) and less Uldum.
As for the books themselves: stop making them about faction leaders dying and perhaps about creating some new characters here and there. The main thing about Stormrage I liked? It moved the story in-game forward by waking Malfurion, but the book focused on Broll and the new Emerald Dream-born guy. Broll is largely absent from the game - so if he died in a book it would not be quite as annoying (no spoiler alert because that was not a spoiler).
What did I hate about Stormrage? Do you remember the awesome faction questline where you help fend of nightmares in your racial capital, then the faction capital and eventually join an army of NPCs and Players in defeating the Nightmare Lord - you know the one that takes you to Darnassus to witness a secret conclave of Druids before launching an all out war across the planet - the one that isn't in the game. Exactly.
TonyKP Mar 16th 2012 11:42AM
Yeah, Wrathgate and the Battle of Undercity were great examples of plot advancement being immersive. Something tells me that the marketing "geniuses" at Blizz/Act were behind putting all of Cata's major plot advancements in books that would have to be purchased separately.
wow Mar 16th 2012 11:57AM
@Luotian - You ask how to make lore more interesting in-game without boring quest text and cutscenes, I'll counter with this: the quest chain where you try save a dying crusader in Icecrown. It was completely optional, sent you all over the world (and off-world even), and had a great ending (spoiler alert - you can't save him, but find out that the light doesn't abandon its heroes). Packs an emotional punch, but if you didn't want to bother racing all over the place it didn't matter.
Now look at all the Cataclysm questing, including the 1-60 updated zones - completely linear, with few (if any) optional side-quests.
That's what is missing.
Noyou Mar 16th 2012 12:28PM
@wow
Great example. The quest chain for Crusader Bridenbrad is one of the best in the game. Cut scenes, if meaningful and involving lore are great. I think what many people don't like is a cut scene involving a character that has no business in having a cut scene. The ones in Uldum didn't bother me at all- but thinking about it now, we got all that while all the major lore we could have had. Seems kind of silly. The cut scenes for Vol'Jin, Baine and Sylvanas were awesome. I say this as an alliance player. Those are the types of cut scenes we need. And count me in for, "In game or it didn't happen". So tired of people referencing the books for lore.
Boobah Mar 16th 2012 2:18PM
Like an earlier commenter said, the books don't have to be about the faction leaders and whatnot. The story can be about folks who can have huge stories that our characters (and the world at large) never notice.
Think, for example, of the Forgotten Realms novels. There are exceptions, but most of the time the stories don't leave huge disruptions in the status quo. Sure, the locals will remember the day those adventurers fought off the scary-bad dragon... but these things happen, and aside from the scorched fields where the battle took place, there's not much left to show that it happened; and next year, the adventurers have moved on (there were dark cultists behind the dragon attack, after all), the dragon's corpse has decayed, and the fields have been replanted.
Luotian Mar 16th 2012 2:22PM
See, and I would counter that you can't. You can't do in a visual medium what you can do in a book. The books link you in to character thoughts and emotions that are hard to portray without it feeling forced. I love the books (Golden's; Knaak's books are terrible writing but still alright stories). I just don't see how what happened in those books could possibly be portrayed in the same way without feeling cheesy and/or making your character seem far more important than they already do.
McGintoy Mar 16th 2012 2:22PM
Hero's Call: Magni Bronzebeard!
Something terrible has happened. Go speak with a guard in Old Ironforge to find out more.
"Oh yes, I saw the whole thing! Here's what happened."
*Cutscene*
Hero's Call: An Interesting Development!
Cairne Bloodhoof is dead! Speak with Master Mathias Shaw to find out more.
"One of my spies witnessed something that will undoubtedly reshape the face of the Horde as we know it. I'll let him explain."
*Spy appears from the shadows*
"Place your hand on this orb, and you shall see what I saw."
*Cutscene*
lkmwow Mar 16th 2012 5:36PM
Just last night a friend suggested an awesome animation. The ability for druid cats to puff up like real cats when in combat, or maybe when feared.
Pyromelter Mar 16th 2012 7:54PM
Some specifics to concerns people have:
"I agree with this, except it's difficult for a book to enjoyable if there's no 'meat' to the story. Boring books tend to not do well."
To this I respond with an example: Arthas. While there were a few morsels of information in the book that were not directly seen or playable, the Arthas novel basically recounted actions taken in playable form. In other words, it was a novelization of the game, similar to how there might be a novelization of a movie.
"Can I ask you all something? And I'm serious:
How?"
It's been done, time and time again, with many story lines all over Azeroth. From Onyxia to C'thun to Yogg-Saron to the aforementioned Arthas, not to mention entire story lines of blood elves, Kael'Thas/Liadrin, Sylvanas, you have the entire story lines of the worgen and goblins told in-game, Rheastrasza/uncorrupted black dragon egg/Wrathion, blue dragonflight, Tirion Fordring, the formation of the Ebon Blade and Death Knight lore, the corruption of Dranosh Saurfang... I could list dozens of more examples, but you get my point.
Heck we can even go to other game franchises, Starcraft and Diablo. I don't even know if there is a Starcraft book, but doesn't it feel like you know Raynor and Kerrigan?
The point is blizzard is great at creating in-game lore, and it feels like cheating when you take away or create major changes to major lore characters without any in-game explanation.
"And, if they did somehow make it into what would feel like the most contrived quest in the history of the game, would you honestly read the quests?"
Those of us who went through the questline and played through the Wrathgate and Battle for Undercity 5, 6, 7 times and up, do not feel like those quests were contrived, and yeah, at least the first time through, I do read them. It's what people who are interested in lore do the first time they come across a quest.
Nina Katarina Mar 16th 2012 8:06AM
My one wish for MoP is that it has enough to keep everyone on my raid team happy so that we all stay with the game into the new expansion. We've got some great synergy going, we had some struggles early in Cata but we've overcome them and gelled into a cohesive and mostly efficient force. I'm hoping that we can keep the team together, and expand enough that our second team can prosper without burning out our first team with gearing alts.
ejunk Mar 16th 2012 8:06AM
A cooking recipe as awesome as Stormchops.
Noyou Mar 16th 2012 12:26PM
It is an awesome recipe but getting your hands on it is another story altogether.