Armchair Critique

[farseer_lolotea]

The writing in WoW?  Really going downhill.  Twilight of the Aspects...well, from what I'm hearing, it could drop the last three words off that title.

I started following the lore...why?  Because, in a game that story-oriented, it felt like the right thing to do.  For some time, I even enjoyed it.  And I still enjoy the game

Comments

[reanimatrix]

Yeah, you just described my exact frustrations to a T. I think that's why I like Rift so much better and why I can't seem to go back to wow. Asha, for example, feels almost like what Jaina could have, and should have been, in personality at least-- 90% bad ass, but with the occasional vulnerability.

And I KNEW Twilight of the Aspects was going to be awful-- Christie Golden likes Thrall way too much to write him objectively (god knows why, I can't stand Thrall myself, so...) and Metzen is too much of a fanboy to do anything but edit it badly (Make him sparkle more, Christie!). Ugh.

Yeah. If anyone needs me, I'll be in Telara. Maybe I'll be back if they finally kill Thrall off, but with what they did to Staghelm and the disappearance of Maiev, it's not likely.

[farseer_lolotea]

I get you in regards to Jaina vs. Asha.

Thrall was an okay character.  But now, he's turning into an atrocious Sam.  I mean, thank heaven he's probably not the next Earth Aspect, but even so.

And he's only part of what seems to be wrong with this book.

[weiila]

My head hurts -_-

I wish I could get into Rift's story more but maybe it needs to stew a little more. Which is an ample choice of words when it comes to where WoW is heading - OVERCOOKED.

[farseer_lolotea]

Rift's lore doesn't have much to it yet.  More than some people are willing to give it credit for (I'm looking at you, snot at the Awful Forums who keeps calling it "shallow"), but even so.

On the up note, Trion just put up a second round of Q&A.

[sodzilla]

I've said this elsewhere, but about the only way I can stomach or even understand the change in Thrall is by imagining him as severely depressed.

Which in turn makes me identify with him to the point where Aggra's abusiveness and Golden's continued insistence that AGGRA IS RIGHT AND IS ACTING SOLELY OUT OF LOVE becomes even more creepy than normally.

As for the writing - well. In the first couple of chapters Golden contradicts herself several times... and not just her older work, which she seems to have forgotten, but The Shittering as well. Or maybe she thinks it's just fine to tell us in one book that Thrall isn't really a very good shaman, that he's poorly trained and not properly dedicated to the elements, and needs remedial training... and then in the next, taking place a few months later, have people criticize him because an experienced and powerful shaman like him should not make mistakes? Among. Other. Things.

Watch out. Trope.

[farseer_lolotea]

It's almost as if they're trying to give Aggra the illusion of depth while still keeping her as a one-dimensional tsundere.

Yes, the result does come off as rather pathological.  She keeps deliberately prodding Thrall where it hurts about Taretha, and this is presented as okay.

And no, I don't buy the "but but but orcs!" excuse that keeps being trotted out.  Golden may have forgotten Rise of the Horde, but I haven't.  With Durotan and Draka, there was plenty of coquetry, plenty of Draka not taking Durotan's BS if she thought he was giving her BS, and a dangerous hunt...but neither of them seemed to be actively trying to "mold" the other.

Re: Watch out. Trope.

[sodzilla]

Exactly. Sadly Durotan and Draka are the only orcish married couple we've seen on-screen, which would piss the orc-fan in me right off if it weren't for the fact we haven't seen many humans interact with their spouses either. (Which in turn pisses the FEMINIST in me right off because it's always the wife who's deemed uninteresting...) But I always got the impression that to an orc, punching your mate in the face might be forgiven (and might in fact be seen as foreplay) but punching them in the SOUL would not.

Aggra is constantly undermining Thrall's confidence and sense of self, trying to alienate him from the people closest to him (like Jaina and Taretha, but not limited to them - how does she feel about Vol'jin for example? Or Eitrigg, who is suitably orcish but has a human best friend?) and verbally abusing him. If she were a man people would be yelling about how wrong this was.