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Examining Blizzard Story Telling Via Media

Hi I am Matt aka Vivii and I will be writing blogs for the website every now and then and this is my first one! Hope you enjoy and any feedback is always welcome.

As a lot of people are aware blizzard has always put a lot of thought into their back story and lore around what they are producing. Such as a series of books regarding more of the ancient lore. However, this is not what i wanted to talk about in this blog. I wanted to concentrate on the more recent developments that we have seen in the last expansion when it comes to storytelling and put my idea’s forward on where we could go in the future. So lets get started.

Mini Series

As many people who enjoy World of Warcraft  know, in MoP, Blizzard embarked on something a little different to what they have previously done. They decided to do that, to help people understand more of the emperor they would hear much about during the quest lines and adventuring around the land of Pandaria. This was called The Burdens of Shaohao and this explain to us the story of the last emperor of Pandaria and the struggles that he would overcome and also the issues he had along the way. I liked this series and found the artwork and the way it was presented really good and for once i actually paid attention to the Lore! Normally i would speak to Mezzy or LJ and they would explain all the lore i did not know/understand, but this for me made it more accessible. The pace of the series was decent and it never felt a chore to watch any episode.

From this first project they have now moved onto the “Lords of War” to help give every day gamers who do not know much about the lore of WoW and the past of Draenor a chance to learn about who they will be fighting. We’ve only seen the first episode at the time i am writing this but all i can say regarding the first episode is wow. I just loved it. The main thing i like about the first episode is just how dark it is and again the pace of it. I also love that it is from the alliances point of view with Vindicator Maraad giving his knowledge to the King. If this is a sample of things to come regards the rest of the series i just can not wait for the rest of the series.

What i would like now is for Blizzard to extend this style of series to explain more of the Lore that there is in wow. Just imagine a series explaining other iconic events in wow. Such as stories around Illidan, Arthas and other bad guys from the world. I think these would go down well if they are done in a similar style to the recent series. I believe this would be a very worthwhile as there are allot of people who do not read the books and quite allot of players who never played the original warcraft games. For me it depends how the rest of this series is received and how much time they have. That depends on how long this new expansion is going to be and only time will tell.

Online Comic Series

Blizzard have also been tapping into another resource that they used a while back and that is comics but this time they are free online (to be fair i may be incorrect but i do not believe the others were free online). These original series lasted from 2007 through to 2009 with 4 story arcs.

Now they have started with WoD and i have to say i was impressed by the first comic release called “Guldan the Stranger”. Again another form of media to give more of a back story to some of those pesky orcs! I like the artwork and also like the flow of it. It leaves me looking forward to the rest of the series and hoping for more of the same. Hopefully it will be released to coincide with the Lords of War mini series and really add depth to all of the characters.

 

Conclusion

Overall these other media outlets that are being used do add a lot to the story. They help explain why you should hate or love the character they are about. With the burdens of Shaohao it was seeing the struggles that the last emperor had to go through and actually caring about his plight. In the first Lords of War it really made you realise how much of a bad ass that Kargath actually is. The first time i watched them they had the wow factor that has been missing from the game in recent years and do make you excited about what you may now face in the game. This is the reaction that Blizzard will want and i believe it is the reaction that they are getting. Hopefully the rest of the series continues in this trend and makes every one of us just want to kick the Orcs ass!  As an extra piece of content i love the comic i like the way its produces and the look of it. Again i am looking forward to more. So all in all i believe that these extra pieces of media that are using are a benefit to the World of Warcraft and should continue and expanded upon. They should not be limited to “current” content. If this happens there will be a lot of extra people. I know there may be a couple of this missed out but for me these are the two main things so hope you enjoyed the read!

 

 

 

 

Pyrruss’ Puzzlings, The First Post!

Hi guys, I’m WoW Weekly’s newest columnist, Zoe, aka Pyrruss. This will be a small column focusing on the lighter side of WoW and my adventures within it! For this week though, I thought it would be nice to know where I’ve come from.

I started WoW at the very beginning, I even tried a little of the beta via a friend who had it. I created my little Tauren shaman called Pyrrus on The Maelstrom, here I began what was to be an epic adventure!
Back then it took a loooooong time to level, I only hit 60 about 2 weeks before the AQ event and try as I might I didn’t manage to attend and join in as I was only half way through the questline and a guild opened it at like 4am so I missed out. Still bugs me today lol!

I started raiding and cleared everything bar naxx as my guild were stuck on 4 horsemen… That really was a horrific fight back then…
Raided with some pretty awesome guilds in TBC, even applied to Nihilium but I was declined once I had the vent interview ’cause I’m female! Certainly laughable now! After realm hopping a lot I ended up on Karazhan with some IRL friends and flirted with being a GM and raid leader before practically quitting for health stuff. When Onyxia was re-released I was asked to help a friend and his guild kill her and ended up joining , whom I’m still with in theory today.

Over the next few weeks I’ll tell you more of what’s been happening with lunacy and where I am living now then I’ll get onto the fun things like stories, stupidity and stuff! I hope you’ll enjoy my weekly adventures in WoW! (The name Pyrruss’ Puzzlings might change for this column/blog series)

Time Lost Proto Drake Style Mounts Coming To Draenor, Proving Grounds Level 30+, No Podcast This Week

There hasn’t been much news in WoW this week, not even a new beta patch. However we did get a few interesting tweets.

Muffinus teased 7 rare mounts for Draenor that are in the time-lost protodrake style! They are however much less cruel to the collector than the previous mounts.

Proving Grounds

Celestalon let us know that you’ll be able to access proving grounds at level 30 (at the very least the bronze version) and that the npcs will scale up to your item level instead of your gear being scaled down in the future!

No Podcast This Weekend

And then to end tonight’s post, there will not be a podcast this week. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our new show Don’t Stand In The Fire!

Battleground Call To Arms Removed In WoD

The PvP battleground call to arms is being removed in Warlord of Draenor. This is being done in due to the negative influence the call to arms had on queues.

Quote from: Blizzard
We’ve removed Call to Arms in Warlords. Originally, the feature was added to bring some variety to the battleground experience and allow players who like a specific battleground to occassionally binge on it. But, like any feature, we have to weight the benefits with the consequences. Call to Arms has an adverse affect on queue times in a pretty profound way. When certain battlegrounds are up, one faction will tend to queue for Call to Arms while the other tends to avoid it. As a result, we’re going to remove it so that the majority of players are queuing through Random Battlegrounds.

Don’t Stand In The Fire 1 – Daily Quests

It’s finally here! Don’t Stand In The Fire (DSITF)’s pilot episode is now out. Every week one of the podcast hosts will talk about a subject related to WoW or Gaming. This can be anything from something like pet battles, to a patch survival guide to something related to game design.

In this pilot Matt talks about Daily quests. How they got started, how they developed and how they will be and what he would like them to be in the future. We’re definitely looking for feedback as well as suggestions for future topics, so let us know in the comments here, on youtube or via social media!