Samtemdo8 said:
Sigh, just explain to me in detail what I did wrong because I have no idea how you cannot clearly see the change in tone and direction Blizzard went post Warcraft 3.
Point being that you just selected a group of cinematics from a certain period in time. If you'd continued to use the WoW/SC2/D3 cinematics, average joe wouldn't spot the difference, apart from the latter cinematics looking much better.
But as to your point:
World of Warcraft is smorgasbord of tones with goofy sillyness and dramatic seriousness, the latter barely edging out the former.
WoW is difficult to comment on, because I've only experienced it at arm's length. But WoW still takes itself and its lore seriously. It's always had a goofy side to it. If WoW's changed from its earlier days, it's that it's far more over the top, but it still plays it straight. WC2 escalated from WC1, WC3 escalated from WC2, WoW has escalated from WC3. So while stuff like Jaina levitating a ship in front of Capital City and using its cannons to fire upon said city would never have happened in earlier games, the tone is more or less the same.
Starcraft II started well enough until the dare I say it, Mary Sue-fication of Kerrigan.
SC2 is still the same universe as SC1. And as for Kerrigan, if she's a Sue in SC2, that process began in Brood War.
Diablo 3 is self-evident, nothing in that game would come close to the shit they got away with in Diablo's 1 and 2.
No, it really isn't. You might argue that D3 differs from its presentation from D1/D2, but its content is the same, considering that the stuff in D3 includes, but not limited to:
-Mass burning of villages, including ritual sacrifice of villagers in said villages
-Child death in horrific ways
-Child traumatization from parent death
-Rape
-Literal soul reaping
-Attempted genocide
-Regicide, and armed insurrection in the midst of said genocide
-Cannibalism
And much, much more.
If you want to discuss the tone and art of D3, fine, but D3 gets away with everything that the earlier games did. If anything, it's more effective at it, because compare D1, where simply read about horrible things, whereas in D3, it happens right in front of you.
Hearthstone is a goofy mockery of WOW's image. (And personally though I wish it was played within WOW)
Hearthstone would constitute a "change of direction" if it was replacing WoW, but it isn't. It's a spinoff that's explicitly stated to not be congruent with WoW. It's taking WoW's goofy side and distilling it. Now, I have no interest in Hearthstone (even if I enjoy some of its shorts), but it's easy to segregate WoW and HS.
Heroes of the Storm is fanfiction.
To a point, yes. But the reason I count HotS as its own IP is that it has a plenthora of lore separate from any of the universes it heralds from. Lore that's the most undeveloped, but lore all the same.
Overwatch is what is trendy right now in geek culture.
Um, what's trendy?
Seriously, geek culture is so fragmented right now, I can't identify trends. You might say superheroes, but they've become so monolithic, it's not the trend, it's the norm. You might call Overwatch a superhero universe, but it's distinct from the likes of the MCU or DCEU. Overwatch is far more well known for kickstarting the attempt at "hero shooters" (a trend that left Overwatch and Paladins as the only remaining contenders, plus TF2 from way back in the day) than following trends.
So, yeah. Thing is, I'd argue that Blizzard actually has had a change in direction, but not for the reasons you think. Rather, it's a noticable focus on multiplayer-only titles (HS, HotS, Overwatch), whereas previous titles always had a strong singleplayer component in addition to the multiplayer one. It's not a universal trend, in as much that WoW is still going as it always has, and D4 has been all but confirmed at this point thanks to Titan Comics, but it's there. Not a trend I welcome, but you win some, you lose some. However, Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft are still the same IPs. Changed to some extent sure, but hardly a "change of direction." Which is more than I can say about Lost Vikings, Blackthorne, and Rock n' Roll Racing, but no-one talks about them much. I think in part because apart from Blackthorne, they shoot the whole "Blizzard was always dark and gritty" argument out of the water.
(Seriously, when's Blackthorne coming to HotS?
)
skywolfblue said:
Though admittedly, Wings of Liberty and Legacy of the Void have totally WTF? idyllic endings that are out of place.
Really disagree there. WoL works up to its ending. LotV, you could argue less so, in that the epilogue portion is separate from its main campaign, but it still feels natural.
But then, of course, neither the Koprulu sector or Sanctuary get to enjoy their happy endings. I mean, if SC and Diablo WERE disnyfied, their storylines would have ended with D3 and LotV respectively, but as we've seen, after these periods, the quality of life plummets for average joe in both settings (especially in the case of Sanctuary)
