Project Lore

The absolute number one reason why I play World of Warcraft is for the universe.  I've always loved stories, from the "Slugger" baseball story my grandfather often recited to me as a child to Dune.  A good story has always roped me in, no matter its length.  WoW has come a long way in its story telling in these fives year, in design and execution.  Initially, the quests were spread all over the world, causing many players to abandon them halfway through the chain.  Blizzard, in the second and third go around, consolidated these chains to span single, or perhaps adjacent zones only, which lead to a rise in completion.

Storywise, Blizzard has recanted a lot of its previous lore, up to and including Wrath of the Lich King.  But the writers have expanded on previous ideas, or sneaked in other storylines as well.  Some of these were planned, Ulduar and Ahn'Qiraj, others, like Sunwell Plateau, were out of the necessity for additional content.

Metzen and his crew continue to intrigue me, but I have two main beefs with Blizzard's execution of storytelling in WoW, which actually extends to most MMOGs. The first idea, branching storylines, was lightly touched on in the Useless WoW Leaders post, and brought up a second time in ProjectLorians Super Happy Fun Hour: Dave Edition audio podcast.  Wrath of the Lich King was designed to focus on the Lich King, to throw us in his path on numerous occasions and cement him as the bad guy, and it achieved that.  Outside of a few Ulduar lore questlines in select zones there was little besides the Lich King or his forces.  What I'd like to see are more side missions like Bridenbrad's tale - hopefully without the real-life tragedy attached.  The questline is one of the most memorable in the game due to its excellent writing, and the use of known NPCs that we hadn't heard from lately.

The other issue that needs addressing is orphaned storylines.  These are the quest chains that start, but the story is never completed.  The tale of The Missing Diplomat and Ashbringer are the most famous, and they finally had their day.  There are many more epic tales that have been left dangling that I'd much prefer tackling than another "Kill 10 foozles" quest.  Even if I have to travel a little to do so.