More WoW Lessons

"She said I don't hate you boy, I just want to save you while there's still something left to save..."-Rise Against, Savior

Alright, so as you may or may not know, the expansion pack to World of Warcraft launched last Thursday. If you were wondering where I've been all week--now you know.

One of the more interesting (and enjoyable) things I've found about the new expansion is that it's much, much more story based than the last. One of the things that makes Blizzard as a company so strong is that they have some of the greatest IP (intellectual property) around. Their universes are very well-developed and full of great characters and wonderful narratives.

These have been largely absent from World of Warcraft until now. Perhaps the developers were focused on gameplay, or perhaps they just didn't know how to implement storytelling in a MMORPG, but they seem to have gotten a much better handle on it with this latest expansion (and, to be fair, with some of the final free content updates in the last expansion as well).

To be blunt, I've found that they're following some of my recently discovered keys to drawing someone into a story--they're making your character seem as if he or she is special, "chosen" somehow. Most of this is done with flavor text--the things the NPCs (non-player characters---the characters played by the game) say to you. They tell you they've heard of your exploits in Outland (the landmass you spent most of your time in during the last expansion) and have been awaiting a hero like you to help them out of a jam, or, in one case, the arch-villain of the expansion pack shows up out of nowhere and pins your character down, inspecting you to see if you're fit to serve him, then letting you go and telling his cronies that you're not ripe yet...you'll be plucked later.

It's very refreshing in an MMO, and I'm thrilled to see it for a couple of reasons: one, it means more great stories experienced by more people, which is what I'm all about, and two, maybe, just maybe, it will mean videogame companies employing more writers---and steady, paying jobs for writers are always a good thing.