If you find it a suitable reward for 90 levels of questing and fighting and taking on the greatest threats that Azeroth has ever faced, then that's great. The result is a system that, like much of World of Warcraft, is designed to let you take it as you will. Having helped the orcs of Frostfire Ridge for instance, it makes absolute sense that people needing their help would invite you along to make the introductions - especially as they won't trust humans. Likewise, the story tries to justify your involvement where possible with specifics. It's done where relevant, like when you go into a camp from outside - guards posted outside or by the flight point being in charge of the "Throm-ka, commander," greetings and the people inside typically silent unless there's a plot point. It's also more careful than it might initially seem about the ego-boosting barks from guards and so on characters showing respect, but not constantly kissing your ass. A letter from Draka at the end of the Horde Draenor campaign for instance, or from Archmage Khadgar laying out the next steps that have to be taken, or in older campaigns, being pointed towards the fact that it's finally time to get your flying mount. calling them an event is too much, but certainly an occasion. World of Warcraft meanwhile keeps its letters from NPCs to a bare minimum, so that when they come in, they're something of.
For starters, I can now occasionally correctly spell "Draenei". We've come a long way from the ceremony at the end of the Dranaei starting area. Who writes a letter to a wandering hero to thank them for picking apples or whatever? The gratitude grated, wearing away the suspension of disbelief with every insincere claim. It became boring, not least because it was so damn fake. That quickly changed them from being a genuine mark of appreciation on behalf of a grateful NPC into simply A Thing That Guild Wars 2 Does - a pain in the arse for the quest-writers no doubt, and a pain to deal with, even if it was just getting rid of them and collecting the change on the end. You'd do a couple of things and immediately, ping, a thank you letter appeared.
The first was that they were constant, and immediate. There's a couple of reasons why it didn't work. More specific to what we're looking at this week though was its attempt to do smaller moments of gratitude like City of Heroes barks and Warlords of Draenor's saluting, with its approach taking the form of letters from grateful quest-givers after you'd done the thing. On the global scale, as anyone who played the campaign knows, your role as saviour starts out pretty strong and then is unceremoniously taken by a boring tree man called Trehearne, and you spend the rest of the campaign simply being his number two. Guild Wars 2 in particular stands out to me as an attempt that tried and failed to make the player feel like the hero. It is however possible to go too far with this. All the factions just saw you as an expendable asshole and wasted no time or enjoyment in making that clear. In the Horde capital of Warspear for instance, you'll hear lines like "There goes Seneschal! They say she's the greatest mage who ever lived!" Approaching an Outpost, the guards will bitch each other out for not saluting you, declare a proud "Lok'tar ogar!" In missions, while functionally you're doing the same thing as the last few expansions, there's just enough power in being told that you're being sent somewhere primarily to boost their morale to, just for a moment, ignore the artifice of it and enjoy the sentiment.įuncom's The Secret World took a different tack.
Both in your Garrison and in the open world, characters respond to you with a new level of respect.
This time though, Blizzard goes entirely the other way. In previous expansion packs this tended (not exclusively, but often) to be ignored or hand-waved by the characters so that some random person in a nothing outpost could still pile you up with crapwork even when you had Illidan Stormrage's blood on your sword or were toting around the Lich King's own gear. "I'll never forget you, Admiral Trainer." "Taylor." "Whatever."