A Major Problem with BfA's Story

Community General Discussion
1

Having not played since 8.0, I can’t speak for 8.1’s storyline, but I think a major problem with BfA’s story, writing and questlines was this:

We spend very little time fighting the opposing faction. The villain on the game’s box art (in my case, Sylvanas) never appears once during the entire leveling process. Fighting her armies and her lieutenants is relegated almost entirely to a series of short, optional, time-gated sidequests. The “main storyline” of the 110-120 zones is spent fighting mundane, cliched, throwaway villains that are vanquished easily in a 5-man dungeon run, and doing random “collect 10 bear asses” quests for the locals.

I remember encountering the Horde in a grand total of two questlines during my main questing experience; both of them were in Stormsong Valley, and both of them were over within an hour.

After the fight for Undercity, I was thirsting for battle. I wanted to blast Sylvanas’ zeppelin out of the sky, land on the front lines of Zandalar and Kul Tiras, and wage war against the enemies who were supposed to be the main villains of the expansion. I wanted to slaughter orcs in pitched battles, infiltrate enemy encampments to gather intelligence, pick off Sylvanas’ lieutenants, and travel through enemy territory and enemy bases on high-stakes missions.

Instead, in Tiragarde Sound, I’m forced to fight random pirates with the typical greedy ambitious disgraced noble at their head. In Drustvar I have to fight another ancient power awakened by dark spirits thirsting for vengeance. And in Stormsong Valley, I fight… yet another ancient power awakened by dark gods thirsting for vengeance. That trope definitely isn’t overused at all.

The marketing portrayed BfA’s story as a story of fantasy warfare. Instead, the fantasy warfare was relegated to time-gated sidequests while the main attraction was the same D&D-esque stories that have been repeated a hundred times over, and executed better by other writers. I think I encountered more Horde during the 1-60 questlines than during the entire 110-120 leveling process.

So in conclusion, the story of BfA was an unfocused narrative mess that didn’t deliver on its own marketing. And once all the interesting questlines had been exhausted, I was way too bored with the class designs, Warfronts (They really should have been PvP, by the way), Island Expeditions, dungeons and raids to try and get back on the proverbial treadmill that is modern WoW’s game design. So I quit. End rant.

3 Likes
2

reminds me of the main theme for Legion: “Kingdoms will burn”

Yet nothing like that ever happened :thinking:

5 Likes
3

I like the Alliance War Campaign (8.0 edition) over the Horde one as it actively involves attempting to hamper Horde Operations while the 8.1 Alliance War Campaign continues the trend.

That and by 8.1.5 it’s entirely possible that the Horde has exactly 0 things (outside the allegiance of the Zandalari…which is matched by the Allegiance of Kul’Tiras to the Alliance) over the Alliance (The Alliance recovers the abyssal scepter which, aside from Dereks body, was the only real strategic gain for the Horde in their 8.0 Campaign during the events of the 8.1 Campaign).

4

Sylvanas will be saved for a raid where shell survive and escape

5

Each faction (horde/ally) is trying to “enlist” the help of the factions in their three zones, and interfere with the other fation’s efforts in the other three zones.

We are fighting a “proxy war” for now.

1 Like
6

Why have a proxy war when you can have a real war, especially since this is fantasy?

7

A turtle will make it to the water!?!?

2 Likes
8

Now that you’ve said that…there’ll probably be a Turtle Boss in the Azshara raid with a mechanic that involves keeping it as far from Water as possible.

3 Likes
9

2 Likes
10

Oh, for added bonus…there’ll be an achievement tied to one of its mechanics - “This Turtle Didn’t Make it”

11

“One Tree Burning” sounded too much like a shoegazing indie band.

1 Like
12

Someone hasn’t been playing Alliance long.

The fact that the Horde don’t show up is one of the best parts of the 8.0 content.

The devs all play Horde. The Alliance will never be allowed to do anything to the Horde, ever. Horde showing up just means more Teldrassils, Brennandams, and Darkshores. Not only will we never win, we’ll never even throw a punch. Better leave the Horde out of it altogether. It’s the only way we’ll be allowed to even have a story.

13

Also…the Horde actually NEEDS its Plot Armour/Dev Favoitism as the Alliance has so many strategic advantages over the Horde that if they were actually allowed to fight their war without bias…the Alliance would win in a week. At most.

2 Likes
14

The Horde story is trash

What advantages? The Alliance have no major hubs left on Kalimdor. The Horde have the majority of the Azerite all to themselves. The Forsaken can covert your dead to Horde soldiers while you are out of soldiers and are now fielding farmers according to Genn.

The Alliance would have lost at UC if not for Jaina and Aleria Ex Machina. Plot armor has saved both sides dozens of times. Hell the first time was when Gul’dan split the Horde back in Warcraft 2 and allowed the Alliance to beat Ogrim.

2 Likes
15

The Vindicaar and its orbitting Space Laser and ability to teleport troops to points without the need for knowledge of Ley Lines or Telemancy Networks.

The ability to open Void Portals anywhere without the need for Knowledge about Ley Lines or Telemancy Networks.

Greater access to resources.

More advanced technology (Draenei Tech > Gnome/Goblin Tech)

Greater access to the Light.

Oh, and our Faction’s Leader DIDN’T piss off the Death Knights by torturing one of the Death Knights for years.

5 Likes
16

Jaina and Alleria arriving is not plot armour, Blizzard created them to be overpowered heroes of the Alliance with no equivalent on the Horde side.

Nathanos escaping Tyrande and Malfurions wrath is an example of extreme plot armour on the other hand …

1 Like
17

The Horde storyline in Zandalar suffers from the same issue.

Not counting the war campaign or incursion questing, you encounter the Alliance while questing in Zandalar a grand total of TWICE, both in Zuldazar; once with the Dark Iron in Xibala, and once in east Zuldazar against a 7th Legion fleet that lands there.

Nazmir there’s a SINGLE world quest.
Vol’dun there’s absolutely nothing.

1 Like
18

The Vindicaar is too small to field a massive army. Also the laser only works at point blank range as we saw in Antorus you have to be very close to do real damage. Whats more its susceptible to boarding actions by teleportation which is how demons and blood elves have managed to take dimensional ships before.

Portals are limited they cannot transport a large army quick enough to launch an invasion. Void Portals are very dangerous as you have to travel the void.

The Horde have all of Kalimdor and the Broken Isles. The Alliance only have south of Thradol’s Span. They dont even have the entire EK.

First its Naaru tech.

Second its extremely hard to produce It took the Draenei years to build the Vindicaar and it still did not have shields or a weapon until it salvaged it from the Dimension ship that was destroyed by the Legion.

Third the Orcs destroyed the Draenei at their most powerful with simple siege weapons.

The Light is not a super weapon and most Horde races can use the light. Paladins are no where near as powerful as mages, warlocks, druids, ect.

The Ebon Blade didn’t care about Koltira. They left him to rot for years he only got freed as a personal favor from Thassarian. Also they largely stay out of faction conflicts.

1 Like
19

Lmao, if the Alliance pulls their heavy guns out, we pull a Draenor on Azeroth and kill everyone.

So yeah, go ahead and use your cheap, honorless weapons of mass destruction that could wipe the whole planet into shreds, instead of fighting on the battlefield.

20

Jaina can suddenly create a flying ship by herself and power it with super canons that have never been seen before in lore. She can also freeze the blight in a massive area while doing so which has also never been seen before.

The also arrive just in the right moment with no one not even Anduin knowing they were coming at all. Oh also Anduin destroying a super tank with a sword even though before BFA he was terrible at using swords and was a cripple that even Velen couldn’t heal.

Blizz making lots of OP characters for the Alliance but none for the Horde is blatant plot armor.

Nathanos who was a high ranking ranger and was empowered by the Prime Valks, with a small force of Forsaken, the Horde champion, two prime Valks, and the powerful ranger and warden they just raised.

Its not plot armor if you consider the power they brought. It wasn’t just Nathanos.