I mean, we defeated the Lich King by marshalling our forces and marching into his fortress and killing him. The ONLY curveballs were a side-quest to kill an Old God (in less than a single patch) and the betrayal at the Wrath Gate. Otherwise it was a straight linear progression of killing all his stuff as we marched straight towards ICC.
Cataclysm was a Zelda game: fight through the 4 elemental temples and then face and kill Ganonwing with the Tri-Soul. The only twist in Legion was how much more we achieved than we set out to. We wanted to repel an invasion, and ended up macguffining our way straight through Gulâdan and KilâJaeden to Argus to kill one titan and defeat Sargaras! Still, a completely linear storyline.
What does BFA have? The Warbringers, the intro cinematic, the Old Soldier & Lost Honour cinematics, the progression of the war with multiple offensives and plot twists, the separate political intrigues for BOTH factions, the Baine/Derek storyline, the Saurfang/rebellion storyline, the Magni/Azeroth thread throughout, the mystery of VolâJin, the confrontation with Sylvanas, her true intentions and motivations slowly becoming clear and setting up 9.0, multiple mid-expansion new zones (which has never been done before), the King Mechagon threat, the culmination of the Naga threat, multiple choices for allegiance/player agency with Sylvanas Loyalists and the Gift of NâZoth, Wrathionâs return, and a raid into Nyaâlotha to fight an Old God.
This is more than any THREE expansions have ever given us before! And weâre upset because the artifact that has been central to the entire expansion and the related weapon weâve been working to put together and empower for 2/3rds of it kinda looks like a laser?
GROW. UP.
Itâs a cartoon video game with cartoon heroes using cartoon weapons to kill cartoon villains. This isnât HBO, itâs an MMO. Even if it were HBO, the Blizzard cinematic team are twice the storytellers D&D were anyway.
The hell is everyone expecting here?
19 Likes
Quality not quantity?
Everything felt like multiple trailers to better expansions, things didnât mesh well, and two villains were utterly and absolutely wasted.
The writing has never been so bad, and itâs honestly exhausting to keep up with as someone who enjoyed the lore.
101 Likes
And people like it three times less than any expansion before 
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âIâm going to tell people to grow up because they have a different opinion than me about writing.â
Sorry, I donât like weak whiny orcs that do nothing but be useless right up until theyâre killed by an equally useless tyrant.
I donât like getting the villain bat every single time while Alliance is made to be the Mary-Sue faction, âcan do no wrongâ, again and again.
I donât like the constant infighting of the horde and the warchief roulette. Nor do I like how it seems like suddenly the Horde is bending to the whims of the Alliance in every way.
No, I donât like the BfA story. In fact, I despise it. If you like it? Thatâs fine. But donât be immature about people having variant opinions. Not everyone is going to agree with you, and ranting about them disagreeing reflects quite a bit on you, OP.
41 Likes
I actually agree. It wasnât handled the best at times, but it covered a lot and broached a lot of interesting lore, past and present.
4 Likes
We killed a released old god
Because âYou are not preparedâ over and over is good writing? What âgood writingâ has WoW ever had?
The Saurfang mini-movie is fantastic. The Sylvanas/Shadowlands reveal gives concrete, consistent motivation to a character that was previously edgy for edginessâ sake. The Derek storyline was heart-wrenching. People are still debating VolâJinâs fate. I still tear up watching the Jaina/Catherine arc.
The writing in BfA was extremely good.
5 Likes
In Legion, the best expansion ever, we killed a released Titan. Who could canonically 1-shot an old god, rip it off a planet, and toss it into the cosmos.
Wow, are you really dunking on Saurfang now? And claiming he didnât completely out-play Sylvanas?
Fair point. Had enough of the Warchief shuffle. But how does that differentiate BfAâs storyline from anything else in the game? Legion was far worse for this, not to mention MoP.
1 Like
Youâre picking out some good moments. Yes, the Jaina line is very good. For one half of the player base. Blizzard has had good writing in the past, but itâs usually zone specific or a few quest lines.
Volâjin should have never died, that was another character they butchered the story for. Still âdiscussing his fateâ doesnât mean anything when it made no sense how he died. Iâm sure itâll be revealed in Shadowlands, but everything to do with him past MoP has been bad.
Saurfangâs story was decent, but that depends on who you ask. And Sylvanas is just a bad character. Sheâs been front and center since practically Cataclysm, and all of her power gain was done off screen. The final showdown felt awful because there was no indication that sheâd unlocked super awesome death powers. There was no foreshadowing, no lead up, no questioning. It was sudden, and sudden is usually quite bad when it comes to power gains. Anime gets it a lot; Sylvanas is basically an anime villain.
The problem is Blizzard has some diamonds in the rough. Yes, zone specific stories can be decent. But their faction war and overarching stories tend to be fan fiction levels or worse, and most often times worse. Anything that requires the two factions to butt heads is written horribly, or anything that carries from start to finish of an expansion tends to begin to fail. When itâs something short and sweet, like a zone or Jainaâs story, theyâre not bad. But over all, the writing is horrendous.
8 Likes
FFXIV manages to have good story and challenging pve content, inetersting classes, gear progression that makes sense, content from old expansions is still playabe and all that stuff
8 Likes
Lots of things happening does not a good story make. Itâs flashing lights, jingling keys, and wacky noises on repeat - and frankly, Iâm one of those people who thinks things need to be a bit more substance and less fluff?
The âpure spectacleâ shortcut in writing (and animation) needs to be shelved for a bit.
4 Likes
I had no idea I wasnât allowed to like a character. I heavily dislike Sylvanas too. But yes, I see him as a useless character right up into the end. If you like him? Thatâs great. Me? I donât. And never will.
I personally loved Legion. I really donât care how much people hate on Illidan or the story in it, I liked that story far better than most expansions Iâve played, and I joined in Cata. Naturally I favor LK story the most, but I didnât play then.
We clearly have different opinions on what writing we favor in the game, which is fine. Mineâs not changing, I despise BfA. Itâs nice that you got enjoyment from it. But me? I favor arcs that are far different.
Do I like the zone stories of BfA though? Yes, quite a bit (though I didnât do Stormsong). I wish there was more emphasis on them as opposed to the war campaign, which I hated.
7 Likes
The story in this expansion has been an overall messâŚ
7 Likes
I like Vulpera storyline and somewhat of Zalandari, but thatâs about it. Alliance had sing along Jainaâs Cruise ship and Tyrande going back into her teenage phase due to missing Illidan on the low while Maiev hugs her Illidan body pillow. This expansion felt like Disney to me. Allied races are fine, Ashzara was okay, but the toxic grind we had to go through was not needed.
Sure we have a choice, but do they truly want us to leave the game? Just stop with the nonsense essence grind, pathfinder 20 years later to fly achievement, not being alt friendly and give us some freaking customization so I can look beautiful as those pesky FFXIV, GW2 and ESO characters. I want to wear their skimpy cosmetics outfits too than always transmogging to the usual skimpy armor.
Create a skimpy set and put it on the cash shop for $5.
Thatâs my rant for now since me adding professions like sword smith can be added another day.
This is what boggles my mind. The zone stories always feel pretty good. Drustvar is easily my newest favorite zone, but itâs fleeting and temporary. The factions conflict hasnât been good since MoP, and thatâs being generous all things considered.
WoW has never made me despise a story as much as BfA before. I never thought I could get this annoyed and frustrated at the sheer ineptitude and ridiculousness that BfA writing is (to me), but they managed it.
10 Likes
whispers âthat didnât happen in BfAâ
She didnât defeat him with that. He defeated HER, and then they added a plot-twist by having her give up and reveal herself. She would have killed him easily without her death powers. Thrall straight up admits it before the fight starts!
Her getting a sudden new power that we never knew she had is⌠storytelling 101. Especially when itâs been so clearly explained in retrospect and is so integral to the plot of the next expansion. âI didnât like itâ is one thing. Thatâs subjective. âSudden powerups for villains are bad storytellingâ is just wrong.
Same. I canât decide my favorite story in terms of zones, but Nazmir and Drustvar are definitely the top. And I do love Vulpera quite a bit. The Allied Race stories too (Even Mahâgar which is an unpopular opinion, that I get.)
I even left for a few months in summer because I just wasnât feeling it at all. Didnât really play 8.2 whatsoever, and the void stuff feels so disjointed now because the emphasis has been so strongly on âletâs go kill the other factionâ and now suddenly weâre throwing flowers and hugging.
Which would be great. Despite me disliking the story, a stop to the faction war or at least less emphasis would be wonderful! âŚIF we could actually play with the other faction and have neutral guilds. They canât even do that right. âWe need to keep the essence of the gameâ while at the same time showing a huge important part in lore where weâre no longer fighting with the other faction. Come on >< As a roleplayer, itâd be nice to finally have a neutral guild.
3 Likes