These threads are a dime a dozen, so I apologize. But allow me a moment to ask a few questions that hang from the title of this thread:
What was the point of Battle for Azeroth?
Before I go into why I’m so bothered about this, lets look at the “point” of Warlords of Draenor and Legion.
-
What was the point of WoD?
In WoD intent of the story was to give Azeroth an extra pool of bodies to call upon to fight the burning Legion. Instead, we had to deal with the repercussions of a bad deal which ironically caused the Legion invasion it was trying to fortify against. This did not create any amnesiac scenarios I will explain further down, nor did it destroy any built story arcs.
Consequences: Guldan escaped, players establish footholds and connections in an alternate timeline, players also became prominent members of the story which continued into Legion.
-
What was the point of Legion?
In Legion we, well, fight the Legion. The factions have failed miserably to defend Azeroth. Players are called upon to join with their class halls and unite against the greatest foe Azeroth has ever known, even more so than the old gods. This is probably the best expansion with a fairly well-thought narrative we will get for a while. There are no amnesiacs and no destruction of world building.
Consequences: Players acquired legendary artifacts, became major lore heroes, united their classes regardless of race or faction, defeated Sargeras, recovered the Army of Light, and stemmed the demise of Azeroth itself.
Then we get to Battle for Azeroth… Hold on to your butts.
In Battle for Azeroth you would assume the point of the story is to heal the world while the factions quarrel over Azerite. But no. Sylvanas convinces Saurfang to go on a wanton slaughter through Ashenvale in a pre-emptive strike in a war that doesn’t exist yet. Now that isn’t entirely on its own beyond the realm of disbelief. It happens, genocide happens, sure, okay, whatever.
It is almost everything that happens afterward that makes no sense, but ultimately negates the point of not only this expansion, but also causes harm to the growth we received as characters in the previous two expansions.
I’ll begin here.
-
Where was the Vindicaar?
The Exodar, where I presume the Vindicaar parks, is right next to Teldrassil. Why didn’t the Draenei intercept the Horde and obliterate them from orbit? This is something that could have happen repeatedly through the story. Zandalar fleet? Nuke from orbit. Zandalar city? Nuke from orbit. Undercity? Orbit. Nuke. Sylvanas having a chat with Anduin dramatically in the throne room? Nuke from orbit mid-monolgue, everyone laughs, we go focus on Azerite. The failure on behalf of Blizzard to even try and explain this one away makes it even more egregious. Tell us that it was damaged escaping Sargeras or something, anything. But no, instead that gigantic plot hole lingers.
-
Non-sensical Genocide Participation:
Are you a priest? A druid? A paladin? How about we all go do some genocide today completely unprovoked because: factions. If you are a Horde player, regardless of whether you supported this first shot or not in BFA, you had no choice in the matter narratively speaking. Your character was there, it did a genocide, it was a great time. Even better? Druids that participated in burning down a world tree full of other druids and innocent civilians after saving the world from Sargeras and largely growing past your faction divide. This completely obliterated the progress made by Legion’s narrative, which brings us to…
-
Player & Narrative Regression:
Legion set players on a very promising path. The factions became less relevant, players became the true heroes of the story and active participants in their classes, and the door seemed wide open in terms of possibilities. Instead, after Legion players are suddenly nobodies again and without even the slightest amount of sense put into the expansion transition, we are all randomly happy and willing to kill each other and re-engage in a very, very , very contrived faction war. And I can’t even say contrived in the hyperbolic sense, it was literally contrived just to do Shadowlands it seems: which make actually, sadly be the “point”.
-
Lore Characters Amnesiacs:
Lady Liadrin it seems is content to forget that not only was she my subordinate, but that I was/am for all Highlord. Unless suddenly I’m not? Because I’m not sure when that happened. Or, not only is she an amnesiac, she is ready to kill you for no particularly good reason if you’re on the Alliance this time around. And this is just the one I’m most familiar with.
-
No Consequences:
So, what was the point of this entire expansion? We didn’t change… anything? N’zoth is primed to be a one and done after millennia of, hilariously, anti-climactic scheming. The only thing that seems to have changed is the Horde leadership structure because they all looked at each other and said: “Yeah, we really kinda muderalize everything around us every 2 years, we should prolly do that less often.”
Aside from that, what changed? What did this expansion accomplish? We aren’t ushering in an Old God expansion, which would actually make the most sense and serve as a better “point”. Instead we are getting a Shadowlands expansion which makes sense and serves as a “point” to the expansion only because it appears that this entire expansion was put into place only to justify the left-field emergence of Shadowlands.
And to me, as a player who loved Legion and weathered WoD… isn’t enough.
Ever since Warcraft III the “cycle” has been effectively broken. In Wotlk Tirion crossed the faction divide. In Cata Thrall crossed the faction divide. In Pandaria Baine and Chen crossed the faction divide. In WoD and Legion Khadgar crossed the faction divide, followed by countless other heroes. In BFA, THE FACTION WAR EXPANSION, generals and faction leaders are supporting each other in the end themselves.
In this game where “faction identity” is paramount to the design philosophy that players on opposing factions can’t/shouldn’t interact 15 years after its inception, and where design lynchpins have been rolled back more and more (legendary transmog most recently), it is becoming extremely tiresome to see this rhetoric after such an exhausting expansion as BFA.
The expansion needs a lasting consequence. And it was built up for so long that something would change after “breaking the cycle”. I’d like to see something change, some kind of interaction to open between factions, even if its just chat for god’s sake we can already do that if we add another player to our friends list, it isn’t some huge leap of logic to lift that veil and have it make sense narratively.
I’m disappointed because there doesn’t appear to be any point to what we went through as players, and we actually regressed a bit and hand-waived some plot points in the world away.
Thanks. I hate it. See you in Shadowlands.
