I asked ReallyHappy for his take, not a bunch of victim’s take.
I definitely buy that BFA was two different expansions smashed together. That’s not even necessarily bad, writers smash ideas together all the time when they realize the story doesn’t hold up as well as it was meant to.
Legion didn’t give me that feeling though. I still think we shouldn’t have gone straight to Argus from barely managing to hold the Broken Shore, but I can’t figure out what got smashed in really. What did you have in mind?
There are more that too.
Legion worked somewhat better because they sacrificed dev time for WoD to really push to make it work, but mostly I look at themes and settings in terms of why I think it was also supposed to be two expansions.
First is the pattern Blizzard’s followed for years, that being a high fantasy/sci-fi expansion, followed by a more grounded/middle fantasy expansion. Burning Crusade we’re on a shattered world filled with alien creatures, Wrath we’re in a gothic setting of undead, Cata we’re going to alternate elemental planes, etc. Now, in WoD, we have a high fantasy/sci fi setting, and then for the first half of Legion, a more grounded setting of middle fantasy again. This is where we see the divide. The first several months of Legion we’re exploring the Broken Isles, uncovering things that are much more grounded in what we consider Warcraft, but by 8.3 we’re flying on a literal spaceship to another planet and using superpowered warframe mechs to dogfight with demon space cruisers.
Basically, if you didn’t know 8.0 and 8.3 were the same expansion to start, you’d probably never realize it.
I believe that we were supposed to get an expansion where we were basically exploring the Broken Isles, continuously dealing with various threats, and the culmination was going to be stopping the Legion’s incursion into Azeroth. The next expansion was going to be going to Argus and various other worlds being attacked by the Legion. If we look at every other (complete) expansion prior, none of them are so removed from their initial setting at Legion is by 8.3. That’s why patch 8.2 was so lackluster compared to the ones it bridged, because it was made to try and ease us into the other ‘expansion’ but was sort of thrown together.
I didn’t even go into how there are so many unique assets and aesthetics that are used only once in Legion before being discarded. Vault of the Wardens, for instance, I have no doubt was supposed to be a raid.
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Thanks for explaining.
I agree with you on Vault of the Wardens, but I’m not sure about your argument for 8.3. It’s pretty common for Blizz to throw in a big change of scenery at the end of the expansion and two of Argus’ three zones adhere pretty well to the Xbox Aesthetic of the Broken Shore. They started laying breadcrumbs for the restored Exodar in books a while back (and I would have loved that more than the Vindicaar).
If anything my biggest feeling from Legion is that they underestimated the work necessary for order halls and legendary weapons which is really what gutted 8.2 and made what was already a kinda hard tempo transition really hard.
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I liked Legion but I only came at the end of it. It’s my favorite expansion and I liked it more than vanilla WoW or Wrath, mainly because of the Order Halls and story was consistent. Only complaint I have about Legion is most enemies were kind of generic after a while, just bad demon guys, even the big bosses like Kil’jaedan.
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I agree. They might have a few larger multi-expansion arcs planned out for major NPCs, but I don’t think they nail down every part of the story years in advance.
Honestly, I think a lot of the things people complain about in the Alliance’s story are also rooted in the writing team’s hellbent determination to make Sylvanas into a cartoonish supervillain. That, and I think they learned the wrong lessons from Game of Thrones: what they took away seems to be “People love big, shocking surprises” instead of “Realistic political tensions can be fascinating if done right.”
I think their determination to have their “Red Wedding” moment with Teldrassil set the story for both the Alliance and the Horde on the wrong track for the entire expansion.
I remember that too. I was one of the ones who wasn’t happy with the change. But I didn’t know how much worse it could get.
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We know that Argus was a late addition to Legion. Originally, the final zone of Legion was supposed to be an “elf island,” but that was cut. Argus could easily have been a whole separate expansion, with another zone or two. The only question is whether it was originally intended for one.
Yeah, it’s got many more floors than the ones you actually visit.
Honestly, as good as Legion is, I can’t help thinking the Legion/Argus pair of expansions, with each section fully fleshed out, would have been even better. 
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It woulda been better but idk if I could handle multiple alliance-only expansions.
Well, I’m assuming that an entire expansion based around Argus would delve into the reasons various Horde races had for wanting to defeat the Legion too, instead of just Aethas and his muffins.
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Selfie patch?
From a story perspective? An expansion that was supposed to be dedicated to a faction war instead was rushed and hamfisted instead of fleshed out so they could shoehorn in two patches that from a lore perspective could have been entire expansions.
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That’s my biggest problem with Blizzard at the moment, just shortening and shoving stuff in places it doesn’t belong.
Argus in Legion could have and should have been an entire xpac
Azshara BfA could have and should have been an entire xpac
N’zoth BfA could have and should have been an entire xpac
Azshara and N’zoth could have atleast shared their own xpac.
We have a whole xpac dedicated to Deathwing who was one of N’zoths underlings yet N’zoth gets shoved into a patch to die in obscurity.
Blizzard is going to regret it eventually when they start running out of legit ideas.
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Well I mean there wasn’t a single orc or blood elf present for kiljaeden’s defeat, so I guess I’m a defeatist in this discussion.
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I feel like someone behind the scenes is pushing hard for variety, so that they never hear about “orc fatigue” (or whatever the equivalent is for any given expac) again. Unfortunately, that means not sticking with any sustained storyline for more than a patch or two.
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That’s why new expansions don’t excite me much anymore. Nothing makes me fear for Azeroth since I know we will likely deal with 2-4 world ending events/entities like they are nothing within 1 xpac.
When? They already have.
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Ya I was thinking that as I was typing my original statement.
Very true 
The main things I can think of would be:
-They don’t communicate well between departments.
-They don’t do well with backup / contingency planning (both for the game itself but also the story).
-They invest too heavily in big lore side projects (like the books and the cinematic videos), but are then caught flat-footed when the game direction changes. So, now they have to somehow reconcile the current story with something they commissioned months ago, even if doing so undercuts the actual narrative. (like dropping the Org cinematic and SL trailer right before 8.3 - ensuring that everyone knows Sylvanas is fine and N’Zoth accomplishes nothing).
Oh, and the tendency to increasingly treat the story like a stage play with a single audience in mind, rather than trying to cater to multiple audiences. I don’t know who makes up this single audience though.
EDIT: Thinking on things a bit more, especially them wanting to write the Horde more in light with the WC2 versions, I think they forgot that there needs to be much more player agency for that to work. Being a villain - especially an over the top villain - is only really fun when you know what you’re doing and are willingly committing to the role. It also greatly helps to be the villain who is actually calling the shots and not just doing the grunt / stooge work. BfA didn’t give us any of that though -it was all just blindly trust and follow Sylvanas and hope she makes good decisions. When she doesn’t, it upsets people who didn’t really want to play the villain. In the same vein of thought, this is also why the Saurfang story fell flat - it’s basically follow someone else trying to be the hero when you may very well not care to do that (and, even if you do, you’re not the one actually setting things right - Saurfang is.)
It also helps when the victims are unsympathetic; unfortunately, Bliz refuses to write some part of the Alliance in that manner.
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The only reason the Red Wedding worked was the dire consequences falling on the heads of those who committed it. And those consequences start falling in the same book as the Red Wedding (Purple Wedding), even if it wasn’t done by those wronged by the Red Wedding.
And those Consequences are continuing in the book series into the next book (if it ever comes out).
The Burning of Teldrassil and the War of Thorns fail because there was no consequences to the culprits (Sylvanas, Nathanos, Saurfang, and those catapult crews).
And no, the loss of a spare Val’kyr was no consequence to Sylvanas (assuming the common conception that she needs three to save her from death again).
They seem to lack an understanding of why stuff like the Red Wedding can work without costing you your audience.
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