It’s just a video game.
Oh man, yeah that hit hard. The scene when there is an eclipse and Elune raises her spirit into the sky is still etched in my mind.
I noticed a lot of people mentioned this and of course I realize that but they’re still going to force me to play through Dalaran’s destruction because it’s literally the opening scenario of the expansion and can’t be skipped. It isn’t the same as being forced to commit genocide and war crimes as a Horde player during the burning of Teldrassil but in its own way it’s going to be just as traumatic for me. I guess as a New Yorker I am particularly vulnerable to getting triggered by this specific type of trauma and I understand that’s just a part of my own mental baggage but it doesn’t make it any easier to go through.
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Your an Elf who lives in a flying city…
You should of seen this coming since the day your pal Ghaleon, blew Vane out of the sky.
At least my god shattered his enemies like glass, and murdered 'em nice and slow in front of the hero!
I mean, I like Dalaran a lot, but I’m really not a fan of the idea that there shouldn’t be any world-altering events that take away environments or characters from us that we’ve grown to be familiar and comfortable with. Especially when the enemy has been hyped up as the Bigger Bad behind the Big Bad, there should really be actual stakes.
They did directly draw this comparison themselves in an interview, so at least they’re aware of how this has been handled poorly in the past. Not saying they’ll pull it off this time - we have no idea yet. But at least there’s the acknowledgment.
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From what I saw, their comparison is one in which they feel Dalaran won’t warrant the same degree of effort Teldrassil required in terms of story-telling follow through. At least that was my interpretation. Something to the effect of, “Well, both factions will feel this loss,” whereas an issue with Teldrassil was one faction feeling it more accutely than another. Regardless, reading between the lines, it struck me that they don’t see the two losses as comparable.
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Can I help in this? I wanna help the spiders.
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What I got from their interviews is that they think the facts that it’s a neutral city and that this time there is no factional conflict involved are sufficient enough to make this completely different. But they’re not taking anything else into consideration such as the immense attachment and love players have for this city. Or rather they are but in the worst possible way and are choosing to play on people’s emotions for cheap theatrics.
It’s one thing for a major character to die valiantly while doing something heroic, like Varian or Saurfang, but bringing Dalaran’s spires crashing down just to have a dramatic explosion in a cutscene feels cheap.
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I can totally relate to your feelings on this matter, but to me, besides khadgar, besides the beloved city…of mages, its the loss to Mages as a class. No more Hall of the Guardian, seemingly no more Kirin Tor, nor any mention of the other council members. I’d sort of like to think they and most of the civilian populace was not there when it goes down, but really where else would they be? It doesn’t appear he “bravely sacrificed himself to teleport the residents to safety”, given that we rescue a few civilians and then the rest of the relevant War Within characters, and seemingly that’s it. No suggestions that the mage organisation will still stand after this. It just kinda took the wind out of my sails for this expansion, and i had been really looking forward to it and the next. If i don’t see anything by the time it comes out that proves me wrong, that most of the populace and forces survive this and the only real loss is khadgar, and the city temporarily, I’m not entirely certain that all the shiny new features, side games and transmog in the world will keep me playing. So far, this expansion is looking to be just another disappointment instead of something that i was really feeling kinda psyched up about 
I’m really hoping that those are just story beats they’re saving to not kill the build up or make it seem pointless, when in reality it kinda is 
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I’m kind of torn there. I don’t think that was implied except under an especially uncharitable interpretation, but I also accept that a heavy dose of skepticism is warranted when it comes to Blizzard, especially in the storytelling department.
I wouldn’t say I’m optimistic about the story, but it came across to me like they were defending the decision on the grounds of “everyone suffers equally”, rather than less. They seemed fully aware of how important Dalaran is to the playerbase, at least in my view. Teldrassil didn’t have much follow-through, but a large part of that was that it was based on such a weak foundation. It feels a bit too early in my opinion to draw these comparisons, even if I understand why people are feeling pessimistic about it.
Is there more info out about how exactly the story plays out and what happens? Some of this feels premature. I get the concern, but still.
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Losing the Hall of the Guardian does sting, for sure. It’s by far my favorite class hall and 90% of my characters are mages. I do hope they do something big with the Tirisgarde.
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Go home, ball! Stupid ball, why won’t you go into your home!?
I VASTLY would have preferred if it was just terribly damaged yet fixable but crash landed back in its original position
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Off topic, but thank you for bringing to attention the fact we can now blur spoilers.
It’s [spoiler][/spoiler] for those who are on mobile, or click the gear icon then blur spoiler.
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If they can’t handle the world of Azeroth then maybe they should go. It’s a dangerous world where bad things can happen.
Sure, because it’s always good to alienate and lose the playerbase that actually stays subbed the entire expansion without breaks. 
I can tell this is beyond your understanding and you don’t care, so I’m out.
You’re right, I don’t care about people using the game as a dust collecting dollhouse for them to feel safe in.
Azeroth isn’t safe, it’s up to us to make it safe, that’s always been the game.
I hope they blow up more cities and kill more lore characters tbh.
Well, it can’t be done too flippantly, or it loses its punch and stops being as effective. Anything is on the table if the story is good enough, but I can understand why people are afraid Blizz won’t be able to repay the loss of a city with a compelling story.
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If they’ve lost faith in Blizzards ability to tell a story to the point where they act like this any time Blizzard tries to tell a story then they really should be asking themselves why they are playing anymore.
I wanna see where this goes 
Well I think that can get complicated, to be fair. Blizzard builds a compelling and colorful world, but speaking strictly in terms of advancing the story, they can be pretty flawed at times.
I agree that some people are jumping to conclusions, and I also want to see where it goes. Forgetting the actual lore for a second, the War of Thorns was a terrible storyline in my opinion, and as a fan of the game I want to see if Blizzard can handle similar stakes better now that they’ve received years of criticism and appear to have reflected internally on what (at least according to them) went wrong. If they can, it would restore a lot of faith in their ability to tell a good story under the right conditions.
If it’s done well, destroying Dalaran could make for an insanely good starting point to the expansion, potentially the best in WoW history. I just don’t blame people for feeling apprehensive.
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I don’t blame anyone for feeling apprehensive, I feel apprehensive about it but I also want the story to continue and if blizzard isn’t allowed to use the established world for that story telling then it’s going to make for some pretty bad story telling.
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