BfA was the expansion that knocked down tons of characters and themes and history… so that Shadowlands could introduce the New and Improved™ setting that acktually ties all that (rewritten to fit) history together! Eh? Ehhhhh?
(I say this as someone who quit when Shadowlands was approaching, because I wasn’t interested in this new version of the setting. And I try to ignore it as much as I can, because I’m hoping that Dragonflight signifies that the writers/devs are trying to skirt past it as well.)
I’d argue the worst of ShL was only a continuation of the worst of BfA. All the nonsense we had to suffer through to give Sylvanas her halfway redemptive ending, this empty husk of a villain she broke away from the Horde to not-serve, etc.
Honestly, part of the problem with BFA is that the narrative kept trying to ignore Teldrassil’s impact or ramifications. It felt like the elephant in the room on a lot of the earlier stuff, especially.
Like, it really seemed like it was intended to be an “Oh wow” moment with no fallout whatsoever, so you get silly stuff like the rest of the Horde being like “This all seems legit; Sylvanas is a great leader” in Zandalar. And it’s only brought up because Saurfang feels MANLY PAIN.
Once the Darkshore patch hit, there were a few indications they were willing to deal with it. But partially by Forsaken concentration camps for the survivors (toned down after fan outcry) and having the rest of the Alliance go after the islands that literally just got here.
Except that it didn’t. It remained a major part of the Ardenweald narrative. The argument that Blizzard tried to bury the history of the Burning dies pretty much in the hour your start a character on the Ardenweald campaign.
And what do you think that Elune and the Winter Queen were discussing when they had their summit? Tea recipes?
I think BfA was worse because Shadowlands is much easier to ignore or quietly retcon, and it doesn’t carry over into every expansion that will ever be set on Azeroth again.
Not BFA… Especially early BFA, which jad a huge problem with sweeping the whole thing under the rug and then trying to stand in front of the giant stinking lump and tell you everything is fine.
So everything wrong with shadowlands can be traced back to bfa.
Legion’s sylvanas and to an extend vfa’s cinematic sylvanas are totally different characters from the bfa and shadowlands Sylvanas.
You can argue X or Y but sylvanas true path to oblivion started in BFA.
She was always shady but that’s it. From the burning onwards she got the super 40d mastermind behind it all to serve the even greater mastermind behind all of warcraft history.
So bfa is the root of all evils and nothing shadowlands did hung over the world like the burning still does.
Because it’s evident there was, and is, an internal “civil war” of sorts among the devs, wherein the Afrasiabi was the “head” of th Pro WC1/WC2 people, alongside many devs and people with power otherwise such as Copeland and Golden, and the Pro WC3 people were in the net minority.
Big “No negativity in the dojo” mentality, which I remind everyone was a phrase attributed to Afrasiabi in the first place.
Then everyone saw the writing on the wall regarding the guy, and the “Pro WC1/2” people were forced to look in the mirror, since “no negativity in the dojo” finally lost a modicum of power.
BFA’s story destroyed Player Committment and the Faction Narrative
Shadowland’s story destroyed the World-building and metaphysics of the game.
Together, there is zero suspension of disbelief, or to put it i in academic terms, they destroyed the “magic circle” of the game.
I’m sure that was because the staff were scrambling in the wake of Afrasiabi’s departure and trying to figure out how to address it. But by golly, they seem determined to hammer on it and bring it up every chance they get from now to eternity.
Did you even watch the Anduin cinematic for Battle of Lordaeron? Anduin specifically calls out the Burning of Teldrassil when he calls out Sylvannas for the Burning of Teldrassil?
Because a lot of Devs still in Blizzard supported Afrasiabi’s lore decisions is my guess
And a part of them motivated by their ego refused to take the L
“The players are wrong, I was right, I was not wrong for going along with Afrasiabi’s ideas, Afrasiabi is bad but I am not also bad for supporting his ideas”
BfA tried to be both and Old God expansion and a Horde vs Alliance expansion. They should have just devoted things completely to one and saved the other for its own expac.
Then again, Horde vs Alliance story has always been cosmic levels of fail.
Horde does something bad to Alliance.
Alliance does some retaliation but not enough to really cause a lot of damage to the Horde.
Horde starts having internal problems and things turn to needing to depose evil warchief.
Alliance and rebel Horde team up and depose evil warchief.
Peace happens. Alliance players left unsatisfied about getting payback for bad thing Horde did and Horde players annoyance levels go up a few points for being marked as villains again.
This happened twice now with BfA being the second time.
Now reportedly this was all from Afrasiabi’s garbage idea think tank, so with him out of the picture we hopefully won’t see anything like it ever again. If they ever approach HvA story again, it had better have either a solid gray vs gray theme to it or even a full Alliance being the antagonists for a change.
Frankly I think even with that it tends to leave players unsatisfied and upset so perhaps it’s straight up better to never touch Horde vs Alliance as an overall world story arc ever again.
Because it was a set-up expansion without a real coherent theme and way too much things happening at once. In my opinion these were the biggest problems:
Ignoring the message of “Legion”
We had just defeated the Legion by leaving Horde and Alliance behind and uniting under the banners of the Class Orders. The races of Azeroth had not been this united since the Third War. Also, there were big losses in that invasion, both sides lost many soldiers and also important leaders. If anything, this would have been the perfect time for peace talks.
A forced reason
The whole war over Azerite. We just defeated the Legion and the freaking planet itself awakened a speaker to tell us that it is in danger! What did the leaders do? Follow another Warchief into an unprovoked war.
We’ve been there before
No matter what Blizzard said about a “different outcome”, Sylvanas’ crusade was basically Garrosh 2.0, with many similiarities. A mass murder (genocide) in the beginning, a rebellion led by characters with moral values, a villain that managed to escape and the Alliance helping the Horde to save itself once again.
That said, back then in SoO, the Horde never really reflected on Garrosh and his actions, so going for another round with another lunatic warchief in the same way was just… exhausting.
Horde = bad, with a comically evil leader!
Once again, the Horde was the faction that started the bloodshed and once more, the Alliance could claim the moral high ground. Not to mention that Sylvanas didn’t even try to really sell her war to the leaders in a believable discussion - most of that reasoning didn’t even happen ingame. It took the Horde leaders way too long to realize where this was going, especially after Garrosh’s deeds. Blizzard didn’t even try to present Sylvanas as a conflicted leader who (from her perspective) does the right thing, no, she was painted as a comically evil supervillain who would enjoy taking sweets away from little children - there was just no (visible) nuance in her character and her motivations were unclear even after the expansion’s finale. As a Horde player - even as a Sylvanas loyalist - you were left with a “Wait… THAT’S the pay-off? Really? ”-moment.
Too much set-up, too much plot holes, too little pay-off
The expansion came with a ton of questions
Why was Sylvanas always one step ahead?
(Why) did Sylvanas miscalculate in the War of Thorns by ordering Saurfang to kill Malfurion, especially after calling the druid “her prey” and failing to kill it?
Why did Sylvanas burn everyone, when it was the heart of their plan, that taking Teldrassil hostage should keep the alliance at bay and NOT retaliate?
Why wasn’t the Alliance prepared for the plague when they attacked Undercity?
Why did most of the other leaders just watch Sylvanas and not intervene? (We’re talking about the Horde, were strength is supposed to mean everything)
And these are just to first that came to my mind. To get the answer to at least some of these questions, play Shadowlands
Oh, right! There’s a war, I totally forgot
The expansion that was marketed as “faction war centric”, was housework in Zandalar and Kul Tiras most of the time. Yes, every other month, we took a ship to that other isle and made some trouble, but that was far less present or in the focus than the internal politics of Trolls and Kul Tirans. These two story elements (local politics and faction war) didn’t really enhance each other, on the contracy, it was kind of exhausting both of them.
Wasted potencial
If they had centered it around the factions and their individual roles, we could have been more on board. Helping Gnomes build and test Gyrocopters, training Kodos with the Tauren, have these factions come together and then ride into battle with them.
Every faction leader could have had their moment, showing everyone why their faction is important for Alliance / Horde - yet again, only the Alliance got something in that direction, while Sylvanas took the whole spotlight.
Not to mention the elephant in the room when you talk about Kul Tiras and Zandalari as Faction War participans:
Where was the naval battle? When the two biggest seafaring nations on Azeroth clash, there has to be some action on the ocean, right?
Try to aVoid retcons
The existence and introduction of the Void Elves. Even though, as a High Elf fan, I’m quite happy that their existence (later and finally) made it possible to play a Quel’dorei on Aliance side, it found it horrible who they were introduced. For years, Blizzard had told the community that there were not enough Quel’dorei left, that there was only a single faction in Dalaran, etc. Which was sad, but understandable.
Then they “soft retconned” some rogue Blood Elves out of the hat that tried to play around with the Void. Even when we finally found them in a coincidence of perfect timing, we not only are accompanied by the only person in Azeroth who was able to help them, but saved them bascially like lambs from the slaughter house. No redeeming qualities on their side, no feat of willpower or anything that proved that they were more than toddlers who played with fire. No, we saved a bunch of careless fools and Alleria promised to teach them. I hated their introduction so much, that I called them “Fail’dorei” until the High Elf options came in Shadowlands.
Azshara and N’Zoth were treated like checklist-characters. They came, they tried, they were beaten, without any real plot twist or meaning. If there was a point to their story, we haven’t seen it yet.
To summarize it:
BfA didn’t really tell compelling stories (even though I think Jaina’s story was neat), tried to set up too much, with no pay-off. The pacing was bad, the villain was not relatable, the story was predictable and after the finale, you were left with more questions than answers.
The only thing I really liked was Saurfang’s story - even though imho, it should have been a normal subplot of the expansion and not its “story frame”.
I never quite understood this thinking. They invaded one of the oldest and notoriously prideful tribe of trolls on Azeroth, destroyed their legendary fleet of ships and desecrated a sacred temple city. Were they expecting their immortal god king to just roll over and beg for mercy?
I swear the factions in BFA were at their dumbest.
No we are not. Bob needs to go away period. Nobody wants him. He is just a guy with a bow missing an eye and useless in fight.
Not at all. The alliance fully defeated the Zandalari and made them useless for the rest of the war. They then sued for peace after the Horde council rejected their cry for revenge. The alliance did everything they wanted successfully. Due to the Horde now being their puppet they are the remaining global power on Azeroth while the Horde is weak and powerless.
”-moment.