Is The War Within the Best Expansion Ever.?

Wyrmrest Accord
21

If we’re being categorically serious here?

In terms of story:

A-Grade is Vanilla, Wrath and Legion. Good stories, good pacing, good characters, neat twists. Legion fumbled here and there but was otherwise one of the most solid expansions the game ever produced.

B-Grade is Burning Crusade, Warlords of Draenor, Mists of Pandaria, Dragonflight and the War Within. Warlords of Draenor is hanging on by its fingernails here, but again, reliable stories, even if a bit overly sappy and saccharine in the case of Dragonflight and the War Within, but we needed something sweet after Shadowlands, which was equivalent to licking the bowl when it had never been flushed. The stories were engaging, the characters were engaging and made me care about their goals, even if there was a ton of things that would kick me out of immersion, there was just as many that’d politely ask me to slip back in again.

C-Grade is the Battle for Azeroth, only for the zone-stories of the Zandalari and the Kul’tirans. Azerite, the War of Thorns, the Old Gods, the Naga, all failed because it was trying to fit 12 gallons of story into a 8 gallon jug and not one of those story-arcs was properly allowed to cook. The Azerite War shouldn’t have just dropped outta nowhere. The Horde needing to make repatriations and the fallout of yet another genocidal campaign never being properly addressed in the game for the players to experience, turning Azshara, one of the last remaining OG big-bad villains into a Filler Arc is an insult to players who were waiting for the big fight and she ended up as that. And let’s not forget the Black Empire expansion that we finally saw an Old God unleashed, something we should have spent 2 years fighting to reverse, going down to the wire and chasing every possible option, and nope, we beat them with anime lasers and Blizzard actively plagiarises the ending of the Return of the King for N’Zoth
s ‘Death Scene’ and everything magically goes back to normal.

Shadowlands is the F-grade in every way that counted in narrative, story cohesion and plot development, and it is a testimony to the staying power of the franchise, the dedication of the teams at Blizzard who kept swinging despite the bell going off over and over again, and the love the fans had for the game that we managed to limp over into Dragonflight, get a second wind, and then go on into the War Within.

Is the War Within the second coming of WoW? No. Would I recommend it to my friends? Oh Hell yes.

A return to good story-telling, not just “How can we butcher this game to turn it into an E-Sport and have cool metal backgrounds for our PvP, Dungeons and Raids?” that the former leadership embraced, good content, good QoL improvements, good catch-up mechanics and engaging characters.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, Dragonflight was our Baby come back, I’ve changed! Expansion, the War Within is our Staying Sober expansion, it is building on WoW’s strengths and staying away disasters of previous expansions, listening to the players’ feedback and not treating their complaints with ‘no negativity in the dojo’ and ‘you think you know what you want, but you don’t’ type of responses.

I’ve got a firm belief that the War Within will be a good B-tier expansion. And because of it, and Dragonflight, I’ve got a firm belief that we might even see Midnight and The Last Titan give us solid B-tier, or maybe even A-tier, expansions too.

1 Like
22

I’m a sucker that’s here for the long haul, so I’m not the best judge.

Tbh, I’m kind of lost as to what I feel like they wanted me to be doing at this point in the game/expac.

I’ve gotten more into crafting.
I fish a lot.
I farm a lot.
I pick and choose WQ.

I am not as hyped as I thought I’d be and it concerns me that I’m this apathetic, this early in the expac.

I got my frost dwarf. Norman has been napping for weeks, mostly.

eh.

2 Likes
23

I am enjoying TWW. It doesn’t have the same narrative flair as the best expansions, but it does have a lot of plot hooks that are generating “future interest” from me.

Gameplay wise, the alt friendliness and ease of gearing makes the endgame super accessible. However, mythic plus needs to do a better job of not shunting players into difficulty they’re not ready for yet. One drawback of Delves handing out hero track gear is that everyone needs to do the last two bosses of heroic, or I think +8 m+ to get crests to fully upgrade that gear. 8s are doable, but if you didnt need to do 1-7 to get there, you’re in for a rough ride. Not to mention that these dungeons aren’t cakewalks, and some of their mechanics off the bat were confusing to deal with.

I haven’t touched PvP at all this expansion, but I’m imagining it’s the same chaotic tornado as it ever has been.

All told, it’s a solid expansion and a fun game. Is it the best? Not even by a long shot.

2 Likes
24

Agree with the best expac since Legion sentiment. As for delves dividing the community. That’s hardly a ‘blizzard’ problem as much as it is a player problem. If anything delves answer a need from the community for smaller form content to engage in either solo or with a friend that’s arisen due to an ever increasing toxicity in the M+ and to a lesser extent raiding player base. It’s not a healthy argument to make that adjusting delves or delve rewards to make more people do M+ is a good idea. M+ should be made more enticing if that’s the case and to be blunt the best way to make M+ more enticing isn’t buffing rewards it’s to make the experience less miserable and the biggest pressure point there is toxicity. Not an easy fix.

1 Like
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I don’t know that I approve of people saying nice things about Blizzard.