After playing the Warcraft Series from Warcraft 2 all the way up to the modern times (Battle for Azeroth) I think it’s safe to say - in my judgement - that Warcraft has certainly changed, and not for the better. Warcraft at its start had a continuous storyline but throughout the introduction of World of Warcraft its become incredibly hazy and mismanaged that frequently and effectively participates in self-cannibalization to ensure its own longevity. It’s come to the point that this itself has made expansions themselves so different that they’re not effectively a continuation of the storyline anymore but feel like a constant retelling done by different authors.
“No, ‘X’ didn’t happen like that; It happened like this!”
“No, ‘Y’ was always the good guy, despite what they’ve done.”
"Actually ‘Z’ had a situation of it happening instead.’
And throughout the entirety of World of Warcraft, the constant reiterations of Warcraft’s Story has efficiently cut any and all ties and endearment to the franchise because most characters, places, and the timeline itself - barring few and monumental incidents - are so liable to change in such drastic movements that it feels tiring to attach ourselves to them.
Warcraft’s focus, from a meta look on it, seems to have changed. At the start during Vanilla up to Mists of Pandaria it began and felt like you were a character taking place in the world. Where, despite how powerful and ‘renowned’ you became. Each character, storyline, place made it feel incredible. Characters didn’t require or need to have the ‘benighted, misguided hero’ telling which has become synonymous with the current zeitgeist of Warcraft, they held their own grievances, did their own things, and their attributes both positive and negative allowed them to navigate the world like characters in a play with no ‘writer’.
However, moving onward with World of Warcraft into Warlords of Draenor it felt like there was some pullback to how the story was treated. And eventually there was an exchange for the game and how it was written to focus more on the characters themselves with the world taking a backseat to it. Instead of characters supplementing the word and adding their own charm, at Warlords of Draenor it was now the world adding the background and medium to give the scenes which the characters take place.
I believe the problem with World of Warcraft is that its writers and development (not the art team, to be specific) are either too inexperienced or have their own views on how the story should play out. And the problem with their inexperience is that they cannot write a convincingly good story so that people can nod their heads and agree. And because of it there’s no inherent acceptance of a character’s morality, but instead Blizzard’ own view of the character’s morality is mantled upon them and any deviance or differentiating outlook is decried as wrong. “Sylvanas isn’t bad – Just wait and see! Nevermind the, uh… Teldrassil.” Ectera.
And its starting to show its cracks. Characters feel more of a placebo nowadays than what they once were, and there’s ultimately a stymieing of growth or introduction of various characters that may hold alternative views, maniacally antagonistic or otherwise. A lot of the characters in both the Horde or the Alliance - at its forefront - are coming to be more and more similar despite their backgrounds. And those that still do hold grievances are shown to be in a bad light. This is also affecting races as, due to the focus shifting from the world to set characters, most development for them is shelved so that the characters get more screen time. World building has become attached to character development. As almost every main quest you’re now accompanied by a character that will be affected or effect things down the line. Personally it feels a bit like handholding a child.
Villains are introduced to be misguided because it gives them a more viable reason to bring them back and go through “Redemption Arcs”. So instead of having antagonists who are wholly magnanimous, like Gul’dan, burn brightly and die out suitably. Villains are then ran into the ground by trying to showcase things from their point of view and having it explained thoroughly through exposition or heavy-handed “Watch and See” instead of having it found out. Arthas from WotLK is an excellent indicator of what WoW’s storytelling once was.
World of Warcraft is suffering a personality crisis. It wants to have its cake and eat it too. In comparison and contrast another MMORPG does this and has it in spades with its most recent expansion, eclipsing WoW’s ability on making villains sympathetic and having an engaging storyline: FFXIV. Wherein WoW tries to live up to a self-set standard, it feels constantly like they’re losing their own grip. Through character stumblings, rewriting things, rushing through scenes, and not allowing things to ferment and feel natural, it’s become quite bad for the setting and its shelf life in general.