Lot of the same story beats that we all got bored of a while ago. Like others have said the monster races have been the most interesting part of the expansion. Annoyed as always with characters who have gritty personalities like the General getting killed off shortly after their introduction.
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The general had a good death. I appreciated that one
The Arathi were the most interesting part outside of Azj’kahet for me
The zones are beautifully done, especially hallowfall, but the Earthen fell flat. They just don’t have much defining traits and none of their characters really stand out other than Brinthe and Baelgrim
The Arathi are sick, and make me what to know more about their empire. The Nerubians are probably the most interesting part of the expansion, but I don’t feel they’ll get much more development now that we are done with Ansurek
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Said it in another thread a while back, but the MSQ felt short. It was good, overall, but it was short, as was the max level story. Part of it is probably the direction change from a stand alone expansion to being incorporated into the, now, ongoing saga. So some things may have been shorted because of that change. Still, an overall good first chapter of what is going to be at least a 9 chapter book.
As was mentioned, the start to finish of a rebellion/coup didnt have that same fleshed out feeling that say Suramar did. It didnt have that length, those weeks of dailies and build up that made it really feel like one.
Dalaran crashing also felt like an after thought once we got past the first 10 quests or so. There was no real follow up to it throughout questing.
There was also a lot of new thrown at us which is fun and good but because questing/story was so short we couldnt really connect with a lot of folks.
If there was just like another 10-20 quests per zone for the MSQ I think it could have really shored up some of these short comings.
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They still receive direction. If someone turns in concepts that don’t fit the setting, they’re not supposed to shrug and go “oh well.”
I haven’t finished the main campaign yet. Only just met Widow Arak’nai. But, so far, the story has been pretty… eh. Not great, but not terrible. Kind of like Dragonflight’s. I’d give it a decent 5 or 6 out of 10.
I’ll give it a solid C grade because it’s about expanding the world with new cultures we haven’t explored before.
But the main storyline actively forces me to disassociate from my character. He’s literally just here to kill people who take issue with his proximity while lost in his thoughts. A real ‘going through the motions’ sort of experience, where he’s driving his sword through the chest of some rock in the shape of a dwarf or giant bug—silently staring through them while they howl or skree in agony—and wondering if he forgot to tell Darnell to check on his plants at home and keep them watered while he’s away.
Shame about Dalaran. Cities have a nasty habit of just exploding in Warcraft, really makes you think people would spread out more so when the next Gnomish Nuke or Forsaken Blight Bomb goes off, there’s far less collateral damage. No worries though, I’m pretty sure everyone who mattered made it. Even my adoptive father Khadgar made it. Maybe now he’ll finally retire with Modera and relax, he really deserves it.
Anduin’s here. Again. Feeling sorry for himself, trying to tell Nezmith, a Forsaken from Vanilla how awful it was being under the direct control of a powerful figure, having Arthas in his head telling him what to do. Writers could have had a separate dialog there, you know for characters that might empathize. Nah, go on Anduin, that sounds really tough my guy. Glad you came out of it with all your bits intact.
Alleria’s here. The former Queen’s big sister. Pretending like she’s shouldering some terrible burden for all of us—except she deliberately chose to take it upon herself. She’s so much more mature and capable than Sylvanas. Except for the fact that Arthas wasn’t able to get under Sylvanas’ skin or into her head all throughout Northrend after she broke free. Alleria seems to double over with migraines every other time we meet. Her husband is supportive, though helpless as she tells him to back off and let her handle things. Seems typical of men who fall for Windrunners, nothing they can do except follow the ladies off the cliff.
Moira’s fine. A chuckle escapes me every time, shame about the husband, eh? Her son seems nice, and will probably be more sensitive to the native inhabitants when he wants to dig up their land for relics.
Not really interested in the spiders, as I don’t see them wanting to integrate with the greater world. Plus there’s not enough room up above if they did. Lots of races are already left wilting on the vine when it comes to Warcraft, and they would just become another group standing around taking up space in a corner of Orgrimmar, a subtle reminder that the cities aren’t growing with each new addition, but becoming cluttered and claustrophobic as each expansion plops down another cart or stall on the limited empty street that remains.
Damnit Darnell, you better have watered my plants.
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You should get succulents. Low maintenance and hard to kill
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I think the only way to pull up out of the nosedive is to lean hard on Beledar, and fast. I want to go inside it, I want to know about it, take us back to some kind of link with pre-existing lore. So far, the lore has been underground even metaphorically, feeling totally disconnected from the story, because they keep breadcrumbing Beledar and any real stories with Iridikron and Xal’atath.
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I think its pretty good for a video game story
not winning any oscars though
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No team has to listen to the lore team, the lore team exists to help people bend the rules not keep them playing by them,
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Creative Directors are part of the pitch meetings that give the marching orders at the very least. Even if the teams are siloed to that extent, which I doubt, there’s still a person at the top who should be quality controlling that sort of thing. Which would have been either Afrasiabi or Danuser I suppose.
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yea, and they don’t, that’s just not how blizzard rolls
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Everything since BFA has felt like them digging out of the narrative hole BFA left them in. TWW kind of still feels like that in regards to Anduin, but they’ve also started planting the seeds for later conflicts. We’ve just yet to see those conflicts materialize. Nerubians were the very last vestiges of the Old God’s servants we hadn’t fought yet (not counting undead ones under the scourge) and now we have. Everything from this point on should be the Void’s servants. But we haven’t seen what they’re holding in their pocket yet.
Lots of people on here sort of throwing shade on Dragonflight …
Personally I rather enjoyed Dragonflight 
- I enjoyed the Blue Dragons coming to rescue Kalecgos
- Absolutely loved the Incarnates storyline + Iridikron was super cool.
Thought we’d get more on the Primalists to be honest, or at least a questline for shamans as they’ve been sorely disrespected in class-identity throughout the lore – but all up I thought they were a cool concept at the very least.
- Enjoyed Vyranoth sticking it to Odynn and bringing forth other Dragonflights to the Dragon-Isles
So far ‘The War Within’ storyline has been decent.
My favourite story aspects so far would be:
- Dalaran being destroyed @ the start was neat, emphasised the cunning, influence & threat Xal’atath could pose.
- The Steelvein smuggler storyline and the reveal of who it actually was
- The Stormrooks storyline, although pretty lax – I enjoyed the narrative of it
The titan-construct fail-safe arising to purge the Earthen who rebelled, was a cool story too
- As others have pointed out – The Nerubians story. My favourite is the Vizier, personally
-
- However I did particularly enjoy the dialog between Lilian Voss and the Weaver on the subject of the ‘Fallen’ Queen Neferess – with Lillian’s notion that as long as you’re alive, whether for better or worse: You can strive forward to make a difference and the path forward upon the world isn’t set in stone until you leave it.
Irks:
Personally I’d love there to be HORDE characters that have a strong connection to Xal’atath — other than just Alleria taking all the damn spotlight 
…
It’s bad enough the Alliance take the majority of spotlight in most of ‘The Light’ related lore, but for years people just kept justifying it with “Yes, but when the void comes along it’ll obviously be Horde in the hero spotlight, duh!” — and yet here we are, with the Alliance still taking the major spotlight on the subject of said-platform 
…
- If we “Had” to have an Alliance character take down Xal’atath – In all honesty? I’d rather it NOT be Alleria … I’d probably much rather it be Natalie Seline, who was one of the wielders of Xal’atath in the blade before it / she betrayed her (But not before she set out plans to negate the fatal outcome of such betrayal).
But yeah 
I’m sure there’s a few other little things, here & there I probably enjoyed or get frustrated with that I can’t remember from the top of my head right now, but those are the top listers for the time being
As it stands, I currently enjoyed Dragonflight a lot more – However this expansion is still relatively fresh and there’s more potential to be seized and improvements to be made. 
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Old God Ziggurats look like a Darker version of Uldum so either the Black Empire or Uldum inspired the Nerubians.
They decided to throw in praise for their Webs and Spider Legs into the Nerubian-Style of Ziggurat just as Maldraxxi threw in praise for their Bones in the Maldraxxi-style of Ziggurat.
Is it their fault that Boney Fingers and Spider Legs look so similar!? The Maldraxxi also have Spiders so Making the Boney Fingers resemble Spider Legs is also thrown into the Architectural Design of Maldraxxus.
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It should be noted that the nerubians were part of an abandoned idea from Wrath of the Lich King. Azjol’nerub was also supposed to be a zone that could be explored. So the stuff with the nerubians was part of the plan at some point. Blizz just couldn’t implemented it because of time and tech limitations.
I liked some of the ideas behind the expansion, but did not like some of the characterization or story choices.
To start with the elephant in the room, Baelgrim getting killed off so early made little sense. If anything, he should have joined the player, Magni and Moira into the Ringing Depths and beyond. That would let him live out his directive of protecting all earthen, since he could have helped during the thing with the machine speakers. The writers wanted to cripple the Stormriders, but the fact so many of them were corrupted was more than enough to put them out of commission.
Then there’s how Magni was used. Him acting like a child at the start made little sense. I also didn’t like how he was basically a punching bag for Moira. The worst part is that there was a story to tell in Magni’s relationship with his grandson, but we see the tail end or aftermath of that story instead of seeing it unfold as we play.
I don’t mind the Not-Empire-of-Man, but I don’t like that they were called Arathi. It’s confusing from a storytelling perspective and in-world raises the question “where the hell is this place and why haven’t we seen it yet?”. I don’t like that Faerin bears the name Lothar for a similar reason.
One thing I really like was Thrall coaching whatshername to summon the Stormrooks. That makes a ton of sense since even without powers he knows the methodology. It also give Thrall a taste of the role of mentor or teacher, which is something the writers should consider for him going forward. He might not have powers (and I hope it stays that way), but he could teach the next generation.
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oh lol honestly that’s such a fair point i hadn’t really considered. ahn’qiraj kinda has the same thing going on.
yeah, their iteration from wrath was the best! very different vibe though. at least to me.
For me it was that and Magni actually caring for his grandson.
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In an old askCdev Q&A back in 2010, it was stated that the Aqir that went up to Northrend following the Troll Aqir War took over a Tol’vir nation and simply “borrowed” their architecture. Like how Ahn’Qiraj was conquered by the Aqir that became the Qiraji.
What happened to all of the Scourge’s Obsidian Destroyers?
The entities known as obsidian destroyers are actually enslaved titan constructs that were once called the tol’vir. The tol’vir were created to maintain titan lore repositories and titan machinery surrounding the titan cities of Ulduar and Uldum. Not long after the troll empires divided the insectoid kingdom of the aqir, the aqir that travelled north discovered and overthrew the tol’vir society in Northrend. These aqir would eventually become the race we know as the nerubians today, having adapted the tol’vir’s architecture for their own purposes. Similarly, the aqir that travelled south ransacked and overthrew a titan research station near Uldum, renaming themselves the qiraji and calling their new home Ahn’Qiraj. Although the Scourge would eventually consume the nerubian empire and throw its few remaining tol’vir slaves into the front lines, it’s possible that more tol’vir still exist in the hidden titan city of Uldum or deep within the remnants of Azjol-Nerub.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Ask_CDev#Ask_CDev_Answers_-_Round_1
Archive link
Now as to why Blizzard designed the Black Empire with similar architecture is beyond me.
The last part of this old answer has me curious. I wonder if we will see these remnants of northrend’s Tol’vir in The Last Titan. Assuming Blizzard remembers this Q&A.
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