I will never forget Pamela Redpath, Marshal Windsor, Tirion Fordring’s effort to save his son, Stalvan Mistmantle and his depravity, the tragedy of Morgan Ladimore… and so many, many more.
In 20 years (heck, probably in 5) I won’t even know the name “Balegrim”.
Why is modern writing (and it’s not just a WoW problem) so awful, hackneyed, cliche, and ham-fisted? Why didn’t my generation learn to actually write good stories? We had no want for them growing up.
The stories weren’t any better, you just paid more attention to them because you were less focused on the end goal as a kid
People saw marvel get away with it and decided they didn’t need to try so hard.
The stories felt deeper because each one wasn’t tied into some world-ending catastrophe or moustache-twirling cartoon bad guy. They felt like little isolated windows into the world of Azeroth. Pulling mobs felt more deliberate - overpull, you die. If you die? Unless you’re near the graveyard, each corpse run is going to eat into your time. So you pay more attention and try harder. There are still some quests now that hit that same vibe/feel (Fiona’s Caravan, Zul the Prophet’s quests in BFA) but nothing seems to have that “grit,” especially not the main campaign. It’s annoying to see Jaina or Thrall swoop in like captain do-good and snatch center stage. At least personally, I like the quests where it feels like my character is part of the world, not just some disembodied observer.
Sadly, that which sells is not always that which is good. And media - like any market - follows the money. Indie games & other passion projects still have good stories.
I mean, you’re comparing what is essentially side quests to a main storyline that needs a specific through line
If you want good modern quests like “back in the day” you need to start checking out more side quests. One that comes to mind in TWW specifically is part of the Earthen unlock, with the one Earthen that’s in the process of shutting down
Vanilla thru WoTLK questing was just on another level in terms of lore and such
We had a brief “renaissance” for lore in Legion where they actually “put some effort into it”, that questing/background music/ambience was top-notch as well - very good immersion 
Touche, modern WoW is a fundamentally different game. I wouldn’t mind a shift in perspective from focusing on the “big characters” to how our characters relate to the new zones we’re entering, but a big part of that comes from my loathing for formulaic Marvel-esque writing. I have Anduin-fatigue.
That is actually one of my favorites from this expansion and I’d forgotten about it, I was genuinely surprised at how well-written it was. Likely the person who designed the quest had a personal experience with a family member with Alzheimer’s.
Because questing isn’t something we think about anymore. Everyone’s leveling with Timewalking now. It’s all about getting to max as fast as possible and then focusing on end game content.
Whereas in Classic the leveling/questing was the game for most of us.
People whine about “trash side quests” any time they have those now. Folks were just younger then, hadn’t seen much of the setting and had no expectations.
That Horde questline in Nazmir where we befriend a little Blood Troll girl ghost and do some favors for her only to find that her own mother was a priestess who sacrificed her. “Mada…?”
A big part is the first impressions.
For me it was BfA (as the intro zones to someone starting in 2021):
WoW’s first impression after Exiles Reach for me was Boralus, Tiragarde Sound quests and then Stormsong Valley.
I remember breaking out with Flynn and Taelia showing me around.
The Boralus music plays rent free in my brain on demand and is the same for my friend I started this addictive game with.
I remember liberating Stormsong Valley and dying 10+ times to those big void monsters in a particular quest there.
I loved it and I miss my innocence when I started this game. I was excited to help the NPCs along and I wasn’t in any rush to ‘get to’ a particular gear level or anything.
The main story line has always stunk in every expansion.
The side quests is where you get the good stuff.
My theory on this is that a non writer pushes through an idea and tells the writers to just make it work. The side quests, the writers have more independence on the story of that side quest and writing.
I have no actual evidence to back this up. Its just my personal tin hat theory.
A lot of it has to do with nostalgia and exploration of a new thing. Back in 2004, MMOs were a relatively new genre and people were experiencing it often for the first time. This also happened in the early days of the internet (like zombo.com). It was the wild west and people were still figuring things out instead of having them researched and datamined.
These days, MMOs are commonplace. Even if a new MMO with completely new lore and mechanics comes out, it’s still not going to hit the same as they did back then. We can’t go back and unexperience 20 years of MMOs.
I think there’s something of a generation divide effect too, though, which can be seen in TV series too. Younger viewers bag on shows for having episodes that aren’t directly tied to the central plot of the show, whereas I see millennials and older on social media talking about how they miss TV shows having one-off episodes that let characters breathe and helped viewers to get to know them.
I still feel bad for that nerubian husband we doomed. 
For me, it’s other games that kinda spoiled WoWs story telling for me.
The format is stale but familiar. It’s almost 2025 and our quests are delivered the same as they always have, only with getting from point A to point B as fast as possible in mind.
There are still quests here and there that I enjoy, but I’m not as interested in the overall narrative as I was in past expansions. That can always change though.
But other games have voiced characters, more than stock or basic animations, cinematics, etc that are polished and up to modern standard that help sell the narrative a lot better for people like me.
I am also of the opinion that they need to get back to what made WoW cool in the past. Not a fan of all the LGBT allegories that all of a sudden began popping up, but it’s mostly ignorable. That kind of subject matter doesn’t really appeal to me in the context of a game like WoW, since that kind of stuff is only a part of my identity and not the whole.
In any case, I wouldn’t hold my breath for any improvements in the story writing or the actual development of the game. The game already peaked, you know? It is what it is.
Its because you read that lore 20 years ago. 20 years ago, i thought harry potter was peak fantasy.
Go back and read through those old quests again. They’re cliched and derivative.
The people who wrote classic questing had clearly read books and made references to those books. Or even more-or-less copied them like with Stalvan Mistmantle.
Modern quest writers clearly are more Marvel movie watchers who just want big cool action moments without thinking. Baelgrim is a good example because there’s literally not a single reason he needed to jump down to hit the kegs with lightning. It was done for spectacle and nothing else.
Story telling in all modern western media is bland, unimaginative and generic.
It all has to tie back to something…
I don’t even bother with most of it anymore. Quick qiest right thru and fly to the next marker