As much as I try to remain positive, it’s been a bit hard to not be negative since I’m not especially fond of this expansion. I’ll go ahead and write some general thoughts since I’ve spent some time giving the expansion a chance.
I wouldn’t say I’m having fun. I’m mostly working towards unlocking flying in this expansion, as well as working on reps in case they mean anything in the future, so I’m at least focused on that even if I don’t care for the expansion as a whole. Forgetting that I am actually in the afterlife, which is easy to do outside of Bastion, improves the game for me.
I actually trudged through the story skipping most of it, which is something I don’t normally do. I read the Venthyr storyline for the most part and glanced through the storylines of the Necrolords and Night Fae for some potential things of interest I was keeping an eye on, but given the circumstances of where I am, I find that I just can’t get attached to the story at all. I feel like nothing means anything there. Eventually, I assume the link to the afterlife will close (in the story) and not much I do there is meaningful. It’s a bit like how I felt during WoD, only at least there it felt like Warcraft at least. I honestly don’t even know where to begin with the idea of a portal to the afterlife sitting in Orgrimmar and Stormwind, for that matter.
There is also the fact of there likely being roughly two years we’ll have to deal with this expansion, likely with long content droughts. I honestly dread seeing what could come for a few reasons.
The first is whatever they’ll do with Sylvanas. At this point, the only thing I want to do is parade around Orgrimmar with her head on a pike. Who knows if we’ll get to do that, if she’ll somehow get away, or if she gets redeemed or becomes an authority in the Shadowlands somehow. Whatever happens, I don’t see a satisfactory ending.
The second is, based on the BfA content patches, likely seeing even more systems being added on top of the pile of systems we already get to work with in the beginning of this expansion. Systems that will inevitably get either nerfed and forgotten or removed entirely, making all the resources going into them questionable IMO.
The third is the off chance that the covenant races become playable in some fashion. I’ve already shared my own personal opinion about the idea, and while I still don’t see it being a possibility, a part of my still has some worry about it. I could go more in depth of the issues with this, but for now I’ll mention that given the claim that every race with two legs was considered for allied race status in BfA, if they then decide to make new beings in the afterlife that deal with the life cycle playable over all other races in the living world, I wouldn’t be especially thrilled. It wouldn’t cause me to quit outright, but it would end up being a near-fatal blow to my interest in the game and its storyline. Again, my own personal opinion.
The fourth has me wonder about where the next expansion would even take us. I’d prefer being on Azeroth again, especially since there are plenty of storylines to work with there that have yet to be resolved, but if the comment I’ve seen involving exploring the cosmology of the universe (of…Warcraft?) is what the focus will be, my interest will continue to wane. Worlds like Outlands worked because Outlands had ties with Warcraft 3. It also worked because we were with units of our faction exploring the area, so there was some semblance of Warcraft in what we were doing. Sure, you can create such new areas and have it work well, but as it stands, I’d prefer to be staying on Azeroth than Star Trekking across the universe.
The fifth is, inevitably, we’ll see more dead famous individuals. In particular, I’d be surprised if we didn’t do anything with Arthas, since he is likely somewhere in the Maw. I don’t know whether he’ll get redeemed in some fashion, make me an errand boy where I have to do what he tells me do as quests to progress the story, or what, but I know I won’t really look forward to it. Honestly, if they were going to bring Arthas back, I thought it would be interesting if Sylvanas got his body (his body’s location has been a mystery since we killed him) and raised him.
Once flying is available to unlock, unless I have some incentive to play, I’m likely going to go back to exploring older content (which I already miss). I was actually giving serious thought to just skipping this expansion entirely until I saw that there were Saurok souls in Maldraxxus. I also wanted to help the race megathreads (this one especially) in general in keeping an eye out for stuff of interest.
For those having fun with the expansion, I’m happy for you. Don’t let a buzzkill fuddy duddy like me get in your way. As I said, all the above in my own personal opinion, and while I likely could go more into detail with things I haven’t mentioned, I need to take a break from all I’ve written so far.
Sorry for being so negative lately. it’s not fun to feel this way, I assure you. x- x