One of the biggest failures of BFA is that it shows that the Blizzard writing team does not care about the History of this game. It is not simply that they have forgotten some tidbit of lore, or some errata of cannon which would be annoying to somebody who loves the lore like I do, but instead that they simply do not care about it. They have repeated the most hated story for the Horde beat for beat, while seeming to indulge in every tired storyline, every over used trope of WoW storytelling, and adding nothing of interest to the tale. They have valued shock over lasting impact, spectacle over immersion, and brought their setting past the point of return for so many players.
This game has been around for over a decade, and when I say they do not care about history, I mean that they do not value that many of their fans have been in the world of Azeroth for nearly a decade. They are not Baine, or Saurfang, or Anduin, but instead have taken on the roles of heroes and adventurers. Of Orcs, and Night Elves, and Gnomes, and Tauren. Yet the time players have put into Azeroth is not seen as a thing to be cherished, but instead yet another resource to be exploited for shock. After all, that is why such damage was caused to Tedrassil, to shock the players based on the time and effort they put into the story and world. I dare say they were hoping that they would hurt the players who were most invested in those lands and people lost, exploiting the passion of the fans to make their own story seem greater without realizing what kind of lasting harm that would have on the setting as a whole.
I think a large part of that problem is that the Writers do not see this as an MMO, but instead are trying to tell a story they would imagine in a book, or a tv series. It does not help that the story in it of itself is hideous, but they have misjudged both their audience and their medium. In any story you need to keep in mind who the protagonist is, and in any MMO or video game that protagonist is the player character (or player characters in other games) WoW’s current story can’t even clear that simple hurdle as nothing about this story feels like it relates to the player character. They are just a window for the audience to view the actions of other characters that have nothing to do with the player’s actions.
WoW’s major characters in the story they are telling are… by and large… free from dependence on the player character. Saurfang has done most of his major activities completely independent of the player character. (Look at all his cut-scenes) in fact, we could be absent from the story in its entirety and the story they are telling would move on just fine. Nothing about BFA requires the players. We are no longer the heroes of our own story, no longer the people driving the narrative along in some fashion. We are just here, disjointed from the story, as we wait for other people to make the moves irregardless of what we have done.
My biggest lost hope in WoW is that I used to think my character, the Horde and Alliance Player character mattered in some way… that our actions over the past fifteen odd years have changed the shape of things to come… but they have not. Becoming friends with all the races in my faction? Meaningless. Saving those people? They die for shock. The story following up on the impact of my character actions? Saurfang didn’t even want the Horde PC to escape prison.
in my garrison with nothing to do at all like in WoD.