The Campaign So Far: Nothing Happened

Community General Discussion
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Obviously this post will contain various spoilers for the main quest campaign for TWW. You’ve been warned.

I recently finished the campaign up to it’s latest point, and I have to say I’m strongly disappointed. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in and I ended up leaving like nothing…really happened.

The initial chapters are introducing all the factions and their issues, pretty typical stuff. Can’t say I feel strongly for any of them: Earthen are robotic dwarves with the attitudes to match. When I think ‘dwarf’, I think loud, surely, diving into battle Mountain King style and striking down all who threaten Dwarvenkind. These Earthen just ain’t it.

Kobolds are, well, Kobolds. If you expected any new personality nuances beyond candles and an obsession of, I’m sorry. You’re not getting it.

The Arathi are weird: They go from holier-than-thou to absolutely terrified at the flip of a switch. That and it’s kinda disappointing for one of the big new factions to just be…humans.

Faerin is a neat character though. Liked her arc and the fact she uses a prosthetic shield for an arm? That’s a heck of a sacrifice to continue protecting your people.

Finally the Nerubians. They’re sneaky, they’re crawly, they’re prone to attacking folks unprovoked and this variant not under the Scourge is no exception. I’d argue the former is preferred: You’re not left wondering when you’ll get stabbed in the back.

I’m not sure why we’re so trusting of them? They are known servants of the Old Gods, y’know, the source of the thing we’ve been fighting? And it’s clear Xal’atath can just do her thing to any of their Ascended and they become super void soldiers.

Am I supposed to trust them because they sip tea now? When more or less their first thoughts were, “Nope, Queen has to die. No, noooo other way, she has to die now. You do it.” I wasn’t complaining, but it seemed kinda swift, given the political upheaval and social unrest it would bring.

The major players didn’t seem to do much throughout: Thrall wisely spends most of his time off screen. Anduin tries to be useful as he tries to get over the fact he almost kissed Sylvanas back in Shadowlands. Verissa won’t get over Khadgar and gets herself and others killed on a regular basis while using the very thing she should be fighting against.

Xal’atath I really enjoyed as a manipulative lil’ Artifact Weapon. She whispered a lot of half truths and even sometimes went out of her way to put the user in direct danger. (She encourages the player to corrupt something related to Elune. Elune reacts…not well to the attempt.)

I feel like her biggest problem is she’s acting like she’s so many steps ahead of the player and the other characters that she doesn’t know what her gameplan is. Sylvanas had a lot of similar issues.

We’ll get back to her in a bit, finishing the post campaign: We solve a lot of problems that seemed…really easy to solve. We singlehandedly bring back the Stormrooks and now they’re Stormrooking again while the Earthen is training to be a fighting force. (With some of the weakest Alliance/Horde banter I think I’ve ever seen.)

AN marks the return of an old character, Lilian Voss, who has been stricken with the horrible curse of having her entire character changed around five times. Also some Nerubian Ascended who seemed aggressive the whole time and, surprise, she gets MC’d by Xal’atath.

Lilian says she put up a good fight. She’s just being polite.

Ringing Deeps, we fix, well, everything and fend off some Goblins. Who were they? What were their goal outside of profit? Who knows or cares? It’s fixed now.

Harrowfall, all out war wages out between the Nerubians and…everyone? Guess that didn’t take very long. Going to be a lot less spiders by the time they’re done.

Final scenario, Anduin, Verissa and Faelin go on to confront Xal’atath. Pretty annoying scenario because your light drains REALLY fast and takes a real long time to recharge.

Anyway Xal’atath, who’s big game plan was to use the violence to strengthen the Black Blood because that’s how it’s powered, gets thwarted at long last by Verissa when she twists her arrow a bit. I’m no archery expert, but I’ve seen olympic level archery and I’m not sure that’s any official technique.

Anyway, Xal gets really mad and goes away while Khadgar, apparently released from the medallion thing Xal always carries around, appears? He passes shortly after but Anduin re-learns the power to revive just in time to save him for good.

That was the last straw for me. Not that I dislike Khadgar, I think he’s a great character. Being done in in the way Xal did wouldn’t have been great but grandpa supermage had a good run. Anduin popping a brez like Rey from SW Ep. 9 just ended it with the most sour taste in my mouth.

Nothing of lasting consequence was done by either side except a lot of dead Nerubians, and the destruction of Dalaran, which with portals leading whichever direction nowadays really isn’t that big of a loss.

It’s okay if the bad guys win some. I’d rather have the reality that we face an uphill battle instead of feeling like we already fixed everything and all that’s left are weekly chores.

Undermine is coming and more than ever it’ll be more Goblin slapstick humor, ha-ha-life-threatening-explosions and just sticking to the extremely safe formula they stuck with the campaign right now.

Yeah, I’m disappointed, and the future isn’t really exciting me much.

Thanks for reading.

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I think this is a symptom of the actual story going to be divided in 3 expansions…were likely not going to see much happen this expansion.
Killing Ansurek essentially did nothing, and were going to be fighting goblins next which will likely also lead to nothing (other than being cool).

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You didn’t see the part of the storyline where we helped the Earthen and they marched onto Hallowfall? That’s nothing?

We have been collecting data fragments to give out a ton of info about what is coming next foreshadowing a ton of stuff but that’s nothing?

Now NPC’s are talking about crystals on some island which is foreshadowing things to come but again that is nothing?

I can’t help but think this is a total troll post.

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Little tidbits of things that may mean something means nothing to me. The writing team has introduced many concepts and ideas that just up and vanished

A bunch of futureproofing of things that could very well just up and fizzle? Nah, been burned by that once too many times already.

Helped? We did everything for them, including teaching them how to fight, which the Titans I guess thought was not necessary despite Azeroth having so many potential threats at it’s creation.

All for, “Thanks, we can do things now. Sure couldn’t before but now it’s okay. Beep boop watch my back while I commune with the machine.”

You can think it’s a troll post, I can think you’re flat out wrong.

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I don’t know how to run Titan tech, good thing a Dwarf & an Earthen were around for me, oh and that last data catch about the Earthen is really really messed up, IDK whose side we are on.

Also, since you said foreshadowing and other things meaning nothing to you I have to question your reading comprehension levels amongst other things.

Have a good one, I’m out! :rofl: :wine_glass:

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people said they don’t care about lore. Blizzard stopped caring also.

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WoD-SL “lore doesn’t matter over gameplay”

After SL “mah lore”

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I mean both were…really bad. SL was somehow worse narratively. Purely because it took multiple characters and said, “No, see, Blue Man Bot did it! Get 'em!”

I won’t say it’s that level, but it just currently leaves me with a feeling of nothing.

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This I feel is a weird thing to talk about because it’s wishy washy for who you speak to.

Like what happened in Wrath on launch? And I mean that like… what happened that had cost and really changed the story? Saurfang JR died? A character introduced in an optional quest some people never knew. Bolvar? He just came back at the end.

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I’m disappointed too… since Varian is actually dead.

Also, I agree it was lackluster.

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Whoops. There were a lot of words and I guess I got stuck on Varian for some reason. :sweat_smile: To be fair I thought he was a great king and character.

I feel there was more of a build up. Like you had the Ebon Blade who just got thrown in a world that doesn’t trust them, let alone want them, having to earn their trust the old fashioned way. You had them and the Argent Crusade working together to strike, and yup, eveentually the big bad Lich King goes down.

I can’t really compare them head to head since Wrath is well past done and Worldsoul is on it’s first chapter of what I assume many, just that it’s first chapter isn’t all that hot for me.

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Happens to the best of us, and thank you for being a good sport. Most folks just get defensive :blue_heart:

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The writing been a mess for years/expansions now n i don’t see it improving (but hopefully i’m wrong)

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I get that. Metzen said this trilogy is supposed to start slow which I hope is for building. I do think some mistakes for the building is there is a lot of exposition cutscenes mostly aimed at characters and not the world, and the big story beats delete the player (despite they said they want a balance). So scene A happens then the player connects to scene B with questing but the player is absent from those scenes.

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I can only hope! Once burned twice shy. I’m just hoping it’s not such a slow burn that we’ll get something juicy in two years.

I guess my attitude is ‘cautious’, especially since i love Goblins and just really hoping they’re not done bad.

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Things that happened during WotLK’s initial launch:

  • Wrathgate, revealing an internal betrayal within the Undercity. Saurfang Jr. (quest NPC in TBC) and Bolvar (the “leader” of Stormwind for Vanilla & TBC) were also believed dead at the time, even if both return for ICC. The “Battle for the Undercity” scenario is long gone now, but that included fighting Varimathras (who fled after) and permanently removing him from the location he’s been in since Vanilla.
  • Anub’arak is dead, and in a dungeon no less. Brought back for TotC.
  • Pretty sure the Scarlet Crusade, a regular enemy faction, is effectively dismantled in the Dragonblight zone. I don’t think there’s much for remnants in Cata onwards.
  • Arthas is weakened (maybe?) during one of the questlines in Icecrown.
  • Kel’thuzad is dead, and for real this time… even if the whole thing is a rehash of Naxx from Vanilla.
  • The Blue Dragonflight kinda-sorta goes rogue, and Malygos - the Aspect - ends up dead.
  • The prelude to Ulduar happens, including Loken taking control of the other keepers in a way. He’s also dispatched in a dungeon, even if other major events still have to play out in the raid itself.

Stuff happened in WotLK’s launch with ramifications down the line, and not entirely in the raids either… well, still mostly in the raids.

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One thing did happen. Let’s retrace our steps to Cataclysm.

  1. Blizzard removes Cairne & Magni from the game. One from each faction, to be fair.
  2. Blizzard decides they can’t possibly do anything bad to the Alliance players, so they bring back Magni as a diamond guy. Cairne stays dead.
  3. Blizzard decides that having Magni alive but a diamond is too cruel, and Alliance players deserve special treatment, so he’s fully restored in War Within. (Cairne still dead.)

The expansion is just 100% Alliance pandering in general, but that particular bit of Alliance pandering is the noteworthy part. Other than that, OP is correct.

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And in Thinster we have:

  • Introduced to the Earthen
  • Reunited the Earthen council
  • Removed that Earthen speaker dude from power
  • Freed the earthen from their directives
  • Introduced to the Arathi and helped them rid themselves of a zealous subfaction
  • Succesfully supported a rebellion of the nerubian empire
  • Reunited the Earthen and the Arathi

Regardless of good writing or bad writing… stuff happened in the opening act of this expansion just like any other expansion. We don’t know where it’s leading (although we can assume) so we can’t say how important/relevant things are yet.

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This is what happens when you don’t read the quests. The Earthen are builders and repairmen. They were never meant to be fighters. That was the job of other constructs like the Vrykul and Mogu.

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To be fair, considering they seem to be confusing Alleria with Vereesa Windrunner and even then spelling it so horrendously even Google couldn’t figure out what I was trying to type… yeah pretty sure this is a case of: “I never payed attention and I won’t start now, but man is this plot I haven’t even followed at any point terrible!”

Again, this ignores the ACTUAL plot they wrote, if you were paying attention, all core memories for Earthen are backed up in the forge machine and its memory banks, said machine has not worked for centuries at this point and thus the Earthen are left crumbling and decaying and slowly losing their memories.

By the way, as part of the Earthen playable race scenario said machine is fixed in the process, though to note the Earthen are no longer really beholden to their programming by time it is.

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