I couldn’t agree more. As someone who began their WoW history with a Worgen so so many years ago and them having one of the best starting zones (and even zone stories) in the game, this content fell so flat it hurts.
This is a reoccurring theme. Stop telling main story beats in books!. This is, first and foremost, a video game. You shouldn’t have to buy a book in order to understand the story.
I share the sentiment of all points made by OP. But here are some thoughts from me (that might be duplicates):
This quest chain should never have involved the Forsaken. This should have been a moment for the Gilnean people to retake their homelands, something that has been a core part of their story, agenda and focus since they were introduced. If any other race were to be involved, let it be Night Elves, who share a close bond with the Gilnean people both as their reintroduction to the Alliance but also through their shared stories throughout the years. I’d somewhat be fine with the 7th Legion assisting as well.
Mia Greymane, a character that’s been none-existant for 13 years, is reintroduced in this quest chain, for two whole quests. I guess that’s alright, she’s the queen of Gilneas so it seems totally resonable. Except she’s only there to hush Genn. Excuse me? What? Why? She could have been in charge of bringing back civilians from Stormwind, as an homage to her helping them to safety during the fall of Gilneas.
Jokes?!?. For some reason, there’s a lighthearted element to the entire quest chain, together with jokes. This is so out of place for this type of quest chain, we shouldn’t have to tell you this.
The length and quality of this quest chain is laughable. There are 12 quests, where one is a breadcrumb, two are cinematics and the rest are either basic kill or collect quests. If there was a lack of resources to actually do this, THEN DON’T DO IT. Considering the effort put into the Night Elf or Blue Dragonflight stories, this is beyond acceptable content to put out.
Genn begins the quest chain by saying “na fam, this thing I’ve wanted for 12 years, Tess and an undead rogue can do it for me.” Instead of leading the charge to reclaim his kingdom for his people, we’re left with what actually more seems like a covert operation than a retaking of Gilneas.
The cinematic between Genn and Tess is sweet but also strange. Is this really the place and time to change the monarch of your kingdom? It would have been much better to have Genn lead the rebuilding of Gilneas as a kingdom together with Tess, having her taking an ever-increasing role and then, in the end, hand the reins over.
And the cinematic with the “so-called” army that charges to take back Gilneas City are like 40 NPCs. Imagine this with a pan-over to see alliance siege tanks or glaive throwers closing in on the city, together with hundreds if not thousands of NPCs charging in together with Genn and the other Worgen leaders. This was supposed to be a grand thing.
I couldn’t end with a better summary/result than what OP did, but I would like to add:
- This should have been on the PTR.
- This shouldn’t have been released at this state.
- Let someone who actually cares about the Worgen write their stories. Both this and the heritage quest chain clearly shows that it’s not the case.
But in the end, I honestly doubt there is anything Blizzard can do to save this. 13 years I’ve waited, only to be let down this bad.