The War Within Story Criticism (Spoilers)

Lore Story Forum
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This is my first expansion launch since Legion, but I did play through Dragonflight’s campaign right before getting into TWW. This is purely a story criticism, nothing to do with gameplay (I did rather enjoy the gameplay).

These two latest expansions being considered “good” compared to what’s come before, I can’t even imagine how abysmal BFA/Shadowlands were. I don’t want to speak on Dragonflight’s story too much since it’s old news at this point, but honestly TWW went in a very similar direction.

In Dragonflight, the focus was freaking DRAGONS; some of the most badass giant monsters in WoW’s lore. Why was it a Disney movie focused on love, friendship, acceptance, etc… Why do giant monsters need the help of mortals? The entire story was vomit inducing, save for the bronze questline and a few cool villains (one of which, Iridikron, just disappears). Overall, it was bad.

TWW had a very promising start. Xal’atath is a very cool villain, helped by the fact that she keeps making a complete fool of Alleria. She even killed Khadgar, making her feel lethal in nature (although I get if you think that was cheap).

The first little arc with Magni was stupid and boring. Way too disney movie-esque with the saving all the Earthens garbage and then Magni’s just fine even though we think he’s a rock forever… yada yada… but then we get to the Nerubians which felt much more dangerous and interesting to me. Spoilers though, it’s a massive disappointment.

The first kick in the shins was meeting Faerin Lothar, the one armed holy chick from the cinematic. Oh boy, I did not expect her to be cheerful. Her character is just so different from what the trailers would suggest. I don’t hate her or anything, but she wasn’t interesting or necessary to the story. She just acts as someone that tells Anduin to stop being such a downer.

Speaking of Anduin, that was the next kick to the shins. When he gets abducted, that was awesome. He just kind of jumps to his death which was stupid, but I was super excited to go rescue him. Holy crap was it disappointing when you go through all those quests and then he’s just fine. Way to make everything pointless. That story beat just served to lecture the player about how the horrifying spider people are actually friendly?

Not super important, but need to mention the cutscene where you get caught by a goblin in a shredder, then the goblin says something like “You thought you could take me alone?!” and an Earthen yells “Good thing we’re not alone! Now, Zee-Zee!” or some crap and the tiny robot does something and saves you. Why am I playing a Disney movie?

Then it’s the end of the main campaign, and yet more disappointment. You fight stupid spongy spiders for 10 minutes, then Alleria is like “this is what Xal’atath wanted! Let’s go lose to her again!” You then get to some palace and kill the old queen in like 5 seconds. There’s a cut-scene with Xal’atath, she’s laughing because Alleria is so stupid, but then Alleria says: “It’s time to end this!” and Xal’atath says: “You’re stupid, you can’t hurt me.” then Alleria says: “I"m not aiming for you.” then Alleria destroys the dark heart by aiming directly at Xal’atath. Dumbest crap ever. Again, Disney movie for 2 year-olds.

How the heck is this villain that’s been dancing around the “protagonists” for the entire campaign dumb enough to just leave the source of her power exposed like that? It’s just stupid. This isn’t even a Disney movie, it’s a Saturday morning Disney cartoon.

And of course Khadgar gets craped out of nowhere and is fine, except no he’s dying. And the big moment I saw coming 50000000000 miles away happens where Anduin gets the light back. Except I thought that moment would be epic like he takes down half an army or some crap, but no he uses a level 1 priest spell on Khadgar and that’s his story arc. Amazing.

So yeah, the story sucked. Still better than Dragonflight, but I really feel bad for anyone who had to experience something worse than that.

I paid $65 CAD plus tax ($75) for this expansion. Can you give me… like… one epic moment? One thing I can look back on and say “that was cool.”?

I recently played through the Death Knight starting zone, and that zone is freaking horrifying. You’re killing people that are begging for their lives. Even in a cartoony game like WoW, that was pretty chilling. Meanwhile, the latest expansion has the creepiest enemies in existence and I was sitting there bored the whole time.

If we could get something in between slaughtering the innocent and the latest Disney garbage, that would be great.

(Remember to include some epic moments if you can’t write an interesting story).

Thanks for reading, this is just feedback for Blizzard (although I know they fired the people that may have read it).

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That’s all you need to know, really, and I say that as someone who played all the way through both and found some things to enjoy. The back-to-back combination of BfA and Shadowlands nearly destroyed WoW. Dragonflight, as comparatively lighthearted as it was, was a desperately needed breath of fresh air after the previous two expansions (and the lawsuits and behavior allegations) broke any trust the playerbase had in the ability of the WoW team to handle a story with darker elements appropriately. The entire Amirdrassil patch in Dragonflight basically existed to cleanup the fallout of BfA’s launch. Moving on to TWW, Magni’s arc helps address the disdain that the playerbase built up for him after he harassed us for all of BfA. Anduin’s arc addresses the biggest unresolved point still leftover from Shadowlands. The story now sits at a point where we can finally move forward with new story, rather than being weighed down by baggage. That does feel really good for those of us who have been waiting for six years to finally reach that point. The narrative team has also had many changes since BfA, and so we’re more willing to give them a chance to see if they can continue on in a good direction.

A Saturday morning Disney cartoon can at least still be fun.

As a note, true resurrection in lore is very rare, not at all like its position as a game mechanic. Very few characters have ever pulled it off as far as the story is concerned, so it actually is quite a big deal for Anduin to manage it here, especially considering he’s been unable to cast anything for several years prior to that moment.

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its been like the 3rd time he has done it, its not that special

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I enjoyed the themes of this expansion overall, which has not been a true statement since Legion. I’m tired of the mopey sad sack archetype that gets dumped on the male characters. I hoped Anduin’s self imposed exile would give him some roughness or edge, but now he’s just mopey and always right.

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Sally Whitemane canonically resurrects the entire Scarlet Crusade, multiple times.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Blades_of_the_Anointed_(quest)

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To be fair, she’s also like the only character we know of who has the unique ability to mass ressurrect everyone. Which is why she had to be killed with those special blades

The statement of ressurrections being relatively rare is still kinda true.

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I think it’s more accurate to say, Resurrection itself is not rare, but rather, those capable of it aren’t common. Again, the Scarlet Crusade was getting res’d en masse for years. That makes resurrection itself common place for them.

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I know Blizzard’s reputation is at an all time low (and still dropping), but I really hadn’t considered the implications the company’s image was having on the story. Them trying to lift players spirits through the story is a good point. Killing off characters and having a bleak narrative definitely wouldn’t bode well with most players.

However, I still think it could’ve been “cooler.” More epic moments, more things actually happening, and less lame. The way the dark heart gets destroyed is so dumb. Although, I completely get how this would be a breath of fresh air for most players. Just didn’t quite land for me.

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I guess that also works. And it makes more sense. Given how magic generally works in WoW. It doesn’t have any Hard Rules like DnD does.

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Yes, and Sally Whitemane is a very special case, as she was also able to self-resurrect. Her strength and unusually strong conviction was cited as one of the reasons the Ebon Blade brought her back. She’s the resurrection equivalent of Spiders Georg. The average priest never resurrects anyone in their entire lifetime. Sally Whitemane, who resurrected both herself and countless members of the Scarlet Crusade several times, is an outlier and should not be counted in the average stats. Anduin’s only managed to perform a true resurrection twice if I recall correctly, including the most recent instance.

As an example, no one really wanted Dragonflight to revisit the particular details of Alexstrasza’s treatment in Grim Batol after hearing about how the previous Creative Director treated women.

That’s perfectly fine, I’m not going to argue against you feeling that the story could have been better, particularly over things that are likely to be a matter of personal taste. I certainly feel there’s room for improvement going forward. I just wanted to give context for why some players might be so vocal about liking the story.

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Its all a bit subjective.

Some people might think watching Beledar go from Dark to Light after Xal’atath was foiled to be pretty epic, for example. The imagery.

What one individual finds lame, another might find interesting.

I agree that the soul of the old Warcraft games and early WoW is absolutely missing these days. So many of the iconic heroes and villains which defined those eras of the franchise, however, are gone. Most of the new characters are younger, more idealistic, not having gone through the same experiences that, say, Thrall and Jaina did. Most of the older characters having reached the limit of their patience as well, and are stepping down, letting a younger generation rise up.

Warcraft is a very different narrative from how it once was.

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…Now I’m thinking that it would have been cool for the Scarlet Crusade mission in Gilneas be about trying to find a replacement for Whitemane, with the implication they’ve been trying for years and are getting desperate. The priestess who turns into a Lightspawn could be painted as a spell gone wrong as she tried to infuse herself with enough Light to get back that power and ressurect the SC to undo all the fighting the PC had just done.

It wouldn’t change much about the scenario as a whole, but I like seeing what the villain’s motivations are, especially when it’s tied to past player actions.

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Resurrection is actually far more common in the lore than we consider.

Kaylaan the Lost resurrects Ishanah, the leader of the Aldor.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Deathblow_to_the_Legion

The PC as a Blood Elf Paladin had a quest to learn how to Resurrect by killing and then bringing back a Blood Knight.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Redeeming_the_Dead

There’s more besides.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Fate%27s_Blessing
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Resurrecting_the_Recruits_(Alliance)
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Return_of_the_High_Chief

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Yes, but even among those examples it’s not treated as something trivially easy. Ishanah isn’t able to return the favor for Kaylaan, and the Blood Knight quest reminds the player that time is of the essence, or else they will lose their chance to bring back their comrade. Resurrection isn’t unheard of, yes, but neither is it nearly as common as our player abilities would indicate. As champions who beat up Titans for fun and loot, we’re stronger than most NPCs as far as the narrative is concerned. The average village priest in Elwynn Forest isn’t going to be able to resurrect anyone. We lose NPCs far more often than we bring them back completely.

That would have been very cool, and completely in line with the Scarlets’ habit of going to extremes.

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No, but we weren’t discussing the ease of it, but rather how common it is.

In the quest text, it’s not treated as some super rare gift only an elite few can ever manage. It’s treated as pretty common, with the underlying commonality being, “If too much time passes, we can’t do a thing.”

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I will note, I’m not sure how seriously we can treat quests like “Resurrecting the Recruits” that are essentially new player tutorials, and therefore have to abide by gameplay rules.

Characters treat resurrection as uncommon in the narrative. Most of the time when we lose an NPC during a quest, even when it’s a priest or paladin exclusive quest or another NPC of those classes is present, we don’t resurrect them and we treat them as lost for good. Tirion Fordring, one of the greatest paladins in the history of Warcraft, couldn’t resurrect his own son when Taelan was killed right in front of him. Alleria, who fought in the Army of the Light for centuries and who has Turalyon for her partner, mourned as if Khadgar was gone. Resurrection is not common.

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To be fair, there was no body to resurrect.

I chalk this up not to Resurrection being rare or difficult, but to the narrative.

Remember in the Legion starting experience, how Jaina is with the Alliance all the way to the very end, and then when they need to make an escape, miss “Mass Teleport with ease,” is suddenly nowhere to be seen?

Varian had to die, so a character able to teleport everyone, including him away, had to be ignored for the story, as much as Tirion being able to resurrect people had to be ignored so that his son’s death would ignite a spark in him.

Until they don’t.

Lore is lore. No matter how confusing it may be, once it’s there, it’s there until a retcon comes along. Considering we’ve seen resurrection performed countless times over the game’s lifetime, it seems safe to conclude that it isn’t uncommon.

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This was really boggling to me. That cliche line doesn’t work when the “actual” thing you’re aiming at is directly on the person’s chest that you were “fake” aiming at.

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Oof. Idk whether to feel happy that sticking with WoW payed off, or like a fool for staying around while the game and Blizzard itself fell apart.

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Fake out deaths of alliance leaders are normal. If they ever died many alliance players would throw in the mother of all tantrums.