I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with taking a few pages from FFXIV. The game is a huge success for several reasons, the main one being the story. Some expansions had a better main story than others, but overall it was an amazing journey with brilliant characters. The problem that WoW had was akin to DC to Marvel.
Marvel spent YEARS cultivating the MCU, starting with Iron Man, and eventually culminated in Infinity War (Endgame afterwards but IW was a much better movie), meanwhile DC tried to copy the success, made a messy slop and was an all around junkshow. WoW tried to put Zovaal as this 72D chess mastermind as something super cool but ended up being a giant, disgusting slop that only served to make everything worse in hindsight.
Sure, TWW isn’t PERFECT, there’s some points in the story that were eye rolling or downright tiresome (like looking at the screen and having only my character as the horde representative, and not even THAT much Horde because in my headcannon my character is much more affiliated to the Ebon Blade than the Horde), and surely there were a LOT of heart-to-heart moments…
HOWEVER,
I think it was overall good. Not amazing, not stellar, but good. Serviceable. A decent start. Overwhelming Alliance presence surely is irksome but at this point I just accepted thats the way things are and will be. The amount of heart-to-hearts was big, but I don’t really mind. I was always excited when I saw a ‘stay a while and listen’ prompt because I enjoy character development.
TWW’s initial campaign wasn’t perfect, but it was a damn large improvement over BFA and SL, which sets a better precedent. That paired with a lot of player feedback regarding balance being catered to makes me cautiously hopeful for the future.
Maybe my toxic ex isn’t as toxic, ya know? One can hope.
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TWW has done a good job of investing me in where the story is heading. I mostly just want The Horde back, though. I’ve had enough of the PTSD trauma dumping.
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A fair point. At times playing a DK and watching Anduin lamenting over THE THINNGSS HE HASS DONNEEEE I’m like… Brother, cease your snivelling at once, you are alive. You are uncorrupted. When you broke free of domination your first instinct was to do good. You are not perfect, who cares? Nobody is.
But sadly I can’t vibe check the boy king.
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Anduin: “And then… and then he made me hurt people against my will, and now I think I’m a terrible person because a part of me enjoyed it.”
Forsaken Death Knight: “First time?”
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God i wish i could just punch the sniveling brat, as if he didn’t get off light
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Not to mention that WoW already had a character that served as the main overarching antagonist for most of the story. That being Sargeras.
Legion felt like an actual end to a “book” than Shadowlands ever will. And to me the thing that makes that true is the sigh of relief Velen gives once it is all over. The one who has fought the Legion the longest is now relieved the war is finally over.
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I never got that. He felt utterly ruined by having to deal with a very short version of what any given forsaken or DK did.
But then his acknowledgement about being partially culpable for BFA kicking off is “whoops, guess trying to emulate my dad circa cataclysm/MOP was a bad idea. my bad!”
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Feeling this very much. To me, WoW really ended with Legion (hence why I’m pushing and hoping for classic to reach and end there.) Everything after it has been an increasingly unpleasant surprise.
And man did it completely take me out of the story to see so many on-the-nose social commentaries in a setting where they really didn’t make sense.
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