Your argument is immediately dismissed for bringing up Shadowlands. Sorry, try again later.
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Unfortunately, Belāameth exists, Anduinās trauma will be a major plot point for at least this expansion, Cauliflower Calia Menethil still exists, and thus Shadowlands and the Battle for Azeroth remain Canon.
Miguel Oāhara noises
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Blizzard canāt produce an expac to even match one paragraph you post on our forums, let alone a coherent original story.
So, yeah.
Hats.
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You guys are really gonna make my head explode at this rate, but yeah, this does seem ā¦ derivative? Iām just holding out hope that Dragonflight was a soft reboot after the death spiral that was Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, and weāre going back to the āold WoWā from Classic, Wrath and Legion-type story-telling.
I donāt mind derivative if its engaging and I can turn off my higher brain functions for a few hours and just be a character in a world rather than having to meta my way through the quests because it makes no sense compared to the last expansion why weāre doing this like Shadowlands did to me. Some tropes are universal and beloved simply because theyāre so simple and universal that almost everyone can jump behind them, or find them engaging on some level.
Its the Rule of K.I.S.S.
Keep
It
Simple
Stupid
A convoluted and complicated storyline is all well and good, but always keep the majority of the story simple and relatable, so youāre not getting fatigued writing it and explaining the setting, and the readers/players can follow along without needing a flow-chart to understand the basics of their own character(s) society.
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Thereās nothing inherently wrong with being derivative. Itās a 20 year old game. Thereās inevitably going to be repeats and after the disasterpiece of the past decade of narrative, going back to āOlā Reliableā after the Beach Episode isnāt the worst decision.
The cinematic establishes right away that this new Nerubian Queen was impatient and power hungry. Xanaxath is just giving the gal exactly what she wants. From what weāve seen in the cinematic, she hasnāt even lied.
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Well said!
Battle for Azeroth is fine? Not sure why youāre even putting them in the same sentence.
Teldrassil. Undercity. Trying to squeeze a Faction War expansion, an Old God expansion and a Naga expansion into a single expansion and butchering all three. Pants-on-head level of story decisions that reduced the Horde to mindless bloodthirsty idiots and the Alliance to mop-and-bucket janitors cleaning up the mess.
The Light-forged Orbital Space Station not glassing the Horde the moment they tried to invade Teldrassil. The Wild Gods apparently peacing out and refusing to save their oldest friends and allies from the Horde. Tyrande, despite 10,000 years of being a skilled leader, military commander and one of the most seasoned people in the setting being reduced to Angry Woman with Emotional Super-Powers status because Danposer needed somebody to suffer so El Waifu could look sexily evil.
Thereās a lot of good things from the expansion. But rushing it, not giving the Horde players a way out after the absurd amount of backlash Blizzard got after the Mists of Pandaria civil war storyline, the Alliance never making good on Varianās āwe will end youā¦ā threat if the Horde ever forsook their honor again, rushing the much-anticipated Naga arc into a pump-and-dump patch so Sylvanas can again be the master manipulator playing 4d chess against Old Gods and Immortal Snek Queen.
Then Nyalotha and the mess that was. Where they ripped the final scene of the LotR trilogy for Nāzothās death scene after we pull an anime nonsense eleventh hour power of gorram friendship-tier save out of our proverbial backsides and shoop da woop an Old God with the very power source he wanted to eat in the first place. We managed to sucker punch a fully unleashed Old God who could see backwards and forwards in time and who had literally been in our minds for several months at this point and its never brought up again, nor the fact weāre directly responsible for unleashing Xalāatath and nobody ever went to Dalaran and asked what in the nine circles of Hell they were doing to allow the Pillars to be stolen, the very things that stop the Legion from invading Azeroth directly?
There are so many things wrong with the Battle for Azeroth I could literally spend an hour typing out the plot holes, the character assassinations, the pants-on-head stupidity of several story arcs and still have material left over.
Its a lot like the Warlords of Draenor Expansion. Really good but it was clear it got butchered for somebody elseās baby to shine, and unlike Warlords which gave us Legion, Battle for Azeroth got three expansions worth of content crushed into one, and it was done to give us Shadowlands, which was arguably the single biggest failure, story-wise, player retention and profit margins alike, that Blizzard has squeezed out in the companyās entire history.
Hell, if theyād just made the Naga thing two patches and have it be a lead up to an expansion of fighting NāZoth and trying to stop the rebirth of the Black Empire, and having to go back around to all the Titan Facilities weād encountered, hammering out a peace treaty, the Horde dealing with being abandoned and used by Sylvanas and the Alliance now gunning for every last civilian and soldier alike, and the Alliance dealing with the fact that maybe they canāt be the Alliance anymore because the member states all want different and incompatible results, that would have been fine.
There comes a point where sometimes you have to trim the fat and let some things stay on the cutting room floor to produce a good product. Battle for Azeroth is the poster child for what happens when you try to cram fragments of really good stories together and give none of the time and effort to let those stories cook properly.
Was it a fun expansion? Yes, to a point. Was it a good expansion? Oh hell no.
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Thatās what was so refreshing about dragon flight. Boy was it nice to just be like, better stop the big dragon from burning everything because I like my stuff not being burned. Was it perfect? Nah, it has some gaps here and there but Iāll take that then running around being told we gotta stop the jailer because heās something something real bad.
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This was all rushed, yes, and bad writing. But none of it was just genuinely dumb or ridiculous or contradictory lore like Shadowlands was. Shadowlands kinda broke everything.
I think BfA maybe belongs in the Cata or WoD tier of like ānot quite realized / problematic xpacsā
Shadowlands is 10 feet underground of bad
I think you just proved why Legion was bad for the gameās lore lol
Donāt blame for BfA for Legion wrecking power levels
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Thereās things I like and donāt like about BfA and Legion. In Legion, the first half I played Rogue which had one of the best class hall stories. The other half I played monk which was something something gotta brew beer because the world is ending actually I change my mind thatās pretty based
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Creepy Xalāatath coming out of the portrait like The Ring was 
vibes ā I love old-fashioned goosebump horror sprinkled here and there in storytelling. I hope they continue to make her genuinely unsettling and the VA is delivering the performance, so let off the brakes and let the art team cook, Blizz!
And yep, the parallels to a certain other monarchy canāt be overlooked. RIP wise Nerubian queenā¦ though apparently not-so-wise because not realizing her daughter was also being manipulated was a huge blind spot on her part.
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https://x.com/ClaudiaLives/status/1820964023489442180
I mean, she is voiced by a sci-fi legend so thatās practically a given. 
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Re: Xalatath,
I have no delusions of fixing her. I am defecting. This is me, compromising every single one of my morals. I am more than willing to become the secondary antagonist of this expansion. And for what?
A spooky elf GF
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Whatās there to fix?
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Kinda reminds me of myself when remote working.
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You could at least make her attractive by making her a tauren
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She was apparently in a movie back in the 90ās called, āA Gnome named Gnormā and now I love her and have to go find and watch it.
Itās like, fate or something.
ETA: itās on Amazon of course. I know what Iām watching this weekend.
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