While there are plenty who disagree, I think its a fairly popular opinion to say that Dragonflight’s story is the best we have had in years. Even I agree with this sentiment, as for all the worldbuilding and broader details that I liked about Shadowlands, the interpersonal connections and character-based lore additions were overall pretty awful.
I want to make it clear that I really like the tone and general vibe of this expansion and I think that its lore is a great change of pace, this is just kind of a critique of the story so far.
That said, something feels really missing; for everything that happens, it feels like there is just as much that easily could’ve happened, but just kinda didn’t. What I mean is, take this current patch for example: I can sum up its entire story in 3 sentences.
- Chromie saves Nozdormu from becoming Murozond, allowing him to see the future and foreshadow the next patch.
- Iridikron takes Galakrond’s power in the past and leaves through a void portal with what appears to be Xal’atath.
- Alexstrasza and Vyranoth get a character moment that fleshes out Vyranoth and her motivations some more.
That’s really about it, all the daycare, time rift, and Chromie daily content seems to be narrative filler. The timelines are hitting eachother, but unless there’s something hidden in the Soridormi rep grind, that means nothing going forward.
That said, there was easily more that could’ve been either hinted at, brought into this patch, or done differently.
- We’re dealing with timelines, most of which are brand new, and there is little to no new information on the WoD timeline and Yrel’s Army of Light.
- For all the pre-patch name dropping, Morchie was extremely short lived as an antagonist.
- Soridormi has been doing things this expansion, but we still have no update on the vision from MoP where Kairoz seemingly killed her.
- It’s the Infinite patch and Eternus is seemingly nowhere to be seen.
- To my knowledge, Tyr’s memory disks from Uldaman are still time-lost.
- Despite being the final boss of the dungeon, we learned very little about Chrono-Lord Deios despite fighting him twice. It feels like he should have taken Morchie’s place as the pre-dungeon quest villain.
- This patch could’ve easily brought in a few new reoccurring heroes or villains, as we know from the Mag’har Orcs and Gul’dan that characters permanently changing timelines doesn’t necessarily unravel everything.
This patch isn’t the only time it has felt like the expansion plays it safe instead of going for riskier plot developments or committing to more than 3 story threads at a time, which I understand after BfA and Shadowlands, but it weirdly feels like almost everything that happens gets played 100% straight with very little subversion or that story threads will feel bare-bones at times.
The closest we got to something legitimately unexpected was in 10.1 when Fyrakk burned down Loamm, but even though that was a great moment, it meant nothing in the overall story. I could just say “Fyrakk obtained the Shadowflame and left” and the story would be the same as it was with him allying with the Djaradin Elders (who all died that same patch), injuring Ebyssian and Sabellian (who recovered soon after), and burning Loamm (something that was never brought up again).
Even broader details end up feeling similar to this, with many plot threads ending so soon after they start that it feels as if they may as well not even have happened.
In Ohn’ahran Plains, the only things of note regarding the Centaur are Baine getting some character development (which didn’t happen until 10.1) and the Green Oathstone reactivating. Everything regarding Ohn’ahra herself, Balakar Khan, the cultures of the different tribes, etc. have had little to no impact on the greater story compared to the other three zones.
I expected the Tuskarr plotline to develop into something like playable Tuskarr and Gnolls or some bigger plotline regarding the rot, but it kinda seems like it just plateaus out after Azure Span questing.
Normally these things would be fine, but you set a high precedent when you kick the expansion off with the Waking Shores, a zone where the Black Dragonflight gets their eggs back, two Oathstones reactivate, and we get a good amount of information on Raszageth and her relationship with Alexstrasza and the rest of the Aspects.
Additionally, in terms of major character deaths, we are actually in the negatives here, with Malfurion taking a nap in Ardenweald while Ysera… does something? She kinda just came back to say that she’s not taking her old job back tbh, outside of the Merithra character development, not much really happened there.
This all being said, there have been some 10/10 developments this expansion, such as the Blue Dragonflight questline, the revival of the Black Dragonflight, Sabellian being brought back and used as a major character, making Alexstrasza a more active character in the plot, the characterization of the main cast of characters, etc. I mostly just wanted to toss these thoughts out there and see what everyone thinks so far.