The leveling experience in DF should have gone over the history of the Aspects and Incarnates, not focus on the Oathstones.
Waking Shore could largely stay the same only the Djaradin play a smaller role and the zone is mainly about the relationship between Neltharion and Iridikron since they considered each other rivals. Wrathion and Sabellians fued stays the same, but they find out about Iridikron while taking back the Obsidian Citadel
I really think we could have just left the Centaur out entirely of the Ohn’ahran Plains, seeing as how they are just reskinned Highmountain. Main focus would be the Green flight and put more story into why Amirdrassil was being moved to the plains.
Azure Span can still have the Azure Archives, however the Tuskar are removed and the conflict is solely between the Kirin Tor and Kalec vs the Gnolls whose decay magic is still eating away at the leylines in the area. The history of the Incarnates ascension is also explored as the records of who ascended first are kept in the Archives
Thaldraszus explores Alex’s history with the Incarnates, mainly how she is Fyrakk’s cousin and the whole debacle with Tyr infusing proto dragon eggs with Order Magic. Noz’s part in Thaldraszus is all moved to the Dawn of the Infinite patch
It is funny how Blizzard has acknowledged in the past their tendency to drop plot threads randomly. And yet the Oathstones have not been relevant since 10.0 and the whole “Sarky stole our research on that strange vault” from the Dragonscale Expedition renown campaigns is never brought up in 10.1. Even though the main focus of the Embers of Neltharion story arc (Forbidden Reach up to and including Aberrus) has Sarky as the main antagonist. So what did Sark do with that knowledge that he stole? It appears to be:
Nothing at all
Nothing at all
Nothing at all.
For it to have been in the leveling experience they would have had to had come up with these things like Vyranoth being Alex’s cousin while making the expansion, and I’m not so confident that kind of stuff wasn’t just made later considering there’s not even a hint of it in-game.
Fyrakk was the first to become an Incarnate and had a power struggle with Iridikron
Vryanoth was the last to become an Incarnate and Fryakk actually didn’t know this until after it happened. He wasn’t too happy Vryanoth became an Incarnate without his knowledge
Iridikron and Neltharion had a rivalry
Tyr wanted to Aspects to gather proto dragon eggs so he could infuse them with Order magic. Alex was initial opposed, but was convinced by Nel and Maly. Nel and Maly seemed to consider the Keeper’s requests as orders, but Alex always thought they were just requests
All in all the book revealed the Aspect’s reaction to infusing dragons in Order. The relations between the Incarnates and that the Incarnates were not ask tight knit as we thought. Imagine knowing all of this before they were freed in VoTI, would change you perspective on their interactions with each other
I agree that this would have made for a more coherent and satisfying story in some ways, but I don’t think it would have made for a better questing experience. I wouldn’t trade the Centaur for a bunch of green dragons droning on about ancient history - and in any case, it was necessary to have non-dragons somewhere.
You guys realize that they didn’t have the story of the incarnates mapped out at the launch of the expansion, right? Like yeah, maybe broad strokes but the author would have been coming up with this very story as Dragonflight was launching.
All in all, whenever I read people whining about novels including story that isn’t in game, I can’t help but sneer in disgust at how many people are so opposed to sitting down and reading a novel. You will never get inside a character’s head in-game in the same way a novel can. None of the novel stories would have ever in a million years worked as in-game quests.
Tl;dr: suck it up and read. Stop flaunting your borderline illiteracy as if it’s something Blizzard should take into account. It isn’t, you’re embarrassing yourself.
It is not that we are afraid of reading novels. So don’t assume that it is. It is simply that major story elements and events should be in the game. Since the games are the primary material that Warcrafts story is viewed through. Novels, comics, manga and other secondary material should be supplementary. They should not act as bridging one expansion to another (e.g. The Shattering, War Crimes) nor should they reveal important information about a cast of important characters related to the plot without having some form of it in game. Say what you will about the Theramore’s Fall scenarios, at least they showed the main event of Jaina: Tides of War in game. You just have to do the Horde version followed by the Alliance version.
Secondary material should be closer to things like the Traveler series. Telling side stories of either original or minor characters that help expand those characters. You don’t have to read every single Lei Lei comic to understand her character. MoP does a great job of doing that on its own for example.
I’ve been pondering a bit, and I think it comes down to how they write a story. They tend to write “moments” and then starting from where they want to end up try to figure out how to string their moments together. Instead of creating a satisfying bell curve of rising tension, climax, falling tension, and finally conclusion/catharsis they end up producing more…
Something like this. That leaves us trying to put the pieces together and follow their train of thought. Their books tend to be a means of retroactively adding in that bell curve I mentioned to their plots, but by then its a bit too late, really.
This novel is literally supplementary. You will not need to read it to grasp the major plotlines in Dragonflight at all. And all of this is just your own opinion. Personally, I’m glad things like Shadow’s of the Horde and Illidan are novels rather than them trying to clumsily put it in game. I’ve happily read every WoW novel and I honestly wish more novels came out.
People like you who whine about it, again, make me sneer in disgust. I look down on you, and my assumptions likely ring true regardless of how you dress your concerns up.
This is true, but is a result of the genre WoW is. All they’ll ever be able to do in WoW is “moments” unless they transform leveling into what are essentially single player campaigns like FFXIV has. WoW itself being the broad strokes with novels filling out characterization and story events has worked for the last twenty years.
Most of the people whining about novels including story are probably too young to realize that Thrall himself was introduced in a novel. Warcraft 3 does not explain who he is or why he’s in charge of the horde at all. Lord of the Clans is the only thing bridging the orc story from Warcraft 2 to 3.
And the dragons themselves? Their entire lore originates from the novel Day of the Dragon.
Another early novel? The Last Guardian. The entire story of Medhiv and Khadgar is explained in the novel, not in any of the warcraft games.
Warcraft has ALWAYS been intrinsicly linked to it’s novels. Whining about it just makes you look silly.
Not exactly. Lord of the Clans was originally going to be a point and click adventure game. When that was cancelled, some of the material was adapted into the novel. Also the WC3 manual summaries Lord of the Clans along with Day of the Dragon so you do not have to read a whole novel. Remember, the lore sections of a manual were designed to give you something to do while you waited for the software to install.
See above. Also iirc Day of the Dragon does not give a proper origin for the Dragons. That would be the WC3 manual.
tbh, the only person who is whining atm is you. Resorting to petty insults etc from get go.
My insults aren’t petty. They’re my true unbridled opinion. I hope they cut you to the bone. The fact that you’re argument is
“ackshually you could just read the manual instead of the novel” is so silly it’s mind boggling. It isn’t in the game, now is it? So you should still have an issue unless your stance is just wildly inconsistent. If the manual is an acceptable supplement to the game because its quick and summarized, then why isn’t a wiki summary of the novels fine for the same reason?
Hm? I am not whining about it. Its more of an observation of why things are as they are. I actually do look forward to sitting down and listening to it on Audible. I work all day in a library so If I read another book when I get off work ink will run out of my ears, likely.
My observations have been people are basically wanting Blizzard to follow the same template that FFXIV follows for how it constructs its stories more akin to a traditional book’s arc. That has always seemed a bit of an odd demand as course they have entirely different internal team structures and strong cultural divisions, given square enix is headquartered in Tokyo and Blizzard is off in Irvine. I am not entirely sure Blizzard could ever pull something like that off.
Lmao. You’re the one making petty, pedantic arguments. GG no rematch kiddo. Next time just admit you hate reading long novels up front instead of trying to dress it up. You won’t embarrass yourself nearly as bad.
