In my opinion the end of cata with thrall was the official “The Principal and the Pauper” moment of WoW that really just stopped caring about established lore and went too over the top for the rule of cool
Don’t get me wrong I feel like the poop didn’t really hit fan until after MoP, MoP actually was pretty cool story wise but from WoD on the story had gone off the deep end. I used to read all the books and such but ever since the novela that came with bfa was retconned in the same expansion it was released with I had to ask myself if they don’t care why should I?
25 Likes
WoD was it for me. Alternate dimension to revisit all the cool old WoW characters.
31 Likes
For me it was all the spaceships and such during Legion. I enjoyed Legion, but I hated the demons and everything about them during that time.
16 Likes
I really liked MoP the only thing I’d say is they went too silly with pandaren and when they weren’t being a joke race they were acting holier than thou, funnily enough pandas were worst part of expansion, I liked thundr king, horde/ alliance stuff
2 Likes
I’d compare it to Game of Thrones in this sense. They ran out of the old “source material” after WotLK and while it was okay for a few seasons (expansions) the story starts to feel rushed and lower grade.
26 Likes
Cataclysm. Allowing flying everywhere made the game far too easy for everyone - what’s more, it made everyone want them in all expacs that would follow…
13 Likes
Flying certainly made the world less meaningful, sure it saves time but in genre the depends on making an immersive living world, just flying over all of it certainly removes immersion to a detrimental degree.
8 Likes
LOL this… when their April Fool’s joke becomes their next big project you know they are out of ideas.
7 Likes
Spaceships. And those happened a long time ago. If a civilization with spaceships is having trouble with some jackasses with swords…
12 Likes
Cataclysm. WoW writing took a nosedive during Cataclysm.
11 Likes
Honestly for me, MoP felt like the last time the writers weren’t taking their campy, schlocky fantasy story too seriously.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the modern game’s writing, but it’s portrayed with so much more gravitas … without the story or characters being written in such a way to actually back any of that mood up.
I’d gladly take another silly, MoP-style adventure with serious undertones over what we’ve had the past few expansions.
I love me some campy, stupid fantasy fun - just as long as it’s not written as if it’s some world-changing fantasy epic.
24 Likes
You’d be surprised in how rooted the lore of MoP was. It was some good stuff.
I miss you Lorewalker Cho, man.
Getting lit up in that hidden cave with the scrolls and tea.
You were still an ‘adventurer’ back then too.
But yeah, everything after was just “too much” imo.
WoD was goofy with the time-travel elements.
Legion was just “too big” in terms of scale, towards the end, literally hilarious cosmic beings stabbing the planet and whatnot, a bit too silly.
BfA actually had a grounded start, faction wars, south seas stuff. I actually thought it was okay but the War Campaign and Sylvanas was some of the worst offscreen storytelling we’ve ever had. Zelling, Derek, nothing happened with those guys. Nazjatar was a pain. Mechagon was cool.
THEN the whole N’Zoth stuff, which was too heavy-handed imo. We could’ve had an Old God expansion with him as the end villain, he felt forced. Weird to see him in just a patch.
Shadowlands as a whole just tried to bite off more than it could chew with the whole death ‘universe’ premise.
Kyrians look too human imo, if they looked like Ethereals or the things from Oribos it would be less strange. Everyone there becomes a blue human in they die, Uther barely looks any different than he did. Sucks if you’re a Tauren or something, idk.
17 Likes
The day they stopped caring about subs and announcing them to the world like it was a big deal. That’s when things really went down hill and sharks got jumped…hic!
2 Likes
WoD, in my opinion.
Cata had terrible writing, but I don’t feel it was too out of whack with lore.
MoP was weird, but again, the lore wasn’t too horribly off-center, and the Pandaren already existed in lore.
Then we have WoD. Time traveling inter-dimensional buffoonery where we truly started to become the overly patronized gods of WoW.
Legion followed, with giant mechs, spaceships, other worlds, and interstellar demon armadas.
8 Likes
It all started back in 2004.
Though that WoD alternate timeline crap was really bad too.
2 Likes
When I messed up my warrior’s artifact weapon in Legion and realized I couldn’t change it. Legion went downhill for me from there. (I did enjoy High Mountain.)
Then came Argus and I thought, “Are you sh***ing me?” (Yeah, still did it; I was bored.)
No flying in WoD was the shark jumping moment. We are seeing the same stubborn insistence from Ion (the WoD no flight mastermind) this time around with other things like Covenants. Doesn’t bode well for the expansion.
6 Likes
WoD. Alternative timelines are messy place for a story to go without a good writer. And WoW was no exception.
Cataclysm was just badly done but I wouldn’t say its where their creativity spun out. It could of been pretty decent if they spent the time actually giving Deathwing character development and reducing the level of pop culture reenactments in every zone.
10 Likes
That expansion should have never happened!