OP has really forced a bunch of people who have likely become incredibly disenchanted with WoW’s story over the years to come to its defense. TWW is doing some really unprecedented things here.
OP using the word “forced” comparatively to any prior story that WoW has ever told is wild to me. Ion touched on this in a recent interview where he talked about having to bring out old lore references from mostly just WC3 and make them do the “show pony” because the game’s writing and plot development was incapable of shoving a compelling narrative into a tiny little box and make it interesting and engaging. Everything was forced. Nothing since Legion has been good. A lot of the story before that was mid and did exactly what Ion said, which was put established lore characters in front of the player but do little to nothing to further develop them. No one’s expecting the first pass to be perfect, but OP’s cynical perspective is understandably annoying.
I like what they’ve done but I think… they’ve managed to get as much variety as reasonably possible out of underground zones for a while. There’s still a level of samey greyness between Zaralek, Ringing Deeps, and Ahn’Kahet that is going to be more exhausting for most people than more common human environments.
Nazjatar’s problems were a combination of incredible blueness and constant 3D thinking for combat, which BFA’s water zone (name escapes me) deftly avoided. I am willing to see new water zones in the future!
But its justified by your own post, because even yourself have said “nothing since Legion has been good”. why shouldnt i be cynical about how the story is?
What I like about it is that they are telling multiple characters stories including ours but all through one storyline which is cool. It’s like separate threads of a rope all being spun together to make one big story.
Moira has been so so good, she’s my favorite so far this expansion. I like how relatable she is. She’s like the jack of all trades, wears many hats. But you get these brief little moments where you see her prepare herself before walking into the next situation. She expresses her pride and her doubts as we are working with her. I worry about her and that she may not make it through this expansion. the way she reflects on things and they have been building Dagran up and Magni is back.
I did already. You used personal bias to try justify the adventure. The reason why I won’t elaborate further on it: first this is not a literature work, but you trying to express why you do not like The War Within episode so far. And I think you’re allowed to not like it.
But the way its voiced why you don’t like and try to make your points with the adventure can be read like my step brother trying to explain me what happened on his last fishing trip while he is high.
anything regarding the dwarves has been good. ringing deeps has been very good from my couple playthroughs.
I think some people in the thread have given some explanations to my points with Hallowfall (Probably the Anduin portion) being more a personal bias because of it. The trauma stuff is very understandable, but as the zone storyline might be a bit too much.
That’s kind of how I feel about overworld environments. More trees. More mountains. It is nice but not variety.
That was the best part. It was like dragonflying pre dragonflying. It wasn’t the same old planar landscape. I guess I like variety more than mindless leveling to level cap.
I don’t know if it’s too much. Personally I follow the story but I’m not hardcore on it. I just rush and sometimes bother with digging up the side quest to try see if I can learn more.
The Main Questline clearly is designed to try appeal an audience that’s more than about “questing and movig on” type of audience. Final Fantasy competition? Couldn’t tell you.
The problem with it is moving at a very slow space and Blizzard going to sell another novel instead putting it all in the game.
I got that notion too - I feel like we are going to get some mythos building for Arathi and the Earthen of Dornogal in some sort of Chronicles-esque or Tales-esque book. Ill have to look over the books from Arathi again.
But a lot of the posts here are helpful to combat arguments against TWW’s story being bad. However, Priory being what it is is…weird.
Yeah I stopped paying attention to most of the questline - it began well, then it put me to sleep for the Isle of Dorn/Second Zone.
Hallowfall made me wake up a bit, I do like Faerin Lothar and everything about the Lamplighters… but the Anduin stuff was fluffy. Anduin keeps complaining the Light abandoned him, I want my character (who is an Ex-Burning Legion Warlock mind you) to say: “So even I know that’s not how the Light works - you see this lady in that dungeon over there using the Light to animate undead? Or, y’know, the ENTIRE SCARLET CRUSADE. The Light doesn’t give AF about you. This is a you issue: You need a couch and a therapist, not some grand quest to ‘find’ the Light, like it’s some dog who slipped your leash.”
The whole Neurubian plotline is kinda cute, but feels like a half-baked version of the Suramar quest story from Legion.
OK. I’ve engaged enough with this topic that I think you’re probably not a jerk so I’m gonna give this a good faith try, former-hater to current-hater.
I agree that the rivalry overplays its hand a bit, but I don’t agree with your position on Alleria re: Dalaran. I think it’s really as simple as: she has spent a LOT of her life fighting to defend others. The target of her concern infiltrated the city of one of her longest-living friends and blew it up under her watch, and it happened after Alleria trusted Khadgar to take care of himself while she took care of the city. There’s a lot of reasons for her to feel personal failure here. It’s not all spelled out explicitly, which is unusual for WC, but it’s also not super subtle.
So that you don’t feel like the world is completely disconnected and people are void from the plot. Thrall and Jaina are marshalling armies to sail across the ocean. Probably could have shown more of the Dalaran people doing things but I see that more as a “bonus point” miss than a core structure miss. They already did more to address why key figures that normally would help aren’t than we usually get.
They’re avoiding the (correct) complaints about previous patch big bads who show up too often to laugh maliciously. I believe this was the correct move. She is only a stepping stone and it was clear to me, going into TWW blind, that she isn’t all that important to our characters. It let the focus stay on Xal. You learn a lot about what she’s done and how it’s bad via sidequests.
I already discussed the other two points earlier in the thread.
We’re all impressed with the writing here because the campaign looks like it cares about what happens further than the next patch and the sidequests reinforce the main quest themes and foreshadowing very well for the most part. There aren’t a lot of big epic moments, because suddenly Blizzard understands it is better to earn them than to try and force them every single time by burning up your setting building blocks constantly.
Overall, I do get the impression that you’d prefer more things to be upfront and in your face with the writing, and that is historically how they have done it, but it’s not sustainable.
I like variety and I really like verticality, but Nazjatar was just too much 3D thinking for me. Dragonriding is more 2.5D thinking, which is how humans are best oriented – we mostly move in one plane at a time but can shift on the third axis situationally.
I dont think a good defense is “You didnt understand it” without any context - nor is “it just came out” a good one either (maybe towards the raid one, but I’ll digress).
You apparently have not been paying attention to the storyline. This entire wall of text is scary about how much you are not paying attention and honestly appear to be mimicking some streamers that also do not know what they are talking about.
Do you even understand that this is a global problem and people all over Azeroth has heard the planet call out to them?
Edit - Watch the pre-videos, and make a new toon to level and actually watch and read the story.
the way she reflects on things and they have been building Dagran up and Magni is back.