The narratives that DF is trying to push… it feels so… lovey-dovey. It gives off some serious Tumblr fan fiction-esque vibes.
I did the Night Elf Heritage questline. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s cool and all… but every race just feels so… human. Not like, as in, relatable and realistic. What I’m saying is, they just feel like humans with longer ears or tusks or fur.
I might sound like a recently unfrozen caveman to some of you, but, seriously, what happened to the flavor? The distinct cultural differences?
Why did Baine get humbled in the Ohn’ahran Plains? He was one of the first voices of reason in the Horde when Garrosh started his rampage. He even sought out the Alliance during BfA to help save the Horde. I get the whole underlying “we all have prejudices” theme in that Ohn’ahran Plains quest, but I can’t help but feel they picked Baine for it simply because of how Mulgore-y the zone is. I’m a sucker for morality displays thinly veiled as quests or narratives, but this was some pretty poor tasting virtue signaling to be honest.
The Night Elf questline is also interesting. On one hand, I think it’s the most pragmatic approach to “move on” which is more or less what I got from the questline. The Night Elves certainly have changed… Teldrassil, though, is a mere fraction of what kind of trauma they must have endured when their reckless use of magic caused the Sundering of the world. The Night Elves became these seemingly stoic, cruel and isolationist druidic sect we saw in WC3 and in early WoW as a response to that mistake. This new evolution of Night Elf culture, though… they do not have Teldrassil, the lands they once populated are either owned by the Horde or have been defiled by Demons, the Undead or by the Twilight Hammer. So the only thing they really have left is tradition, and yet, the questline’s main point is “move on.” I’m also not a huge fan of a 18-19 year old Night Elf showing a 1000+ year old battle-hardened Warden “how it’s done.” Again, there’s that tumblr-esque fan fiction you’d see on Wattpad.
Why has every race lost their teeth? Why is everyone so bland?
What happened?
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they fired everyone that made the story good and replaced them with ex tumblr rat loving leftovers. games story is doomed if we don’t get new writers lol.
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It’s a well known fault of the way the story is going. Hopefully they pump the breaks on blending everything like races and classes. It takes away the identity of the characters and makes them the same.
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Because the people writing everything can’t separate fantasy and reality, and if every “good” faction doesn’t conform to their morality 100% they would bust an artery throwing a fit over it.
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Blizzard goal for Baine is to make him look as dumb as possible.
They’ve been doing this since Cata.
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Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one that could not give two badwords about the story. For me it’s all about the core gameplay. Everything else is just fluff. Never felt the need to sit and read while I’m gaming. I’ve got plenty of amazing novels on my shelf if I wanna go that route.
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For some people, a great story enhances the game.
A good example is Dragon Age: Origins. To me that game is a book with a keyboard attached.
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Make love, not warcraft! 
Seriously though, remember the old south park episode? I don’t think “that which has no life” would enjoy the current iteration of WoW.
I don’t mind it though. 
OP: “Why does every race feel like Humans?”
Me: “But what about Vulpera?”
Me: “…wait, Vulpera are just fursonas for humans. Never mind, carry on.”
You have described everything I used to love about WoW in a way I have never even thought of.
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Because you are. You don’t get that feeling when you’re Horde.
Do you even know what you want? Now you want the Horde to be humans like your Alliance races. Baine sucks and always has.
Uh. You clearly have never been to tumblr.
I see so many things just trying to look up cool photos of the band Ghost lol
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Humans are the superior race that’s why. Animal, midget, and monster races are trash
While I can absolutely see the good parts in many of the stories like Baine and the Nelf heritage questline, it does feel - with this expansion especially - that while they’re trying to convey deeper character growth elements, it comes across as a lot of moral grandstanding from the writer’s side, leading to a pretty homogeneous-feeling outcome across what should be a lot of different story arcs.
It often feels like a portion of the writers just recently discovered the concept of processing trauma with their therapists (which in and of itself is a GREAT thing!) but now we wind up seeing it written into every chapter of every major/good character in the expansion.
Renewal is a cool and good theme, but this is laying it on so thick and broad that it lends entirely too much credit to the idea of “World of Warcraft: Group Therapy Session”.
Storytelling requires balance, and while I’m having a better time with this expansion than I’ve had in years, they’ve definitely stepped too far into that particular direction and lost that balance.
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To be honest after everything these characters have gone thru. they kinda deserve a break
I don’t think taking away the teeth from every story arc is how that should be accomplished.
Yes, they’ve been through a lot, but it feels like the same therapist is sitting every character we like down, telling them why they’re wrong, and how to be correct.
It’s too far in one direction.
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For one expansion? Sure.
Theres still loads of darker story elements.
Then again blizz players have a habit of having the very obvious stuff woosh over their head
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Something I’m curious about but I doubt I’ll get a real answer here.
How exactly can they make any playable race feel “not human” when they are in fact written by a human and played by a human?
I’m not even trying to be funny, I’m legit curious about that.
Like for example, do people want the the night elves to have their classes gender locked, their male NPCs only being druids, their females only being priests and wardens, and being feral?
What about Tauren? Everything about them screams Native American to me, which is very human. What would they need to do to ‘not be human’?
Is the “everyone human” narrative just a thing General Boards players say because the demons with purple hair make them scared? Was that super hyperbolic? Very but after a certain point, I’m not sure if it’s actually wrong for me to assume?
