I’ve been reflecting on the current state of World of Warcraft, particularly how the leveling experience has evolved. While I understand the need for balance and accessibility, I can’t help but feel that the unique flavor of each faction has been diluted over time. Gone are the days when choosing Horde or Alliance meant experiencing distinct narratives and quests, with each side offering a different perspective on the same world events.
With the leveling experience now homogenized, it feels like we’re missing out on the rich, diverse lore that made faction choice so compelling. Both sides are treading the same path, and while this streamlines gameplay, it sacrifices a lot of the unique storytelling that originally drew many of us into the game.
I propose that Blizzard introduces more quest content that brings back the distinctiveness of each faction. By reinforcing faction identities, we can bring back some of the magic that made World of Warcraft’s story unique.
Alternatively, if that is out of the question, could we have more meaningful quest content in general? And by that I do not mean frivolous side quest hubs here and there but actual meaningful quest chains.
Why? Because by de facto eliminating faction differences, you have cut down on the need to implement differing perspectives to the campaign. This is heavily felt especially in TWW where the horde gets the short end of the shaft
I’d rather have class specific quests like in Legion. Those were some of the best quests ever made in WoW. And they also offered a lot of replay value.
That is true but a return to that type of variety seems utopian at this point. It must have taken an exorbitant amount of resources and frankly I doubt they can even consider such developmental undertakings with their current team.
And there are zones like that in DF and SL mind you.
The problem : In Legion and BfA you had borrowed power attached to it. You dont anymore.
So people don’t play it.
So it still stands. You will spend 1.8 years doing end-game content. WQ and such dont count as “end-game” because (A) they are too easy and does not feel rewarding and (B) dont progress your toon in anything.
Is it possible to make faction-specific content without any on the sides to be involved in the war with another faction? I don’t think so. And considering we’re now in World of Fairytaleland, we won’t have this type of content in near future.
Also about “leveling”. Faction-type content is not only during leveling. In BFA we had 2 different campaigns through full expansion and also during Nazjatar and Mechagon (less here, but worth noticing).
I see no reason why we couldn’t have some faction specific hubs and quests, just because we are at peace with the other faction. It is definitely something I miss. I loved seeing both sides of the story.
The only time they were truly distinct narratives was in BFA.
In other expansions there were basically the same narrative but from different perspectives. In MOP you did the same zones with a lot of the same or similar quests. Only in one you worked with Jinyu and the other Hozen.
Whilst I enjoyed the BFA experience and did both narratives I would have concerns about this approach. It more-or-less forces (a over-used word but probably applicable here) into playing at least one character of each Faction to max in order to see the Story.
Not sure I’d want to do it this way in every expansion. I don’t have a level 70 Horde just now, I have a couple at 60. I might be able to level one in pre-patch but not sure I want to.
If you mean closer to a MOP style, same narrative with two perspectives, then I’d agree with you. I could skip one perspective easily enough if I didn’t want to role two max level characters in different factions.
What is meaningful to a person is very subjective.
I thought several of DF’s side quest chains were meaningful. Your mileage may vary.
Anyway… I agree with some of what you said.
I do sometimes miss specific faction quests as well - I actually miss class content even more.
But I understand that from a business standpoint it’s much cheaper to make 1 set of quests for everyone than 2 sets that are in many cases only seen by part of the playerbase (because let’s face it; there’s plenty of players who stick to one faction).
Or in the case of class quests the ‘target audience’ is even smaller.
I liked how they did this in Legion.
Even if you only did one class campaign you felt like you got a complete story. But if you did play an alt it was different enough to not feel repetitive.
In BFA if you only did one Faction you were missing quite a lot of story and it didn’t feel complete (especially on the Alliance side as the Horde stuff was more integral).
I think a good expansion should have a main story, some Faction stuff, some class stuff, some race stuff (what’s going on with the Dwarves or Trolls these days).
But There either shouldn’t be big enough that you have to play one of everything or provide the details in some other way (cinematics or similar).
The reason we do not have faction or class specific quests is , because it requires more work .
Faction is twice the work and classes , well depends on how large a story you want .
Did you notice how we went from 6-7 zone expansions to 4 zones in Shadowlands and after ?
Same reason less work .
We get rehashed content instead of new stuff like season 4 DF , timewalking , Remix , ets .
Same reason less work .
And because they put less work , players pay less interest , so the gearing and the grind becomes more aggressive , and the gatekeeping becomes a norm , to keep people “engaged” . It’s where these gear resets , huge item level jumps each season came from .
They increase the price in the expansion , reduce the amount of content , reduce the quality of the content and pat themselves on the back .
And you want faction specific quests … They are deleting the factions themselves , specifically , because they don’t want to bother doing more work .
Going back to Pandaria reminds you just how much work they put into expansions before . There are more quests for ONE faction in the first 3 zones , than there are quests in the entire DF leveling experience . I am actually just having fun progressing trough the story there .
We had 4 (leveling) zones in Legion. Only 3 in BFA.
In Legion the game became about systems, Artifacts, AP, Legendaries, Essenses, Soulbinds, Corruptions and on and on.
The devs simple put their resources into systems instead of into zones and lore.
In TBC and Wrath they could do 10 leveling zones because they weren’t diverting so much resources into these systems.
Also the zones themselves were simpler (not mazes with only very specific paths to anywhere).
If they could do 10 leveling zones in TBC they can do it now.
If they could do Class Hall quests in Legion even with all those systems they could do it now (if they choose to).