That argument went out the window so hard the last few years when Blizz themselfes started to treat their expansions as standalone things.
These days questlines, stories and whole areas are ripped out of context with no concern for lore, consistent world design or even just common sense with regards to “suspension of disbelieve” for what should be happening in a universe so different from RL.
If you want some examples:
The beekeeper questline in stormsong valley.
The Drusvar storyline, esp the first half.
The entire setup around Argus and the design of the whole planet. Mac’Aree in particular makes no sense at all.
I will 1up you.
I want a teleport to a room that has vendors and profession trainers standing in a circle for quick access.
When i visited Undercity for the first time 15 years ago i was blown away by its design. 6 months later i hated having to run around for minutes on end every time i wanted to do stuff.
didn’t know that. or misunderstood over the years thinking that as they shared the same location, they shared the same cd. learn something new everyday! ty
2 weeks in and I am missing flying already… If I wanted to stay grounded and waste huge amounts of time for little to no rewards I would be playing classic. I love the esthetics of the zones but I am starting to hate some places already due to the lack of flying (freaking Revendreth). Also who in their right mind thought that no mount in the Maw and the removal of the flight whistle was a good idea? It really does seem that Blizzard like to annoy players out of spite sometimes…
How it doesnt make any sense? Those zones and questlines are absolutly fine.
Also just becouse there are some inconsitencies when comes to world building doesnt mean you throw all the immesion aspects to the bin. Yes you have to cut corners for sake of gameplay but that doesnt justifi remove everything what makes rpg rpg.
Stop thinking in this absolute state where if 1 single thing doesnt make sense than you can use it to defend your stupid agenda.
The quick version:
The first half of Drustvar is obviously influenced by medieval european superstition.
The existence of such superstition makes no sense in a world in which magic is a widely known fact. At the first signs of any witches curse the townspeople would report to the local tidesage or send word to the mage academy.
The Drustvar storyline is the sort of thing id expect to find as someones first contribution to the fanfic corner of a halloween forum. Not a fantasy RPG world.
The entirety of Argus is complete fiction if you just consider that lorewise the planet has been the homeworld of the Legion for the last 25000 years.
The only thing the zone achieves is to hammer home what we already knew for all these years. That the Legion is a conglomerate of incompetence.
They cant even clean their own backyard. You are telling me that a small group of Draenai survived there for that long? And even if they did: Why has the Legion never genocided the goats they use as mounts for scouting?
The Mac’Aree area looks like its last lawnmower session was just recently.
It should be an overgrown jungle with ruins sticking out the top.
Thats just the big things. There are lots of gross inconsistences all over the place.
Becouse some thing are there purely for gameplay and some things are there for lore reasons. Flighpaths adds lot of immersion and scale and it only takes away bit of time. So that trade of rpg and incovinience is worth it. While some rpg elements has to be cut for sake of gameplay and progression. Some rpg aspects can be harmfull to gameplay or would definitly limit Blizzard game desing so they choose to ignore it. Having flightpaths have no impact on gameplay so they can put it and have it as boost to rpg and immersion.
