Look guys. I want to show you, why these 2 expansions have incredible world building and lore, and explain the problem of why you probably think they don’t
Shadowlands:
Why it’s good:
This expansion has done a huge step in terms of explaining and making sense of the cosmology of the warcraft universe. There are presumably (not 100% confirmed yet) 6 known cosmic forces in the game. All of these have Pantheons, Zereths, and other representatives. 2 forces each oppose eachother and form a cycle, like cycle of life and death, cycle of light and void, or cycle of chaos and order. Remember the naaru that sometimes take on a void form and sometimes a light form? You probably do. The “reality”, i.e. the dark beyond, of the universe in this game got created by the first ones by balancing 2 opposite forces into one grand design, as the brokers of the shadowlands explain. This was done in the zereths. We have only explored so far the Zereth of Death, or Zereth Mortis. However, each cosmic force has its own zereth. Zereth Ordus, Lumen, Mortis, Umbra, Tumult, and Vitae. If you know Latin, you can assign those to the corresponding force.
Additionally the Lore of Shadowlands managed to incorporate and tie in the stories of early warcraft in a very elegant and believable way. If you forget now, what you have seen in the game, and you try to explain/summarise all these events with your own words, you should realise how good it actually is. It basically gave a lot of events in the story way more depth.
The Problem:
Now I want to explain my personal issue with it, and why you maybe didn’t like it. The Character development and the way the lore is explained in the game are complete and utter trash. I do not wanna be rude to the quest designers, but how do they expect anyone to grasp their story? The way the story is explained in the game is by fragmented texts in quests, where easily 90% of all text is empty talk with 0 content. Most of the quest texts just exist to exist without telling you anything, and then there is like one quest text telling you a lot at once. This type of story telling is really just trash, sorry. Another way the story is explained is by stuff like texts on items of rare treasures, side quests, and some other stuff that very few people pay attention to, and it’s all completely fragmented. Sorry, but this is not how to explain and tell such an excellent story as the one of warcraft.
Additionally the artwork and the cinematics did not do the actual events justice.
Dragonflight:
Why the story is good:
It’s a set up for the world soul saga. It’s a part of an epic plot that is supposed to calm the waters. To make things epic, you also need parts in a story that are chill and set things up. Dragonflight has expanded the original warcraft story, introduced new characters, and has done an incredible job at building the warcraft story. They explained and invested a lot in expanding the story of the titan keepers on azeroth and the aspects. This is needed to make the world soul saga as epic and as comprehensible as possible. Additionally they did fix the story of the night elves and of various other races. For example they established now a bond between the Orcs and Azeroth by giving them new traditions and moving their heritage on this new planet. This was shown very well in the heritage quest line. The whole story with the infinite dragonflight, the void, and the incarnates are a perfect way to build up hype for what’s to come. They are not the pinnacle of epicness, but they set it up.
The problem:
All the problems I listed in shadowlands still apply. However, something got worse: A lot of people say that WoW is carried by its art team. I kind of partially disagree. The Art may be very beautiful, sure. However, the artists fail at doing the lore justice and creating the sort of vibe that they are supposed to create. The art is an integral part of the world building, and in some cases it is amazing, but there is also an emotional component, where they don’t create enough curiosity and sense of exploration. For example the emerald dream looks beautiful, but is this really how you would imagine the plane of life? The emerald dream doesn’t feel like another plane. It looks like existing places already on azeroth. Ardenweald did a way better job at creating something fascinating. The emerald dream is just a beautiful and very boring scenery with no wow-effect. Thaldraszus follows the same trend, where it feels very boring and isn’t unique. The dragons are too docile and don’t show any fury. Zaralec caverns also just feels like it’s part of waking shore and not its own thing. I want to praise Ohnaran plains, Waking shores, and Azure Span though, because these 3 zones are indeed incredible, and they also match the story well.
However, the quest designers on the other hand, who messed up their job in shadowlands, also did some things right and way better in dragonflight. For example the quests with Tyr are all just amazing. They don’t waste your time with empty content and just tell you the story in a curious way. Sadly though, they also ruined the faction vibe that is an integral part of warcraft. They can have peace for a while, sure, but that is no reason to homogenize them so much. As a Horde, you feel like you play for the alliance, and this is not good.