Very true.
In the old says (said in a nostalgic voice) it felt like WoW was more than the sum of its parts, whereas today it feels like WoW is only its parts.
And the parts just don’t stack up against other games that specialize in these parts – be it story, dungeon crawl, player versus player, exploration, or whatever.
There used to be some magical glue that would tie all of WoW’s parts together into a very cohesive and seamless experience, whereas today it is more of a lobby game where you decide which mini-game you want to have a go at, and then queue up or travel to it.
It’s a lot like in Fortnite you sort of have to decide if you want to play Battle Royale, LEGO Fortnite, Rocket Racing, or whatever. A lobby game experience with an umbrella of mini-games underneath it.
If they’d kept pathfinder reasonable (something similar to what we got in TWW, complete campaign and explore the zones) then they could have.
But they gave us nasty terrain with high mob density and made us do 12 rep grinds (after waiting nearly a year) to unlock it.
for example, i played wow sod. jeeeeeesus the barrens felt huuuuge! as big if not bigger as the whole tww but cause i was walking… slowly… the same way… time and time again.
We must understand though, that the real non-epic here is actually Alleria herself, who blizzard tried to build as Amazon’s Rings of Power Galadriel, the same style, the same pseudo hero attitude, which afterall culminates to something really “gringe” or rather utter “feminist”. And all this in parallel with alliance king full of insecurities and weakness. Focusing their energy to these matters, they lose of course their path towards building something epic.
Felt the exact same way. I can’t understand how people are calling this the best expansion ever - aspects such as visual design and storytelling, and the lore have regressed. Compared to past expansions such as shadowlands, this one feels dull, empty, and void of expression. The storyline was ridiculously short and uninspired, and the maps? Flat, repetitive, lacking any real identity - appart from Dornogal and azj-kahet. New zones misses that essential sense of place—a feeling that a real culture, tribe, or history shaped it. There’s no strong visual storytelling or unique atmosphere that makes each zone feel alive.
Look at Shadowlands: Revendreth, Ardenweald, even Maldraxxus—those places had soul. You could feel the intention behind each area, the lore embedded in the landscape - everyone could imagine how an armor born in each of these places would look like. Here, it’s all surface-level. Flying through it only highlights the emptiness.
And don’t even get me started on the new armor sets. They’re all fluorescent, mismatched, and look more like costume party rejects than powerful gear. Pre-Dragonflight sets feel like fine art in comparison. This time it’s like the design team was told, ‘Just make it flashy so it sells in the shop.’
It’s honestly starting to feel like Blizzard has abandoned game design to focus on the shop. Sad times for what used to be an immersive, beautifully crafted world.
I have to say, my experience has been the absolute opposite in this regard. Dornogal especially feels like the sort of place an earthen society would cultivate in a vacuum, right down to it being carved out of a mountain.
Then you have Mourning Rise (and the tear jerker of a questline related to it), further establishing just how long these people have been around - and still will be. With the hardships that entail.
You’re right, it was wrongly phrased in my original comment, the sad thing is that the earthern sense of identity is lost outside the main city. Ultimately I believe the visual story telling execution or lack thereof is what makes the world feel dull.
It’s a problem that’s been around for several years, ever since to meet the needs of many players to have a very fast and simplified game all you need is one click and you find yourself in a dungeon and you get very powerful items frequently.
I still remember when in vanilla I did the quest for the Dreadsteed and I had to ask for help from an older guild warlock who accompanied me with the reagents to dire maul for the final summoning, obviously after finding a reliable group. Once I got the mount I was very happy, certainly the fact of being much younger helped a lot, but certainly the emotions of having the mount in that way are much more intense than getting it as soon as you automatically level up like now…
What is there to do ? I mean look at end game. All the "casual " stuff can be completed in 2 hours or less.
Then you’re either stuck doing boring delves , a boring raid or even more tedious M+ season.
So yeah people are hyped to play classic fresh. We want to play an older version because the modern version is boring.
Heck even Shadowlands , had stuff for me to do. I had four convenants to grind and collect for. I had four reasons to log in per week.
With warband sharing everything , I’ve only got 1 reason to log in Wednesday to do TWW stuff. Then 6 days running old content for collections.
Legion I had 12 classes to log in per day , order halls , powering up artifacts , doing 1 weekly key. Finding hidden skins , balance of power questlines . Yes I did all that , never was bored in Legion.
In all expansion I had something to do , even in WoD per day per toon. TWW , just ZZZzz
Pretty much because nowadays we only get 4 major zones, unintresting (sometimes woke) story, and straightfoward leveling experience. Leveling lost its meaning a long time ago. Nothing really matters anymore (your faction, race, class, past achievements). The only thing that stands out is the end game content. To do mythic and raiding and gearing up fast is great,but the sense of exploration is just not there. The game does not feel a warcraft game most of the time. Almost every old character are gone now, and the new ones just meh.
I’ve got this horrible gut feeling , the only way to play modern wow moving on. Is playing the expansion on the very last season. So you got a full expansion experience to enjoy.
The whole season thing is a kill switch for entertainment.
I think flying is the prime immersion killer. I can only imagine how big the map would feel if we were grounded.
But sadly we are all too used to the convenience and is too late to backtrack from it now.
Alpha/Beta/etc… too many specialized people pumping out information for everyone.
Even classic would have felt not epic if we had the same amount of spoilers as we have today.
Yes i know i can “avoid reading” i already do but if you are in guilds you hear people talking about something.
I would very much prefer if everyone was going in completely blind and have a big “woow” moment together figuring things out on the go.
These to me are the 2 biggest reason the game feel way less epic.
No you just miss being 12 years old again and easy to impress in a world that is still left for exploring. But it was obvious from the start we will eventually see all white spots on the map.
but cause i was walking… slowly… the same way… time and time again.