Yea well , Metzen was put at the end of DF and as we know they prepare the expansions practically a year or two ahead of time , so by the time he came TWW was already in production with it’s story . We are currently finishing up the DF slop that had nothing going on at all .
This patch feels like a middle ground for me . It has some Warcraft vibes and the devs put a lot of work in the Undermine zone , but it still feel too “toothless” . More like yet another propaganda about taking down the bad dictator via a Colored Revolution .
Maybe we will see something more epic in the Last Patch of this Expansion to set the hype for Midnight .
WoW story was never good.
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Wow’s story has always been quite cheesy and there has been good highs in it but the lows have always been quite bad.
Warcraft lore can’t be compared at all to actual fantasy writing in term of quality, its really close to what elder scrolls is which is an bit of an mess too
A problem with that is that the highs often (if not usually) fade away, while the lows stick around. Mostly because the lows are so much more world-changing. Introducing plot-driving (or breaking?) time-travel in Cata, or creating a whole addon about interdimensional time-travel for WoD? That stuff is there to stay now, and far from keeping silent about that in new content, they’ll randomly dig it up to introduce an allied race that didn’t need it, or to make Chromie content in DF. The Shadowlands were a catastrophe? That won’t stop them from randomly sending Malfurion there to remind us that that’s still canon, and always will be. Sylvanas was ruined through a crappy arc that was even more crappily told? Don’t worry, we made sure that the playerbase is aware that she is still around, while we give her sister protagonist status. The cosmic war thing about the six powers is still the main plot, basically the only common thread through the last addons, is still a clear tie to all the SL and BfA-problems we had.
On the other hand, what “highs” are actually sticking with us? What are the cool moments or developments that we are still building upon? Is there anything at all? I mean, I see a few places in DF where they should have been, like giving the Nelves a new home, and rebuilding Gilneas, but that all fell pretty flat, didn’t it? I don’t think we’ll find these moments in SL. What was there in BfA? Shooting lasers at N’zoth and basically ending the faction war by sacrificing an old orc? Killing Ansurek or Gallywix certainly won’t feature on the list of great moments, either, will they? Can we actually expect to keep up with what’s happening with the Nerubians and Undermine in the future? Do we want to?
The writers have a loooooooooooooot of baggage to carry with them, and not a lot of building material for stuff that’s actually cool is left. I’d have wished for a few more “soft retcons” along the way to just drop the baggage where no one is looking, but that’s not what they are going with (except hopefully for the First Ones and Zereth? Please?). And the life service game doesn’t make it easy to actually build stuff up for the future. I guess the Arathi empire might or might not be cool, if we get to see it? DF teased that there was more than “void bad” to say about the Black Empire, that could be something? But it’s all moving so very, very slow that those are probably questions that’ll take half a decade to answer, and in between we only gather more disappointments, don’t we? Heck, our main villainess became less interesting when she got more screentime than when she was a sarcastic piece of cutlery. That’s not the way it should be going.
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Xal’atath is one of the most boring villains ive seen in wow and the whole void conflict just doesnt feel like having anything interesting behind it.
Since dragonflight only Iridkron has been interesting charachter that had some gravitas and the whole showing more about titans not being excatly the protectors as they say they are. but anything else has been quite shallow and its really hard to be actually entertained of this lore
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And she really shouldn’t have been. People liked her running commentary, when she was an artifact weapon. She was quite chatty, with a dark and vicious sense of humour. If she was the harbringer just doing her job in bringing about the end of the world, and bantering with us (or at least Alleria as a straight man) about not taking the senselessless of existence too seriously, and treating everything as a game, she could have been kinda fun. But we got the “dark zealot” out of nowhere instead, and well… no fun to be had there, is there?
It doesn’t help that - as usual - Blizzard seems to want to keep the villain’s plans mysterious, in the hopes that we might at some point actually get pleasantly surprised, instead of disappointed by how much worse it is than what we thought of years before the reveal. If she would actually give us something to work with, some ideology behind the mustache-twirling evilness, it wouldn’t be as bad as it is. But nope, not happening.
He comfortably fits into the “all style no substance” category as well, though. At least in the game, I had no desire to check on the novel. I agree that the stoic schemer archetype is always nice to have, but if there is no well-written plan behind it, they always break down, when their schemes are supposed to come due, don’t they? So I have no hopes at all for this one. What he did until now is kinda pathetic as well, if you look at it too closely.
That was a plot point in Wrath, though. Something like 15 years ago. I guess the worldsoul saga is finally going to bring that to a point, but I can’t say I’m holding my breath here. It’s not like they used the time to help us get to know the titans as characters, so that we might be more interested in them personally. We only got more on the keepers. I certainly have more to say about Odyn, than I have about any of the pantheon.
You are right .
It would be nice to get more Xal interaction with the player and the story .
Something like , you never know from which corner she is looking .
Imagine the quest in Stormsong valley where she escapes the dagger .
You do some random side quest , to help some random dwarf and goblin with their problem and POP at the end of the quest you suddenly realize you helped Xal do something shady and get the character screwed in the log run . She could randomly whisper the player and try to seduce them to her own side somehow , or just mock them from time to time . Something like the whispers of C’thun in Ahn’Qiraj .>> " You are already dead. , You will betray your friends. , ets" . Would be nice for these things to happen randomly while you just do dungeons , or just world quests , hinting that what you are doing is playing in her hands .
We really miss her presence in an expansion in which she seems to be pulling the strings . If you think Wrath , Arathas is practically behind every second quest . He appears , talks with the character , threatens them , ets . When the Expansion culminated at the top of the Citadel , it felt great to finally have a chance for payback .
While Xal appears once a patch in a cutscene and vanishes with a twirl . If she disappeared for an expansion , no one would notice . We don’t even meet her agents . Just the agents of the proxy she is using this time around .
If Khatgar is not Xal in disguise , I will be disappointed .