War Within seemed shallow from the moment they introduced it which made me reluctant to get it as opposed to basically every other previous expansion in the game’s history. I got it on sale against my better judgement and it turned out just as shallow and vacuous as it originally looked.
Dragonflight was basically the first filler expansions because the previous ones seemed ambitious from the start, even those like WoD and SL that got pathetic amount of content after launch, but TWW has no ambition aside from setting up Midnight and Last Titan, it’s literally nothing but formulaic filler for 1.5 years.
Even Dragonflight got less actual worthwhile content than competent modern expansions like Legion and BFA, but it was chopped up into smaller units and they hired more people who could do parallel stuff so they can put something up on the almighty roadmap, which was enough to delude players and youtubers with “muh content cadence” even though the content you’re getting is the trading post and aerothian archives. The stories have been the same mediocre “buildup” which is just an excuse for not having a story right now, all spiced with the Blizzard trademark passing of the torch from an old, flawed male character to a younger, hyper competent female character who’s better in every conceivable way. Magni and Moira, Baelgrim and Lufsela, Speaker and Brinthe, you know how it’s gonna go the second the characters are established and it makes you roll your eyes with the dull predictability of the whole narrative.
Shallow, small expansions with repetitive content that interns can do on the side was bound to happen when they announced shorter and quicker expansions, AKA more money more often, but I didn’t think it would be this transparent. Midnight is almost definitely gonnna be better but…why should I care if an expansion that’s gonna come after 1.5 years and demand another $50-60 turns out good?
The game has also been unacceptably bad from the technical perspective since Dragonflight and nothing has been improved in the slightest. The new driving/drifting already has reports of major stuttering, and major cities have ran like a joke for over 2 years now. The game desperately needs a complete engine revamp but they’re never gonna invest the resources needed for a hypothetical WoW 2 that would have competent performance, CPU utilization, and features like DLSS/frame generation etc. All UI actions incur stutter, there’s stutter when people join and leave raids, world bosses, all larger events, moving through major cities, and almost everything you’re doing outside of small enclosed spaces.
Again, my point is that we got 2 of these in a row, you can label them however you want. Dragonflight basically had to threats, and TWW starts with a random song people are hearing and a Nerubian attack and an insanely unbelievable fall of Dalaran. After the intro, nothing in the rest of the story has any stakes for our main characters aside from the stupid situations they put themselves into.
The fact that most of the cast is missing until the campaign questline is almost over is also laughable and insnaely contrived.
long ago I stopped paying attention to writing because it’s objectively very very bad. But it’s always the same - big bad villain, some random smaller villain, help poor innocent locals, get your gear, trinkets, collectibles and move on. Idc if its nerubians, goblins or protodrakes at this point. This game was probably originally not planned to go on so long so everything new must be accompanied by retcons and buttocks pulls soooooooo
just enjoy gameplay and take the story with a grain of salt or you won’t have a good time, darling.
Yes and no. This is something I didn’t think a whole lot about during DF, but it has recently gotten to me, gnawing at the back of my mind a little bit.
DF was mostly about thwarting the Primalists, and their dragon overlords, but they were very poorly utilised, in my opinion.
Raszageth was initially the most interesting, but they killed her off first raid. Okay, what about Fyrakk? He’s just an infinitely MAD lad, classic fire archetype fella. I don’t even remember the ice lady’s name, she’s that forgettable… Vyr-something? I dunno.
And then there’s Iridikron. He started out so good and then he fell so flat, he seemed smart, had a plan, was calculated… But what does he actually want? Besides “titan bad”, why then ally yourself with another, equally oppressing and maniacal cosmic force?
I thought his goal was to break the chains of slavery, not re-establish a new hierachy of control merely taking the reins from the titans and handing them to the void?
His intentions are so badly defined, and we probably won’t see him until he shows up as a boss in a raid, or a dungeon again. Which, if I’m proven wrong, omega cool. But I am not counting on it.
And he joined late, about 10 months or so into the development of TWW. I think at this point he couldn’t do major changes and had to just roll with it.
I see a lot of complaints about TWW lately and I’ve stated my opinion about it multiple times. I feel like I have nothing else to add.
So yeah, take a break OP, check the patch notes every once in a while see if anything new grabs your attention.
I think it’s obvious that The War Within was made with a different idea in mind, and then Metzen came and shoehorned Xal’atath and the World Soul into the plot.
It was probably Iridikron. He is after all made of stone and has an Earthen affinity.
But yeah, Metzen’s story starts in BfA, skips SL, and adds a whiff of relevance to the finale of DF, and shoehorns parts of his story into TWW, and continues properly in Midnight and The Last Titan.
It’s a bit of a mess, but at the same time, Metzen does seem to have the authority to push his vision through.
I think, but don’t quote me on this, Iridikron wanted/wants to use the Old Gods/Void to lure the Titans back to Azeroth and after the two sides either killed each other or one survived but weakened enough him to finish the job he would have his revenge and free Azeroth
But it is a bit murky and I am probably wrong
back in the day at least writing had some form of coherance.
now its kinda forced upon because they have to again and again and again and again build fake narrative around 835794759834789375 mini quest hubs which are the same - "collect X bear asses then kill 10 baddie creatures fill 1 random bar while doing something then kill 1 bigger baddie "
they need to rethink the questing model imo and it needs to evolve into somethign much more modern because it kinda run its course.
You could be right, but that’s a lot of ifs and buts sprinkled with a bit of hope on Iridikron’s side.
He obviously doesn’t know that the Titans are busy being wardens, and what if the Void isn’t so easy to defeat? What if they win? Then his plan would fail tremendously.
It just seems like a weird choice for a character that Blizzard initially introduced as very clever and crafty.
