Or was it simply bringing us back to basics, after a particularly cosmic final patch 9n the previous expansion? Or was it just filler to tide us other until and set the scene for Shadowlands?
Or was it four plots, each of them being potentially great expansions in their own right, rammed together into something deeply unsatisfactory?
What are your thoughts on what Battle for Azeroth is/is about?
Sylvanas doing her stuff, and Nzoth and his minions (nagas were created by nzoth) trying to take over the world. Magni being part of the Nzoth story imo
BFA is like The Matrix 2, which is the worst Matrix movie. The first and third one have things happening in them, but the second… the plot of the entire movie could’ve been the first 15 minutes of the third one. Nothing happens there, it only exists to set up the actions in the third movie. Lots happened in BFA, but nothing felt really consequential.
I think Blizz missed the mark, because we never see the consequences of what happened. In previous expansions it didn’t really matter, but here a lot of what is supposed to be going on isn’t seen. There’s this idea that the Alliance is starved of resources… but it’s never shown. Same for the Horde - the war allegedly took a huge toll on us, but we never see that toll.
I like to think of BFA as a lab rat. It was a testing ground. Blizz were trying lots of different things and seeing which stuck, and which didn’t, this goes for both mechanics and story. You can see it with how quickly systems changed each patch. First just azerite, then essences, then corruption and no TF.
Same with the story, it starts just “the war”, then it goes towards a big azerothian evil, then suddenly it’s a cosmic evil.
The job of the art and writing team was to try and weave something that convinced us, the players, it was somehow all connected in one immersive world that made sense. They did a great job at trying their best as always but it didn’t quite manage to make it feel logical.
Towards the end of BFA blizzard become very receptive to player input, adding vendors and catch up, and SL testing shows the same. BFA was their expo to figure out how to keep this game going for a few more expos thereafter, figuring out how to keep us on side. Stuff was thrown at us quickly and rapidly, new races, new game modes, new systems, it was overstimulating but inorganic.
BfA was about the factions being idiots who repeat the same mistake despite the past lessons, and then suffering zero consequences, because all the baddies who tried to take advantage of the weakened factions just got pwned by a handful of adventurers and heroes as usual.
The factions got utterly ruined and the big baddies who were hyped for years got defeated in one patch each.
Vanilla sure, but tbc? Really?! That thing was very railroaded!
Now, to be clear; I don’t mind railroading, unless it’s done badly or it’s just not fun. TBC’s railroading was bad and not fun. Imo.
