Why do you like or dislike BFA?

Lore Story
21

BFA was the last expansion that actually felt like Warcraft for me. SLs and Dragonflight feel like the vibes are off and the tone is way off.

Was it good story wise? Hell no. We have already discussed at length the numerous problems with it. The War of Thorns was a narrative atrocity, liked by nobody except the most hardcore of Horde apologists. The Siege of Lordaeron was an aggregation of face palming stupidity, the war narrative started stupid and got stupider as it progressed, the narrative around Sylvanas and the constant focus and excuses for her were just plain atrocious. The zone storylines were good however and the only bit of the faction war I actually enjoyed was the Siege of Dazar’Alor which was stupid in many ways, yes, but stupid in a fun way.

Was it good worldbuilding wise? I think yes, in the end, the BFA additions were a net positive for world building. Kul’Tiras was awesome, Zandalar was awesome, they were built with a lot of love and detail and it shows. I did not like Najzatar or Mechagon, especially the former was a disappointment compared to what we knew beforehand about it. The island expeditions, from a lore perspective, were a welcomed addition and let us visit a lot of places mentioned but never shown and I am happier that they exist than if they weren’t. Warfronts as well, wasted gameplay potential aside, were a decent lore addition, although I liked the Arathi one far better than the Darkshore one.

Unpopular opinion, but I actually liked the Saurfang cinematics. There are a lot of issues with them story-wise but they were peak wow cinematography and I am happy that they exist. We will never get something like that again most likely, and that is a shame, because when it comes to presentation they were just peak.

I think that ultimately however, what could describe BFA from a story point of view is “wasted potential”. The death of Rastakhan, the fast reveal and fodderization of Azshara and N’zoth both of whom could carry their own expansion storylines, the stupid plot points, the copious amounts of plot induced stupidity by all, the list could go on and on, wasted the ingredients that could otherwise be used for a truly awesome “final” faction war narrative, that instead gave us… this.

As a closing note, BFA is the last expansion that made us feel things, that made us all passionate. They weren’t positive feelings most of the time, but we were still passionate about the story and the lore, we were still raging and disappointed by all the stupid we encountered, we would discuss and argue about things, we would care enough to write whole paragraphs of arguments here and elsewhere. What I miss the most about BFA are the discussions and arguments with the community, with people I agreed with and with people I disagreed with, the endless crap flinging every time a new piece of story got unveiled, and the fact that by the end of the expansion, everyone kind of just came together regardless of opinion in order to collectively crap on the story we were served.

And it was glorious. It was the final moment of glory for us lore fans. SLs just coup-de-graced the story, damaged irreparably the lore and the setting and along with these our ability to feel things about the franchise anymore.

4 Likes
22

I’d actually agree. Until the last one, where they thought that changing him from wanting to die for no reason to dying for some inspirational reason was good enough as an arc, he didn’t actually have to learn to live or something hard like that… Having him die in a duel against Sylvanas, when he could (and should, if he belived his honor was more important than anything) have had that from the start retroacively downgraded the whole saga for me. We sat through all that mopig, to make him yell “for Azeroth!”, meh. Looking back I find his character much less interesting than I thought it was looking forward from “Old Soldier”.

1 Like
23

Haven’t read through the whole thread but dropping my thoughts on the matter:

The war campaign was very meh. Sylvanas doing morality parkour with the writers insiting that she’s “grey” and then have it all be explained by brainwashism in the Shadowlands. Sylvanas never should have been made Warchief, but that error lies in Legion.

However, there were a few things I did like about the war campaign. I liked its connection to the world pvp dailies, and how those dailies kind of mimicked the invasion events in Legion. I liked that the map evolved as one progressed through the quests, with new hubs unlocking. On their own, anything that had to do with “win this territory for [insert faction]” were decent or good.

The Azerite plot was really bad. Azerite as a mechanic was really bad. There isn’t anything redeeming about it. The N’zoth plot was very meh as well. The whole expansion had pacing issues, content that could have made for entire expansions on their own were rushed through.

The zones, however, were fantastic. I really liked exploring both islands, and Zul’dazar and Boralus both felt like proper cities. The side-quests were largely good as well.

In short: I am kind of 50/50 on BFA. It was fun at the start and showed promise, but everything got worse as the expansion progressed. It left a bitter taste.

1 Like
24

Bfa was the expansion that buried faction pride especially for the Horde. Our last great character standing is Thrall everyone else is gone.

1 Like
25

His turn is next.

26

The issues of BFA are a continuation of the issues of Legion. Mostly the faction war and killing off Varian and Vol’jin.

27

The Alliance and the Horde are global superpowers.
Each race brings something unique to the faction. Coming from different nations kingdoms and territories.

Battle for Azeroth was a rare spark of creativity.
Instead of the cookie cutter recipe of: Both factions combining to face the latest big bad evil.
Battle for Azeroth explored the different factions have different interests and challenges.

The Alliance was repairing and bringing unity to a broken nation and divided people. Who were on the verge of collapse.
Whilst the Horde was trying to preserve and assist a nation in turmoil complacency and civil war.

You see the Alliance had nothing to do with the Zandalari civil war between Zhul and Rhastakhan factions. Yet once Ashvane overreached she fled to the Horde who was using her.

Blizzard Entertainment seems to be making the choice between factions not relevant. Each faction should have their own concerns and challenges. Like Elder Scrolls Online your choice between Aldmeri Dominion - Ebonheart Pact - Daggerfall Covenant lead to unique questlines with unique things to do.

Before and after Battle for Azeroth it was the same old team up and face the big bad.
After 20 years perhaps we can get something new.

In terms of gameplay a lot of people participated in PvP. There were Alliance and Horde player armies constantly clashing against each other. Which was fun. King Rhastakhan was despawned for Alliance players but we fought our way into and held the throne room for 2 hours.

The Horde players only drove Alliance away due to spawning a 2nd army. An army of guards and a player army. World pvp has not really been a thing since then. A lot of the Azerite armor abilities have been nerfed since then.

28

Mostly the whole thing. From the start (pre-patch) the story of “The war of thorns” was very rushed, the “reason” for the war didn’t land especially after Legion when we all learned to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. WoT should have been the entire BfA, some thing like patch .1 being the Burning of Teldrassil, patch .2 the attack on Lordaeron, etc. From and Alliance stand point the whole war thing felt like we were takings Ls left and right only for random NPCs to tells “Oh we actually won this thing over there off-screen”. The only part it felt like a faction war and we as Alliance actually did anything was BoD, and that was cut at the end when Anduin just cut that victory down with a “We should be doing that, because bad”. Again at the ending it felt like we Alliance didn’t have any agency because the whole Sylvanas thing was sorted out via a Mak’gorra between her and Sorryfang (to add insult to injury our “king” gave the pickle monster one of our most iconic weapons to fight with). Since the start of our war campaing we were helping the Horde, even though we were at war, we the good little blue boys (and girls) felt it was a good idea to focus our efforts on stopping recently recruited San’layn that was planning to betray the Horde… Then out of no where we decide to go and rescue cow pal because Jaina felt grateful that the Horde desecrated her brothers corpse…

And thats just the war story, lets not get into the whole N’zoth and Azshara thing and how rushed that was.

Hmmm I liked Drusvar and parts of Nazmir, the rest of the zones felt really boring. Oh and I liked Rastakhan, he had potential to be very interesting flawed character, but he got cut short in order to push his boring daughter.

What do you mean? DF is great, even though its a bit boring on the story side , I will take boring over dumpster fire anyday.

29

Well, obviously we disagree on DF, but to be honest, I’m not sure about the other part, either. A dumpster fire can be fun, if you keep enough distance, boredom can’t. The “what the heck were those guys smoking to think this story was a good idea” we had during BfA and SL was sometimes fun, for example, when we communally pooping all over it. DF on the other hand has given most of us nothing to talk about or bond over, since it’s so very hard to care about at all.

30

While somewhat true, we do have Irididi and the potential of a decent overarching villain, while during SL we had thing X completely broke thing Y in the previous lore. Idk it’s a difference to taste I guess but I pref being bored to being frustrated/angry.

31

I never understood why people think he is interesting. They certainly haven’t explained it to me. 20k years ago, he was against titan influence, and now he wants to destroy the world as we know it, allying with the void to achieve it, and throwing his allies away as pawns. That sounds… like one of the most basic villain stereotypes, really. There isn’t even much of a personal angle that creates an emotional connection to the protagonists or the players, nor is there any hint of potential to do anything with him except hitting him until he stops. He isn’t interested in us, we aren’t interested in him.

He might be neither as lorebreaking, nor as annoying to listen to as the Jailer, but I’m certainly not accepting that alone as the standard for acceptable villains. DF is a filler addon, while they were preparing their “Worldsoul Saga”, and Iridikon is prepping us for Knaifu, not being set up as a big bad - or even much of a character.

1 Like
32

Because he is one of the few villains that outsmarted us. I mean in DotI he put us in an unwinnable situation, either let him get what he wants or deal with the Murozond timeline. And he managed to achieve that because this whole expansion he has been putting us in similar situations, he let Fyrrak lose in ZC in order to distract us long enough for him to do the deal with the Infinites without us even knowing. Idk a villain that actually uses strategy is interesting to me.

Is that confirmed? Or are they working in parallel?

33

I think it was an unwinnable situation, not because we know the time travel rules and know that there was no way to win, but because the writers didn’t put a way to win into the game. I think he outsmarted us, because the devs are telling us that he must have been really smart to do that, without giving us the information to check. I think it was the usual idiot plot, where any supposedly genius move only happens, because everyone else, in this case most obviously Nozdormu and his whole swarm of timetravelling dragons, as well as the Infinites that Iridikion used here, are idiots and incompetents. The same kind of writing that gave us genius generals like Sylvanas, and grand schemers like N’zoth.

The whole plan was “well, let’s try two attacks at once, they’ll never be able to stop that, because the script says they can’t”, wasn’t it? But since I wasn’t actually interested in what was going on, and time travel plots are confusing at the best of times, I might have missed something, I guess. So, could you explain what I’m missing here?

Hm, the confirmed part was that Knaifu will be a long-term thing with a big role in the saga, I guess that doesn’t rule out Iri having a larger role. I’m just not seeing it.

34

The Horde is Not strong lol.

35

I mean it was basic, and yet far better than “Oh unwinnable situation, here have a McGuffin or a random NPC that gets a god like power up”.

36

Not as a sign of a more interesting character, no. That says nothing about him, since it is all about us.
And as a writing technique, I wouldn’t go farther than “arguably”, on that one, either.

37

In battle for Azeroth they seem to be strong enough to start a war with the Alliance and face internal conflicts at the same time.
Not underestimating your enemy is important. Horde are not as weak as some will believe.

38

Still the Horde is weak. The only strong allies we have are the Zandalari and Suramar everyone else was always close to extinction. Mechagon, Kul Tiras, Ironforge and Stormwind are what a real heatlhy nation looks like.

1 Like
39

The Zandalari are has-beens. Even among the Troll species. Between the Zandalari civil war and the raid of Dazar’Alor where Rhastakhan was silenced.
The wind has been knocked out of their lungs so they need a breather.

Nightborne were able to resist traitors that sold dissidents to the Burning Legion.
They brought themselves back from the brink and were able to take back their city. How can the Nightborne be close to extinction? There were always many Nightborne children running around.

Mechagon is Mechagnome territory and they are still recovering from their civil was. Kul Tiras is a nation not fully united. The power vacuume created by Priscilla Ashvane will attempt to be filled opportunists. So even with the Tidesages - Proudmoore Admiralty - Waycrests there is still much work to be done.
Ironforge is still contested territory. Why should Dark Irons follow the daughter of a Bronzebeard? Can her mix blood offspring ever be true to the Dark Iron Dwarves or is it a tool of the Bronzebeards to control us?
Bronzebeards and Wildhammers have long ganged up 2 v 1. But Dark Irons are resilient and have scrapped with both clans despite some losses.

Stormwind was sacked by the Horde then the issues with Defias Brotherhood. Some dissident nobles left a mess to clear up. Then Horde arsonists starting fires in Stormwind.

The Horde seems to be democratising everything. fears of Orc supremacy the legacy of Garrosh is why there wouldn’t be a Greenskin Orc leader and Orgrimmar will not return to Orcish rule.
Zandalari literally have a city of gold. The Bilgewater Cartel are probably the most prosperous cartel of Goblins of Azeroth. For greedy money loving Goblins that is a big feat. It is not just Surumar and Highmountain city but the surrounding territories. Tauren are expanding with colonies into the Ohnarian plains.
Forsaken are prospering despite being Undead. Who is going to oppose Horde deforestation efforts? The Night Elves have relocated. With the aid of the Alliance the Sunwell has been purified by Velen.

Shouldn’t look at Alliance nations with envy. There are many issues and challenges that the Alliance will work through.

1 Like
40

Healthy nation with their own city.

Fully healed and back to full power with a massive fleet that controls all oceans.

OP super shamans with no equals in power.

Lucille is alive, the crappy Zanchuli council is not.

Fully controlled by the alliance.

Rebuild 20 years ago and full of humans of every nation.

Which is bad. We didn’t sign up for woke simulator.

Still super ugly and not even close to the grandure and majesty of Stormwind.

Steamwheedle cartel is better.

Wealth is useless without an army, fleet, leaders and people. All gone after the raid and will never recover.

Amazing character. Showed Thrall what a true Orc is like.

A single wasted village is not a colony. The Tauren are the wet joke of the Horde no one but Baine fanboys takes them serious.

Being turned second fiddle on their home turf while the Draeni owned the Agrus patch, bias strikes again.

Night elves constantly attack them all the time they didn’t leave Kalimdor despite your one sided propaganda.

You are Blizzards favorite child. Admit you have priviliges and aid the Horde community to deconstruct it.

1 Like