There is nothing interesting about getting quests from Alleria.
Not that little, itâs just that on the one side, no one cares about it, and on the other side, no one is giving the writers the benefit of the doubt anymore, which makes any speculation kinda useless. Weâre not looking at the ingame texts and asking ourself what the devs will do with that, and how that could be related to hints and prophecies that came before, as a lot of people still did at the end of BfA, for example. The old god stuff wasnât about our petty squabbles, but there was a looot of talk about it, back in the days. Now we are just sitting back warily, and expecting some new continity of questionable quality to replace the old one.
Not that the caution isnât warranted.
Eh, I kinda disagree on him being interesting. He is just as much as a cardbord cutout villain as everyone we had before, his genius plans are only as genius as the writers that wrote them, and being a nice change from the Jailer is kind of a miimum requirement, not praise.
The only thing that I actually find mildly interesting is DFs doubling down on titan historical revisionism, and hinting at a less gloomy picture of pre-titan Azeroth than presented. I mean, itâs probably gonna be bad, but written well, there would be promise in that story, and I certainly prefer exploring Azerothâs past to adding on cosmic cow excrement from outer space all the time.
As long as that crapshow doesnât just kill interest in the game, like Shadowlands didâŚ
Oh, the only thing I find surprising about that is that people actually still care. That topic has been dead to me for quite a few years, and canât bring up any glimmer of emotion for it at this point. So I canât really relate anymore.
He is a carboard cutout villain who for once, survived the expansion that he was introduced in while not having the prior lore significance and history of others villains that did the same, e.g. Guldan. That alone puts him in uncharted waters writing wise and that is something we could discuss about in due time because for the first time, the modern wow writing team appears to be investing on the longer-than-one-expansion term of one of their OC villains. Whether this is going to be good or bad is another matter altogether, but it is interesting.
Shadowlands was not a crapshow, it was a crapshow and an atrocity that broke several fundamental parts of the setting and lore. I know that I am arguing semantics right now, but BFA, for all of its atrocious writing, at least did not damage the fundamentals of the setting itself. If anything, it had a net positive effect on world building, what with actually delivering on the long awaited zones, mostly. The same applies for the Cata-MoP era. I intensely dislike it for a lot of reasons, but I would be hard pressed to argue that it didnât help the setting, overall, its story being a crapshow aside.
I can only speak about me on this matter, but I didnât stop caring because of the bad writing. WoWâs writing was always bad, even at its best, I donât mind it. What I mind is world building, something that was always WoWâs strongest suit, and what set it apart from the competition. Shadowlands, and the insistence on explaining the cosmic, broke the setting for me. I simply cannot care about stories if I consider the setting, one that I actually followed for a very big part of my life no less, fundamentally broken. Also the fact that the tone feels way off doesnât really help.
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Erevien, mate, only you could take âunderground expansion, the first of its planned trilogy of a more cohesive storyâ and reduce it to âtaking quests from Alleriaâ.
Never change.
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Look at the dev Interviews , the themes of the other two expansions after TWW and the keyart and tell me I am wrong. You canât.
âŚis it? I donât see it. I would suggest that the importance of a villain sticking around would be highly dependent on the interest in the character. Or is the idea that like with a running gag, it just grows on you, because itâs part of the expected framework now, no matter how bad? Either way, we certainly arenât at that point with Iri, yet.
But well, Iâll agree that there were some notable changes in writing behaviour this addon. Which might be good. Or not. I just have a hard time ever driving the discussion beyond the point where we state that it might or not be good, depending on execution. 
Since BfAâs plot was pretty much the mystery box that was opened in Shadowlands, I canât agree with that. During BfA we talked a looot about why all this stuff was actually happening, because the devs just didnât tell us the motivations behind almost all of the plot. Well, they did in Shadowlands.
I can agree that BfAâs zones added some nice fluff to the world (though Iâm not thrilled with all of it, especially on the Zandalari side), but that doesnât rise much above a few âfun factsâ, to me.
âŚyou kinda lost me there. WoWâs world building is extremely vague. Deliberately so, since they already pretty much stated that too much clarity on populations, distances, technologies and cultures would be too limiting to the creators, and continuity always came second to any âbetterâ idea. There is a reason why things like the RPG-books that actually delved into such topics were decanonized, never to be replaced.
WoW always worked on ârule of coolâ principles. And it is (or was, maybe) a cool world. Everything had its own cool style, without having to worry overly much about tedious stuff like politics, economics, logistics and how everthing fit togeher, since no matter how little care you put into that stuff, as long as the players loved it, they were always willing to fill in any blanks and repair any contradiction with tons of explanatory headcanon.
And to be honest, filling out that headcanon was a big part of the fun for me. It does require a minimum of trust in the writing quality and future consistency, though, which I lack right now.
I rather have a real explanation of the universe then being forced to rely on fanfics.
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Yeah, you might be waiting in vain for that one, if you stick to this game.
Yeah it was so bad that Blizzard âapologisedâ for Shadowlands.
www".âyoutubeâ."com/watch?v=UMi2b6U3ouA&ab_channel=Doronsmovies
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I love both writing and reading fanfiction, though. I think you might be good at it if you tried; your skill for argumentation could translate over to a skill for expressing tension and drama.
I donât really need details on things like population and technologies to consider a world well built within the boundaries of the reason that it exists. As you said, details are not really needed on a decent amount of things, because as a world it was never built with the purpose of making complete logical sense. It was built as a place where a lot of, often conflicting, ideas can coexist.
WoW is fundamentally all about overcompensating dudes and dudettes with giant shoulderplates fighting other overcompensating dudes and dudettes with giant shoulderplates. When hairy people and even shorter people with tanks and guns fight alongside theocratic purple forest naturalists against mesoamerican inspired pale blue polytheistic imperials with tusks allied with bull people and green bodybuilders from another planet, I donât really care what the logistics behind that all is, I can use my imagination for that if needed be.
What I care about is who are the hairy short people with guns and their even shorter allies, who are the purple dudes, who is everyone involved within the context of the world, their history, their place in said world, their past, their âcultureâ. And in that regard, WoWâs world is heaps and bounds ahead of every other original mmo setting. While said details might be a byproduct of its long history and success as a franchise and maybe thus incidental, they make a very good job of giving you a pretty good idea of who all these people are, even if some details are vague, or donât make sense. In essence, the end result is bigger than the sum of its parts, if that makes sense.
It makes you care about those made up civilizations and individuals and their cultures, and that is something that I havenât encountered in other mmos to this extend. People love the WoW races and how they interact with each other and the world, and are passionate about them.
Shadowlands was the first time that the writers actively went against that to such a large extend. By explaining death the way they did, they invalidated half the cultures and beliefs of the setting while actually making some of the best pieces of lore they had that greatly contributed to world building, like the Scourge, worse, for no reason. They demolished the best parts of their setting and the parts people cared about and left them only with an extremely âvagueâ world. And now that the emperor feels naked, peopleâs interest in the setting has waned.
Not if it fits together. If I get the impression that things couldnât work together like they do, lâd call that shoddy world building. And thatâs how Iâve pretty much always felt about Warcraftâs world. Nothing ever seemed really fixed, and new facts are basically given out on a need-to know basis. Iâd consider a world sufficiently well-build, when I have enough information about it to have a general understanding of how a character there percieves it. Which is kinda important for a role-player. And I can tell you⌠95% of stuff about the cultures our characters come from we have to make up ourselves, with the ever-looming threat of Blizzard dismantling it in a throwaway sencence in some sidequest.
Thatâs what I mean when I say youâre losing me, if you praise the world-building. I totally agree with your âWoW is fundamentally all about overcompensating dudes and dudettes with giant shoulderplates fighting other overcompensating dudes and dudettes with giant shoulderplates.â-description and that that can be enough to love the world. Iâd just not call that a world-building success and more of an aestetic one. Warcraft was all about style, mood and tone, and for many things it doesnât matter so much, if what I call world-building is good. And I get that all that falls apart, if too dissonant elements, like the Shadowlands, are added. Because it isnât about the details of the world and how they fit together, but about how the styles harmonize.
To be frank, Warcraft very often just gives you the stereotype and lets you fill in the rest, and just ourtight contradicts it, when it has a better idea. Who are gnomes? The nerdy little guys that nuked their city. Who are Tauren? The noble savage trope, but furry. The more story one group or another gets, the more potential for depths is there, sure, but so is the potential for retcons. The Nigtht Elves of today have very little to do with the arrogant, xenophobic, magic-hating half-savages they were some decades ago, and while one can call that progress, you can also call it homogenization. The tropes that make up the race are very seldom explored, and more usually undermined.
I am quite sure that we mostly appreciate the stereotypes interacting here, and not the âcultureâ. Because the culture and history usually hasnât the depths of a puddle. There is a reason why Blizzard has no problem leaving millenia (that long-lived characters can actually have lived through) totally blank in their history, while only inventing events when the plots needs something to refer to.
Again, depends on what we are talking about. In what I call world-building, most MMOs I tried can easily keep up with, or just outpace, WoW. But looking at how the whole thing feels, Iâm closer to agreeing again. Though I do think that if I got into the groove of games like GW2 before Warcraft, the comparison might be a lot closer. Nostalgia is a big part of itâŚ
Might just be about what your personal limits in suspension of disbelief are. Shadowlands certainly strechted it at more points, but it was hardly the first time it was streched. Personally, the point where I kinda stopped taking it seriously were Void Elves and their recruitment into the Alliance. That clashed too heavily with my perception of the cultures involved, so something had to break. And so it did.
To me, BfA has the best storytelling during the lvling. Clearly, i really enjoy the differents zones and all their details or side quests.
Until the 8.1, it was really good even if the game design was the worst thing ever done on this game (azerite stuff). But when Nazjatar comes, this is here all the bad stuff coming. I was so angry. They tease us about the Nagaâs home for ages and we have like ten quests in the zone ?
Just some grinds and stuff like that with their 854131657 monts adds with toys and pokemons. Even the Nzoth threat was meh (except i really enjoy going back to the olds zones).
I guess i would be less critical with this expansion if the gamedesign would be better. But⌠I mean, the Horde campaign was just a Forsaken disturbing campaign. They tease us during two expansions about the Sylvanas Plan and⌠Everything was a joke. The Shadowlands expansion just continue this bullsht and for the first time, i really think i will never come back to the game.
The Zandalari were supposed to have their grand moment and it ended up them turning into yet another faction full of losers who can never win against their actual enemies because Blizzard will never stop favoring the humans and elves. I am tired of even being Horde at this point when we canât even succeed in our own closes of part of the story.
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I, for one, would be thrilled if you joined the Alliance. You seem like youâd be good in PvP.
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I want faction equity that is all.
I liked BFA because of the faction war. We need more faction war and PVP.
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He is best served as Horde. If they listen to him he would take out much of the Horde leadership and more. Doing more damage as an Alliance agent than an Alliance member.
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I hope youâre joking.
Ok, wait, hear me out! Youâll like this.
Erevien has been a consistently anti-Alliance poster for the past three years or so. As long as Iâve been on these forums, at least. If he switched sides and repented, that would represent a huge propaganda victory against the Horde.