Now that we’ve had time to take it all in, is Dragonflight a meaningful improvement over Shadowlands, which was renowned for lore that didn’t resonate with players.
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I thought BfA was "mostly" fine, honestly. Loved the zones. What happened with Sylvanas was a pain indeed, though. Shadowlands was "The Great Disconnect."
(=-=SD
That's the number one thing: stop trying to subvert our expectations or twist the past. You aren't that writer. If you were, you'd know that such things are the rare exception and never the norm. Just give us more of this, and keep moving forward.
I don't have such a good feeling from the side quests. The only side quests I liked were the one with Red Dragon in Dwarf Visage talking about the past, and the one with Dragonmaw Orc.
The other quests are way too formulaic. I understand that most quests in WoW will always be kill X and collect Y. But some of the quests I read multiple times, and I still don't remember nor understand what they are about. The trope of killing mobs for "research" purposes, then dissecting them for some magical mojo, only to then channel this thingamagic into stuff… That's a filler in the strictest sense. Every time there is a quest about examining some magical stuff, it's the poorest version of fantasy techobabble I ever read.
But that's not the worst offender. This has been with WoW for a long time.
What is new is this weird formula that majority of the side quests follow. You have a pair of NPC. Not more, not less. And they bicker about something between each other. Each gives you quest from his or her perspective. After you complete those quests, the both of the NPCs are like "Oh, it looks like the viewpoint of my friend was more valid than I thought." And at the end of the quest line, they get rearly into each other. Also, it is heavily implied, sometimes outright stated, that those pair of NPCs are in a romantic relationship. But both in the pair they are always of the same sex.
I only mind it because it happens so often and it's so formulaic, that I feel like my character is not an adventurer, champion or hero, but a therapist for gay couples. And that doesn't even acount for the extra gay couples in other side quests that don't bicker between each other in the beginning, yet they still need me to get them together. I don't know about how other people feel about this, but I find it creepy.
I mean, it's supposed to be a medieval fantasy game, yet there is so much modern sensibilities and modern lifestyle in those quests, that it's 4th wall breaking. Like when they use modern lingo and stupid abbreviations.
The biggest offender in 4th wall breaking was a character outright stating something like "dead mother trope is just lazy writing". Despite there was no "writing" being discussed. So the only writing the character could have been referring to was the script for the quest. Well, that happened in Shadowlands, but I am pretty sure that whoever wrote this gem still worked on Dragonflight.
I now completely understand what Bellular or Matt said in one of the clips videos, that it feels like characters in WoW are fantasy Americans.
From a cynical a-hole that's a casual observer: BfA splintered the heart I used to love WoW lore, Shadowlands broke it apart and scattered the pieces. Even if this one expac is "on the right track", it's still not enough to earn my trust.
I feel forced to not get excited cause I just "know" they're going to screw it up. Maybe if they can go a whole expac without doing that, I'll be able to get excited with the next expac.
though here is the rub……for solo players it can feel like a slog because everything scales, so it's almost easier to go to older content just to save gold on repairs from dieing constantly.
Still broken.
in "THE 2nd WAR" and in guldans story. guldan mentions a power under the waves. and that his seat lays beneath the waves. Sort of like… what whoever was scribbling in the book speaks about???? Or was it just azshara and the expansion that came… or was it more double ended forshadowing?!
STEVE DANUSER IS STILL WORKING AT BLIZZARD, I'M NOT CONVINCED YET
I just started playing again after 12 years. I’m doing shadowlands right now but I’m confused. Why am I not in the maw fighting the dead. I’m up here with these angel blue winged legacy of Cain wanna be vampires. It’s boring. I don’t even care about the story. Once I hit 60 I’m outa here. I hope dragon flight is better. The lich king was really interesting and fun. So far I’m kinda glad I quit the game a decade ago. I’m an evil warlock and everyone keeps calling me hero and champion and all I want to do is consume their soul
I feel like a prominent horde druid or even thrall should have offered to go in Malfurions place. As some reparations for Teldrassil.
The lore is better, the content is coming at a more steady pace, and they're rewarding players with cosmetics… All super good things. But is Blizzard a better company, yet?
Dragonflight has been a tremendous amount of fun. But with how many retcons we've gotten over the years and are still continuing to receive, the lore has been kinda ruined for me.
RE: the night elves. I still tend to think that Sargeras's sword and the new world tree will be tied together. What better way to mend the devastating hole/wound that would be left by the removal of the sword, than to plant the new world tree in its place, with a direct connection to the "blood" of Azeroth? Coupled with the empowerment of a new Black aspect, as well as Green and reinvigoration of Red, such an event would be a usuable pretense for another redesign of not only Silithus, but Azeroth writ large to give the original map a long-needed reinvigoration of its own, and bring it concurrent to the modern game. The Cata redesign is twice as old as Vanilla was when Cata launched.
Story direction: World of Disneycraft. Some games grow with audience, some are devolving….
It's not bad. Compared to the crap that was shitland and beta for azerith, this is even decent, if we don't take into account the unexplained holes and retcons, it's already an improvement. But it remains too little and too late. And done with a feeling that the devs had to be forced to do something other than what they wanted to in order to save the game from a well deserved flop.
To me, now that factions are just a worthless cosmetic like gromash's thong, I just see the ally being increasingly neglected and having less value in its existence and Blizzard's natural laziness and doing something of value for the ally will just keep the faction on a downward curve, if crap like junkgnomes is as much effort as we're going to see from these blizzard trolls.
Starting up 30 mystery boxes isnt good writing and you know that. Sylvanis and the jailer were the last two mystery boxes they opened so dont sit there and lie that the lore is suddenly good because this time it just is.
How about the mystery box of how the shadowlands affected the religion of the Tauren? Or the state of Orcs finding out they were played to genocide innocents yet again? Or how about political ramifications for the human king abandoning his people? THAT is what returning to Warcraft would be, not just "from a certain point of view"-ing the boring cosmology people actively dislike and dragging the dragons into it to make people care.
Tyr too many skeletons in his closet
Primal aspects goofy looking. Titans never trusted them. Nozdormu his fatalism is boring.
so far the lore has been mediocre at best and boring at worst… ive found it to be extremely uninteresting. its been downhill since legion, they blew their load on legion
Hate the gay quests. So fucking dumb.
No. It’s not. But maybe it will. Door’s open. But I have my doubts.
Until Tyrygosa Shows up as the blue dragon queen no the lore is not back on track. I shall continue to await her triumphant return to glory.
Distracting listening to the rustle of the coat you have on. haha
It feels like blizzard are still just recycling story elements that we have done before rather than creating a brand-new story to experience. It just feels like Cata in a lot of ways with Primalists instead of twilight cult and Elemental dragons instead of elemental lords. It just feels a bit like redundant story telling as i feel like we have done this all before. sure there are some new elements but I feel like a lot of it is fluff.
to soon to tell imo, a lot of the quest designers clearly get Warcraft, but the main plot still leaves a heck of a lot to be desired (still a drastic improvement over SL)
I'll finally be able to say it's "back on track" when we've had several expansions worth of consistent character development.
Real question
Did they finally found Nathanos?
Dragonflight feels alive with details packed into every corner in a way I haven't felt since Mists of Pandaria. I think this just clarifies something I've been chewing on for a while relating to blizzard lore. The world is already such an interesting one where great stories can emerge from the most common situations if only it is allowed to. The years of constant grand storylines revolving around a small cast has been grating not just because it wasn't executed well, but because it showed so little faith in the ability of their own world to draw us in and want to engage with it.
If we had a whole patch that did nothing but return us to the Barrens, and told a story about the tenacious orcs who call those harsh planes home, I would be ecstatic. Azeroth has changed so dramatically in the past canonical years, and I want to know how the people of the Horde have adapted and overcome. I want to see our home territories bolstered and thriving, maybe even take initiative there and help bolster defenses or train up the fresh faced recruits who get their start there.
I am enjoying this expansion and love the idea of the Primalists, but I feel like something feels a little disconnected. Like do the Elemental Lords not know of their existence?
I do enjoy new lore and I know there's no good way of jumping into something new. And as much as I love the novels, I think it's much better to explain it in game… But at least the books did connect some of the dots better.
But I wont cast my judgement too harshly just yet. WoD was one of my favorite expansions on release. It would've been best of all time if they only didn't cut all the content and better implemented the garrison idea.
Nobody says the lore is good you shill. You are so full of shit lmao. Shadowlands was bad, but at least it had its set ups, playing with plot points that dated back decades. It came to wrong, almost universally disliked conclusions, but it did something. Primalists are a clown fiesta of plotholes and consistencies. A discount Twilight Hammer that makes no sense, because it was conjured out of thin air.
Grifting shill
Thanks for the video
I think DF is a marked Improvement over the past few expansions. I would say I think we as fans are probably a little to hard on shadow lands lore. That expansion should have been amazing but it had to much of a mountain to climb.
I'm calling it now in case I'm right. Alexstraza has a titan artifact like Neltharian had to control the Dracthyr. She uses it to manipulate the other flights and their people. Notice how the Red dragons would die for her in the same way the Dracthyr would for Neltharian. Wrathion isn't swayed by her because I suspect his cleansing of the madness also shields him from the Titan relic. The green dragons are nowhere to be seen in the Seat of Aspects. The way that Alexstraza interacts with certain dragons who don't seem to be controlled like the others. Nozdormu's vision being clouded. I believe the artifact is blocking his vision because Alexstraza doesn't want him to know what she's doing. If so, then Razageth has some vilidity in her accusations. Notice how she only goes after Alexstraza and none of the others in the same way. She actually tries to persuade them to see her side of it. This is her testing to see who among the flights is under Alexstraza's control and who is able to see the situation from all directions other than the manipulation of a titan artifact's influences.
This is just my opinion. I'm only going off of new clues and the way the story is playing out in DF.
Also the dwarf in cave isnt lore, its just a shitty story.
Poop expansion. A lot of lore about dragontwinks
Please let me fly on my own mount, years I farmed to get him. I want to ride him not a dragon.
The side quests are what really sold me for this expac. Back in Legion, my absolute favorite part of that entire expansion's side-content was indeed, the Excellent Adventure of Tehd and Marius.
You want to endear players to characters, you don't just put them as quest-givers in random locations as they stand around and tell you to go collect boar meat. You place them in the world, out there just like YOU, adventuring and doing crazy, random shit. World of Warcraft feels best when you meet the same NPCs in the most unexpected places.
For instance, a faction leader or major lore character doing something simple or mundane like what seems like a low-level, mundane quest is a great way to both surprise players and engender any kind of emotion you want to. Just imagine seeing Wrathion or Sabellian tending to random whelps in some remote place of the Isles, or Alexstrasza tending to wounded drakes.
The world is the main character, as has been said god knows how many times. Seeing other major characters interact with the main character, well, you can evoke just about any emotion you seek to, even without putting huge world-ending stakes. It would also paint faction leaders or other major characters as not being "above" the mundane, petty things we adventurers do. It invites a sense of camaraderie.
I know, I'm talking out of my ass but I can't remember the last time I saw a major faction character doing something out in the world away from the standard duties as quest-giver.