This expansion had the worst lore and story we’ve ever seen and yet the devs are completely oblivious to it thanks to shills like the author of that article and their twitter bubbles.
more likely just sidestepped the question
do you see people saying that outside of the forums and reddit all that much. if people generally didnt like the game it wouldnt be around. just because you dont like it dosent necesarrily mean that anyone else who likes it are idiots. in my opinion the story was pretty good if anything alot of it was poorly conveyed with a lot of important information put into the books which is a different problem entirely
Removed
It was a weak horde vs alliance story and a weak old god story that they combined into one meta story and called it an expansion story. Haphazard was the correct term used in the article.
I think a lot of people who have this "players are too important and should be just nameless members of their faction" or "Lore characters don't do enough and we do everything" type complaints are people who need to realize they are playing an mmorpg. Almost every single raid boss lore wise should be able to absolutely oneshot most players, when you compare their power in the lore. However, it's a video game, and the main focus in this game for pve is taking down powerful baddies with numbers. To feel like NPCs should be doing more and PCs doing less and being unimportant in lore is ridiculous, it's an mmorpg, we are the players, this is not a movie, this is not a book, we are actively fighting and taking down some of the biggest enemies in the lore, as that is the very point of this genre of game. It's like the article said just like in DnD you start off as nameless people but by the time you are end level you become an important part of the world, important characters come to rely on you, and sometimes they'll help out but most of the time it's up to you to fight your battles with your party. If you were to play a DnD game and you pretty much just remained a nameless person who did nothing of note to gain recognition and all the NPCs solved all the problems you would not be having fun. This also goes to those complainers who complain that so and so raid boss died too easily: It's an mmorpg, get f*cking used to it. That's the entire point of the genre, and this time we had to increase the power of an amulet throughout an expansion, prevent old god forces from using titan forges for their own plans and retake control of the forges to use them against the old god, and make a cloak to prevent corruption. Then in the end as we beat the old god to a small fraction of his health pool we still succumb to the corruption with our entire raid only to break free long enough to siphon the power of the titan forge and launch the power of the forge of origination to destroy an old god. All of this to beat the weakest of the old gods who was just freshly released from prison, and yet he died "too easily", give me a f*cking break. If you don't like the writing or gameplay mechanics of the expansion then that's perfectly fine, I have my own gripes with the expansion, highest of which would be the fact it's super alt unfriendly, but you can't honestly say N'zoth died easily with how much we had to go through lorewise to beat him, when almost every other end raid boss was beaten via pure numbers and nothing else. If anything N'zoth took the most amount of preparation and the most amount of power to be able to beat out of all raid bosses in the game, and in the end we still almost lost to him and became his slaves.
You can enjoy something while criticizing it. I can't say I've been able to do so in BfA in particular, but the last 15 years, I definitely have been.
The one thing I miss is the story telling of a big bad we know about from the start. I think wrath nailed the lich king in that not only did we already know he was the end game, but every time he popped out in a dungeon, or during quests, we were like "oh $%^&, stuffs going down". I mean that's one of the things that made wrath gate so memorable. Sure it was first real cinematic in game, but it was impactful because of the glimpse we had on this great big bad so early on.This whole thing they do now where they are like "we give you crumbs each patch and then at end we want to surprise you with who the end boss is" is kind of overplayed these days. an RPG should be an adventure with a goal and not a mystery/thriller. There should be some surprise and leadin but that's more about repercusions and leadin to next expansion. The current expansion should always be more clear. That strikes the balance between mystery and purpose. All of BfA, adventuring truly felt without purpose half the time. Magni going "heal the woons" and alliance and horde going grr at each other.
"I am so so passionate about WoW and what the players want, please believe me. Anyways BFA was my magnum opus"
"Expect repercussions from the Fourth War to carry forward for a long, long time" is code for "The night elves will be living on the streets of stormwind forever lol"
The reason bfa writing is bad is it destroys previously written world building in terms of the reasons both the Alliance and Horde exist without replacing these wills with something else. Both the Alliance and Horde were made for reasons. Their structures of government and leadership gives these two powers meaning.The Alliance was born from city states needing to defeat a common enemy that threatened them all in the form of the Horde. The city states choose a supreme commander for this army so that no one single nation had too much power. This has since been removed with the end of BFA. Without a warchief and the Alliance seeing peace in the Horde it removes a need or purpose for the Alliance. We also see the Alliance being pushed to a dictatorship in the form of a monarchy. This is latter supported by Anduin being the sole person on ever occasion deciding to add new races to the Alliance's military power. sure other leaders say these allied races would make a good choice to add to the alliance but we only ever see one leader say that. Through in the case of Allied races not all of them are even brought in by leaders of the Alliance. Two the Light forged Draenei and the void elves are offered to the alliance by two people who do not lead any city and are just former Alliance war heroes (Sure you can count out the Dark iron out of this argument since they are already part of the Alliance.). The command of the Alliance army was handed down to Anduin by Anduin just taking up the role of high king all on his own. Anduin does not have to go through earning the trust of the other City states of the Alliance like his Father did. He just assumes they will give it to him (which they do.) The people who request aid form this new alliance lose most the Alliances support and are made out to be the bad guy. This is seen in the case of the Night elves where they wish to retake their home from the Horde only to be denied and refused help. Of course they still go on to do it by themselves with the aid of Gilneas and the Worgen. We see that Anduin after the war does not take consideration tyrande's words into consideration and makes her out to be a bad guy infront of the rest of the Alliance supporting the Horde which even without sylvanas has cause atrocities in the past. We in the same cutscene see him ignoring the advice of Genn (one of his trusted advisors) who speaks infavor of the Night elves reasoning that the Horde the reason the Alliance was founded is innocent. This approach to the Alliance takes away the very exist of the Alliance. As I stated before which was an Alliance of city-states formed to defend against this to combat the Horde and keep themselves safe. The Horde's form of government also takes a hint but in a less severe way (since their beliefs jump between two different groups but always remained in the same type of government). The Horde have been refounded several times each time their beliefs and motivation's changing with warchief the Original Horde was an army of blood thirst fel crazed orcs. The second version were Thralls Horde which were more honorable still posed a threat to the Alliance due to the Forsaken and the tensions of the past that came from the previous wars. As well as recent events which cause said horde to be brought into power. The third version of the Horde lead by Garrosh was a war machine bent on taking land and retaking the former glory of the Horde as it was in the first two wars. The fourth incarnation of the Horde was lead by Vol'jin with it being basically the same as thrall's Horde having mostly no differences this Horde not posing an intimidate threat to the Alliance still called for the Alliance of city-states due to the actions of the previous one. Along with the threat of Sylvanas and her ever expanding Forsaken lands on Alliance lands. The Fifth version of the Horde being lead by Sylvanas and the actions of BFA proved it was a good Idea to keep the Alliance around. This version more than any since the 2nd war to cause so much damage to the world of Azeroth (even Garrosh had his honor and supported a few races in the Horde, sylvanas thought of the Horde as nothing more than a tool to be used to cause death for her master.) The newest version of the horde is no longer ran by a warchief and has been made into an alliance of sorts with each race having their own city-state at this point. This includes most of the Horde's allied races with the Nightbourne and suramar along with Highmountian Taurren and their home Thundertotem you have a few more with the Zandalari and their home.The only two that lack a city-state are the Mo'gar orcs and the Vulpera one of which is new and the other having been had a presence in the horde since The bunring crusade but never being playable(Yes I know they are from draenor however that is splitting hairs they are still orcs and even on draenor were part of a horde maybe not the same horde but still a version of the Horde.). The New Horde exists as both and Alliance and as form of government having been built this way since BFA. The lucky thing about the Horde is that they still have a reason to exist since their whole reason since the beginning was finding a new world to conquer. Of course they have succeed in those goals having taking half the world over with the Alliance failing and losing meaning on their goals.Then there is the Champion of Azeroth. This Champion of Azeroth for a single player lessens the impact of the interactions of their friends. The whole commander thing in WoD was doable having many commanders in both armies would make sense considering how big both armies are. The Order hall Champion's and leaders hit the lore hard having random no named people take over known orders instead of better more experienced people but they still made it so your friend that is a warlock or paladin still have relevance in the story. However this posed a problem in BFA for some since now we don't know who leads these orders or what they are even doing at this point. However the Champion of Azeroth issue puts "you" at the front of the story and by doing that it takes away the spot light of your friends. Who killed N'zoth you ask it was you. Of course your friends tried to help but they were useless and ended up just getting mced. But "you "kiddo "you" saved them with your bad dps and your carry through LFR. "you" are the hero not your mythic+ friend that is currently in a +16 and helped you gear this alt so you can complete this questline. It was all "you" buddy if you had not been there you would not have saved the world. This was not an issue in legion because of the Order halls having a separate leader. You may have been carried as Highlord but your warlock friend or your warrior friend carried "you" and so did Illidan and the other lore characters. The hero of those stories were never "you". It was the group we were with making these things possible not the sole act of the Character. The devaluing of friendship and corporation makes the reward feel less fun. Back in Wotlk one of the best times of the game there was a way to make someone feel like they were part of the story. It came in the form of the locked box that the Lich King had. The hero who had shadowmourne had been given time in the spot light. That spotlight was also shared when other characters mentioned to you that you should not forget the friends that helped you along the way. The game even pushed you to share some of these items like the Tabard of the Silver Hand with your friends as a reward for them helping you.In all the BFA lore along with being all over the place also destroys alot of the past and does it worst. Sure the Horde can be argued it is at a good stand point for a story, however no conflict also means no story and always having conflict always pushes story. Bfa changed alot of up but replaced it with nothing. There are of course more reasons like blizzard not using Void elves or the way they did Sylvanas for some. But form me it was the fact that they destroyed the fundamentals of their own world building and with it key components of their world without replacing them with anything. the things they did replace them with are either worse and go against lore or devalue the meaning behind some of the character's motivations in the past. This is of course only the icing on the cake for me and I can whine about more, but it would not help.Tldr I don't like the lore and It ruined the Alliance Horde and raid team components for me in BFA. I can only hope Shadowlands fixs alot of my complaints. Through it would take another cata to fix most of them or another war expansion to fix them all at one time.
High quality comment Mgsdeath, never thought about the Alliance's issues that way before
I think one problem was the so called "Fourth War" was what? 2 Story beats at most before we are buddying up again. It barely even took center stage but was sold as the main focus of the expansion.