And it's the lazy idiocy of the Mission Map narrative that really manages to bugger the thematic tone Blizz wants to have in Darkshore. To dispel the illusion of "The Night Elves Strike Back" all we have to do to start is look at the tree and thusly to finish we ride to Astranaar. The former is utterly fried, the latter is entirely tranquil. And if you played the pre-BfA transition event Alliance-side and saw Astranaar being ravaged by Forsaken it's entirely fair to want to see what it looks like now that the Horde have a major presence on Darkshore. That Astranaar has apparently moved back in time is mind-boggling and to me hints at how unprepared for BfA Blizz actually was.It is goddamn amusing that this is mirrored in game. When Tyrande confronts Anduin before storming out Anduin's dilemma stems from him not guessing that the NElves would want to retake or even evacuate Darkshore and failing to plan accordingly. That's some Bad Kingship 101 stuff and to me that's the mirror of Blizz's stunning tonal shift from Night Elf Genocide to "Jaina's mom is mean!"No mistake, the players are indeed meant to be centered in KT and Trollkanda. But as always the focal point of the action is Kalimdor and Azeroth and everything taking place in the new lands primarily has meaning for how it affects the rest of the World of Warcraft.Finally, to claim that it's not feasible to show the players every little bit of world building is transparently false: THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WORLD OF WARCRAFT IS.WOW, BRO. JUST...WOW.Because otherwise the Hinterlands and Thousand Needles and Tanaris and The Barrens and Winterspring and Stranglethorn were locations of so much interest and plot dynamics from Warcraft 3 that they just had to be explored?U WAT M8That kind of pointlessly, self-indulgently granular story telling is the entire exercise that is the World of Warcraft and every expansion before BfA.That is the core of the WoW-model MMO: CONTENT BY VOLUME.No, BfA has ambitions not nearly equaled by it's content. Blizz said as much right up front and that's maybe the greatest problem BfA has: we already know so much of what's happening now won't have consequences. The Allliance takes Lordaeron, the Horde scourges Northern Kalimdor. The whole "omg we need a fleet" premise is made utterly flaccid by both sides deploying so many airships AND numerous surface vessels -including WoD-era aircraft carriers! WHAT?The rest is just waiting. Paying $15 or farming gold, and waiting. Farming up your iLevel and raiding and waiting. More stupid toys, more silly hats, repeat the never-updated holiday events, grind up warfront dailies, farm expeditions and wait while you rescue stupid townspeople from Giant Bees.Because that's what BfA is about, right? The Giant Bees? Helping adorable fox-people fix their wagons? Trollkanda Foevah? Didn't we start with the expectation of galavanting across new lands, winning new allies, delving into newer and deadlier dungeons? Creepy sea cultists and blood trolls?OR WAS IT THE GENOCIDE.PS: so you agree: Tyrande's gonna die? I bet you agree.
Odyn has only been on one side from the day we met him. His own. He seems to be playing out exactly like the real Odin. Always scheming, always ulterior motives, something going on for his own benefit. You're either loyal to his word and unquestioning or you're worthless. I would trust helya over him. If you're curious as to what all he's done so far might mean I would suggest reading up on the real Odin. It seems to be where blizzard is plucking all their ideas from on what he's doing. Also his countless nicknames.
Oh and the Azerite powers are equal parts intriguing for how they tweak class play and infuriating for how randomly gated they are.It's amazing that Blizz didn't go with a "collect a library of options and slot them as you want" model instead of, "lol ur class keeps changin'!"It's like this expansion is tailored to stress everyone out!
There's an single High executor in Tirisfal = I guess it all now belongs to the Alliance... Many artistic liberties were taken with that map so i can't say it serves it purpose in any lore capacity.
Would be cool if this was something that I could see by going to the location they mention.
Reluctantly, I have to agree with Beretta.Blizzard are squandering the potential of their game by limiting the scale of conflict to two small (extremely so, if we go by dimensions) areas plus warfronts. Legion showed us that we cannot have nice things, and as such the largest Burning Legion invasion of Azeroth yet took place entirely on a small piece of land where four magical McGuffin lay. In the end of the expansion, the consequences only earned an off-hand mention (something about troops/ships being lost in the fighting, is that it?).It is true - Azeroth is frozen in time. Instead of showing us World of Warcraft, we end up with "landmass of the day" narrative. And this is all players' fault. The cold reception of Cataclysm, and the extreme conservatism of the playerbase are the reason why they are very careful with changing anything (as the world should change), and even when they do a fairy dragon awaits there just to take players "back in time". Disregard the fact that no one would visit Auberdine now even if it was whole - players were upset by the fact of change alone.Before Legion, expansions were focused on campaigns limited to other continents, we were not talking global there. WoD took place in Draenor alone, so Azeroth might have remained the same all throughout. Now, that we have talks of destruction being wrought here and there, it is unacceptable that we cannot see it ourselves.
Sound like great stories. Such a shame I have to grind island expeditions to get to experience them.
And what about thrall, khadgar, medhiv and others?