What Actually Happened To WoW In 2023
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- Опубликовано: 22 авг 2024
- Use code BELLULARWARCRAFT at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: incogni.com/be... Sponsored by Incogni.
Let's work out what's going on with Warcraft, and how behind the scenes changes have likely impacted the live game as World of Warcraft Midnight & The Last Titan came into being.
Use code BELLULARWARCRAFT at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: incogni.com/bellularwarcraft Sponsored by Incogni.
I actually decided to take the deal and try incogni. You should know, the 60% off is actually 10% off, as the annual plan is already "50% off" from the monthly plan.
That's a bit dishonest
It really feels like the Red Dragonflight storyline and Vyranoth/Vakhtros content got cut.
It was a good choice. The expansion got better and the future looks brighter.
@@Miranox2the expansion didn't get better, 1.0 was the best version of DF minus the upgrade system which is irrelevant here. Narratively, it only went downhill.
@@omarcomming722 Did you watch the video? All of the 10.0 dropped plot points were bad, so it's good that they were dropped.
guys lay off that copium... not good for you.
If we understand any plot in this expansions would have lead to dragons talking about how they feel, yeah, well dropped it is and better those resources went to War Within (I hope). It really does not feel like when we lost Thal'Dranath on legion or even worse all the stuff cut in legion : Farahlon, Shattrath, Karabor, etc.
Over the years I've heard many WoW players stated "I only play for the gameplay I ignore the story". And while that is a totally valid way to play any game, it seems as if they're ignoring it purely out of disdain or dislike rather than just not be interested at all. WoW over the years has always sold itself as an MMO"RPG" game. Over the years however it seem to have steadily lost what made it an "RPG" that includes story and narrative.
Not always. I don’t know why I saved Mario’s princess, jumped over alligators in Pitfall, what Sylvannas smells like (or how to spell her name), or any of the story in FFXIV. Don’t know, never really cared.
@6344 Few things. One Mario was never really marketed to be a story driven game within its franchise. It does has a story sure but that's not one its major selling points. RPG's like the original Warcrafts, and World of Warcraft and its multiple expansions marketing does involve around its story. Metzen going out on stage and announcing the World Soul Saga has a hook proves that. And Two, while you don't know the story of FFXIV or don't really care (which is completely fine) you DO know however that it is critically acclaimed and people have a positive reception to it regardless.
So War Within was planned to be one expansion, and Metzen wanted to expand it because he didnt want to crush epic lore into a handful of patches?
He probably watched BfA from the outside and thought "Man, imagine how good this could have been if they had made three expansions out of this stuff instead of trying to jam it all into one." So when he came back he knew what he had to do.
@@tacothunderking4558 honestly, bfa felt like they pulled out a checklist of old characters and wanted to get through as many as possible
they wasted so much potential with nazjatar, azshara and nzoth
@@tacothunderking4558 That sounds strangely accurate!
@hallo-mt5tx meanwhile Thros gets ignored twice in BFA and Shadowlands with Gorak Tul being the top tier original villain in BFA that people wanted more of. It was very messy.
Even the allied race system is messy, we're not getting stone dwarves for Horde which should've just been custom options for existing Dwarves. And now allied races get left behind for custom options instead of being baked into main race, at least Void Elves brought the High Elf model to alliance but light forged was very lazy
@@tacothunderking4558On the flip side, i remember when they announced the World Souls Saga and people just went "so now they're gonna drag out this shit over multiple DLCs that we have to pay for?! I'm out!". Can't please everyone.
MATT, THE OOAATHSTOONES
They definitely pivoted on the Oathstones. I'm guess the original ending was them going "we have learned to be a family...not many dragonflights but a singular World of Warcraft: Dragonflight™" and then them getting their powers back. Instead we got them as a red herring and the true plotline seeming to be that the Titans' blessings aren't necessary and Azeroth is who they should be looking to for strength to protect her.
Also the editing on these last few videos has been cheeky as hell and I'm all for it.
Well, that and the message that we shouldn't be looking to the Titans to help us. They aren't the benevolent sky daddies they were made to seem.
But they do pay the bill for the most successful RPG game XX3 of 2023
How the hell can anyone say the TWW cinematic is "pitch perfect"?! Nothing happens!! We learn, again, that inside Azeroth is a World Soul. Aside from this startling revelation of brand new information that no one could've seen coming, the entire point of the video is Anduin being angsty. What a shocker considering how upbeat and hopeful he was at the end of SL! This is by far my least favorite piece of media in the entire franchise. I don't care how technically brilliant it is. I don't care if you can freeze frame and count the pores on Thrall's hands. Nothing happens!
There better be some sort of follow-up media akin to the Harbingers/Warbringers shorts we got in the past. And they better contain some actual information or action beyond Anduin using the potty rendered in loving 4K UHD.
I hope they will tell us one day, what happened during BFA-Shadowlands-Dragonflight. Where were they aiming, what made them change directions?
I agree. All three of those Expansions could have been awesome... I still think the current is lots of fun (from a non-raiders perspective), but it's definitely not been at the same quality bar for what I experienced in Legion and MoP. The STORY in both Legion and MoP felt so fleshed out and the conclusions were satisfying.
Shadowlands had potential if they didnt try to 4d chess the Jailer into being the bad guy who worked over everybody... There was a lot that could have happened or been done with old villains and champions who died on Azeroth they missed SO much forcing the Jailer into being the singular evil behind everything.
are yall forgetting covid and the class action lawsuit levied against them by the state of california? All the people they had to fire and rehire and then microsoft buying it out. I'm certain that was a huge part of their decision making, that and having deadlines to complete things turned out rushed products
I kinda want to know like how marvel fans found out if that horrible secert empire passed. But it probably be bad af.
The damage Shadowlands caused to the lore is still there. It really needs to be retconned somehow
I’m curious about the new two Exploring Azeroth books. Maybe they will retcon some of the lore
It doesn’t need retconning. It just needs more explanation and character development. The lore was lackluster. There’s no damage.
@@ChinnuWoWlol so wrong
@@ChinnuWoWThat expansion is an absolute blight on WoW. It not only taints what came afterwards but also taints what came before. And it's not just the Jailer. Nearly the entire tone was just wrong.
I'm still upset at how they turned the Helm of Domination into a paper Burger King crown. They really can't unfuck that now. But honestly the worst part of BFA and Shadowlands was that Danuser was always keeping so much of the lore a secret. He was obsessed with hoarding all of the lore in his own head and never giving us any payoff. Everything we learned was given out in a slow drip. Every reveal also had to be a cliffhanger, even when it didn't make sense to hold back. Much of the character dialogue and the cutscenes felt _dry_ and devoid of emotional impact because they were always beating around the bush. It was as if Danuser had become pathologically afraid of telling us what the story was. But now he's gone and his museum full of loose threads are probably gonna remain untied forever.
Playing WoW since Legion has been like sitting down at a nice restaurant and finding out five hours later that your waiter quit, the chef was fired, and all of your food is lying on the kitchen counter, uncooked and spoiled.
Here is a free tip. If you’re not comfortable talking about a rumour, don’t spend five minutes talking around them.
Depends on how its done, actually. If its just click bait padding, then yeah. But if its "read between the lines" type of informing, then that's fine.
@@CosmicCleric I disagreee, the whole read between the lines will make tons of people draw the wrong conclusions, which is worse than just repeating the rumour itself.
@@KrispyNuggetBoutique depends on how good you are at reading between the lines.
For those of us who are good at it, we prefer to be informed.
Can we just admit that Steve Danuser was NOT GOOD at his job. I’m so sick of hearing all the excuses
“Oh BFA wasn’t his idea you can’t blame him”
“Oh Shadowlands still really wasn’t all him he had to pick up the slack just wait for dragon flight”
“Oh well you know he kinda had everything taken from him”
Let’s face it, his ENTIRE time as narrative lead was a disaster. He’s a hack, and he needed to go and I’ve been saying it for years. I’m glad he’s gone.
Thank you!
The problem that happened to Blizz was the same as many corporations in the USA...ESG's!
Could you please stop hinting at things you have heard but can´t or wont confirm one way or another or even telling what the eternal fluff you actually heard IF YOU ARE NOT TELLING IT.
LOL
He’s probably trying to protect people who are signed under NDA’s, and of course, to avoid legal action like libel. he has to say either allegedly or I heard, but can’t confirm XYZ.
It's one of the most annoying things he does lol
Strongly disagree, I live for the fluff, please don't stop. The speculation keeps hope alive.
He can't say/confirm stuff he hears under the table from insiders at blizzard and risk not only the insider but blizzard relations. Personally I'm fine with it, just ignore it if you don't like rumors. He told us of plenty of rumors that turned out to be true coming out of shadowlands, rumors that helped understand weird stuff like cut content or story lines that didn't make sense
I would bet good money that they had a pivot in the middle. You can see it just in the cinematics alone in 10.1. Suddenly we had cinematics with "mouth full of peanut butter" lip syncing and then didn't have any cinematics like that again. That's a clear sign to me that there was some sudden crunch for some reason or another.
All the original talent left Blizzard, so Activision hired mediocre storytellers. My guess is that the replacements had never played the game, so they knew fuck all about the storyline.
it was exactly what i was expecting..... its the same cycle as BFA and SL
you guessed there would be new raids and new dungeons in a new expansion?!? either your mom is miss cleo or your dad works at blizzard, maybe both.
Except dragonflight was/is actually fun and good? The story isn’t even that bad if you didn’t care for shadowlands or BFA. The person who’s channel you’re watching has been praising how interesting it is to theorize for over a year now.
that it would be a narrative mess@@grizzly311tr
while i do enjoy bellulars content, it does not mean we share the same opinion. It was underwhelming for me
@@barley2262
@@barley2262I don't care how fun the lore is to theorize about, fan theories are worthless imo. The lore has been garbage this whole expansion, and they have frequently been shitting on it on their podcasts as well. The ONLY thing it has over Shadowlands is that it doesn't retcon too much stuff, it's equally as bad otherwise.
"Oh no, SL isn't as good as we thought, let's put it on life support for a year and put EVERYTHING into DF... oh no, DF isn't as good as we thought, let's put it on life support for a year and put EVERYTHING into TWW... oh no..."
Feels like that. Only time that kinda worked was Cata into MoP. Ppl might have not liked the theme of MOP but it was new lore, lots of content, new game modes, many successful experiments and the very best narrated Expo we had - by far.
@@einsiedler6052 by the time MoP came out people were saying WoW is dead, so no one was charitable to it at the time, but in hindsight everyone recognizes it was goated
DF is “mild”.There’s no stakes or real danger ( besides Amirdrassil) . Could not care about the storylines and the random dragon trauma dumping on you ( cringe?) . Actually DF made the Primalists sympathetic? ( not you Fyrakk) Like “you guys killed us and locked us up because we refused to drink Titan juice, time for payback, bitch” . And that’s just scratching the surface . DF is like a hot chick at the bar: pretty but without substance.
I'm worried that The War Within will still feel like Dragonflight because of the change of direction midway through. I do however have complete faith in Midnight and The Last Titan.
I need someone to explain to me why everyone thinks Iridikron is so cool. all the dude has done is talk like an anime villain and walk away repeatedly what about him is so soy face epic?
Because is not the typical "PITYFUL MORTAL" Enemy that just yells that line and thinks he is so above us we are literaly of no consecuence... Iridrikron is actualy a smart villan that knew if he were to come face us, he would have end up in the respawn realm... He actualy have plans and actual clear motivation, that we do understand, and even some people finds justfiable! He knows what he wants is out of his reach and instead of just going all "muahaha face me now mortals!" He sought allies that would actualy help him do what he wants...
To me it seems like the disjointed and unfulfilled story of Dragonflight is an indication of Metzen just deciding to rip off the bandaid quickly in order to move on and cut their losses. Similar to what happened in Warlords
BFAs Cinematics are unbeaten. Saurfangs fight with Sylvannas was peak cinematic in my opinion hope they bring those moments back I remember waiting for those Cinematics to drop on mmo champion.
Lmao you mean the "fight" where Sylvanas dumpstered the supposed legendary warrior?BFA had good cinematics at the very least but that was not one of them.
@@thebigidea9659 Your referring to the content of the cinematic and I'm referring to the quality as in the graphics music etc we're talking about two different things mate
The cinematics are hit and miss. Saurfang's fight with Sylvannas was a masterpiece. The end cinematics for Cata, Shadowlands, and Dragonflight were just stupid.
The loss of two of the Horde's main protagonists at once was the lowest point of the game for me. They killed Vol'jin, they ruined Sylvanas, then they killed Saurfang. It wasn't more than six months after that, that I left for good. The best cinematics in the world are pointless when the story they illustrate is a dumpster fire.
Yeah i understand how bad the story was it was peak terrible lore but the production quality was unmatched.@@inconceivableabysses
Dragon Flight's story is like Shadowlands.
One big exposition with no end goal really planned.
Made by the same person.
the so of course the story fell flat again.
Also Steven hard defended the Jailor in shadowlands on Twitter.
Cos' that too was also his baby.
However once Steven left, his main plan was no longer in motion.
the Oath stones are kind of like the Sigils of the Jailor.
Just suddenly there and then gone.
Also let's applaud Intern Iridikron's promotion to herald villain.
he worked hard for it.
It's been brought up before but Warcraft becoming so soft, feely, and emotional is lame. Metzen understands Warcraft so I hope to see a return to form moving forward.
Seriously! What are Oathstones and Aspectral Powers (beyond MacGuffins)?
They were supposed to be a reminder of the dragonflights' oaths to the Titans and the source of their powers. Toward the end of the leveling in each zone, that dragonflight would be reminded of their oath or create a new one, which somehow powered up their oathstone. When Alexstraza tried to power up the main oath stone, it didn't work and then they were quickly forgotten about.
Right. That brings me back to my point in asking what their point was. And I still don't understand Aspectral Powers beyond glowing eyes.
@@caboose8402Neither does anyone else, so don't feel too bad.
Including Blizzard, huh?
Don't get me wrong, Dragonflight did a lot of things right as a game. As a story, though, let's be charitable and say it was better than Shadowlands.
I just wish wow would stick to its guns. The last expansion that followed its story to the end was wrath of the lich king. Everything else has been last minute changes and retcons. I love the charecters in wow, just make a good a story that flows from start to finish in one line with out all these twist and turns of what appears to be management change and fear. I hope that for the upcoming trilogy they stand behind their product and exclaim this is who we are. And hopefully more of a focus on war and away from shiney unicorns.
I’d say it lasted up until legion. Mists ended by finishing its beginning, warlords did get switched up but legion was a very clear solid expansion. Even bfa up until 8.3 was solid, man even shadowlands was solid up until 9.3. I feel these final patches being so disjointed and cut off is to try and keep players from getting too bored.
Cataclym and Legion seemed to both "stick to their guns", story-wise. Mists arguably did aswell, Garrosh's fall due to the Sha corruption was very heavily hinted at early in the expansion.
I don’t think WoW itself knows what happened because it feels like nothing really happened
Steve Danuser is the Rian Johnson of Warcraft
Disrespectful to Rian Johnson
thats 100%
Hes just a woke loser
Remenber... Metzen make Cataclysm aka he backstab! ahhhhhhhh your hero is your main villian! LOL
Before Malfurion went to Ardenweald his eyes were a shade of *Green* but in the new cut scene when he comes back they are a shade of *Blue*
Blizzard needs to learn from Hello Games' NMS. They should build a team that is not rushed that can go back and better flesh out and fix the story starting with most recent expansion down, instead of leaving it a broken mess for the rest of its life.
Don’t they do this with every expansion? Particularly since WoD. Shadowlands clearly had massive direction changes in the middle.
There were so many holes that you could see while playing most of the content. Even in one of the raids, our black dragon boys do not comment about the faceless one as we defeat it. I am really starting to hate the missing plotlines and the lack of writing.
I wish I was paid five-six figures a year to make shit up as I go along.
I’m beginning to grow concerned for the mental state of game developers and their higher ups. There’s this growing detachment from reality that just goes beyond making bad decisions toward tiptoeing the edge of psychopathy. I started realizing it in the new Saints Row where the developers said they wanted to make characters who you would want to invite in your house and have dinner with. But in the game they murder people in broad daylight with no effort to hide their identity. Meanwhile they’re making jokes about board games and karaoke. That’s like the joker levels of insanity 😂🤦🏻 Now we have “good guys” who committed 10,000 years of intergalactic genocide who can get forgiven for their crimes if they kill ten dudes and have a cool rock. There’s no real compassion, understanding, nuance or even follow through and to me that’s wild. I was watching Nobbel recap Dragonflight and when he said “and 20,000 years of war just gets resolved off screen” I never facepalmed so hard in my life
It's felt for years like WoW has been written by a committee composed of factions with incompatible goals, and no one controlling the end product.
There's a story in Dragonflight?
Blizzard has been doing this for the past few Expansions.
Was vyranoth even sad when fyrak died? Just seemed weird how indifferent she was about him when they're siblings.
I haven’t had this much excitement and hope for an expansion since Legion and high hopes for the World Soul saga as a whole but only time will tell and hopefully the gameplay is just as great as the story.
The announcement that Metzen was in charge is enough for me to give the Worldsoul saga a solid chance. Wasnt happy w/dragonflight and the "power rangers family fun time" feel that I got from the original story. Kinda glad it got canned honestly. It was SO BAD that metzen had to 180 as soon as he got on board. I mean... c'mon the ending of Dragonflight was probably on par w/shadowlands
i only want to respond to the oathstone part: yeah they felt a bit underexplained in the mainstory. but i also played the story around the dragonwhelps. you know where we have to let them hatch? at their oathstones. but why is that needed? i mean we learned after cataclysm that the dragonswarms were unable to procreate. the eggs won't hatch and such things (we even had to comfort alexstrasza about it). but yeah i think the oathstone purpose (if you truly need one) is that it helps dragon whelps to hatch from their eggs.
the other parts of the video: i don't know. yeah their are problems but i don't know if it's worth or good to pinpoint them out on that level. but i guess you have to do so to get the viewers entertained.
The only thing I disagree with in this video, is Malfurion. He hasn't gotten a good chance to show what he's gained from his time of absence yet. Much stranger than that, is Ysera's almost non-existent role, given the trouble we went through to get her back.
To be fair, Ysera did show us what she was capable of, now that she was juiced with death magic from Ardenweald. Even Fyrakk said at some point to Merithra, about her mother not being there to save her with her "blue" magic.
@@josejuanandrade4439 she might be more juiced, but didn't play a significant role proportional to the trouble we went through to get ger back, regardless of her juiciness.
Imagine explaining to Winter Queen the reason you're asking her to let Ysera come back is whatever she did. I wouldn't be surprised if she was offended so much that she took the leaf she used to revive Ysera back.
@@josejuanandrade4439she did barely anything, gave the reins to Merithra and pulled a “refuses to elaborate, leaves” . Also it shows how Danuser doesn’t know shit about the lore , Malfurion doesn’t need a power up , Malfurion as is , is the near líder thing we have to a demigod in the lore ( at least in the books) or we also forgot how he was holding Darkshore BY HIMSELF in Cata?
@@battle-brotherthiel1563 Oh i didnt say anything about Malf. I think we all know how powerful he is. I mean, he is not only the 1st druid... he was in the original war against the legion, crafted the weapon that wounded Sargeras, and when it comes to power levels, i think Bolvar with the Helm was the only one near to his level.. That's probably why they took him out of screen for DF, cause he is that strong, also, they giving too much focus to female characters, have you noticed?
Tyrande, Sylvannas, the Archon and Winterqueen, then Aggra in Maldraxus...Now is Alexstrasza, and Genn just named his daughter the new leader of Guilneas... The only female of the Trio (Vyranoth) became good, even when the leader of the blue flight is Kalecgos, they gave way too much screen time to freaking Syndragosa ... i mean... a dead dragon shared nearly half the screen time of Kalecgos and he was pressented kinda "weak" and needing a lot of guidance etc etc. THANK FUCKING GOD Metzen is back.
@@josejuanandrade4439I just think it crazy how like the one time we get g i r l s all over thr place, they are like crap verisons of themselves.
Sylvanus before - Badass mf
Sylvanus after - dont hurt me uwu
Also Winterqueen, i hate her
I will never forgive them for Shadowlands. Specifically, the way they treated Arthas is unforgivable to me.
Honestly if all the gameplay improvements wasn't carrying Dragonflight from the gear upgrade systems to Talents and just general respecting the players time as well as a fast content kadence (basically gameplay is fun), It's safe to assume that with the narrative issues of dragonflight, Wow would be dead off the back of shadow lands being so horrible.
I see this 10 minutes after release and I'm not even subscribed. The algo must love this channel
This topic is hype
@@SkatePvP10this is copium
@@LinkLichpresident and story designer left
Give Steve the fig leaf of an amicable break as long as he’s gone and his minions are relegated back to ‘neat lore tidbit’ rather than narrative or quests.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this expansion. I did everything I was capable of and now I'm doing pvp to maximize that also.
Um the oath stones allowed the flights to have titan infused eggs again. This is somewhat explained through the whelpling daycare quests
So where the hell did Wrathion come from?
@@willythemailboy2 He was an experiment of Deathwing... he says it at every chance!!!
After his corruption, Deathwing tried to mate with his consorts, but all of them died, except Sinestra. Sinestra is the mother of Onyxia, Nefarion AND Wrathion. But the red dragon purified Wrathion's egg. I think that red dragon may have used some of the infused water btw.
@@josejuanandrade4439 Wrathion was only one of a clutch of black dragon eggs, though. He was just the only one that survived being purified. Then there were all the black dragon eggs and hatchlings in Blackwing Lair. It's possible that the whelpling daycare part is a retcon of what happened before.
As someone who's big into lore, and isn't really a PVPer or Mythic Raider, I play the game for it's story and characters... I didn't mind Dragonflight... I've played since the end of Wrath and I've liked pretty much every expansion. I LOVED BfA, Legion was good, MoP was amazing... I think WoD or Shadowlands were my least favourite, but I still enjoyed them for what they were. Dragonflight's themes of family and coming together were great! I loved them, and sure I was confused at Malfy's storyline, and how Ysera did nothing, but you know what, I like this game, I like the stories, and I'll keep playing until I don't. People get so wrapped up about it, if you don't like it, don't play it.
What BFA and Shadowlands felt like was lots of ideas in isolation and then they had to try and weave connections so that they seemed cohesive.
I personally dont like how Dragonfart had no big overarching stakes. Even like solving their issues to hatch eggs or having the Infinite dragonflight try to muck with time would be something.
More small story beats. the most memorable cinematic in DF is the run, hug, kiss. Cant remember what else happened. Just love small lore and narrative around old and new characters
I Never thought id say this but i really think they need to hard retcon stuff to fix wow,shadowlands is an exception cause its the afterlife no matter what revamps what resets they do as long as this shitshow did happen everything else is irrelevant the Jailer did destroy the soul of world of warcraft we just thought he meant Azeroth but he wasnt and Garrosh becoming soul ash while Arthas became 35 anima aint helping this case
I had the same feeling: Hooray! I activated dragon stones. - Why?! - What now?
Hot take: I think SL landed the plane with more storylines than DF. To me, 9.1 just felt hollow but at least there was some continuity.
I mean Oath Stones had some relevance in 10.1 with the trinket.. I think they were simply each flight's power stone?
The path stones weren’t even about power, it was the promise the flights made in their charge both to the isles and eachother. Alexstraza thinking they’d work wasn’t guaranteed and it helps reinforce that she’s a character with faults while simultaneously bringing the rest of the dragons together.
@@barley2262that’s true, while they had hope, it was just speculation
I enjoyed DF, and played it often throughout the expansion until SoD dropped. I did both for about a month but have only been playing SoD since late December. The emereald dream expansion just didn't hold my attention after doing the storyline quests on my main. Also, I liked the new gear system initially but didn't feel like repeating the weekly grind in another patch.
I accept that gear is outdated expansion to expansion every few years but the new system makes gear(and the tokens to upgrade it) obsolete patch to patch every few months. I don't have time to keep up with that.
Anyone else kind of tired of WoW expansions changing the story midway through the patch? Feels like there's nothing planned anymore and hyping the player just to be thrown away.
It's not just the leadership. WoW probably won't be fully fixed until they fix the staff. Even at low levels, you can tell that there are too many people that are interested in inserting their personal narratives and ideas into what should be a relatively shallow beer and heavy metal fantasy world.
My headcanon for the Oathstones will just be that they are a beacon to call dragons home, those that did not feel the 'call of the isles' like some of the more powerful ones did
i know there's a lot of hate for danuser and his ideas, but basically taking away his vision for dragonflight left it in the state it's in. i actually enjoyed the end of sl, with the "oops we messed up" cleaning of the lore, and the beginning of df had a lot of promise. was everything perfect? if it had been i wouldn't have stopped playing wow during sl, but we absolutely cannot create a scapegoat out of one man. there was still a whole company behind him. recency bias causes us to judge what happened just yesterday but forget the things that happened years and years ago. metzen made his own huge mistakes. mistakes will be made in the future. chris metzen burned out because we put pressure on him to make things perfect, and if we're not careful it'll happen again.
That's all the more damning of the entire company, not a redemption of Danuser.
Unless he was specifically hired to do an impossible job*, he failed in delivering a good product. *: Like make a cohesive story despite the employees given different parts of it refusing to work under a single vision. If this were the case, I would be pushing people in the company to either pick one of two different mandates, or admit that the product will suffer as a result of trying to go in two different directions at the same time. The two directions are: Working under a single vision, or making stories that work better in isolation and ambiguity like Overwatch.
Say what you will about the legitimate evils of capitalism (and/or the problems of social dynamics), but I don't think "the final result matters more than the nebulous illusion in your mind of the final result" is one of them. (The illusion is the lie that it's actually precise and cohesive rather than just impressions. Otherwise it wouldn't just be an idea, it would be written/drawn/transcribed/etc.)
Dragonflight was aborted just like WoD, Cata and probably shadowlands. Thats why we have so many unfinished/unexplored things.
They really missed an opportunity during one of those DF cutscenes to have all the aspects transform into a power-rangers-esque megadragon and fight a super-sized version of Lord Zedd.
...this is probably why I'm not writing the story.
I think large plot threads of dragonflight being scrapped for the World Soul Saga while the expansion was Danuser's "baby" so to speak, is what broke the camel's back for Danuser along with the stress from having to deal with Shadowlands story writing in addition to not wanting to move to California.
Man got dealt a bad hand, and the one expansion he got to design narratively to put WoW back on track got upended cause they wanted to do the World Soul Saga.
Seeing players get frustrated with the narrative after you had to change what you had planned because of someone else can be a big demotivator and I can't blame him for thinking "enough is enough"
I wish him the best
Sooooo, what pub do you happen to hang out? I'll buy you a few rounds and we can chat.
Has everyone forgotten Malfurion is supposed to be a a demigod level badass not a soyboy to get thrown around and basic bear standin ffs how are they so bad at their own story
Dragonflight left many questions unanswered, and some plot points felt rushed. But I still enjoyed the story much more than during BfA and Shadowlands.
For this to be true, either they scrapped an expansion or more, *OR* they didn't have any plan for the next expansion.
I think everithyng is getting on track, the team seens happy, nervous but happy. And they are delivering fixes and changes that the community wants in a very fast phase.
Counter argument about "it's always been The War Within" - a lot of what showed up on the trading post is things that people have talked about being "leveling gear" in terms of aesthetics. Gear for an expansion themed around exploration and discovery. But we have *three* expansions planned now, and not one of them has anything even vaguely in that vein. There were also the pirates, and the N'zoth stuff off the coast in Beta.
I genuinely think that the change to The War Within came from scrappping an entire expansion. Probably one that hadn't made it out of early asset art direction, but, still. I sincerely think that while The War Within was planned, it was the one *after* the 11.0, and part of the grumbling we heard (because remember, last year there was a lot of people talking about some folks at blizzard being dissatisfied with how the lore direction changed) is because there was supposed to be another breather expansion where these mysteries paid off before we immediately jump into "a war for the soul of the planet with the light and the void invading and then the titans show up again with a conspiracy."
It feels like Dragonflight was always intended to be a breather with a little set up, but that the "prologue" was supposed to come next, with the real action of what would be this saga farther out. I think the fact that WoW hasn't done as well as it wanted means they moved the "big action" forward, at the price of the expansion Danuser was setting up. Because it does seem like Danuser's plan was pretty long running, with the intent being to set up a lot more pieces than just "oh my god it all happens now."
Metzen came back. Cleaned the house. Told idiots to stfu and is saving the game now.
Really hope you don't O.D on Copium
we all know the taste of copium
let's take a little less?
maybe try to accept, life without too much copium??
poor old bellular.. hard on that copium still.
Maybe it was like Warlords where they just scrapped it for Legion. Perhaps once Chris returned to Blizz they just scrapped Dragonflight's development to put everyone on the world soul saga.
as someone who knows hardly any wow lore even I was questioning what is the point of Tyr
The weird thing about the oathstones is that it seemed like that was the way they were going to get the powers back that they sacrificed in Cataclysm, but then all the oathstones got empowered and nothing happened. It was killing some random dragon (Fyrakk) that for some reason got them their powers.
It was actualy the seed blooming to full power and trascending into our realm what did it. But yes the Oathstones were a red herring. THAT SAID, i think this is what happened:
THEY THOUGH restoring the oathstones would restore their power, but they were mostly guessing there. Now, restoring the Oathstones did repair the relationship between the flights and withing them, so i think, that did work ok for the plot in the end.
Dragon flight is soy af, move on to the next one its dreadfully boring and the characters are souless and too passive. Someone resurrect Hellscream so he can just start killing things again. This is what everyone wants. None of this boring banter back n forth between vanilla boring chars.
As long as we dont have any more fanily memes...
I speculate when you harm Chronicle to make your own claim to the story, you get thrown back in your place...or just removed entirely.
I'm sorry but the final void rooms in the Neltharion raid is NOT as weird as Bellular keeps saying it is.
They're COOL but not as overtly WEIRD and something that REQUIRES AN ANSWER
Say what you will about shadowlands but, Sylvanas shattering the sky was badass.
Shadowlands was actually pretty awesome. What sucked was a global pandemic screeching the development to a halt, giving us a HORRIBLE 9.1 for 8 months, all while finding out most of the original WoW team were r@pists and abusive misogynists. Really, reallly killed the vibe.
But SL's raids? The zones? The music? The art? The themes? The cultures? The dungeons? The covenant system (post 9.1.5) were actually kind of sick. I know, i was actually playing the game. : )
I'm torn because from Legion-Df (minus the horrendous GCD change in BfA and general nerfing of specs) has been the best this game has ever felt. But narratively it's been lacking since Legion.
I loved Wotlk when I played it back in the day, so many good memories doing 25man ulduar and lich king. But I was pretty shocked when I played wotlk classic. It's better than classic and BC for sure, but it's still a completely different game than it is today. It's actually impressive how much they've improved.
Re: Tyr. No, i dont think it was an insertion during a pivot (you might be right) i think that incompetance made the thread be dropped. My dwarves watched Stony Tony pull his big ass up a mountain to fire up a titan beacon... But they needed to placate the hippies in the community, so we just got a small arc and a sad boi ending for Tyr.
14:00 okay, so my theory here is that Iridikron gambled here: the heroes will save Nozdormu from becoming Murozond while he gets the essence(?) from Galakrond corpse or whatever then escapes with Xal'atah OR the heroes will fight Iridikron denying him the essence or whatever but Murozond rises in return, so by Iridikron being more of a clever enemy he knew that the heroes(+chromie) will want to save Murozond at all cost, so he just used the Infinites for his quick plan. So I don't think we ever see Murozond becoming real or maybe we will some how, idk
I don't think that's a theory. It's clearly explained in the dungeon that that's exactly what Iridikron did.
the nonsense with the Nozdormu storyline in DF is THE most unforgivable plot arc of the entire expansion. Nozdormu was all over the promotional materials for DF, he was featured in the release date trailer, and he was the central character of the entire "Legacies" animated short series before DF launch. All of that for his arc to be that proto Nozdormu (not even real Nozdormu) randomly becomes Murazond and it doesn't even matter at all is the same level of "what the actual f***" as the disenchanting Arthas debacle in SL. I'm cautiously optimistic that the changing of the creative guard will provide better results in the future.
Is it too little too late? Its so hard to recommend this game to new players. Imo at least.
Can't milk an old cow
I care about lore,but DF gameplay was very good.
I agree. Gameplay wise I am having such a good time - more than BfA + Shadowlands combined
I think Malfurions eye color changed. When he stayed they were green but now that he's back they're silver/blue. Could be nothing though
I always wondered why we ever messed w/the Oathstones if they were just going to be a non-issue.
Dragonflight has been, for the most part, fun...but disjointed. Not as bad as BFA and certainly not the disaster that was Shadowlands...but it definitely has felt like a lot of things were tossed out, almost like in WoD...which would have been a great xpac, were it not for being completely abandoned.
The thumbnail is amazing 😂
Legion was definitely the last time I was feeling excited about the game.
I'm so confused, do we not like the dragonflight story? It's been so refreshing since after the BFA/SL shitshow, even though I've gotten over it more than the WoD out of game book shit
It’s Disney power of friendship crap. It’s shallow. It’s pussy.
I for one feel OK about it, so far. Not Blizzard amazing, but definitely not awful either. There's potential, but they need to show they can still repeat it.
I absolutely don't like it. It's a complete bore. Fyrakk is a very shallow character. There's a lot of "power of friendship" crap. It feels like the game is catering more towards kids. Nothing about the current lore excites me at all.
the reason why tyr was involved was to give the dragons thre powers back they totally dropped that .. ??? why ?? then genn is gone he retired ysera daughther is now in charge its seems like a changing in the guard.. the main char are retiring and there kids are now in charge.. it sweet .. I see it .. and now there will be a fresh start with the war within.. there a little carry over but not much .. were going forward to go backward but in a new skion updated way ..
I dislike the narrative and look they went with in late Shadowlands, and now Dragonflight. When I am doing quests, my character feels out of place. My character feels like my Barbarian entering a rainbow portal and walking around in Whimsydale. I can't stay logged in long enough anymore to do anything.
I'm glad they are revamping areas instead of adding more.
You could say...
THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING 😁
I look at Tyr in the shot where he's back and thought - He would be the one who handed us a very complicated Titan system that wrecked the current gear leveling and took us back to the sort of slog that killed Shadowlands. Now I don't know how tied in the storyline is to plans to overcomplicate gearing etc but knock on wood things haven't been TOO bad in Dragonflight as far as being jerked around every patch to get a new gizmo or set of gizmos and spend half your time rebuilding your armor. A spot or two which could have been yet another grinding spot for this nonsense have appeared and been vastly toned down, and they theoretically could have been tied in to the chopped off story bits.
While The War Within cinematic may have had excellent animation quality and continued to show Anduin and all of his feelings, it did nothing to really get me excited for The War Within.
Metzen seems to have an ego, I wonder if he can let characters he's not voicing shine the way they should or if all the focus will once again be on a certain orc.
I have my serious doubts about Blizzard’s ability to deliver a decent story line. WotLK was the best of their efforts until Legion which has been their best while all of the others have been a steady decline. I don’t know anyone who still plays. I unfortunately, pre-ordered The War Within and am now grappling with the idea of requesting a refund. The game is simply not fun anymore. It’s convoluted with about a thousand different things to do and none of which were really well thought out. 😢
Dragonflight feels a bit like wod which did get even less of it's promised content.
I thought every dragonflight would get it's content patch culminating in a red dragonflight themed one featuring a corrupted Alexstrasza(remember that Tyr cutszene?)
The Tyr questline also feels like a massive dropped bit of content, so much build up with the reward just being: Here's some cool tmog and Tyr having a "wow, things sure changed a lot whilst I was dead" moment.
Holly Longdale is great. She is a genuinely good person. I met her back in the EQ days of yore.