Broken Isles are Legion's main problem

[JustRob]

The Tomb didn't have any importance at all up until Legion, it was just some ruins that contained the dead husk of a broken golem. Illidan looted everything of note that was there during WC3. The only reason it seems important now is because Blizzard retconned the shit out of it and made it some kind of a mystical place of power. Same goes for Surumar, it was destroyed up until Blizzard decided to retcon it.

The bottomline is, Blizzard can twist and retcon their lore enough to make any random island in the middle of nowhere suddenly become the focal point of world-ending events. Will that make the said island a compelling place to visit? NO! Places need some kind of build up to be exciting.

Draenor was exciting to visit because we knew from established lore that it was a very savage world unlike Azeroth (we already had references to mysterious "Earth Giants" back in WC2).

Northrend was exciting to visit for obvious reasons.

Pandaria was less exciting to visit (go back and read some threads from 2012, a lot of people were very unexcited about Pandaria), but at least it didn't have heavy retconning like Legion does and Blizzard put a lot of effort into making it work.

I'm not saying Blizzard can't or shouldn't create new lore. There weren't any mentions of Uldum prior to vanilla WoW but Blizzard hyped it up over the years and people were excited to explore it during Cataclysm. The same can't be said for Broken Isles.

Yes people were excited to explore it during Cataclysm. And what we ended up getting was a weird parody on Indiana Jones, Hitler, and nazi's. It was disappointing as hell and pretty much everyone I know these days goes to Hyjal for 80-85.

I loved Pandaria, I love Legion. Yes Illidan visited the Tomb of Sargeras, as did Gul'dan and I think Gorefiend, but none of them ever made it to the Tomb's number one treasure: Sargeras' actual physical body. We've known it's there, and now we're finally going in to see it. How is that not exciting?

The entirety of Warlords of Draenor has been a build up for this expansion. Warlords of Draenor was not about Garrosh or about the warlords of Draenor. It was about watching Gul'dan and the Legion conspire to make their plans come to fruition. Legion is the culmination of that.

[Dalheim]

Whatever, he's still associated with the Legion, even if he isn't on their side. He still played a big part in their second invasion.

Fair enough.

[Kelathos]

WoW is certainly a MMORPG, you don't need a "living, persistent world" to be a "true" one.

The success of WoW's themepark model defined the genre to many people, and its many imitations, but it abandons many key sandbox concepts of interaction with the world and its players. The themepark model restricts Blizzard's ability to tell the story through the world, a downside best demonstrated by old and abandoned zones. The Legion "invades Azeroth" come see it in 6 new pieces of content, the previous 50 or so remain untouched by it. Hence the reason this topic exists. The OP laments the abandonment of Azeroth as we know it. I'd say he has a point.

[Granyala]

All of them are pathetically weak pushovers unless you go into a raid dungeon.
When the endboss of my class' storyline doesn't get my HP below 95%, he is not exactly convincing me that he is an actual threat.

A true Legion invasion should be much more devastating to Azeroth. Esp if you consider that they are now able to warp in aircraft w/o needing a direct portal.
KJ should be able to warp in THOUSANDS of those and drown Azeroth in sheer numbers.

Problem is: the way Blizzard set up the Legion as a near infinite demon horde that "assimilated" thousands of planets doesn't work, because in essence, the Legion cannot be beaten in a direct confrontation.
It's the same BS as in Star Trek, where the Borg send one f*** cube to attack earth when they could have sent 100 just as easily and crushed their enemy in one merciless strike.
But no, American Hollywood needs the good guy to win, so average joe can relate!111

THAT's why the Legion threat doesn't feel compelling. They stay so far behind their actual capabilities that it's just sad.

[Kynario]

I think Legion would feel FAR better if all of the action took place in previously established locations or at the very least had more Legion-controlled zones. Why Blizzard didn't hint at Stormheim and Odyn during WotLK is beyond me and the same goes for all other zones as well, they had years to come up with some lore for them.

Because they pretty much make it up as they go along. Sure, there's some planning... but I bet they sure as hell didn't know in 2008 about the Legion expansion coming out in 2016. There's no way they planned that far ahead. If so, there would be some hints in WoTLK I assume.

[Wilfire]

All of them are pathetically weak pushovers unless you go into a raid dungeon.
When the endboss of my class' storyline doesn't get my HP below 95%, he is not exactly convincing me that he is an actual threat.

A true Legion invasion should be much more devastating to Azeroth. Esp if you consider that they are now able to warp in aircraft w/o needing a direct portal.
KJ should be able to warp in THOUSANDS of those and drown Azeroth in sheer numbers.

Problem is: the way Blizzard set up the Legion as a near infinite demon horde that "assimilated" thousands of planets doesn't work, because in essence, the Legion cannot be beaten in a direct confrontation.
It's the same BS as in Star Trek, where the Borg send one f*** cube to attack earth when they could have sent 100 just as easily and crushed their enemy in one merciless strike.
But no, American Hollywood needs the good guy to win, so average joe can relate!111

THAT's why the Legion threat doesn't feel compelling. They stay so far behind their actual capabilities that it's just sad.

This. They could have easily done away with the infinite Legion cringe and said that the events of WC3 crippled them and what we are facing now is their desperate final attempt at destroying Azeroth. Instead, Sargeras is elevated to a near omnipotent level and the Legion is suddenly infinite and possesses futuristic technology. They could just warp in thousands of portal ships and completely eradicate all life on Azeroth in minutes. What is Blizzard trying to show here? That Kil'jaeden and Sargeras are incompetent commanders? With this level of shitty planning, how are they intending to fight the Void Lords?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

This. They could have easily done away with the infinite Legion cringe and said that the events of WC3 crippled them and what we are facing now is their desperate final attempt at destroying Azeroth. Instead, Sargeras is elevated to a near omnipotent level and the Legion is suddenly infinite and possesses futuristic technology. They could just warp in thousands of portal ships and completely eradicate all life on Azeroth in minutes. What is Blizzard trying to show here? That Kil'jaeden and Sargeras are incompetent commanders? With this level of shitty planning, how are they intending to fight the Void Lords?

Sargeras was always godly in power. Has been since we learned more about him in WCIII. Honestly the way you are implying is we should lose indefinitely but that would end the game and it wouldn't be very fun. It's also a videogame so they have to take that into account when making the story.

[Pandragon]

The primary issue you describe can be explained as this. WoW is NOT a true MMORPG.

Not a living, persistent world. Cataclysm update aside... WoW's world does not change. Instead WoW is an online themepark game with a new set of rides every 2 years. Legion is the newest set of rides and none of the older rides, the "world", will reflect it because old rides generally sit and collect dust. Again, this is how WoW is not a living world. The static nature of the WoW formula where you might never again have a relevant storyline in Azeroth, Outland, Northrend, Cataclysm zones, Pandaria, Draenor, or Broken Isles GREATLY harms the narrative and nostalgia that would accompany natural storytelling.

With a static world we lose the "feel" of the world. We lose a compelling sense of place and belonging to WoW itself. For example, Suramar is a great place. You will never see it again. Let the implications of that sink in. WoW is great for what it is (online themepark) but that design has serious limitations.

It has to be like this because of the community. If blizzard so much as reuses a weapon model people bitch for months. Imagine if they sent us back to northrend, or outlands, or pandaria.

[Mercane]

Same here. It doesn't feel like "biggest invasion evur" because none of the old zones are involved. NPC's saying one line of text about it (e.g "twilights highlands under legion controll!!!!one1" isn't going to do it. Needs to be shown ingame even just putting down random mobs and structures would do it.

Have we forgotten about the pre-patch invasions already?

[stablon]

The Tomb didn't have any importance at all up until Legion, it was just some ruins that contained the dead husk of a broken golem.

Both Tomb of Sargeras and Suramar is heavily related to the Legion/Invasion lore. Which location do you think would be more sigficant in a major Legion invasion but those? Barrens perhaps?

I can understand Highmountain and others being rather irrelavent, but seriously not those you mention.

[Onikaroshi]

Personally I have no want for them to have invasions in old zones, definitely wouldn't do them then. This is why they keep it to new zones, gameplay, people are already there. Very few people would want to go back to old azeroth just to fend off an invasion.

It's a gameplay>lore moment.

[Gaidax]

All of them are pathetically weak pushovers unless you go into a raid dungeon.
When the endboss of my class' storyline doesn't get my HP below 95%, he is not exactly convincing me that he is an actual threat.

You have people dying to frikkin' elevators in this game or looking to leech kill some mundane world elite, because it would flatten them, imagine the QQ if there was any actual difficult personal challenge... oh wait! There is one and there is loads of QQ about it already, lulz.

[Zyrosis]

Yes people were excited to explore it during Cataclysm. And what we ended up getting was a weird parody on Indiana Jones, Hitler, and nazi's. It was disappointing as hell and pretty much everyone I know these days goes to Hyjal for 80-85.

I loved Pandaria, I love Legion. Yes Illidan visited the Tomb of Sargeras, as did Gul'dan and I think Gorefiend, but none of them ever made it to the Tomb's number one treasure: Sargeras' actual physical body. We've known it's there, and now we're finally going in to see it. How is that not exciting?

The entirety of Warlords of Draenor has been a build up for this expansion. Warlords of Draenor was not about Garrosh or about the warlords of Draenor. It was about watching Gul'dan and the Legion conspire to make their plans come to fruition. Legion is the culmination of that.

WoD wasn't conceived to be that way, given the info about Grom being the final boss before WoD's launch. People bitched about Orc Fatigue and so Blizzard decided to change everything to Gul'Dan working to bring the Demons to Draenor and then getting to our Azeroth and bring the demons there as well.

[Kallisto]

WoD wasn't conceived to be that way, given the info about Grom being the final boss before WoD's launch. People bitched about Orc Fatigue and so Blizzard decided to change everything to Gul'Dan working to bring the Demons to Draenor and then getting to our Azeroth and bring the demons there as well.

Not really entirely true either. During the WoD announce Blizzcon they were already asked if the end of expansion boss was going to be an orc and they flat up said no. Even back then it was not meant to be Grom.

Only once was Grom mentioned and that was in reply to an interviewer hounding a dev. Who likely just said yes to shut the guy up.

[JustRob]

WoD wasn't conceived to be that way, given the info about Grom being the final boss before WoD's launch. People bitched about Orc Fatigue and so Blizzard decided to change everything to Gul'Dan working to bring the Demons to Draenor and then getting to our Azeroth and bring the demons there as well.

I think they were asked about the final boss of WoD at some Blizzcon and they joked it would be Grom riding Deathwing, they weren't serious

[Granyala]

Honestly the way you are implying is we should lose indefinitely but that would end the game and it wouldn't be very fun.

We should.
Hence why the Legion works well as the lingering threat on the horizon with the occasional attempt to stir up shit but not in an all out war.

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You have people dying to frikkin' elevators in this game or looking to leech kill some mundane world elite, because it would flatten them, imagine the QQ if there was any actual difficult personal challenge... oh wait! There is one and there is loads of QQ about it already, lulz.

It doesn't have to be that brutal.
But it doesn't have to be a snoozefst either.

I know most elite gamers don't grasp that concept but there is a middle ground in there that provides decent challenge w/o being soul crushing.

[Flaks]

The Tomb didn't have any importance at all up until Legion, it was just some ruins that contained the dead husk of a broken golem. Illidan looted everything of note that was there during WC3. The only reason it seems important now is because Blizzard retconned the shit out of it and made it some kind of a mystical place of power. Same goes for Surumar, it was destroyed up until Blizzard decided to retcon it.

The bottomline is, Blizzard can twist and retcon their lore enough to make any random island in the middle of nowhere suddenly become the focal point of world-ending events. Will that make the said island a compelling place to visit? NO! Places need some kind of build up to be exciting.

Draenor was exciting to visit because we knew from established lore that it was a very savage world unlike Azeroth (we already had references to mysterious "Earth Giants" back in WC2).

Northrend was exciting to visit for obvious reasons.

Pandaria was less exciting to visit (go back and read some threads from 2012, a lot of people were very unexcited about Pandaria), but at least it didn't have heavy retconning like Legion does and Blizzard put a lot of effort into making it work.

I'm not saying Blizzard can't or shouldn't create new lore. There weren't any mentions of Uldum prior to vanilla WoW but Blizzard hyped it up over the years and people were excited to explore it during Cataclysm. The same can't be said for Broken Isles.

I agree with this sentiment. I have far too much trouble getting engaged in this expansion despite it being a culmination of decades old story that's supposed to be more epic than killing arthas.

Wotlk had Warcraft 3 tft. WoD had tbc and Warcraft 1 and 2.

Legion has all that too but the broken shore has precious little outside of a couple missions in Warcraft 3 and a WHOLE LOT of reading material the vast majority never read.

[Oneirophobia]

That's the entire point of this expansion, i.e. this is the final time that we'll deal with the Burning Legion.

Before the expansion even came out, they basically confirmed this isn't what is happening. The end of Anduin's Legion comic is a scene in which it is at least 40 years in the future, and he and the army of the Light are preparing for their final push against the Legion.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Before the expansion even came out, they basically confirmed this isn't what is happening. The end of Anduin's Legion comic is a scene in which it is at least 40 years in the future, and he and the army of the Light are preparing for their final push against the Legion.

Where does it say that was the finial push for the "Legion" and not for the Void?

[Oneirophobia]

WoD wasn't conceived to be that way, given the info about Grom being the final boss before WoD's launch. People bitched about Orc Fatigue and so Blizzard decided to change everything to Gul'Dan working to bring the Demons to Draenor and then getting to our Azeroth and bring the demons there as well.

The info about Grom being the final boss was at Blizzcon, and the dev said "Grom" because it was an obvious choice that people would accept and spoiling the end of the expansion before the damn thing was even out of alpha would be a stupid idea.

Like, c'mon.

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Where does it say that was the finial push for the "Legion" and not for the Void?

While possible, 12 years of Blizz writing dictates that if it is obvious, then that's the reality.


Plus, they just introduced Demon Hunters and nearly all of their NPC lines are Legion-centric. Ain't nobody have the time nor effort to re-record lines for them in order to keep them relevant going forward, in a world with no Legion.

We'll kill Kil'jaeden, go to Argus, boop Sargeras on the snoot for a temporary thwarting, and he and his demons will lurk on the corner of our peripherals until such a time Blizz decides to use them again as plot.