Battle for Azeroth seems like a filler expansion - do you agree?

[Rixarius]

Filler is an ugly term, but that's kind of what it is. Legion was huge in terms of story and scale, but people forget that the two expansion before it were WoD and Mists, both could be considered filler (One could be considered landfill). Obviously I know nothing and it's all speculation, but quote me on it in a year or so... I think that the last tier of this expansion will be us against an Old God, setting the stage for a huge Old God expansion.

[derpkitteh]

yeah, the good shit will return in a few years. until then, faction crap.

[Marc7]

This seems so good. I just don't see how an expansion that focuses on faction war, old gods (with the Zandalar raid described), and the Naga (Kul Tiras, Azhara) is filler and not the distilled essence of World of Warcraft. Maybe it'll be bad, I hope not, but I really, really don't see why some people seem to be so salty about it.

Besides, no more mission tables, which is just a good thing.

[Deleted]

I dont care about old gods and titans. I dont want another Legion with different names. The announcment gives hope that wow will change in a new orientation anchored around old principles from wc3-RTS and vanilla. Conquering real Islands and playing a "Risk"-like (the boardgame) open world pvp game was always a dream of mine.

Im still very sceptic about the implementation. They already did a big overhaul with pvp in legion, but the current prestige system has nothing to do with actual prestige.

[Deleted]

The name of the expansion is a red herring.

"Battle for Azeroth" makes us think it's the Horde and Alliance fighting for control of the world, and that is how it begins, but the reference to Azshara being a later raid implies N'Zoth later on, so perhaps "Battle for Azeroth" ends up with us battling N'Zoth to purify/corrupt the titan Azeroth before she wakes up.

[Deleted]

So Anduin seens his father burned to ashes and first thing he thinks is: "Oh damn that Sylvannas bitch with her arrow turned my father into soil fertilizer!!"?

No...

He knows Sylvanas retreated (Genn was there, battle reports are a thing). Neither of them knows what was really happening up on that ridge, but Genn assumed it was a betrayal because the Alliance wasn't given any time to prepare for it.

Genn clashes with her again in Stormheim, later finding out that she's making deals with death gods and trying to become immortal. That's pretty treacherous & selfish when they're supposed to be working together; affirming that what he did in trying to ambush her was the right decision.

Then there are older things like fighting over Andorhal, Liam's death, invasion of Gilneas - which they haven't forgotten.

Point is, their opinion of Sylvanas is low. All they've ever observed her doing is betraying their trust and taking advantage of them. It makes pretty much perfect sense for them to want to deal with her as soon as the existential threats are over. Would you want somebody like that on your doorstep?

[Shadochi]

I don't think it's filler, I think we'll start with faction stuff and then move on to more specific stuff

[anaxie]

It's not filler since it's clearly leading to the next step in the story which is Azshara (already confirmed) and N'zoth (implied), and consequently the Void.
The faction war is just the tagline they picked, the "hook" for this expansion (odd choice) and will not lead anywhere really except to make some factionistas salty.

Fighting N'zoth is also the literal Battle for Azeroth anyhow.

[ReVnX]

If war is in our nature, how come we band together whenever a new threat comes along? Why don't we back stab each other and hope the big bad kills the enemy faction?

Survival? During that particular moment if they fall, we fall. I mean, it's pretty obvious

[Marc7]

The name of the expansion is a red herring.

"Battle for Azeroth" makes us think it's the Horde and Alliance fighting for control of the world, and that is how it begins, but the reference to Azshara being a later raid implies N'Zoth later on, so perhaps "Battle for Azeroth" ends up with us battling N'Zoth to purify/corrupt the titan Azeroth before she wakes up.

I think you are sort of right, only I think it will be both the battles that are being described with the title, and I fully expect an all-out old gods expansion after this one. At this point I think most of Il'gynoth's whispers are actually about the events of BfA, not Legion or before.

[Deleted]

wod wasn't a filler expansion lol, it was just shit and they cut it short. so in hindsight it looks like a filler expansion

Wrong. It was, from its very conception, a filler expansion. That was why everyone expected so much to make up for it and why the final judgement was even harsher than a filler deserves. Legion has huge mechanical and narrative shortcomings, but it is, one way or another, a key chapter in the history of Azeroth. What makes BfA WoD 2.0 is not continuation of Legion shortcomings in crunch, but returning to WoD's lack of fluff.

[Better]

This seems so good. I just don't see how an expansion that focuses on faction war, old gods (with the Zandalar raid described), and the Naga (Kul Tiras, Azhara) is filler and not the distilled essence of World of Warcraft. Maybe it'll be bad, I hope not, but I really, really don't see why some people seem to be so salty about it.

Besides, no more mission tables, which is just a good thing.

Because the main premise from the start seems to be faction war, and honestly in MoP the worst writing was the faction war writing. "We made our base on this side of the beach, because they have a base over on that side of the beach!" Additionally if there is a faction war based raid it will end up that one side was literally Hitler all along, and needs to be stopped (SoO). So we put the faction war aside, and take them down together. Most of the NEW systems seem to be centered around faction war stuff, which gives me very little hope about the other story honestly.

[Azzurri]

What made MoP good was class design, so if class design is meh for this xpac, then I don't think it'll be as good, because I don't know what they showed is enough to satisfy people.

[Marc7]

Because the main premise from the start seems to be faction war, and honestly in MoP the worst writing was the faction war writing. "We made our base on this side of the beach, because they have a base over on that side of the beach!" Additionally if there is a faction war based raid it will end up that one side was literally Hitler all along, and needs to be stopped (SoO). So we put the faction war aside, and take them down together. Most of the NEW systems seem to be centered around faction war stuff, which gives me very little hope about the other story honestly.

I believe that Blizzard strongly believes that faction war is the core of what is Warcraft. Orcs vs Humans, alliance vs horde. I don't think they're wrong. It will keep happening as long as this franchise carries on.

[anaxie]

This seems so good. I just don't see how an expansion that focuses on faction war, old gods (with the Zandalar raid described), and the Naga (Kul Tiras, Azhara) is filler and not the distilled essence of World of Warcraft. Maybe it'll be bad, I hope not, but I really, really don't see why some people seem to be so salty about it.

Besides, no more mission tables, which is just a good thing.

The Zandalarie INTRO aka non tier raid is LIKELY since its Blood Trolls and source of COrruption

Blood God Hakkar <enemy to Zandalari in Classic> and Prophet Zul

T1 or T2 is Azshara
T3 is N'zoth

so the actual T1 or T2 that isn't Azshara is one big ??????

Unless it does a Legion and Goes Azshara , N'zoth , Void and final boss being saving the corrupted Heart of the Planet.

[Tydrane]

Personally I wouldn't call it a 'filler' expansion, but I am a little concerned about the focus being put back on the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. I'm worried that Legion's success might have made them overly proud and ambitious. The reason I say this, is that they've tried so many times to make the Alliance/Horde conflict front and centre, and it turns out most people aren't really interested in that aspect of Warcraft's lore. Just look at Cataclysm, early Mists of Pandaria (including the Krasarang patch) and Warlords of Draenor - this stuff is a mass-subscription-killer.

Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited about the new expansion's features, all the new game mechanics improvements look amazing. As for Zandalar and Kul Tiras, well, I'm honestly pretty uninterested. I don't see this as 'filler' in the sense that it is 'pausing' the real story, but more like they're progressing the least interesting of all available story options. In many ways I feel as though the two-faction dynamic doesn't make much sense any more in WoW (other than to give context to PvP), given how often and how closely we have co-operated in recent history. I mean, even with our Artifact weapons gone, what is our inducement to essentially disband our Class Orders and return to being faction grunts, when the Broken Isles campaign effectively demonstrated that the Class Orders were superior organisations in every way?

[Deleted]

Survival? During that particular moment if they fall, we fall. I mean, it's pretty obvious

It's not. Count the losses and you'll see that the biggest threat is now proven to be the other faction. Which, for me, is a quite complete and exhaustive no-sell.

[Tamurello]

agreed, no new races, no new classes, horde v alliance yet again (yawn) plus why fragment the content into alliance and horde zones? totally underwhelmed by this expansion, hope I am proved wrong and it turns out good but my expectations are low

[anaxie]

I dont care about old gods and titans. I dont want another Legion with different names. The announcment gives hope that wow will change in a new orientation anchored around old principles from wc3-RTS and vanilla. Conquering real Islands and playing a "Risk"-like (the boardgame) open world pvp game was always a dream of mine.

Im still very sceptic about the implementation. They already did a big overhaul with pvp in legion, but the current prestige system has nothing to do with actual prestige.

The annoucned Hakkar and Azshara in raids already.

N'zoth is coming too.

The main villans will always drive the real story.

[Aeula]

Theme-wise? No. I think this is the first real narrative we’ve had since MoP. We’re actually focusing on the big picture and loosing something, lorewise, for once.

Gameplay and features? Yeah, I think they’re playing it incredibly safe and I’m worried we’ll be seeing Legion 2.0. This new mob AI has me worried about another unnecessary difficulty hike and three zones per faction makes me feel like I’ll burn out pretty quickly from levelling.

I’m not hyped, but then after the shitshow that was WoD and Legion I wouldn’t be hyped no matter what the expansion was.

I hope I’m wrong about the gameplay/features part and it turns out amazing and fun like MoP. We’ll see.