New expansion's premise is pretty terrible from the lore stand point.

[Dagoth Ur]

We been told what's happening at the start. We have no idea what the "end game" is. Who final boss is. The book is a prelude, and isn't going to spoil the whole xpac.

We know mid game is Azshara, so N'zoth could possibly be end game I guess.

I mean it's pretty certain our big war for Azeroth will end in stalemate somehow and who better to do it than our fish friends.

[Al Gorefiend]

Faction war is a good way to canonically "thin the herd" so to speak. C'mon, insane/corrupted it doesn't matter, what lunatic is going to dare challenge a bunch of heroes who defeated a Titan?

With faction war, the expansion after BfA can spitball the lore as "well most heroes died in the war.. we're weaker than ever now etc. etc."

[Deleted]

We been told what's happening at the start. We have no idea what the "end game" is. Who final boss is. The book is a prelude, and isn't going to spoil the whole xpac.

It's not that hard, it's written since Legion 7.0.

[Phookah]

Going back to throwing rocks at each other every other expansion sure is getting old.

"Hey! Let set aside our differences and work together to overthrow this universe/world ending threat!"

"Agreed!"

Sometime passes

"Well we did it. The Universe Devourer is dead."

"..."

"..."

"Well now that both of our armies are weakened and we've only just starting to recover, we should probably get involved in a long drawn out military conflict over a piece of land that is of no particular importance."

"Yes, lets."

"FOR THE HORDE/ALLIANCE RAWRR WAR STUFF"

[Trassk]

We been told what's happening at the start. We have no idea what the "end game" is. Who final boss is. The book is a prelude, and isn't going to spoil the whole xpac.

its not exactly hard to predict. Don't act like blizzard has some deeper piece of storytelling waiting to be revealed here, everything else now is just fluff.

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Going back to throwing rocks at each other every other expansion sure is getting old.

"Hey! Let set aside our differences and work together to overthrow this universe/world ending threat!"

"Agreed!"

Sometime passes

"Well we did it. The Universe Devourer is dead."

"..."

"..."

"Well now that both of our armies are weakened and we've only just starting to recover, we should probably get involved in a long drawn out military conflict over a piece of land that is of no particular importance."

"Yes, lets."

"FOR THE HORDE/ALLIANCE RAWRR WAR STUFF"

Thank you, its just so refreshing to know people see this shit for what it is now.

I've felt pretty meh the last few days after the info was revealed, because it just offers nothing of interest to me storywise anymore.

[Thetruth1400]

If we will took into consideration that it was Alliance who started the war first, then the things would look even worse. None of Alliance leaders except Greymane has the really legit reasons to start the war given all previous events and the fact that its uhm... the war.

Varian did say "We're taking back Gil'neas" towards the end of MoP.

That being said, I have a feeling we're not going to really get much in the way of the game as to what causes it, they'll most likely save that for the book like they have been doing recently.

Overall though, I feel there definitely has to be a time skip between the events of Legion and the events of BoA, because it doesn't make much sense for us to go "Right, we all just worked together for the greater good, time to immediately fight each other." We're literally allies in arms in our class halls, now we're instant enemies without some kind of catalyst? Wouldn't make sense.

[sam86]

Last time I checked it was still world of warcraft and not world of lovecraft

lovecraft influence is almost everywhere in dark fantasy world

[Deleted]

Last time I checked it was still world of warcraft and not world of lovecraft

Not World of Lovecraft? I see Old Gods everywhere!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

[Synros]

its not exactly hard to predict. Don't act like blizzard has some deeper piece of storytelling waiting to be revealed here, everything else now is just fluff.

Ok, so who is it?.......

[Deleted]

How does it not make sense? The alliance and horde have essentially been in a Cold War with each other throughout WoW’s history. There are constant skirmishes between the two factions, and each side has resources that the other needs. The Horde needs the lumber that the Night Elves control, meanwhile the Alliance wants the cultural resource that is Lordaeron back from the Horde. Each side could use their allies on the other continent as a staging point for an attack as well (as we saw with Gilneas).

Let’s also look at your logic: “People have seen that war is bad and therefore it is unrealistic for them to go to war again.” Have you ever payed attention to history? People do not learn their lessons from war. For instance: WW2 was essentially just a continuation of WW1 which barely started 20 years before the start of WW2. The Cold War and every proxy war that consumed the world afterwards was the result of the two remaining powers vying for control over the world. The only reason it didn’t erupt into full scale war was due to mutually assured destruction. The United States is engaged in multiple small scale wars throughout the world currently. Just like every other major power is.

If you want realistic characters this is what you get.

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Going back to throwing rocks at each other every other expansion sure is getting old.

"Hey! Let set aside our differences and work together to overthrow this universe/world ending threat!"

"Agreed!"

Sometime passes

"Well we did it. The Universe Devourer is dead."

"..."

"..."

"Well now that both of our armies are weakened and we've only just starting to recover, we should probably get involved in a long drawn out military conflict over a piece of land that is of no particular importance."

"Yes, lets."

"FOR THE HORDE/ALLIANCE RAWRR WAR STUFF"

This sounds like how most wars start in the real world.

[Deleted]

This sounds like how most wars start in the real world.

Most wars in the real world star months after devastating end-of-the-world conflicts and with looming threats over our heads? First time I ever saw such revisionism.

[InfiniteCharger]

I agree with the OP because the story of of Azeroth needs to move forward, not backward.

Looking at the Lore and history of the game this makes no sense:

All of the events of WOW and the Warcraft Franchise go back to the War of the Ancients. That was a war with Sargeras and The Legion.
Originally these were just your garden variety demons from another dimension, but this was retconned later with the Eredar/Draenai.
The twisting nether was originally a different dimension (aka hell) but now it is just another part of space. Sargaras is now the last titan, beside as yet unborn titan Azeroth. So with all of that there is no big bad force of evil lurking in the shadows as an ever present threat ready to attack like the original demonic legion used to be. Any sort of 'return' of the Legion will be anticlimactic and pathetic at best, whereas in the beginning they were a powerful and potent threat that did major damage not only to the Universe but also Azeroth. All of the major stories in WOW tie directly back to the Legion and now that they have been defeated, those stories need to be resolved.

The Void is simply too nebulous to even be really called a threat. We have already beaten most of the old gods and there is nothing now that suggests Nzoth will be any different. If the void is a threat then it would have to be something more potent than simply stirring a faction war. It took thousands of years to finally defeat the legion. Nothing so far from the Void even comes close to that kind of threat.

The following story lines on Azeroth should now be updated to reflect the fact that the legion is defeated: Undead/Foresaken, Draenei and Orcs/Ogres. Along with that there are Blood Elves, Night Elves and Humans all of whom were tremendously impacted by the Legions activities going back to the War of the Ancients.

There were no Orcs on Azeroth before the Dark Portal was opened which was all due to the Legion. Now that the Legion is defeated, with the help of the Horde, then where does that leave the Orc story? By now I believe that all concerned consider Azeroth their home, but then again we opened portals to alternate Draenor and MU Draenor as well. So what is the future of the Orcs. They were only fighting in the beginning because they were doing the bidding of the Legion, but now the Legion is gone.

Similarly there were no Undead races before the Scourge which happened long after the Dark portal. They only exist because of legion fel magic channeled through Arthas. Undead are in reality nothing more than zombies. "Conscious" undead are again the result of powerful legion magic. By all rights now that the Legion is gone, they should no longer exist, as the power behind their existence should also be gone. The plague is primarily an affliction that has affected the human populations of Azeroth and of course Arthas is a big part of this. So he is gone and so is the Legion. Therefore what is the future of forsaken humans? I would think some Titan power would be needed to either return them to full life or to allow them to permanently die. Otherwise, their continued existence should be questionable. And that makes them the most unstable of all the races on Azeroth but that wouldn't be enough to cause a faction war. If anything it would be justification for them forming a faction unto themselves... Either way, the forsaken don't have much of a future so unless they can create new forsaken, which obviously would be objectionable to just about every living race, what future do they really have.

Elves once dominated the planet and the War of he Ancients and other subsequent events at the hands of the legion shattered their race. So are they going to reunify as a single civilization or what? I kind of don't see any continued divisions within Elven society any longer being simply a horde vs Alliance issue. They should be looking to their future as a race not as a faction.

In fact the whole idea of two main factions doesn't make sense anymore. Why on earth do we need a horde vs alliance anymore anyway. All of that is purely a result of the legion. They are gone. Each race should be going on their own path. That would make the game much more interesting that simply two factions "just because". Each race has a story and should have a future outside of a simplistic horde/alliance faction division. It really doesn't make any sense any more with no Legion. Yet with BfA we are permanently dividing Azeroth between two factions, forcing all the races on Azeroth to be in one or the other.

[Fixxit the Gnome]

I like the premise.

It makes sense to me that, without an apparent ultimate evil, the factions would start caring about their own interests again. And I guess the introduction of Azerite and whatever shady business that goes down before the burning of Teldrassil would create more tension. As far as the NPC's know, Azeroth is safe for the foreseeable future.

Not every character in Warcraft lore is as omniscient as we the players are. I'll make an educated guess and say that most characters aren't aware of the lingering threat of the Void Lords.

I'd rather have an organic reveal of a greater threat over the course of the expansion, than some contrived villain with an equally contrived motive they dragged out from nowhere.

[Blamblam41]

Last time I checked it was still world of warcraft and not world of lovecraft

Last time I checked we have old gods burrowed in our planet, a giant hole a fallen titan stabbed into our planet and void lords are lurking out in the ether.

Don't see a reason why we can't Warcraft the fuck out of those guys.

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I like the premise.

It makes sense to me that, without an apparent ultimate evil, the factions would start caring about their own interests again. And I guess the introduction of Azerite and whatever shady business that goes down before the burning of Teldrassil would create more tension. As far as the NPC's know, Azeroth is safe for the foreseeable future.

Not every character in Warcraft lore is as omniscient as we the players are. I'll make an educated guess and say that most characters aren't aware of the lingering threat of the Void Lords.

I'd rather have an organic reveal of a greater threat over the course of the expansion, than some contrived villain with an equally contrived motive they dragged out from nowhere.

That is complete and utter bullshit. I don't even have to argue and link anything to know you're talking out of your ass when you think the NPCs are somehow unaware of N'zoth, void lords, the naga threat and otherwise.

[bufferunderrun]

Azshara as the main storyline required a full underwater xpack, blizzard simply don't want to made it and so we get most of the open world content focused on alliance vs horde
Warfront, Dailies/wq, Questing etc. until mid/late xpack when we get a raid and a small instanced zone with naga/old god minions.

that is no big reason behind bfa, what is gonna suck is the story because factions are always in balance a war is the shittiest plot to use, the only way to make the faction war work is to made it into a single player game.

[Stormspellz]

Going back to throwing rocks at each other every other expansion sure is getting old.

"Hey! Let set aside our differences and work together to overthrow this universe/world ending threat!"

"Agreed!"

Sometime passes

"Well we did it. The Universe Devourer is dead."

"..."

"..."

"Well now that both of our armies are weakened and we've only just starting to recover, we should probably get involved in a long drawn out military conflict over a piece of land that is of no particular importance."

"Yes, lets."

"FOR THE HORDE/ALLIANCE RAWRR WAR STUFF"

it is reflective of real life tbh, look at england france history, they where always waging war on each other, but joined together against outside threats like spain/middle east.

[Dreknar20]

They dont explain well WHY.

simple geopolitics

More land/people/power for your country the better. Said things taken from the biggest rival to yourself, even better.

Plus the ass loads of reasons from their history that to lead to resentment toward each other.

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Don't see a reason why we can't Warcraft the fuck out of those guys.

and who says we don't?

Have to be a complete dumb fuck moron to think the only enemy NPCs across the entire expansion will be those of the enemy faction. The Blizz reveal alone already dispels that, as well as common sense.

[MrLachyG]

I can understand why Genn and Jaina wants to throw the alliance into a war with the horde, but Velen and Anduin have always been about peace.

So it just seems really out of character for Anduin to be like, "Screw them all, let's kill all the horde! It's not like my time with the pandas back in MoP meant anything. My daddys dead I blame the Lich-Queen! OFF WITH HER HEAD"

I understand that SOMETHING is going to happen to spark the flames of war, but it just seems really odd that we're going to start a world war when we still have some of the worst threats left on Azeroth to deal with, namely the old gods and Azshara(Why the crap is she a second tier raid boss? What's that crap all about?!)

Yeah it's world of warcraft, but an entire expansion based on Horde V Alliance feels strange when there's still other plotlines left to finish.

it wont be an entire expansion, just the start of it I believe. and it's a good start - we needed to fight internal Azeroth threats rather than external ones.

[Dreknar20]

NPCs are somehow unaware of N'zoth, void lords, the naga threat and otherwise.

none of which are currently threatning Azeroth.

and N'zoth and Void Lords are at this point imaginary boogey men that no one ever seen

[sam86]

Ok, so who is it?.......

Mostly Sylvannas, they are pushing her to Lich King path since ages, even if she has fanbase, they seem to be planning to kill her + blizz obvious 'horde bias' is shown by how they like to fuck our cities turning them to raids and how to make our leaders to loot piniatas
Every single wc2 horde hero is killable vs every alliance hero stayed a hero among many things
I'd be surprised if they decided it is alliance turn to be 'favored' and turn Anduin to loot piniata tbh, either way faction war ends with one faction leader head on spike

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How does it not make sense? The alliance and horde have essentially been in a Cold War with each other throughout WoW’s history. There are constant skirmishes between the two factions, and each side has resources that the other needs. The Horde needs the lumber that the Night Elves control, meanwhile the Alliance wants the cultural resource that is Lordaeron back from the Horde. Each side could use their allies on the other continent as a staging point for an attack as well (as we saw with Gilneas).

U don't literally help each others in cold war as shown in legion, alliance and horde are almost best buddies with exception of tiny fraction of undead/worgen, alliance and horde armies stand united in sarumar, horde go defend Exodar, alliance invite horde to Vindicaar, in patch 7.2 can u tell me where is the 'alliance and horde'? in class hall u get iconic alliance/horde champions to follow u like Arathor and Liadrin, Broll and Zen'tebra, and so many others
How exactly after we spent entire expansion best buddies united as one without even hint of tension to on each others throats ? fighting to death? How can someone like Saurfang (the old orc with white hair in cinematic), who is probably the most veteran warrior alive in Azeroth now, a very strong peace speaker and lover, and Baine, be 'okay' with Sylvanas if she was the bad guy? Only 2 faction leaders are shown to want war, Greymane and Jaina, u can add Sylvanas but she is never 'clear' if u want, that still doesn't - and shouldn't - be able to motivate entire horde vs alliance
And if u'll use world history as example u can see how we learned from ww1 & 2 and not repeated it again since ever, ww1 can be wc1 & 2 events, ww 2 can be pandalands events, what now ? ww3?
This war came out of blue, there wasn't a single hint in any class hall that alliance and horde even hate each others, in fact in rogue campaign for example as horde player u are tasked to SAVE alliance, and same for alliance, who go kill humoncoli spies of legion in HORDE cities, another fucking example of how we went to long length to HELP each others, not kill each others
How can an alliance rogue hero, who risked his life to help horde, go kill horde just few months later ?
Let's not forget why would highmountain decide to join horde for example, making them declare war on half of azeroth (alliance), while alliance were as nice to them as horde? what about nightborne, who maybe received some harsh words from Tyrande, a little slap on arm, but still -nontheless- get massive help from alliance, decide to ruin their lives and instead of be neutral, ally with horde against a serious threat of alliance? why would lightforged Draenei, who - again - received exact same help from horde as alliance did, decide to instead of stay neutral, be alliance ? Specially since Velen is - like Saurfang - a very strong peace speaker, who would never go to war like that, the only race that make sense at least is Dark Iron dwarfs, whose leader is already alliance in first place
See how many plot-holes that can fill entire galaxies in them? Legion may had the least alliance vs horde events ever in history of wow, even WoD had more tension between alliance/horde in Ashran, Wrath we had Garrosh and Varian who were constantly at each other throats, in legion we have couple of quests of Sylvanas actually defending herself from Greymane aggression, then nothing at all