Legion messed up the entire Warcraft universe

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Since I already wrote about this a while ago, I'll just quote myself:



tl;dr: Golden is a pretty bad writer.

I don’t really see the problem with providing recaps like that one a lot of books/series tend to do that. I also don’t see the problem with referencing to in game events if they truly happen in the world why would the characters in the world not know of them? Phrases are more of a subjective thing.

[Deleted]

Atleast BfA is a credible Warcraft story. The Burning Legion has always been a joke and WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too large of a threat. It’s just too large scale. .

Inclined to agree.

Any realistic writer would run into the following issues with Legion's ending:
- What happens to the countless unemployed demons across the Great Dark whom still have the goal to annihilate all life.
- What happens to Argus now that its world soul has been defeated/killed(?)
- Unlike Afrasiabi claimed, the end of Antorus did not properly explain whether Argus is the source of soul regeneration for demons or simply increases the recovery rate of said souls.
- Still not properly explained how Sargeras got his hands on the Titan Souls that, according to Chronicles Vol. I, are supposed to be harbored within Azeroth's keepers.

But even Legion's end, which I liked, doesn't raise nearly as many universe/continuity shattering questions as fucking WoD did with the 'one Legion across all timelines' bullshit fiasco.

[ChronoSul]

I more meant horde vs alliance :P

while the planet is bleeding to death you are forgetting a key factor here

[Monkeymoo]

Yes, fighting the other faction when your planet got stabbed by a giant sword and is bleeding to death is credible.

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Warcraft II.

Was it rrally? How so? I’m genuinely asking cause I only remember the Legion becoming a thing in 3. I was also like 12 at the time so that may have had something to do with it lol

[Wildberry]

If they don't have a hard time finding work to do, then usually yes. And that's the case here.

Now the fact that you don't like the work she does is in no way an objective fact.

Looking at her bibliography she has worked on many well known franchises for multiple year (Including Star Wars and Star Trek). And glancing on the reviews of a few randomly picked books it seems to be positive feedback in the majority of reviews.

I've actually raised a number of valid and objective criticisms of her work in this thread, though. This isn't simply a distaste on my end for her work. If she's able to find work in spite of that, fantastic I suppose; however, her ability to find work, doesn't negate the missteps she routinely makes when writing.

[Fayolynn]

Still better than Metzen...

Setting the bar pretty low.

[Nerovar]

I see a lot of people say this but not expand on it. Why do you think she’s a bad writer I for one really liked tides of war though war crimes was meh.

I've hinted a few things in one of my other posts but it's off-topic and the thread is already kinda derailed. Writing an in-depth critique of one of her novels would also require me to re-read it (and I really don't want to do that) and is also a lot of work I don't want to put into something this banal. So yes; I did state an opinion and not a fact because I only remember that her novels (the ones that I read anyway) were bad. You can either take my word for it or don't. I just don't understand why someone would call me a troll because of this comment. lol

[ChronoSul]

Inclined to agree.

Any realistic writer would run into the following issues with Legion's ending:
- What happens to the countless unemployed demons across the Great Dark whom still have the goal to annihilate all life.
- What happens to Argus now that its world soul has been defeated/killed(?)
- Unlike Afrasiabi claimed, the end of Antorus did not properly explain whether Argus is the source of soul regeneration for demons or simply increases the recovery rate of said souls.
- Still not properly explained how Sargeras got his hands on the Titan Souls that, according to Chronicles Vol. I, are supposed to be harbored within Azeroth's keepers.

But even Legion's end, which I liked, doesn't raise nearly as many universe/continuity shattering questions as fucking WoD did with the 'one Legion across all timelines' bullshit fiasco.

Im guessing this was due to the ulduar invasion that only warrior players got to see in their order hall story. And with the demons they will probably just go back to fighting each other

[Shadochi]

Setting the bar pretty low.

Still raising the lore bar of wow...

[CreatureLives]

What are you even talking about?

The only way you could get 5 expansions out of the story of Legion is if they were 5 really bad expansions.

Gul'dan doesn't even count since he's not even the real Gul'dan. His character didn't require much more development.

The Titans were never going to be a big threat because they weren't really "bad guys" only Sargeras is and there was no way we were ever going to be able to fight him. He destroys planets with little effort. He could cause another cataclysm just by sneezing. Speaking of Cataclysm, a enemy like Deathwing for us was considered a massive threat to the world and Sargeras could have eaten Deathwing like he was a potato chip. We needed the help of the Titans just to stop Sargeras.

Nobody would have wanted to play the Argus Expansion (especially after Legion), the Emerald Nightmare Expansion or the Stormheim expansion. They are great ideas but not for the entirety of an expansion.

Legion was about finishing up some storylines that have been out there for a long time that didn't deserve their own expansion but were great in small bits and didn't necessarily fit in other expansions. Alleria & Turalyon, Illidan, Draenei homeworld, Reintroducing the Naga, The Titans, The Legion, Emerald Nightmare, Suramar, etc.

I can't believe someone is actually complaining that there is too much story. This thread is proof that you can't please everyone. People complained about there not being enough story in past expansions and with Legion they really put in the work to make every storyline feel big.

Can you imagine the outrage if an expansion was put out and Helya was the main villain for 2 years? LOL.

Just because a storyline is important doesn't mean it's long.

And don't worry about raid tiers. tiers don't mean how important something is. tiers only exist for gameplay reasons not story reasons. There have been tiers in the past that storyline wise were equally as important as lesser tiers. Usually the final tier is more important but everything below that doesn't necessarily mean it's in order of importance.

[Deleted]

Was it rrally? How so? I’m genuinely asking cause I only remember the Legion becoming a thing in 3. I was also like 12 at the time so that may have had something to do with it lol

Sargeras, Kil'jaeden and his army of daemons were introduced in Warcraft II manual.

[Wildberry]

I don’t really see the problem with providing recaps like that one a lot of books/series tend to do that. I also don’t see the problem with referencing to in game events if they truly happen in the world why would the characters in the world not know of them? Phrases are more of a subjective thing.

When you're taking massive breaks in dialogue to recap the entire history of Sylvanas Windrunner, that's bad writing. You might not mind it, but it's objectively bad writing. How are phrases like "Holly jolly" a subjective thing?

[Monkeymoo]

while the planet is bleeding to death you are forgetting a key factor here

Honestly if there was some catastrophe on earth how long do you think it would be before we started fighting each other? :P
But no I know what you’re saying. I thought it was odd after uniting and facing the biggest threat we’ve had we just went back to fighting each other. I know “the planet is bleeding” I was just speaking on the more basic theme of each expansion. Like BfA (minus bleeding planet part) is a decent enough and logical theme for WoW, that being Horder vs. Alliance.

[Manabomb]

I see a lot of people say this but not expand on it. Why do you think she’s a bad writer I for one really liked tides of war though war crimes was meh.

Because she writes the characters completely different than how they are written in the game, and she can't even write them well. Jaina as a character has been butchered to absolute hell under her reign between war crimes and tides of war alone.

For a woman she certainly only seems capable of writing men.

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Honestly if there was some catastrophe on earth how long do you think it would be before we started fighting each other? :P
But no I know what you’re saying. I thought it was odd after uniting and facing the biggest threat we’ve had we just went back to fighting each other. I know “the planet is bleeding” I was just speaking on the more basic theme of each expansion. Like BfA (minus bleeding planet part) is a decent enough and logical theme for WoW, that being Horder vs. Alliance.

Don't bring earth into this. This is a fantasy, the problem is when the fantasy loses what little sense it was trying to make and loses that fantastic feeling.

[Monkeymoo]

Sargeras, Kil'jaeden and his army of daemons were introduced in Warcraft II manual.

As The Burning Legion, conqueror of a 1000 worlds, Or just a demon army?

[Deleted]

Since I already wrote about this a while ago, I'll just quote myself:



tl;dr: Golden is a pretty bad writer.

Nice explanation. I read a small section of a preview of War Crimes when it first came out and when I came to the darkmoon faire comparison I cringed and closed the page.

[emilpor]

I just saw the ending cinematic of Antorus. It's amazing how little I care about anything happening here.

In my opinion they completely destroyed the entire Warcraft story with Legion. They rushed through a lot of major villains and other characters like the titans without much buildup. Nothing feels like it matters anymore. We see Sargeras and I don't feel anything.

Just look at what this expansion did in just about a year:
- They wasted the Emerald Nightmare as an entry raid. Ursoc gone, Xavius gone.
- Gul'dan gone in the same tier.
- Helya introduced and thrown away in a half-tier.
- Kil'jaeden gone.
- Aggramar used as a pre-final boss.
- Other titans shown all at once and then just put away again.
- Argus is done with (the planet as well as the guy).
- Sargeras introduced and locked away in the same cutscene. Only thing he says is 'no'.
- Illidan re-introduced and then put away again.
- A lot of other major lore characters, important weapons (artifacts) used outside of raids and pretty much thrown away.

I'm really sorry, but this is too much. Far too much.
In the last expansion it all led up to Archimonde. And now here we are throwing away major lore characters left and right - and that's not even enough. We need to introduce new ones like Argus and then throw them away as well. And all of that on top of throwing away a whole arsenal of legendary weapons that had major lore significance.

It's like they threw everything into this that once had a name in the Warcraft universe. And for what? Now everything feels irrelevant. It's like our characters are plowing through the entirety of Warcraft history and just burning everything to the ground.

Legion had enough lore for 5 expansions, as far as I see it. But instead they chose to rush through everything and throw away most of what many players know about Warcraft. Good job.

I feel the same. I stopped right before this patch. I'm done. I loved this game, but ... writers are butchering it. They are either preparing WoW2 or just want to kill it. They do it slow tho, milking it while they still can, instead of fixing it. Everyone kisses their(devs) a** for Legion, but for me it wasn't that great. Sure, I didn't kill KJ mythic in time, Avatar mythic was my last boss(got C.E. for the prev ones, so I explored all the content). I don't feel like there's anything for me to play for in this game anymore. I was always invested in the story, but they left too many loose ends cut the middle of the story, skipped characters, and so on. (also listed in OP's post). Maybe I'm just getting old.

I liked the idea of mythic + (and still do), but it will ultimately kill raiding, at least it's looking like this. Lets look at the next expansion:
On the 20 man content side: no tier sets, very little(to no) reward for hard effort, no support for the WF race or the competitive side from the devs.
On the 5 man content side: TF/WF system that can go as high (and over) raid gear, low investment with great payout(do a 10 once a week and get mythic level gear), devs support the competitive side.

Also, a negative for raiding nowadays would be that it requires very high investment (farming for everything and getting ready for raiding in advance and ACTUALLY performing well) and returns a low payout. Game design that keeps you playing JUST so you will pay the monthly sub, instead of playing because of content. Catch-up mechanisms that are in place to destroy the effort and investment done during the expansion making you irrelevant every 3-4 months, making you start over from the same level as everyone else.
Not a game for me anymore...

[Zamfix]

It's not that nothing needs to change, just seems a little crazy we are wrapping up some pretty gigantic plot lines as if they were nothing in Legion, but are expected to give a shit about the faction war coming up?

How the fuck am I sposed to care about the dumb shit sylvanas does or the dipshittery that Genn does when everything in Legion is of infinite more importance yet was breezed through without a second glance.

So don't care? It's a game. You're still gonna have raids and PvP and dungeons and stuff. So what?

[Deleted]

As The Burning Legion, conqueror of a 1000 worlds, Or just a demon army?

Conqueror of worlds. After all, it all started with an interplanetary portal between Draenor and Azeroth. Adding the multiple portals that Ner'zhul opened and all led to Twisting Nether.

[Kathranis]

There's only so much they can do with the big cosmic Galactus-style stuff in WoW. At the end of the day we're playing 2~8 foot tall mortals. Unless you want us to get some giant Gurren Lagann style mecha, we're never going to be able to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Sargeras.

It's ultimately for the best that they bring the cosmic-level stuff to an end. The scale doesn't suit the medium.


Now that Sargeras, the Pantheon, and the Burning Legion are squared away, they can return to conflicts on the scope of a world, starting with a return to faction conflict and a passing of the torch to a new generation of mortal heroes and villains.

The void lords are essentially a blank slate, and when the time comes to start bringing them into focus, Blizzard now has the freedom to take a completely different approach with them than they did with Sargeras and the Legion. I, for one, hope that they take a similar approach to the Lovecraftian elder gods, allowing them to assume mortal forms and interact with us on a more reasonable scale, more akin to the Lich King or Illidan than Archimonde or Sargeras, while still wielding the power to corrupt and destroy worlds.