Would WoD have been more tolerable without the Alternate Universe theme?

[styil]

Basically the title. Do you think people would have stuck around more for an expansion with a stronger theme? Perhaps with a strong and resonating story, people would have excused the lack of content and stuck around more.

[Illiterate]

Maybe they would stick around if there was more than a week of content.

[Deleted]

Well the idea itself could have been okey. Seeing those guys at their height of their power. Last time we saw those guys was in the novels. I was pretty excited for the lore. At least for the potential it had.

But they decided to throw it all out. Which is probably the biggest sin WoD ever commited.

[Wildmoon]

Lore is the aspect of the game that has the least impact on how good an expansion will turn out to be.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

WoD likely would have worked out if it didn't get treated like a yearly expansion that last much longer than a year. I would be lying if I wouldn't say the first couple months of WoD I enjoy its content. But what happened? Garrison dead ended into the same thing for what became years. Patch content was next to nonexistent unless it was just to add in a raid or something that was suppose to be in at launch.

Plain and simple if Blizzard hadn't been so instant on the yearly expansion model WoD would have likely been at least a decent expansion. But that insistence left it a shell of the expansion it could have been that had no opportunity to grow at all. Not to say it wouldn't have still had its problems on the philosophical side but I notice in this game when content starts to dry up is when the bitching goes up and people nitpick every little pixel apart and find anything and everything to complain about.

The alternate universe thing was kinda meh story wise. But it is also a very often visited subject in other sci-fi and fantasy stories that I adore. So that alone likely isn't completely it.

[Jshadowhunter]

It wouldn't change anything, lore progression is dependant on the content. Bad/lack of content = lack/bad lore

[ceall]

Hell, WoD would have been better without apexis grind but with Valor grind, as dungeons were completely irrelevant until Valor became a thing this expansion.

[tj119]

Would have been better without Garrisons and those resources divided elsewhere.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

No. I mentioned this in another thread, but there was never any mention of it in game. They failed to explain the AU in any way, it was an utter failure from a storytelling standpoint.

However, Warlords failed for other reasons. Had the story been told well, the MMO would still have run out of content. SWTOR has that issue, nailing storytelling but failing to retain players with lack of quality content. People don't keep playing MMOs for the story. They keep playing for the game.

[Aeula]

Lore wise? Yes. Gameplay wise no change obviously.

[Deleted]

Whilst I wasn't exactly thrilled about the theme for the expansion, it wasn't a deal breaker
My intitial worry was it would be yet another garrosh expansion, but luckily it didn't pan out that way
The only thing that actually put me off, was how core garrisons are to WoD, apart from leveling I had no reason to leave my garrison
I'm not usually an alt aholic , but for the first time ever, I found myself rolling new alts to do it again, then moment they hit 100 , do Tanaan chain, get to rep point they got the oil rig, then just checked them once a day after

[Irian]

That didn't have much of an impact at all on my opinion of the expansion.

Did I think it was kinda cheesy? No doubt, but I'd wished for ages to see the old Draenor again. It was a dream of mine to witness old draenei and orc civilization as they naturally existed, and while we didn't quite get that we got the next best thing and at least during questing in SMV I was not disappointed by what we got of the draenei, and honestly I loved draenor as a continent.

I think that's actually why I dislike it so much, or at least a huge part of it. There was so much potential in the idea, they had almost no limits. Even the ideas were cool. They just....honestly straight up fucked everything up, from the class design to the "red/black closed in orc furnace" after a raid that looked almost exactly the same, to the fiasco that was garrisons to tanaan jungle being everything I hated about Timeless Isle without the things I liked about Timeless Isle. The expansion just flat-out sucked to me, and didn't leave me interested in it at all. It had nothing to do with the time travel.

[Spiral Mage]

People wanted to see Outland before it was destroyed, an alternative timeline gave BLIZ the ability to explore this possibility without having to contort their main storyline. I heard alotta rage at the idea from others, but I myself was very interested in it .. however .. it should have been more aimed at a return to TBC. And in some ways, they did .. bringing back Kazzak, Teron Gorefiend, and many other throw-backs, while showing us how Draenor could have been.

Then came the lies, excuses and stalling about Flying. Whether you're pro-flight or against, BLIZ stated when it would become available .. then did not make it available, turning to lies, excuses, and stalling tactics -- which is not something we're used to seeing from BLIZ (on such a grand scale). That, and Flying has been a huge reward system which we have devoted countless hours towards through raiding, dungeons and rep grinding .. all those mounts were designed to FLY and look pretty bloody stupid running around on the ground .. ask most people and atleast in my experience, their favorite mount is a flying one .. so this long, drawn out, excuse laden battle over flying was totally ridiculous and understandably did alot of damage to BLIZ's reputation in the eyes of many.

Then we had the promise that there'd be more raiding content than ever .. with a solid line up of many warlords, all of which could have had their own raid instances .. but didn't .. you can't entirely fault for them changing their mind, as the community began to express discontent about fighting so many orcs across two expacs ..

But what this turned into, was still mostly orcs and a much more short-lived expac as BLIZ changed directions suddenly, and therefore, realized they had no idea how to proceed now .. leaving them to make BT 2.0, i.e. HFC quickly and then shove it into the game, naming it the final raid tier and leaving WOD to rot for even longer than MOP/SoO.

Garrisons .. while a good idea in theory, the reality of them was horrible. I originally actually tweet'd one of the devs, pointing out how impossible it would be to balance them in a way that made them compelling but not mandatory, I was told "they won't be mandatory at all, don't worry!" .. yeah .. right .. seriously, try going the entire expac without doing -anything- associated with the Garrison. You can't even really do that, and if you heavily ignore it .. you miss out on huge gains .. crafting mats, the limited time locked kind .. tons of gold .. and a barrage of other bonuses that come from the various buildings .. I told them, mandatory or ignored... and it became mandatory.

Which brings to mind the whole idea of mandatory, BLIZ says if you don't "ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO DO IT", it isn't mandatory .. but once a system, or idea in a game, becomes something that players ALL feel -must- be done .. then can you choose not to do it anyway? Sure .. but will you? No, you won't and neither will anyone else .. so then it is mandatory -- and once the community sees something as such .. the devs saying it isn't .. is pretty stupid at that stage.

WOD raids have been praised mostly for design, and mechanics and rightly so .. but the lies about flying, the lack of content .. it hasn't ended well for them at all .. but on one other plus side, Tanaan Jungle I feel was a huge leap forward from Timeless Isle, they clearly learned their lesson and improved on it greatly. (Check out Watcher actually referring to Tanaan as "pretty awful" in an interview .. wow .. really dude? You pretty much slammed/shamed your entire team who worked on that whole area .. and told them .. you suck .. it's terrible .. good job Ion .. )

[Pull My Finger]

The theme of the expansion didn't have the slightest thing to do with me not staying subbed.

Another Orc-centric expansion wasn't on the top of my wishlist, but then again, lore isn't particularly important to me in an MMO. I unsubbed due to the lack of interesting things to do.

[RedGamer030]

Cannot have Draenor without some type of time travel...

[Funky Kong]

Lore is the aspect of the game that has the least impact on how good an expansion will turn out to be.

I disagree. Arthas made Blizzard a boatload of money by being on the box of wotlk. Not only that, but the hype elevated the expansion with solid icc dungeons and the raid.

[Ciddy]

I have no problems at all with the time travel/alternate universe thing. My problem with WoD was getting bored with it after a short time of playing it. Getting from 90-100 was fun, and dicking around with the garrison until I managed to level it up kept me busy for a little while. After that...yeah. I got bored quickly.

I was active for a grand total of like 2 months in WoD, and WoD is the first expansion I've done that. Even Cataclysm kept me interested for most of the expansion. Of course, I was raiding in Cataclysm and wasn't doing so in WoD, so yeah. Maybe WoD's "raid or GTFO" thing didn't help either.

[Argarock]

Yes, I feel like the expansion would have been a little bit better.
Hated that all the cool shit we did, doesnt matter in the slightest for our universe (Velen dying, doesnt matter, our Velen is still alive)
For what feels like the first time ever, they manage to actually kill off good guys, in quests! and it doesnt matter AT ALL D:

[Pull My Finger]

I disagree. Arthas made Blizzard a boatload of money by being on the box of wotlk. Not only that, but the hype elevated the expansion with solid icc dungeons and the raid.

Huh?

Perhaps it helped sell copies, but that doesn't say anything about - what the guy you qouted said - the quality of the actual game.

[Rotted]

I dont know I can only speak for myself here but.....

6.1 (or 2 w/e it was) was a massive kick in the bollocks, theres 0 excuse that a big patches highlight should be intergrated twitter and selfies. That killed my interest in WoD. For two weeks I was like /shrug just keep going, theres plenty to do, but gradually I just gave up, I came back for HFC a month or two after release, but even now I'm still lagging behind, bored etc.