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

[rowaasr13]

Nuking is bad? You must be upset World War II didn't last as long as you wanted.

Yeah, of course mighty nation of Japan would've fucked everyone if not for Captain America! After all they had lots of hardware, high morale among higher-ups, no Russians pressing from the border and support of great Deutschland. Please let this excuse rot in your schoolbooks. If you think bombing was anything but a signal to USSR, then I have a bridge to sell you. Yes, my little murder and war crimes apologist, nuking IS bad.

[Dialout]

You can't get mad at people for feeling a certain way or try to make them feel guilty for not liking it. That's called being a controlling dbag.

I've been in this community since the beginning, it's literally never not been how it is now or "how it used to be", it's always been like this for better or worse. People voice their opinion. Actually things used to be farrrrr more serious and toxic then they are now.

They actually listened to their players and made changes? About what exactly? What is different than this and COD? They both consist of the same thing with slight changes every new release.

Enlighten me.

I'm not telling people how to feel beyond abstaining from being incessant whiners. You are all entitled to your opinion. Absolutely. My point was that it's barely been a day since the new announcements and people are already tearing it apart instead of looking at the positives.

And if you honestly have to ask about what changes they've made in the last decade that coincide with 90% of the "feedback" they receive, then I dunno what you've paid attention to "since the beginning" but you've clearly missed a lot.

And the toxicity that used to exist is what bred the WoW we play today. All the Vanilla whiners who actually enjoy the shitshow that Vanilla was, complaining about current content because it should be this or that but isn't even remotely like what Vanilla was and lo and behold they are working on Classic servers because of the endless whining and legal issues that have arisen due to people living in a game created over a decade ago.

Guaranteed those people will play classic for a few months and be like "shit there's nothing new...." and then what? Complain about no updates to classic servers instead of just playing the newest content?

The fact that nobody is ever happy was entirely my point.

The fact that the forums are flooded with this drivel instead of any form of hype is baffling especially considering the majority of those players continue playing anyway. Blizz doesn't care if they quit playing. There are always new players and returning players to fill the extremely minimal gaps.

Enlighten yourself.

It may have always been like this but if you can't honestly admit that the community, especially forum based, has gotten worse in the past 4-6 years, you're not paying close enough attention.

Or maybe it just doesn't bother you because you're part of the problem.

Who knows?

You want me to respect all the negative opinions? Then you need to respect the ones opposing them.

[Yassy]

why? Explain that.

One of the things that held the game together and helped popularize it to the point it has, has been the very strong faction allegiance players have to their respective faction. From a narrative stand point as well, players become more emotionally involved when their favorite lore characters become their enemies. It creates grey areas in the story. As an alliance, you dont necessarily want the Horde to lose if you like/respect the character Saurfang. But you also might feel more immersed into the story if you play Worgen and your main enemy is Sylvanas.

Again, from a Narrative stand point it makes sense for the Alliance to go straight to war even after Legion. There is this new resource flowing throughout the world. It has a high value. Why would they hold hands afterwards? The horde still hold old Alliance lands. The Gilnean's still dont have their home. The Arathi havnt had a home in over a decade.

From a design standpoint, this gives them time to actually flesh out story lines instead of rush them like the Genn/Sylvanas plot in Legion. The Alliance and Horde honestly didnt even have much impact on fighting the Legion in the first place. The Order Halls, Kirin Tor, Army of the Light, and Draenei did. If the game was to start at the next MAJOR plot point, the Void, the story would feel rushed. Game systems would feel rushed and unrefined.

This expansion is great because it allows them to add great content, push the narrative at a better pace, design systems at a better pace, and not be forced to start cutting content from the start. And Dark Rangers are so obviously the next class, it gives them more time to implement them. They get another expansion to test/refine max level progression. Another expansion to test/refine World Quests. And the narrative doesn't get completely ruined like Cataclysm's was.

Blizzard's philosophy in WoW now is to push a steady stream of new content and refinements to the game periodically instead of once every 2-3 years. Having "filler" expansions like this is only good for the games health. Were still getting new raids. Still getting new dungeons. New races, new features. The story just isnt taking that obvious next step yet, which is honestly a good thing. Azshara gets an expansion to herself basically instead of being side kicked next to Old Gods/Void Lords. And the world gets to change a little.

[Xorn]

And out of hurt feelings because Jaina (who was not the leader of teh Alliance) said some bad words, they decided to instead of rejoining the alliance to just invent a manabomb and nuke a city of innocent people. Justified I guess?

Wow. You.... have no grasp of what happened, do you?

The manabomb had already happened. Garrosh had done that pretty much in secret.

Most of the horde leaders weren't too thrilled with that.

Then he starts this orcs only shit that they really hated, and they also disagreed with his brutal tactics.

Lorth Theron was in talks with Varian to betray Garrosh and join the alliance.

Then, because one blood elf opened a port to darnassus so Garrosh could steal a bell Jaina straight up murdered and imprisoned a bunch of innocent people. That pretty much ruined that. So the belves said fuck Garrosh, but also fuck your alliance, we'll just deal with him ourselves.

[Techno-Druid]

To be honest, it seems like a lot of events revealed are a bit of a stretch.

Remember that while tauren consider themselves to be the closest allies to the orcs, they would never agree to the burning of Teldrassil. In fact a majority of the Horde races actually care about nature; tauren shamanistic, orcs shamanistic, trolls shamanistic, pandaren shamanistic. I just can't imagine the tauren willingly allowing the Horde to burn down Teldrassil.

[Krille]

Blizzard have chosen now as the time to reveal their expansion and they have chosen to reveal some of the story aswell. That they then make that story not make sense is what makes me disappointed. I am not impatient, i know that they can still make a good story, i just think that it is a bad sign, that the story they show for their reveal does not create a good enough background for the conflict there is in the game.

The only story i've seen so far is some about why we're going to Kul Tiras and Zandalar, the only thing they said about the war was that something about resources being scarce. The Teldrassil/Undercity thing does make sense, because then the factions will have their own continent, Silvermoon is still up there but maybe that's a future fight not being shown yet. But the story seems to be going -> Alliance want all of Eastern Kingdoms for themselves, Horde wants all of Kalimdor. It's not "randomly" attacking those two points, anyone saying that simply isnt paying attention.

I mean they even wrote a whole book about the events leading up to BFA. It's also written by an accomplished author so i don't think it's filled with nothing of substance.

[Flurryfang]

Except her entire voyage was for her own gain. If you didn't play Horde, meeting in Helheim looks like "championslol, enjoy being fucked up by Helya while I negotiate what I want from her, kthxbye". And, IIRC, that's the only two things she ever did in Legion: piss of Alliance on Broken Shore and trying to to piss it off again in Stormheim, but failing miserably. Can you remind how exactly Zombivanas helped this entire "fight against Legion" stuff? I mean all she did in expansion was purely for her own advantage. Not for the Horde. And I suspect not even for all Forsaken as well. Isn't second warmongering racist Warchief one two retarded Warchiefs too much for a faction? That's why I'm pissed about Horde story and "waaaaaaaaagh! war!" that always comes with it.

It is already a common known thing, that Sylvans does not really care about the Horde overall, other then having them be in good shape, so that the Forsaken is safe within the unity. So her just saying " You take care of yourself" in Helheim makes sense, because we do not really matter overall.

Also, her going to helheim was to make sure, that her people did not die(proof in the latest novel). That is pretty much a noble action, doing something for her people and not for herself. It might even be seen as something a queen would do.

And sure she has done very little in Legion, but she shares that with all the other leaders. Anduin has done shit while his champions fought the Legion, so it is something that is mimiced in the overall story for all the leaders, that they are inactive.

Finally, she is not a warmonger. Since Cata, she has not been aggresive against the Alliance at all. She did not even hunt down Genn when he attacked her at Stormheim. She might be selfish when it comes to bettering her own race and she might not be the most charming character in the world, but she has shown any sign of wanting to fight the alliance or create an excuse to do so.

[Jastall]

but there is buildup, it's not out of the blue at all
the reasonings are realistic AND petty "you've killed our king" and "you've condemned my entire race to death", are two pretty good reasons for war, there's also the good old, "we have no more reason to play nice since the legion is gone, and we've hated each other's guts for over 30 years"

if anything we temporarily stopped having war because of the legion, not the other way around


having to hold hands for the current *insert big bad villain name here* every expansion gets much MUCH more boring, than going into open war once or twice.

There's a way to write a war without going all-out in defiance of all logic just because team blue doesn't like team red. Have a parallel conflict going on, again a sort of Vietnam orchestrated by the leaders who actually want war (Sylv and Greymane mostly) which doesn't drag the entire faction down with them and doesn't take over the narrative. You could have it as part of a semi-persistent PvP narrative. That sounds much more believable and cool to me than having Anduin of all people be out for blood. Kinda like it was in Vanilla, the sub-factions in the battlegrounds enlisted willing bodies for war but Thrall wasn't screaming for Fordragon's head just because he was a human and humans are meanies so let's kill them fur da herd.

I'm not saying Horde and Alliance should love each other, no no. I've been for any faction merger or whatnot. I'm saying they shouldn't be so fucking retarded about disliking each other, because this will probably be the 10th or 11th time they started fighting then had to stop and band together because, surprise, WoW isn't a PvP game and the world is always doomed by something. And it's like they don't know it's coming, Malfurion spells it out as soon as EN and everyone trips over each other to tell you the Void is a threat in 7.3.

[Aeula]

Yeah, of course mighty nation of Japan would've fucked everyone if not for Captain America! After all they had lots of hardware, high morale among higher-ups, no Russians pressing from the border and support of great Deutschland. Please let this excuse rot in your schoolbooks. If you think bombing was anything but a signal to USSR, then I have a bridge to sell you. Yes, my little murder and war crimes apologist, nuking IS bad.

I'm not saying winning was out of the question. Obviously by the point America nuked them the allies had won. But the war itself would have persisted for long after that. 'Murder' is a crime of peace and war crimes are a child's notion of how the world works.

Theramoore was a valid military target, as was Japan in the real world. The Horde possessed a weapon and they used it, saving untold numbers of their own troops from dying in a long siege and crippling the Alliance and Alliance-sympathetic factions at the same time. The mana bomb has never been effectively re-used on a large scale because it requires a component that there's only one of.

As for wiping the other faction off the map, that's kinda what both factions are doing right now.

[shaunika123]

The difference is that arthas did that as a deathknight with undead minions with no free will.

Orcs however followed Garrosh pretty happyly out of free will, so did the goblins, blood elves and forsaken. Only the trolls were somewhat hesitant.

did arthas purge stratholme as a deathknight?
did he burn his own ships to force his men to stay in northrend and condemn them to death as a deathknight?
did he kill muradin as a death knight?


and we could use the logic that garrosh was under the influence of ysharaj and had no free will too.


and no, almost everyone barring the orcs were plotting against garrosh, he actually murdered quite a few of every faction because they were treasonous towards him.

the tauren and the trolls directly helped to mitigate the theramore disaster and are basically responsible for jaina still being alive at all
and the blood elves almost defected back to the alliance because of him.

only the orcs and the goblins were loyal to him(and not even all orcs: see saurfang), and the goblins only really because it made financial sense to them.

so no, garrossh has never truly represented the horde as a whole ever. he went against almost everything thrall's new horde stood for, with almost every action he made after the cataclysm.

[Firatha]

Why are we badmouthing the story when we know literally nothing?

Why are WoW fans such pessimists that they will criticize something they know nothing about? Can you wait until it's out or we know more to say the 'premise pretty terrble from a lore stand point'?

And then people will realize that the bridging story is in a book and whine they have to read it like Warcrimes for MOP to WOD.

[Flurryfang]

The only story i've seen so far is some about why we're going to Kul Tiras and Zandalar, the only thing they said about the war was that something about resources being scarce. The Teldrassil/Undercity thing does make sense, because then the factions will have their own continent, Silvermoon is still up there but maybe that's a future fight not being shown yet. But the story seems to be going -> Alliance want all of Eastern Kingdoms for themselves, Horde wants all of Kalimdor. It's not "randomly" attacking those two points, anyone saying that simply isnt paying attention.

I mean they even wrote a whole book about the events leading up to BFA. It's also written by an accomplished author so i don't think it's filled with nothing of substance.

.... You are setting this in a game design point of view and not a player or story point of view. Having Sylvanas attack Teldrassil and Anduin Undercity makes sense from a gamedesign standpoint, each faction have their continent, but from a story point it makes no sense. And that is really the problem we are talking about here.

Like, you might be able to come up with a billion good game design arguments for the Horde to attack Wetlands in the game, but unless you make it make sense from a story standpoint, people are still gonna be standing and say "What??? O.o" when the content is released.

If you have to read an entire book to understand what is going on in the game, then you are making a bad game-story. This is quite obvious.

- - - Updated - - -

Why are we badmouthing the story when we know literally nothing?

Why are WoW fans such pessimists that they will criticize something they know nothing about? Can you wait until it's out or we know more to say the 'premise pretty terrble from a lore stand point'?

We are being critical at the story right now, because Blizz have hinted at the story and it makes no sense with the knowlegde they gave us. You would expect, that Blizzard would release enough of the story to make the concept of the expansion make sense.

[Khaza-R]

Could be a war against something other than each other.

We have. Its old.

[Flurryfang]

Well, see, Aduin TOLD Genn not to go looking for trouble, but then he did.

I'm calling it right now that Genn in some way talks Anduin into it, or even goes as far as to deceive or trick him to go to war

That would be cool. Having Genn lie about Sylvanas could proberly spark a war and if anybody have a good reason to lie and start a war, it is Greymane.

[Mojo03]

Hard to tell if it's a bad expansion or if was just presented poorly. I find they are better (expansions) once you play them and see all the work that went into them, then how they are marketed...

This one sounds pretty weak. Especially compared to Legion.

"Heart of Azeroth" seems like an underwhelming replacement for artifacts and the armor aspect feels convoluted for the sake of making it seem more dynamic than it really is. Perhaps it just needs to be fleshed out more?

"Allied races" is a nice addition. Nothing negative to say about it. Surprised we didn't get brown orcs right away.

"Warfronts" I don't think will work how they want. 20 people are gonna want to each do something different. The lack of adding anything that feels meaningful to the battle yourself takes away a lot of what makes RTS games fun. Most people will basically just get resources and randomly put them into the building everyone else is putting it into without real thought or strategy.

"Islands" small scenarios with random mobs in 4 difficulties. Seem to be pushing this as the most compelling thing in the panels. Sounds like repackaged scenarios to me. We'll see.

Legion had like 9-10 features that all were all fairly compelling.

This one has 2 (allied races, new continents look neat) and war zones I'm sorta on the fence with, but not really compelled with so far.

I don't think this is gonna attract a lot of new people or compel old ones to come back. Seems to just give people who want something new to do, something to do.

[Krille]

.... You are setting this in a game design point of view and not a player or story point of view. Having Sylvanas attack Teldrassil and Anduin Undercity makes sense from a gamedesign standpoint, each faction have their continent, but from a story point it makes no sense. And that is really the problem we are talking about here.

Like, you might be able to come up with a billion good game design arguments for the Horde to attack Wetlands in the game, but unless you make it make sense from a story standpoint, people are still gonna be standing and say "What??? O.o" when the content is released.

If you have to read an entire book to understand what is going on in the game, then you are making a bad game-story. This is quite obvious.

Ehh what, why wouldn't it make sense to eliminate the opponent on your continent in a story PoV? Anyone would take the strategic advantage of having an entire sea between you and your opponent. They released those youtube shortfilms/storybits pre-WoD and Legion, i'm sure they'll keep doing that. And i never said you should read the book, i meant that if someone has written an entire book about the events leading up to BFA, surely Blizzard (who owns the book) can take bits and pieces from the most important stuff in that book and put it in youtube clips or the pre-expansion events that also ALWAYS happens.

[Aucald]

Let's leave real-world politics and examples out of the discussion. Debate the expansion's premise and the Horde/Alliance conflict in a relevant context.

[Firatha]

Bolding so people see this

We just have to wait for "Before the Storm" to come out as it seems to have the tie in just like Warcrimes did.

Before the Storm (World of Warcraft) Hardcover – May 15, 2018

"An all-new, official tie-in novel to Blizzard Entertainment’s critically acclaimed World of Warcraft, from New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden

Taking place after the climactic events of Shadows of Argus, World of Warcraft: Before the Storm tells the story of what awaits the heroes of the Horde and the Alliance in the wake of their struggle against the demonic Burning Legion"

https://www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-...dp/0399594094/

[StationaryHawk]

From the interactions shown between Varian and Sylvans on the Broken Shore, it did very much seem like past deeds had been forgotten and grudges had been buried. There needs to happend something for these things to be digged up and for the differences to matter again, because right now they don't matter.

I am also not at all branding BFA as a bullshit story expansion without having read 95% of the story, but the things they have spoiled, the signs they have showed worries me....... I want WoW to have a good story, they have even been close alot of times, but i just always fuck it up in the end......:And i fear that in the hunt to have an expansion based around faction conflict they will fail at making the players engaged in the actual conflict.

That's fair. Hopefully they'll give us something at least acceptable.

[Krille]

Hard to tell if it's a bad expansion or if was just presented poorly. I find they are better (expansions) once you play them and see all the work that went into them, then how they are marketed...

This one sounds pretty weak. Especially compared to Legion.

"Heart of Azeroth" seems like an underwhelming replacement for artifacts and the armor aspect feels convoluted for the sake of making it seem more dynamic than it really is. Perhaps it just needs to be fleshed out more?

"Allied races" is a nice addition. Nothing negative to say about it. Surprised we didn't get brown orcs right away.

"Warfronts" I don't think will work how they want. 20 people are gonna want to each do something different. The lack of adding anything that feels meaningful to the battle yourself takes away a lot of what makes RTS games fun. Most people will basically just get resources and randomly put them into the building everyone else is putting it into without real thought or strategy.

"Islands" small scenarios with random mobs in 4 difficulties. Seem to be pushing this as the most compelling thing in the panels. Sounds like repackaged scenarios to me. We'll see.

Legion had like 9-10 features that all were all fairly compelling.

This one has 2 (allied races, new continents look neat) and war zones I'm sorta on the fence with, but not really compelled with so far.

I really like Legion, it's my most played expansion to date. But the artifact power system, the WF/TF system + legendary system is among the worst systems they've made. Sure the AP made you play more, and you had to grind more for legendaries. But it was mostly frustrating to deal with. The WF/TF system, while keeping casuals in the game is a shit system because it just removes the reason to do higher content for many people (that play for loot).

After seeing the so-called "deep dive" into systems panel (hello numbers, more about races please?) i can see the Islands thing being a really great source of replayable content, doesn't look anything like scenarios to me except for using 3 players and being role agnostic. You've got "intelligent" AI (jury still out on that) and you can even compete against an opponent. I'm actually looking forward to this Islands thing, if it ends up anything as they talk about it.