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

[Verbatim]

The alliance and horde banding together lasted for all of one cinematic. Classes banded together to face the Legion, but I’m pretty sure that Sylvanas and Greymane/Anduin were not feeling particularly positive towards the other faction.

Legion was Blizzard's shot at redeeming the brand after Warlords of Draenor tanked. They pretty much had to bring their strongest selling points in one go.

[Better]

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.

Faction war raids just feel bad though. SoO was a slog for me because we were just killing orcs in our faction capital for a year. It didn't feel good, and I think is actually a large part of why Horde pride died down as much as it did. If you don't have both factions decide one side is bad you can't really have a full raid based on the war either. So you now have a main premise that CAN'T be a raid while still being the focus.

[digichi]

I mean, like, what does filler mean? Does that mean every expac up til now was a filler expac for Legion ? (since we finally face that giant threat after so many years?)

If you want to face the void lords right away, or go straight to defeating an old god after the intense-fest that was Legion... that would be like.. the end of WoW. They'd have to one up themselves on the spot

"uhhhh uhhhh i know we just killed all the big baddies like Azshara and Nzoth and saved Azeroth and encountered a void lord but um... Now there's these other guys..."

[SpellCleave]

They sold it a LITTLE low at blizzcon. There's a LOT that'll come in patches I'm sure in terms of lore and such. Old gods, void, all that juicy stuff. This is just setting the stage. And who's to say this war isn't occurring because the old gods have corrupted our leaders? It's all fishy says I.

[Teri]

Faction war raids just feel bad though. SoO was a slog for me because we were just killing orcs in our faction capital for a year. It didn't feel good, and I think is actually a large part of why Horde pride died down as much as it did. If you don't have both factions decide one side is bad you can't really have a full raid based on the war either. So you now have a main premise that CAN'T be a raid while still being the focus.

So far none of the raids are faction oriented, Troll/Titan facility as first tier.

Azshara raid certainly doesn't seem anything to do with factions either.

Old god / N'Zoth, and even void can be fully expected after.

I don't think a Siege of Stormwind raid would be a good idea, and there's no real concrete mention of it, other then a book phrase.

It could be a scenario/warfront etc.

[owbu]

Its not about us traveling to a diffrent dimension to meet new characters, solve their problems and then leave them to again. Nothing changed for the story of Azeroth during WoD, except for one plot device Guldan restarting the legion story, that was set up in MoP.
You might not like the theme, but its clearly a continuation of the storyline. So if you take the classical meaning of filler episodethen no, its not a filler xpac.
Might it be another content desert, that gets abandoned half way through, so that they can make 9.0 a great xpac? Maybe. We will see in beta.

[Taeldorian]

Artifacts, Class Halls and DH were all way bigger selling points than whatever BfA offers so far.

Races are nice, but just cosmetic and offer zero in endgame.

Funny you say that because a lot of what BfA offers is the same systems but with improvements.

1.Heart of Azeroth is essentially your artifact, it’s just not a weapon. You can level it, collect Azerite (aka AP) and gain new traits, however it isn’t as crazy as the weapon was because it also caused a lot of issues progression wise.

2.We have improved versions of scenarios from MOP where we can collect resources/treasures from islands that are all different.

3.Races have their own questlines, so they aren’t purely cosmetic. Each sub race has a different story.

4.We have a completely new system called warfronts that’s just like the old RTS where we collect resources, build towers/buildings and build troops with 19 other people.

There’s more but I’m not going to continue. Warfronts as well as the improved scenarios are way more interesting to me than class halls/DH. I didn’t really care for sh and never made one so maybe that’s why but I feel the sub races are more interesting since they offer more customization as well as new story quests.

[Konteil]

It's definitely a filler expansion. Not to mention one that doesn't make much sense. You've banded together to destroy a threat to the universe, but as soon as it's dealt with, people are like... fuck it, let's go at it again for old time's sake.

blame it on genn and his hatred. The alliance started this crap. Hes salty he lost a fight he should neverhave started. Horde never abandoned the alliance on broken shore we were cut off and our leader was killed. he didnt see it and draws his own conclusions. wanna be mad be mad at Genn Greymane and his unreasoning hatred for the undead and sylvanus in general.

[Marc7]

Faction war raids just feel bad though. SoO was a slog for me because we were just killing orcs in our faction capital for a year. It didn't feel good, and I think is actually a large part of why Horde pride died down as much as it did. If you don't have both factions decide one side is bad you can't really have a full raid based on the war either. So you now have a main premise that CAN'T be a raid while still being the focus.

It doesn't seem like there will be a faction war based raid, the new 20 man RTS inspired PvE content will serve that purpose for the story. The raids and dungeons will clearly be more traditional looking at the ones we were shown.

[Better]

So far none of the raids are faction oriented, Troll/Titan facility as first tier.

Azshara raid certainly doesn't seem anything to do with factions either.

Old god / N'Zoth, and even void can be fully expected after.

I don't think a Siege of Stormwind raid would be a good idea.

And that's part of the problem. We now have an expac where the primary focus ISN'T in a raid at all. So we have all this faction war stuff happening, but also band together to take down Trolls, then Azshara, and maybe N'zoth/Old god stuff. Not having a set villain from the get go has me worried, because last time that happened we got SoO.

It doesn't seem like there will be a faction war based raid, the new 20 man RTS inspired PvE content will serve that purpose for the story. The raids and dungeons will clearly be more traditional looking at the ones we were shown.

I think those look cool, but the fact that they're 20 man, and they specifically said something about "getting 20 players to agree what is the best building is hard" makes me think they'll be LFR level of difficulty, and no matter how interesting a system looks on paper, if it's LFR difficulty I'll lose interest very quickly.

[anaxie]

I wonder if they will have the balls to kill Nzoth and Azshara in T1/2 and have the final raid be Horde and Alliance with different raid bosses fighting over the Heart of Azeroth it's self

Alliance fight Sylvanas, Nathanos, Saurfang, Thrall, God King Rastakhan, Baine, Lorthremar / Liadrin / Rommath / Halduron Council, Nightborn Queen Thalyssra, Gallywix

Horde Fight : Tyrande, Malfruion, Anduin, Genn, Jaina, Turalyon+Alleria, Veressa, Velen, Muradin / Moira / Falstaad, Geblin

[Ealyssa]

Clearly a filler. Shitty horde V alliance story, light lore. No new classes,which is a really bad signes, all extensions without new classes were bad.

I really hope to be wrong, but this smells horrible.

But on the other side, warfront, the isles 3 players "expedition" and game mechanics changes (pve/pvp server supression, titan's gear & hearth of Azeroth, zone scaling). All sounds good.

[anaxie]

And that's part of the problem. We now have an expac where the primary focus ISN'T in a raid at all. So we have all this faction war stuff happening, but also band together to take down Trolls, then Azshara, and maybe N'zoth/Old god stuff. Not having a set villain from the get go has me worried, because last time that happened we got SoO.

Well thats just simply not happening this time.

- - - Updated - - -

Clearly a filler. Shitty horde V alliance story, light lore. No new classes,which is a really bad signes, all extensions without new classes were bad.

I really hope to be wrong, but this smells horrible.

unfortunatelly

killing hakkar, Azshara, and likely N'zoth is far from filler

Neither is bringing a final end to the hatred between factions and the Alliances blind bigotry the are to blind to see.

[Teri]

Funny you say that because a lot of what BfA offers is the same systems but with improvements.

1.Heart of Azeroth is essentially your artifact, it’s just not a weapon. You can level it, collect Azerite (aka AP) and gain new traits, however it isn’t as crazy as the weapon was because it also caused a lot of issues progression wise.

2.We have improved versions of scenarios from MOP where we can collect resources/treasures from islands that are all different.

3.Races have their own questlines, so they aren’t purely cosmetic. Each sub race has a different story.

4.We have a completely new system called warfronts that’s just like the old RTS where we collect resources, build towers/buildings and build troops with 19 other people.

There’s more but I’m not going to continue. Warfronts as well as the improved scenarios are way more interesting to me than class halls/DH. I didn’t really care for sh and never made one so maybe that’s why but I feel the sub races are more interesting since they offer more customization as well as new story quests.

Exactly.

Heart of Azeroth is a simplified version of Artifact, so they can have 1 quest for everyone, and it's very good that it's useable for all specs at the same power.

Instead we hunt for Azerite slotted items which imo probably replace netherlight crucible/artifact traits/relics, and at least each item of the same name has the exact same slots.

We get 5 dungeons and 3 zones full of story, and 3 subrace story per faction instead of having to play through 12 classes to see all the story, now the reward for getting a allied race to 110 is cosmetic.

I certainly am interested to play through both factions this time around, that's 2 characters instead of 12x story locked behind class.

It's gonna be just fine.

[Marc7]

And that's part of the problem. We now have an expac where the primary focus ISN'T in a raid at all. So we have all this faction war stuff happening, but also band together to take down Trolls, then Azshara, and maybe N'zoth/Old god stuff. Not having a set villain from the get go has me worried, because last time that happened we got SoO.

TBH its clear that azeroth's wounding and Magni's quest to heal her heart is the main story of the expansion, while the faction war is the setting. They've been clearly tripping on vanilla nostalgia at Blizz, and the setting was everything back then.

We get 5 dungeons and 3 zones full of story, and 3 subrace story per faction instead of having to play through 12 classes to see all the story, now the reward for getting a allied race to 110 is cosmetic.

It's gonna be just fine.

We're getting 10 dungeons at launch with 4 as leveling dungeons for each faction tho.

[pyrostorm9001]

From the interviews i have seen on twitch and wowhead. it seems like this is a starting point and you are experiencing it from the point of view of the character not the player.
Starts off that your faction was attacked by the opposing faction and you're supposed to feel somewhat betrayed and somewhat annoyed.
" How dare they? we just joined to stop the legion and you try this shit on us? "
Moving on you explore the world build your army and discover a greater story behind the motivations of all factions, similar to how Lady Katrana Prestor (Onyxia) was influencing Stormwind back in the day. I expect some form of void/old god master plan at play here and we will all be pawns, as I cant think of anything else that would profit from a world at war right now.

[Talzz]

Have a bit of patience instead of assuming things like this, everyone is always ready to whine whenever something is announced. Give it a shot. MoP turned out amazingly and compared to that expansion this one actually has a really cool setting from the start with kul'tiras and zandalar. And actual new gameplay features, which even legion barely had.

[Marc7]

5 per faction = 10, sorry if wording wasn't clear.

They're all open to all max level players tho, so it's not like they're actually faction locked, as that would be dumb af.

[PaladinBash]

All I really wanted to do was kill Horde and they gave me my wish. Could not have asked for a better expansion hook.

[Teri]

They're all open to all max level players tho, so it's not like they're actually faction locked, as that would be dumb af.

Good, guess I missed that part.

Otherwise it'd be really dumb to lock X item behind a faction gate.