Kul'Tiras questing & story is... really boring. Is Zandalar better?

[Tarba]

Same impression.
I main horde, and quite enjoyed the whole Zandalar. Every region had it's own story, but everything was linked. So we have that impression to work for something important.
I started an alliance character and really can't get into it. I was incredibly disapointed by Tiragarde. The main questline is completely "meh" and the final :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQp8AGpP2WA
is such a joke I couldn't believe it. Who makes a story cinematic like that? A 12years old?
A resume would be :
Taelia : "Hey, nobody knows me, but that very important person is a liar and did everything. Look I have a bag as a proof!"
Proodmore :"Ho my god a bag, how could you do that?"
Ashvane : "It's all true I'm so evil!"
*Big explosion of Azerith bag, nobody dies*

5 minutes later, Proodmore asks Taelia who she is...

I'm starting Dustvar. The whole witcher 3 look is amusing, but when you have played that game you really can't compare the questline quality. It's incredible talent versus nothing. Pretty hard to get into it, it might gets better, I hope.

In both case I have the impression that 90% of the quests are meaningless.

[cparle87]

Ignoring the flamy edgy wording. The key element is that they, just like Arthas, betrayed their kingdom and the main damage they did was to their own kingdom instead of the other faction.

The story thread is about how the Kul Tiras storyline is supposedly boring. One of the more common complaints about recent Alliance lore is that it's all one big happy family since the Dark Irons have integrated in MoP and there's no tension or shades of grey in them. Hence the Anduin and Friends analogy. So to counter that I put out that the Kul Tirans are one of the most shades of gray, in many cases bordering on black, races in the game. As it stands three of the four major factions of the race are hostile to not only the fourth and hence the Alliance, but everyone. One serve a potentially world ending threat, one a more local threat, and one could end up being a human Garrosh with her hatred of all non-Gilneans.

[Coffer]

I haven't done the Horde leveling zones myself, but at least story-wise, judging from the videos put up by Nobbel and other people, Zandalar looks deeply uninteresting to me, even by WoW's mediocre standards in that regard. Maybe the zones tie in better, but I've never been one for the sort of stuff the OP mentions, so it effectively does nothing for me. Kul Tiras was pretty anonymous too, with Drustvar being more solid on its own but having little to connect it to the other zones, but at least the Jaina stuff was okay.

[Rasula Elfbiter]

I personally liked Stormsong a lot, though I agree the overall story is rushed and inconsistent. It also has too many silly countryside quests a la Elwynn Forest and Valley of the Four Winds, helping grannies, hunting wolves and fighting honey elementals. But the whole tidesage arc was brilliant, and probably one of the most plot-relevant ones Alliance side.
On the other hand, Drustvar suffered from Spires of Arak syndrome - it's beautifully designed and has an extremely well-written dark story with some nice twists, but it's bareely related to the rest of expansion's plot or even Warcraft lore in general. We'll yet see where does Gorak Tul fit in the grand scheme of events but for now he looks like a memorable, but one-off villain.
Tirasgarde gives a good impression of Kul Tiran society and feel as a whole, I liked it a lot, Flynn's quests were great. One major complaint is that the zone is too dark at night, darker than Nazmir FFS!

I've yet to complete Zandalar on Horde side, but I must say Nazmir is even better than Drustvar, while the story is a bit lighter, it's still very well done and, unlike Drustvar, extremely relevant to all of the main plot, as it sets ground for both G'huun and Bwonsamdi.
Zuldazar (which I am at now, after finishing Nazmir) is generally good but, as much as love dinosaurs and 5.2 Zandalari aestethics, has way too much of a theme park feel, also some of the most blatant expies and shout-outs. I mean, okay, Kul Tiras is one huge carbon copy of Witcher 3 locations, but Zuldazar has basically Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove, and Waka... erm, Zandalar Forever! Not sure is that's not goofy, honestly.
Vol'dun looked good on Alliance side, so guess it'll be even better from Horde's eyes. I hope.

[oldgeezer]

Drustvar: (Rescue the villagers and kill the witches!) x6

[Coffer]

We'll yet see where does Gorak Tul fit in the grand scheme of events but for now he looks like a memorable, but one-off villain.

He's probably not going to fit in anywhere seeing as Jaina kills him at the end of the entire Kul Tiran story. Thros as a realm still exists, and we're likely to go back there eventually, but Gorak Tul's death certainly looked final.

[hulkgor]

Haven't done the Alliance questlines yet, but the Horde ones are amazing and do a really interesting build up to Uldir. The breaking of the seals, betrayals, plot twists, really cool cinematics, etc.

I'm expecting the alliance ones to tie-in really well to the 2nd tier (Nazjatar?) though.

[Trumpcat]

And I thought that the Kul'tiras zones were great, especially the pirate and witch themes, the surprise attack on Stormsong was a fun dynamic too. The story of the Proudmoores directly ties to Warcraft 2 and 3, thus is core to Warcraft lore as a whole. The cutscenes were sublime.

On the other hand I feel physically sick from the amount of Troll and Trollspeak in the Horde campaign, can't relate to the story and don't find any character I like there.

So we could maybe say that it comes down to... personal preference?

[Yriel]

Vol'dun looked good on Alliance side, so guess it'll be even better from Horde's eyes. I hope.

Vol'dun has the same problem that you describe for Drustvar. It looks great, the main Quest is ok but short and it is littered with countless boring side-quests. It's the one zone i dislike on Horde-side.

[Thage]

In regards to it feeling meaningful it certainly helps that the questline leads up to the first raid quite nicely. I have no seen the Alliance side of things yet so maybe they also build up to the raid but with Horde it builds up well.

Uldir is completely outside context for Alliance adventurers, and if it weren't for them being the Lawful Good faction I'd have to wonder why the Alliance would help at Uldir, rather than order a full withdrawal, let G'huun take over Zandalar while the Horde's best and brightest are there, then bring in Dalaran and the Vindicaar to nuke it from a safe distance once the Horde and Zandalari are no longer an issue until all that's left is a crater slowly filling with seawater.

That being said, I rather liked Alliance questing for what it is: witch hunting, adventuring in a city of pirates, and a Lovecraftian romp, all of which culminate in finally giving Ashvane the boot.

[Detheavn]

while that may be true, try another perspective: we are looking at a very story-driven expansion. many things are told, cultures explained, new things introduced. we want to have a good story and we want that on both sides. i got a bit spoilered, but i think jainas arc begins with her surrender and ends with her being.. admiral? dunno. that is great and quite satisfactory. the horde gets to get help from the trolls, there are forces at work and i won't spoil further. sure, we have ties to that dungeon.

Yes, the enitire Jaina arc was great, but it came to an abrupt end with her walking into her family's house. It was a really nice quest chain, but it just has a full stop at the end.

but we are looking from this new story-driven viewpoint. while we may have had storylines in the past, how good did they culminate in raid bosses or raid environments? which need did we have to enter ToC back in woltk? sartharion? halion? for the alliance, you can just waltz into it like we ever did. for the horde, we can say "hey taloc". we've seen him before, nothing more.

ToC was the preparation to storm ICC. Yes, that story was flimsy at best, but it was there. Sartharion and Halion are good examples of no story, but at least both sides were treated equally there in the story department

The thing is, with all the possibilities we have in terms of tech, like phasing areas to have different purposes, something as story continuation lags behind. I really don't see why they cannot invest so they can develop for both at the same time. I'm ok with there being faction specific content, I'm not OK with having to wait 2 to 4 months before one faction's story arc picks up again, while all the time the other faction is in the middle of theirs. I'm pretty sure they can improve on this.

Also they chose to have an expansion based around faction conflict, but they don't actively build on this. You cannot keep people invested in the conflict if your only story is: Kill rares & oh yeah, Warmode Yo.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game, it just doesn't make sense that you have to play 2 factions in order to feel included in the content

[EbaumsTipster]

Nazmir is a dumpster fire of a zone entirely wasted on a filler raid, like Valsharah but without any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Talk as much trash about Stormsong as you want, but it isn't a pit.

[Thagrynor]

I think the Alliance side would have GREATLY improved with even just a short quest chain early on that really hammered home the "We need to unite the houses" aspect. Have a short chain where we really get introduced to the different nobles, the different heads of house (or whomever is actually around) that really develops who everyone is and what their part is in the leadership/helming of Kul'Tiras (ie, what does their house bring to the table) and why we need to care about their houses and that helps explain the problems they are facing that culminates in a discussion with Taelia or something about needing to unite the houses for the coming war. I think having something like that in game would really help make it understood what the common thread is through the Alliance side of the story during this tier of content.

[Powerogue]

Kul'tiras had a pretty sick finale with Jaina.

[Eapoe]

There’s already a YouTube video comparing the zones with the Horde seeing the greater threat but overall having a great loss at the end of their storyline, whereas the Alliance has a more internal and personal storyline that ends with a victory.
Also, aesthetically the zones are preference based. I am a horror fan, big time horror fan, so just the design and storyline involving the witches and their creations and the cult with very obvious Cthulhu mythos references wins the Alliance zones over for me. The Horde side gets a prison desert, a swamp, and a jungle. Yeah, the dinos are cool, but again, this is all opinion.

[Raakel]

Zandalar forever!

I love roaming around in the jungle with the ambient pothead music...

[Ozzyorcborne]

I found the Zandalar quest line much better than the Kul Tiras one. Even now, id more inclined to run the whole Zandalar quest chain again on a horde alt but would prefer dungeon leveling on alliance because of how Dull it is. Drustvar was kind of nice though.

[Kyphael]

I think it's just a matter of taste, really. Zandalar is really cool, but what is the end game? G'huun, a fake Old God. It might be just me but I'm tired of Old Gods, they've really made every mortal villain trivial. Everything is "corruption, whispers", removing the depth from many villains because it turns out they were just puppets to the "root of all evil, rawr." And G'huun, he's just an experiment, to me that bores me even more than "THE SHA" did. I do like Blood Trolls though, maniacal fanatic worshippers; gotta' love that, they would almost be cooler if I didn't know their idol was G'huun.

On the flip side, Kul'tiras is continuing the story directly from Warcraft III and writing a new chapter for Jaina, and I really dug the Drust story. Azshara's presence in Tiragarde Sound is foreshadowing 8.1. Stormsong dealt with a myriad of sub-plots that made it fun and different from Drustvar and Tiragarde Sound. I feel I got a variety of stories from Kul'tiras. My Horde character is still 111 and I haven't finished Zandalar yet but G'huun or even foreshadowing the Shadowlands isn't exacatly making my mouth water and Bwosandi is annoying AF, I want to smack that stupid skull mask off his face in a raid and loot him for gear.

[RangerDaz]

I have only played two zones of each... playing really slow because RL happens, summer trip vacations as well, and my family tries to sabotage as much of my gameplay time as they can lol.

I have played Tiragarde Sound & Drustvar in alliance, and Zuldazar & Nazmir in horde. Actually they have more in common than you might think at first. Probably the major difference is the color palette of the alliance and horde zones. Horde is more colorful while alliance is much darker. Some people prefer more light scenic views and others love dark places to explore. Also you have Kul Tiras (Navy + Pirates theme) vs. Zandalar (Troll Empire inspired in a crossover between inca/maya and african cultures).

Tirasgarde Sound & Zuldazar quests are about revealing that both leaders are being betrayed, with one having navy and pirate theme and the other the merge of all wow troll civilizations, dinossaurs and the protection of the loa.

Drustvar and Nazmir are also more similar than it might seem. One is inspired on witchcraft of the medieval ages and the other of the voodoo magic, also from the medieval ages. One has witches as enemies, the other voodoo blood thirsty trolls.

I haven't played Voldun or Stormsong yet, but i bet there might be a connection between both as well.

I loved Zuldazar and also enjoyed Nazmir, and loving this new Troll lore. Maybe you should give it a try, if you find the alliance side boring for now?

- - - Updated - - -

I think the Alliance side would have GREATLY improved with even just a short quest chain early on that really hammered home the "We need to unite the houses" aspect. Have a short chain where we really get introduced to the different nobles, the different heads of house (or whomever is actually around) that really develops who everyone is and what their part is in the leadership/helming of Kul'Tiras (ie, what does their house bring to the table) and why we need to care about their houses and that helps explain the problems they are facing that culminates in a discussion with Taelia or something about needing to unite the houses for the coming war. I think having something like that in game would really help make it understood what the common thread is through the Alliance side of the story during this tier of content.

I believe that will happen when we get Kul Tiran Humans as a playable race!

[micwini]

This might be a bit controversial and I haven't quested yet in Zandalar as a Horde character but having played through the Alliance zones on four characters now I really have to admit that it was a lukewarm experience.

I don't know why but everything on Kul'Tiras feels so marginal or... meaningless for the greater picture. The Zandalar zones seem to build up towards a greater threat (Uldir) or do have some mysteries and great lore behind them - something Kul'Tiras is entirely lacking (maybe except Drustvar). The only really interesting zone was Drustvar but the overall threat there didn't feel very powerful in the end and everything was marginalized by the easy kill that Gorak Tul was.

Tiragarde Sound is beautiful but the storyline there is incredibly underwhelming. Stormsong isn't better either. I think it's the worst of the three zones and feels either half done or incredibly "underdeveloped". It just was not good.

On the other hand when I'm going to Zandalar as Alliance player I always feel amazed by the beautiful zone design and the "prehistoric" world with the dinosaurs and the gigantic troll temples and sites. I will level my Horde characters and I am really looking forward to it because - as much as I was anticipating Kul'Tiras - it was a disappointment overall from a lore- & questing-perspective.

Not really, but it is different. In Kul'tiras the zones' story are more contained to the zones themselves. The only notion you get is that you need to unite the 3 houses of Kul'tiras. In zandalar, the story between the zones is more coherent. Everything has, in one way or another, to do with G'huun. In Nazmir you deal with the blood trolls, in Vol'dun you go after a general tha's also in league with G'Huun. And in Zuldazar it's the same thing with Zul.

I didn't really find the Kul'tiras story boring, but it was really fucking predictable. In Tiragarde you know what's up after the first set of quests. In Stormsong it's the same where it becomes obvious that stormsong was in league with the OG's and in Drustvar it was really obvious that miss waycrest was behind the whole fiasco, with gorak tul guiding her.

So, not boring, but really predictable. Drustvar also had a very fitting atmosphere.