If BFA had been a N'zoth/South Seas xpac with no faction war...

[allawyn]

Yeah that's the other way to do it. Azshara in BFA, but no N'zoth, then full-on Black Empire xpac. In this thread, I'm imagining instead that there'd be a pure faction war/Sword of Sargeras/azerite xpac, then a south seas/Azshara/N'zoth one. Either would work.

Although how would you flesh the Black Empire into a full xpac without a world revamp? Which we know they're not going to do in a big way again. Maybe you could do a subterranean theme, add in nerubians for variety, etc...

Given that the faction war plot was an unoriginal repeat of Garrosh 1.0, with extra villian bat, more of that would have just left more sure of my decision to unsubscribe.

I mean, if they had a decent, actually grey and nuanced, plot, OK. But more of the same would just have been more garbage.

No I didn't go through the old god plot. But it seem like it could have been OK if they had taken their time and done a decent job of it.

[Deferionus]

Same here. I immensely enjoyed BC (heck, it's still the best xpac ever imo) but the story was REALLY all over the place. Not to mention that having to kill quite sympathetic folks such as Kael or Vashj really sucked, and with Illidan was even worse... you almost felt sorry for killing the poor dude. As for WoD it was quite similar, perhaps even worse.

But for all of their lore flaws, both xpacs were pretty much self contained, and they didn't have a lot of influence on the main timeline. Even the events of Legion could have been spurred by any other major evil/reckless figure, AU Gul'dan was mostly unnecessary. But the silly elements from Cata, and moreso BfA, will have much more lasting effects.

Story wise Cata was better, and honestly I loved it as an expansion, but I dislike the world revamp. A decade later and we have these almost random world scars now. Same with that giant sword in Silithus. In 6 years that will be a "oh thats still there?" type of land mark.

I wish they would do another expansion aimed at a world revamp but this time try an approach where each individual zone has its own story on Azeroth and you go there and make an impact on it. Rebuild Lordaeron. Help the Worgen with their capital. Work with druids to cleanse the Plaguelands. Go to a zone and help the night elves build a new capital. Basically take ravished zones, use phasing, and build the zone into a modern state that depicts how it is now. Then use that modern state and phasing to keep the world up to date as the lore progresses.

[Oneirophobia]

That isn't what I said. I said there are not two A plots. The faction war is the part of "Threat to Azeroth" A plot. Which begins with the sword being stabbed into Azeroth and ends with N'zoth being defeated. Azerite and all the events surrounding it are all part of the same A plot. I even stated this in the very post you quoted.

Seriously? Every single major plot that has ever occurred can be boiled down to "Threat to Azeroth" A plot. So again, what the guy you were originally responding to wrote, these stories work better when they're cleanly split up.

[rhorle]

Seriously? Every single major plot that has ever occurred can be boiled down to "Threat to Azeroth" A plot. So again, what the guy you were originally responding to wrote, these stories work better when they're cleanly split up.

So what exactly are you arguing against if everything can be the "threat to azeroth" plot? If you believe that then everything would be the same A plot. But you took issue with me calling things the same A plot with BfA. Make up your mind you can't have it both ways.

[kansor]

Given that the faction war plot was an unoriginal repeat of Garrosh 1.0, with extra villian bat, more of that would have just left more sure of my decision to unsubscribe.

I mean, if they had a decent, actually grey and nuanced, plot, OK. But more of the same would just have been more garbage.

I'm assuming that if there were a faction war xpac, it wouldn't be the Garrosh 2.0 horde evulz one we got. Yes, I'm being pretty generous with assumptions.

The faction war is the part of "Threat to Azeroth" A plot. Which begins with the sword being stabbed into Azeroth and ends with N'zoth being defeated.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...nd-vs-Old-Gods
They're connected in some ways, but they're not the same plotline. They're parallel with some connections. (And the attempts there were at connecting them were pretty strained. I already mentioned how contrived the Heart of Azeroth freeing N'zoth is, but possibly even more contrived is the idea of Sylvanas making contact with and working with Azshara in the first place, which sounds like something from a bad fanfic. They're such unconnected characters, and Azshara has always been depicted as remote, unreachable, at the bottom of the sea, but now suddenly Sylvie can just give her a phone call and invite her to tea.)

[DemonDays]

But it is a single united theme. The fate of Azeroth. We get attacked by old god minions early on in the Heart chamber. Old gods are a them of Uldir. Old gods are a theme of Stormsong Valley. We are collecting azerite with out a clue that it was part of an old gods plan. We learn we were helping an Old God when we confront Azshara. And then we have to stop the Old God to save Azeroth.

The theme was to save Azeroth. We just didn't know who we were saving it from until the end. Just because you didn't like it doesn't make it a "macguffin".

This has been the most disjointed mess of a story we've ever received but of course you're here to defend it.

Alliance have nothing to do with Uldir. Isn't even represented in their story.

Sword through planet.

Azeroth Bleeding.

Commit genocide on night elves

Lets start a faction war over Azerite.

Blood trolls and a fake old god experiment.

Alliance attacks new Horde city.

Random Nzoth mini raid where he "tests" us? WTF.

Oh look now we're off to Nazjatar randomly to fight Queen Azshara. Faction war? What faction war?

Faction war is wrapped up with more sad orc themes. Sylvanas escapes again. She was playing 4D chess the whole time.

Oh look now we need to take down Nzoth.

Nzoth dead in a single patch.

Sword is still in planet. Azeroth is still bleeding. Apparently because Nzoth is killed it's all okay though?



What a fucking joke.

- - - Updated - - -

This expac suffered from being unfocused and trying to do too many things, so imagine it had just been the South Seas/Azshara/N'zoth xpac everyone was expecting. What plot hook would you have used to get us to Kul Tiras and Zandalar? In the current story we go there to recruit them and their navies for the war. So if there were no war, what are some reasons we might go there?

This expansion wasted three whole expansion ideas in one.

Expansion 1: An actual proper faction war. Actually could have spanned multiple patches with multiple Warfronts(better designed ones) and faction themed raids.

Expansion 2: South Seas + Nazjatar and Naga themed expansion. Actual island hopping and exploring. Possible boat mounts.

Expansion 3: Obviously leading into Nzoth and the old god expansion. Azsharas "master".

What a colossal waste. Not to mention how shit the writing was.


This was a "faction war", "old god", "sad orc", "azeroth is dying", "sylvanas playing 4D chess to get more souls" expansion.

All shoved into one.

[rhorle]

Sword is still in planet. Azeroth is still bleeding. Apparently because Nzoth is killed it's all okay though?

The Heart Chamber is repaired. That was the problem not necessarily the azerite coming to the surface. As we started to repair the Heart Chamber we learned the old gods were interested in it. The factions turned to war and stopped Old God plots along the way. As both Zandalar and Kul'tiras were under attack from Old God forces. It all lead to a confrontation with Azshara which freed N'zoth because of the Heart we empowered. When free N'zoth tried again to take over the Heart, and other Titan facilities, in order to remake Azeroth in his image. The factions put aside their differences at this point because of the larger threat. As they usually do. The Blood War though was all part of this.

- - - Updated - - -

They're connected in some ways, but they're not the same plotline.

So the factions were not fighting over Azerite the very thing to repair the Heart Chamber, Free N'zoth, Defeat N'zoth and the one thing need to do all of that? Yep not connected at all.