WoW’s “feel” of the world.

[Ameonna]

as far as the “is it over” thing there’s a fairly good chance that was because of Arthas losing his soul to frost mourn.

The arthas novel paints a rather clear picture that when he took up the blade he personally completely changed while still keeping all of his memory’s, he’s pretty much the same person but with good traits taken out so bad ones are dominate. At the end of the book we even see that his soul is a separate entity just like Ner’zhul and it’s trying to win him over. Later down the line he then rips out his own heart to separate his soul from his self so it wouldn’t be there in the back of his mind nagging at him which is then undone when his heart is destroyed.

It’s likely when frostmourn is destroyed his soul got control of his body back for that last moment and he asked if it’s over as it’s been pretty much trapped in the sunken place watching but unable to do any thing since he took up the blade.

Yes, but then, if he removed all of the good parts from him, his good self, and even his physical heart (said in wrath icecrown quest chain) how could there is still be something to hold his hand?

Thats kinda the problem in the whole Lich King from Wrath to me, is that they constantly say that he is in control and even removed everything that made him human but still it is implied that there is still something staying his hand? But what?

I remember in a CDev this question was asked to Metzen which he answered that we are free to speculate...

[Le Conceptuel]

imagine your favorite coffee shop gradually increases their mandatory sugar content in the drinks they serve. a spoonful or two is fine, sometimes even desirable; saying that they never added it is absurd, ofc. except that now these mfs fill half of your cup with syrup and, to add insult to injury, replace the delicious grains with notes of honey and rhubarb with storebought decaf. and as if it wasn't horrifying enough, they decide to adopt their competitors' unique ideas - timetravel and afterlives adding cum to their coffee, which i have to "actively ignore" to avoid headaches. "all i can taste is the cum", indeed.

cherry on top is the locals, who pretend that this infernal swill isn't any different from the stuff they served back then. neverending nightmare, im telling you

A remarkably colorful and vulgar, but exceptionally accurate way of putting it, as is your typical fashion. Couldn't have said it better.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Yes, but then, if he removed all of the good parts from him, his good self, and even his physical heart (said in wrath icecrown quest chain) how could there is still be something to hold his hand?

Thats kinda the problem in the whole Lich King from Wrath to me, is that they constantly say that he is in control and even removed everything that made him human but still it is implied that there is still something staying his hand? But what?

I remember in a CDev this question was asked to Metzen which he answered that we are free to speculate...

I think it’s a lot like the joker in the killing joke, he’s trying to prove that others would end up just like him if they went down a similar path which is why he shows up abunch while levelling to taunt us and make us feel powerless like Mal’ganis did to him.

He was never actually holding back out of a left over sense of goodness but as a way to show that we would fall just like him and once he has that he was gonna end every thing.

Even the first wrath trailer points to this id say.

[VladlTutushkin]

You are right to mention WoD, because yes WoD kinda "break" not only rules but actually the entire perception of the lore. A lot of peoples says that Shadowlands broke the lore due to the fact it added the first ones and kinda made the whole cosmology tinnier, but the thing is, the frist ones is not that of a big deal as long as you dont really care about them, because their impact is not as relevant.

However with WoD they did break the lore in the way that, everytime they want to explore somehting, be it the Legion, be it the Void, be it the Shadowlands etc, everytime they want to explore something new, the question will be brought up as "but...but what about...the other timelines? What about the atlernative timeline? What about? What about?!" its like the stain on the bottom of their foot that they just cant get rid of, as soon as they put the hand into the alternative non sense, now it staisn every single new thing they want to explore ><

Because, the infinite and unitemporal Legion would not be a thing if they did not go into alternative universe with WoD in the frist place, same with the Shadowlands soul and nowaday with the Murozond plot (and later with Yrel which we will see eventually) WoD was that kind of Pandora Box.



Yes but i always thought that the presence that you feel when Tirion look at the helm in the wrath ending was Ner'zhul still being tied to the helm, just like it was still in the helm when Arthas pout it at the end of war3 TFT. The problem is that it feels like they messed up a bit in that cinematic, like for example, they tell you time and time again that Arthas is fully in command of the helm and of the Lich King, and completly overthrew Ner'zhul, but then why would he need to stays his hand if he is in power? And therefore, if its really Arthas fully in control, why when he die he isl ike "ho is it over?" as if he was free of something?

Because as we both know, there was no mention of some unknown entity withthin the helm prior to SL.

- - - Updated - - -



You must considere (and ppl who also claim faction war is the "essence of wow") that when bfa was announced and when devs said "ho this expac is about faction war" a lot of ppl were just like "meh..."

Also not to mention, faction war is kinda pointless because no one can ever win it, it will always end with more or the less the same situation as when it started because you simply cant delete one faction from the game.

Faction war in theory sounds cool, its like "two cool factions fighting using cool things" and etc, but when its a vicious cycle of "Alliance gets curbstomped by the Horde, then spends whole expansion weakly trying to retaliate without hurting the Horde too much and later Horde half heartedly half assedly "apologies" it becomes fucken unbearable.

- - - Updated - - -

imagine your favorite coffee shop gradually increases their mandatory sugar content in the drinks they serve. a spoonful or two is fine, sometimes even desirable; saying that they never added it is absurd, ofc. except that now these mfs fill half of your cup with syrup and, to add insult to injury, replace the delicious grains with notes of honey and rhubarb with storebought decaf. and as if it wasn't horrifying enough, they decide to adopt their competitors' unique ideas - timetravel and afterlives adding cum to their coffee, which i have to "actively ignore" to avoid headaches. "all i can taste is the cum", indeed.

cherry on top is the locals, who pretend that this infernal swill isn't any different from the stuff they served back then. neverending nightmare, im telling you

Fucken preach it brother! Idk if you someone i had beef with or no, but this is so true i would clear up the beef for this once.

[Aucald]

imagine your favorite coffee shop gradually increases their mandatory sugar content in the drinks they serve. a spoonful or two is fine, sometimes even desirable; saying that they never added it is absurd, ofc. except that now these mfs fill half of your cup with syrup and, to add insult to injury, replace the delicious grains with notes of honey and rhubarb with storebought decaf. and as if it wasn't horrifying enough, they decide to adopt their competitors' unique ideas - timetravel and afterlives adding cum to their coffee, which i have to "actively ignore" to avoid headaches. "all i can taste is the cum", indeed.

cherry on top is the locals, who pretend that this infernal swill isn't any different from the stuff they served back then. neverending nightmare, im telling you

But again, what you're describing is really just the process of change over time - you like some changes, you don't like others, some you find disgusting, and some are an unexpected surprise. No one is really saying "The game has never changed," but what I and some others are saying is "The game has changed, but it is elementally and intrinsically the same thing it ever was." The developers add X, they add Y, they take away X in favor of Z, and so on and so forth. But X, Y, and Z aren't what WoW actually is - they're just attributes: extra doodads and added systems. Artifact weapons don't define WoW anymore than Garrisons do, in other words. Just as coffee remains coffee so long as it remains the dominant substance in a given cup. Coffee with sugar or milk is still coffee.

Similarly, WoW's overall storytelling hasn't taken an objective nosedive - it was always a mixed bag, with some plotlines being better than others for various reasons. Classic was good, TBC sucked, WotLK was good, Cata sucked, and on and on it goes. Since peoples' views of what was a good expansion also vary from person to person, it's even harder to argue that everything was sunshine and roses back in the aughts or the 2010s.

[Ameonna]

With the lore piece, I think that they used up too much lore in Legion and left nowhere to go - Sargeras done/on ice, emerald nightmare finished off in a patch.

Prior to that they milked every bit of old lore they could, but now they’re just making up stuff and making every big bad a reverse Russian doll (“now that you’ve killed the big bad ACTUALLY IT WAS A BIGGER BAD ALL ALONG”).

Not sure about BFA being "making stuff up" when you have Kul'tiras which existed since war2, Zandalar introduced in Vanilla wow, Nazjatar introduced in war3 and Ny'lotha intrucued in Cataclysm.

Also i think you forget something, is that every single expac always base itself on something that existed before, Shadowlands was not made up in Shadowlands expac it was a realm we knew since a while back, same with Pandaria, and thats why Pandaria was so unique, its because they just had 2 elements, Pandaria name and Pandarens and they completly created upon it to make a completly new thing.

[Khaza-R]

Maybe that's how I see it different. Personally I always saw Warcraft as Warhammer Fantasy and D&D smashed together in the first place. Dragonflight is currently more towards the light-hearted and pulpy side of D&D for sure but the setting hasn't always been at its best when it tries to go for Warhammer-esque total war and cosmic horror shananigans.

As far as the main story being aimless, I agree that it's mostly an excuse for us to collect purples from the next raid boss, but I'd also argue WoW's story has rarely ever been elevated past that in its lifetime. The setting and story have always, always existed to facilitate gameplay, not to be a cohesive and consistent whole which would be challenging for any skilled writing team to pull off after 16+ years of constant updates, let alone by Blizzard who decidedly aren't skilled. Metzen himself cared a lot, lot less about consistency than about justifying the latest story beat he wanted to ape with whatever ad-hoc explanation would pass muster. The writers now are pretty much following suit.

I don't disagree. Metzen wasn't a particularly talented writer. His stories were best when they were simple. When he had to string together a more complex narrative it was rather hit or miss. But he did do a good job at world building.

Right now we really don't have world building or a cohesive narrative. I guess that's why the story just feels aimless to me. I feel like the current writers are afraid to box themselves in or something. But it doesn't leave you with anything to sink your teeth into. All the lore is made up just as it appears before your face. There's nothing figuratively or literally being set up as some place you're heading towards. I think going back to the topic of the thread, that kind of writing will leave you empty of the "world" part of the game.

[Jastall]

I don't disagree. Metzen wasn't a particularly talented writer. His stories were best when they were simple. When he had to string together a more complex narrative it was rather hit or miss. But he did do a good job at world building.

Right now we really don't have world building or a cohesive narrative. I guess that's why the story just feels aimless to me. I feel like the current writers are afraid to box themselves in or something. But it doesn't leave you with anything to sink your teeth into. All the lore is made up just as it appears before your face. There's nothing figuratively or literally being set up as some place you're heading towards. I think going back to the topic of the thread, that kind of writing will leave you empty of the "world" part of the game.

I do think they try their hand at world building, it's just variable in result. In this xpack it falls flat mostly; the centaurs, tuskarrs and mole people just aren't interesting at all whereas at least BfA had the Zandalari and Drustvar and Shadowlands had the Venthyr that I liked a lot. Djaradin and utterly boring antagonists. The dragons are WoW dragons, IE historically not very interesting save for the blacks and bronze. I do like what they've done with Aberrus and the Incarnates are decent-ish so far, which is a step up from most previous villains that aren't Azshara or Denathrius.

But I agree that they don't commit to a theme for very long. Maybe they're afraid of X fatigue after people complained from Orc fatigue during WoD or fel green fatigue during Legion. They tease a lot of things but fail to properly set them up, then it becomes important (?) for one patch and is never heard from again. Stuff like the First Ones is a good example, or the Sundered Flame that somehow were promoted from third-rate world quest villains to having their boss be the end of a patch raid while most people have no clue who he even is.

[Femininity]

DF feels more like pre-MoP WoW than the game has since... pre-MoP to me.

[Nerovar]

The race war is the point of the game. The clash between different factions of visually and culturally distinct groups. Every aspect of the game and of the RTS pushes into that direction. Even when the RTS resolved the Horde and Alliance conflict by effectively writing humans and orcs out of the plot it did so having standbys in the form of the Night Elves and Undead who's internal and external conflicts took center stage in TFT. This extends even to the baddies. The reason Arthas is the most popular villain in the game is because we got to play as him for three campaigns. The reason Garrosh is one of the other best antagonists is because he was an active point of investment as the leader of a playable race and faction. It's being able to actively embody the various different sides of the game was one of the selling points, lost over time.

WoW initially wisely pivoted back to Horde and Alliance and it is the game's drive towards homogenization and away from the distinction between the races and the war that comes with it that has been to the game's detriment each time. Wrath wasn't a step away from that, despite half-hearted and nonsensical lessons like the entire Argent episode, it was deliberately about rekindling that war by placing Garrosh and Varian at center stage and having the factions at large fight rather than just keeping it to local conflict. Trying to backtrack from the natural distinctions of the game and from the point (violence) that every mechanic points towards is a large part of why near every prominent character right now is a palette-swapped neutral good nice dude who's main values are about how no matter what happens you should be smiling.

Spoken like a man who still hasn't learned the lessons of Pandaria. The drive for homogenization you describe has at this point made up the majority of the game's lifespan. In fact, I'd say most of the game's narrative has actively worked towards this goal since WC3. So you can't really fault people for thinking that the game is actually about uniting with your fluffy friends from the other team. I think it's highly unlikely that they'll ever rewarm the faction conflict in any serious capacity at this point but if they do they'll make BfA look like the Iliad in comparison.

So, any of you share that sense of fading soul/feel of WoW? When you began to notice it going away first? Or is it entirely a false assumption on my part?

In my opinion, Warcraft was at its best when it was more or less a more romantic fairy tale version of Warhammer. It took a lot of things that made Warhammer good and elevated the parts that confined Warhammer to being a hobby that solely appeals to sweaty (male) nerds (the over the top grimdarkness, the absolutely non-existing sex appeal etc.).
Classic was probably the only version of the game that capably built on that foundation. Everything after that was a slow decline of what you describe as "the soul of WoW" as the writers tried to further differentiate the setting. Sometimes it's better to steal good ideas instead of coming up with bad ideas on your own.

[Al Gorefiend]

Spoken like a man who still hasn't learned the lessons of Pandaria. The drive for homogenization you describe has at this point made up the majority of the game's lifespan. In fact, I'd say most of the game's narrative has actively worked towards this goal since WC3. So you can't really fault people for thinking that the game is actually about uniting with your fluffy friends from the other team. I think it's highly unlikely that they'll ever rewarm the faction conflict in any serious capacity at this point but if they do they'll make BfA look like the Iliad in comparison.

I do feel a sense of sadness the faction rivalry will disappear. It was integral to Warcraft as I always knew it. I don't dread the days to come or anything, I just really do miss that this part of the story will begin to fade away. It has always been WoW's B-Plot. In Icecrown with the gunships, Cataclysm in Twilight Highlands and Vashj'r as examples. Despite the greater looming threat the factions simply don't mix. They are bitter enemies, whereas we the players are not limited to the morality of our factions. They were less of a social club and more of these two military superpowers constantly butting heads and terrorizing the citizens with constant threat of war and destruction with us the heroes stuck in the middle of it all.

I wish we had an expansion where the Alliance and Horde begin to go at it again, and us the heroes finally decide enough is enough and the entire expansion is a coup against the government and finally breaking them apart, and then reuniting them as a single Azerothian government, to give a lore-friendly way to create cross faction. The general populations of the factions will be free to hold grudges, but it will show us the heroes are above it and will rather work together than fight for a banner.

It would have been a cool setting to justify revisiting Kalimdor and EK. We are breaking up fights between races that still hate eachother like Forsaken and Worgen (Forsaken and everyone tbh), distributing supplies fairly, stopping uprisings and cults. It'd be a blast of an expac.

[guro-tchai]

A remarkably colorful and vulgar, but exceptionally accurate way of putting it, as is your typical fashion. Couldn't have said it better.

Fucken preach it brother! Idk if you someone i had beef with or no, but this is so true i would clear up the beef for this once.

^_^

...No one is really saying "The game has never changed," but what I and some others are saying is "The game has changed, but it is elementally and intrinsically the same thing it ever was." <...>Just as coffee remains coffee so long as it remains the dominant substance in a given cup. Coffee with sugar or milk is still coffee.

i see "it's literally same as it ever was" on a regular basis.
besides, "dominant substance" is not the way to define a coffee, unless you're a purist or the FDA. with that definition, latte isn't coffee:

typically a caffè latte is prepared in a 240 mL (8 US fl oz) glass or cup with one standard shot of espresso (either single, 30 mL or 1 US fl oz, or double, 60 mL or 2 US fl oz) and filled with steamed milk, with a layer of foamed milk approximately 12 mm (1⁄2 in) thick on the top.

but you already told me that coffee with milk is still coffee. same logic is used by various regulatory entities: Ireland says Subway bread isn't bread, the US says that American cheese isn't cheese, France naturally spergouts about their bread.
in the opposite case, a cup filled with pure black coffee with a drop of cyanide is still coffee - but i doubt anyone except for suicidals would drink it.
all this means that excessively strict formal criteria won't work - but fefees will. coffee (or any comestible) is supposed to produce them, usually on the expected corresponding spectrum. dumping half a sack of sugar in a little cup vastly exceeds my legitimate expectations from a drink and i would understand if someone refuses to call it coffee, even if it technically is.
if the french were to regulate it as they regulate their food, we'd call it a "warcraft-flavored product". a fanfic, basically - which is the way to treat it, if eg they can't be bothered to decide for months if DIs were part of the old Kalimdor or not.

[Al Gorefiend]

imagine your favorite coffee shop gradually increases their mandatory sugar content in the drinks they serve. a spoonful or two is fine, sometimes even desirable; saying that they never added it is absurd, ofc. except that now these mfs fill half of your cup with syrup and, to add insult to injury, replace the delicious grains with notes of honey and rhubarb with storebought decaf. and as if it wasn't horrifying enough, they decide to adopt their competitors' unique ideas - timetravel and afterlives adding cum to their coffee, which i have to "actively ignore" to avoid headaches. "all i can taste is the cum", indeed.

cherry on top is the locals, who pretend that this infernal swill isn't any different from the stuff they served back then. neverending nightmare, im telling you

And in spite of the new coffee shop opening up across the street, imagine if you will, someone who insists on going back to the same old coffee shop he is so certain is only serving him shit to drink, and telling everyone else trying to enjoy a morning cup of Joe "I used to love it here you know. Everything sucks now, I'd go to that other place but I've spent so much of my time here way back in the day. Back when it was good. Did you know it used to be so much better? I'm telling ya, better than that one that just opened up across the street. I bet they're gonna do so much better than this one. Run them out of business. I still like visiting this one though, I like seeing the new things they add to the menu. But guys I am telling ya, this place used to be so much better. Maybe I'll go check that other one out across the street, but for now I'll just sit here. I won't drink the coffee of course, but I just want to sit here and talk about how great this place used to be".

And he comes back the next day.

[Clone]

I think you're probably onto something here, though the truth was that Warcraft always had a balance between edginess and silliness. Back in WC2 and WC3, you had people killing each other in gruesome fashion, but if you clicked on your units enough they said funny things, or if you clicked on critters they would EXPLODE in a shocking and humorous fashion.

To me, the roots of World of Warcraft are set heavily in these two games. Not just for the aesthetic, but the mix between grittiness and comedy. Warcraft 3 took this to the peak, having people impaled on pikes and on fire, human sacrifices to demons, kids being kidnapped, massacring innocent civilians and piles of bodies in the streets, while at the same time having giant pandas, playful penguins, pop culture references, and an entire post-credits music video with the main antagonist. Warcraft 3 also had its share of edgy (and also funny) concept art or related materials.

So yeah, I think you're onto something. Old Warcraft kept a good balance of brutal violence and war, while also taking the piss a bit to lighten the mood and make it known that things weren't always so serious. It was meant to be a good time to enjoy, not brood and obsess over.

On an semi-unrelated note, I think the comedy of the modern WoW is problematic in that it's occurring inside the setting, like Uldum quests for example. In WC3 it's largely the game's reaction to the player.

- - - Updated - - -

Nothing to add to what @Val the Moofia Boss said. Warcraft needs edge. DF is an overcorrection from SL, but SL's comically bleak subject matter didn't reflect on its Saturday morning communication, ditto BFA. The reason DF marginally works better is because tone, story and visuals actually mesh together, rather than it being Baby's First Ethnic Cleansing Adventure or the Teletubbies go to Satan's Bondage Dungeon.

The books haven't actually had this problem, and if anything actually have more of that tone than the ones way back, but basically no one reads them and they're dressing on top of a game that doesn't.

BfA had a shitty premise but the execution wasn't that bad, and only went downhill when they pivoted away from Horde VS Alliance to Azshara.

[Al Gorefiend]

Am I the only one who doesn't mind the Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe to Warcraft? I used to take the lore seriously, now I just enjoy it like reading a X-men comic. Everythings ridiculous, nobody stays dead, goofy villains, revealing the master plan to the heroes sort of thing. That is exactly what WoW is, goofy nonsense within the fantasy genre. They are fine and free to make serious storylines within the lore, but the setting will always be a goofy universe of mechano-chickens and space aliens and dragons and ancient Kung-fu all within the same world. How can anybody look at this game and decide to take it so seriously, you can be passionate about goofy dumb things, its allowed. WoW is goofy and dumb with occasionally bleak storylines.

[VladlTutushkin]

"SL is completely disconnected from Azeroth and doesn't feel like WoW"

Because it's not Azeroth, and is the Afterlife, a place we've never seen before til recently. There will be Azeroth connections and whatnot sure, but the realm itself is cosmic by nature, and is the Domain of a Cosmic Power. Tf did you think it was gonna be full of? Stormwind esc castles or tribal spikes? Or did you expect Titan structures? Really? Get outta here wit that shit.

Oh piss off you know what i was talking about.

[SilverLion]

Am I the only one who doesn't mind the Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe to Warcraft? I used to take the lore seriously, now I just enjoy it like reading a X-men comic. Everythings ridiculous, nobody stays dead, goofy villains, revealing the master plan to the heroes sort of thing. That is exactly what WoW is, goofy nonsense within the fantasy genre. They are fine and free to make serious storylines within the lore, but the setting will always be a goofy universe of mechano-chickens and space aliens and dragons and ancient Kung-fu all within the same world. How can anybody look at this game and decide to take it so seriously, you can be passionate about goofy dumb things, its allowed. WoW is goofy and dumb with occasionally bleak storylines.

Honestly, I think this is the disconnect. Everyone wants WoW to be this kind of Tolkien-esque narrative you brag about to your nerd friends about how complex it is when in reality, it is literally cartoon nonsense. Like that's the charm. That's all it's ever been. It doesn't matter how gritty you make something, when your premise is absurd itself, you're not going to be taken as seriously as a premise that is more toned down. To keep it with Warhammer, 40k is gritty, but if someone comes up to me and tries to flaunt how 40k is this AMAZING series with incredibly lore strictly because that lore is edgy, I'm going to ignore them and roll my eyes. 40k has good stuff for sure, but the edginess doesn't factor into the quality at -all-. Beyond maybe the self-parody factor, perhaps.

I think if people actually slowed down and looked at WoW as a comic, like you said, instead of Game of Thrones or something like that, they'd have more fun. I haven't even seen good arguments about WoW being more serious because it's all boiled down to cherry picking individual story beats, instead of a wholistic approach.

[Aucald]

i see "it's literally same as it ever was" on a regular basis.
besides, "dominant substance" is not the way to define a coffee, unless you're a purist or the FDA. with that definition, latte isn't coffee:
but you already told me that coffee with milk is still coffee. same logic is used by various regulatory entities: Ireland says Subway bread isn't bread, the US says that American cheese isn't cheese, France naturally spergouts about their bread.
in the opposite case, a cup filled with pure black coffee with a drop of cyanide is still coffee - but i doubt anyone except for suicidals would drink it.
all this means that excessively strict formal criteria won't work - but fefees will. coffee (or any comestible) is supposed to produce them, usually on the expected corresponding spectrum. dumping half a sack of sugar in a little cup vastly exceeds my legitimate expectations from a drink and i would understand if someone refuses to call it coffee, even if it technically is.
if the french were to regulate it as they regulate their food, we'd call it a "warcraft-flavored product". a fanfic, basically - which is the way to treat it, if eg they can't be bothered to decide for months if DIs were part of the old Kalimdor or not.

That's got the weirdest and most pedantic take on coffee I think I've ever seen. No, black coffee with a dash of milk and some sugar isn't a latte - and I think most people are going to be a combination of confused and incredulous if you say it is. It's coffee in one of its various forms. And yes, a cup of plain black coffee with some cyanide in it is also coffee; it's poisoned coffee, but still coffee. Only a pedant of the first order is going to split hairs like this down to the microscopic level.

Similarly, WoW remains WoW despite the addition of flying mounts, Hero classes, collectible Legendaries, additional talents, Garrisons, Artifact weapons, or whatever other alternative advancement schemes they toss onto the pile in a given expansion. WoW is still WoW 12 expansions later, it's changed and it's evolved, but it's still itself in every way that counts. Emotions and technicalities don't really matter, we're talking about what a thing essentially is. It doesn't become something else just because you personally dislike the direction it's taken.

[Super Dickmann]

BfA had a shitty premise but the execution wasn't that bad, and only went downhill when they pivoted away from Horde VS Alliance to Azshara.

It's the opposite. BFA had one of the best premises the game's coughed up and it was downhill before day one because it combined loathing that premise with a passion with being breathtakingly, incomprehensibly inept in execution.

@Nerovar

Oh, yeah, that's not even in question. We're not dishing out prescriptions here, we're doing an autopsy. BFA was the final blow, not out of nowhere. The WC3 bit is telling only in as much as the writers actually knew that their messiahs were, if not an outright problem, then a narrative stumbling block, which is why Jaina and Thrall got shunted off in the expansion to focus on the other characters who were still good to go and why when they wisely went back to Orcs and Humans for the MMO they worked to inject some more conflict in. Past that, from Mists onwards the issue hasn't been a realization that they need to backtrack, but shock that the dosage didn't kill the patient and they need to up it.

While I've gone on about how Jaina and Thrall in WC3 were themselves just versions of this and going on about how the game has strayed from that version of the Horde and Alliance as a way to critique the world peace direction is a completely lost cause since they were its origin points, the writing staff on WC3 still knew that conflict was the name of the game. The actual canary in the coal mine for harmony between homogenized parties being an end state, not a bug, much like most everything that'd later also crop up in WoW is Starcraft II.

[Nymrohd]

I will say this
The gameplay concerns that require cross faction play are valid and had to be addressed
At the same time it should in no way force the narrative to abandon faction war.
The factions have fought together against greater threats CONSTANTLY. Also historically from antiquity to this day have always involved periodict truces. Storywise there are no limitations.

When it comes to gameplay limitations
a) WoW shot itself in the foot with its guild structure. There should be NO reason why you can only join one guild. I don't think any of us has a single exclusive circle of friends and acquaintances. Different circles for different environments. E.g. in ESO my main is a member of no less than THREE guilds; one I do trials (raids) with, one I do pvp with and the third is a large trading guild. The PvP guild is Daggerfall Covenant members only but there rest are completely open to every player. You could have allowed people to register their guilds at a neutral location; not all guild charters should be authorized by the Alliance and Horde but instead could be by the Kirin Tor. That way if someone wanted, they could establish a PvP guild without that creating any exclusivity.
b) BfA introduced War Mode and that could and should have completely changed the game of PvP identity. You have War Mode on, you identify as an active member of your faction and participate in faction war activities. You want to stay out of that, take War Mode off.

As for the feeling of the world. For me the main issue is that the world just seems so small now. With Pandaria and especially with BfA and Kul Tiras the world finally gained a proper sense of scale common to modern RPGs. When I first logged into WoW my main feeling was wonder (all the way down to abandoning my first toon on a branch of Teldrassil when I fell off exploring and rolling a new one). I still got that sense of wonder up to BfA. Not so much in SL which imo had the worst level design in WoW since Cata (and Cata had the revamp justification for its failings) and even less in DF. Unleashing dragonriding speeds has made the world tiny yet again and I am unsure that sense of wonder can now return.