WoW’s “feel” of the world.

[Super Dickmann]

What you said is completely correct but I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. All of the "loose ends" of these individual racial narratives (which usually date back to WC3 or Classic) still technically existed at that point and could have been explored in a satisfying way BUT I don't think it's possible in the world that was set up by the preceding expansions. You can have a human reconquista of Lordaeron but you cannot have it in a world where the Alliance is lead by Anduin and the act of waging war is basically viewed as a crime itself (which is somehow recognized by every people on Azeroth). The logic of the setting is dictated by "he must stand trial in Pandaria"/"Draenor is free" and similar poignant moments and it is so ubiquitous that people see the mere act of the Horde aggressing against the international rules based order as contrived and hitting them with the villain bat. It is the same irresistible logic that has us believe that a Forsaken apothecary cradling an Orc child is a sensible or even wholesome thing that could actually, realistically occur in this world. There is no fundamental difference between Horde and Alliance, Humans and Orcs, living and undead nor is there a genuine competition of opposing systems of belief, government etc. because it is all treated as a mere aesthetic with no real bearing on the plot. Nothing that happens in this world logically follows from its history because in a way, the end of history is baked into the setting. Therefor, the game doesn't provide a frame of reference in which a hypothetical 'good' BfA could even exist.

I see where you're going with this, but I think you're mixing up two points, the latter of which I agree with, but the former not so much. It wasn't yonks ago at the time of BFA where Blizzard did use these materials to tell a faction conflict story - Anduin signing off on a military conflict, Genn going off on a fight based on his prior grievances and so forth. Most of all, framing that keeps both sides protagonists in the drama. No one sends a written reprimand to Genn or Sylvanas, no sad tauren child or Baine or whoever goes on about man's inhumanity to man. This was right before BFA, which in every pore was infused with the opposite sentiment. The game is not bound by its prior framing or how much it ignores something. We have to keep in mind, that to even get us into the faction war again painful gyrations of the plot given that orcs and humans were deliberately put on different continents and guided such by a prophet to avoid them coming to blows. Bot the orc-night elf turf war escalating into something actually meaningful and the last ever faction conflict not done for the purposes of abolishing it, Stormheim, both date back to Cataclysm.

Where you are right though is not so much on the integrity of the setting, which is spread wide and thin enough that minor adjustments can get you where you want to be, it's the playerbase and writers. The mood back when Wrath started putting the faction war back in was putting the war back in Warcraft because the Horde-Alliance dynamics in Vanilla and TBC were boring. Before that was a smarmy punchline it was a genuine bit of player interest and organically sought out by a large enough group of interested people. While you didn't lose all those people by the time of BFA, they were a lot fewer and none were in the writing staff. The people who thought the Sadfang cinematics were touching, but wasted on a bad expansion, the ones telling you you should go into cosmic fares and the faction war was now passe, and the ones going on about how we'd already learned the lessons of Pandaria and fought a million baddies together were in ascendance. When that's your demography, you can't seriously pitch a faction war expansion.

In that sense, no element of the setting keeps a faction war from picking back up or even dredging up values which'd allow you to wage it. BFA ended on the most ridiculous white peace known to man and gameplay mechanics as they are mean nothing is tying you any longer to nonsensical racial team-ups. What's really keeping you from doing it is the community in and out. The Anduin vs. Space Ghosts expansions were killed in their crib by SL being what it was and the main complaint going on about DF is that it's toothless and sedate, while deemphasizing the factions. If you're ever going to work with human conflict again, that kind of out of story factor will contribute. Personally though I wouldn't count on it, at least not unless there's a major writer's room change, which I don't see either.

[Feanoro]

-Baine never worked for the Alliance in BFA. He opposed the Horde when it was doing evil things like brainwashing people. He spoke up, and the Horde heard, which would ultimately spark the rebellion that uprooted Sylvanas. Honor vs. loyalty and all that.

Anyone not willing to feed babies through woodchippers is not only not a true member of the Horde, he's an undercover Alliance agent and always has been, don't you know.

[Soon-TM]

Anyone not willing to feed babies through woodchippers is not only not a true member of the Horde, he's an undercover Alliance agent and always has been, don't you know.

If you are a member of the Horde who doesn't like what your boss is doing, you have two choices: to call Mak'gora (if you have the guts for it) or to desert (if you don't). Baine was effectively an undercover Alliance agent, that's why Ally players love him so much.

As I said before, even Anduin worshipper Sadfang had the decency to desert after his disagreements with Sylvie.

[Aresk]

If you are a member of the Horde who doesn't like what your boss is doing, you have two choices: to call Mak'gora (if you have the guts for it) or to desert (if you don't). Baine was effectively an undercover Alliance agent, that's why Ally players love him so much.

As I said before, even Anduin worshipper Sadfang had the decency to desert after his disagreements with Sylvie.

Saurfang didn't desert. He was captured and imprisoned. As soon as he was freed, he went straight back to gathering Horde forces in an attempt to oppose Sylvanas. What part of Saurfang's story screamed "desertion"?

Also, the "Baine is an undercover Alliance agent" rhetoric seems antithetical to his actions, when he actively kills Alliance troops in Lordaeron and supports the Horde's effort to recruit the Zandalari. His opposition to Sylvanas occurs after we learn that something odd was going on with Vol'jin's death and Sylvanas' ascension to Warchief, which calls into question the validity of her station. Had the Alliance been replaced with some other enemy in the Horde's conflict during BfA, there's no reason to believe that Baine's actions would have been different.

[NineSpine]

The original feel of Warcraft, which I believe carried through to WoW, was a combination of:

1. Grimdark sword and sorcery
2. Goofiness arising from not taking things too seriously

This was largely lifted from Warhammer, but was infused with a sensibility from independent American comic books of the 70s and especially the 80s that gave it its own spin. The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a great example of the type of tone that was infused into Warcraft.

Over time the game has moved away from that to take on more inspiration from anime, American cartoons, superhero media, and later editions of D&D. The people who deny that this shift has happened are either oblivious or dishonest. It's undeniable. It's perfectly fine to prefer the new style and tone, but denying anything has changed is bizarre.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Almost like the writing teams and employees have completely changed in 20 years!

There are presumably people working on this game who weren't even born when D2, SC, and WC 1+2 came out lol

[Soon-TM]

people working on this game who weren't even born when D2, SC, and WC 1+2 came out lol

And it shows. Although to be fair, the slide towards cheap soap opera began with Metzen himself and his crappy writing for SC2.

[Super Dickmann]

And it shows. Although to be fair, the slide towards cheap soap opera began with Metzen himself and his crappy writing for SC2.

Man got married, had kids, chilled out. All well and good for him, but doesn't lend itself to metalhead fantasy writing. There's also the other point which is that the reason TBC's abysmal blood elf come to Jesus story for example only isn't a SC2 style opera or a SL style melodrama not because of writing quality but because the tech wasn't there yet. A Mists that actually stuck to Metzen's original comic book replacement hero idea would've been much worse than what Kosak and Alex put out.

The current crop took inspiration from his later fare and consider it aspirational, which is how we get one of the timelines in 10.1.5 with a world where the faction war is still on-going being called a dystopia.

[Shinchi Migi]

Its just a small post about the unique “feel” WoW had for me, which i think a lot of people shared based on what i read here and on other forums. The feel that is now totally gone, and last time i had it was when i played GW2 for a while, but there it was still a different thing, even if similar.

So, WoW had that unique atmosphere to it, mix of nostalgia and adventure and the spirit of factional rivalry… Somehow even when they added new stuff the general feeling remained mostly undiluted, giving that WoW vibe without fail, even in Pandaria. Draenor began to sort of “lose” it, Legion had it but it began to gradually melt away, but since all else was good it wasnt obvious…

And then the big “crash and burn” began - with BfA being one huge shitfest of depression, hamfisted moralisation and overblown drama and edginess and gloom… And of course utter cuckoldry if you played Alliance.

SL and DF no longer even feel like WoW at all, SL being so disconnected you may as well call it another game and DF being too milquetoast and still disconnected from Azeroth, despite being on Azeroth.

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?

I felt this way in Shadowlands. So I took a long break. It wasn't until about a month after I left that all the booty grabbing and touching allegations popped up. So the year and 2 months (Maybe longer) really helped me to "somewhat" get rid of the feeling of disconnect that I had for the game.

[VladlTutushkin]

Man got married, had kids, chilled out. All well and good for him, but doesn't lend itself to metalhead fantasy writing. There's also the other point which is that the reason TBC's abysmal blood elf come to Jesus story for example only isn't a SC2 style opera or a SL style melodrama not because of writing quality but because the tech wasn't there yet. A Mists that actually stuck to Metzen's original comic book replacement hero idea would've been much worse than what Kosak and Alex put out.

The current crop took inspiration from his later fare and consider it aspirational, which is how we get one of the timelines in 10.1.5 with a world where the faction war is still on-going being called a dystopia.

Again, for Alliance EERY faction war was a grotesque dystopia of cuckoldry and despair.

Yu ever had trouble finding any sort of motivation to care about faction war because the game made you a sucker one too many times? Well i had those all the way.

[Powerogue]

Saurfang didn't desert. He was captured and imprisoned. As soon as he was freed, he went straight back to gathering Horde forces in an attempt to oppose Sylvanas. What part of Saurfang's story screamed "desertion"?

I mean he sort of deserted by accepting Anduin's escape plan, then, rather than working with him in any sense, simply left and lived in Swamp of Sorrows for a bit. He had a makeshift house and everything. It wasn't until Sylvanas sent assassins after him that he realized he doesn't get to hide and went to find Thrall. During which time the news of Baine's imprisonment was rapidly spreading, to the opposite of Sylvanas's intentions of stoking fear, stoking anger and dissent as those present like Rexxar went off to begin organizing against her, ultimately meeting up with Saurfang and Thrall.

That's what baffles me about this whole conversation and argument, trying to tie it back to the topic, is calling the stories not "believable", which is ultimately subjective, but primarily because we have people actively ignoring as much of the story as possible in favor of their own incredibly warped headcanons in order to be as angry as possible at said story.

These characters have reasons for what they do, they're just not always immediately apparent if you miss/ignore large chunks of the story. And there will always come a level of interpretation, at which point you decide whether you interpret it in a way that makes the most sense with how the characters have acted and what it seems like the writers were going for, whatever seems to make the most coherent story, or interpret it in the worst way possible to make yourself as angry as possible. For some reason.

So let's take that back to the main post: The difference between old "faction rivalry", which they liked, and more recent BFA's faction rivalry, which they hated. BFA, and more recent expansions in general, focus on smaller casts of individual characters. Both for storytelling, and it's more convenient for rendering cutscenes.

In a lot of the older conflicts, indeed things were violent, but they didn't matter whatsoever. Oh goody, I have a quest to go decapitate 50 unnamed orcs, and for my pvp capture the flag I got a mount with orc heads on it. Yay me! These were all generally nameless insignificant characters we'd fight because we've always been fighting.

I'd argue it wasn't BFA that changed that, but MOP. Yes, the Panda expansion. Or rather, the Faction War expansion that took place partially on Pandaria. Here we had consequences. We had pain. All of Theramore gets destroyed, The Purge of Dalaran comes after, Jaina's practically a whole different person, and we've got Alleria giving you quests to execute civilians who are cowering and killing the mounts they might use to escape. It stuck with me for years. I had killed thousands of blood elves before and didn't care. I was playing Alliance, it's what you do.

BFA took that consequences ball and swung it hard and personal. Annihilating two starting zones, not to mention everything that came after. The outcome of the expansion, for the first time ever, being fiercely debated on what outcome would be better. They wanted a "feel" of overwhelming strife, and succeeded a little too well.

So I think that's it. I think you want the "feel" of action without consequences. To me at least, that sounds really boring.

[Super Dickmann]

BFA took that consequences ball and swung it hard and personal. Annihilating two starting zones, not to mention everything that came after. The outcome of the expansion, for the first time ever, being fiercely debated on what outcome would be better. They wanted a "feel" of overwhelming strife, and succeeded a little too well.

So I think that's it. I think you want the "feel" of action without consequences. To me at least, that sounds really boring.

I know we've been over this a million times back when it was current content, but I'm feeling nostalgic, so why not.

There's not one person with a pulse who disliked BFA because of its depth, as it had none. The main protagonist is purer than the driven snow, the main antagonist literally works for the Devil to raise an astral kill counter and everyone else is a piece of flotsam pushed around by the plot. You are however right that the main difference between BFA and the prior expansons is that BFA wasn't about the factions, it isn't about societies, it's entirely about interpersonal drama.

Where Vanilla, Cataclysm and even Mists in its broad strokes endeavoured to emphasize the actual local, racial and individual character motivation of the parties involved that push them into conflict, with the reasons the orcs and night elves fight being drastically different from the human-forsaken one, BFA is entirely about Sadfang's predicament. The sack of Night Elven Kalimdor, an orcish objective since the first Warsong-Night Elf skirmish doesn't show us how the orcs at large react to finally achieving this goal, nor how their society changes as a result - in contrast to how Vanilla showed what Thrall's Horde was and Cataclysm got into the shifts in society through individual stories and long-running questlines depicting different parts of it. It's even less about the Night Elves and their coming up against how they got up to this point - it's entirely about how sad it makes Saurfang. Jaina's (inexpicable and nonsensical) conclusion that her dear old dad is wrong somehow filters out over her entire population off-screen, who immediately adopt her political beliefs despite having zero reasoning for it. The conflict over Lordaeron, the fundamental plot point of that part of the setting in which the entire Forsaken identity as well as that of their primary antagonists is tied up, does not even come up after it happens. Save for some lounging saddos and a pair of Forsaken, no one brings it up or reacts to it, because it's also not about Lordaeron, it's about Sylvanas twirling her mustache and Sadfang honorably throwing the fight his surrogate son is engaged in.

Shifting the focus of a story towards a tiny cast rather than the large-scale groups and geopolitics that are the nature of the setting, by default, as it started with an RTS, an inherently large-scale medium and then an MMO, where the same applies and the focus is the scope of the world, and boiling down said geopolitics to the laughable drama of half a dozen priks shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the strengths of what you've got. But one way to take this inherently shit idea and make it all the worse, is to also make sure all the character drama is incoherent, shallow piffle. Take that bit with Sadfang and Memeboi earlier, I'm sure there's already some version of "But Dickmann, that's not what the story wanted to show us, the writers' point wasn't that Sadfang had already given up by the time the fight had gone on, meaning he'd thrown the fight and his entire moment with his surrogate son character was Sadfang throwing him and the Horde soldiers under the bus on the off-chance it took out Sylvanas." floating about.

Indeed, but authorial intent isn't authorial execution. The fact that the writers mean for something to happen, though with BFA even determining that is a tall fucking order, doesn't mean they actually accomplish it. The writers want to convey that Sadfang is an honorable warrior pushed to the brink and restoring the soul of his people, but what they've presented him as is a perennially inept, passive traitor lacking any public support and reliant on a foreign power to execute his plan, all on account of a failing in a plan that he devised and then didn't follow through on. This informs every aspect of the plot - the story, which aims at the deconstruction and abolition of what's left of the Horde after taking out its racial heart in the orcs back in Mists ends via the Horde means of succession being the tool that wins the day. Jaina's turn towards thinking her dad is wrong about how conflict with the Horde is inevitable and her hesitation will only mean others will die is depicted concurrent with the Horde waging total war on Kul Tiras itself - her own conclusion also doesn't evince any scrap of human motive, notwithstanding how it reduces the entire kingdom into a mood ring who goes from hating her based on that difference with Daelin to liking her when Daelin is proven irrevocably correct.

BFA wasn't a tough story asking tough questions and interrogating its setting, it's a fundamentally weak story that, per that example with Rexxar and the bombs earlier in the thread, applies its moral framework only as convenient, attempts to deconstruct the societies involved while never actually featuring them as such in favor of character melodrama, then fails at that, because unlike in Mists, every positive character's motive and personality are identical. All that could by itself be ignorable if it wasn't for the other point - you are quite right that the setting's faction war is mechanically, in marketing and in setting meant to go on forever. Neither conflicts over tribe or resources in general, nor those in the setting in particular ever permanently end, and the game's races are vessels for just that. In rebelling against its only purpose for existing, BFA did permanent, irreparable damage to the main vehicles through which the setting functions, i.e the conflicting playable races and factions.

[Grazrug]

I mean he sort of deserted by accepting Anduin's escape plan, then, rather than working with him in any sense, simply left and lived in Swamp of Sorrows for a bit. He had a makeshift house and everything. It wasn't until Sylvanas sent assassins after him that he realized he doesn't get to hide and went to find Thrall. During which time the news of Baine's imprisonment was rapidly spreading, to the opposite of Sylvanas's intentions of stoking fear, stoking anger and dissent as those present like Rexxar went off to begin organizing against her, ultimately meeting up with Saurfang and Thrall.

That's what baffles me about this whole conversation and argument, trying to tie it back to the topic, is calling the stories not "believable", which is ultimately subjective, but primarily because we have people actively ignoring as much of the story as possible in favor of their own incredibly warped headcanons in order to be as angry as possible at said story.

These characters have reasons for what they do, they're just not always immediately apparent if you miss/ignore large chunks of the story. And there will always come a level of interpretation, at which point you decide whether you interpret it in a way that makes the most sense with how the characters have acted and what it seems like the writers were going for, whatever seems to make the most coherent story, or interpret it in the worst way possible to make yourself as angry as possible. For some reason.

So let's take that back to the main post: The difference between old "faction rivalry", which they liked, and more recent BFA's faction rivalry, which they hated. BFA, and more recent expansions in general, focus on smaller casts of individual characters. Both for storytelling, and it's more convenient for rendering cutscenes.

In a lot of the older conflicts, indeed things were violent, but they didn't matter whatsoever. Oh goody, I have a quest to go decapitate 50 unnamed orcs, and for my pvp capture the flag I got a mount with orc heads on it. Yay me! These were all generally nameless insignificant characters we'd fight because we've always been fighting.

I'd argue it wasn't BFA that changed that, but MOP. Yes, the Panda expansion. Or rather, the Faction War expansion that took place partially on Pandaria. Here we had consequences. We had pain. All of Theramore gets destroyed, The Purge of Dalaran comes after, Jaina's practically a whole different person, and we've got Alleria giving you quests to execute civilians who are cowering and killing the mounts they might use to escape. It stuck with me for years. I had killed thousands of blood elves before and didn't care. I was playing Alliance, it's what you do.

BFA took that consequences ball and swung it hard and personal. Annihilating two starting zones, not to mention everything that came after. The outcome of the expansion, for the first time ever, being fiercely debated on what outcome would be better. They wanted a "feel" of overwhelming strife, and succeeded a little too well.

So I think that's it. I think you want the "feel" of action without consequences. To me at least, that sounds really boring.

It was the Anduin plan that Saurfang would stir a rebellion. That was his intend. The line "Not alone." when he opened the prison cell gave it straight away.

[VladlTutushkin]

I know we've been over this a million times back when it was current content, but I'm feeling nostalgic, so why not.

There's not one person with a pulse who disliked BFA because of its depth, as it had none. The main protagonist is purer than the driven snow, the main antagonist literally works for the Devil to raise an astral kill counter and everyone else is a piece of flotsam pushed around by the plot. You are however right that the main difference between BFA and the prior expansons is that BFA wasn't about the factions, it isn't about societies, it's entirely about interpersonal drama.

Where Vanilla, Cataclysm and even Mists in its broad strokes endeavoured to emphasize the actual local, racial and individual character motivation of the parties involved that push them into conflict, with the reasons the orcs and night elves fight being drastically different from the human-forsaken one, BFA is entirely about Sadfang's predicament. The sack of Night Elven Kalimdor, an orcish objective since the first Warsong-Night Elf skirmish doesn't show us how the orcs at large react to finally achieving this goal, nor how their society changes as a result - in contrast to how Vanilla showed what Thrall's Horde was and Cataclysm got into the shifts in society through individual stories and long-running questlines depicting different parts of it. It's even less about the Night Elves and their coming up against how they got up to this point - it's entirely about how sad it makes Saurfang. Jaina's (inexpicable and nonsensical) conclusion that her dear old dad is wrong somehow filters out over her entire population off-screen, who immediately adopt her political beliefs despite having zero reasoning for it. The conflict over Lordaeron, the fundamental plot point of that part of the setting in which the entire Forsaken identity as well as that of their primary antagonists is tied up, does not even come up after it happens. Save for some lounging saddos and a pair of Forsaken, no one brings it up or reacts to it, because it's also not about Lordaeron, it's about Sylvanas twirling her mustache and Sadfang honorably throwing the fight his surrogate son is engaged in.

Shifting the focus of a story towards a tiny cast rather than the large-scale groups and geopolitics that are the nature of the setting, by default, as it started with an RTS, an inherently large-scale medium and then an MMO, where the same applies and the focus is the scope of the world, and boiling down said geopolitics to the laughable drama of half a dozen priks shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the strengths of what you've got. But one way to take this inherently shit idea and make it all the worse, is to also make sure all the character drama is incoherent, shallow piffle. Take that bit with Sadfang and Memeboi earlier, I'm sure there's already some version of "But Dickmann, that's not what the story wanted to show us, the writers' point wasn't that Sadfang had already given up by the time the fight had gone on, meaning he'd thrown the fight and his entire moment with his surrogate son character was Sadfang throwing him and the Horde soldiers under the bus on the off-chance it took out Sylvanas." floating about.

Indeed, but authorial intent isn't authorial execution. The fact that the writers mean for something to happen, though with BFA even determining that is a tall fucking order, doesn't mean they actually accomplish it. The writers want to convey that Sadfang is an honorable warrior pushed to the brink and restoring the soul of his people, but what they've presented him as is a perennially inept, passive traitor lacking any public support and reliant on a foreign power to execute his plan, all on account of a failing in a plan that he devised and then didn't follow through on. This informs every aspect of the plot - the story, which aims at the deconstruction and abolition of what's left of the Horde after taking out its racial heart in the orcs back in Mists ends via the Horde means of succession being the tool that wins the day. Jaina's turn towards thinking her dad is wrong about how conflict with the Horde is inevitable and her hesitation will only mean others will die is depicted concurrent with the Horde waging total war on Kul Tiras itself - her own conclusion also doesn't evince any scrap of human motive, notwithstanding how it reduces the entire kingdom into a mood ring who goes from hating her based on that difference with Daelin to liking her when Daelin is proven irrevocably correct.

BFA wasn't a tough story asking tough questions and interrogating its setting, it's a fundamentally weak story that, per that example with Rexxar and the bombs earlier in the thread, applies its moral framework only as convenient, attempts to deconstruct the societies involved while never actually featuring them as such in favor of character melodrama, then fails at that, because unlike in Mists, every positive character's motive and personality are identical. All that could by itself be ignorable if it wasn't for the other point - you are quite right that the setting's faction war is mechanically, in marketing and in setting meant to go on forever. Neither conflicts over tribe or resources in general, nor those in the setting in particular ever permanently end, and the game's races are vessels for just that. In rebelling against its only purpose for existing, BFA did permanent, irreparable damage to the main vehicles through which the setting functions, i.e the conflicting playable races and factions.

Aka - BfA shouldnt have existed because writers entirely missed the memo and wrote themselves into a corner. And because whole premise was asinine, insulting to both factions and both fanbases and created an unsolvable dilemma that will now haunt the game forever.

Also yeah, they proven Daelin so right it physically hurts - Horde cannot be reasoned with, incapable of change and will only become more dangerous if left alone.

[Feanoro]

Baine was effectively an undercover Alliance agent

Anduin worshipper Sadfang

You do understand that your kween was in league with Satan and feeding Horde souls into his meat grinder, right?

That's about the only response to be made to this level of headcanon.

[Soon-TM]

You do understand that your kween was in league with Satan and feeding Horde souls into his meat grinder, right?

That's about the only response to be made to this level of headcanon.

If Baine and/or his fellow Alliance bootlicker Sadfang had had an ounce of self respect, they would have called Mak'gora on the spot, instead of pathetically sullying and brooding, and in the case of Baine, killing Horde soldiers as well. Also "muh kween"? You seem to not have followed any of my posts about Sylv, have you?

[Feanoro]

If Baine and/or his fellow Alliance bootlicker Sadfang had had an ounce of self respect, they would have called Mak'gora on the spot, instead of pathetically sullying and brooding, and in the case of Baine, killing Horde soldiers as well.

Yes, yes. They should have engaged in a fight they KNEW they couldn't win, accomplishing jack shit since losing Mak'gora automatically means you were wrong, thereby leaving the Horde in Sylvie's hands, because the Horde is about not using your brains, as established by the Legion.

Also "muh kween"? You seem to not have followed any of my posts about Sylv, have you?

With absurd exaggerations, you're attacking the only Horde characters who realized that just maybe she didn't have the Horde's best interests at heart.

[Shadowferal]

Yes, yes. They should have engaged in a fight they KNEW they couldn't win, accomplishing jack shit since losing Mak'gora automatically means you were wrong, thereby leaving the Horde in Sylvie's hands, because the Horde is about not using your brains, as established by the Legion.

I fully grasp the thought of "managing another's stupidity," and "sacrificing honor for the sake of life," in this case the Tauren tribe. But was it made clear to anyone?

[fazaim]

The last head collection quest that really stood out to me was in BfA, where the Zandalari task you, the Horde adventurer, to go around and collect the severed heads of their allies just to teach them some lesson, the details of which were quite vague. It seemed like they really just wanted an opportunity to kill off fellow trolls. I feel like WoW, in general, didn't get much edgier than BfA, and it's often placed among some of the worst expansions.

WoD had some issues with the whole time travel/parallel dimension shenanigans, but Legion is where things really felt un-WoW to me. After the Broken Shore, I didn't see one clear explanation for why the Legion didn't overrun the Broken Isles and wipe out all of our forces there. After killing three faction leaders and driving a wedge between the Horde and Alliance, the Legion couldn't capitalize on their advantage? They really stopped feeling like a threat at that point.

For me, the "WoW" feel was best established by a sense of wonder and adventure. Classic had it. MoP did a great job with it. WoD, if one could look past the aforementioned timey-wimeyness of it all, had it. And I feel like DF, thus far, has it. TBC was one of the worst offenders, with the draenei/eredar retcon and the sci-fi Legion splintering far from the vibes established in Classic, and Cata/Legion had some of the worst believable villain threats in the entire franchise.

The Legion were in on the Nighthold which was their main-interest in the Broken Shores. Then of course Tombs of Sargeras and the invasions, but some path has to be taken for gameplay. For me Legion is the only expansion that brought the WoW feel back with its broken night elf temples and desolate shores, seeing that it had its peak several thousand years ago. Even WotLK at the time lost some of that, as its seat of power seemed very much Lord of the Rings and not WoW. I had other expectiations for the Frozen Throne and Northrend in general. Also, Legion had an element I think Dragonflight is lacking: a clear sense of direction. Landing on the Broken Shores, we got a glimpse of the Tomb of Sargeras. From Dalaran we saw the tainted world tree in Shaladrassil and the Nighthold, which we'd have to confront. From the NH we also saw Argus in the torn sky aswell as the clear direction in the broken bridge between the NH and ToS. The "great power" we'd have to confront were located elsewhere. Now we're in Valdrakken where we seem to be part of that great power, making anything else look weak in comparison. On top of the tower of Valdrakken we have huge dragons, around Valdrakken we see the sky populated with these great being. Remember in Redridge when a baby dragon was a serious problem? Now they're diminshed into these wimpy creatures, even if huge, often with these weak voices that put off the mood completely for me. Either way, the gameplay in this expansion is great and I'd rather have that compared to BfA's lack off depth or SL's homogenized covenants. There's something to be said for button bloat however in some top tier builds, but now we have the option to opt out.

[Soon-TM]

Yes, yes. They should have engaged in a fight they KNEW they couldn't win

They absolutely didn't. As a matter of fact, not even us as players knew until SoO 2.0

I know that you like to have Horde bigwigs sucking Ally dick, but c'mon.

- - - Updated - - -

I fully grasp the thought of "managing another's stupidity," and "sacrificing honor for the sake of life," in this case the Tauren tribe. But was it made clear to anyone?

It certainly wasn't. If it had been established from the beginning that Sylv was working for her blue-skinned sugar daddy, and using borrowed power (huehue) from him, it might be more understandable. But until SoO 2.0, Sylv is just a regular banshee for all we know, so Baine/Sadfang refusing to fight her once the dispute becomes insurmountable comes across as underhanded (at best) or cowardice (at worst).

And powerful as Sylv might have been, that should have never been a reason to not challenge her. Hell, even Doomhammer, a run-of-the-mill warrior, might have killed freaking Gul'dan at any time, and only let him live because he was too soft at that moment.