BfA zones feels disjointed and empty due to lack of lore and design

[rhorle]

Players ARE lore, even back in Vanilla, when we were mere grunts doing menial tasks and a lot of footwork. When you crossed two enemy zones (as a Horde player) to go questing in Badlands, there were lore reasons to do so, even if you were given little to no information about those zones. Now, our toon is Speaker of the Horde lorewise, we are supposed to have at least a little briefing about wtf is happening on the enemy islands besides "there's Ally there, kill'em all 'n git muh azerite". It makes the experience really shallow, together with several other in- and out-of-game elements. Ditto for Ally, although they seem to have it somewhat better in that department.

The characters are lore. The players are not. There is a clear distinction. We players can find out a lot more then the characters ever will. A player can go to Wowpedia to find out story and lore if they want to. A character can not. Did someone write you a book in order how to post on a forum? Were you required to read all of the chronicles before discussing lore?

The experience isn't shallow just because you are not told a bunch of stuff. Our characters and those they interact with are not omniscient. And it will never be poor story when you make a character not omniscient. You do get a little bit of lore about what is happening on the enemy islands. As alliance I learned that the snakes were trying to take Vol'dun, The blood trolls were trying to take Naz'mir and were involved with G'hun. The only story that is a mystery for Alliance is Zul'dazar but you learn about the zone and some threats.

I don't get why you think it would be better story to know a bunch of details when you are establishing outposts as part of the War Campaign. Yet you expect everyone to be a psychic and know all of these details when they haven't even established a foothold in the zones yet. But you are right terrible story that our characters are not know it alls.

[Soon-TM]

The characters are lore. The players are not. There is a clear distinction. We players can find out a lot more then the characters ever will. A player can go to Wowpedia to find out story and lore if they want to. A character can not. Did someone write you a book in order how to post on a forum? Were you required to read all of the chronicles before discussing lore?

The experience isn't shallow just because you are not told a bunch of stuff. Our characters and those they interact with are not omniscient. And it will never be poor story when you make a character not omniscient. You do get a little bit of lore about what is happening on the enemy islands. As alliance I learned that the snakes were trying to take Vol'dun, The blood trolls were trying to take Naz'mir and were involved with G'hun. The only story that is a mystery for Alliance is Zul'dazar but you learn about the zone and some threats.

I don't get why you think it would be better story to know a bunch of details when you are establishing outposts as part of the War Campaign. Yet you expect everyone to be a psychic and know all of these details when they haven't even established a foothold in the zones yet. But you are right terrible story that our characters are not know it alls.

Dude, either you didn't read my link or you got it all backwards. Our characters aren't merely message carriers, they are high ranking officers as of BfA, and lorewise have been effective narrative vessels since Vanilla. I'm not asking to "get told a bunch of stuff", just a reason of wtf are we doing in the opposite faction's islands other than GIT EZRITE N KEEL DEM BAD BAD HURDZ/ALEEZ. I'm not asking for them to be omniscient (dude, do you train for strawmaning or are you just a natural?) either, just have something like an intel briefing of what is going on in the place we're being sent to. Again, we're high ranking officers for crying out loud, and no army ever has sent its commanders to ANY region without their officers having at least some idea of what to expect. And no, as Horde you don't get shit as to what's happening in KT, although the opposite is not true.

[rhorle]

I'm not asking for them to be omniscient (dude, do you train for strawmaning or are you just a natural?) either, just have something like an intel briefing of what is going on in the place we're being sent to.

There is little intelligence about Zandalar for the alliance and vice versa. That is the whole story. We just don't know and establish outposts as part of the War Campaign so we can learn intelligence. It doesn't matter that we are "high ranking officers" there just isn't much known and we are sent to discover what we can while leading the first out posts.

You clearly haven't done the War Campaign for horde. Drustvar shows that witches are taking over the zone and something is going on with them. Tirasgarde sound you learn that someone is controlling the pirates and you get a foothold by spearheading a mutiny. Stormsong is pretty much outright horde vs alliance even for the alliance story. The only thing you miss out on is deeper explanation of the old gods. But there are quests and you can pick up on stuff happening by observing the areas that NPC's are attacking.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=284301/...hing-footholds

The guide from Wowhead clearly shows that you get a short briefing of what is going on. You learn basics. Because again the lore is that the Alliance just doesn't know much about the Horde and the Horde doesn't know much about the Alliance side of things. As the war campaign unfolds is when everyone starts getting a bigger picture of what is going on. And all of that stuff is unfolding relatively quickly and not at the snails pace that we players experience it.

[Demithio]

Players ARE lore, even back in Vanilla, when we were mere grunts doing menial tasks and a lot of footwork. When you crossed two enemy zones (as a Horde player) to go questing in Badlands, there were lore reasons to do so, even if you were given little to no information about those zones. Now, our toon is Speaker of the Horde lorewise, we are supposed to have at least a little briefing about wtf is happening on the enemy islands besides "there's Ally there, kill'em all 'n git muh azerite". It makes the experience really shallow, together with several other in- and out-of-game elements. Ditto for Ally, although they seem to have it somewhat better in that department.

Its a case of complete loss of mystery in the game. There is no more using the imagination to fill in the blanks or discovery, which made the game much more thought provoking and interesting. Its more or less spelled out for the player now, with a big red arrow over the objective. The entire "what if" factor has been removed. Simply horrible design that completely misses what makes a game great.