Anyone else feel like BfA is already over story wise?

[owbu]

That's what happens when you wrotea perfectly decent old god expansion (so we meet the zandalari trolls and have to deal with their blood old good construct when BAM underwater raid and azshara, who summons nzoth so we have to go to this super epic old god town and fight him!) and then marketing comes along and tells you about how focus groups have shown that the expansion is actually about Sylvanas and a faction war.

So now all the trailers and cinematics and last minute content additions (prepatch event, war campaign, that one asset flipped raid) are about Sylvanas jumping between "for the horde! buy our game!" and "the horde means nothing! buy our next game!" and fan favourites massacaring each other, while your actual expansion somewhere in the backround is about murdering old gods.
Has anyone dealt with that sword from last expansion btw? I feel like we kinda forgot about that plot...seemed important. Hey! Look! Sylvanas is pwning the Lich King!

[Shakana]

Yes i do. I wish shadowlands was already half done when they announced it, but it wasn't so i need to get more bfa and everyone else. I feel story wise bfa is kind of messed up and has so much themes mixed that i just want a exclusive one theme-direction content and expansion.

[melzas]

Storywise I think it will get more exciting once next patch goes live and we get the story rolling. I'm just bummed there aren't any new zones/hubs in 8.3, it does make it feel less important because of that. We've been getting zones in last content patch of every expansion since MoP I think? Timeless, Tanaan, Argus.

This time it feels like they've dumped all their load on 8.2 with Mechagon + Nazjatar which is a shame.

I totally feel like Nyalotha has the potential for a huge zone with dailies, pvp hub and shit. Making it only a raid is a let down.

[Mojo03]

It’s too bad we didn’t get the N’Zoth zone they canned. It looked like a cool idea from the leaked screenshots.

[RyudoTFO]

It feels like the game is on a hiatus right now. But that is probably mostly because of the 15th Anniversary event. They would have probably released/planned the next patch earlier, but they stated they don't want the anniversary celebrations to overlap with the new content.

Just wait till 8.3. There is a good chunk of content coming with that. We man not see any faction war again, but a wrap-up to the N'zoth story that was all over BfA and probably some new events will start leading over to Shadowlands. The expansion may be on its final breath, but I won't consider it be completely over already.

Play something else meanwhile if you feel like there is nothing you can work towards in WoW right now, there is a ton of good games that came out recently or will come out soon. Or just take a break overall.

[Chonar]

This always happens when Blizzcon announces the next expansion and hypes it up when the final Patch of the current expansion still has to play out.

[Sondrelk]

The problem here is that there are 3 vastly different "main" stories in BfA vying for attention.


We have the Azerite plot point, the least important, but nonetheless something that could in theory support a main plot fairly easily.

We have the Old god plot, the supposed actual main plot of BfA, which were shown in bits and pieces, but rarely if never in direct contact with the other plot points (unless you count Old god minions in the world quests)

Then we have the Faction war storyline, which was what the expansion was marketed on, and which the entire expansion revovles around. It even had a perfectly logical endpoint of defeating Sylvanas in a climactic final battle before N'zoth shows up to spearhead his own expansion where he gets proper coverage.


Instead we start with Faction war, all teh signs point to faction war, and only meta knowledge and the fact that we have an expansion based around the ocean clues us in to the fact that this is supposed to be about old gods all along.
The faction war story builds and builds, seemingly only taking a small break in Nazjatar before what i considered the logical endpoint of SoO 2.0, where the factions finally reconcile to defeat Sylvanas.

Instead, in 8.2.5 Sylvanas escapes, the factions are seemingly at peace and N'zoth shows up because why not. The real kick in the teeth here is that both stories suffer from this.

The faction war story did not get a proper payoff, sure you oculd say that the cinematic was supposed to be that, but Anduin shuts Saurfang down right as he is about to reach a true epiphany about the Horde identity and why their hero-worship and love of war has been twisted into an ideology that glorifies warmongering. We learn in Shadowlands that the factions are not even at peace, we have just reset the status quo back to Classic, which means that in the end the only reason the faction war was necessary seems to be because the writers needed Sylvanas to become evil, and somehow that required a massive faction war detour.
Sylvanas coudl just as easily have started the war with burning down Teldrassil alone, and then seemingly allying with Azshara and N'zoth and the story would function no differently except less Sadfang.

The Old god story suffers because of a simple lack of buildup. You could certainly argue that N'zoth has been foreshadowed a lot in previous expansions, but foreshaodwing is not the same as proper exposure.
The lich king was heavily foreshadowed in Classic and TBC, but it would still have felt disingenous to throw him in at the end of TBC.
What N'zoth required was an entire expansion slowly building up to him, where we truly get to see and feel hte reason the old Gods are supposed to be so threatening.
Hopefully N'zoth survives his encounter though, my guess is through Xal'atath, if not then the credibility of the Old gods ended up being for naught all along.

[Puremallace]

You do not think like a Warcraft lore writer. What they will do is recycle a bunch of lore figures in Shadowlands then they will claim going all the way back 15 years since people first killed C'thun that the real expansion was going to be about the void.

After Shadowlands they are seriously tapped out for content and they are going to have to go universal like Avengers Endgame universal and that means the Void and the Light where these old gods actually live.

Trust me I am 100% with you that pissing away yet another old god for the sake of a content patch is a damn shame just so they could keep Sylvannas relevant.

I HOPEEEEEEE they atleast say that the Jailer has a history with the old gods and they were the ones who imprisoned him or something and the players weakening their grip is what made him so powerful.

They could have ATLEAST had Nyalota float out the water or something and into the sky. That would have been cool.

[TheFirstOnes]

The reason N'zoth has been hidden from marketing is because they know the average players don't care about Old Gods as much as Sylvanas/faction bullshit.

And that's why I hate Sylvanas' plotline. 9.0 and the whole Sylvanas BS is just setting up the Void Lords and their BS (Ya know? The actual villains of WoW?). It's similar to how WoD set up Legion. Or how 8.1 and 8.2 set up 8.3.

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You do not think like a Warcraft lore writer. What they will do is recycle a bunch of lore figures in Shadowlands then they will claim going all the way back 15 years since people first killed C'thun that the real expansion was going to be about the void.

After Shadowlands they are seriously tapped out for content and they are going to have to go universal like Avengers Endgame universal and that means the Void and the Light where these old gods actually live.

Trust me I am 100% with you that pissing away yet another old god for the sake of a content patch is a damn shame just so they could keep Sylvannas relevant.

I HOPEEEEEEE they atleast say that the Jailer has a history with the old gods and they were the ones who imprisoned him or something and the players weakening their grip is what made him so powerful.

They could have ATLEAST had Nyalota float out the water or something and into the sky. That would have been cool.

Dude...

Warcraft went on the whole Universal scale long before BFA and Shadowlands. What are you talking about?

[matrix123mko]

Yeah, but the new casual playerbase doesn't give a shit about the lore: they only like the shiny celebrity lore figures like Illidan and Sylvanas.

That's why N'zoth is not the focus of his own expansion, and Sargeras only appears for fifteen seconds in World of Warcraft.

They could have gone en route of Jaina becoming raid boss that serves N'zoth.

[Lurker1]

8.3 hasn't come out yet why would it

[Laqweeta]

I actually feel really bad for the people that had to grind 7th Legion/Honorbound rep to advance the War Campaign. "Thrilling" lel. Poor things.

[Video Games]

People have been wanting a south seas expansion with zandalar and nzoth for over a decade and we finally got it. How was this surprising at all?

[matrix123mko]

I actually feel really bad for the people that had to grind 7th Legion/Honorbound rep to advance the War Campaign. "Thrilling" lel. Poor things.

It is annoying but not thrilling.

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Hopefully N'zoth survives his encounter though, my guess is through Xal'atath, if not then the credibility of the Old gods ended up being for naught all along.

I really hope he will survive.

[TheFirstOnes]

N'zoth isn't surviving through this. But, that doesn't mean he won't come back in some way. When Y'shaarj, C'Thun, and Yogg-Saron died, their presences were still felt in some way. N'zoth will have a similar effect.

[Zuben]

Agree. Both N'Zoth and Ny'alotha are legendary, highly anticipated entities in Warcraft lore. Now that we know what the next expansion will be about their patch feels redundant, like they're already dealt with. Then again, Azshara and Nazjatar were equally legendary, yet their implementation mid-expansion felt similarly lackluster. Maybe because Horde vs Alliance and especially Horde's inner conflict with Saurfang and Sylvanas were the top topics? I'd say so. There was too much noise.

Oh well, maybe I'll sing a different tune when the patch is actually here and playable.

[Laqweeta]

It is annoying but not thrilling.

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I really hope he will survive.

That's exactly why I put quotes on thrilling. xD.

[Ielenia]

Did they settle the Azeroth wound plotline? Either in 8.3 or Shadowlands?

I have a feeling it might play a part in Shadowlands. Because so far no progress at all has been made with the sword.

Then again, how could the Azerothians deal with that sword? Even (mostly) de-powered, it's still MASSIVE, and it's a Titan weapon so who knows how strong it is. Can't exactly teleport it, since just teleporting Dalaran was a huge feat (that even Occuleth was surprised with), plus WHERE would the sword be sent to?

A pity we don't have a hotline to the Titans to ask them to come pull the sword out...

[RadasNoir]

It was over the minute Sylvanas threw (yet another) temper tantrum, spoke dismissively about the Horde (the horror!) and rode her broom off into the next expansion, thereby bringing the so-called "Battle for Azeroth" to a close.

Meanwhile...N'zoth? The big, bad Old God that somehow managed to outlast his brothers? The guy that's been foreshadowed on and off between now and Cataclysm? The dude who was supposedly "signing Deathwing's checks"? Yeah, he's filler content. Like Ruby Sanctum, just something to tide people over until Shadowlands comes out and we can return to the real story line featuring WoW's most important character!

[CrawlFromThePit]

BfA was over when Arthas died.