Originally Posted by
Eli85
First, what should be the most obvious: the Red Wedding, whether through the books or the show, was the furthest thing from surprising. It is the end result of thousands of pages of foreshadowing, and every small step that was made towards it, especially in the third book, made it abundantly clear that something really bad was going to happen to a whole bunch of characters. If anyone was surprised when it happened, they either weren't paying enough attention to the story and the characters, or they did not care to.
All of that said, the WoW story does not need a good "shock." Shock writing is one of the worst things you can do. Good writing is layered with foreshadowing, convincing character motivations, and logical conclusions. Shock for the sake of shock is just high school creative writing or fan fiction.
What WoW's story needs is to actually be good again. In my opinion, that starts with a really good antagonist (villain), and he / she needs to be built up appropriately as a deadly threat. The last time I felt this was done well was the entire Garrosh arc. Gul'dan? Nope. The Legion? They sorta just show up and go BRING IT! N'zoth? For the corrupter of Neltharion and an Old God, not once did I feel like he had any chance of victory.
There is too much to say about what WoW needs to do to make a better story, because you could honestly write a book on it. But really, I think, the crux of the problem is this: too many unlikeable characters are pushed to prominence (*cough* Slyvanas), and you get so much disengagement because of it.