I'm questing in Drustvar for the very first time and I am VERY impressed so far

[Aurabolt]

It's obvious they did their homework with the zone's design and storylines. I can see where the inspiration for a LOT of stuff came from. Well played.

I know it's a soon to be two expansions-old zone but like I said, I'm going through it for the very first time (I did Tiragarde Sound first, will do Stormsong Valley third).

I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to skip story content I haven't done yet. I haven't done Zandalar yet either and I plan to do that and unlock the BFA-era Allied Races before I move on to doing Shadowlands (I unlike the Legion-era Allied Races over the last two months). I'm in no hurry. Kul Tiras first though =P

[Teriz]

Drustvar was an awesome zone. In fact, Kul'tiras is one of my favorite areas to quest in. Really a fantastic job by the dev team bringing that land to life.

[Armael]

There's like 3 music tracks unique to Tiragarde Sound that slap so good, I really loved hanging out there. Also, I can second the Drustvar questing/story was great.

[Kaleredar]

People like to hate on BFA but honestly all the zone design was top-notch. A fair bit better I'd say than shadowlands.

Mechagon wasn't exactly the most inspired place but... it was released alongside nazjatar in the same patch.


The only gripe I have about Drustvar is that the timeline is really muddled... you meet up with daughter Waycrest and she seems unaware that her parents and frankly, most of the entire zone have either become witches or have succumb to a horrifying, mutating curse, such so that entire towns have been irrevocably taken over and countless people either turned or slain... and yet the rest of the townsfolk know of witches and even accuse her of being one, and she seems completely oblivious as to any of this happening. And that's a pretty major crux of the story.

Moreover, it's also never really clear why the rest of the zone decided to throw their lot in with Gorak Tul. Lady Waycrest did it to preserve her sick husband, but the rest of Drustvar's women aren't really ever given any clear motivation for why, apparently, a large majority of them chose to become hideous murdering hag monsters.

Also, Waycrest manor is really cool, but they have a ghosty witch dungeon clearly inspired by the Haunted Mansion (particularly the Phantom Manor iteration) complete with a ballroom but there's... no dancing ghosts? Come on. That's haunted-house-with-ballroom-101.

[Soon-TM]

Drustvar was/is one of the VERY few things that I remember fondly of BfA, the other two being Tiragarde and the Freehold dungeon.

[Itisamuh]

Drustvar is probably the best questing zone in the game in my opinion. It has such a creepy story and atmosphere which is pretty unique compared to other zones. There were a few loose ends that were left too unexplained but maybe that is for the best. A lot of the time resolved mysteries end up losing their mystique.

[Pakheth]

I love the zone but I always felt there was something wrong with the ambient sound design in it. At some
point a sound effect is played that sounds like all the ambient sounds the zone is supposed to have are played in quick succession and it sounds very noisy. I think it would have been better if the sounds were isolated and played by themselves at random intervals for maximum spooky effect, instead of in one noisy mess.

And just to be clear they are supposed to be creepy animal sounds, that played alone would sound very spooky, but not when they all play right after each other in quick succession.

Maybe it's just a bug isolated to me, I don't know, just always bothered me.

[Neuroticaine]

People like to hate on BFA but honestly all the zone design was top-notch.

You know, personally, I hated BFA. I'd even personally rank Shadowlands higher. But most people I've spoken to in-game actually have pretty good stuff to say about BFA. I think the BFA hate might mostly be a forums thng

[FuujCraft]

Kul'Tiras overall was pretty decent continent. However Zandalar was such a mess.

[s_bushido]

The only gripe I have about Drustvar is that the timeline is really muddled... you meet up with daughter Waycrest and she seems unaware that her parents and frankly, most of the entire zone have either become witches or have succumb to a horrifying, mutating curse, such so that entire towns have been irrevocably taken over and countless people either turned or slain... and yet the rest of the townsfolk know of witches and even accuse her of being one, and she seems completely oblivious as to any of this happening. And that's a pretty major crux of the story.

Just because the player can run across the zone in a matter of minutes, that's not representative of what things would actually be like. I always assumed that Corlain was one of the first places to fall, and that word simply hadn't reached other areas before it was too late. And this was clearly not the first time the people in that region had heard of/dealt with witches, so it makes sense that if they see strange stuff happening, and an unfamiliar woman shows up...they'll just assume she's a witch.

[rayvio]

the problem with Drustvar is the Horde side. the Horde are just assumed to know who and what the Drust are despite absolutely zero in game content giving them any of the information. when you first do the quest accompanying Eitrigg and Gallywix you know nothing about the zone or the native creatures but when it comes to world quests, dungeon and their later appearance in Shadowlands the Horde somehow just know about them...

[Venziir]

It's obvious they did their homework with the zone's design and storylines. I can see here the inspiration for a LOT of stuff came from. Well played.

I know it's a soon to be two expansions-old zone but like I said, I'm going through it for the very first time (I did Tiragarde Sound first, will do Stormsong Valley third).

I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to skip story content I haven't done yet. I haven't done Zandalar yet either and I plan to do that and unlock the BFA-era Allied Races before I move on to doing Shadowlands (I unlike the Legion-era Allied Races over the last two months). I'm in no hurry. Kul Tiras first though =P

Drustvar was a great and reasonably coherent storyline, even though the reasoning for Lady Waycrest going batshit was a bit vague - and the Gorak Tul ending being dealt with outside the zone was a shame. Still much, much better - and coherent - than say Stormsong which was a mess.

- - - Updated - - -

the problem with Drustvar is the Horde side. the Horde are just assumed to know who and what the Drust are despite absolutely zero in game content giving them any of the information. when you first do the quest accompanying Eitrigg and Gallywix you know nothing about the zone or the native creatures but when it comes to world quests, dungeon and their later appearance in Shadowlands the Horde somehow just know about them...

Not different from the Alliance knowing all about the zandalari, vulpera, blood trolls etc when they do WQs in Zandalar.

[Pakheth]

the problem with Drustvar is the Horde side. the Horde are just assumed to know who and what the Drust are despite absolutely zero in game content giving them any of the information. when you first do the quest accompanying Eitrigg and Gallywix you know nothing about the zone or the native creatures but when it comes to world quests, dungeon and their later appearance in Shadowlands the Horde somehow just know about them...

That was one of my biggest gripe with BfA. You had to play both sides to even understand the basics of the story. It felt very weird questing in the opposite continent because you had no context. It made it feel hollow to me.

[Kalisandra]

You know, personally, I hated BFA. I'd even personally rank Shadowlands higher. But most people I've spoken to in-game actually have pretty good stuff to say about BFA. I think the BFA hate might mostly be a forums thng

As with WoD levelling in BfA was fine. It was the rest of BfA that was sub-par. Well, not all, but large chunks of it. Warfronts and Islands just didn't work right, and were basically abandoned (especially warfronts). Class mechanics were awful, and using azerite powers to prop them up meant if you couldn't get the right pieces your character just sucked. Necklace and then corruption powers that were the same for every class and spec, and were so powerful that they overwhelmed everything else. So on and on it goes...

I liked Drustvar a great deal, but there's only so many times I can level through a place an not get bored (and for me that limit is fairly low), and that can't carry an expansion by itself.

[Nymrohd]

Lady Waycrest WAS batshit crazy before the Gorak Tul affair. We find out that she is a bitch in the chapel area where she had her daughter's fiance killed. Always understood that her priority was retaining the power of being Lady Waycrest, not her husband. As for the rest there are many different stories showing how individual women fell into witchcraft.

When it comes to witchcraft as part of the lore it's possible that witches occured in Drustvar at different points in time, uncovering small bits of Drust lore but never to a similar extent which is why the locals have stories. I am just very annoyed that no one asked us to weigh the girl against a duck but that's because we did not have ducks yet! But glorious dragonflight will grace us with our new anatidean overlords!

And BfA was a mixed bag for me. The leveling was largely solid; most zones were fairly strong (the only part I really dislike is the inland pirates in Stormsong). Initial systems (Azerite) were a dumpsterfire as was the massive power loss from end of Legion. Warfronts and Islands had amazing potential but they barely iterated on them (though by 8.2 Islands worked decently as a place to gather collectibles). Essences imo are the best max level system they have added. Corruptions were problematic for the period of time in which they were completely random but were a fun end of expansion system. Most of the raids were solid (really the only one that disappointed was Eternal Palace for me) as were most of the dungeons (though hate Tol Dagor). Class balance and gameplay were fine, they have been better and have been vastly worse.
Overall BfA was at least an ambitious expansion with a decent content release schedule. There was clearly effort behind it, they made so many things for it. They just didn't do a great job at them. Compare it to Shadowlands with the content draught and the far less ambitious systems and I'd take BfA over it. Still the third worst expansion for me (after WoD and Shadowlands).

[crusadernero]

That was one of my biggest gripe with BfA. You had to play both sides to even understand the basics of the story. It felt very weird questing in the opposite continent because you had no context. It made it feel hollow to me.

I thought it was nice. It left out some mystery when I lvld my main(Human Paladin) and made the leveling of my horde char(s) much cooler. But if you are someone who plays one faction all of the time, I understand your point 100%.

The zones in BfA was great. How they looked, felt and the questlines. I think most of us can agree that the quest zones never really were the problem with BfA.

[Pakheth]

I thought it was nice. It left out some mystery when I lvld my main(Human Paladin) and made the leveling of my horde char(s) much cooler. But if you are someone who plays one faction all of the time, I understand your point 100%.

The zones in BfA was great. How they looked, felt and the questlines. I think most of us can agree that the quest zones never really were the problem with BfA.

That I agree with. My issues with BfA was mostly how clunky class gameplay felt and some of the systems. Also they removed tier sets in favour of armor type sets which killed my interest in leveling alts and raiding.

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

It's a very personal thing. I'm glad you liked it.

I for one, hated the zone.. the incoherent questing path, the boring storyline and the overall ambiance were not my cup of tea!

I preferred all the Horde zones a WHOLE lot more!

[crusadernero]

That I agree with. My issues with BfA was mostly how clunky class gameplay felt and some of the systems. Also they removed tier sets in favour of armor type sets which killed my interest in leveling alts and raiding.

Yep, same here. In fact, I spendt alot of time just dabbling about in the zones on two characters. One horde, one alliance. Thats what kept me around most of the time. Also at the end of BfA I desided to level a few more characters. But the endgame stuff? Meh, I somewhat committed my main to it for some time but gave up. I really liked the zones in BfA, all of it. My gripe was how endgame stuff was handled.

[Dastreus]

Tiragarde Sound and Drustvar were the best zones in BFA. I'll give it that. However, playing WoW for story? Man, idk. You can't get the rest of the story for those zones or BFA without doing the raids and stuff.