Originally Posted by
Niter
These questions are very hard and bitter to answer. I am the kind of person who believes that whenever we know EVERYTHING, the mystery is lost. I feel like the Warcraft universe has been exploring the EVERYTHING-thing too often for its own good.
Another issue is the unbelievably liberal use of plot devices (that means something happens because it it needs to happen to drive the story in the direction of their choosing, regardless of logic or what was established before). A good example is the burning of Teldrassil (which is more like an island with a peak atop, it was a huge place, so big that there was land in its boughs and people lived all the way up, from the island portion to the canopies of the tree!)
Being too 'Hollywoodian' was also a big problem: always a beam in the sky, threatening to end all creation! Can't the races fight threats that are not world-threatening, but can be a huge problem for their races and factions? Something more localised, that developed the races more, that made the characters we play connect with the lands from where they come.
Scope and power level are also awful. This 'there's nothing you can't do when you believe it!' drivel is horrible, and it's been happening since our characters started being referred to as 'champions'. It felt more epic to be the adventurer making his/her own way to help in every possible way, eventually being one their race's best (like in the Argent Tournament). Now, it's all an Avengers movie and we're all Thor, Hulk, Scarlet Witch of Captain Marvel. We're unbeatable!
Many stories were rushed to be a feature in an expansion pack, so what could have been entire, fun, fulfilling storylines, became footnotes. Malygos shouldn't have been in a forgettable raid! If anything, he should be as hard to take on as Deathwing. Let's not even talk about having N'zoth and Azshara, both not living up to the hype and biography.
Finally, Blizzard can't get over reusing their own ideas. I mean, Void Lords? Just like in Starcraft 2, right? Or someone being 'the chosen one' and going from vile and mad to chosen by the 'light' in order to fight the darkness (Illidan's story in Legion, almost like Kerrigan's but with a slight twist!)
I guess I still love the lore from before all the retcons and the attempts at re-writing everything so that WoW's factions would be two sides of the same coin. Even the RPG books which are not canon, are better than what happened after WotLK. Pandaria was the only expansion in which I felt something original was added, and the way the story included a new big baddie still connected to the Titans and the Old Gods was excellent. Now there is no mystery, so they need to create stuff, a new pantheon, a new this or that, explore the 'multiverse' or whatever.
They make a lot of decisions based on 'what the devs think it's cool' and then try to tie everything up afterwards. It hasn't been working for a really long time now, and I don't trust Blizzard to tell good stories anymore. Even Diablo 3 had to pretty much change so much of the original story... It's ugly.