i'm having the same struggles with bfa where like, i just have no idea where they're going with any of this lmao. legion felt very directed but bfa is just like..."boats? you want boats??" idk, there *is* a lot to like in the questing and the new zones, and the new characters are mostly fantastic, i just don't know what they're DOING here. in between content in legion i could speculate about what was gonna happen next but here i just...got no clue lmao. at least jaina finally got a hug though.
To me BFA seems like half pandaria and half cata, where cata was desperately trying to tell like 20 stories at once and very hastily slapped them together or barely got their foot in the door (naga, earthen/Therazane, Grim Batol, dragon experiments, the Dragon Soul, Thrall as the earth warder, Wrathion [or proto-Wrathion], hour of twilight/twilight’s hammer, wildhammer dwarves, dragonmaw orcs, hhhh WORGEN/Gilneas, GOBLINS/Kezan/Bilgewater Cartel, Tol Barad) like oh my GOD there were SO many things happening and i bet I forgot a lot of major things too.
Meanwhile, Pandaria was a departure from standard WoW fare by exploring a brand new continent with brand new lore so it was all super refreshing: new architecture, landscapes, climates, enemies, wildlife, lore, sentient races, philosophy, etc., all the while still keeping a plausible Red VS Blue Orcs & Humans thing happening because both factions wanted to stake a claim on the land and its resources. To me, that is very distinctly WARCRAFT. Originating as a fantasy RTS, it’s always been a race for resources in magnificent uncharted lands with new, fantastic creatures to befriend or to fight. So while people were bemoaning Pandaria at launch, I think the reason why so many people reflect and realize they enjoyed it so much was because they were all brand new experiences with totally unexpected and unpredictable outcomes while keeping the overall tone and spirit of Warcraft.
BFA has incorporated the element of sailing to a land of legend, be it Kul Tiras or Zandalar, only heard of in passing, and allows the players to become intimate with the local people and the new and exciting signatures of every zone, while also tying some missions back to the overall issue at hand: a race for resources (in this case, azerite). This is what Pandaria did right. But BFA also has Cata’s issue, in my opinion, where too many seeds are being planted for stories that have yet to come to fruition or maintain momentum until they germinate. We WILL see the ends of these stories, in time, but I think by having so many different possible foci it detracts from a cohesive story structure while also being overstimulating because there are few visible resolutions.
Legion’s method of wrapping up the zone with a dungeon is fantastic. It punctuates the zone’s story in a meaningful way while also allowing you to mentally “shelve” that chapter. Plus, each of the main zones also tied into the overall story in acquiring the Pillars of Creation needed to seal the Tomb of Sargeras. From the very start of Legion, we know our objective is to put an end to the Burning Legion for good.
From the start of BFA, however, our mission is conflicted: either save Azeroth from dying, or use her blood to wipe out the other faction. But WoW isn’t a single-player campaign like Fallout where you can choose to side with salvation or destruction; the MMO has to make both sides equally valid, and that in turn makes everything very ambiguous.
During the Battle of Lordaeron, we have an option to help fellow Horde soldiers or to spread the plague yourself. It’s unknown what bearing this choice may have, if any, or how it will affect gameplay. Recently, we have the option to stay loyal to Sylvanas or to dissent with Saurfang, both of which are irreversible and exclusive choices that result in different quest chains. And as we see in the new raid, Alliance and Horde get different stories depending on which faction you play, so that sets another fork in the road for the narrative. More and more divergences are being added all the time, but the options are no good if we have no idea where we’re headed in the first place.
