We never left the Sanctum of Domination

The contrast is astounding. I'm not even one of those people who think Midnight's lore is worse than your average expansion, but the sheer difference in quality and fan service with the story between WoW and Diablo IV is insane. Is it too much to ask for to expect World of Warcraft to have as serious and well written a story as Lord of Hatred?

That expansion had an all-star team of characters written so well it made me care more about Diablo's lore than ever before. There's an intense tether between the player character and Lilith that would've done wonders for Xal'atath in Midnight, it worked so well in fact that it sounds as though from here on out, Blizzard will always be tying the player character more deeply to the demons of Diablo.

Who is Arator for? I've seen nothing but disdain towards him within the community. The only moment he was spoken about with any positivity was from a cinematic. Who is Orweyna for? She's seriously so boring, the only thing I appreciate about her is the unique format of some quests involving her that allow us to explore visions of the past. Nothing about Orweyna feels like it was made for fans of World of Warcraft. No major character of an expansion should be such an obvious miss.

This is what I mean by fan service in a positive light. The writers of Diablo IV totally understood what the players wanted with Lord of Hatred and it's written so well that it doesn't feel like fan service. I truly believe that most of the developers behind this game understand what we want, they've given us so many of our demands over the past few expansions, yet they still fail to understand what we want from the story.

Pretty sure it should be "the *Ashen Dreadglider* gains its strength from a supplemental diet of anima", right? Or even just "the Dreadglider". Not "the (name)"... silly Blizz

How did this underwhelming cutscene get approved when Forsaken Kingdom just released a few months ago!?

Retail has so much in it, so why does it feel so stale?

I’ve played WoW for years, and retail increasingly feels like a pile of systems I’ve already done with different names. More currencies, upgrade tracks, weekly chores, and another reason to run old content again. There’s plenty to keep me occupied, but very little I’m actually excited to log in for.

Talent trees are part of it. A huge tree looks impressive until you’re spending points on small passive bonuses or taking talents you need just to make the spec feel functional. There are choices I enjoy, but adding more nodes doesn’t automatically make building a character more interesting. I’d rather have fewer choices that noticeably change how I play.

I don’t mind revisiting an old dungeon occasionally. I’m tired of being expected to get excited about grinding it again because it’s back in the rotation with relevant loot. The rewards change more than the experience does.

I still enjoy the combat. That’s what makes this frustrating. I want more reasons to explore and play my character beyond keeping up with the season. Anyone else still like WoW but find the actual routine of playing it increasingly boring?

Anyone else feel housing, while great on it's own, is just far too empty? I've yet to see a single completed house in my district, let alone bump into anyone. Almost a year and plots look empty or as they did on release. I've also seen maybe two people at the hub....

Blizzard, Alleria literally got stabbed and injured like crazy but somehow she get's to live???? And Liadrin dies? What is this?

All the goodwill that has been built since Dragonflight seems to be just going down the drain. Even the people the people that dont care about lore are questioning Blizzard and their writing decisions. And what is with the Horde hatred in the blizzard writing team? Why is there so much Alliance bias nowadays in the story? It seriously feels like we are back in Shadowlands with horrible writing left right and center.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for 21 years now. Through expansions, late-night dungeon runs, friendships, breaks, and more “I’m quitting WoW” moments than I’d care to admit.

Today my WoW Forever Collector’s Edition arrived, and damn, it brought back some memories.

I remember when Azeroth felt impossibly huge. When getting your first mount was a major milestone, nobody knew where the hell anything was, and accidentally wandering into the wrong zone was practically a death sentence.

I’m pushing 40 now. I’ve got a wife, kids, and a whole different life than the teenager who first stepped into Azeroth back in 2005.

And the crazy part? My wife is planning to play alongside me, and hopefully the kids will join us eventually.

Twenty-one years later, this game still finds ways to make me excited.

Here’s to another adventure.

Azeroth Forever! 🍻

Any other [2004–2005](tel:2004-2005) veterans still kicking around?

Lor'themar may say "no" here but it's really, to use improv terminology, a "Yes, and" in disguise. A hero of the light saves everyone, Zuljarra's people included. They take the time to cart her corpse to the cherished hero's city, and Lor'themar inexplicably thinks the first thing to bring up is that "Liadrin died for everybody actually."

Luckily Zuljarra has read the script too and knows to interrupt him with an alley-oop for his follow-up statement. What a weird way to interrupt a person. Imagine he was gonna say "Liadrin's death leaves a void in our leadership that threatens to destroy us" or something? That would have been awkward. Luckily Lor'themar was indeed telling her that the coalition of races present to stop the world-ending threat were fighting for the Amani.... but also themselves....!

Like duh man. I guess this isn't quite as egregious as the dragon aspects collectively finishing one big long sentence about freedom and american values, but it tells me they haven't learned their lesson about why that style of writing was bad

If you didn't know Liadrin had a daughter I don't blame you, I don't think they interacted at all in Midnight. But she was the blood elf orphan from Childrens' Day and was revealed during the belf paladin quest back in Shadowlands to have been adopted by Liadrin.

Stop any auto-repair addons you might have

Liadran dies. So let's just get the deathlord and thr horsemen to come on by and raise liadrain as a death knight. She'd make one bad ass death knight i think.

Totally has nothing to do with not letting us raid Fordring.

Its to set up for forsaken palidans but as soon as she died I just though hey I'm the deathlord I can get her up and kicking again.

Man I just feel really gut punched. I was actually jaw on the floor appalled when I saw the cinematic. One of your most well-liked, even beloved, characters, and she is killed in a way that is so unnecessary. She is one of the world’s greatest paladins, this raid should’ve just tired her out, not KILLED HER. Who approved this? Who thought this was a good idea? Man I’m just sad.

I’m going to get on my soap box for a second here and say that people misinterpreting Game of Thrones has been an active detriment to storytelling, and it’s very obviously a detriment here. The point of everyone dying in GoT is that even though they all strive for power their lives are ultimately meaningless in the endless cycle of political violence they are a part of, each person just as replaceable as everyone else. When Metzen said he has a “kill list” my heart sank. A “kill list” is just meaningless box-ticking. Liadrin’s death checked a box. It didn’t mean anything. In the grand scheme of things it’s not going to mean anything. People just want to fondle themselves to the thought that they’re the next George RR Martin. “Everyone is going to be so shocked and surprised by MY Red Wedding!”

They need to have the Light, or hell even the Lo, revive Liadrin. This was such a waste. It’s so incredibly sad. I’m not even angry, that faded pretty quickly. Now I’m just plain sad.

I wanted to update this and say that I appreciate being able to commiserate with others on this. And now that I’ve had time to reflect I’ve also come to realize that no matter how upset we are and how much we express that to the people in charge of writing the story, nothing meaningfully changes. So I am working on writing an open (POLITE) letter to the WoW development team, and if people are interested in signing onto it I‘ll see how to go about enabling that.

One thing that's really bothering me about the story is how suddenly we're expected to treat Amani culture and their historical grievances as sacrosanct, especially in an saga that's largely focused on the Blood Elves.

We're talking about a conflict that's lasted thousands of years. The Amani haven't just been sitting around mourning their lost territory. They've spent generations actively trying to slaughter the elves of Quel'Thalas, including people who are still alive today. This isn't some distant historical injustice that everyone involved has only read about in books.

And yet the story seems far more interested in having the elves acknowledge the Amani's ancestral claims and respect their culture than in seriously addressing what that culture and its ambitions have meant for the people of Quel'Thalas.

I'm not saying the Amani don't have legitimate grievances. The elves did settle on their ancestral lands, and there's an interesting story to tell about two civilizations with competing claims to the same homeland. But Quel'Thalas has been the elves' home for thousands of years too. Entire generations have lived and died defending it against Amani aggression.

I also don't have an issue with the two sides eventually reaching some sort of peace. What I find ridiculous is how quickly the narrative seems to shift from an ancient, bitter conflict to a story about mutual understanding and respecting cultural differences. A conflict this old, with this much bloodshed, doesn't get resolved because a couple of leaders finally recognize that the other side has feelings too.

It just feels like the writers wanted to tell a story about indigenous grievances and reconciliation, but didn't really know what to do with the decades of established Warcraft lore where the Amani have been very much active aggressors.

There's a good story to be told here, but I don't think WoW has earned the resolution it's going for.

Just got stuck in the Labyrinth (after already spending an hour clearing every room), because Sha'kuro slain is stuck at 0/1 after killing him. I have also tried everything to unstuck it but nothing helped.

What is infuriating though, is that these bugs existed since PTR and players have reported them in the forums. So Blizzard shipped their MAIN patch attraction riddled with bugs ALREADY identified by the players (doing the hard part for them), it's honestly insane that this is a subscription game.

The labyrinth itself is incredibly easy. Nothing is difficult, or interesting. Its not a labyrinth, its 3 delves duct taped together. There's no "branching paths" or "interesting buffs" or things that alter how you play. This isnt torghast (and in this case i unironically prefer torghast over labyrinth). its quite literally a series of 9 corridors where you just get to pick which corridor to do first, but you gotta do them all anyway.

The problem lies in the fact that a bunch of events in the rooms can bug out. And when they bug out, you have to fully abandon the run and restart. You cant pause, you cant refresh, you cant collect your existing rewards - if you start a room and its buggy, thats it. You abandon the run and start again.

Imagine doing 5 rooms and then 6th one is bugged, so you just wasted the time clearing 5 rooms. Now repeat this 5-6-7 times until you finally get a non buggy run.

But hey. At least the boss at the end is challenging, right?

Not really.

To say that the boss was underwhelming would be an understatement. Im pretty sure proving grounds scenario is harder than the T11 labyrinth boss. It is honestly silly just how easy that fight is, compared to the hype they put around it.

So yeah. I would say if you want your easy fabled achievement, just put on something on netflix and then suffer for an hour or two resetting labs until you get a non-bugged run, then collect your rewards.

At no point in the (non-bugged) run did i feel challenged, threatened, or in danger. Literally, at no point.

Decided to pull into a kind of collectible/thrift store today on a whim.

Couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the statue sitting on top of a case.

Everything included nothing wrong with it and got it for 500.

Pretty sure my great vault will just have trinkets from now until next expansion

basically the only content and its completely bugged. i just wasted hours on this and still havent completed it yet cuz it keeps bugging

I hope they actually add this to the game.