And thus World of Warcraft Legion draws to a close...

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

The Burning Legion is no more...

Spoiler: The final climax of the last Raid in the expansion

Now I discuss how everything happened, warning though, only people that understands Warcraft lore will get this info dump:

Spoiler

The heroes of Azeroth ventured to Argus, former homeworld of the Draenai, now the homebase of the Burning Legion, we fought for control of the planet and we took the fight to the final raid tier, Antorus the Burning Throne. Turns out Sargeras has take captive the Titans (already corrupting Aggramar) and it turns out the Argus itself has a Titan Soul and that Titan of Argus is the final boss you fight in the raid, and then the above videos happeend.

So all in all, this was quite the expansion, I mean I never thought it would go this far as going to Argus and heck bring an end to the Burning Legion. Oh well bring on the Void Lords.

 

[Random Gamer]

And there's also that little detail of what happens to Azeroth at the end

 

[Ryotknife]

so i just finished the raid on normal yesterday. Argus (the boss) is pretty cool looking and has some interesting mechanics, although strangely enough one of the easiest bosses on normal. The raid also kicks my computer's butt with massive frame drops even though i can run most AAA games on the highest settings.

As for the expansion a few thoughts. I liked how the expansion started by keeping tension high by killing off some big name characters (especially tirion the lich king slayer). Emerald Nightmare was okay and it was cool seeing an old villain from the books return. Nighthold and guldaniel though was the height of the expansion. I did not like how they handled Kiljaeden in Tomb. the master deciever did not do a whole lot of deceiving and had a semi redemption arc.

I am not a big fan of voljin dying as this leaves slyvanus as the only character of any note left on the Horde side (besides stay-at-home-thrall). I like her as a character, but she is not a good choice as warchief. She does not even like the horde and until relatively recently did not even like her own people. That and she is freakin evil, like on the scale of most of the big baddies. Meanwhile, the Alliance has: anduin, velen, genn, jaina, and now turalyon and alleria.

horde has.....squat.

I kinda feel like any expansion after this one is going to be a bit anti-climatic as the only villains of any note left are the void lords/old gods and the void lords have only been discussed but never encountered.

 

[CritialGaming]

So I'm not a lore nerd, but how is the burning legion defeated if Sargaras is still alive? Are we not going to have to deal with him? Is Blizzard just dragging that plotline out because they wouldn't have anything left after that?

Also it seems this upcoming expansion is going to be a rather bland Mists of Pandaria style expansion, focusing on the Horde Versus the Alliance stuff which doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering how many times we've teamed up to fight a bigger evil. Not to mention that yeah, there is very few people of note even left alive on the Horde side.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I kinda feel like any expansion after this one is going to be a bit anti-climatic as the only villains of any note left are the void lords/old gods and the void lords have only been discussed but never encountered.

Have you forgotten the Naga? Queen Azshara is still in the seas plotting shit.

 

[Forte Klasio]

I'v heard we will be dealing with Azshara on this new expansion so that'll be neat. Ya excited for any of those new races o wo?

 

[Myria]

So I'm not a lore nerd, but how is the burning legion defeated if Sargaras is still alive?

Presumably Sargie is locked in his chair with the rest of the pantheon.

There's a lot of suspicion -- mostly due to data mining -- that in the Mythic version you'll help Illie put the hurt on Sargie in a permanent kinda way. Guess we'll see.

Also I've seen a lot of speculation that if/when WoW gets around to battling the Void Lords Sargeras may go through a redemption (or, depending on your point-of-view, retcon) similar to Illidan's own.

Either way, it appears that Illidan Stormrage was indeed prepared...

Also it seems this upcoming expansion is going to be a rather bland Mists of Pandaria style expansion, focusing on the Horde Versus the Alliance stuff which doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering how many times we've teamed up to fight a bigger evil.

I tend to agree that the whole Horde Vs Alliance thing is long since overplayed to well beyond the point of absurdity. However it seems to me that big-arsed sword sticking out of Silithis has possibilities and might hopefully lift the next expac beyond Evil Sylvanas, Habitually pissed off Gen, Jesus-Without-The-Green-Skin Anduin, and Batshit crazy Jaina all growling at each other for a few dozen cutscenes before the inevitable one or more of them becoming a raid boss.

 

[Ryotknife]

I kinda feel like any expansion after this one is going to be a bit anti-climatic as the only villains of any note left are the void lords/old gods and the void lords have only been discussed but never encountered.

Have you forgotten the Naga? Queen Azshara is still in the seas plotting shit.

queen azshara has never been a compelling character. She helped the first demon invasion because she wanted to marry sargaras-poo (and even during the invasion then played second fiddle to her advisor Xavius) and since then has done jack all. She has not plotted shit, she has people for that. Her minions have done more in the story, especially lady vashj. She is wow's equivalent of a high school drama/prom queen.

Its possible for Jaina or wrathion to turn evil and have an expansion (although Jaina is nowhere near powerful enough to be a main antagonist unless she gets her hands on some artifact). Wrathion would be focus heavily on mercenaries more than likely as he has no followers as far as im aware. Of course slyvanus could also become a main villain, although unless Thrall comes back i dont see that happening as there is no one left on the horde side of any note to lead.

Wrathion i feel might be a bit more likely as he is highly self righteous and egostistic. Also believes what he does is for the good of the universe and has no qualms getting his hands....well actually he hires other people to get their hands dirty. Also, the jerk was responsible for the Iron Horde by releasing garrosh.

 

[wizzy555]

OK I only did the initial leveling, followed the lore and no raiding. But I thought it was a wonderful expansion, the Xer'a scene was awesome, better writing than latest season of game of thrones.

 

[Hawki]

...okay, here's the thing. I know that Sargeras's powers have been well-established at this point, but as someone who got into Warcraft via the RTS games, and never really made the jump to WoW, I can't help but feel that everything's become so large, it's lost any of its impact. Archimonde destroying Dalaran in WC3 has far more impact to me than Sargeras plunging his sword into Azeroth, in an expansion that has flying warships and teleportation and all that. Granted, I'm in no real position to judge WoW, if I'm only getting the bare bones of its plot, but you can only beef up the stakes so much before they lose impact. I already know that the Burning Legion, once the 'big bad,' has already been eclipsed by the Void lords as an even bigger bad and...well, yeah.

The Alliance vs. Horde thing is irksome for its own reasons, but at least Battle for Azeroth feels more like Warcraft was - Alliance vs. Horde, not "Alliance and Horde vs. space giants."

 

[wizzy555]

...okay, here's the thing. I know that Sargeras's powers have been well-established at this point, but as someone who got into Warcraft via the RTS games, and never really made the jump to WoW, I can't help but feel that everything's become so large, it's lost any of its impact. Archimonde destroying Dalaran in WC3 has far more impact to me than Sargeras plunging his sword into Azeroth, in an expansion that has flying warships and teleportation and all that. Granted, I'm in no real position to judge WoW, if I'm only getting the bare bones of its plot, but you can only beef up the stakes so much before they lose impact. I already know that the Burning Legion, once the 'big bad,' has already been eclipsed by the Void lords as an even bigger bad and...well, yeah.

The Alliance vs. Horde thing is irksome for its own reasons, but at least Battle for Azeroth feels more like Warcraft was - Alliance vs. Horde, not "Alliance and Horde vs. space giants."

I think you are missing some key context here. The lore has been reconned to the degree that Azeroth is a womb for a baby titan, Sargeras is trying (and may have succeeded) to kill the titan you've been trying to save all this time since the start of legion.

When you consider this part of the story it becomes more significant. Otherwise no one would care there now a huge sword in Silithis, it sucked anyway.

 

[Hawki]

...okay, here's the thing. I know that Sargeras's powers have been well-established at this point, but as someone who got into Warcraft via the RTS games, and never really made the jump to WoW, I can't help but feel that everything's become so large, it's lost any of its impact. Archimonde destroying Dalaran in WC3 has far more impact to me than Sargeras plunging his sword into Azeroth, in an expansion that has flying warships and teleportation and all that. Granted, I'm in no real position to judge WoW, if I'm only getting the bare bones of its plot, but you can only beef up the stakes so much before they lose impact. I already know that the Burning Legion, once the 'big bad,' has already been eclipsed by the Void lords as an even bigger bad and...well, yeah.

The Alliance vs. Horde thing is irksome for its own reasons, but at least Battle for Azeroth feels more like Warcraft was - Alliance vs. Horde, not "Alliance and Horde vs. space giants."

I think you are missing some key context here. The lore has been reconned to the degree that Azeroth is a womb for a baby titan, Sargeras is trying (and may have succeeded) to kill the titan you've been trying to save all this time since the start of legion.

When you consider this part of the story it becomes more significant. Otherwise noone cares there now a huge sword in Silithis, it sucked anyway.

I'm aware of the revelations that Azeroth contains a world soul that Sargeras wants to destroy lest it be tainted by the Void lords (wouldn't say that's a retcon though - new info is simply new info, even though I'm iffy about the shift in Sargeras's motives for starting the Burning Crusade), it's simply a matter of portrayal. Everything just feels so over the top.

 

[wizzy555]

Everything just feels so over the top.

Well that was sort of inevitable since whenever Metzin wrote titans were the size of planets. It's just classic villain creep at this point. Looks like the next expansions is an attempt to downscale things for a bit, but I bet people will complain about the mundanity.

 

[CritialGaming]

snip

I fucking hope they don't pull that redemption shit with him. I don't know who does the writing at Blizzard anymore, but holy hell it is utter trash lately.

I think that's why Chris Metzhen quit, because even he realized his stories were just cliche'd same bullshit. It works the first couple of times, but eventually every story they have just becomes the same damn thing. Ugh.

I'd kill to get a real good set of writers under Blizzard HQ.

 

[CritialGaming]

Everything just feels so over the top.

Well that was sort of inevitable since whenever Metzin wrote titans were the size of planets. It's just classic villain creep at this point. Looks like the next expansions is an attempt to downscale things for a bit, but I bet people will complain about the mundanity.

It's not mundanity, it's same'ol'shitity. The problem is every expansion for a long while now has been harping on the same old cycle, and it is a formula that drastically needs to get broken somehow. Every expansion comes with a power reset, in which players once again level up a few times, run dungeons over and over again to gear back up, rinse and repeat.

There has to be a way to change that up.

Either that of Blizz is just desperately trying to figure out ways to keep WoW interesting. There are only so many villains, and they seem very reluctant to bring many of them forth. Bring back the old gods, lets us fight an army of them.

I think the best thing WoW could possibly do at this point, is work towards a final ending. The old gods return en-masse would be a great way for the Horde and the Alliance to finally come together as a team forever, the players could fight and deal with the biggest and baddest enemies remaining in the universe. And WoW can then just...end.

Make a sequel mmo. Do something drastic with the reset to classic. There are a lot of ways they could take things.

Imagine taking the Classic servers and rebuilding WoW entirely. What if they remade the expansions and released them onto the classic servers in a different order?

Instead of going to Outlands first, we instead stumble upon Pandaria where Wraithion warns the heroes of the impending burning Legion invasion. After dealing with the Sha and winning over the favor of the Pandarins, we gather learn that the legion invasion is Garrosh's fault as he begins his crusade on Dreanor. So the third expansion is Warlords, where we try and fail to stop the burning legion from taking over Dreanor which then becomes Outlands.

Defeated we return to Azeroth, where the Lich King decides to use that weakness to try and conquer everything. We band together and unite our resolve to defeat him and recruit Death Knights to our service. With new resolve and new heroes on our side we return to the ravaged Dreanor (now called Outlands) and take revenge on the Burning Legion. It is here that we capture Illidan and imprison the Demon Hunters for later.

Upon our return to Azeroth we learn that Deathwing has taken advantage of our absence and the Cataclysm happens while we are away. This sparks not only a renewed battle between the horde and the alliance as the limited remained resources caused by Deathwing spark conflict between factions, but it also releases the old god that had been corrupting Deathwing this whole time. So not only do we have to battle Deathwing, but in the wake of the cataclysm we have to battle back old god corruption taking over different zones.

During this time the Burning Legion comes for us, desperate to strike at us while we are still scattered and weakened by the shattering. Heroes gather fabled legendary artifacts to use as weapons against the legion, and this time we destroy them for good by taking on Sargaras him-motherfucking-self.

Then do a final expansion purging Azeroth of the old gods forevermore and bringing peace to the world of warcraft once and for all.

The end.

See? That shit isn't so hard.

 

[Random Gamer]

I'm aware of the revelations that Azeroth contains a world soul that Sargeras wants to destroy lest it be tainted by the Void lords (wouldn't say that's a retcon though - new info is simply new info, even though I'm iffy about the shift in Sargeras's motives for starting the Burning Crusade)

The Void Lords' mere existence is a major retcon.
Remember, originally, the Pantheon is the ultimate power in the Universe, Titans are unbeatable massive powers. Old Gods are obviously way below them in power, for a starter. Pantheon only gets beaten at some point because Sargeras turns, and that is due mostly to his inner PTSD and accumulated bad (yet every time minor) influence from Eredar, Nathrezim and other various evil creatures he's met during his millennia of crusade for good across thousands of worlds.
This also shows that the mere fact Sargeras corrupted the Draenei was a huge retcon - the whole point of Warcraft was that there were totally evil creatures, like the Eredar, who were evil way before Good Guy Sargeras had self-doubts.

It's just classic villain creep at this point. Looks like the next expansions is an attempt to downscale things for a bit, but I bet people will complain about the mundanity.

Just like Pandaria, it will get bashed to an extent - maybe not as much if Nagas and Azshara seem likely final antagonists since early on during the future expansion's run. That's not a surprise, you can't spend expansion after expansion upping the ante and having higher stakes every time, and then just do nothing useful for the future of the Universe. I've always thought the more logical path would've been to put Pandaria (without the final Garrosh silliness possibly) as the very first expansion - it would still be mostly pedestrian exploration of the world, with a few high-stakes crises/raids to deal with, before having the bigger events happening.

 

[Hawki]

I think the best thing WoW could possibly do at this point, is work towards a final ending. The old gods return en-masse would be a great way for the Horde and the Alliance to finally come together as a team forever, the players could fight and deal with the biggest and baddest enemies remaining in the universe. And WoW can then just...end.

Make a sequel mmo. Do something drastic with the reset to classic. There are a lot of ways they could take things.

Yeah...that isn't going to happen. MMOs have a model that's followed, namely that you're going to keep coming out with expansions as long as it's viable to do so. It makes no sense from a financial standpoint to stop WoW. A WoW 2 would splinter the playerbase (apparently this happened with EverQuest), and a sequel MMO would mean internal competition (since people don't just stop playing an MMO, even if it's reached the end of its storyline).

To be fair, WoW has brought up new villains within its own lore. The Old Gods/Void Lords are the only remaining 'big bad,' but you can still do stuff in the setting itself.

The Void Lords' mere existence is a major retcon.
Remember, originally, the Pantheon is the ultimate power in the Universe, Titans are unbeatable massive powers. Old Gods are obviously way below them in power, for a starter. Pantheon only gets beaten at some point because Sargeras turns, and that is due mostly to his inner PTSD and accumulated bad (yet every time minor) influence from Eredar, Nathrezim and other various evil creatures he's met during his millennia of crusade for good across thousands of worlds.
This also shows that the mere fact Sargeras corrupted the Draenei was a huge retcon - the whole point of Warcraft was that there were totally evil creatures, like the Eredar, who were evil way before Good Guy Sargeras had self-doubts.

I don't think the Void Lords in of themselves can be called a retcon. They weren't introduced until Chronicle 1, but there's nothing in of themselves that contradicts anything (unless revelations are contradictions). If one says the Pantheon is the ultimate power in the universe, and then it's revealed there's another power, that's not a retcon in of itself.

The eredar in contrast is without doubt a retcon, because with the 'corruption reversal' that happened, the two takes are completely incongruent. Sargeras is sort of in-between, because while his motives have shifted between WC3 (nihilism, wants to use the Burning Legion to wipe out all life) and now (fatalism, wants to use the Burning Legion to wipe out all life because of the threat of the Void lords), the current take can be seen as an extension of the original take. Not overly fond of it (or the Void lords themselves), but it isn't as garish a shift as the eredar stuff (which I actually don't mind too much - it's a retcon, but it did something interesting with it, what with giving us draenei culture and the Archimonde-Kil'jaden-Velen dynamic).

I've always thought the more logical path would've been to put Pandaria (without the final Garrosh silliness possibly) as the very first expansion - it would still be mostly pedestrian exploration of the world, with a few high-stakes crises/raids to deal with, before having the bigger events happening.

Yeah...no. I don't have an issue with pandaren (frankly the reaction was bizzare in my eyes), but if WoW is a continuation of WC3, no-one would want to go to Pandaria before Outland or Northrend, since those were the two big plot hooks hanging over the setting.

 

[RJ 17]

So all in all, this was quite the expansion, I mean I never thought it would go this far as going to Argus and heck bring an end to the Burning Legion. Oh well bring on the Void Lords.

But first...ANOTHER FILLER ARCH! Didn't like WoD? Felt like it was an entire expansion that ultimately had a singular purpose of bring Gul'dan back into the canon? Well nuts to you! Here comes an expansion that does a grand total of jack plus shit to expand the story! That's right folks, we're just going to spin our tires again! Have fun with that good ol' stalemate between the Horde and Alliance?

Seriously, the next expansion is going to be nothing but a holding pattern. Sure, a "hero" for the Horde and/or Alliance might die by the end of it...but the next expansion means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of thing. Just the Horde and Alliance up to their old shenanigans again. Then along comes another super-duper big-bad that will force to two factions to work together again.

It's rather telling that there's much more hype for officially sanctioned legacy servers than there is for this next expansion.

Certainly doesn't help that Sargeras went from being THE ultimate, supreme, end-of-all-things badass to some cuck that's sealed away by a Chosen One. But who cares about that piece of trash, anyways? We've got the Void Lords to worry about now! Pulled right out of Blizzard's ass, THESE are the true ultimate badasses of the WC universe! Where'd they come from? Who knows! Were they ever canon? Not until a few expansions ago! But fuck it! THESE are the major threat now! Enjoy your Night Elves, Horde players! And for you Alliance people that have been crying since Burning Crusade about not getting Blood Elves, well here's some Void Elves!

................................

...Sorry, I gave up on World of WoWCraft when it became clear that Blizzard was going to just retcon the fuck out of everything in order to drag their MMO out for as long as they possibly could.

 

[Hawki]

It's rather telling that there's much more hype for officially sanctioned legacy servers than there is for this next expansion.

There is?

Certainly doesn't help that Sargeras went from being THE ultimate, supreme, end-of-all-things badass to some cuck that's sealed away by a Chosen One.

Illidan isn't a chosen one. He explicitly regrets Xe'ra's assertion that he is.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Man, can't they just wrap Warcraft up already?

I used to give a shit about the WoW fluff. Some time way back before Cataclysm.