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I'm sick of being angry and disappointed by FE14 so I'm going to talk about WoW instead. Because at least WoW has always had fanservice and unequal armor but they're also getting significantly better about it.
Anyway, Patch 6.2 dropped yesterday and the ending has already been datamined because that's what the WoW fandom does. So I want to talk about that.
Before I begin, though, have a reminder that Yrel has a very pretty face.

Warning for spoilers for the end of 6.2.
The ending is... kind of disappointing, honestly. Not only does it seem like they were just using this expansion as an excuse to get Gul'dan back ("THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING" ok Khadgar), the entire plot buildup with Grommash was kind of dropped. As people have been saying he kind of started World War Draenor and his army massacred many Draenei and Arakkoa - both Outcast and otherwise.
This wasn't really something where you could shrug it off and just sort of drop it. Even if Garrosh was the guy who started the fires Grom kept them burning.
Not to say I dislike Grom, though. Grom's great! He was great in WC3 and he's great now.
But this entire expansion just feels like a cheap way to get him back in the picture. Even though he's not Grom Prime it feels very... forced. Like everything that Grom Prime did (sacrificing himself to free the Orcs from their bloodlust by killing Mannoroth) doesn't really matter anymore.
Perhaps it's just me but this is always the issue with alternate timeline stories that cross and mingle with main timeline ones. When you get the repeated characters, especially those that die, the stakes feel less important. WoW has always had time travel in the form of the Bronze Dragonflight, but even they know that futzing around with time so much leads to bad things (see: the Infinite Dragonflight, which was oddly absent despite this expansion being perfect for them).
I'm not going to say this entire expansion was a waste of time, though. The Draenei lore was actually incredibly good and needed (Worgen next pls Blizz?), and Yrel was absolutely a fabulous character. While part of me wants the AU Draenor cast to stay in their lane, I have to admit that I'm sad to see characters like Yrel and Reshad probably disappearing into the void, at least for a little while.
Anyway, with the expansion over (unless they pull a Sunwell and completely overshadow Archimonde the Tree Humper), I have to say that Warlords was actually disappointing.
The quests and the way story was handled was great. This is easily the best they've handled story in a long time (and honestly even though Blizzard would have to work really hard to top Wrath of the Lich King for me the storytelling in Warlords easily eclipsed it), and it honestly felt like we were back in Warcraft era, where things could actually progress the story instead of everything staying stagnant.
My personal favorites were Spires of Arak and Shadowmoon Valley, mostly because I like the Arakkoa a lot and also Shadowmoon Valley just handled Draenei really well.
However, with that said, everything just felt short. There was a lot to do while simultaneously containing nothing to do. Dungeons were fun but running the same raids over and over for the legendary questline (and yes you had to run Highmaul over and over and over and over...) got tedious fast and also hurt the overall story telling. I get why they'd want you to run the instances again and again, but each time you kill Imperator Mar'gok it just felt like a hollow victory.
I want them to continue on this path for the sake of story but I want there to be more. Sitting in a garrison all day didn't really lend itself to making sure you were aware the world was actually big, and in fact just made things feel very, very small.
I don't know why I typed this all out. I just wanted a distraction from more recent events, I suppose.
Anyway, Patch 6.2 dropped yesterday and the ending has already been datamined because that's what the WoW fandom does. So I want to talk about that.
Before I begin, though, have a reminder that Yrel has a very pretty face.

Warning for spoilers for the end of 6.2.
The ending is... kind of disappointing, honestly. Not only does it seem like they were just using this expansion as an excuse to get Gul'dan back ("THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING" ok Khadgar), the entire plot buildup with Grommash was kind of dropped. As people have been saying he kind of started World War Draenor and his army massacred many Draenei and Arakkoa - both Outcast and otherwise.
This wasn't really something where you could shrug it off and just sort of drop it. Even if Garrosh was the guy who started the fires Grom kept them burning.
Not to say I dislike Grom, though. Grom's great! He was great in WC3 and he's great now.
But this entire expansion just feels like a cheap way to get him back in the picture. Even though he's not Grom Prime it feels very... forced. Like everything that Grom Prime did (sacrificing himself to free the Orcs from their bloodlust by killing Mannoroth) doesn't really matter anymore.
Perhaps it's just me but this is always the issue with alternate timeline stories that cross and mingle with main timeline ones. When you get the repeated characters, especially those that die, the stakes feel less important. WoW has always had time travel in the form of the Bronze Dragonflight, but even they know that futzing around with time so much leads to bad things (see: the Infinite Dragonflight, which was oddly absent despite this expansion being perfect for them).
I'm not going to say this entire expansion was a waste of time, though. The Draenei lore was actually incredibly good and needed (Worgen next pls Blizz?), and Yrel was absolutely a fabulous character. While part of me wants the AU Draenor cast to stay in their lane, I have to admit that I'm sad to see characters like Yrel and Reshad probably disappearing into the void, at least for a little while.
Anyway, with the expansion over (unless they pull a Sunwell and completely overshadow Archimonde the Tree Humper), I have to say that Warlords was actually disappointing.
The quests and the way story was handled was great. This is easily the best they've handled story in a long time (and honestly even though Blizzard would have to work really hard to top Wrath of the Lich King for me the storytelling in Warlords easily eclipsed it), and it honestly felt like we were back in Warcraft era, where things could actually progress the story instead of everything staying stagnant.
My personal favorites were Spires of Arak and Shadowmoon Valley, mostly because I like the Arakkoa a lot and also Shadowmoon Valley just handled Draenei really well.
However, with that said, everything just felt short. There was a lot to do while simultaneously containing nothing to do. Dungeons were fun but running the same raids over and over for the legendary questline (and yes you had to run Highmaul over and over and over and over...) got tedious fast and also hurt the overall story telling. I get why they'd want you to run the instances again and again, but each time you kill Imperator Mar'gok it just felt like a hollow victory.
I want them to continue on this path for the sake of story but I want there to be more. Sitting in a garrison all day didn't really lend itself to making sure you were aware the world was actually big, and in fact just made things feel very, very small.
I don't know why I typed this all out. I just wanted a distraction from more recent events, I suppose.