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It really feels like the Red Dragonflight storyline and Vyranoth/Vakhtros content got cut.

Over the years I've heard many WoW players stated "I only play for the gameplay I ignore the story". And while that is a totally valid way to play any game, it seems as if they're ignoring it purely out of disdain or dislike rather than just not be interested at all. WoW over the years has always sold itself as an MMO"RPG" game. Over the years however it seem to have steadily lost what made it an "RPG" that includes story and narrative.

They definitely pivoted on the Oathstones. I'm guess the original ending was them going "we have learned to be a family...not many dragonflights but a singular World of Warcraft: Dragonflight™" and then them getting their powers back. Instead we got them as a red herring and the true plotline seeming to be that the Titans' blessings aren't necessary and Azeroth is who they should be looking to for strength to protect her. Also the editing on these last few videos has been cheeky as hell and I'm all for it.

I hope they will tell us one day, what happened during BFA-Shadowlands-Dragonflight. Where were they aiming, what made them change directions?

So War Within was planned to be one expansion, and Metzen wanted to expand it because he didnt want to crush epic lore into a handful of patches?

I would bet good money that they had a pivot in the middle. You can see it just in the cinematics alone in 10.1. Suddenly we had cinematics with "mouth full of peanut butter" lip syncing and then didn't have any cinematics like that again. That's a clear sign to me that there was some sudden crunch for some reason or another.

MATT, THE OOAATHSTOONES

The problem that happened to Blizz was the same as many corporations in the USA...ESG's!

I'm worried that The War Within will still feel like Dragonflight because of the change of direction midway through. I do however have complete faith in Midnight and The Last Titan.

The damage Shadowlands caused to the lore is still there. It really needs to be retconned somehow

Before Malfurion went to Ardenweald his eyes were a shade of *Green* but in the new cut scene when he comes back they are a shade of *Blue*

it was exactly what i was expecting..... its the same cycle as BFA and SL

Seriously! What are Oathstones and Aspectral Powers (beyond MacGuffins)?

BFAs Cinematics are unbeaten. Saurfangs fight with Sylvannas was peak cinematic in my opinion hope they bring those moments back I remember waiting for those Cinematics to drop on mmo champion.

To me it seems like the disjointed and unfulfilled story of Dragonflight is an indication of Metzen just deciding to rip off the bandaid quickly in order to move on and cut their losses. Similar to what happened in Warlords

I just wish wow would stick to its guns. The last expansion that followed its story to the end was wrath of the lich king. Everything else has been last minute changes and retcons. I love the charecters in wow, just make a good a story that flows from start to finish in one line with out all these twist and turns of what appears to be management change and fear. I hope that for the upcoming trilogy they stand behind their product and exclaim this is who we are. And hopefully more of a focus on war and away from shiney unicorns.

How the hell can anyone say the TWW cinematic is "pitch perfect"?! Nothing happens!! We learn, again, that inside Azeroth is a World Soul. Aside from this startling revelation of brand new information that no one could've seen coming, the entire point of the video is Anduin being angsty. What a shocker considering how upbeat and hopeful he was at the end of SL! This is by far my least favorite piece of media in the entire franchise. I don't care how technically brilliant it is. I don't care if you can freeze frame and count the pores on Thrall's hands. Nothing happens! There better be some sort of follow-up media akin to the Harbingers/Warbringers shorts we got in the past. And they better contain some actual information or action beyond Anduin using the potty rendered in loving 4K UHD.

Don’t they do this with every expansion? Particularly since WoD. Shadowlands clearly had massive direction changes in the middle.

Dragon Flight's story is like Shadowlands. One big exposition with no end goal really planned. Made by the same person. the so of course the story fell flat again. Also Steven hard defended the Jailor in shadowlands on Twitter. Cos' that too was also his baby. However once Steven left, his main plan was no longer in motion. the Oath stones are kind of like the Sigils of the Jailor. Just suddenly there and then gone. Also let's applaud Intern Iridikron's promotion to herald villain. he worked hard for it.

Steve Danuser is the Rian Johnson of Warcraft

I haven’t had this much excitement and hope for an expansion since Legion and high hopes for the World Soul saga as a whole but only time will tell and hopefully the gameplay is just as great as the story.

There were so many holes that you could see while playing most of the content. Even in one of the raids, our black dragon boys do not comment about the faceless one as we defeat it. I am really starting to hate the missing plotlines and the lack of writing.

i only want to respond to the oathstone part: yeah they felt a bit underexplained in the mainstory. but i also played the story around the dragonwhelps. you know where we have to let them hatch? at their oathstones. but why is that needed? i mean we learned after cataclysm that the dragonswarms were unable to procreate. the eggs won't hatch and such things (we even had to comfort alexstrasza about it). but yeah i think the oathstone purpose (if you truly need one) is that it helps dragon whelps to hatch from their eggs. the other parts of the video: i don't know. yeah their are problems but i don't know if it's worth or good to pinpoint them out on that level. but i guess you have to do so to get the viewers entertained.

There's a story in Dragonflight?

Here is a free tip. If you’re not comfortable talking about a rumour, don’t spend five minutes talking around them.

I mean Oath Stones had some relevance in 10.1 with the trinket.. I think they were simply each flight's power stone?

"Oh no, SL isn't as good as we thought, let's put it on life support for a year and put EVERYTHING into DF... oh no, DF isn't as good as we thought, let's put it on life support for a year and put EVERYTHING into TWW... oh no..."

It's felt for years like WoW has been written by a committee composed of factions with incompatible goals, and no one controlling the end product.

Blizzard needs to learn from Hello Games' NMS. They should build a team that is not rushed that can go back and better flesh out and fix the story starting with most recent expansion down, instead of leaving it a broken mess for the rest of its life.

As someone who's big into lore, and isn't really a PVPer or Mythic Raider, I play the game for it's story and characters... I didn't mind Dragonflight... I've played since the end of Wrath and I've liked pretty much every expansion. I LOVED BfA, Legion was good, MoP was amazing... I think WoD or Shadowlands were my least favourite, but I still enjoyed them for what they were. Dragonflight's themes of family and coming together were great! I loved them, and sure I was confused at Malfy's storyline, and how Ysera did nothing, but you know what, I like this game, I like the stories, and I'll keep playing until I don't. People get so wrapped up about it, if you don't like it, don't play it.

Was vyranoth even sad when fyrak died? Just seemed weird how indifferent she was about him when they're siblings.

Honestly if all the gameplay improvements wasn't carrying Dragonflight from the gear upgrade systems to Talents and just general respecting the players time as well as a fast content kadence (basically gameplay is fun), It's safe to assume that with the narrative issues of dragonflight, Wow would be dead off the back of shadow lands being so horrible.

Um the oath stones allowed the flights to have titan infused eggs again. This is somewhat explained through the whelpling daycare quests

Blizzard has been doing this for the past few Expansions.

What BFA and Shadowlands felt like was lots of ideas in isolation and then they had to try and weave connections so that they seemed cohesive.

Can we just admit that Steve Danuser was NOT GOOD at his job. I’m so sick of hearing all the excuses “Oh BFA wasn’t his idea you can’t blame him” “Oh Shadowlands still really wasn’t all him he had to pick up the slack just wait for dragon flight” “Oh well you know he kinda had everything taken from him” Let’s face it, his ENTIRE time as narrative lead was a disaster. He’s a hack, and he needed to go and I’ve been saying it for years. I’m glad he’s gone.

Fantastic video as always

The only thing I disagree with in this video, is Malfurion. He hasn't gotten a good chance to show what he's gained from his time of absence yet. Much stranger than that, is Ysera's almost non-existent role, given the trouble we went through to get her back.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this expansion. I did everything I was capable of and now I'm doing pvp to maximize that also.

I personally dont like how Dragonfart had no big overarching stakes. Even like solving their issues to hatch eggs or having the Infinite dragonflight try to muck with time would be something.

iridikron would have been the the endboss of 10.3 but that has been cut as well as drust patch in SL -.-

I don’t think WoW itself knows what happened because it feels like nothing really happened

I wish I was paid five-six figures a year to make shit up as I go along.

I enjoyed DF, and played it often throughout the expansion until SoD dropped. I did both for about a month but have only been playing SoD since late December. The emereald dream expansion just didn't hold my attention after doing the storyline quests on my main. Also, I liked the new gear system initially but didn't feel like repeating the weekly grind in another patch. I accept that gear is outdated expansion to expansion every few years but the new system makes gear(and the tokens to upgrade it) obsolete patch to patch every few months. I don't have time to keep up with that.

Sooooo, what pub do you happen to hang out? I'll buy you a few rounds and we can chat.

Hey, did you get out to the Willy's Chocolate Experience in Glasgow yet?

The weird thing about the oathstones is that it seemed like that was the way they were going to get the powers back that they sacrificed in Cataclysm, but then all the oathstones got empowered and nothing happened. It was killing some random dragon (Fyrakk) that for some reason got them their powers.

like the helm enchant supposed to be mailable to alts

My headcanon for the Oathstones will just be that they are a beacon to call dragons home, those that did not feel the 'call of the isles' like some of the more powerful ones did

14:00 okay, so my theory here is that Iridikron gambled here: the heroes will save Nozdormu from becoming Murozond while he gets the essence(?) from Galakrond corpse or whatever then escapes with Xal'atah OR the heroes will fight Iridikron denying him the essence or whatever but Murozond rises in return, so by Iridikron being more of a clever enemy he knew that the heroes(+chromie) will want to save Murozond at all cost, so he just used the Infinites for his quick plan. So I don't think we ever see Murozond becoming real or maybe we will some how, idk

I had the same feeling: Hooray! I activated dragon stones. - Why?! - What now?

The way I see, it's more about speed than bad writting. Some make sense, imo. Malfurion didn't even have time yet to show if something happened. He went away so Ysera could participate. That's it. It's like players are expecting it has to be about Malfurion, not Ysera. Tyr represent a lot of what the Titans intented for the world, but the world itself isn't about the Titans. His narrative is to show how Azeroth is independent from the Titans. Oathstones are similar. They were supposed to be a way for Aspects to get their "function" and "roles" back (I wouldn't reduce it to 'powers'). The stones were meant to fail, then they would get their powers for connecting and protecting the world, not as some gift from the Titans. Nozdormu is literally about time travel, a subject that's always been messy and meant to confuse. Makes sense Murozond would have many possible moments in the timeline from which he could be born.

The thumbnail is amazing 😂

but the question is, is metzan now exclusively the voice of thrall?

They really missed an opportunity during one of those DF cutscenes to have all the aspects transform into a power-rangers-esque megadragon and fight a super-sized version of Lord Zedd. ...this is probably why I'm not writing the story.

Give Steve the fig leaf of an amicable break as long as he’s gone and his minions are relegated back to ‘neat lore tidbit’ rather than narrative or quests.

I see this 10 minutes after release and I'm not even subscribed. The algo must love this channel

Hot take: I think SL landed the plane with more storylines than DF. To me, 9.1 just felt hollow but at least there was some continuity.

I need someone to explain to me why everyone thinks Iridikron is so cool. all the dude has done is talk like an anime villain and walk away repeatedly what about him is so soy face epic?

Counter argument about "it's always been The War Within" - a lot of what showed up on the trading post is things that people have talked about being "leveling gear" in terms of aesthetics. Gear for an expansion themed around exploration and discovery. But we have *three* expansions planned now, and not one of them has anything even vaguely in that vein. There were also the pirates, and the N'zoth stuff off the coast in Beta. I genuinely think that the change to The War Within came from scrappping an entire expansion. Probably one that hadn't made it out of early asset art direction, but, still. I sincerely think that while The War Within was planned, it was the one *after* the 11.0, and part of the grumbling we heard (because remember, last year there was a lot of people talking about some folks at blizzard being dissatisfied with how the lore direction changed) is because there was supposed to be another breather expansion where these mysteries paid off before we immediately jump into "a war for the soul of the planet with the light and the void invading and then the titans show up again with a conspiracy." It feels like Dragonflight was always intended to be a breather with a little set up, but that the "prologue" was supposed to come next, with the real action of what would be this saga farther out. I think the fact that WoW hasn't done as well as it wanted means they moved the "big action" forward, at the price of the expansion Danuser was setting up. Because it does seem like Danuser's plan was pretty long running, with the intent being to set up a lot more pieces than just "oh my god it all happens now."

I think everithyng is getting on track, the team seens happy, nervous but happy. And they are delivering fixes and changes that the community wants in a very fast phase.

Dragonflight left many questions unanswered, and some plot points felt rushed. But I still enjoyed the story much more than during BfA and Shadowlands.

It's been brought up before but Warcraft becoming so soft, feely, and emotional is lame. Metzen understands Warcraft so I hope to see a return to form moving forward.

I'm torn because from Legion-Df (minus the horrendous GCD change in BfA and general nerfing of specs) has been the best this game has ever felt. But narratively it's been lacking since Legion. I loved Wotlk when I played it back in the day, so many good memories doing 25man ulduar and lich king. But I was pretty shocked when I played wotlk classic. It's better than classic and BC for sure, but it's still a completely different game than it is today. It's actually impressive how much they've improved.

Keep up the great videos Bellular!

I think large plot threads of dragonflight being scrapped for the World Soul Saga while the expansion was Danuser's "baby" so to speak, is what broke the camel's back for Danuser along with the stress from having to deal with Shadowlands story writing in addition to not wanting to move to California. Man got dealt a bad hand, and the one expansion he got to design narratively to put WoW back on track got upended cause they wanted to do the World Soul Saga. Seeing players get frustrated with the narrative after you had to change what you had planned because of someone else can be a big demotivator and I can't blame him for thinking "enough is enough" I wish him the best

Maybe it was like Warlords where they just scrapped it for Legion. Perhaps once Chris returned to Blizz they just scrapped Dragonflight's development to put everyone on the world soul saga.

I always wondered why we ever messed w/the Oathstones if they were just going to be a non-issue. Dragonflight has been, for the most part, fun...but disjointed. Not as bad as BFA and certainly not the disaster that was Shadowlands...but it definitely has felt like a lot of things were tossed out, almost like in WoD...which would have been a great xpac, were it not for being completely abandoned.

I think Malfurions eye color changed. When he stayed they were green but now that he's back they're silver/blue. Could be nothing though

Iridikron is indeed great. No notes!

You could say... THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING 😁

Honestly I think the answer to will things be better lore and narrative wise going forward all depends on Blizzard/MS. More specifically their staff, if they can actually keep their staff members who plans the games future out then yeah I think we might be. If they however keep having the big leads who write and come up with the narrative and lore, keep leaving midway through then no. Fingers crossed tho, Metzen seems like the person who will be in it for the long run at this point.

I have heard maybe somebody possibly unclearly potentially to my knowledge no followup who knows uncertainly but now look it could be....... my personal suspicion is maybe there is some form of major change? What do you think?

As long as we dont have any more fanily memes...

Re: Tyr. No, i dont think it was an insertion during a pivot (you might be right) i think that incompetance made the thread be dropped. My dwarves watched Stony Tony pull his big ass up a mountain to fire up a titan beacon... But they needed to placate the hippies in the community, so we just got a small arc and a sad boi ending for Tyr.

Dragonflight feels a bit like wod which did get even less of it's promised content. I thought every dragonflight would get it's content patch culminating in a red dragonflight themed one featuring a corrupted Alexstrasza(remember that Tyr cutszene?)

as someone who knows hardly any wow lore even I was questioning what is the point of Tyr

Ty for the content!

I'm glad they are revamping areas instead of adding more.

For this to be true, either they scrapped an expansion or more, *OR* they didn't have any plan for the next expansion.

I'm not following the retail game to much and don't play it anymore for various reasons. I still follow the story with a lot of interest though. My issue is that story pretty much is just opening cans, but never filling them. Like they just throw a lot of hype stories and cinematics around but you never get to see how they turn out. Its maybe explained in some sidequest expansions later. If you have too many open cans and never explain anything retrospectively, I lose interest in general. You gotta give something and talk about it. Just watch the last three cinematics of end expansion raids: DF: Aspects talk about some power they gave away to defeat Deathwing and wanted to reclaim it all along. But what does this power do? oh and familiy hehe Shadowlands: Jailor dies and talks about bigger threat. Wtf could be bigger than unmaking reality, which was what he wanted? BFA: Nzoth just kamehameha'd out of existance. Xalatath as character developed into a questionmark all along. Completely neglected in SL, c

I was innitially quite excited for Dragonflight, the soft reset it seemed to be was appealing. Tho after leveling my character and going through all the zones I only kept playing for a few more days before dropping it, beyond the flying which is awesome, the world and story just didnt capture my attention. There were some nice moments but it mostly felt very off brand, not as much as Shadowlands (tho I liked the leveling experience even there more tbh) but the narrative and world felt nothing like WoW and not in the Pandaria way. Over the course of the expansion I played for two or three more months always checking in with the new content and story but checking out just as fast simply because I didnt really grow to care about much of anything that was happening in the Dragon Isles, I enjoyed the content that took me outside or brough it more in connection with the outside world but I honestly thought that most of the stories related to the dragonflights were lame, even Nozdormu's story and the time travel there was not as awesome as I expected, beyond letting us see the Black Empire it just didnt do much for me. I am looking forward to War Within quite a bit, especially storywise since I dont have time to actively raid and grind anymore, but something about Dragonflight has always made me feel this unpleasant feeling of attempting to find things I enjoy and I could attach to, instead of it happening naturally, how it did in the past, even in BFA for example (tho that had its own issues obviously). I appreciate what Dragonflight did for wow and what it signalled for its future but narratively it had very little that made me care about it and on the contrary it kinda estranged me to the dragons of this series as so much seemed either rushed or left open, or, well, lame and stupid, which is just not something I asociated with dragons previously. I did enjoy parts of the bronze dragonflight and blue was probably the best with mommy Sindragosa but overall it just left me annoyed at all the unanswered questions and dropped plotlines, off feeling tone and lack of impact.

Holly Longdale is great. She is a genuinely good person. I met her back in the EQ days of yore.

Say what you will about shadowlands but, Sylvanas shattering the sky was badass.

the reason why tyr was involved was to give the dragons thre powers back they totally dropped that .. ??? why ?? then genn is gone he retired ysera daughther is now in charge its seems like a changing in the guard.. the main char are retiring and there kids are now in charge.. it sweet .. I see it .. and now there will be a fresh start with the war within.. there a little carry over but not much .. were going forward to go backward but in a new skion updated way ..

I look at Tyr in the shot where he's back and thought - He would be the one who handed us a very complicated Titan system that wrecked the current gear leveling and took us back to the sort of slog that killed Shadowlands. Now I don't know how tied in the storyline is to plans to overcomplicate gearing etc but knock on wood things haven't been TOO bad in Dragonflight as far as being jerked around every patch to get a new gizmo or set of gizmos and spend half your time rebuilding your armor. A spot or two which could have been yet another grinding spot for this nonsense have appeared and been vastly toned down, and they theoretically could have been tied in to the chopped off story bits.

More small story beats. the most memorable cinematic in DF is the run, hug, kiss. Cant remember what else happened. Just love small lore and narrative around old and new characters

It feels like this is the third time you have made this video. 1st at the end of BfA, then at the end of Shadowlands. Yeah, this wasn't great, but the next expansion looks better you've proclaimed. I'm not upset and I get that's part of your business and I'll definitely keep watching your videos! But, trying to keep hope up as a player is rather tough.

And classic Discovery?

While The War Within cinematic may have had excellent animation quality and continued to show Anduin and all of his feelings, it did nothing to really get me excited for The War Within.

so the next decade is azeroth the main character? i can live with that.

Are the dark times behind us? 'stares at hero talents' " They are just getting started friends" ....

I like the new big bad Iridikron, really cool voice. And he's got some big balls to just peace out a few expansions and basicly see yall later. I like it. He's got a plan and he knows what he's doing and as always we dont really know anything.

"Dragonflight, as it was set up in 10.0, just is full of missed opportunities." That pretty much sums up every expansion starting with WoD.

I was really afraid of this being a negative wow video and almost didn't watch it but I was pleasantly surprised. Please keep it positive

I’m beginning to grow concerned for the mental state of game developers and their higher ups. There’s this growing detachment from reality that just goes beyond making bad decisions toward tiptoeing the edge of psychopathy. I started realizing it in the new Saints Row where the developers said they wanted to make characters who you would want to invite in your house and have dinner with. But in the game they murder people in broad daylight with no effort to hide their identity. Meanwhile they’re making jokes about board games and karaoke. That’s like the joker levels of insanity 😂🤦🏻 Now we have “good guys” who committed 10,000 years of intergalactic genocide who can get forgiven for their crimes if they kill ten dudes and have a cool rock. There’s no real compassion, understanding, nuance or even follow through and to me that’s wild. I was watching Nobbel recap Dragonflight and when he said “and 20,000 years of war just gets resolved off screen” I never facepalmed so hard in my life

I speculate when you harm Chronicle to make your own claim to the story, you get thrown back in your place...or just removed entirely.

I'm sorry but the final void rooms in the Neltharion raid is NOT as weird as Bellular keeps saying it is. They're COOL but not as overtly WEIRD and something that REQUIRES AN ANSWER

I'm so confused, do we not like the dragonflight story? It's been so refreshing since after the BFA/SL shitshow, even though I've gotten over it more than the WoD out of game book shit