Check out the new Bellular site: bellular.ghost.io The team's working hard getting Blizzcon content out!

Metzen was the heart of Blizzcon. He lives and breathes Warcraft, and it has been extremely noticeable not having him at Blizzcon.

So bloody happy to see Metzen back. Hearing the audiences reaction to him walking out on stage is such an amazing thing. Really just shows, that Metzen was, and is the face of Blizzcon that we remember. The way he gets the audience's attention, their absolute rapt attention, in a way that no one else have done since he left. He's back, and he's still got it. I am so fucking happy to see it happening.

I teared up a bit when he said it was time to come home. He showed more love for this franchise in 10 minutes than Blizzard as a whole has shown in years.

Anduin in the cinematic was SCARELY good. At times it looked real, wild.

I like how Nobbel put it: "Remember that big sword I had Sargeras plunge into the world in Legion? Yeah, forget everything y'all have done in BFA and SLands while I've been gone, we're going back to that" - Chris Metzen.

I think they might finally be going the FF14 path and shifting to these large multi-expansion story arcs, instead of each expansion sort of feeling like its own thing. All in all, I think it's a good thing if they do it right.

Also that sword scene at the end I'm glad they showed the Sword is in reality waaaaaaaay more massive then it appears in game and is only big as it is for game constraint reasons.

I stoped playing wow in 2019...what makes me want to come back is that this feels like a true continuation of legion and the story i was invested on...im a bit iffy on the price tough

The collecting mogs even if they aren't your specialization is the best change in years. Wish they'd implement it now.

Every expansion having to revolve around a single existential threat that has to be taken out at the end of it means there's only one story that can be told repeatedly. Decoupling the setting from that is great. Promising that the next three expansions take place on Azeroth, even more so.

Just finished the what’s next panel and imo it was the best what’s next panel in years so you got Ion trying to fix gameplay and bring down the walls in the game and Chris providing the story direction , wow has a “chance” to rebound in a good way

Bellular! Your amazing, it was an absolute pleasure meeting you at BlizzCon! Your as genuine as it come and just a solid guy. Much love from long time follower! Keep up the good work

I love Chris’s passion, but i am not gonna cheer to the heavens until i see more from this hopefully good new direction. Blizzard has burned me far to much in recent years to not keep any hype i have very measured.

Midnight sounds like an expansion made for me, I am VERY BIG fan of blood elves and elves in general, the revamp of Quel'thalas is like a dream come true, my hope it is as good as it sounds because I will be a veeery happy if it is!!!!

Well honestly, Chris Metzen is the one and only person I trust to give us the real WoW, the emotionality, the music, the lore, and continuity. That's seriously been lacking for a long while.

Did anyone else feel like the cinematic between Thrall and Anduin was kind of a metaphor wow as a whole and maybe even Metzen coming back?

If you’re referring to the big glowing crystal thing in the Arathi zone, I don’t think that’s the tip of Sargeras’ sword as you’re implying. They’ve supposedly been down there for centuries, and the description of the zone said something about the crystal’s light always coming back on after flicking off. That seems to imply that it’s been around for a very long time, not just the relative few years which Sargeras’ sword has been stuck in Azeroth.

I like what I saw. Feels like a lot of things for the common players, and not just the elites. Having a three expansion storyline means lots of community engagement with theories for a few years.

One of my biggest wishes for WoW is to have a narrative that is developed over multiple expansions instead of this habit of one-and-done, so needless to say this Saga announcement is music to my ears.

Really wish they had done this instead of Shadowlands, it actually seems like a continuation of the Legion story and honestly, I like it, lol. Should’ve just not done Shadowlands, have Dragonflight as a side story for those who want more dragon lore, and have this as the msq for WoW. But for now, going to wait and see. A part of me really wants this game to be fixed and righted, a part that refuses to die.

I got out when the big thing happened with that poor girl that died. As a father I couldn't support that company but from what I can tell. All those people involved have been sent to justice and no longer are part of this company. This has reinvigorated me to get back in. I have played since 2004 and this game has always been a close second home to me. Safe space for me when I was in the military. I hope this is what they are saying. I wanna get back in the fight.

I had a massive smile across my face the entire time Metzen was on stage. So happy to see him back

I miss when expansions lasted 3+ years and i didn't had to pay $70+ and go through all the hoops of leveling and gearing before doing the content i want to do every 18 months

I think it's a necessary risk. Too often does the focus shift from expansion to expansion with little to no reason sometimes. Here. We see a clear line with a through thought so there's no question what comes next. Focus over surprise. It makes sense because it means you're locked into a project and there's no deviation into other worlds or factions.

when we saw the beginning cinematic, during the closeups, we had a moment with my girlfriend when we weren't sure if it was live action or 3D. how far we come in term of quality...

Honestly the thing that might get me back into WoW is the Classic update. The whole Seasons of Discovery and being able to Shaman tank has been something I've wanted for years.

I highly appreciate the announcement of three upcoming addons for World of Warcraft. The Worldsoul Saga seems to rightfully continue the story where Legion left off for years to come. Nonetheless I always wonder whether Blizzard would release Warcraft IV at some point, which would give fans of the franchise another new title in the series. Metzen and his team seem to focus on the MMORPG for now, which is as great as long the hype can be sustained. If I had a wish for Blizzard and Warcraft as such, I'd want them to release Warcraft IV after the Worldsoul Saga takes place.

Not just Metzen but even Ian looked finally happy, truly happy. Thanks to Microsoft for freeing Blizzard

I think I speak for everyone with this statement. This just makes me conflicted. Part of me is so hyped. That part of me has also been let down too many times.

- "It's time to come home!" - So we're finally getting player housing? - "Lmao no, just a different standard adventure players will hate after having to grind it for two months and cry over how fun it could've been"

I feel like Metzen already straightened out the story enough without resorting to retconn. I would have preferred retconning back to pre-BFA, but I’m finally excited to see some retail lore again

yeah i was emotional over this then i saw the base 70 dollar price tag and immediately laughed and said nevermind

I like what Metzen presented and I also liked what Ion Hazzicostas presented in the deep dive. All in all I'm really happy with what they're doing right now with WoW.

I really forgot how much Lord Metzen gets me hyped for WoW until he walked out on that stage.

With the reunion in Midnight of the elves, makes me wonder if they will bring back Sylvanass in that patch.

I love the content you and the team make for world of Warcraft!! It really keeps me interested in the game!

its really weird being cautiously optimistic for once, I know with Metzen back the cool dudes doing cool shit should be roaring back at full force, but its a little too early to really be excited for the newest expansions since we don't know how the little dragonflight package is wrapped up with its little bow. personally, I'd love to see Racial or Class Skins to abilities, like how they made Glyphs give us fun effects for our spells A Beast Master Hunter being able to skin Arcane shot that makes it look like its a bolt of lightning as a tie to Hati or titanstrike, or a Night elf hunter specifically could have it so Arcane shot looks like a shooting star, Dark Iron Dwarf Paladins being able to have Ragnaros fires to their spells. Kul'tiran priests getting tidesage water effects and so on.

This is them sunsetting WoW. Calling it now.

Microsoft freed Blizzard from the shackles of Activision by purchasing both companies outright. There's a notable feeling of relief and apprehensive hope at this year's Blizzcon.

It's just nice to see that even after melding with the Blizzard HQ and becoming part of the ship, part of the crew, Metzen can still project his image on stage.

Good to see Metzen back - still being appalled by the price tags/monetization model.

The war within cinematic itself was way better than Dragonflights. The features sound amazing. In war within i'm not "forced" to run M+ to get some decent gear, delves are a great addition when you want something more relaxed and still make process. This sounds like they want to make M+ more about the points and people can still compete and have their bragging rights.

Metzen Is such a Legend he makes the best lore ever

I am happy that Metzen is finishing the tale that he started. I am sure his speech moved hearts of many wow players who left the Azeroth during the last three expansions.

That's a very good point about Blizz relying on the next expec, and that being somewhat redundant now. I hope they know what they're doing, next year is going to be absolutely critical to get right. If they don't, that's YEARS worth of content soured. I'm not sure how many of us will have the resilience to look past that given the long-term plans in place.

They didn't announce three expansions. They announced three Paid patches.

I'm surprised you didn't speculate that the Midnight expansion is going to reveal more about Elune or potentially get a showing from her.

I really like your view on what its going to be like to cover this new content. Like instead of the WoW youtube community forced to become investigators finding any sign of a good story, lets let them be journalists exploring a world and showing how awesome it is to everyone at home!

I really miss when wow was just about me being a little guy beating some stuff up for gold sometimes.

Metzen brought me back to WoW. It was a great Blizzcon and the future of WoW is incredibly exciting, not seen that for many a year. That cinematic shown at Blizzcon brought chills, it was so very good.

Great meeting you at the Hilton Lobby!!!! lol You are one cool dude man! The highlight of people I got to meet for sure! Hope you enjoying your AMF lol

I assume these are going to come faster than normal. (12-18 months?) Probably have less content than a 2-year expansion but they're still going to want a full $70 expansion price. 😉 Just like COD gets it every year.

I just came back to the game and highly enjoying it, Looking forward to coming in for the recent expantion and of course the new ones I'm hyped.

dude, Metzen is incredible. I havent touched WoW or anything blizzard since 2019. I have paid 0 attention to it, but when I seen Metzen was taking the stage I tuned in just to see what he had to say. He is such a great hype beast that his energy alone is enough to have me interested again. I just may resub for war within

I been in classic for years. This actually makes me want to go home to retail again if things play out right

I'm so glad they announced three expansions already!

To win people back, it needs to be good and consistently good. I don't or won't trust them until they can deliver and keep momentum. That's not next expansion and it may be as far as an expansion and a half before I think about it again and only if its good.

This is great news! Especially with Metzen back! But what I would like to know is what the cost of all this is: Cost of Subscription + microtransactions + battlepass + expansions....??? I won't be going 'back home' (as much as I would like to) until I hear people who have played this new world and say this isn't another cash grab, greedy move. What do you guys think?

I'm surprised that they didn't announce the Xbox version. Tho, since Phil was there, we all know it's coming.

I'm one of those who saw this and was like oh I don't have to return to wow because it won't ever be what I want it to be. I haven't played wow since the beginning of shadowlands; but I have followed it all this time. I'm actually quite glad for this, it finally has ended the speculation of whether or not I may or may not care about wow in the future. Like ripping off a band-aid I can just safely ignore wow, maybe check up on it again in 10 years if it's still around.

There is no saving retail.

I pray this is WoW’s “a realm reborn”

I quit worrying about the story, especially after Shadowlands. Shit was just ruined for me, and instead i focused more on "ok am i even having fun in the game, with the classes and the gameplay loop? Am i enjoying the areas, the dungeons, etc?" and the answer I found was No. I wasn't having fun at all, i felt like my time wasn't being respected and it all just felt boring and arbitrary. It felt like Blizzard had no idea what they wanted to do and were throwing player feedback out of the door. However, I do have hope for the next expansion. Like maybe this will be the one that pulls me back in and I can enjoy this game, one ive been playing since the beginning since I was a teenager, one ive created so many memories in and had so many experiences with. Ion and Chris and this new direction give me hope at the very least. So we'll see how it goes.

Prediction. War Within, Iridikron won't show up at all or not until the end, instead be off getting juiced up by the Void. Either come back to Trigger Midnight or come back to Trigger The Last Titan either way being the cause of the Titan's return. We probably lose in War Within, Xal triggers a Void invasion lead by Iridikron juiced up by the Void causing heavy infection & damage to Azeroth triggering the Titans to come back. But when they do, will it just be them? Will Sarg come back Ordered? Will Illidan come back? Will he still be Fel infused? Will he be Ordered? By choice or force?

I had literal goose bumps when Metzen came on stage.

I really like the laying out method of Storytelling I like magics plane centered blocks it allowed for really flushed out planes I hope that's the idea

Even if the story is 10/10, we still have to "PLAY" the game. They have their work cut out for them on that front for me.

I think the trilogy is the ultimate admission that up until now they've largely just been making shit up as they go. Hopefully the hiring of Metzen and trilogy structure will mean the lore and narrative for WoW is much higher quality and more coherent. As opposed to seeming like bad fan fiction being ad-libbed in real-time.

I loved the lore videos you make, but the last few expansions always felt like a nothing burger tbh. Because it never lead to anything, like the writers were establishing things without really knowing where they were going. Hear Chris say "we are moving with purpose" it made me so happy I just can't describe it. And then "it's time to come home" there I cried... Man WoW is home to me... I feel empty while playing anything other than WoW and God of War... I need to see WoW being epic and inspiring. I just feel so good I fucking love Metzen...

Metzen basically went on stage and told us: "You will play WoW again because I SAID SO!"

Looks like Blizzard got their best mascot back, let's be careful about the future still

I'm really curious about Anduin's story. Brother clearly has PTSD and no surprise why. I want to see his development more than ever. He's grown up a lot since he was that little wide-eyed boy in the throne room, and those eyes have seen so much. ❤

Ah yes, the daily "Is Blizzard finally listening?" Bellular video.

Was great to meet you at Blizzcon!

The energy when the whole audience knew he was coming on stage before he was announced. That was a hell of a moment to watch him come out. I haven’t been this excited since WotLK was announced

I want to be excited for the announcements, but I'm ultimately not interested. WoW Retail needs a complete reboot. It's just too bloated and overly complicated at this point. There are so many useless systems like pointless reputation and currency grinds who's main reason to exist is to drive time /played instead of providing enjoyable content. There are so many Mounts, Pets, and Titles are impossible to get due to being removed, or are tied to incredibly low drop rates at the end of very long raids like Siege, ICC, or DS and the best ones are all on the shop at $25 each instead of being in game rewards. New players are non-existant now becuase there's so much information and understanding of systems and currencies needed now, that it is beyond daunting. There is content in DF especially, that is considered as offensive to an entire politically minded portion of the potential customers, that has no reason to be in game other than for "virtue signaling". That content pushed many long term players away from Retail and are concerned that more future releases will also have devisive content in it, again potentially turning off potential customers from being interested in engaging with the content. Currencies. Do I really need to elaborate on the problem with currencies and upgrade systems in game at this point? Personally, there are so many fantastic games on platforms like Steam that don't have any of the aforementioned issues I raised, not to mention, that don't have a sub + cash shop trying to nickel and dime the remaining customers. Yes, there is many DLC packs for those games, but they are completely optional and when purchased help the actual game devs instead of A-Holes like Bobby Kotick. Finally, raiding is still going to be too hard because of the devs constant battles with modders. The difficulty ceiling will never stop, making raiding more and more niche. Raiding needs to be easy enough that mods are not needed to complete the content, but again, that's not likely to happen unless Blizzard just bans all mods, which is also likely never to happen without a complete world reboot. I think a reboot would be the best option for WoW's future, but it looks like that's not going to happen, meaning the aforementioned problems will likely never be addressed, new players will still be incredibly rare, and even the ones that come and try it, are likely going to be overwhelmed and leave, and the player base is going to continue to stagnate or shrink. For me: Hard Pass.

Thanks Bellular for all you do. I'll check out the website.

The CGI of Anduin reminded me a lot of some of the stories in Love Death and Robots. They'd do 3d scans of actors to make the models, and then have the actors also play the parts. A couple of the stories were Shape-Shifters and Beyond the Aquila Rift.

All of the new gameplay changes looked really solid! I'm just praying that this saga allows them to tell a really nice story. WoW is years behind FF14 in terms of telling stories, intermittent cutscenes (which help the world feel alive), and story cohesion! I hope this changes with Metsen back!

You guys never learn. You allow flashy marketing and nostalgia to reel you back into supporting corporate greed

Good to see Metzen back. I sometimes get the itch to return, but then I remember what happened to my warlock in Legion and think nah I'm good.

So lets just call each patch a new expansion!

Paid early access ruined this for me. The giant that carries wow on his shoulders being thrown stones under his feet with such a shitty pr decisions.

Thanks Bellular! I believe in you and the team. You are appreciated and I’ll be here for the long haul. It’s a great time to be a WoW player.

Metzen is like the Steve Jobs for Blizzard. I hope one day he takes full control of Blizzard one day, and now I feel excited for WoW again.

In Midnight our Knifu comes back 🖤

I'm worried about the yearly $60 expansion.

Blizzard are the masters of getting its consumer base excited for the next disappointment

Ngl, when Metzen said "Now is the time to come home" I teared up a bit. So glad Metzen is back ❤

It makes me happy that a content creator is acknowledging the net positive of not only Anduin’s part in the cinematic trailer, but his trauma. He gets a LOT of hate from the crowd on this, but anyone that’s been through similar traumas in war knows that’s exactly how it would play out. It’s not solely I have PTSD or I don’t…it’s exactly how it played out. There are things that trigger us and immediately bring us back to a place we deliberately try to avoid. And even when we are in that mindset, there are things that bring us back into the fight. Good job Blizzard on that Cinematic. I can say that after my departure from Dragonflight, I am excited to see where you take this game next.

Hopefully Quel Thalas with the other Blood Elf Zones will be re worked so that we can start flying in those zones. The Azuremist and Bloodmist isles also

I can't envision myself playing wow for years to come whatsoever. But I can sure finally hope to see the story develop the way it should've been developing for the past few years.

I kind of think that the whole story of wow since classic should be the world soul saga... I'm glad that they are now focusing their attention on this and not dancing around it like they have been doing for years.. I stopped playing wow properly after cataclysm.. I've played through mists and bfa and I'm somewhere through shadowlands?? but the drive to play isn't there so I've not played any dragon Isles yet. But I have to admit that I'm excited for wows future.. and can see myself coming back at launch for the next expansion..

We got two logos and some story hooks. The hype is completely unjustified.

The saddest part about this is all the seals clapping along like anything is going to change for the better, the damage has long been done (shadowlands will always exist now in its "it was my plan all along" stupidity and turning life and death into a very boring literal machine) Chris lost his touch long ago, you know, where for example he gave us wonders like Warlords of Draenor, that had Grom commiting genocide for the vast majority of the game only for us to all high five at the end and for him to act like he did it all himself, nevermind the countless draenie his armies massacred

I may disagree with a lot of your criticisms about Dragonflight, but I think most of us can agree that this direction for the game looks really solid. The intent and communication, even after the deep dive today is clear. They are in this for the long haul. They want to improve WoW's narrative, gameplay, systems, everything. Now let's see if they can deliver. I genuinely hope they can. Let them prove they can be consistent in this upward trend.

The problem isn't whether the idea of the story is exciting - it's whether the gaming experience is fun. If I've still got to spend all my time grinding dailies to get any meaningful progress, I'm not interested in the long term prospects of the expansion. Sad but true. WoW hasn't had a good work/life balance since the Lich King/Cataclysm era and that's a real shame.

Metzen coming back doesnt change the fact the lore has damaged by retcons and bad writing. Furthermore, cataclysm was Metzen's part of doing. Ff14 had a begin middle and end... world of warcraft is a ship swimming in circles

Having Metzen return almost feels like a sunrise after a long, cold night. It remains to be seen whether we'll see a revitalize world, or a scattered wasteland, in that dawning light, however.