Spoilers for the WoW War of the Thorns questline.
Welp.
Other folks have talked about this more eloquently. I can only express my hurt and rage.
I went into this knowing what would happen to Teldrassil. I kept hoping that Blizz would surprise us, that something actually interesting would happen, that someone unexpected would be responsible for the burning of that tree. But no. Blizz took what was hands-down my favorite character in the game, stripped away all her depth and complexity, and made her a boring villain. While the Jaina animated short was cool but filled me with unease, the Sylvanas one just made me sad. Not sad at the story, but at having to mourn my fandom. I can’t get excited about my favorite character anymore. Not because she’s evil, she’s always been evil. Because they turned her into something boring and lifeless in service of a faction war that I actively hate.
The flaming wreckage of any fucks I had to give about WoW’s story.
After the long quest chain last week, we barely had anything to do this time around. As much as I didn’t really want to be complicit in burning Teldrassil, having everything reduced to the cutscene and taking away any player agency* doesn’t feel good either. At least the Alliance side got to spend a few moments trying to help people evacuate.
I’m just heartbroken and disgusted by this whole thing. Even WoD didn’t make me want a refund on my pre-order so badly. This pre-expansion event has effectively killed any desire I had to actually play the expansion. If this is what we can expect from the storytelling in BfA, count me out.
*I mean they could have at least let us kill Malfurion!