The Next YEAR Of Warcraft, And A BIG Leak 

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The fact that there are people working on Warcraft that aren't actually interested in Warcraft as a franchise, kinda tells you all you need to know about the direction of WoW's story since BFA.

I think part of the problem is that we've grown accustomed to this idea that expansions are these self-contained stories and as a result the slower pace of Dragonflight is off-putting. I'd argue this slower burn is better for the game long-term though since one of the biggest issues with WoW's narrative is how quickly they burn through characters with each expansion. WoW has just about run out of characters that have existed over multiple expansions that they can lean on for story... In order to rebuild that bench they need more time with each character to build those arcs.

We can argue that "only 30 people" being upset at Chris' leadership is not a problem because from what I heard there is an insidious group of people that are incredibly tight knit and I would suspect that a concerted effort by 30 people to bully him out and oppose his efforts is enough to basically make him quit again.

"world of warcraft can't get it up anymore" was the moment I clicked the like button on this one lol. sincerely hope the Metzen rumors are true. bring back the metal.

the Legion cinematics and animated cutscenes were so good I have watched them enough times to memorize most of what is said in them. I can't say the same for most if not all cinematics from bfa after the trailer cinematic onward. The saurfang cinematics, like was said in the video are made well in advance, so Metzen might have had a lot of input with those aswell.

If it is indeed true that the current team doesn't care for Warcraft's past, that explains to me perfectly why Shadowlands bastardized everything we loved about Warcraft 3's lore. It's a damn shame Metzen wasn't brought in before the damage was irreparably done. Maybe he can turn it around but I have little hope he can bring me out of the level of apathy I have for the story and lore from DF onward.

For all the good things, there is so much cringe-level conversation between major characters in this expansion. It's like my little pony fans have infiltrated the WoW writing team and replaced cool cutscenes and hype with "fRiEnDsHiP iS MaGiC" over and over again.

If Metzen is back and ruffling the feathers of the froufrou devs, then there’s a beacon of hope. What WoW needs more than ever is some gritty, no-holds-barred, dark fantasy themes, not rainbows and positivity pie with every possible npc interaction. Narratively speaking, Fyrakk is torching the Dragon Isles after Alexstraza sent the last remnants of the Black Dragonflight’s leadership presumably to their deaths, only to give them a pat on the back and tell us that a new world tree for the Night Elves is being established on the isles while a sadistic incarnate is rampaging.

"I've heard that people who don't like the original vision of classic warcraft hate Metzen's direction" YEEESSSS!!!!!!

Anyone who is “frustrated” with anything Metzen has to say should be fired immediately. Those devs are the ones who brought us BFA and SL. He gave us Bc, WOTLK, and Legion.

It's a bit concerning that the people working on warcraft don't want it to be warcraft

I think Dragonflight is a really good Expansion regarding its features. But narratively it lacks heroism. A lot of things nowadays lacks heroism to be honest.

I think it doesn’t take much to get Bellular excited about the future of WoW 😅

Warcraft used to be friggin metal, now it's just Hello Kitty (Dragon) Island Adventure

Hopefully this 30th anniversary celebration is nothing like Magic the gathering’s 😬

it BETTER NOT BE FUCKING PIRATES.

Next expansion - World of Warcraft Trader's Tenders Transmog Wowpalloooza

I just finished the Blue Aspect quest line and I’m shocked at how enjoyable it was. So much of Dragonflight has been intrinsically enjoyable, rather than a simple chase to the next upgrade. More of this, please!

Really agree with your thoughts that wow/DF has gone soft. I hope the next expac can reclaim that core edge. If anyone can bring it back, I think Metzen has the best chance. If THEY listen to his ideas.

For 30th anniversary: WoW Token in Classic and it’s 30% off!

Dragonflight is exactly what it needed to be, Safe and solid. But yes a Metzen injection of 80's metal would be cool but I think DF is was we needed for right now and it sets up a lot!

Hoping for Classic Plus as an alternative expansion path

I hope they do something similar to the Fated Raids toward the end. That was really fun and gave you a reason to do the raids again.

Grom raising his axe and talking about freedom only works when the character is someone people can get behind. We have lost lots of our strong characters in wow and other than khadgar I am not sure I want to get behind any of them. Varian Wrynn the last great character they had was killed off in Legion (which still makes me tear up) and everyone since then has been a bit meh 🤷‍♀ So I agree and I hope you're right and they make Wow great again.

Steve Danuser is the Ringo Starr in that friggin writing room

If those "30 people" were responsible for the Shadowlands storyline direction, then its good that they disagree with a return to what Warcraft is really about. Just like how civilizations slide into decadence questing the validity of their founding ideals, so to do long running franchises. It is Warcraft's time to have a revolution.

Good thoughts about Metzen, except for the idea that the Dragon Isles are on fire. I love the fact that we are rebuilding something. You do not need to be lighting a match to everything. Not every Warcraft mission was to destroy. You need to build your resources up, too. I love the history and background behind the dragons. If there is something World of Warcraft is missing recently, it is Heroes. I know we are.. However making Anduin probably wasnt a good choice.. Killing off most of the classic peeps didnt help for us to rally around.. In the end, I do like a lot of the tonality of Dragon Flight, really. It is much needed at the moment. Except that not enough things are on fire. Looking at the map.. It is perfectly in line with others over World of Warcraft's history, Dragon Flight is perfectly in line with all other content. Though again I could see the return of heroes (which I think maybe we are seeing a little bit - maybe).

Tbh i have a very good feeling about the story. You have metzen at the helm and Christie golden in the team. If you told me we'd get those two in a colab again i'd have no doubts about what our future lore and story beats would be like.

Dragonflight is really good. I'm having a blast.

It honestly feels really bizarre to me that people working on the Warcraft team would be frustrated or unhappy with Metzen's direction. Like... did you even like Warcraft to begin with? Granted, I'm saying this assuming that Metzen's general direction hasn't changed so there could be stuff behind the scenes we don't know about.

Hopefully Chris Metzen will be keeping Steve Danuser on a tight leash. That guy is a menace.

I personally adore the dragon/dragonborn additions, but I think you hit it on the head as to why I'm not as hyped about this expansion as I was for expansions past. Yes, it's nice to have some areas of the world that are actually beautiful, and it's important to have 'breathing room' quests and stories in between ones of severe drama, but this feels like it's an entire expansion of interludes with peeks at a main overarching plot. Here's hoping with Metzen re-joining the team that we'll get a bit of the spice of the game back. It's a good expansion, at least mechanically and in 'things to do'. But it needs to go further, and really have a story that people can gather around and have those 'wtf! this is amazing!' moments.

As far as it being soft and not "Warcraft"... we were told from the beginning that this expansion would slow down and not be END OF THE WORLD sort of battles. They wanted this to be a smoother experience where you were an explorer and not a conquerer. They did just that. And hopefully, this is the calm before the storm. Blizz did an excellent job recapturing the game play factor. Now they will, hopefully and as you said, release a next expansion with that missing WOW factor.

The dragonflight announcement expansion is the best one they've ever done, what are you on? The flying dragons, titan watcher climbing a magic tower while lava erupts everywhere has no cool factor?

I just recently finished the Dragonflight leveling experience. I fairly enjoyed it! I understood that the start of this expansion was to once again empower the Aspects and get rid of that dreadful Cataclysm ending. Activating the Oathstones and uniting the dragonflights (especially Blue!) was neat. Was it aggressive and like some of the older Warcraft stories? No, and I get it. I miss that stuff, too. The leveling experience in WoD was fantastic. I rather like the concept of "bring the fight to them" instead of being on the defensive. Dragonflight is awesome to me, though. Gameplay feels good. Story is fine to good. I think these new Incarnate enemies are actually pretty cool. I know most, if not all, will be dead by 11.0 launch but I hope at least Iridikron will stick around for a bit like alt Gul'dan did.

a void expansion would fucking blow it out of the park. everyone would come back in droves.

My friend who just started playing wow: "It looks too goofy". Wow lore feels very serious to me but the execution is usually silly

We’ve had bad patch and gameplay experiences in the past ( remember that Siege of Ogrimmar drought??😂😂).. But what really killed WoW for me ( and possibly many others) is Bad story PLUS awful gameplay decisions (aka Shadowlands)… For all the bad gameplay we had to that point, I felt the community excited during Battle for Dezaralor. Can’t really say that about either Shadowlands or Dragonflight, they definitely improved gameplay on the latter but there’s just no edge to the story …. Hopefully they have learned their story lessons as they did their gameplay lessons and we can get a strong expansion to be excited for this Blizzcon….

if they’re gonna keep increasing trading post prices and start selling tenders in the shop then they need to get rid of or AT LEAST increase the monthly limit

They have systematically killed the major characters that represented the antagonism between Horde and Alliance, they have a rough road ahead to rekindle the fires of war...

I honestly can see Dragonflight coming to a close next year and honestly I'm sad, I have had a blast in Dragonflight so far and so many of the issues I have had with the game have been resolved (not completely yet) and so I am actually genuinely sad that soon enough we won't have a reason to come back to the amazing Dragon Isles or Valdrakken (probably one of the best city designs imo). I think there has been a lot of discussion about the story and I agree that it lacks the flavour of some of the previous expansions but I honestly don't agree that it's flavourless, in fact it's the "grounded in Azeroth" expansion that everyone wanted, and for the most part I am enjoying the overarching narrative (I actually like stone boy cinematic at the start, got me hyped). I think that the interim story steps have been the misstep that they need to rectify so that a more cohesive story is presented (eg. The time storyline in the middle of Fyrakk, without a conclusion for Fyrakk), and I think that is the narrative direction that they need to sort out (it feels as though the individual teams are doing the stories in isolation). Personally about the Metzen news I'm cautious because my worry is that in the spirit of "Warcraft" he will turn back or slow some of the great changes that I hope are on the horizon (call it copium) that I feel narratively and intuitively make sense (Horde and Alliance working together, queueable instances together and full interaction between the factions, maybe even a rep for the other races / factions to allow learning other languages) as I'm really looking for a more rich and nuanced experience with the faction interactions as I think this is 20 years overdue (yes, I am one of the few people that thinks this should have been better done in vanilla). I guess we shall see.

honestly feel like the overall upbeat vibe of dragonflight is just a matter of blizz swinging hard the other way after the gloom and doom of shadowlands. having a more laidback expansion every now and then isn't such a bad thing because it breaks up the monotony of earth-shattering peril every couple years. DF's villains do have that cool factor IMO, and they're already miles more compelling and interesting than the jailer (not that the bar's very high there). and to be fair, I don't know if the WoD cinematic is the best example of peak warcraft, because while it was certainly visually beautiful and reintroduced beloved characters, it ultimately destroyed the notion that orcs are peaceful when not tainted by demon blood ("we will never be slaves... but we will be conquerors" okay.....). and yeah, maybe what little substance the expansion had was thematically relevant to the cinematic, but it failed to deliver on not only content, but any sort of compelling story or character development that could have taken place within its premise (the relationship between Grom and Garrosh, for just one obvious example). WoD was the biggest trainwreck to date (yes, including SL) and I think with the distance of time, too many people either don't realize that or have completely forgotten it, as well as Metzen's hand in it. but anyway who knows, maybe the void expansion that DF seems to be leading into will bring back some of those og warcraft vibes.

I think you hit the nail on the head with "feel good game" descriptor. I think this descriptor can be applied a lot of different things so credit to ya for that.

I really hope that Chris will bring back that hype in the narrative. I want to feel something. I want to feel hype. Not whatever DF is. DF is lackluster.

What questine even leads me to the cinematic where Alextrasza mentions the tree? Currently, I havent played any questline that gives me that info at all. I'm so confused.

I'm not surprised there's some kind of power struggle between the old and the new. You hear about that in other companies too, such as Lucasarts, with the Kennedy camp (the old must die) vs the Dave Filoni / Faverau camp (let's continue the legacy characters).

"I've heard that the current WoW narrative designers are frustrated with Metzen's direction" I fully believe that, with how touchy-feely and anti-conflict the current WoW narrative design is. But that is part of why people aren't staying for DF, WoW NEEDS Metzen's direction. Everyone in DF is weak an ineffectual, it's time for action again.

I think a good metric to differentiate the quality of “old wow” vs “new wow” lore is to look at the xpac antagonist(s) end goals. Illidan (at the time)/Kil’Jaeden: Kill everyone. Arthas: Kill everyone. Deathwing: Kill everyone. Garrosh: Kill everyone. Grom/Gul’dan: Kill everyone. Gul’dan/Sargeras: Kill/enslave everyone. Sylvanas: Dunno. N’Zoth: Kill/enslave everyone. Jailer: Dunno. Currently Iridikron: Dunno.

Yeah.. Unless the update is bringing back the old UI I've been using for 15-20 years, I don't see my sub coming back online.

Hoping Metzen can get retail back to “EPIC” (Metzen Blizzcon speech theme from years back), and hopefully also green light Classic+

If people on the team are frustrated by Metzen, then maybe he's doing something right... or maybe not. Time will tell. I do think that more RPG in wow would be a good thing, hopefully that's what he's aiming for. Dragonflight has been a good expansion so far, but I'm starting to feel strung along by the story. I'd be totally fine with mini expansions that focus on making the core of the game better while the team focuses on making a bigger, better expansion to follow it. If that's what DF becomes, then that's fine too.

What did Raszageth do with the oathstones? Feels like they forgot them after the vault.

"Patch will either be before or after blizzcon." Yeah, real insightful. Glad we got that one figured out.

It's awesome to have Metzen back. I'm holding out hope.

Killing main characters off just for shock value seems so cheap. Especially when that character hasn’t actually done anything meaningful in game recently or made any significant appearances.

It just doesn't feel like there's been a WAR in Warcraft for a really long time.

While I agree that it's time to up the stakes in Dragonflight's story, I've been looking at the story thus far as a "welcome home" from the afterlife; to appreciate the glory, richness, and beauty Azeroth has to offer. We spent so much time in the wake of Shadowland's high stakes, loss, and depression that Zoval had sewn. Personally, the Shadowlands expansion felt like there was always a looming and sinking cloud of doom over my head. Now there's a bit of reprieve as we gather ourselves back in our own home and help heal old wounds in the land and in characters. It was almost like the expansion was ours to explore without a pressuring agenda of uncertainty. I'm excited now more than ever to get back into the world's struggles and fight for Azeroth because of it. While that may not be everyone's perspective, I think we're all very much looking forward to what else the story has to bring. Cheers!

gratz on 30 bro

I cant believe we will already be in another expansion next year. Normally, it take more time at last two years.

So, with Metzen back, does that mean we can count on more expansions of forced conflict between the horde and alliance until the big bad comes around and they are "forced to work together"? Great.

Dragonflight is an amazing xpack content cadence and gameplaywise, but not in WoW-factor. Not in overarching story. I really hope Metzen is back to put the house in order in this department. Cuz if we get a bombastic story with all the great advances Dragonflight brought to the table. We'll have the best xpack ever.

I don't see it happening. Not with the narrative direction we're going in. Three options present currently: space&void, Titans return, world history. If dragonflight is a parallel to cata, next we need a parallel to MoP. GRANTED, dragonflight feels way more like a hybrid of both MoP and Cata...so next would be WoD...which could work...we had a peek into the history of Draenor It genuinely seems they're setting us up for a "the history of Azeroth" .... we're going back to primal elements, and the ordering of the planet, hinting at a "truth of the black empire" what better way to show us than let us experience it ourselves? Would also coincide and reinforce the current void premise while showing the origins. I don't see that bringing us that OOomph though. No faction pride there or anything.The heavy hitter would come with a legion parallel, but instead of the legion invading, we break the glass and bring back illidan/Sargeras. Probably need to see a full fledged light/void invasion and we'll come to understand the justification of his burning crusade. Full circle baby.

I think if their statements about developers not liking the direction Chris is wanting to do explains why we got the end of BFA, and shadowlands.

Metzen *IS* Warcraft. Any dev that is "frustrated" at his direction should probably ask themselves what they made that is successful, that isn't just piggybacking off someone else's work, and then kindly shut the fuck up when they find nothing.

I like Dragonflight so far. I’m sure the next expansion will be more of what you’re looking for

The burning of Teldrassil was a key part of BfA; so color me skeptical about big dramatic themes and narratives.

you missed the leak

I am gonna say something that some might not like. I do not think bringing Metzen back is gonna improve the games current lore/story. He is now in a completely different place mentally than when he originally wrote the original warcraft lore. A good comparison would be Steven Spielberg. In his younger years he was known to write stories that had serious bite to them (creative violence in Indiana jones or poltergeist) that pretty much invented the pg -13 rating. But as he got older, became a father and then a grandfather a lot of this bite disappeared. I think RLM touched on this in the crystal skull review and we see it in some of his more recent movies like the "BFG (big friendly giant)" which was adapted from a children book by Roald Dahl that had some serious bite for younger children. So a modern Metzen story wont be about the more savage or brutal aspects of Warcraft, but more like an orc version of Anduin or Baine where they get in contact with their inner feelings and try to get along with everyone. It was after all Metzen who turned Thrall from a beloved character into green jesus that could do no wrong and in turn made him an unlikable character unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions.

12:30 exactly THAT is kind of what warcraft needs

I hope what Blizzard takes away from this is that they have the recipe for player retention and what they need to do is dial up the theatrics to get players in. They have the kill strat and now they just need to execute for 11.0.

Idk I think dragon flight has been done right. I remember in shadowlands you, me and everyone else asked for an expansion where the world wasn’t in mortal peril for once and they finally gave it to us. This is the lull before a banger next xpac

Spot on about the story & overarching themes being mid, but the gameplay details improving dramatically. Hopefully Metzen makes a difference!

I haven't a clue honestly, we'll have to wait for what ever gets announced at Blizzcon.

"Dragonflight should have been more Cata-y" is the spiciest take I've heard yet

Summary: Belluar feels nostalgia for the cinematics from some of WoW's worst X-pacs.

3rd major continent and major character roles would be awesome imo

bring war back into retail warcraft

Dude. I'm 42. I'll switch places with you. No? Didn't think so. Always love your content, Bel.

I disagree on the "another apocalypse! Quick, Champion of Azeroth, go protagonise some more! save the Dragon Isles zone by zone as you uncover Zovaal's... err, we mean the Incarnates plot!" If the sarcasm wasn't clear I dont think another expac of putting out the flames as Azeroth's only hope would have landed well. An expansion of things being "nice" while they un-fudge all the systems and fix the basic gameplay was a better choice. Once the game works, then firing the Warcraft engine back up and going hard at 11.0 seems a lot easier than trying to keep people interested in the dumpster fire it was without the UI fixes and gameplay loop overhauls.

The dragonflights cinematic is my favorite that they've ever put out. The words they chose to have the life-binder speak were very particular and they spoke right to all of us who wants to be a part of healing the game that we have spent so much time with and love so much. I can't wait to see what the developers do next. Dragonflight hasn't been perfect but it's been a marked improvement from what we've had in the past.

Honestly I find Akexstrasza super cool, in a mature and humble way, like a wise thousands of years old creature would be. Getting kinda bored of all the flash and bombast, eventually that just becomes cringe. Gotta give credit to night warrior Tyrande though, that edge did fit her well.

I had to pause the video just to make a comment about the 'decontruction of Sylvanas's character.' I believe you meant the beginning of the 'destruction' or Sylvanas's character. :D (meant with good humor)

I have a feeling they’ll announce classic + at Blizzcon this year.

"The death of Varian Wynn, very well executed." I spit up laughing from the (probably unintentional) pun.

do with wow what Mortal Kombat did with the next game. A soft reboot with some time travel shenanigans and maybe we get back Arthas alternate version, still evil but in a different way maybe, idk. (a world revamp)

Such a spot on description of DF, there's no real grit to it just all nice.

so damn true Bellular. wow now if they could go back to old wow story and slow down/simplify and balance the game. WoW would be amazing.

still play the game. i know its a MMO and were not supposed to play solo but its harder to find people to do group outdoor content. WB in zaralek in EU if you dont do it on wednesday researchers on fire needs lots of players to win 12/12(very good rewards) killing rares in zaralek and forbidden reach less problem with my tanks characters but a nightmare with dps ones i use the group finder tool and i put all countries except russia only in time rift you get lots of people just put AI players to fill the gapes god i miss multiboxing^^

What I expect of the 11.0 announcement: An EPIC cinematic with cool shit that gives me chills. What I expect of the actual expansion: Keep all the good systems(mostly lack of them) from DF and refine everything that made DF as good as it is and just make the theme/story be something more WARcrafty. Darker themes to balance the lighter ones and blood and mayhem to balance the "let's all be friends"-mentality that has been bit too overwhelming in DF.

If the people don’t like what Metzen is doing then find another game to develop cause we all liked what he did from the beginning. They lost their way when all the original people left WoW

If your going to introduce a new aspect of the world, there is no one better then the father of Warcraft Chris Metzen!

I'm pretty sure Bellular knows more about the future of WoW than Blizzard, in a sense that neither knows anything about it but at least Bellular knows its past.

"Very well executed" was that a pun? lol

although the pool of big lore names to fish from is starting to run dry, I really don’t care for “newly named threat that we inevitability take care of in Azeroth’s defense.”

Love that Metzen is back. Hate that it's too little too late.

Only wow-related thing I can think about these days is night elf heritage. soon! :D

Love the RU-vid adds right along with the within the video adds lol

Who said the story is gonna need to be tied into a bow when its supposed to move into the next expansion

Every patch has been 8 weeks this Xpac... so that puts 10.2.0 at 31 October and put the Raid at 8 Nov. This sounds like what they prob do.