As I replay classic and enjoy the human leveling experience, I can’t help but ask myself why the story just feels so much better than it does in Battle for Azeroth. It feels more weighted somehow, more “real.”
Then it hits me, the main alliance conflict in Classic can exist almost completely without the Horde. The alliance deal with the Defias, with Duskwood, with their missing King, and of course Orcs/Horde, but the Horde is only one small enemy among many.
The faction war still exists, but it’s not the main driving conflict, and that feels a lot better, a lot more real. The problem with Blizzard is they constantly go back to “Total War” expansions like Cataclysm, like BFA, like Mists, and warlords. Notice the faction conflict expansions are generally the weakest?(with the exception of Pandaria which was great in terms of content)
These total war expansions always focus on the Horde story, the horde having to stop a bad guy within their ranks. Of course there’s other world threats, but the faction war is equally driving in the story than the world threat in those expansions.
So what happens with these total war expansions, is the alliance simply become a foil, an afterthought. The “evil” horde must stop the bad guy within them! While the alliance...must help? It’s boring and overdone.
The individual Kul Tiras alliance experience was one of the best parts of BFA. If that was the main focus instead of Sylvanas and the Horde, the expansion would’ve been better, in my opinion.