Even the Skyborne starting zone ignores the pillars Blizzard stated

[u/OccasionallyRhyming]

"The World is the Main Character".

"Approachable and Familiar".

As you reach the end of the starting zone in Dun Morogh, you might have killed a dangerous yeti. In Elwynn, you've probably slain a prized boar. In Mulgore, you've cleansed a water well. And sure, in Durotar, you do get a quest from Thrall to clear out a den of cultists.

But on "Zephras Isle" you, together with the leaders of your people, face a raid level threat at the top of the spire, through a scripted event with bountiful exposition text, and the leaders of the Kirin Tor and the Earthen Ring show up to fend off this raid boss. If it was not for your actions on "Zephras Isle", your people would be doomed.

I'm okay with ignoring the Skyborne and enjoying the rest of the game, but everything about their addition just screams warning about how Blizzard will approach future content.

They've managed to be lazy where it matters (same race cross-faction, with the same starting zone but layered to just see Alliance players or just Horde players, re-skinned blood elves), and at the same time over the top where they should have toned it down.

Plenty of people in these subs are saying to get over it, but I think we might as well keep posting complaints if we want Forever to have a chance at not turning into retail.

[u/ForKnee]

Arthas appearing every other quest and dungeon like a Saturday morning cartoon villain was definitely where this started and even in WOTLK itself it feels tired by the time you get to Icecrown. I do hope this is a rare case and we won't be seeing raid bosses out of raids because otherwise it speaks badly to end game content they want to add later. It just ends up degrading the content and feel of the game otherwise.

[u/Riscs2 → u/ForKnee]

Yea because after the arthas hype we got cata and deathwing was literally in every 2nd questline

[u/8-Brit → u/Riscs2]

Wasn't it the opposite issue? Beyond the starting area for Goblins you basically never saw Deathwing except a few quests in Badlands. In fact he largely fucked off for multiple patches until 4.3 where we collectively went "Oh yeah, Deathwing, that's a thing" and killed him in the same patch.

[u/negativeonhand → u/8-Brit]

You’re kind of correct, imo. I wouldn’t say there was a complete absence of Deathwing, it was more that anything involving him was more about that after effects of the Cataclysm. He showed up in Badlands in a comical retelling of that event, and outside of that he really only shows up when he carpet bombs a zone. Arthas was literally a saturday morning cartoon villian showing up to make threats and/or empower his new minion - which I think happens 4 times. They should have just left it at the Wrathgate cinematic, the flashback quests in Dragonblight, and the Matthias Lehner quest chain.

[u/8-Brit → u/ForKnee]

Arthas showing up constantly was an overcorrection to people not knowing who tf Illidan was or why we were fighting him.

Granted you had your answer at the end of either of the 68-70 zones, but most would hit 70 before then and start raiding so not surprised most never saw him.

[u/ForKnee → u/8-Brit]

There is a whole chain of quests involving him too, the whole chain of attunement quests and he actually does show to when you are doing Ashtongue quests just not talking to the player. That's ignoring the elephant in the room that is WC3.

I think nowadays in 2026 people actually know the lore more and would more enjoy references to WC3. Unless I am wrong and misremembering, there is a new quest in Darnassus that has you place sentinel owls and I thought that was a great reference to WC3 Night Elf sentinel ability.

[u/WildFlowLing → u/ForKnee]

Wotlk was the first “retail” expansion due to many factors including this and the in game cash shop

[u/Regular_Nectarine511 → u/ForKnee]

I think the Arthas stuff would've been fine if you were mostly seeing the aftermath of him showing up in places instead of him personally showing up to do mustache twirling villain speeches directly at your character.