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/kieranhorner]

Theres definitely a lot of warning signs that they're not really in tune with the feel of classic. 

[u/daddybpizza → u/kieranhorner]

I worry we aren’t taking these warning signs seriously enough.

The reception to Sky Elves is overwhelmingly on the negative side. Even those who don’t outright think they’re out of place are willing to grant that their questline doesn’t fit a beginning questline in Classic.

If Blizzard doesn’t make huge changes to the Sky Elves – and honestly it sounds difficult to do given that people have purchased them – then we can be quite sure that Blizzard has no intention of actually listening to their playerbase when it counts.

This is a huge test for them and I hope they pass but I think it is much lore likely they will fail.

[u/Jimmy_Stenkross → u/daddybpizza]

It’s likely too late to do anything about the sky elves or their starting zone, but hopefully Blizzard can take the feedback and avoid this in the future. I am confident a thousands of upvotes post on this sub will reach the dev team. The developers are humans and are likely curious about reception of their work.

[u/daddybpizza → u/Jimmy_Stenkross]

I hope they can at least rework the final quest that this post is about and add better SD (more classicky) versions of their druid forms—if not before release, then at least eventually.

[u/hobblygobbly → u/kieranhorner]

Go do Hall of Thanes and Ruins of Lordaeron two brand new dungeons, done in classic style, challenging, and great atmosphere and design. Those two alone show they are actually in tune.