The Missing Lore of Theramore

There's a WoW Insider article that details what we missed with the Theramore scenario, in terms of lore. Now, while I am still very excited for the upcoming expansion, I have to say: Blizzard, this is a bit disappointing.

Every previous expansion has had a bigger and bigger pre-expansion event in-game. Cataclysm's Elemental Invasion, along with the battles for Gnomeregan and the Echo Isles, was huge. The thing is, these big world events make the game world feel like a dynamic place where things can change. Yes, they may be fleeting and temporary, but they are an important part of the plot.

Books often have prologues, and these prologues are often very useful in a long-running series, because they help tie one book to another. The pre-expansion events have always had the feel of a prologue. The Scourge does a wide-scale invasion of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, and releases a virulent zombie plague that is growing hard to fight, and it's clear that Arthas is spoiling for a real fight this time. Cut to chapter one, where your character is sailing/flying to Northrend, ready to strike back.

Pandaria itself is discovered practically by accident, but we've been told time and again that the Horde/Alliance war is what's really the main plot this time around. And as far as huge events go, Theramore getting destroyed is pretty high up there. Hell, Rhonin, the leader of the Kirin Tor, is dead, blown apart by the mana bomb! I had no idea that had happened until I read Anne Stickney's article. There is so little in-game to show what has changed since Cataclysm. Clearly Garrosh has become more radically tyrannical, but we don't see his secret police or anything like that.

I understand that resources are limited, even in a game that still has at least 9 million subscribers paying their 15 bucks a month, but I think this decision to go with no introductory event for the new expansion fails to show the kind of good will I expect from Blizzard.

Obviously, it's too late to fix it. And if we do see exciting world events happening within the expansion, like the oft-cited military build-up in 5.1, I might be willing to forgive this, but Blizzard should remember that part of the fun of an MMO is a dynamic world where big things can happen and you can be around to witness them. And they should know, because they've been behind some really cool events in the past.