History FranchiseOriginalSin / WorldOfWarcraft

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of ''World of Warcraft''. Almost every villain has turned out to be either the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions, these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', and what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat. Also, absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[spoiler:at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull. He was built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against was ''actually'' working against something even worse (a plot "twist" already pulled many times before) finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of ''World of Warcraft''. Almost every villain has turned out to be either the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions, these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', and what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat. Also absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[spoiler:at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull. [[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years. He was built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against, who was ultimately responsible for almost ''every'' previous villain's actions (another unpopular retcon made in order to bulk up his villain credentials, at the cost of cheapening every previous storyline), was ''actually'' working against something even worse (a plot "twist" already pulled many times before) finally broke many people's patience.

* Megadungeons, and the way Blizzard handles them. Ever since ''Legion'', Blizzard releases each expansion a megadungeon with the same pattern: one patch introduces it, but only available in Mythic mode, and a ''later'' patch splits it so that it's available both in Heroic and Mythic+ mode. In ''Legion'', it wasn't that much of a problem, because "Return to Karazhan" was little more than a nostalgia trip with no real relevance to the expansion storyline, and the expansion already had enough dungeons for Mythic+. ''Battle for Azeroth'' had "Operation Mechagon": while it had relevance for the Mechagon zone storyline, it didn't for the overall expansion storyline, and ''[=BfA=]'' still had quite some dungeons for Mythic+, so it was tolerated. The real time where the pattern for megadungeons began to feel obsolete was after that, each time for different reasons.\\
''Shadowlands'' had less dungeons than ''[=BfA=]'', so Blizzard refusing not to delay adding the two halves of "Tazavesh" to the Mythic+ repertory until 9.2 felt strange, since that move would have alleviated the lack of variety in Mythic+ (it's worth mentioning that ''Shadowlands'' suffered from a massive lack of content for most of the expansion). On the other hand, ''Dragonflight'' had "Dawn of the Infinite", which was different from previous megadungeons in that it was ''very'' lore-heavy: not only it was the culmination of the Infinite dragonflight plot than had been around since ''Burning Crusade'', but it had repercursions that affected the storyline of the whole expansion (arguably much more than the "Aberrus" raid that released around the same time). This caused a war when portions of the playerbase who otherwise would have had no interest in the megadungeon, suddenly wanted to do it because they wanted to see the story: since Blizzard refused to not delay the release of Heroic mode, it had no choice but start nerfing Mythic mode to make it more accesible to casuals. The hardcore playerbase started complaining that the game was being "dumbed down", and demanded a challenge for them (even if doing so was to the detriment of the casual playerbase); in turn, the casual playerbase answered that the game overall catered more to hardcores than casuals (with LFR modes in raids always being delayed several weeks), that they wouldn't have minded a super-hard Mythic mode existing as long as an easy Heroic mode was available as well, and that making such an important piece of content unavailable to the majority just to appeal to a minority was "elitist and selfish". This war just put into light how obsolete the handling of megadungeons since ''Legion'' of "Mythic now, Heroic and Mythic+ later" was by that point.

* Sylvanas Windrunner (and by extension, [[CultOfPersonality her Forsaken]]) has always been a weird character to have within the Horde, straddling the line between NominalHero and TokenEvilTeammate of the Horde, with her very first act when freed from the Lich King being to ally with the survivors of Lordaeron then, once they were of no use to her, murder them all before giving a speech that was villain-like, and the entire faction engaging in [[MadScientist vivisection, torture, research on the plague, lobotomization and the likes at least once per Forsaken quest hub]]. It was forgiven in Vanilla, because those quests ran on BlackComedy or happened to AssholeVictim like the [[KnightTemplar Scarlet Crusade]] and the [[OmnicidalManiac Scourge]] ([[EvilIsCool Plus having a clearly evil race for the Horde was one of the Forsaken's biggest appeals at launch]]). They were also counterbalanced by a large number of quests showing the Forsaken as a whole were afraid of Arthas coming back, many Forsaken were mistrusted, suffering and lost due to struggling with their freedom but being unable to see loved ones, and generally were JerkassWoobie race desperate to find a sense of belonging.\\
But ''Cataclysm'' ramped up the MadScientist and BlackComedy vibes, removed most of the {{Asshole Victim}}s (the Scourge and Scarlet Crusade were nearly extinct at that point), leaving the Forsaken and Sylvanas to feel more and more like villains who were due for their comeuppance any moment now rather than misunderstood {{Anti Hero}}es. Sylvanas herself was compared to the Lich King, even InUniverse, and was seemingly set up to become a BigBad soon (with Drek'Tar, a [[NobleSavage wise old orc shaman]], refusing to help her after her atrocities and the Andorhal questline showing Sylvanas raising dead Alliance soldiers to fight their former comrades and then imprisonning and torturing Koltira for not wanting to kill his best friend as the two biggest examples she was due to be the BigBad). Then in ''Legion'', despite being named Warchief, Sylvanas's first act was to go in Stormheim to attempt to enslave an angel goddess after making a pact with [[GodIsEvil Helya]]. ''Battle For Azeroth'' ramped it even further, making Sylvanas into an OmnicidalManiac, before attempting to allay it by having her leave the Horde entirely... only for ''Shadowlands'' to ramp up the critiques even further by attempting to ''redeem'' Sylvanas by essentially making her actions "not her fault" through retcons and sudden twists with no build up.

''Shadowlands'' had less dungeons than ''[=BfA=]'', so Blizzard refusing to delay adding the two halves of "Tazavesh" to the Mythic+ until 9.2 felt strange, since that move would have alleviated the lack of variety in Mythic+ (it's worth mentioning that ''Shadowlands'' suffered from a massive lack of content for most of the expansion). On the other hand, ''Dragonflight'' had "Dawn of the Infinite", which was different from previous megadungeons in that it was ''very'' lore-heavy: not only it was the culmination of the Infinite dragonflight plot than had been around since ''Burning Crusade'', but it had repercursions that affected the storyline of the whole expansion (arguably much more than the "Aberrus" raid that released around the same time). This caused a war when portions of the playerbase who otherwise would have had no interest in the megadungeon, suddenly wanted to do it because they wanted to see the story: since Blizzard refused to not delay the release of Heroic mode, it had no choice but start nerfing Mythic mode to make it more accesible to casuals. The hardcore playerbase started complaining that the game was being "dumbed down", and demanded a challenge for them (even if doing so was to the detriment of the casual playerbase); in turn, the casual playerbase answered that the game overall catered more to hardcores than casuals (with LFR modes in raids always being delayed several weeks), that they wouldn't have minded a super-hard Mythic mode existing as long as an easy Heroic mode was available as well, and that making such an important piece of content unavailable to the majority just to appeal to a minority was "elitist and selfish". This war just put into light how obsolete the handling of megadungeons since ''Legion'' of "Mythic now, Heroic and Mythic+ layer" was by that point.

* Many expansions for ''World of Warcraft'' like ''Burning Crusade'' and ''Mists of Pandaria'' drew criticism for having large amounts of Horde heroes fall victim to [[SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome suddenly becoming evil]] and [[SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome abruptly dying afterwards]]. The thing is similar happened early as ''Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness'', where two Horde heroes betrayed their faction and died at the end of their campaign. The difference was both characters Gul'dan and Cho'gall, eventually turning traitor, was heavily foreshadowed in the [[AllThereInTheManual manual]] and the games were [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness much less character focused back then]].

* Megadungeons, and the way Blizzard handles them. Ever since ''Legion'', Blizzard releases each expansion a megadungeon with the same pattern: one patch introduces it, but only available in Mythic mode, and a ''later'' patch splits it so that's available both in Heroic and Mythic+ mode. In ''Legion'', it wasn't that much a problem, because "Return to Karazhan" was little more than a nostalgia trip with no real relevance to the expansion storyline, and the expansion already enough dungeons for Mythic+. ''Battle for Azeroth'' had "Operation Mechagon": while it had relevance for the Mechagon zone storyline, it didn't for the overall expansion storyline, and ''[=BfA=]'' still had quite some dungeons for Mythic+, so it was tolerated. The real time where the pattern for megadungeons began to feel obsolete was after that, each time for different reasons.\\
''Shadowlands'' had less dungeons than ''[=BfA=]'', so Blizzard refusing to delay adding the two halves of "Tazavesh" to the Mythic+ until 9.2 felt strange that move would have alleviated the lack of variety in Mythic+ (it's worth mentiong that ''Shadowlands'' suffered from a massive lack of content for most of the expansion). On the other hand, ''Dragonflight'' had "Dawn of the Infinite", which was different from previous megadungeons in that it was ''very'' lore-heavy: not only it was the culmination of the Infinite dragonflight plot than had been around since ''Burning Crusade'', but it had repercursions that affected the storyline of the whole expansion (arguably much more than the "Aberrus" raid that released around the same time). This caused a war when portions of the playerbase who otherwise would have had no interest in the megadungeon, suddenly wanted to do it because they wanted to see the story: since Blizzard refused to not delay the release of Heroic mode, it had no choice but start nerfing Mythic mode to make it more accesible to casuals. The hardcore playerbase started complaining that the game was being "dumbed down", and demanded a challenge for them (even if doing so was to the detriment of the casual playerbase); in turn, the casual playerbase answered that the game overall catered more to hardcores than casuals (with LFR modes in raids always been delayed several weeks), that they wouldn't have minded a super-hard Mythic mode existing as long as an easy Heroic mode was available as well, and making such an important piece of content unavailable to the majority just to appeal to a minority was "elitist and selfish". This was just put into light how obsolete the handling of megadungeons since ''Legion'' of "Mythic now, Heroic and Mythic+ layer" was by that point.

* The sheer amounts of faction reputation grinding. While it was present since the original (Especially with the Hydraxxian Waterlords, which was ''required'' to progress through Molten Core), it became despised when every other expansion included a bunch of factions to grind with, especially since progress was often locked behind a reputation gate.

* The Horde/Alliance ConflictBall has been one area criticized for years by fans of the lore, finding it weird that every expansion ''needs'' to justify the two fighting each other instead of together. This can be traced back to Classic, where several battlegrounds existed that allowed for the two factions to fight for resources. It was forgiven at first because there wasn't an enemy menacing the very existence of the world that would justify the Horde and Alliance banding together, plus due to the ExcusePlot nature of the game, it was clearly more a gameplay reason than a story one. Each expansion after ''Burning Crusade'' though began to to try and provide a plot reason why, starting with the infamous Wrath Gate in ''Wrath of the Lich King''. The conflict from that point to ''Mists of Pandria'' at least was one big war, and it was understandable why it started and was going on because of the hot-tempered leaders of both faction. ''Legion'' however had the two factions ''again'' fighting each other for petty reasons that, while similar to the Wrath Gate reason, were far less justified and came across as forced. However, the two factions still did at least work together in the end. ''Battle For Azeroth'' reigniting the war again despite there ultimately being little reason to, making it look like Blizzard was having the conflict occur simply because they had to.
** Related to this is the tendency to cast the Horde in the role of villain and the Alliance in the role of hero. This made perfect sense in the first two games when the Alliance was fighting off a demonically-compelled Orc invasion, but that excuse no longer applies in ''III'' and later. Despite this the writers repeatedly have the Horde seemingly backsliding into mindless aggression and viciousness while the Alliance defense flounders before rallying with the aid of defecting Horde. Each time a conflict ends it becomes harder to accept that the Alliance wouldn't finally do something to permanently end a threat that has yet again massacred innocent civilians.
* The {{retcon}}s started with ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'' (and the ''Franchise/WarcraftExpandedUniverse'') where the orcs are suddenly revealed to be ''not'' AlwaysChaoticEvil and the Dragons are divided into Dragonflights. These didn't contradict established canon (for the most part) so were accepted (and especially at the time, the advent of [[OurOrcsAreDifferent "Warcraft Orcs"]] was seen as a welcome ''step forward'' toward avoiding UnfortunateImplications). Likewise, while the Draenei/Eredar connection caused some controversy, it slid by, as they were minor characters before resurfacing as a playable race in ''The Burning Crusade'' (and many would admit that Chris Metzen had a point when he asserted that the retcon did give the previously-flat Eredar, and the Legion as a whole, some much-needed pathos, depth and world-grounding, which was a lot more necessary for a prolonged, serialized narrative like ''[=WoW=]''[='s=] as opposed to the one-shot narratives of the RTS titles). Following this, though, the retcons just got more and more obvious as time went by, to the point where ''Warlords of Draenor'' rewrote almost the ''entirety'' of Draenor's backstory. It got so bad that Blizzard had to make ''Warcraft Chronicle'' to even attempt to compile everything into one coherent timeline to ensure this wasn't an issue, and even still retcons are a thing after the books were finished.
** ''Shadowlands'' was heavily criticized because of the large amount of retcons that retroactively made the fan-favourite story of ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'' worse, and felt unnecessary for the current story. While there were many questionably decisions in ''Shadowlands'', this was not the first time such a retcon was made. ''Warlords of Draenor'' involved travelling to an alternate timeline where alternate versions of characters from the Old Horde could be encountered by players. Later, in 6.2, the Burning Legion invades alternate Draenor, and previously-defeated demons (such as Archimonde and Mannoroth) are encountered as well. At that point, this posed no problem, as it was assumed that those demons were merely alternate versions of the ones killed in ''Warcraft III'' (just as the orcs), and their appearance there didn't affect their previous defeat in ''Warcraft III''. However, ''Legion'' later established that [[MindScrew the Burning Legion exists across all timelines]] and the demons in ''Warlords of Draenor'' were ''the same'' as the ones in ''Warcraft III'', they just were back because of a ResurrectiveImmortality natural to demons - and immediately proved it by bringing back pretty much every named demon in ''Warcraft III'' and previous expansions (well, except for [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse Malganis]]). This retroactively turned the battle in Mount Hyjal at the end of ''Warcraft III'' much more of a hollow victory. In ''Warcraft III'', many sacrifices had been made, many things had been lost, but it still felt that it had been worth it because a big blow had been dealt to the Legion by killing several of their top commanders (including Archimonde himself). After the retcon, however, it's revealed that the Legion suffered no long-term damage after the battle, however, and it could only be counted as an Azeroth victory in the sense that the races of Azeroth weren't killed right there - which to some people may hurt the moment where all the races of Azeroth unite together in the final battle.

* The system bloat outside of the character progression. Starting with the Garrison in ''Warlords of Draenor'', each expansion includes a system or set of systems that define the experience. ''Warlords'' suffered heavily due to this as the development of the Garrisons drained resources that would otherwise have gone into developing content and bug fixes, ultimately resulting in an expansion that was largely bare of content. This has come up as an issue to one degree or another in the expansions since then, either due to overcomplicated systems hindering game experience or draining resources from other areas in need of development, and it's made worse when those systems get completely scrapped at the end of the expansion that introduced them in order to make new room for the ''new'' system that replaces them, as it means that all the time that was spent developing the old system amounts to ''nothing'' when working on the new expansion. It got so bad that one of the main selling points when announcing ''Dragonflight'' was that there ''wouldn't'' be another of those systems.
** ''Legion'' introduced AP, a type of currency unique to each expansion which is critical to end-game and character progression. Players were not happy at the idea that they would need to be grinding AP constantly in order to keep up and it also proved a major hindrance for alts which would constantly be AP-starved.

* The AP grind: a form of currency that can be acquired from several sources, but must be farmed because, at several thresholds, the character gains levels, and upper levels give several bonuses directly related to player power - essentially a second barrier for raiding in addition to gear. First seen in ''Legion'', where it was tolerated because it was tied to legendary artifacts, which were something completely new, and most of them were lore-important {{Legendary Weapon}}s that players were excited to be wielding. There were some complaints (they required a huge grind, not only for alts, but ''for each spec''), but overall it was well-received. Later, ''Battle for Azeroth'' introduced the Heart of Azeroth, which was the same except it wasn't new and it didn't have the lore significance that artifacts had. Even though the grind was a bit smaller (AP was now shared among all specs of a class), players didn't like several aspects of it, such as gear upgrades being unable to reach their full power if the AP grind wasn't high enough. And then, ''Shadowlands'' gave ''two'' different AP grinds: renown and anima. Although only the former directly influenced player power (the latter being more oriented towards cosmetics), players were by then sick of having so many AP grinds (especially the more casual players, who may not have trouble gearing for raiding, but do have trouble finding time to do the grind), and demanded a return to a simpler progression.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of ''World of Warcraft''. Almost every villain has turned out to be either the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions, these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat, and absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[spoiler:at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull. [[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years. He was built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against, who was ultimately responsible for almost ''every'' previous villain's actions (another unpopular retcon made in order to bulk up his villain credentials, at the cost of cheapening every previous storyline), was ''actually'' working against something even worse (a plot "twist" already pulled many times before) finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of World of Warcraft. Almost every villain has turned out to be either the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat, and absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[spoiler:at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull. [[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years. He was built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against, who was ultimately responsible for almost ''every'' previous villain's actions (another unpopular retcon made in order to bulk up his villain credentials, at the cost of cheapening every previous storyline), was ''actually'' working against something even worse (a plot "twist" already pulled many times before) finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of World of Warcraft. Almost every villain has turned out to be either the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat, and absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[spoiler:at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull. [[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years. He was built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against, who was ultimately responsible for almost ''every'' previous villains' actions (another unpopular retcon made in order to bulk up his villain credentials, at the cost of cheapening every previous storyline), was ''actually'' working against something even worse (a plot "twist" already pulled many times before) finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of World of Warcraft. Almost every villain has turned out to either be the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat, and absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[spoiler:at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull. [[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years. He was built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against, who was ultimately responsible for almost ''every'' previous villains' actions (another unpopular retcon made in order to bulk up his villain credentials, at the cost of cheapening every previous storyline), was ''actually'' working against something even worse (a plot "twist" already pulled many times before) finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of World of Warcraft. Almost every villain has turned out to either be the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat, and absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[spoiler:at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull. [[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years, as almost ''every'' previous villains' actions were retconned to be ultimately attributed to him, cheapening every previous storyline. He was also built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against was ''actually'' working against something even worse finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of World of Warcraft. Almost every villain has turned out to either be the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat, and absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[spoiler:at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull.[[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years, as almost ''every'' previous villains' actions were retconned to be ultimately attributed to him, cheapening every previous storyline. He was also built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against was ''actually'' working against something even worse finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of World of Warcraft. Almost every villain has turned out to either be the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, in earlier expansions these were well-established characters working with or against preexisting threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat, and absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull.[[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years, as almost ''every'' previous villains' actions were retconned to be ultimately attributed to him, cheapening every previous storyline. He was also built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against was ''actually'' working against something even worse finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat,]] a plot point that did not go down well at all with the fanbase. However, this has actually been a theme going back to almost the earliest days of World of Warcraft. Almost every villain has turned out to either be the pawn of some greater, more powerful villain, or a WellIntentionedExtremist who was working against them. However, previously these were well-established characters working with or against previously-established threats. [[spoiler:The Jailer]], however, did not exist at all prior to ''Shadowlands'', what bit of characterization he did receive through the course of the expansion was shallow and flat, and absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he was supposedly working against. Finally, all of this was only revealed [[at the very end during his FinalSpeech]], making it feel even more like an ass-pull.[[spoiler:The Jailer]] was ultimately the culmination of a problem going back years, as almost ''every'' previous villains' actions were retconned to be ultimately attributed to him, cheapening every previous storyline. He was also built up to be the most dangerous thing in the setting. For players to be told, ''once again'', that the "greatest threat" they were fighting against was ''actually'' working against something even worse finally broke many people's patience.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat]]--a plot point that was largely lambasted. That said, many fans noted that this idea of framing a villain as a WellIntentionedExtremist whose actions oppose [[AlwaysABiggerFish another, more powerful villain]] has been repeated many times over many different antagonist groups: most notably, Illidan had his ''Burning Crusade'' characterization effectively retconned to be that he was focused on the Burning Legion instead of being insane, while Sargeras, leader of the Burning Legion, had it revealed that his demonic invasion served to combat the void lords and the actions of the Old Gods. The issue was that most of the time, these characters were well-established and well-characterized, the threats they were trying to face were preexisting ones, and their actions broadly made sense with what they were trying to do. Meanwhile, [[spoiler:the Jailer]] had none of these advantages: he wasn't a well-established or fleshed-out character, absolutely nothing is known about the "threat" he is working against apart from that it (apparently) exists, and his attempts to claim it was to benefit mortals in no way jives with his prior behavior. Finally, [[spoiler:all this was only revealed in his FinalSpeech]], which made the whole thing feel tacked-on and cheap, and [[spoiler:he was built-up as the most dangerous thing in the setting and had ''already'' served as a [[TheManBehindTheMan Man Behind the Man]] to multiple other characters who credited their evil actions to him]], turning the reveal into a denial of catharsis that caused many players to wonder when they ''were'' going to fight someone who was actually evil.

* At the end of ''Shadowlands'', [[spoiler:the Jailer reveals that his actions were an attempt to unify the world to defeat a greater threat]]--a plot point that proved largely lambasted. That said, many fans noted that this idea of framing a villain as a WellIntentionedExtremist whose actions oppose [[AlwaysABiggerFish another, more powerful villain]] has been repeated many times over many different antagonist groups: most notably, Illidan had his ''Burning Crusade'' characterization effectively retconned to be that he was focused on the Burning Legion instead of being insane, while Sargeras, leader of the Burning Legion, had it revealed that his demonic invasion served to combat the void lords and the actions of the Old Gods. The issue was that most of the time, these characters were well-established and well-characterized, the threats they were trying to face were preexisting ones, and their actions broadly made sense with what they were trying to do. Meanwhile, [[spoiler:the Jailer]] had none of these advantages: he wasn't a well-established or fleshed-out character, the threat he's going up against is not elaborated upon, and his attempts to claim it was to benefit mortals in no way jibes with his prior behavior. Additionally, [[spoiler:he only reveals this in a FinalSpeech]], which made the whole thing feel tacked-on and cheap, and [[spoiler:he was built-up as the most dangerous thing in the setting and had ''already'' served as a [[TheManBehindTheMan Man Behind the Man]] to multiple other characters who credited their evil actions to him]], turning the reveal into a denial of catharsis that caused many players to wonder when they ''were'' going to fight someone who was actually evil.

** ''Shadowlands'' was heavily criticized because the large amount of retcons that retroactively made the fan-favourite story of ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'' worse, and felt unnecessary for the current story. While there were many questionably decisions in ''Shadowlands'', this was not the first time such a retcon was made. ''Warlords of Draenor'' involved travelling to an alternate timeline where alternate versions of characters from the Old Horde could be encountered by players. Later, in 6.2, the Burning Legion invades alternate Draenor, and previously-defeated demons (such as Archimonde and Mannoroth) are encountered as well. At that point, this posed no problem, as it was assumed that those demons were merely alternate versions of the ones killed in ''Warcraft III'' (just as the orcs), and their appearance there didn't affect their previous defeat in ''Warcraft III''. However, ''Legion'' established that the Burning Legion exists across all timelines, and the demons in ''Warlords of Draenor'' were ''the same'' as the ones in ''Warcraft III'', they just were back because of a ResurrectiveImmortality natural to demons - and immediately proved it by bringing back pretty much every named demon in ''Warcraft III'' and previous expansions (well, except for [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse Malganis]]). This retroactively turned the battle in Mount Hyjal at the end of ''Warcraft III'' much more of a hollow victory. In ''Warcraft III'', many sacrifices had been made, many things had been lost, but it still felt that it had been worth it because a big blow had been dealt to the Legion by killing several of their top commanders (including Archimonde himself). After the retcon, however, it's revealed that the Legion suffered no long-term damage after the battle, however, and it could only be counted as an Azeroth victory in the sense that the races of Azeroth weren't killed right there - which to some people may hurt the moment where all the races of Azeroth unite together in the final battle.

** Even worse than progress being blocked, simple game mechanics like ''flight'' are rep-locked. ''Legion'' required entirely finishing all the story lines in all six zones, plus entirely finishing the class hall questline (which for people who don't raid was kind of difficult), ''and'' get Revered with six different factions, ''then'' wait another two or three patches until the other half of the achievement came out. At that point, you could then fly on all your characters. ''Battle for Azeroth'' has done the same; explore all six zones, get Revered rep with six factions, one of which only has two or three quests a day, finish all the story quests for all three of your faction's zones and all ''eight'' of the storyline quests for the opposite faction's zones, do a hundred world quests... and then wait for 8.2 and reach Revered reputation with the two new factions introduced ''there'' ([[AntiFrustrationFeatures fortunately, one of which was pretty easy to grind rep with]]).

For this reason ''every'' expansion has featured Blizzard either trying to take flight away or keeping you from obtaining it until much later... which is something that hasn't been well received, because Blizzard started to get really serious about limiting flying ''at the same time'' (around ''Warlords of Draenor'') that started a change in level design that ''requires'' flying to reasonably navigate, with sharp terrain, unclear paths that provide the only way to reach a place yet are hard to find without external sources,[[note]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsectee18wg The path to Ironhorn Enclave]] in Highmountain is a good example[[/note]] or overcrowded roads where you can't walk ten steps without being attacked by enemies. This is most noticeable in Highmountain in ''Legion'' and ''especially'' Nazjatar in ''Battle for Azeroth'' (which seems to have been designed with flying on mind, only flying wasn't yet available when Nazjatar was released), but can be found as back as ''Warlords of Draenor'' (the best way to see the change, is to compare Nagrand from Outland and Nagrand from Draenor).

* The {{retcon}}s started with ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'' (and the ''Franchise/WarcraftExpandedUniverse'') where the orcs are suddenly revealed to be ''not'' AlwaysChaoticEvil and the Dragons are divided into Dragonflights. These didn't contradict established canon (for the most part) so were accepted (and especially at the time, the advent of [[OurOrcsAreDifferent "Warcraft Orcs"]] was seen as a welcome ''step forward'' toward avoiding UnfortunateImplications). Likewise, while the Draenei/Eredar connection caused some controversy, it slid by, as they were minor characters before resurfacing as a playable race in ''The Burning Crusade'' (and many would admit that Chris Metzen had a point when he asserted that the retcon did give the previously-flat Eredar, and Legion as a whole, some much-needed pathos, depth and world-grounding, which was a lot more necessary for a prolonged, serialized narrative like ''[=WoW=]''[='s=] as opposed to the one-shot narratives of the RTS titles). Following this, though, the retcons just got more and more obvious as time went by, to the point where ''Warlords of Draenor'' rewrote almost the ''entirety'' of Draenor's backstory. It got so bad that Blizzard had to make ''Warcraft Chronicle'' to even attempt to compile everything into one coherent timeline to ensure this wasn't an issue, and even still retcons are a thing after the books were finished.
* While the ''Legion'' expansion is critically praised on a gameplay level, its story was divisive for including the controversial deaths of several major characters. The series' habit of SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome can be spotted in ''Cataclysm'' in which [[SenselessSacrifice Magni Bronzebeard was turned into diamond in a futile attempt to save his people]], and Cairne Bloodhoof was killed in a duel by Garrosh unwittingly using a poisoned weapon. Magni's functional death was seen as a worthy way to go out (and more to the point, it was done cleverly enough that there ''was'' a plausible "out" if they wanted the character to come back, which he did in ''Battle for Azeroth''), and it led to plot development in the form of a SuccessionCrisis subplot, along with CharacterDevelopment in other characters including that of which Anduin and Varian settle their differences. Come ''Legion'', and several characters that could've made interesting storylines, such as Vol'jin who just became Warchief in ''Pandaria'' and spent most of ''Draenor'' off-screen, as well as Varian whose High King subplot was left unresolved, or are brought out of the woodwork such as Ysera and Tirion, dropped like flies with little to no impact on the overall plot. This gave the playerbase the idea that the writers are [[TooBleakStoppedCaring simply piling on death just for the sake of piling on death]].

* The system bloat outside of the character progression. Starting with the Garrison in ''Warlords of Draenor'', each expansion includes a system or set of systems that define the experience. ''Warlords'' suffered heavily due to this as the development of the Garrisons drained resources that would otherwise have gone into developing content and bug fixes, ultimately resulting in an expansion that was largely bare of content. This has come up as an issue to one degree or another in the expansions since then, either due to overcomplicated systems hindering game experience or draining resources from other areas in need of development.

** Even worse than progress being blocked, simple game mechanics like ''flight'' are rep-locked. ''Legion'' required entirely finishing all the story lines in all six zones, plus entirely finishing the class hall questline (which for people who don't raid was kind of difficult), ''and'' get Revered with six different factions, ''then'' wait another two or three patches until the other half of the achievement came out. At that point, you could then fly on all your characters. ''Battle for Azeroth'' has done the same; explore all six zones, get Revered rep with six factions, one of which only has two or three quests a day, finish all the story quests for all three of your faction's zones and all ''eight'' of the storyline quests for the opposite faction's zones, do a hundred world quests... and then wait for 8.2 and reach Revered reputation with the two new factions introduced ''there''. [[AntiFrustrationFeatures Fortunately, one of which was pretty easy to grind rep with]].

''Battle for Azeroth'' repeated it with the war campaigns, two campaigns this time centered about the two factions. The complaint about uneven quality was repeated (there are four full CGI cinematics dedicated to Saurfang's story, while the Alliance via Anduin only has very brief appearances in two of them), but it was tolerated because [=WoW=] had always had faction-specific questlines (although there was a feeling that players needed to play both sides to understand what was going on) and it reduced the number of characters one needed to understand the full story to just two. However, ''Shadowlands'' introduced covenants, four equivalents of class halls that could be chosen to join. They were extremely badly received, for several reasons. One, there was no real reason for covenants being exclusive, as opposed to class halls and factions previously, with no lore reason as to why a player can't join all four covenants other than "Blizzard wants to have exclusive campaigns again". Two, while class halls and war campaigns were mostly for story and cosmetics, with little (if any) influence on player power, covenants have several systems that were specific to each of them and heavily influenced player power (conduits, soulbinds and special abilities), which means player who wanted (or rather, were ''forced'' by raid leaders) to min-max were required to join a specific covenant to be able to raid - not helped by switching covenants being heavily restricted for most of the expansion.