Storyline shortfalls

Matticus recently wrote about the story line shortfalls in Cataclysm and I have to agree with him.

I feel the same about the lack of connection to the current story and wanted to share my thoughts as well.

Granted, I never played Warcraft III and didn’t start World of Warcraft until Burning Crusade shortly before Wrath. As my wife and I leveled through Azeroth and Outlands, I enjoyed the stories and exploring this huge new world (though it didn’t feel as huge as Star Wars: Galaxies when we had to walk across contintents).

In Shattrath, I felt a connection to the Aldor, whom I viewed as the good guys (We’re playing Alliance) and wanted to help them out. I didn’t get into much endgame stuff as Wrath was around the corner. With Wrath, I felt like we delved into what made Arthas tick as we saw his downfall. By the time we hit the Icecrown area, I could tell Arthas was a bad mofo. I couldn’t wait for the Citadel to open so we could bum rush him.

By contrast, I feel nothing toward Deathwing, other than gratitude for cleaning up some things around the world. Through the various new questing areas, I have dislike of a few NPCs, but Deathwing hasn’t really affected me. I have little info on his background or motivations.

Now, I will admit I didn’t read each quest through each area, but I didn’t in Wrath either. Be it by cutscenes or whatnot, I understood the story and cared about it.

I don’t for Deathwing. But I hope the new questing hubs coming in 4.2 will change that.

Why not kill Deathwing?

I'm not concerned with Deathwing's demise.

I'm not sure if I haven't been paying as much attention during leveling, but I don't have any feelings toward this world-changing upstart at all. It's almost the opposite. Thanks to Deathwing, I get to fly around Azeroth and witness some major scenery changes in the old world. He helped bring heroic versions of Deadmines, an instance I always liked and spent a lot of time running.
I have only leveled my main character to 85, but I didn't seem to learn too much about the black dragon supposedly bent on world destruction.

This is quite a change from the Wrath of the Lich King for me. As I leveled Morkk to 80, many quests gave me Arthas' backstory and I didn't like what he was becoming. I started a death knight, like everyone else, and absolutely loved that storyline. I was surprised by how much I wanted to kill the Lich King for telling me I was nothing and he was the next best thing to sliced bread. By the end of that chain, I was more than ready to off the big guy himself.

Of course, I had to wait. As others have commented, we got to storm all the way up to Icecrown Citadel and then turn around and fly off to Ulduar. Just you wait, you evil man, we'll be back for you. Then we had to prove that we were up for the challenge, which was a step I didn't mind, before getting a shot at Arthas himself.

Granted I don't raid much, and didn't spend much time in Ulduar or ToC until I needed gear for Icecrown. Mostly, I didn't care about those raids. But when the ICC 5-man instances showed up, I was all over those. They offered tougher fights than heroics at the time, and added even more to my quest to hunt down the Lich King. Plus, I got gear to help me be less of a smear against the floor in ICC.

In the end, I had plenty of reasons to want to see Arthas dead. Unfortunately, my guild and I weren't skilled enough to tackle him and I didn't get to see him drop. (Now, I have a new guild and am level 85, so you can't avoid death forever, Arthas.)

But in Cataclysm, I don't have that passion against Deathwing. It was interesting to see some folks from vanilla instances come back and the effects they had on the world, but I don't really see Deathwing as a threat.
I plan to pay more attention as I level up my death knight, but right now, I don't see myself caring if Deathwing lives or dies.

Does anyone think the "World Destroyer" needs to go down?