The worst thing to happen to World of Warcraft were the novels.

Ever since the novels started coming out, the in-game storytelling has been downright shoddy. WoW stories has never been high art, but at least they were more or less cohesive in-game.  Now, nothing really makes sense unless you read the companion book.

Last year, I predicted:

Now, it's probable that, like most major storyline events, [the destruction of Theramore] will happen "off-screen", in a novel or comic, or maybe a cut-scene before Mists of Pandaria comes out.

And that's exactly what happened. Out of nowhere, the Horde nukes Theramore. With an actual nuke mana bomb dropped from a skyship. It's like the Focusing Iris from the Eye of Eternity, or something.

Apparently it makes sense if you read Tides of War. I just wish it made sense in-game.

Stories need a beginning, a middle, and an end. More and more, it seems that Blizzard is putting the beginning and end in a book, and featuring a small part of the middle in-game.  Even a random quest from King Varian Wrynn sending you to Theramore would have added so much.

Onto the actual scenario mechanics, they seem about what you can expect from a 3 dps group. It's a bit of a zerg, with some mechanics and some running around. This particular scenario wasn't very hard, especially if you're in full raid gear. On the whole I think this was a good thing, in order to allow everyone to see the content within a window of only a week.

I started as Holy, got bored of spamming Denounce, and switched to Ret. I did have to heal myself a few times. I do like how Blizzard used swarms of enemies. With three dps, this allows you to split the aggro, and thus split the damage in a sensible way.

On the whole, the scenario mechanics seem okay, and probably as good as non-Trinity content can be. Hopefully the level 90 scenarios are a bit more difficult.

Back to the storyline, one thing I dislike about WoW's current direction is that it's heading in a very technological direction. I blame the goblins. Now, WoW has always had steampunk elements with the gnomes, but lately I think they're going too far. I liked the fantasy style with paladins and dragons. Honestly, I think nuclear weapons being dropped from planes crosses a line.

It's like, what was wrong with an actual siege and battle involving armies? That's traditional fantasy. Why resort to having a nuclear weapon? Or even a warlock/mage ritual.  More fantasy, less technology.

(Yes, I know the mana bombs appeared or were foreshadowed in TBC.)

I did also hope that Theramore would make the players central characters once again. Make them take responsibility for the Horde/Alliance war. Sadly, Blizzard stuck to their current style and had the NPCs do everything, with the players just acting as clean up once again.

I hope that Theramore is not a sample of what we can expect in Pandaria. I fear that it will be, though.