WoW – Finding Jaina’s Trail Again

I mentioned that I was close to giving up on World of Warcraft’s Battle for Azeroth expansion, because the game seemed to have given up on telling me Jaina’s story. Well I finally picked up her story again.

It turns out that you have to complete all three Kul Tiras zone story chapters (half of which don’t seem to have anything to do with anything) before a new quest unlocks which begins the followup to Jaina’s cut scenes from the very beginning of the expansion.

The quest is called What You May Regret and begins with Cyrus in the Harbormaster’s Office. I don’t know if you also have to be level 120 but I was by the time I finished all the zones. Wowhead claims you do, and that it’s the only requirement, however I have some video evidence that says otherwise (I handed in a dungeon quest to Cyrus at level 120 and he did not have this quest available then). The only indication the game gave me about this quest was a new exclamation point appearing on my Boralus map that I just happened to see.

I suppose this information might be considered a spoiler, but I disclose it because I feel like the game should have told me something like, “Hang tight, we’ll get you back to this story after you finish all this other stuff.” But it never did. It just left me hanging for over 30 hours, following bread crumbs that I just had to hope and pray would lead somewhere. I consider it a big flaw in WoW’s storytelling methodology.

I would have preferred it if I had accepted a quest from Cyrus way back at the beginning which said, “Complete the three zone stories, then come back.” Then I would have known what was going on, and I wouldn’t have been disappointed after every major milestone because everyone kept forgetting about Jaina.

Cyrus begins a quest chain that leads you all over Kul Tiras, and it requires you to complete (so far) three standard dungeons. The dungeons are not particularly difficult, although there are boss mechanics that will wipe the party if you don’t understand them, and of course standard WoW PUG rules apply (don’t expect anyone to talk or explain anything, and do expect the tank to be speedrunning and paying no attention to the party and yelling at anyone who doesn’t know the fights). Consequently they have been incredibly stressful. Going into a new dungeon for the first time in a PUG is by far the most stressful gaming activity for me, because there is so much social pressure to play perfectly on the first try. It all combines to feel like punishment for reaching level 120.

Anyway I completed Tol Dagor (twice, actually, because I did it once before to see if it would unlock something about Jaina, which it didn’t) and Shrine of the Storm, and now I’m at Waycrest Manor. I assume the game will then contrive some reason for me to go through the Freehold dungeon to complete the cycle of forcing us to look at the work the designers put into all four of the leveling dungeons. Currently I’m trying to decide if it’s worth this much punishment just to see a couple of cut scenes. (Since I didn’t play at all yesterday, and in fact installed Dragon Age: Inquisition instead, I’m inclined to think no, it isn’t.)

UPDATE: It turns out Waycrest Manor was the last obstacle. The story takes a new turn after that, which leads into a new dungeon, which I’m not interested in.