Quote Originally Posted by DPZ2 View Post
Anyone who thinks D&D is not a story game is greatly mistaken. Every campaign is a different story. There were a number of stories in WoW, each told separately, each brought into the greater fold of an overarching storyline. Even in Vanilla WoW.
I think you missed the point they were making. There was no MSQ or overarching story like there is in Shadowlands. Their point about D&D was correct, and you even reiterated it. It was a bunch of different stories that you played through while questing. This didn't really change until Cataclysm, when Deathwing destroyed large parts of the world and riled up the elementals. For the first time ever, all the zone quests centered around that event. I honestly don't mind that, but it definitely changed the feel of WoW from that of a secondary world that you're meant to inhabit to a story game that you're intended to beat. Ironically, FFXIV was clearly designed as a story game that you're intended to beat, but it seems to nonetheless support the idea of a secondary world that you're meant to inhabit. For example, WoW players have clamored for player housing for years, and Blizzard has yet to deliver. Instead, they got an instanced space that they could unlock decorations for. FFXIV, on the other hand, created a whole other endgame for a subsection of the player base that centers around housing.