You can remove Xal et all from the current story and will be left with two better ones. (Long speculative post)

Whether you love or hate the current main story, or are indifferent towards it, something always feels off. For all the grand posturing, Xal'atath feels a little underwhelming and the story feels stagnating.

Quite commonly she is getting compared to a cliched and trope-y Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain ™ , and the rest of the story about the Light, the Void, Alleria et all feels often disjointed and aimless.

And not because we have not yet had a big reveal of what the plan is etc. No.

Rather it feels Xal was never meant to be the BBEG of the worldsoul story. Not the 'Worldsoul Saga', the thing Mr. Metzen turned everything into upon his return, but the core idea.

And, strangely enough, removing her, Alleria, the whole Light vs Void plot from it, and leaving that for its own set of expansions makes for two better stories. So both tales have been done great injustice by merging them into one story, because... we may never know, because both stories would have offered enough material on their own.

So let's speculate on how things could have gone without Xal. How big (or tiny) rewrites it would need:

Starting with Mr. Metzen's return Creative Advisor initially being announced on Dec 15, 2022.

Given industry standards this means internally it would likely have been known for a few weeks if not months already that he'd return, so plenty of time to shift things around in Dragonflight to lay the groundwork for Xal.

The references to Xal throughout DF are scars up until DotI. And her presence there already leads to a few questions:

Why would she have any need to work with Iridikron? She can, by all means, travel through time more freely than the Infinite Flight (let's not go into the logistics of the megadungeon's story itself, the writing in DF is nothing to write home about to begin with), and, by all means, has no interest in whatever Iridikron's plan might be. Her sole (no, not a foot pun) interest is the Dark Heart and Galakrond's essence.

Removing her, and replacing her model in silhouette in the portal with Nozdormu's, or rather Murozond, has things make more sense: Murozond picking Iridikron up would lead to the sword of Damocles of his existence being hung up once again, preserving that threat.

Maybe even make that threat more pressing.

So the cutscenes after would be about that, and Wrathion would go and look into where Iridikron might be headed, given the whole talk about the Titans and Northrend (as Nozdormu still cannot give a clear answer (put a pin in this).

Next would be the pre-patch event: Naturally, no Alleria or anything, just the echoes.

On to TWW:

Magni would still get his vision, everyone would head to Khaz Algar and we'd immediately go into the storyline about the Earthen and the Machine. Dalaran would be fine, but could (speculating here) still be taken out of the equation by having Kalec enlist the Kirin Tor's help in Northrend with repairing and securing the Nexus and the artifacts there.

So that way Dalaran would still be removed as hub.

It would be a big mystery as to who is behind the near corruption of the Machine, but the journey to Azj-Kahet might give some clues: The forced evolution would have been done by the same unknown force behind the corruption (NPCs pointing out it felt different and all), maybe there might have been clues that this was based upon Neltharion's research, pointing to Iridikron as culprit.

Hallowfall meanwhile would be plagued by an onset of zealotry as Beledar would still occasionally go dark. Not in the 'going Void' sense anymore, but simply flickering off, leading to the crisis of faith as already seen. Xal is not in any way needed, and ultimately this also removes what some perceived as Deus Ex Machina concerning Anduin's journey. So Anduin's path to recovery might get a bit more, deserved, focus, length and depth.

Next would be the Siren Isles, which lay the groundwork for talk about Gallywix's mysterious benefactor. Xal is no requirement for this, leaving the player (and NPCs) to speculate that it's Iridikron again, amassing weapons for what's to come.

Weapons, btw, which in-game as it is now are still out there and ready to go, but have seen no use (yet). Which feels a little odd.

This would then lead into Undermine as we know it, without Xal, of course. The story in Arathi would also remain the same. Sidenote here: This would have been a great moment for some lorewalking, showing us how Trollbane's change of heart concerning the Horde has come to be over the years. Show us the character development, Blizzard, because this could have easily been made to make sense.

Now for the big one:

Originally the final patch was meant to lead to Harandar:

As seen in the fully rendered cutscene, Orweyna would have received her vision about the Goblins drilling into Harandar, and then leaving for the surface to get help when Black Blood starts seeping in, corrupting the area and threatening the roots.

Now, from here on it's more pure speculation:

Let's say the Rift of Aln is there in this scenario because it manifested in Harandar after the Black Blood latched onto the roots of Vordrassil and powered up what remained of the Nightmare.

Players deal with that, only to realize that while they were busy there, the corruption spread to various Haranir and is now rapidly infecting all the trees in one swoop.

Let's take Dalaran out of the equation for good now:

With Amirdrassil getting infected corruption spreads to the Dragons, and Kalec and his flight lash out at the Kirin Tor, resulting in Dalaran being annihilated.

Cue TLT:

Prepatch event could have dealt with evacuating everyone, and breaking some of our dragon allies out of their haze, before the Aspects shut off the Isles, Wyrmrest and their lairs.

New raids could have centered around snapping the dragons out of it for good, while also finding out what Iridikron is actually up to. This could have lead to discovering that the Bronze Flight has not been affected, but they are missing, because the Oathstones are mindcontorl devices (it wasn't Amirdrassil getting corrupted that screwed the dragon up, but the Oathstones), and everything that happened in DF (Eternus and DotI) was part of a gamble to allow Nozdormu to pull together all his lifetimes and turn into Murozond when the trees get corrupted.

The Titans plan could have then turned out to be to let everything get corrupted and use the forge of origination, as everything from Alganol onwards, including the earthen machine was a means to calibrate the forge. Plan is to turn everyone who stems from a titanforged race back into that, everyone else would fall into a stasis, and then get harvested for parts so the Titans can study that pesky organic life and free will better to order the cosmos more effectively and efficiently. (fate worse than death, I have no mouth and I must scream level bullshit)

And that plan sucks ass.

Iridikron will rather see the world die for good than allow that, while Murozond is genuinely trying to protect it.

Also Murozond teleported Dalaran to his flight's lair, so while severely damaged, its mostly fine.

Iridikron meanwhile invaded the nexus, and used galakrond's essence to revive Chromantus, but through trials and tribulations (read that destroying the oathstones and freeing the flights) we'd have handled that.

So we then kick Iridikron's ass, stop the death laser, kick Titan ass (maybe manage to get some of them to side with us)

Might have been a close call, but ultimately we manage to save the day, worldsoul takes shape, trees get cleansed, including the one in Quel'Thalas, and it's its energies that revive the Deadscar.

If the Titans aren't dead we might genuinely humble them and get them to have a proper change of heart.

And *that* expansion would end with more and more voidelves falling to madness or feeling a strange call towards Quel'Thalas, and we'd get an idea that there's something void related gathering, being after the awakened worldsoul and the power of the trees.

So that THEN we'd have Xal, Alleria and Light vs Void.

Could have lasted two expansions on its own, and if you want Xal be a tragic villain, have it that she did want the worldsoul to revive her own planet. Write her better and it could have even lead to her race and the ethereals becoming playable.

So, long story short:

Separating the worldsoul storyline and xal's storyline would easily have done both plots a great favor.

Thanks for coming to my TED-talk