StarCraft 2

I blame their decisions to roll the stories into 3 games. So basically they had little to tell, and they had to tell it in full games instead of 1/3 of the game. So it drags on and it goes full retard a few times. It's obvious from WoL that the big important shit is going to be at the very end, from the prophecy and what not, and everything on the way is only there as a build up. But that makes WoL and HotS pretty shitty stories because of that. At least something important happens in HotS, in WoL not so much.

Had they made a game with a tri campaign rolled in I think they could have done more with less. Also they could have done overlapping and tie-ins and shit and it probably would have just been better. Even if they did 3 games with tri expansions I think it'd have ended better. Also one of the fun part of WC3 imo was getting to play different races one after the other. Sure it kinda sucked when you had to play tree hugging wisp loving retards at the end of the campaign instead of manly orcs, but eh. But a fuckton more was happening in WC3 RoC, and then a fuckton more happened in Frozen Throne. In comparison, as much is going to happen over like 7years in their 3games than in WC3 RoC, maybe. MAYBE.

Well for example the Zeratul missions would make sense if you played Protoss a few hours later and learned exactly what's going on and shit. I mean a lot of the other stuff you listed also kinda happens in WC3 at various points. Now my memories of WC3 is certainly a bit foggy but iirc at the start of frozen throne, you have vashj popping up for the first time and actually having tremendous power, kinda comes out of nowhere. Sylvanas goes from total forgettable secondary char into leader of the scourge, which is easily one of the most iconic role in the story. Sure you have Arthas, Thrall, Illidan broing it up with the big roles for the big characters, but there's a lot of new powers that pop for no specific reason or stuff that's very obvious right from the start.

Also infested refugee could have a bearing on the story. The first time you see Arthas slipping up for example is in that quest where you have to save villagers from the scourge contamination, and he decides fuck that noise I'm gonna go kill demons/undeads instead and let a very large part of the people die for revenge. A seemingly mundane and boring quest becomes a turning point in the story of the char. They are definitely completely pointless in WoL though since they do basically nothing, unless at some point they add a character that was saved during that mission and become a leading figure, but since it didn't happen in WoL it's unlikely to happen later with the heavier focus on the other races, and if it does it will have lost all impact cause it'll have been so long since anyone played WoL anyway.