Shadowlands is gonna be another WoD, but not like you think..

[Flurryfang]

With us going to another realm in Shadowlands, i am getting so many WoD flashbacks that it nearly hurts.

Not flashbacks for the mid-expansion content drought or the story overall, but for the complete abandon of the Horde/Alliance storyline.

BFA have set many changes in motion. The Horde is without a single leader, changing into a council style leadership. The Alliance is a bit in disarray, with Tyrande and Genn going for blood against Sylvanas, and unhappy about the peace with the Horde. We might even have a goblin leader on the horizen..

But i just feel like they are gonna forget all about that for the entirety of Shadowlands. Just like with WoD, everything will happen in Shadowlands when it comes to story and content, and the outside world is gonna be frozen in stasis, completly forgotten about and set to take on dust, which i think is a sad thing. WoD made me lose connection with the factions, making the leadership of Vol'jin feel like a heartbeat and make the overall story fall to a halt.

With Sylvanas proberly being beaten early on, won't it just be like with Garrosh from WoD? What do you think? Do you have a bad gut feeling like i, when it comes to the location and focus of the future story or do you believe, that they can connect the faction stories with what happens in Shadowlands?

[Aucald]

Shadowlands feels more like MoP to me, personally. Like MoP it's a journey to a completely unknown land, populated with entirely new races and denizens, and a hard-swerve from the expansion that came before it into a completely new type of theme.

[Zulkhan]

Actually, BfA was more like WoD: a laying ground for another story rather than its own story. N'zoth and Ashara were little more than afterthoughts, kinda like the Iron Horde has been in WoD.

[Dacu]

With us going to another realm in Shadowlands, i am getting so many WoD flashbacks that it nearly hurts.

Not flashbacks for the mid-expansion content drought or the story overall, but for the complete abandon of the Horde/Alliance storyline.

BFA have set many changes in motion. The Horde is without a single leader, changing into a council style leadership. The Alliance is a bit in disarray, with Tyrande and Genn going for blood against Sylvanas, and unhappy about the peace with the Horde. We might even have a goblin leader on the horizen..

But i just feel like they are gonna forget all about that for the entirety of Shadowlands. Just like with WoD, everything will happen in Shadowlands when it comes to story and content, and the outside world is gonna be frozen in stasis, completly forgotten about and set to take on dust, which i think is a sad thing. WoD made me lose connection with the factions, making the leadership of Vol'jin feel like a heartbeat and make the overall story fall to a halt.

With Sylvanas proberly being beaten early on, won't it just be like with Garrosh from WoD? What do you think? Do you have a bad gut feeling like i, when it comes to the location and focus of the future story or do you believe, that they can connect the faction stories with what happens in Shadowlands?

HUGE difference between the two is Sylvanas hasn't been beaten, not even close actually. All that has happened to her outside of her plan is the concrete knowledge that she's working against both factions. After her being "beaten" (as you put it), she went and tore the helm of domination in half.....far from WoD Garrosh.

[roahn the warlock]

With us going to another realm in Shadowlands, i am getting so many WoD flashbacks that it nearly hurts.

Not flashbacks for the mid-expansion content drought or the story overall, but for the complete abandon of the Horde/Alliance storyline.

BFA have set many changes in motion. The Horde is without a single leader, changing into a council style leadership. The Alliance is a bit in disarray, with Tyrande and Genn going for blood against Sylvanas, and unhappy about the peace with the Horde. We might even have a goblin leader on the horizen..

But i just feel like they are gonna forget all about that for the entirety of Shadowlands. Just like with WoD, everything will happen in Shadowlands when it comes to story and content, and the outside world is gonna be frozen in stasis, completly forgotten about and set to take on dust, which i think is a sad thing. WoD made me lose connection with the factions, making the leadership of Vol'jin feel like a heartbeat and make the overall story fall to a halt.

With Sylvanas proberly being beaten early on, won't it just be like with Garrosh from WoD? What do you think? Do you have a bad gut feeling like i, when it comes to the location and focus of the future story or do you believe, that they can connect the faction stories with what happens in Shadowlands?

Yeah I'm fine with this, the H-A storyline is so old and tired it hurts.

[Flurryfang]

HUGE difference between the two is Sylvanas hasn't been beaten, not even close actually. All that has happened to her outside of her plan is the concrete knowledge that she's working against both factions. After her being "beaten" (as you put it), she went and tore the helm of domination in half.....far from WoD Garrosh.

So you don't think that they will just let Sylvanas be a mid-expansion raid boss and then move on without really looking back?

I get that she has not been beaten, but she is just as overdone as a villain as Garrosh. We have been drowning in Sylvanas stuff for so long, that she can't really be used long as a villian before we get really tired of her. That is atleast how it seems in my opinion.

[Wildberry]

What do you think? Do you have a bad gut feeling like i, when it comes to the location and focus of the future story or do you believe, that they can connect the faction stories with what happens in Shadowlands?

Largely, yes. Shadowlands looks like filler garbage that the writers are going to struggle making feel impactful to Azeroth itself. It came out of left field and absolutely nobody asked for it. It's doomed to be remembered as genuinely awful product all around.

Calling it now. You can quote me and thank me for being a 200 IQ genius who is right about everything later.

Infracted.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Feels much more like MoP.

Am especially hopeful that Shadowlands will prevent them from turning well established areas that could be their own expansions, into patch content.

[LostSinclair]

So you don't think that they will just let Sylvanas be a mid-expansion raid boss and then move on without really looking back?

I get that she has not been beaten, but she is just as overdone as a villain as Garrosh. We have been drowning in Sylvanas stuff for so long, that she can't really be used long as a villian before we get really tired of her. That is atleast how it seems in my opinion.

I expect her to be on the final bosses honestly. that creepy eye riddle "at the hour of her third death, she will usher in our coming" makes me think she will be the vehicle for 10.0

[huth]

Yeah I'm fine with this, the H-A storyline is so old and tired it hurts.

I'd be perfectly fine if we never return to it, to be honest. IMO it hurts the game more than it helps.

[Syrah-the-Old-One]

WoD and Shadowlands are the only expansions without a new race or class. For now, it's as far as the parallel goes.

The content may feel underwhelming to some, but let's wait and see..

[Wildberry]

I'd be perfectly fine if we never return to it, to be honest. IMO it hurts the game more than it helps.

Yes, the H/A storyline is so toxic. I'm really glad that we've moved on from it so we can focus on:
-Cosmological plots that were tacked on with Chronicles
-Sylvanas ripping the Helm of Domination in half
-Having a dimension that has only been alluded to here and there serve as the focal point for an entire expansion
-Filling this dimension with a bunch of random races that have little to no connection to Azeroth itself
-Fighting Sylvanas' mysterious partner/boss and her soon-to-be-revealed army of faceless boogeymen

I genuinely don't get how people haven't come to terms with the fact that it's not the H-A story that inherently sucks, it's the fact that Blizzard's current team simply isn't capable of writing anything.

- - - Updated - - -

WoD and Shadowlands are the only expansions without a new race or class. For now, it's as far as the parallel goes.

The content may feel underwhelming to some, but let's wait and see..

No, the feature list is objectively barren. Do we really have to go through the old routine of
1.) Wait and see
2.) It's only alpha
3.) It's only beta
4.) The game just launched, just wait for the first patch
5.) This is just the first patch, wait a little longer
6.) They can't make changes that large in the middle of an expansion!

[Pakheth]

Shadowlands feels more like MoP to me, personally. Like MoP it's a journey to a completely unknown land, populated with entirely new races and denizens, and a hard-swerve from the expansion that came before it into a completely new type of theme.

This. I am getting the MoP vibes too. And I am glad we are visiting something completely new because then it will feel like I am an adventurer again going into the unknown learning about new amazing places and cultures not bogged down by the limitations of existing lore.

[Snowfunk]

If I could travel in time, I wouldn't waste it on just checking how the next WoW expansion is gonna play out.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

In my opinion it'll be far better than MoP and perhaps even the best expansion so far. The threat level, the lore, the new stuff all just clicks with me on a personal level.

[The Emperor]

Shadowlands feels more like MoP to me, personally. Like MoP it's a journey to a completely unknown land, populated with entirely new races and denizens, and a hard-swerve from the expansion that came before it into a completely new type of theme.

Yep, only without classes, races and pretty much anything that makes it remotely intriguing.

[Aucald]

Yep, only without classes, races and pretty much anything that makes it remotely intriguing.

I was a bit miffed by no inclusion of a Necromancer class myself, as this expansion seems like one of the two perfect times to do it (the other having been WotLK). But if the classes are overhauled and iterated on in a manner that brings back and accentuates their overall fun value I will consider it a draw on that score. We've been fairly glutted with races of late so I'm fine on that score, and I'm pretty confident some of these new races we're seeing in Shadowlands are themselves likely grist for the Allied Race system's mill.

Where you fall is ultimately subjective, but I find myself somewhat more optimistic about Shadowlands than I was BfA, given that the faction conflict has never been and remains my least favorite WoW storyline.

[Feanoro]

Feels much more like MoP.

Am especially hopeful that Shadowlands will prevent them from turning well established areas that could be their own expansions, into patch content.

After they turned the entire planet of Argus into a daily quest zone (split by travel into three pieces to pretend they added three zones), all hope of any areas being entire expansions went out the window.

[Arrashi]

I think its gonna be much worse. This is the first expansion where everything and everyone is just faceless nobodies, carried entirely by "what is sylvanas dastardly plan this time?". I expect alot of yelling about "Mortals", "Muh power", "Not promised", "Not what i saw", with even less competence than usual.

[Lane]

Echoing sentiments that I'm happier when the game isn't focused on the faction conflict, especially since every time it follows the same template. I had hoped Legion was the last of it and we'd carry on with class identities, so I was extremely disappointed with BfA's premise and of all the systems to carry over from Legion the best one, class halls, wasn't one of them.