Shadowlands Plothole?

[Candy Cough]

I was just wondering how bolvar is raising death knights (I.e Allied races) if every soul is stuck in the Maw

Didnt every soul go straight into the maw after Sylvanas made the pact with the jailer/Helya in legion? Does Bolvar have the ability to just pull people out of the shadowlands at command? What happened to no one escapes the maw

Also, doesent technically all death knights and undead remember the shadowlands? Why is it being treated as a mystery?

The Entire Sylvanas Jailer plot just doesen't make sense to me. So the Jailer draws souls from the entire universe, but where exactly does Sylvanas fit in? If millions/Billions are dying every day across the stars, what kind of significance does burning teldrassil even have? Hundreds of thousand lives lost is basically a drop in the ocean compared to the billions across the star. Not to talk about Old gods and burning legion battling it out and burning/corrupting worlds killing further millions. Teldrassil just seems so insignifcant on a galactic scale, how in the world was that enough to break the jailer free?

Speaking of souls, then what are wisps or any ghosts for that matter? Have they escaped the shadowlands? The Elven spirits in dire maul or the ghosts of Karazhan, has there been any explaination?

ty

[Nerovar]

The thing I don't understand is this:

Since Legion when the ""machine of death broke"" the Arbiter funnels every single soul into the Maw. But don't souls only get carried into the Shadowlands by the Kyrians in the first place? What exactly have they been doing since Legion? They could obviously see what was going on because it's their job to bring Souls before the Arbiter but they still just yeeted them into the big stream heading straight into the Maw?

How retarded are these blue angels?

[Skulltaker]

It's like Rise of Skywalker. Don't pay attention to details. LOOK IT'S UTHER! Just keep moving through the story. Thinking about the details will just make your head hurt. LOOK!! KAEL'THAS!!! The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. LOOK, SYLVANAS HAS A PLAN FOR ALL OF US! THERE IS DRAKA!! MEMBER DRAKA?!?!? It is one giant clusterfuck the second you start poking and prodding the tapestry. JUST KEEP MOVING, DON'T THINK! LOOK, THE ARCHITECTURE IS LIKE IN IIIIICECROWN. MEMBER ICECROWN??? Level up, get loot, have fun with friends overcoming the raid encounters, revel in the great work the Art department did. The story is... not even tertiary at this point. LOOK! CUTE OWL-SERVANTS! JOKES ABOUT TALKING TO THE HAND. MEMBER URSOC??? MANDALORIAN REFERENCE!! PLEASE DON'T THINK ABOUT THE STORY OR THE ILLUSION OF COHERENT STORYTELLING WILL FALL APART!!! MEMBER YSEARA???

Fuck this Add-ons story. For all the interesting changes to gameplay, seriously, fuck the story. It picked up right where BfA left off, high-school levels of fanfiction.

[LemonDemonGirl]

There's a few troll souls around Bastion and the Maw. Shouldn't they be in De Other Side? Or, does Bwonsamdi not claim every trollian soul? I'm confuse

[deenman]

the writing team are a bunch of hacks,on got s8 levels of ''quality'',thats the sad reality,its true that mmo's generaly dont have good stories as its the nature of the beast,but atleast other mmo's have a consistancy and logic to it

[Dazmalak]

It's like Rise of Skywalker. Don't pay attention to details. LOOK IT'S UTHER! Just keep moving through the story. Thinking about the details will just make your head hurt. LOOK!! KAEL'THAS!!! The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. LOOK, SYLVANAS HAS A PLAN FOR ALL OF US! THERE IS DRAKA!! MEMBER DRAKA?!?!? It is one giant clusterfuck the second you start poking and prodding the tapestry. JUST KEEP MOVING, DON'T THINK! LOOK, THE ARCHITECTURE IS LIKE IN IIIIICECROWN. MEMBER ICECROWN??? Level up, get loot, have fun with friends overcoming the raid encounters revel in the great work the Art department did. The story is... not even tertiary at this point. LOOK! CUTE OWL-SERVANTS! JOKES ABOUT TALKING TO THE HAND. MEMBER URSOC??? MANDALORIAN REFERENCE!! PLEASE DON'T THINK ABOUT THE STORY OR THE ILLUSION OF COHERENT STORYTELLING WILL FALL APART!!! MEMBER YSEARA???

This. Its pervasive in a lot of media and pop culture nowadays...but storytelling now has become so focused on becoming the "next big thing" that it has lost sight of what made it popular in the first place. Its just there to look pretty, stir up nostalgia, and be quite forgettable in the long term. I remember not liking any of the new Star Wars movies, but I couldn't tell you why anymore, because ultimately whatever missteps they made, overall it wasn't a memorable experience. Shadowlands I fear is looking to be the same.

[Skulltaker]

This. Its pervasive in a lot of media and pop culture nowadays...but storytelling now has become so focused on becoming the "next big thing" that it has lost sight of what made it popular in the first place. Its just there to look pretty, stir up nostalgia, and be quite forgettable in the long term. I remember not liking any of the new Star Wars movies, but I couldn't tell you why anymore, because ultimately whatever missteps they made, overall it wasn't a memorable experience. Shadowlands I fear is looking to be the same.

Mandalorian works great for me, in regards of Star Wars, because it takes its time. It doesn't tryhard to be good. It just is decent, and that is more than enough. We need more decent stories. Not a carnival of things trying to be 'epic'. I've had my fill of 'epic' stories. They are all the same, anyway.

I'll reserve judgement on SL for the end. So far, I'm less than impressed with the story. At least most of the mechanics look solid so far. I enjoy the new regions. Not for the story. Art department is doing another hard carry.

[october breeze]

It's like Rise of Skywalker. Don't pay attention to details. LOOK IT'S UTHER! Just keep moving through the story. Thinking about the details will just make your head hurt. LOOK!! KAEL'THAS!!! The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. LOOK, SYLVANAS HAS A PLAN FOR ALL OF US! THERE IS DRAKA!! MEMBER DRAKA?!?!? It is one giant clusterfuck the second you start poking and prodding the tapestry. JUST KEEP MOVING, DON'T THINK! LOOK, THE ARCHITECTURE IS LIKE IN IIIIICECROWN. MEMBER ICECROWN??? Level up, get loot, have fun with friends overcoming the raid encounters, revel in the great work the Art department did. The story is... not even tertiary at this point. LOOK! CUTE OWL-SERVANTS! JOKES ABOUT TALKING TO THE HAND. MEMBER URSOC??? MANDALORIAN REFERENCE!! PLEASE DON'T THINK ABOUT THE STORY OR THE ILLUSION OF COHERENT STORYTELLING WILL FALL APART!!! MEMBER YSEARA???

Fuck this Add-ons story. For all the interesting changes to gameplay, seriously, fuck the story. It picked up right where BfA left off, high-school levels of fanfiction.

I really don't want to LOOK, but Blizzard has made his best to shove it down players' throat in every bloody corner!

[Dervrak]

Or how about like we are told the Shadowlands is made of infinite realms where every living creature from across the multiverse goes when they die and you are sent to the one that best represents how you lived your life. (so apparently if you treasured reefer most of all, there's actually is a realm where the only thing that grows is pot and everybody stays high as kite for all eternity). BUT.....you can only visit four of those realms because of...well that's all we put in the game...but the in-game reason is there is anima shortage and we can't open the gates or something. HOWEVER....the four that we do visit just happen to be the ones were the greatest hero's from Azeroth went when they died. I mean seriously! What are the odds???? Infinite realms and we get the four full of people we know! And what about all the dead from those infinite worlds? Pretty much all the creatures seem to be from places we have been too before. You mean there is not a single other member of any of those infinite races across the cosmos that was noble and just enough to end up in Bastion?

[Magical Mudcrab]

the writing team are a bunch of hacks,on got s8 levels of ''quality'',thats the sad reality,its true that mmo's generaly dont have good stories as its the nature of the beast,but atleast other mmo's have a consistancy and logic to it

There's only one MMO that I've seen with any good of a story, and that's The Elder Scrolls Online; however, that's only because The Elder Scrolls is one of the most profoundly strange fantasy settings that I've ever read anything about in gaming.

[Beuargh]

the whole shadowland story is a plot hole. everything is ass pulled. Sylvanas breaks the helm and the sky ... huh.. the cutscene was great but what? we've seen Sargeras, from the space, plant his bigass sword in the planet and there was no glass bubble around azeroth. and why the legion, who created the helm (in short), should give a single fuck about the shadowland or the jailor? and this is just the start of the mess, forget about it.

It's like Rise of Skywalker. Don't pay attention to details. LOOK IT'S UTHER! Just keep moving through the story. Thinking about the details will just make your head hurt. LOOK!! KAEL'THAS!!! The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. LOOK, SYLVANAS HAS A PLAN FOR ALL OF US! THERE IS DRAKA!! MEMBER DRAKA?!?!? It is one giant clusterfuck the second you start poking and prodding the tapestry. JUST KEEP MOVING, DON'T THINK! LOOK, THE ARCHITECTURE IS LIKE IN IIIIICECROWN. MEMBER ICECROWN??? Level up, get loot, have fun with friends overcoming the raid encounters, revel in the great work the Art department did. The story is... not even tertiary at this point. LOOK! CUTE OWL-SERVANTS! JOKES ABOUT TALKING TO THE HAND. MEMBER URSOC??? MANDALORIAN REFERENCE!! PLEASE DON'T THINK ABOUT THE STORY OR THE ILLUSION OF COHERENT STORYTELLING WILL FALL APART!!! MEMBER YSEARA???

Fuck this Add-ons story. For all the interesting changes to gameplay, seriously, fuck the story. It picked up right where BfA left off, high-school levels of fanfiction.

lol. that's my experience pretty much. lots of characters are forced in and you really need to not think about what happened for them to land here...

we'll see a lot of mental gymnastics in these forum to try to make sense of all that

[Jessicka]

The Shadowlands are I think only a part of the afterlife, and frankly seem like just a few of the circles of Hell. They all ultimately lead to an eternal fate of Bad Things. You have:

Lobotomised Servitude (Bastion)
Fighting to keep fighty people occupied (Maldraxxus)
Storage for Resurrection (Ardenweald)
Redemption (Revendreth)
Damnation (Maw)

None of those are necessarily good things, and no sign of where those who are redeemed end up.

[Thage]

The Shadowlands are I think only a part of the afterlife, and frankly seem like just a few of the circles of Hell. They all ultimately lead to an eternal fate of Bad Things. You have:

Lobotomised Servitude (Bastion)
Fighting to keep fighty people occupied (Maldraxxus)
Storage for Resurrection (Ardenweald)
Redemption (Revendreth)
Damnation (Maw)

None of those are necessarily good things, and no sign of where those who are redeemed end up.

Few points of order:

Bastion has already begun showing signs that their MO was a problem and a new path forward might be afoot in the patch storylines.
The Necrolords are less about fighting to keep the fighty people occupied, and more about engaging in constant wargames to keep their military in top shape physically and tactically; these are the Shadowlands' standing army and you definitely want an army meant to safeguard a plane comprised entirely of souls in top form.
The Venthyr are your last second chance if you were an exceptionally shitty person in life, but Denathrius set things up so he could run his little fiefdom and things have gone sideways there. Again, the storyline points to a new way being forged in order to maintain the purpose being served by this covenant but also installing safeguards against the leadership falling to corruption again. I guess nobody told 'em about guillotines.

It's also worth noting that both the game itself and the devs have confirmed there are, for all intents and purposes, effectively infinite afterlives, it's just that the ones we visit are the ones most important to keeping shit running properly in the Shadowlands; visiting whatever idyllic countryside Tirion currently enjoys eternity with his family in wouldn't make for a particularly compelling questing zone by their reckoning (I disagree, but Valley of the Four Winds is one of my favorite zones to quest through so take that as you will).

[Mehrunes]

It's like Rise of Skywalker. Don't pay attention to details. LOOK IT'S UTHER! Just keep moving through the story. Thinking about the details will just make your head hurt. LOOK!! KAEL'THAS!!! The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. LOOK, SYLVANAS HAS A PLAN FOR ALL OF US! THERE IS DRAKA!! MEMBER DRAKA?!?!? It is one giant clusterfuck the second you start poking and prodding the tapestry. JUST KEEP MOVING, DON'T THINK! LOOK, THE ARCHITECTURE IS LIKE IN IIIIICECROWN. MEMBER ICECROWN??? Level up, get loot, have fun with friends overcoming the raid encounters, revel in the great work the Art department did. The story is... not even tertiary at this point. LOOK! CUTE OWL-SERVANTS! JOKES ABOUT TALKING TO THE HAND. MEMBER URSOC??? MANDALORIAN REFERENCE!! PLEASE DON'T THINK ABOUT THE STORY OR THE ILLUSION OF COHERENT STORYTELLING WILL FALL APART!!! MEMBER YSEARA???

Fuck this Add-ons story. For all the interesting changes to gameplay, seriously, fuck the story. It picked up right where BfA left off, high-school levels of fanfiction.

Putting aside whether nostalgia "MEMBER X" pandering is good storytelling or not (it's not), I still don't understand how some genius at Blizzard thought that Draka was good MEMBER material. That complete nothing-burger of a character has had two feats of any magnitude to her name until now: spawning Thrall and dropping dead. She's so meaningless that I managed to forget about her even being in Maldraxxus in the time between the release of Shadowlands and the release of Maldraxxus Affterlives video. At least that ended my ruminations on Venthyr vs Maldraxxus as a Covenant for my main.

[Saltysquidoon]

Speaking of souls, then what are wisps or any ghosts for that matter? Have they escaped the shadowlands? The Elven spirits in dire maul or the ghosts of Karazhan, has there been any explaination?

Don't think, just consume product and be excited for next products.

[Thage]

Putting aside whether nostalgia "MEMBER X" pandering is good storytelling or not (it's not), I still don't understand how some genius at Blizzard thought that Draka was good MEMBER material. That complete nothing-burger of a character has had two feats of any magnitude to her name until now: spawning Thrall and dropping dead. She's so meaningless that I managed to forget about her even being in Maldraxxus in the time between the release of Shadowlands and the release of Maldraxxus Affterlives video. At least that ended my ruminations on Venthyr vs Maldraxxus as a Covenant for my main.

I feel like they wanted to use Garona but remembered she's still alive, so they instead opted for relative blank-slate Draka to fill the gap. Which, alright, sure, go wild, but maybe have her character grow with us to show how she comes into her own rather than just drop her off at our porch already one of the top dogs in the Necrolords.

edit: Like... Draka was alright in WoD and all but I can't tell you off the top of my head anything really noteworthy she did even though she tagged along fairly often and I was always down to see her when she did show up.

[chrisisvacant]

I feel like they wanted to use Garona but remembered she's still alive, so they instead opted for relative blank-slate Draka to fill the gap. Which, alright, sure, go wild, but maybe have her character grow with us to show how she comes into her own rather than just drop her off at our porch already one of the top dogs in the Necrolords.

edit: Like... Draka was alright in WoD and all but I can't tell you off the top of my head anything really noteworthy she did even though she tagged along fairly often and I was always down to see her when she did show up.

No, they probably wanted to have a real Thrall/Draka moment.

[Garymorilix]

This thread is literally just "I refuse to read quest texts or look up the answers to this from interviews so I'll just rant".

If you actually cared you wouldn't be making this.

End of discussion.

[Jastall]

There's only one MMO that I've seen with any good of a story, and that's The Elder Scrolls Online; however, that's only because The Elder Scrolls is one of the most profoundly strange fantasy settings that I've ever read anything about in gaming.

Elder Scrolls is weird like that. The backstory is trippy beyond belief, incredibly intricate and puts most other fantasy to shame, but the actual games do their damnest to make the setting as genericly boring as is possible in terms of presentation if you ask me.

As for the OP, important questions that probably won't be answered. The bit about Azeroth being so important and ever-present when there are supposedly countless other worlds is really silly; especially in Maldraxxus, it's kind of crazy that so many of the important NPCs happen to hail from one planet (OK, two counting Draenor I suppose) and from one epoch even.

[Saltysquidoon]

There's only one MMO that I've seen with any good of a story, and that's The Elder Scrolls Online; however, that's only because The Elder Scrolls is one of the most profoundly strange fantasy settings that I've ever read anything about in gaming.

Then you haven't played Hevensward, HW has the best mmo writing ever, I'd even say it has some of the best videogame writing ever.