Where is everyone?

[oldgeezer]

Shouldn't there be trillions of souls in the Shadowlands by now?

[Arrashi]

Obviously they are in other instances of shadowlands.

[Apolyc]

I mean gameplay over lore. Let's see how even the best computers and servers run with trillions of souls being rendered at once.

[Violent]

I mean gameplay over lore. Let's see how even the best computers and servers run with trillions of souls bring rendered at once.

Apparently you've never done the 40v40man Brawl BG of SS v TM.

[Autowand]

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure anima is the essences of souls that have died. Only the ones that have made a major impact, or had many experiences during their life, will actually manifest as a walking talking being in the shadowlands.

[oldgeezer]

A fix would be to make the zones infinite in size. Not literally infinite, of course, but with a 'fog of war' that descends as you reach the boundary. And some McGuffin to explain it. Instead we get these tiny floating islands with minimal population.

[Sevarin]

arent there literally infinite realms in the shadowlands? we only visit 4 + the maw, so thats.... 5 areas down, infinite to go. plenty of room for trillions of souls.

[Segus1992]

Apparently you've never done the 40v40man Brawl BG of SS v TM.

I'm no mathematician but I'm pretty sure there's a difference between 80 and a trillion.

- - - Updated - - -

A fix would be to make the zones infinite in size. Not literally infinite, of course, but with a 'fog of war' that descends as you reach the boundary. And some McGuffin to explain it. Instead we get these tiny floating islands with minimal population.

I kind of agree from a lore perspective, but it'd feel awful to just not be able to explore the entire thing because "reasons". It'd feel like a cop out.

[oldgeezer]

I kind of agree from a lore perspective, but it'd feel awful to just not be able to explore the entire thing because "reasons". It'd feel like a cop out.

Yeah. But then again, the Argus-style skyboxes were effective.

[Darththeo]

Shouldn't there be trillions of souls in the Shadowlands by now?

There is.

We don't even see the entire zones in the areas we go to. We go to specific areas.

Even then there are INFINITE afterlives, we go to 5 specific ones.

[Autowand]

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure anima is the essences of souls that have died. Only the ones that have made a major impact, or had many experiences during their life, will actually manifest as a walking talking being in the shadowlands.

Here's a quote from Wowpedia about anima. So I'm mostly right with "where they are" in general, but still unsure about how creatures come to be in the Shadowlands, but I assume I'm right for now.

"Anima is the essence of mortal souls that enter the Shadowlands, the product of all of the soul's experiences and actions in life. Great souls—good or evil—have a lot of anima, while those who have lived humbler lives have less. It infuses the Shadowlands and acts as the lifeblood of the afterlife, making trees grow and rivers flow, flowing through creatures, and connecting all the realms of the Shadowlands together."

[Littleraven]

I'd like to believe we are only seeing a tiny fraction of the Shadowlands. There are clearly more than the 4 zones we are able to visit. Gameplay > Story and all that. It's like how in the lore Goldshire is like miles from Stormwind while in game its a short walk.

I do hope as the expansion progresses we get to see more realms but I am not really holding my breath because at most we get one more. Who knows though.

[valax]

waiting for you to free them in the prisons of mud in the maw

[Nerovar]

I'd like to believe we are only seeing a tiny fraction of the Shadowlands. There are clearly more than the 4 zones we are able to visit. Gameplay > Story and all that. It's like how in the lore Goldshire is like miles from Stormwind while in game its a short walk.

I do hope as the expansion progresses we get to see more realms but I am not really holding my breath because at most we get one more. Who knows though.

It's just lazy storytelling. There are presumably infinite realms inside the Shadowlands yet they're not even alluded to and everything seems to solely revolve around four of them, there are four pillars of the same size around the arbiter (one for each of the covenant leaders) etc.
Blizzard tells us one thing (i.e. Shadowlands are infinite) but their story/world speaks for itself and it says something completely different. The same thing happened with BfA's narrative.

[Dancaris]

Salty as always, typically n mmochamp.
If you come to the end of EACH zone you will see that they not end and continue forward. And if you come to Arbiter you will see countless gates.
Our zones are just major ones, that's it

[tommyhil622]

Key is perspective. The regions we visit doesn't encompass all of the shadowlands. Just a fraction of it. Its like if i go to a major city and wonder where are all the billions of people on earth. They are spread all over, in different countries, cities towns continents. The shadowlands is the same way, the regions we visit are just the most prominent places but not all of it.

[Dellis0991]

A fix would be to make the zones infinite in size. Not literally infinite, of course, but with a 'fog of war' that descends as you reach the boundary. And some McGuffin to explain it. Instead we get these tiny floating islands with minimal population.

you want blizz to kill our computers huh?

[Asrialol]

It's just lazy storytelling. There are presumably infinite realms inside the Shadowlands yet they're not even alluded to and everything seems to solely revolve around four of them, there are four pillars of the same size around the arbiter (one for each of the covenant leaders) etc.
Blizzard tells us one thing (i.e. Shadowlands are infinite) but their story/world speaks for itself and it says something completely different. The same thing happened with BfA's narrative.

There being a few places of power in the shadowlands of infinite realms isn't what I'd call illogical.

Your post is the example of lazy writing, though.

[Yooginava182]

A fix would be to make the zones infinite in size. Not literally infinite, of course, but with a 'fog of war' that descends as you reach the boundary. And some McGuffin to explain it. Instead we get these tiny floating islands with minimal population.

Pretty sure in Basition in the bottom right you get just this experience. Its just a field that goes down into the fog and as you get closer a Kyrian comes and snags you.

[oldgeezer]

Pretty sure in Basition in the bottom right you get just this experience. Its just a field that goes down into the fog and as you get closer a Kyrian comes and snags you.

Interesting. I'll investigate.