[Poll] How engaged are players with the story of SL compared to previous expansions.

[Daronokk]

Lorewise I find Shadowlands to be very unengaging. Far too much suspension of disbelief and Blizzard telling us to "just go with it". Ultimately by the end of this expansion I fully expect Blizzard to just kinda forget about this one like WoD in the grand scheme.

I find this to be a great expansion though in terms of gameplay and stuff. But the whole afterlife thing is such a bomb on every race's lore; because the afterlife is the basis of many of their religions and it turns out they are all wrong? Like that's bound to shake up people's faith.

Very much agree. This is the sole reason I'm not even playing this expansion. It just doesn't fit if you ask me. It all feels like filler and out of place. There is nothing there for me as a Horde player. Why would I care?

[Karreck]

Shadowlands feels likes some previous WoW expansions where there is amazing story potential that is not fulfilled. TBC and Warlords has this issue and, from what I have read, so did BFA (Although I can not say, I didn't play it.) I like the concept of the expansion, with it's different takes on the afterlife and how that expands the, pardon the pun, World of Warcraft. But the individual zone story-lines don't really grab me. Because Shadowlands deviates off the traditional Warcraft path, I don't feel invested. Outside of appearances by some dead lore characters, I don't "care" about the zones and their stories. Like Lady Vashj, or Baroness Vashj now, showing up was cool, but I really didn't care about the missing Primus or the feud between the houses.
Also, the retcons with the Jailer being behind Arthas and the Scourge really turned me off. It feels so out of left field. For what, 20 years, the Lich King was a servant of the Burning Legion. He was to weaken Azeroth's defenses to allow for the Burning Legion to conquer Azeroth. Yet now he was a puppet of the Jailer, while also fighting back against the Jailer? I don't mind expanding narratives, but it feels off.
The Sylvanas and Anduin aspect interests me, especially after seeing the trailer for Chains of Domination. Who knows, maybe the story picks up over the expansion. I wasn't a huge fan of the MoP story until later.

[LemonDemonGirl]

I also dislike the constant "This is who/what really was behind that!" that has been retconning established lore

It really, really sucks. Remember when Bwonsamdi was supposed to have his own little realm... somewhere in the Shadowlands? It could've been anywhere, but no, it's in a another afterlife that literally looks like it's for Druids. Ursoc is now gone forever, and now... so is Rezan, who fused into Vol'jin. Lets hope when he comes back he dosen't liook ridiculous I just... am scared that they're going to keep retconning more and more until they literally have to make a WoW 2.

Also the Jailer looks like a dorky bald old dude and I can't take him seriously lol

- - - Updated - - -

They should just pull a Steel Ball Run and restart everything

[dope_danny]

You mean have her wake up in Undercity before the Broken Shore assault and realize this was all a dream?

You mean you don't want kerrigan 2.0 to become the new arbiter/ultra mega kyrian and be the biggest hero ever?

How could you hate the main character of warcraft? its all clearly been leading up to this.

[bmjclark]

Probably an 8 or 9 on the story. That being said, there's a lot of patches left to ruin that enjoyment.

[Ezyah]

SL lore is full of plothole and completly not credible. It s a complete turnoff for me. I wish they just gave us another azeroth continent or something ...

[EyelessCrow]

There's a story?

[Stormdash]

I gave it a 1 and would probably go lower if it were an option. The direction of the lore is just one reason I quit, but it was a major one. I can suspend my disbelief only so much before I have to walk away and say "this is dumb".



Equating Shadowlands to Planescape is an insult to Planescape.

I'm actually a little surprised there aren't some "Planescape:Torment" easter eggs in Shadowlands. Not that Shadowlands is worthy to polish that game's boots.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

I would say 8/10 because in Legion I was heavily engaged. Maybe it was because the whole Guardian Mage thingy. I felt like true hero there. Shadowlands story seems like an interesting start, will see what will happen next. The upcoming cinematic shows that there will be a lot to do!

[Evaddon]

Like every expansion the story starts off good, honestly the story is the most exciting and engaging its ever been in my opinion. But as always the gaps in content/story progression hinder my engagement, and certain things need more time to be fleshed out and developed but the story often moves to fast between BIG story moments instead of adding detail and depth to the situation and cause at hand. I think if they added more detail and depth into scenarios that accure they'd have a pretty epic story on their hands.

7/10 as it stands right now

[Stormdash]

Honestly, right now the story might even be a little worse than BFA. Better system design than BFA, but also less content and BFA was a bottom 2 expac for content IMO. BFA and SL are pretty much tied together for me right now.

[TheFirstOnes]

7. Sylvanas ruins it.

[shoc]

Vanilla, TBC, WOTLK and Cata for the most part were still grounded pretty securely in pre-existing lore.

Everything from MoP onwards is an asspull that was made up on the spot, and of course story that's made up on the fly is going to be shitty. On top of that, the Warcraft characters have serious brand value now. A question like, what are we going to do with Sylvanas? is obviously going to be a boardroom decision, not a storytelling one.

[Powerogue]

Honestly? BFA would be the 10 on this scale, relative to other expansions. This I'd put somewhere above Cataclysm, because at least I don't know how it will end, even if I'm not on the edge of my seat about it. It feels less personal, involving almost entirely characters we're unfamiliar with and haven't had much time to get invested to. (which is not an excuse, RIP nightborne from Azsuna I knew for like 6 quests)

WOD's the bottom, as always. Its only story highlights were the warlords cutscenes (which just helped heap on the disappointment on how lame they were comparatively in-game) and Garrosh's mak'gora.

MOP I initially had no investment in, but grew to appreciate from the lorewalker reputation and the short stories they wrote for it.

So I think SL fits squarely in the middle.

[Houle]

Unmitigated trash without compare. The creators of this world are long gone and we now have authorised fan-fic full of wish fulfillment, waifu simpvalry and generally just mediocre young adult horseshit that makes the MCU writing look like high art. We have gone through a portal to an afterlife that may as well be another outland it feels so disconnected to any death stuff that came before and basically dealt with generic faction jobber horseshit waiting for Bolvar to pull a proffesor X and go "CHAMPION, RETURN TO ORIBOS FOR A SMALL CUTSCENE, BECAUSE EVERYTIME SYLVANAS ISN'T ON SCREEN THE AUDIENCE SHOULD BE ASKING 'HEY, WHERES SYLVANUS' AND HURRY!". Thats it.

Its no secret WoW has exhausted its story and they are struggling to try and invent a whole new mythology to inject life into its world running on fumes but it just feels like the worst of japanese shounen anime power tier tropes where the villains are all beaten and things should be wrapping up, but the audience is still there to be milked SO HERE IS THE NEW TIER ALL PREVIOUS TIERS WERE BELOW, THEY WERE JUST ALWAYS ABSENT TILL NOW BECAUSE REASONS. SHUT UP THO. THIS IS THE REAL BIG BADS AND THIS TIME ITS FOR REAL.

I get it. The game still makes enough money to warrant new support. But its been 17 years and every possible villain has been turned into a loot pinata. Even if the continued replacement of rpg systems with shit ripped from mobile games designed to predate on habit forming personalities in the name of retention and boosting MAU's were not a thing the story is abysmal.

Like does anyone give a single fuck about the large angry bold man? did you do anything but roll your eyes at "A RELIC OF THE FIRST ONES? ACTIVATING FOR A ....MORTAL?!?" like come on. This is sub soap opera storytelling. This is sub local game store dungeons and dragons when the DM has to wing it storytelling.

This is the worst its ever been and how can it possibly get better at this point? think back to all the quests that you did in WoW. The burnt down inn in Dustwallow Marsh, the Legend of Stalvan, Darrowshire, your order hall or just finding out a creepy little girl brought a town to ruin in drustvar. Good quests stick with you long after they are done through writing as much as gameplay.

Is there a single Shadowlands quest you will remember? even one?

and when it is left in the past for chromie time how many of you will look at shadowlands in the list of every wow expansion and go "rather than quest through wrath or mop or whatever i really just want to deal with sylvanus and the covenants again because that was just so memorable and engaging"?

its rare that i can fully agree with a post this long, but this is 100% facts
its painfully obvious that the current "story" has nothing to do with what the original creators had in mind for the WC universe and overall lore. thats why it feels so out of place

[Stardrift]

Lorewise I find Shadowlands to be very unengaging. Far too much suspension of disbelief and Blizzard telling us to "just go with it". Ultimately by the end of this expansion I fully expect Blizzard to just kinda forget about this one like WoD in the grand scheme.

I find this to be a great expansion though in terms of gameplay and stuff. But the whole afterlife thing is such a bomb on every race's lore; because the afterlife is the basis of many of their religions and it turns out they are all wrong? Like that's bound to shake up people's faith.

They kinda completely forgot about BFA too. What with the war suddenly being wrapped up with a wet fart, azshara being wrapped up like a wetter fart, and N'zoth being written off like a.. fart with a little surprise of diarrhea.

[Wangming]

You mean you don't want kerrigan 2.0 to become the new arbiter/ultra mega kyrian and be the biggest hero ever?

How could you hate the main character of warcraft? its all clearly been leading up to this.

Isn't that supposed to be Green Jesus? or Blanduin?

I hate these people so much. The Gilneans, the Shado-Pan, Vanessa VanCleef and Lucille Waycrest. This is pretty much the list of characters I am able to care about. The rest are so boring I'm gonna claw my eyes out.

[bloodmoth13]

Dont care in the slightest.
I dont necessarily want to not care, i just ... dont.

Zorval is boring as heck and poorly set up, hes just a big bad titan tier asshole we dumpster at the end of the expansion because blizz writers have the dragonball z mentality that if you can beat one bad guy the next threat has to top it x10 and we just dumpstered N'Zoth and sargeras so this guy has to be super duper scary, which he just isnt.

I dont hate him, i just have zero passion for him, which is worse. we know we beat him and move on to the next big threat at the end of the expansion, id love a plot twist but i dont see B teams story flowing seamlessly into A teams story.

Turning the boy king into arthas was terrible, i never cared for anduin because he was too squeaky clean, i did actually like him talking shit to sylvanas, and i dont hate the idea of him being a paragon of light, i just want him to struggle to uphold his beliefs in a way that isnt just always being right and everyone else failing him. thats fucking annoying. Turning him into arthas does NOTHING for his character arc, i dont like him being played off as a hardass, thats the exact opposite of his character...
I just get the impression they dont have a frikkin clue what they want to do and they are just making things up as they go.

[Yuli]

I voted ten, but a very fragile ten. How they handle Sylvanas will determine my engagement going forward. Everyone around me is basically waiting on that detail to determine if WoW is "a world to live in" or "a game to play." Assuming the story "does the right thing" with Sylvanas, I am very engaged and very much enjoying things, but if they make a wrong turn here, it's just a place to hang with friends and grind out cosmetics in preparation for a potential future when I feel safe to emotionally invest again.

Beyond that, "WoW Planescape" is SO MUCH my jam and I hope it continues indefinitely... which I predict it just may!

Howdyho, I'm your second 10.

As a fan of cosmic lore and stuff this is great, just like you I just hope they don't screw it up like WoD. If we were to go as big as in Legion, that'd be great, although I'm much more hyped for possible Light/Void shenanigans in the future.

[Magicon]

bad. 10/char