Shadowlands zone disconnected!?

[arkanon]

But not to each other. You cannot moan about Shadowlands zones not being connected to each other and then turn around and praise the only other expansion with zones that weren't connected to each other.

First off, I never complained they were not connected to each other, not once. I did agree that it feels very disjointed, intentionally or otherwise, but I never said they should be connected.

Secondly, I never praised anything, let alone cata for the zones being next to each other, but they were connected, for the most part. Why are you getting so upset and defensive about things I didn't even say?

- - - Updated - - -

It's on the map..there is no flight path and you could TECHNICALLY fly there but there's a lovely fatigue zone between it....it's literally you might as well use the portal

They are talking about the actual FP on the island, not manually flying there, I believe.

[Cosmic Janitor]

It's on the map..there is no flight path and you could TECHNICALLY fly there but there's a lovely fatigue zone between it....it's literally you might as well use the portal

I just checked, there is a flight path in the north-eastern corner of the zone to a small strip of land. It's called "Sandy Beach, Vashj'ir". From there you can switch over to the sea horse network, which uses the same name for the location. Of course these are not efficient, nothing will ever beat a portal. With 310% flight it's also easy to cross the small fatigue strip.

[Niwes]

nothing ever in wow felt that disconnected to me, like SL zones. but tbh: i dont care.

BUT what i never will get is: why the hell they cant do their slipstream at least from zone to zone? why all that fukin routing through Oribos? thats WAY more annoying to me, than the disconnection itself or that stupid slipstream tunnel.

[DeltrusDisc]

So the G8 implies there is only 8 nations in the world. ¿Where are the rest of the leaders at? freaking hippies!

Yeah...

Comparing a bunch of countries on Earth to the symbolic nature of the separated groups in Shadowlands is totally a fair comparison.

I thought Blizzard made it pretty clear in-game.

- - - Updated - - -

They other thousands of worlds of the Shadowlands all have their own style, theme and nature. We just see the 5 we see, because they are the most important ones. The ones established by the original pantheon of Eternal ones, that have a vital role in maintaining the Shadowlands. There are countless more worlds, where the purpose is different, that don't serve a vital purpose to the system, so we don't visit them (and Blizzard doesn't have to design them).

I wish we'd gotten more hints of them. For now, I think we only know details about three.

One is described from a relic we find in Korthia: A tavern world where soldiers and warriors of great service go, that are ready to retire. Unlike those of Maldraxxus that desire yet more fighting. They hang up their sense of duty and warrior spirit in the form of manifestations of their weapon and shield on the wall, and indulge in a life of celebration, telling stories, relaxation and revelry.

The second is described in a hidden ingame Broker book, where the Broker interviews an insectoid creature unlike any we've seen that's from a Hive world, where apparently souls of hive creatures may end up, to join that collective. Sounds fascinating.

The third one is the most obvious: Korthia. This wasn't one of the big five realms. It had its own appearance, theme and wildlife.

So yes, I hope that proves to you that your assessment that the other multitude of Shadowlands realms would just be clones of the main ones, is incorrect. Don't get me wrong, I wish we got to visit them. I still kind of hope there will be something similar to Legion's Invasion Points in 9.2. In Legion we entered portals to worlds the Legion was invading. It would be awesome if we got to go into portals to other realms to recruit other souls to join the fight against the Jailer. But, I also understand what a difficult task it would be for Blizzard to actually design such a multitude of other worlds. That's the main reason we haven't seen them and we've been limited to just the main 5.

Not quite, there are more portals flying in the skybox above oribos. The idea of the 5 major zones is that they are central to how the SL work, the question what would the other realms even be for?
Personally I think seeing one of these other realms would have been interesting, as they surely believe in "the purpose" as well, since they are connected to the system, but they obviously wouldn't have any kind of major role. Souls in the 5 realms get processed, sucked dry of anima and eventually form a new body via anima. What exactly would the other realms do? They have no need for bodies, as they don't have to defend the shadowlands, go around and grab souls, handle souls or aid the cycle of wild gods (btw the most nonsense realms of the SL imho). The SL clearly have a selfserving purpose, but the other realms would be just a resource drain that does not further that purpose, so their existence would have to be completely different. They also make up the majority supposedly, so that makes it even weirder. Are they all like Bwonsamdi's little realm that is essentially just a micro hell where all they do is worship the vain ego of one central entity and feed them anima?

Alright, you guys convinced me.

As long as they're like... "minor" zones, we're good. Otherwise, if they were of equal importance, I'd really be flabbergasted.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Alright, you guys convinced me.

As long as they're like... "minor" zones, we're good. Otherwise, if they were of equal importance, I'd really be flabbergasted.

Yeah, I don't see how they could be actually important realms. While there are plenty of holes in the explanation of how the shadowlands work, there is not much that is missing in regards to the basic operating principle. I'm really more interested how they can justify their own existence, or is getting into the major 4 just bad luck, because you end up with an eternity of servitude to a bunch of morons that can't manage their own asses? Well I guess getting into Revendreth is your own fault mostly.

[Puri]

Wasn't Vashjir actually on the EK map? There is even a flight path on one of the islands over water.

It is, and it also is reachable but the dive down is very, very long. I moved my farming druid there with no interest to do the Vashjir introduction quest chain, which was (and probably still is, no idea) annoying as the ship only started every 15 minutes, and only if someone was already triggering it. Yet in hindsight doing the quest chain would have been faster.

[Zyrinx]

Yeah it's bad. It was bad in Cataclysm but now it's worse, if feels like deliberate time wasting.

It fits the stupid theme because the theme was designed this way. It could absolutely have been otherwise.

Picture Oribos as a larger zone in the middle of a spoked landmass. Kind of like Crystalsong in WotLK.

[DeltrusDisc]

Yeah, I don't see how they could be actually important realms. While there are plenty of holes in the explanation of how the shadowlands work, there is not much that is missing in regards to the basic operating principle. I'm really more interested how they can justify their own existence, or is getting into the major 4 just bad luck, because you end up with an eternity of servitude to a bunch of morons that can't manage their own asses? Well I guess getting into Revendreth is your own fault mostly.

Shame the quality of writing has gone so downhill (it was never /that/ good, but it's definitely been better...) I'd like to have seen how this story would have been told with more competent writers.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Shame the quality of writing has gone so downhill (it was never /that/ good, but it's definitely been better...) I'd like to have seen how this story would have been told with more competent writers.

Agreed. It was never stellar, but there was at least a certain level of care given. I think the quintessential state of the story is accurately represented by some guys' signature here. To paraphrase:
Kyrestia: "We must keep doing our job, no matter what!"
Also Kyrestia: "Why is the maw growing?!"
And that from a character that knows that the Arbiter and therefore the purpose is just a dumb machine/mechanism that she and the Primus built after toppling Zovaal.

[FuxieDK]

It's on the map..there is no flight path and you could TECHNICALLY fly there but there's a lovely fatigue zone between it....it's literally you might as well use the portal

There are two flight paths in Vashj'ir: Sandy Beach and Stygian Bounty. These are real flight paths, NOT underwater sea horse flights.

Sandy Beach connects to Stygian Bounty (end of the road) and directly to Thorium Point (1m53 to and 3m18s from) and Undercity (5m45s to and 5m57s from), from where you can continue anywhere on a normal connected flight.
There are probably Alliance counter parts.

[Stormwolf64]

This is one of the top 10 things i don't give a shit about. Honestly doesn't matter if it's connected or not

[DeltrusDisc]

Agreed. It was never stellar, but there was at least a certain level of care given. I think the quintessential state of the story is accurately represented by some guys' signature here. To paraphrase:
Kyrestia: "We must keep doing our job, no matter what!"
Also Kyrestia: "Why is the maw growing?!"
And that from a character that knows that the Arbiter and therefore the purpose is just a dumb machine/mechanism that she and the Primus built after toppling Zovaal.

Mindless zombies! They're everywhere!

[Trumpcat]

I'm pretty sure any other "worlds" in the Shadowlands will just be more zones of the same look and be apart of the same culture, so-to-speak. Otherwise, prove it if there's full on different zones, because where are their leaders, then? Oribos makes a point of having the 4 main exits with the 5th pointing down into the Maw... so...

We can only speculate if more zones were added what could they be, but it is unlikely if any were added that they would make them the same. The lore shows there are infinite number of afterlives and we see in the Arbiter's chamber the entire background is littered with gateways. Blizzard says so, how does anyone need to prove anything when it's already stated to be so Obviously the portrayal of only four is due to resource constrains, whether it's explained by them being the main ones or serving the main function or just remain unclear why.

[Gimlix]

But Twilight Highlands is not next to Uldum. Uldum is not next to Hyjal. Hyjal is not next to Val... The water zone. The water zone is not next to Deepholme.

Shadowlands is exactly the same - it doesn't matter if the zones are connected to anything else. Your whole argument is that Shadowlands sucks because the zones aren't connected to each other, and it's the only expansion like that. And it's not, and nothing you say will change that.

Its not the same and we both know what OP means with this..

[Djuntas]

Its annoying yes. Say im in my class hall and I wanna go to the maw...Thats 2 loading screens with the portal if you got it....zzzz

[DeltrusDisc]

BfA wasnt whole disconnected. 3 zones per facion were together.

So physically they were connected, this is true.

How about visually? Logically?

It's one of the most offensively obvious going from one zone to another, it's strikingly bad. While I realize Blizzard has never been that good with zones kind of... flowing into one another, but BfA was one of the ABSOLUTE WORST, in this regard.

[Soon-TM]

So physically they were connected, this is true.

How about visually? Logically?

It's one of the most offensively obvious going from one zone to another, it's strikingly bad. While I realize Blizzard has never been that good with zones kind of... flowing into one another, but BfA was one of the ABSOLUTE WORST, in this regard.

Idk about BfA zones, the transition between Tiragarde and Stormsong or Drustvar looked quite natural - I still think that, for all of BfA's flaws, they are some of the best zones ever made.

When it comes to Horde zones, they are a quite mixed bag though. Sure, Vol'dun is quite beautiful in its own right, but it being located next to a lush jungle and to a freaking swamp doesn't make any sense, no matter how you slice it.

[loras]

Every exp we have had so far, all zones was connected together.

But in Shadowlands you cant fly from zone to zone, you have to use flight path (Empty space between each zone). I just feel like the world feels so disconnected.

Do other feel the same way?

Yup.

Takes the world out if warcraft.
Honestly that's one of the positives about Korthia: It is at least something that resembles a part of a world again.

[DeltrusDisc]

Idk about BfA zones, the transition between Tiragarde and Stormsong or Drustvar looked quite natural - I still think that, for all of BfA's flaws, they are some of the best zones ever made.

When it comes to Horde zones, they are a quite mixed bag though. Sure, Vol'dun is quite beautiful in its own right, but it being located next to a lush jungle and to a freaking swamp doesn't make any sense, no matter how you slice it.

Exactly.

Kul Tiras wasn't as bad, but damn.

Ya know what zone was an absolute joke though? NAZJATAR.