Shadowlands was truly filler after all?

[Aucald]

Clearly taken from my posts. But it's an accurate descriptor. It's the kind of fare that's rightly not gotten a full expansion over all, and still didn't because SL got cut short and everything regarding predestination, artificial afterlives, the constructs based on concepts and so on had to ride bitch on its own expansion while we handled the soap opera drama. A shame, since unlike with Cataclysm's toying with the same, SL actually considered it, but relegated most of it to side materials.

As far as filler expansions go, Shadowlands and Warlords are the most irrelevant, with Warlords' direct consequences being bringing in Gul'dan while Shadowlands's are removing Anduin, with everything else being functionally the same on Azeroth before and after. Warlords' long-term consequences were Yrel and the Mag'har, whereas Shadowlands' are likely to be whatever comes of Tyrande and the Seed + Denathrius and the Dreadlords.

I'm actually more familiar with @Iheartnathanos's definition of the phrase "high concept," being something that has a striking and easily communicable idea. While you might say the notion of exploring a fantasy setting's afterlife and discovering that both it and its denizens are elaborate fabrications created by an automated realm created by a heretofore unknown pantheon of distant creator beings is "striking," it falls pretty short of what one would typically think of as "easily communicable."

As for the rest, yes, I'd say the relevance quotient of Shadowlands is overall pretty low - not as low as WoD's ultimately was, but much lower than its surrounding expansions. Even BfA, still my personal least favorite expansion of WoW, is more directly relevant to the ongoing story-arc than Shadowlands is.

[Super Dickmann]

I'm actually more familiar with @Iheartnathanos's definition of the phrase "high concept," being something that has a striking and easily communicable idea. While you might say the notion of exploring a fantasy setting's afterlife and discovering that both it and its denizens are elaborate fabrications created by an automated realm created by a heretofore unknown pantheon of distant creator beings is "striking," it falls pretty short of what one would typically think of as "easily communicable."

As for the rest, yes, I'd say the relevance quotient of Shadowlands is overall pretty low - not as low as WoD's ultimately was, but much lower than its surrounding expansions. Even BfA, still my personal least favorite expansion of WoW, is more directly relevant to the ongoing story-arc than Shadowlands is.

@Iheartnathanos's usage is the correct one, but in terms of sci fi it's used coloquially often in the opposite way of a premise that's more elaborate and obscure, dealing with bigger themes. Shadowlands's premise is definitely more esoteric than anything that's ever been center stage in an expansion before, what with the biggest Titan fare regarding cloned life coming out of a machine being inserted far more deftly and organically while TBC's sci-fi while having implications that are pretty big too wasn't really interested in what it meant.

I'd say that so far SL is more irrelevant because while it's very likely its lore concepts will kick in later, at the time of its end the only thing to come out of it that affects a future story is Anduin being gone and possibly whatever the Winter Queen's gift ends up doing. Add Calia being formalized and the Scourge being loose, possibly. Everything from Sylvanas being gone, the Horde and Alliance being at tenuous peace and Tyrande settling with an unsatisfying copout were already the case at the end of BFA and the Jailer banging the world soul had zero relevance on anything. Gul'dan was the only thing to transfer from WoD, but he was key to the next expansion in a way that none of the things above are and WoD also brought a player race in the Mag'har, albeit some expansions later, importing a lot of its lore in a way that'd make it permanently relevant.

[rhorle]

While you might say the notion of exploring a fantasy setting's afterlife and discovering that both it and its denizens are elaborate fabrications created by an automated realm created by a heretofore unknown pantheon of distant creator beings is "striking," it falls pretty short of what one would typically think of as "easily communicable."

I mean it sounds like it was pretty easy to communicate that with your accurate summary. The whole "purpose" that is constantly referenced hooks into the robot/creation angle that is revealed in the last patch. Blizzard just didn't do a good job weaving the main story into that lore which is likely a result of the constraints from the Pandemic.

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Gul'dan was the only thing to transfer from WoD, but he was key to the next expansion in a way that none of the things above are and WoD also brought a player race in the Mag'har, albeit some expansions later, importing a lot of its lore in a way that'd make it permanently relevant.

Do we know that for sure though? That seed datamined could easily be the "Gul'dan" of healing that causes the Dragon Isles to be opened up again. Also isn't most expansions irrelevant going forward? None of the stories really continue except for Wod into Legion and most of the stuff is relegated to back ground lore.

[Aucald]

I mean it sounds like it was pretty easy to communicate that with your accurate summary. The whole "purpose" that is constantly referenced hooks into the robot/creation angle that is revealed in the last patch. Blizzard just didn't do a good job weaving the main story into that lore which is likely a result of the constraints from the Pandemic.

Only because I and (presumably) you have actually played through the expansion and all its attendant story, and we have the luxury of hindsight. Try to communicate that quick summary to someone who'd never played before, or who had only a surface understanding of WoW in general, and I'm sure the response you'd get is going to be more like a protracted "whaaaa?" or "'hell you say?"

[rhorle]

Only because I and (presumably) you have actually played through the expansion and all its attendant story, and we have the luxury of hindsight. Try to communicate that quick summary to someone who'd never played before, or who had only a surface understanding of WoW in general, and I'm sure the response you'd get is going to be more like a protracted "whaaaa?" or "'hell you say?"

It isn't really hindsight though because nothing you used as a summary requires specific knowledge to understand. I can easily create another brief summary that doesn't require specific knowledge or experience of the story to understand the basics of the story.

We discover an afterlife that was created to have a specific purpose and a central figure the arbiter is broken. We find out why and fight the thing that corrupted it a long the way. In the end we restore the "purpose" and find out robots were created to ensure that purpose happens eternally.

[Super Dickmann]

Do we know that for sure though? That seed datamined could easily be the "Gul'dan" of healing that causes the Dragon Isles to be opened up again. Also isn't most expansions irrelevant going forward? None of the stories really continue except for Wod into Legion and most of the stuff is relegated to back ground lore.

Permanent additions to the factions, deaths of major recurring characters and Azeroth zone changes are all relevant. Background lore to show how things that are unlikely to come up again, like say, pre-First War alternate Draenor or the afterlife, aren't relevant. It's possible that the seed kicks off the next expansion and the Scourge being loose is a status quo change, but Gul'dan kicks off Legion directly and is also a major raid boss.

[rhorle]

Permanent additions to the factions, deaths of major recurring characters and Azeroth zone changes are all relevant.

Right but there are changes to the lore brought about by Shadowlands. Things you ignore or dismiss with varying degrees of importance. It is also silly to move the goal posts to having to be a raid boss to count or to deny that the Shadowlands was directly involved in getting us the seed (if it is used for what kick starts Azeroths healing). Essentially you are creating arbitrary rules on what can be dismissed just to support your claim.

Ysera will probably play a role in the expansion and she is now bound to the Shadowlands. There are aspects that impact "normal" lore going forward. Vol'jin becoming a Loa is pretty big deal as well though might not show up in Dragonflight.

[Super Dickmann]

Right but there are changes to the lore brought about by Shadowlands. Things you ignore or dismiss with varying degrees of importance. It is also silly to move the goal posts to having to be a raid boss to count or to deny that the Shadowlands was directly involved in getting us the seed (if it is used for what kick starts Azeroths healing). Essentially you are creating arbitrary rules on what can be dismissed just to support your claim.

The plot of Legion can't take place without meaningful gameplay and story alterations without Gul'dan. Without knowing he exists and what his deal is, the story doesn't make sense. By comparison, SL at large has less bearing on DF than BFA does and nothing of its premise hinges on SL having taken place. At most, character beats are affected. Overall and in the long term I expect SL to have a lot more relevance, but as it stands, WoD has had a bigger impact. Since WoD's impact is nill until the Mag'har introduction that means SL and it have the biggest claim to being filler.

[Aucald]

It isn't really hindsight though because nothing you used as a summary requires specific knowledge to understand. I can easily create another brief summary that doesn't require specific knowledge or experience of the story to understand the basics of the story.

We discover an afterlife that was created to have a specific purpose and a central figure the arbiter is broken. We find out why and fight the thing that corrupted it a long the way. In the end we restore the "purpose" and find out robots were created to ensure that purpose happens eternally.

Just the notion of "going to the afterlife while completely alive" is a pretty lofty concept to break down, I'd say you're wrong if you don't think people are going to ask a ton of questions and need a lot more details. This is true to form by the player response when the expansion story and theme were announced as well, which led to a predominant chorus of "WTF" from the player base, including myself to some degree. It's less about the mechanics of death and the afterlife and more just the odd notion of visiting a philosophical or spiritual concept scoped as a physical plane in a high fantasy sword and sorcery video game.

YMMV if you don't think that's singularly odd - but I would say it's a different overall caliber of idea as opposed to WoW's typical "party of adventurers slays a dragon/demon/monster."

[rhorle]

The plot of Legion can't take place without meaningful gameplay and story alterations without Gul'dan.

Sure it can. The Scepter of Sargeras Artifact is used in place of Gul'dan. The quests for that in Legion even have it as the integral part of the puzzle for the Legion invasion and because some Warlocks stole it the Legion invasion ground to a halt because they could no longer open a mega portal to all of the Legion worlds for easy troop transport.

Of course Shadowlands has less bearing on Dragonflight because Blizzard isn't tying it directly to the story of the next one. WoD is the only one that had a major direct link so it is silly to use it as some baseline standard. Again filler is being used more for a buzzword scapegoat then anything of actual merit. Because you are literally saying since Blizzard hasn't linked Shadowlands to anything in the future yet it is nothing but a filler expansion.

That is silly and means pretty much all expansions are filler because their main story elements lose relevance as time goes on. Mists of Pandaria was irrelevant until Blizzard went back in 9.3. Was Mists just filler to set up WoD which in turn set up the Legion?

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Just the notion of "going to the afterlife while completely alive" is a pretty lofty concept to break down

Not really. It is a pretty basic concept in a lot of story telling. Of course people will ask a ton of questions. That is what happens with any story people are interested because rarely does a brief summary convey every aspect. You are moving the goal posts from "summary" to "every last detail" which is silly. It is also 100% similar to other WoW stories where we deal with Titan robot/creations to kill an Old god. Switch titan creations to first ones and old god to Jailer/Eternal-one and it is just like stories of old.

This really does seem like a case of bias against the story of Shadowlands coloring your perception of it.

[sneedlewoods]

Yeah they admitted to it now

Dragonflight's story will not require you to have played Shadowlands to understand it.

If you don't need to have played Shadowlands to understand Dragonflight, that means you can literally take it out of the story, and nothing would change.

It was essentially irrelevant.

[deenman]

MoP literally tells us the story of Garrosh' downfall which directly leads to the Legion invading.

What is the "main mythos"? Can you at least try to define it?

the azeroth plot line and the forces that try to interfere with it,legion or old gods,and yeah garrosh leads in to wod that leads in to legion,but that was a thing that happens in a book at the very end,and it would have happened wwith or wihout him

[Aucald]

Not really. It is a pretty basic concept in a lot of story telling. Of course people will ask a ton of questions. That is what happens with any story people are interested because rarely does a brief summary convey every aspect. You are moving the goal posts from "summary" to "every last detail" which is silly. It is also 100% similar to other WoW stories where we deal with Titan robot/creations to kill an Old god. Switch titan creations to first ones and old god to Jailer/Eternal-one and it is just like stories of old.

This really does seem like a case of bias against the story of Shadowlands coloring your perception of it.

You're excising a pertinent portion of my argument to construct a strawman version of what I said, which isn't really conducive to either understanding the basic premise or debating its relative merit. Sure, visiting the afterlife is a plot device that's been used before, in mediums and contexts built to support and/or facilitate it. WoW on the other hand? Not one of those contexts or mediums, which is why I feel the premise was received poorly, and its execution even more so. As I said, YMMV, but I'm pretty set in my subjective opinion, and you are of course entitled to your own.

To sum up: I agree to disagree with your assessment.

[rhorle]

You're excising a pertinent portion of my argument to construct a strawman version of what I said, which isn't really conducive to either understanding the basic premise or debating its relative merit.

Ahh there it is. The out right dismissal. Just like you first claim that mortals visting after life isn't common but then agree it is after I questioned your claim. This isn't even the first time we have visited afterlives in WoW so the medium supports it. We have also know there is some sort of after life in WoW because dead things can be brought back from wherever they were. Including a Loa of Death that we made deals with in BfA. Death Knights interacted with the after life in Legion. But sure WoW isn't a medium that supports it.

So you are yet again dismissing something that out right counters your statement so of course you disagree with what proves your claims to be false. Lol.

[Aucald]

Ahh there it is. The out right dismissal. Just like you first claim that mortals visting after life isn't common but then agree it is after I questioned your claim. This isn't even the first time we have visited afterlives in WoW so the medium supports it. We have also know there is some sort of after life in WoW because dead things can be brought back from wherever they were. Including a Loa of Death that we made deals with in BfA. Death Knights interacted with the after life in Legion. But sure WoW isn't a medium that supports it.

So you are yet again dismissing something that out right counters your statement so of course you disagree with what proves your claims to be false. Lol.

You did it again, as well - excising only a portion of the argument and seizing on it without its proper surrounding context. This is either habitual or purposeful on your part, I can't really say which. If I were dismissing your viewpoint I would've just said so outright, as opposed to saying you have your own perspective and I have mine. Sure, I provided some additional context for mine (because you were pointedly ignoring it), but I by no means dismissed either you or your opinion. So this is both a strawman argument on your part, and in so doing you've arrived at an objectively incorrect conclusion.

Sure, we've broached Necromancy and dealt with the undead and its many tropes in WoW - but we've never explored the literal afterlife. Hell, for the entirety of WoW up until Shadowlands, we've actually believed the Shadowlands was the grayscale world we inhabit briefly when we die in the game, and everything beyond that was completely opaque if at all. Since I don't think you're arguing anything in good faith here, I'm just going to have to reiterate my original "agree to disagree" and leave it at that. Bad faith arguments aren't really worth the time or effort, and I'm not interested in a semantic competition or purposeless grandstanding.

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Iheartnathanos's usage is the correct one, but in terms of sci fi it's used coloquially often in the opposite way of a premise that's more elaborate and obscure, dealing with bigger themes. Shadowlands's premise is definitely more esoteric than anything that's ever been center stage in an expansion before, what with the biggest Titan fare regarding cloned life coming out of a machine being inserted far more deftly and organically while TBC's sci-fi while having implications that are pretty big too wasn't really interested in what it meant.

I'd say that so far SL is more irrelevant because while it's very likely its lore concepts will kick in later, at the time of its end the only thing to come out of it that affects a future story is Anduin being gone and possibly whatever the Winter Queen's gift ends up doing. Add Calia being formalized and the Scourge being loose, possibly. Everything from Sylvanas being gone, the Horde and Alliance being at tenuous peace and Tyrande settling with an unsatisfying copout were already the case at the end of BFA and the Jailer banging the world soul had zero relevance on anything. Gul'dan was the only thing to transfer from WoD, but he was key to the next expansion in a way that none of the things above are and WoD also brought a player race in the Mag'har, albeit some expansions later, importing a lot of its lore in a way that'd make it permanently relevant.

Definitely esoteric, if hamfistedly executed, agreed.

WoW has a lot of post hoc justifications for its bottle stories, akin to WoD and its plot device being used to introduce the Mag'har well after its events (and in this case, in the relative future of its own invents). I have no doubt Shadowlands will get a similar treatment later on, as well. As for Shadowlands, I would say its most salient change to the ongoing story of WoW is the changeup in the Alliance's leadership as Anduin seemingly steps down from being High King and Turalyon apparently succeeds him. That's a pretty significant development that was part and parcel of the Shadowlands narrative, but it seems like the only significant development. As for WoD and Gul'dan, I also agree, but I think they could've handled the entirety of WoD in a brief short story or comic as a device to bring AU Gul'dan into MU Azeroth, and it would've made absolutely no difference to the overarching narrative or even player reception.

[rhorle]

You did it again, as well - excising only a portion of the argument and seizing on it without its proper surrounding context.

And yet you are doing the same by focusing only on the part you say I'm excising when in fact I am adressing it. Just because I only quote one part in between the brackets doesn't mean I'm cutting away the rest. Lmao. You clearly are dismissing my viewpoint because instead of engaging the arguments made you keep using logical fallacies and other devices to counter and dismiss.

Sure, we've broached Necromancy and dealt with the undead and its many tropes in WoW - but we've never explored the literal afterlife

So a medium can never explore the afterlife unless it has explored it before? Did you seriously think that through before you made that statement? You also ignore Legion where Death Knights visit the Shadowlands which wasn't the grey scale place. Or the place where Sylvanas visits when she jumped off of ICC in her short story.

But sure I'm the one arguing in bad faith because I am using the lore of the game to counter your arguments rather then logical fallacies or whatever other constructs you can think of. Strange right?

[Aleksej89]

Cata story was mishandled but it involved the aspects losing their power and the infamous hour of twilight where old gods got nasty etc.
We got some old characters back/introduced like the Elemental Lords (Ragnaros & Alakir & Neptulon etc) and a lot of the dynamic between how those villain factions work with one another was shown.
Naga were also shown their own lil empire which further develops one of the war3 races and shows they completely turned against neptulon (& joined old gods) which will change how that race is looked upon.
Wration was introduced in cata if i remember right and hes been a reoccurring character in later expos.
The cata story and all its big plot points definitely affected the world in quite a way.

Unlike lets say MOP which we went in and finished and got out... or WoD & TBC where we went in, jobs done aaaand we are out.
Those expansions changed very little about the WORLD of warcraft and mostly introduced throwaway story arcs that today are irrelevant.

Filler expansions have stories that can be treated almost like throw-away spinoffs.
Fun in their own right (mostly) but completely forgotten as soon as new expo launches.

[Woggmer]

I think that it's evident that it wasn't supposed to be filler, with most storylines being half-baked or having major plot holes, but they realized that there's such a large degree of friction between players and the current in-game systems and story that it just makes more sense to go all-in on Dragonflight, similarly to how they discontinued WoD development early and focused on Legion.

Except in the case of WoD, they wanted to get expansions out quicker due to the outcry of how long the content drought was at the end of MoP. So they tried to speed up WoD's production, but somewhere between the beta builds they gutted a lot of it to push some of the content in Legion while WoD was still in production. The collection system in Legion, the blueprints to the arena system later became the new pvp/talent system for Legion.. all this stuff was planned for WoD and they pushed it into Legion. Which is why people still complain about how much missed potential WoD had...

Shadowlands, on the other hand, there was promise, but a lot of cracks were beginning to show the moment people got their hands on the beta. The covenant abilities were either OP or not viable at all, The venthyr teleport would allow people to skip bosses, no quality of life stuff.. More lore questions sprang up rather than be answered. Unlike WoD where they changed gears mid-Alpha and Beta builds and pushed their content into the next expansion. They gave up on Shadowlands right after 9.1 and the Korthia stuff... The only plot holes that do come to mind are the Drust and their involvement, Sire Denathrius and where the Nathrezim taken him, and Ven'ari's arc is. All the plot points for the Kyrian and Necrolords have been explained.

It is also possible to that the controversies and lawsuits had some effect to Shadowlands as well (I don't know how much) but they probably weren't in a good condition to fix all of Shadowlands issues at the time so they had to end it faster rather than trying to make it work.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Less filler more.. it didnt work out and was mostly abandoned and became an idea board to throw things at to see if it sticks. Totally sucks. The good news is we got Legion after the last one of these and Legion was probably the best of the modern era of WoW expansions. So lets hope it happens again. A lot of the stuff looks to be going back more to the roots but with a modern twist.

[Super Dickmann]

Sure it can. The Scepter of Sargeras Artifact is used in place of Gul'dan. The quests for that in Legion even have it as the integral part of the puzzle for the Legion invasion and because some Warlocks stole it the Legion invasion ground to a halt because they could no longer open a mega portal to all of the Legion worlds for easy troop transport.

Of course Shadowlands has less bearing on Dragonflight because Blizzard isn't tying it directly to the story of the next one. WoD is the only one that had a major direct link so it is silly to use it as some baseline standard. Again filler is being used more for a buzzword scapegoat then anything of actual merit. Because you are literally saying since Blizzard hasn't linked Shadowlands to anything in the future yet it is nothing but a filler expansion.

That is silly and means pretty much all expansions are filler because their main story elements lose relevance as time goes on. Mists of Pandaria was irrelevant until Blizzard went back in 9.3. Was Mists just filler to set up WoD which in turn set up the Legion?

Sylvanas could've also gotten a stroke on her way to Icecrown and Anduin have gone off on a honeymoon with Baine and this'd leave you with the same status quo as the start of Dragonflight while skipping all of Shadowlands. But they didn't and unlike those circumstances, Gul'dan was relevant in as much as he appeared in a raid and multiple cutscenes and unlike an inanimate object like the Scepter, he can have an actual character and appear in scenes, as indeed Gul'dan does. You can achieve aims while substituting others, but some substitutions are others and opening that box only shows how much more peripheral SL is compared to even WoD.

Past that, you're venting against a strawman and a dumb strawman and that. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are for why DF is not connected to SL, only that it isn't, because the pertinence of the past story on the current one is what we're talking about. Could SL pop up later? Obviously and I say that I fully expect many of its elements to recur later in the very same post you quote.

The final position is especially braindead. Mists was never irrelevant, even foregoing its actually recurring worldbuilding, it removed the orcish leader and gutted the main Horde race for all time. The Horde going into WoD and Legion isn't the one in Mists. Pandaren weren't a part of the factions before and joined them after. Elements of Pandaria recur through Legion and Shadowlands.

@Aucald

Gul'dan's addition or some other contrivance could've handled the Legion's return, but the orc clans are exponentially better for Warlords having happened especially now that they've been imported into the MU and Gul'dan is better for having the screen time he did, to the point where he's the best villain in Legion purely on the back of his side materials. And the exact inciting of Legion and a part of its content couldn't take place without Warlords. If Anduin takes no role in DF, as is likely, then even that element wouldn't directly need to have been from SL to have happened, but that part at least is obviously too early to tell.