Do you like the First Ones' lore?

[Super Dickmann]

Legion Was pretty much the capstone of what I'd call the Azeroth-centric arc, sure; and while I'd say it is much smaller in scale than Shadowlands and all it portends, it is definitely far-reaching as concerns some big concepts like the Titans, the Legion, and so on. But I maintain it was still a high point in the arc of WoW's ongoing narrative, as compared to Shadowlands' ultimate reception.

Legion's better than Shadowlands, but torches and pitchforks out at people's leisure, not much more so, mostly benefitting from being complete and the expansion's content release cadence. In terms of overall impact, Legion and BFA made something like Shadowlands inevitable in as much as all mystery of the setting had been eliminated and the biggest, most built-up bad permanently benched. Something like the First Ones would have to be inevitably introduced and Chronicle eventually retconned even more than the immediate change of the Titans being alive and imprisoned dead, because short of Elune adnd the Void Lords there were no higher instances left and the setting was solved.

[Aucald]

All this deepening and creation of new gods and villains is the worst thing that ever happened to wow lore. Shadowlands (not only the addon itself, but all related materials like Grimoire or various interviews) caused literally irreparable damage to the Warcraft lore with all these stupid retcons, revealing secrets in such a miserable way (I love Elune and Danuzer just gave a shit about the whole lore, deciding that it's a great idea to connect the most mysterious character of Warcraft with the Winter Queen, which he came up with in 5 minutes because he is sure that this will add depth to the character he created and make the fans love her more) and so on. It would be much better if we went to the dragon isles right after BFA

Without getting drawn into yet another pro/anti-Danuser argument, I'd generally say you're mostly right, sure. I didn't have an issue with the Eternal Ones as characters or anything, nor do I hold up Elune as some kind of sacred calf whose story is essentially inviolable scripture - Elune was probably thought up in 5 or so minutes a long time ago when Metzen and co. were brainstorming WoW's mythology back in the early aughts. But yeah, Shadowlands is ultimately a completely skippable bottle story in the same manner as WoD - a long-winded side story that could've been handled in a short story for all the impact it currently has on WoW as a whole moving forward.

I don't really like or hate Danuser at the end of the day. He's not some malicious trickster-god or malevolent force with an agenda to despoil WoW's lore. At best, he's just a writer with a specific story he wants to tell, and he's willing to play fast and loose with established continuity in the name of getting where he wants to go. At worst, he's just kind of a hack - maybe he's got some interesting ideas, but he probably shouldn't have the reins of being WoW's effective showrunner when it comes to narrative. I kind of liken him to WoW's version of Steven Moffat - he tells a good one-off story, but when it comes to managing the property in the wider sense, he doesn't really seem to have a good grasp on what WoW's actual strengths as an IP are, nor what his audience is really looking for in general.

- - - Updated - - -

Legion's better than Shadowlands, but torches and pitchforks out at people's leisure, not much more so, mostly benefitting from being complete and the expansion's content release cadence. In terms of overall impact, Legion and BFA made something like Shadowlands inevitable in as much as all mystery of the setting had been eliminated and the biggest, most built-up bad permanently benched. Something like the First Ones would have to be inevitably introduced and Chronicle eventually retconned even more than the immediate change of the Titans being alive and imprisoned dead, because short of Elune adnd the Void Lords there were no higher instances left and the setting was solved.

I put the majority of the onus for Shadowlands on BfA, and not Legion. It was entirely possible to put both the Legion and the Titans in the proverbial cooler, and then deal with more terrestrial issues central to Azeroth as opposed to immediately going the Old God/Jailer/cosmic route in short order. Back at the close of Legion I actually advocated for a kind of cooldown expansion idea, with the heroes of the Legionfall campaign returning to Azeroth and taking stock of the destruction done to the world, the depleted states of both the Alliance and the Horde, the renewal of tension between the main factions due to the events of the Broken Shore, and the various hints of a resurging N'Zoth that were part and parcel of Legion's story.

Legion actually kind of brought Azeroth back to a strange echo of the status quo of Classic, which could've been capitalized on before a solid body-swerve into Old God goodness with N'Zoth leading the charge as the true villain of an expansion as opposed to his weird arc in BfA's final act.

[Kokolums]

first ones need to be wiped from the lore along with the rest of that level of nonsense.

[Biomega]

How can I like or dislike it, we know nothing about them.

[Super Dickmann]

I put the majority of the onus for Shadowlands on BfA, and not Legion. It was entirely possible to put both the Legion and the Titans in the proverbial cooler, and then deal with more terrestrial issues central to Azeroth as opposed to immediately going the Old God/Jailer/cosmic route in short order. Back at the close of Legion I actually advocated for a kind of cooldown expansion idea, with the heroes of the Legionfall campaign returning to Azeroth and taking stock of the destruction done to the world, the depleted states of both the Alliance and the Horde, the renewal of tension between the main factions due to the events of the Broken Shore, and the various hints of a resurging N'Zoth that were part and parcel of Legion's story.

Legion actually kind of brought Azeroth back to a strange echo of the status quo of Classic, which could've been capitalized on before a solid body-swerve into Old God goodness with N'Zoth leading the charge as the true villain of an expansion as opposed to his weird arc in BfA's final act.

Most of it is on BFA, as BFA directly left plot threads open by not finishing up its own plot as its schizophrenia split it between an arc, depleting every villain and mysterious area left after Legion. But the scale of Legion was massive, the ending and lack of consequences to fighting the biggest bads of the setting strained credulity and it escalated the stakes to the highest they'd ever be until Shadowlands. Even Shadowlands doesn't put the players at the ridiculous power level and familiarity that Legion did and while Legion succeeded, chiefly by dint of actually grounding its nonsense on Azeroth, the wages of it were that we'd beaten the biggest bad and were left with a setup that needed answering, i.e the sword and those fleets of ships going for Azeroth throughout Argus and the consequences of the 'largest legion invasion ever'. BFA disregarded the latter immediately and disregarded the former as soon as Sylvanas torched the tree, in the process further diminishing the net effect of it.

That said, BFA still had three expansions' worth of material made in it that would've given plenty of time for actually capable writing to have put in some more mystery in the setting and Shadowlands suffered massively from not just having to bear the brunt of necessary steps to add more parts to what was, post-Chronicle, a solved setting with everything short of Elune explained, but the self-imposed issue of doing it by way of a shambolic soap opera story starring a cast comprised exclusively of screentime-hogging cardboard cutouts, heroes and villains both.

[darkoms]

Most of it is on BFA, as BFA directly left plot threads open by not finishing up its own plot as its schizophrenia split it between an arc, depleting every villain and mysterious area left after Legion. But the scale of Legion was massive, the ending and lack of consequences to fighting the biggest bads of the setting strained credulity and it escalated the stakes to the highest they'd ever be until Shadowlands. Even Shadowlands doesn't put the players at the ridiculous power level and familiarity that Legion did and while Legion succeeded, chiefly by dint of actually grounding its nonsense on Azeroth, the wages of it were that we'd beaten the biggest bad and were left with a setup that needed answering, i.e the sword and those fleets of ships going for Azeroth throughout Argus and the consequences of the 'largest legion invasion ever'. BFA disregarded the latter immediately and disregarded the former as soon as Sylvanas torched the tree, in the process further diminishing the net effect of it.

That said, BFA still had three expansions' worth of material made in it that would've given plenty of time for actually capable writing to have put in some more mystery in the setting and Shadowlands suffered massively from not just having to bear the brunt of necessary steps to add more parts to what was, post-Chronicle, a solved setting with everything short of Elune explained, but the self-imposed issue of doing it by way of a shambolic soap opera story starring a cast comprised exclusively of screentime-hogging cardboard cutouts, heroes and villains both.

In the Legion, we saved the physical universe. In SL, we saved everything in general by penetrating into the forge of the gods-over-the-gods.

[angrywithmygod]

God I hope they retcon first ones or atleast drop them from being titan plus beings. It wouldn't be impossible as nothing about what was presented in shadowlands makes them seem any more powerful than titans, you could just merely say that they were simply the equivalent of titans at one point but died off. Have the eternals ones simply be the equivalent of titan keepers.

It would also allow for them to do Elune some Justice by still having her be a power unto herself. The whole sister of winter queen could simply just be how she refers to her allies in other domains as she sees them as equals (even if they are not)

[Golden Yak]

I don't like the idea that they just straight-up created the six cosmic forces, and the gods that reign over them.

It's dumb and bad.

Warcraft already had a nice little cosmology with Light and Void being the genesis of the cosmos - two primordial forces colliding in the first war(craft) that made everything else spring into being. Pure creative essence clashing with pure chaotic possibility. The perfect recipe to create anything and everything. An actual, honest to goodness interesting take on the dichotomy of light and darkness.

We don't need dumb math music rock geometry robot aliens being a step before that.

If they had just been the first race to emerge from the collision of Light and Void, that would've been okay. Maybe even interesting, if they were building their robot gods with the intention of replacing existing pantheons with tools that they control, as part of some far reaching goal to conquer everything.

[Inoculate]

I'll like them until they start showing them. I really like the mysterious stuff. Uldaman is one of my fav dungeons for a reason.

Exactly. I remember back in Vanilla just hanging outside of the broken door to Uldum with friends talking about what could have busted out. The lore was much more fun when it was more mysterious and them shedding light on it and picking the most lame and cliche path to explain it ruins a lot of the mystique that was the lore.

[Xilurm]

Exactly. I remember back in Vanilla just hanging outside of the broken door to Uldum with friends talking about what could have busted out. The lore was much more fun when it was more mysterious and them shedding light on it and picking the most lame and cliche path to explain it ruins a lot of the mystique that was the lore.

Yeah I remember being so curious about it, always wondering what it could've been. And when they showed us they made half the experience a pop culture reference to Indiana Jones. Was kinda dissapointing.

[Caerule]

I like the First Ones, but it's very hard to get a good picture of them, from the convoluted and hidden references them, cloaked in rambling and hidden messages. So what I'll type here will be the conclusions I've drawn from that's there.

Strength through Unity.
-Each of the First Ones is said to have given of themselves, to spawn the cosmos as we know it. Each of them giving rise to one of the cosmic forces. This means there were (at least) 6.
-They wanted to create something new with their unity. One force, born from six. More than the sum of their parts. Strength through Unity.
-Hypothesis: We are what they sought to create. Mortals. A force capable of wielding all 6 cosmic forces, not just one. And stronger than any single cosmic force.

Patterns within Patterns.
-Together, the First Ones wove the song of creation, imbued with their essence. But it was never meant to stop, but to echo. To repeat. To be a fractal.
-This is why cosmic forces this pantheon has spawned, have their own pantheons. And from the creation of these pantheons, new forces and new pantheons take route. In an ever continuing cycle. Elements, and elemental lords. Keepers of Planets. Aspects of Dragons. And so on. Expanding and differentiating.

The Fallen Seventh.
-The cosmos itself is flawed and ununited. There is a repeating flaw. Every pantheon that rises, has one that goes dark and turns on the others. The Titans, the Eternal Ones, the Dragonflights, the Seven Kingdoms.
-Hypothesis: This flaw in the universe exists, because it exists among its creators. They too had one that went dark, and turned on the others.
-There is a rumored 7th force that was not included in the making of the universe. And while it remained in balance, has been unable to enter.
-Hypothesis: This 7th force is the fallen one from the Pantheon of the First Ones. It is what forced them to unite their powers.

My Conclusion:
I like it. It fits the theme of the cosmos, in the very largest scale. It matches the themes we see in this universe. It fits the original message of unlikely forces coming together in unity to stand against a greater evil. And it explains why us mortals are so special. We, from a world soaked in the power of all cosmic forces, and able to wield all of them.

For me, that's a full setting. From mortal, to ancient cosmic originator. I think maybe we've been exposed to them too soon. Before we've seen even more than two of the pantheons of the cosmic forces, we've already seen so much of their progenitors. Maybe that's out of order. But, maybe Blizzard just want to start planting seeds for this 7th force. I hope they take it real slow with that one. Like, our victory on Argus against the Burning Legion started off with green fel-corrupted orcs from a portal, 20 years earlier. If Blizzard plays this out right, and sets up another vast story, this could be exactly what Warcraft needs to last another 20 years. And I'm down with that.

[Niwes]

no. not at all.

its completely BS story filler stuff, that doesnt even fit anything in the xpac in the slightest. i have no clue who came to the idea to start some templating robotic automa shit in a story like SL.

i would even go further and say its the biggest BS i ever saw in wow.

sadly they missed the chance to just let us awake in next xpac from a bad Nzoth dream, so everything of SL gets negated. because this shit will hurt the wow lore and anything rational in wow for years to come.

[Feanoro]

Sincerely, why do they even exist?

I don't subscribe to forum theories very often but at this point I do think that Danuser is just jealous and envious of what the previous writers created, like many people on the internet have been saying.

First Ones = Titans 2.0 but cooler
Maldraxxus = Scourge 2.0 but more ancient
Zovaal the Janitor = Sargeras/Lich King 2.0 but more EVIL!!!
Threat that Zovaal is scared of (IF NOT THE VOID LORDS) = Void Lords 2.0 but EVEN MORE EVIL!!!

Literally everything the First Ones did could have been done by the Titans. They already created the Emerald Dream, a realm of Life that shows a version of Azeroth where life is pristine and untouched by mortals, why couldn't they have created the realm of Death too?

But maybe a better question is: Did we even need to know who created the Afterlife in the first place, should such a mystery have been revealed in the first place?

It takes time, but eventually people catch up.

Got flamed so hard for saying some of that at the beginning of SL, and now it's demonstrated to be true. The First Ones are the new Titans, and like the Titans they will be named and explained, at which time we will suddenly discover they work for the Before Ones.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

I hated them at first for creating all this mess but when I understood they are my favorite race in game that I used to role-play as for all this time I was literally shocked. I tried to understand them and I ended up literally feeling bad for them after what I seen in Shadowlands. The beauty they created and the horrors they had to go through. Seeing results of this blasted pool I have my doubts now if I will ever see them again or interact with in no other way than seeing them as defeat-able bosses! Grr

[Super Dickmann]

In the Legion, we saved the physical universe. In SL, we saved everything in general by penetrating into the forge of the gods-over-the-gods.

Yes, which is why, as said in the quote, SL as a whole still has higher stakes. But our power and that of the baddie, as well as our relationship with the highest tier in the setting is still lower. In SL the giant blue man with a death theme we fight at some kind of seat of cosmic power needs to go through several layers of convoluted plot devices to achieve his goal and both he and we are fighting in the leftovers of the setting's current gods. We never meet said gods, we just see their works and they take no direct part in what we do nor are they explained in familiar terms. In Legion, we fight and defeat two such gods, receive quests from them and hear them quip.

[Th3Scourge]

No one cares just hurry up and move on to Dragonflight

[darkoms]

God I hope they retcon first ones or atleast drop them from being titan plus beings. It wouldn't be impossible as nothing about what was presented in shadowlands makes them seem any more powerful than titans, you could just merely say that they were simply the equivalent of titans at one point but died off. Have the eternals ones simply be the equivalent of titan keepers.

It would also allow for them to do Elune some Justice by still having her be a power unto herself. The whole sister of winter queen could simply just be how she refers to her allies in other domains as she sees them as equals (even if they are not)

I thought about it too. The first Ones should be the Pantheon of Death, and the lore that they created all 6 powers is just the opinion of the brokers, that would be a good retcon.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, which is why, as said in the quote, SL as a whole still has higher stakes. But our power and that of the baddie, as well as our relationship with the highest tier in the setting is still lower. In SL the giant blue man with a death theme we fight at some kind of seat of cosmic power needs to go through several layers of convoluted plot devices to achieve his goal and both he and we are fighting in the leftovers of the setting's current gods. We never meet said gods, we just see their works and they take no direct part in what we do nor are they explained in familiar terms. In Legion, we fight and defeat two such gods, receive quests from them and hear them quip.

The Jailer is the equivalent of Sargeras from the Pantheon of Death, only much weaker. We also never fought Sargeras himself, only Argus. And it was only the spirits of the Titans. And I don't think we were stronger in Legion than we were in Shadowlands, people massively overestimate artifacts

[Gaidax]

I think it's good and it probably should forever remains vague and mysterious. Their presentation is very good and I do like how little we know about them despite messing in their lab.

It's something that Titans lost over the years and Void Lords will lose too, probably.

First Ones should be like a Big Bang - we know it happened, see the results and know how it evolved, but we don't know what happened 1 second before or even the moment it happened. They should stay that way and I do think the edge of dealing with their remnants and failsafe mechanisms exploited by 6 powers one way or another is a good one.

[Super Dickmann]

The Jailer is the equivalent of Sargeras from the Pantheon of Death, only much weaker. We also never fought Sargeras himself, only Argus. And it was only the spirits of the Titans. And I don't think we were stronger in Legion than we were in Shadowlands, people massively overestimate artifacts

The main thing is the relationship we have to the highest power in the setting at that time.

In Legion, the highest power are the Titans and we defeat two of them, albeit with help, talk with all of them fairly casually, take quests from them and defeat Sargeras, albeit indirectly. In Shadowlands, the highest power is the First Ones and we fight a villain that's a lot weaker than Sargeras, and, in as much as power levels can be parsed, Argus, Aggramar and N'zoth, without ever interacting with the First Ones beyond physically being in a place they built.

In Legion, we interact with the most powerful beings in the settings at a peer level, be it in fighting or dialogue. In Shadowlands, we fight in their room and the baddie has gone through a convoluted, incredibly long plan to be able to hijack their machines.

There's no reason to think we're stronger in SL than in Legion. I doubt binding souls with that waste of space Pelagos is equivalent to wielding the Scepter that Ner'zhul used to destroy a planet, for example and the Jailer is by all indications weaker than Argus, Aggramar or N'zoth. I'd put him under Archimonde as well, but power levels are a mess.

[VinceVega]

What lore?^^

They are the new elune. Nothing known until they need a bigger bad than we get the earlier ones
Its stupid. They should have kept the whole titan stuff more mysterious and elune as god in our universe. People believe but there is no evidence other than moon spells no one knows if they got them acutally form her.


It is stupid. The only reason they exist is to bring back mystery after destroying a percfectly good upper level mystery.