If the shadowlands leak is fake, then its a very logical, well thought one.

[DotEleven]

What's the problem with being "dead" until 9.0? Place Chromie somewhere to undo the stuff and alternate between your dead version or your alive version. For sure there needs to be some content for your dead version so... I don't really see it as a problem to do this.

The fact that there's a massive schism between the lore and gameplay. Lore-wise we'd be stuck in the shadowlands, gameplaywise we'd leave the instance and be back on Azeroth. You can have some separation of story and gameplay, but that's taking it a bit too far. Like I brought up before, imagine if in Pandaria Siege of Orgrimmar ended with us getting sent to Alternate Draenor with no way back. Just how jarring of a transition it would be?

[Nyel]

The fact that there's a massive schism between the lore and gameplay. Lore-wise we'd be stuck in the shadowlands, gameplaywise we'd leave the instance and be back on Azeroth. You can have some separation of story and gameplay, but that's taking it a bit too far. Like I brought up before, imagine if in Pandaria Siege of Orgrimmar ended with us getting sent to Alternate Draenor with no way back. Just how jarring of a transition it would be?

I don't say it's a good solution story-wise, I just say it would be doable from a gameplay perspective.

[DotEleven]

I don't say it's a good solution story-wise, I just say it would be doable from a gameplay perspective.

Yeah, but you kinda need to have both. If it works good gameplay-wise but doesn't really make any sense story-wise and causes such a jarring thing, it's not really a solution. I mean, we've used the whole "bronze dragonflight" to transport us to a past version of the current zone we're in to see it as it once was, this isn't even sending us back in time, but basically bringing us back from death.

[Corroc]

I don't say it's a good solution story-wise, I just say it would be doable from a gameplay perspective.

The raid will be cleared in 2 months and we will still have atleast 6months before the actual expansion. The event makes sense as prepatch event but not as raid that is supposed to tie up the expansion. Raids have actually rarely been leading the players to next expansion, that's what prepatches usually do.

- - - Updated - - -

What's the problem with being "dead" until 9.0? Place Chromie somewhere to undo the stuff and alternate between your dead version or your alive version. For sure there needs to be some content for your dead version so... I don't really see it as a problem to do this.

To answer this more specifically, Chromie isn't exactly gameplay solution, its more of technical solution for people who have to visit the npc's in the old version of the zones. Gameplay wise, Chromie makes absolutely no sense.

[Delano]

Exactly. The content of the leak is so audaciously stupid that it could only be Blizzard.

[Hitei]

I don't say it's a good solution story-wise, I just say it would be doable from a gameplay perspective.

There are some larger issues bronze flight doesn't really deal with, like how do you handle anyone who hasn't done the raid, and so isn't dead or trapped in the shadowlands--how do you have any sort of pre-patch even when your raiders are all dead and stuck in the shadowlands, but a significant portion of non-raiders are alive and hanging out in Boralus? You can't have the event take place in your regular cities and world, because your raiders aren't there, and the bronze flight can't send you to the present when you're already in the present, and you can't have it take place in the shadowlands because non-raiders aren't in the shadowlands, which leads to: Where do you even literally put the characters? Like after the cinematic ends your character is supposed to be stuck in the shadowlands, what are you seeing when the cinematic ends? A small instanced, cut off area of "the shadowlands" like the Emerald dream section you get put in after beating Xavius? If the pre-patch has more allied races, how does that work? Again you'd have Chromie sending you to the present to do ongoing stuff.

How is the bronze flight even sending you back? Like you are magically trapped (I mean this in the literal sense, you are trapped by magic) as a soul in the shadowlands, how are they getting you to the past? You'd just be a soul in the shadowlands, but in the past--unless they can somehow revert your state to being alive, in which case how are you even trapped? The bronze flight stuff operates on the assumption that your present self is stepping into the past and doing stuff there, you aren't going back to a past version of yourself, and here your present self is a trapped soul.


---

More realistically though. 7.2.5's information kills this leak. Not because you couldn't have Sylvanas being a dick with the "war campaign" over, but because this entire expansion has been about there being a climactic and lasting conclusion to the faction conflict, and this leak has the expansion ending with everyone hating each other again, Sylvanas killing everyone and trying to forcibly draft them into the army of the dead, and basically just a lot of stuff that screams "we still hate each other". The story is clearly moving towards some sort of cross-faction understanding/cooperation, and you aren't going to get that from violently recruiting both sides. What reason would the Alliance have to get along with the Horde if the Horde rallies under Sylvanas who has just massacred a second city full of innocents? The Night Elves sure as shit aren't going to take "It was to fight N'zoth" as an excuse for Teldrassil.

[Kohtra]

I'm going to make a wild guess and say that Shadowlands *was* intended to be an expansion some time ago (like 2-3 years ago) but Blizzard decided to make 9.0 something else and Shadowlands is now instead going to be 8.3 in some reduced form.

In other words, the leak was real, but using old information from 2-3 years ago so it's only partially correct now.

[Yoshingo]

Chronicles rewrote that part. Arthas was trying to unify the entire world under his rule so he can fight Legion when they come back, and cull old god shenanigans beacuse undead are immune to that stuff. Yeah it's a little sappy but it is how it is.

It did not rewrite it in the way you're saying.

The original Lich King, that is Ner'zhul, was designed to wipe out mortal resistance.

When Arthas became the Lich King, they retconned it a decade after he was already canonically dead to say that his logic was, 'If everyone is dead, then the world can resist the Old God corruption,' much like they've implied with Sylvanas.

Ultimately that's such a stupid dumbass bullshit argument but no, the Scourge was not create to fight the Old GOds.

[Shelly]

As much as I enjoy the game.

As much as I've invested almost 15 years of time in it.

As much as I look forward to each new expansion and the changes it will bring both good and bad.

If Shadowlands is real - hell if Shadowlands is 8.3 patch content. I think I'm done.

Like straight up. It's a bridge too far, ignores what lore they've set up of Sylvannas being a naughty and manipulative girl all expansion, sets up a stupid way to level squish us, tinkers are dumb and have all the problems of druids if not more with regards to transmog, the plot twist is less a twist and more getting sucker punched by a clown at a baseball game.

Also it would mean an expansion where the primary color scheme is washed out blacks and purples and after the last two boss raid I just can't deal with that again.

There's nothing that would make me want to keep playing outside of habit and frankly I've got better things to do.

[Daronokk]

Why do people say Old Gods and Undead hate eachother so much? Sometimes they coexist just fine.

Look at Ner'zhul for example, he's utilizing the dark star, a fallen Naaru, which gives him void powers but also able to control the dead.
Another thing, Yogg-Saron is called the "Old God of Death", which doesn't make sense if they hate dead things so much. It implies he has some sort of control over the dead. In the past there was the theory that Yogg-Saron was actually controling the Lich King instead of being afraid of it. Which fits with the story of Warcraft 3 more.

And don't we see Void beings in the Shadowlands in the Vol'jin questline?

I think people are reading too much into that Windrunners comic. The Void and Undead can work together just fine. The only thing they both hate is Fel magic like the Burning Legion.

[Hitei]

I'm going to make a wild guess and say that Shadowlands *was* intended to be an expansion some time ago (like 2-3 years ago) but Blizzard decided to make 9.0 something else and Shadowlands is now instead going to be 8.3 in some reduced form.

In other words, the leak was real, but using old information from 2-3 years ago so it's only partially correct now.

Extremely doubtful. If it were an old pitched concept it wouldn't have had the assets it was first presented with. This was always a primary problem with the leak. It looks like it was made by someone trying to make a leak, not like an actual internal presentation.

Why do people say Old Gods and Undead hate eachother so much? Sometimes they coexist just fine.

Look at Ner'zhul for example, he's utilizing the dark star, a fallen Naaru, which gives him void powers but also able to control the dead.
Another thing, Yogg-Saron is called the "Old God of Death", which doesn't make sense if they hate dead things so much. It implies he has some sort of control over the dead. In the past there was the theory that Yogg-Saron was actually controling the Lich King instead of being afraid of it. Which fits with the story of Warcraft 3 more.

And don't we see Void beings in the Shadowlands in the Vol'jin questline?

I think people are reading too much into that Windrunners comic. The Void and Undead can work together just fine. The only thing they both hate is Fel magic like the Burning Legion.

Yes, very much so.

Necromancy has always been super close to shadow/void magic. The Nathrezim are, per Chronicle, a race who dedicated their existence to mastering shadow magic, and they are quite capable of necromancy. The shadowmoon use significant amounts of void-based necromancy, the Void Elves use void-based necromancy, shadow priests in general have ties to necromancy (see: auchenai soulbinders), the Forsaken's primary priest organization is the Cult of Forgotten Shadow--which is to say that the biggest friendly shadow priest organization in the game is made up of largely undead.

Realistically there's no reason to assume the undead are some major force against the Void, when the Void itself can be used to make undead.

[Kohtra]

Extremely doubtful. If it were an old pitched concept it wouldn't have had the assets it was first presented with. This was always a primary problem with the leak. It looks like it was made by someone trying to make a leak, not like an actual internal presentation.

Seems like having a map with placeholder names is exactly what you would have for a pitched concept.

[Hitei]

Seems like having a map with placeholder names is exactly what you would have for a pitched concept.

No, what you have for a pitched concept is a quick (because there's no reason to spend a whole bunch of time on polish and good looks and coming up with names when most of it is going to change) visual aid that communicates large amounts of information.

Like this:



Do you see how placeholder names for internal assets are things like "Farmland valley", "Beaches", "Mantid Colony" "Shadowpan Hideout", "Zandalari Isle", etc? They are not random lore names come up with to sound cool; they are specifically noting exactly what is there and what major locations are for a specific group of NPCs. Because in an internal meeting you don't want shit like "Journey's End", or "Sathdara" on a concept you are pitching, because what the fuck do those even mean? They are non-information. You're just going to get "What is Journey's End?" and then have to spend time in your presentation specifically explaining what each of these vague labels means.

Also note how the coloration on the maps is utilitarian, it's there to describe the actual terrain and structure, not to look cool (like that fucking water effect in the shadowlands map), how the labeling is clear, and how there isn't shit like "LAYOUT" or a giant logo blocking the fucking map, because you are trying to show people the map, not tell them that a map shows a layout (no shit sherlock, that is literally the function of a map).

Even when you get more refined concepts deeper in, once you have names, your concept maps are still going to be explanatory and utilitarian:



See how most stuff still has explanations under it indicating exactly what it is? Because putting just "slavisar" on a map does absolutely nothing, like puting "Sathdara" on a map. Putting "Slavisar (Iron Horde - shattered hand)" tells you that there's an area of that zone called Slavisar which is held by, specifically, the shattered hand part of the Iron Horde).

The shadowlands map is made to look nice. It's what someone thinks a concept map should look like to seem real, not what an actual real concept map looks like.

[Kohtra]

No, what you have for a pitched concept is a quick (because there's no reason to spend a whole bunch of time on polish and good looks and coming up with names when most of it is going to change) visual aid that communicates large amounts of information.

Like this:



Do you see how placeholder names for internal assets are things like "Farmland valley", "Beaches", "Mantid Colony" "Shadowpan Hideout", "Zandalari Isle", etc? They are not random lore names come up with to sound cool; they are specifically noting exactly what is there and what major locations are for a specific group of NPCs. Because in an internal meeting you don't want shit like "Journey's End", or "Sathdara" on a concept you are pitching, because what the fuck do those even mean? They are non-information. You're just going to get "What is Journey's End?" and then have to spend time in your presentation specifically explaining what each of these vague labels means.

Also note how the coloration on the maps is utilitarian, it's there to describe the actual terrain and structure, not to look cool (like that fucking water effect in the shadowlands map), how the labeling is clear, and how there isn't shit like "LAYOUT" or a giant logo blocking the fucking map, because you are trying to show people the map, not tell them that a map shows a layout (no shit sherlock, that is literally the function of a map).

Even when you get more refined concepts deeper in, once you have names, your concept maps are still going to be explanatory and utilitarian:



See how most stuff still has explanations under it indicating exactly what it is? Because putting just "slavisar" on a map does absolutely nothing, like puting "Sathdara" on a map. Putting "Slavisar (Iron Horde - shattered hand)" tells you that there's an area of that zone called Slavisar which is held by, specifically the shattered hand part of the Iron Horde).

The shadowlands map is made to look nice. It's what someone thinks a concept map should look like to seem real, not what an actual real concept map looks like.

Dude, for the sake of argument, if I'm right and it was originally planned as an expansion then we don't actually know how far along it got in development. You're making some massive assumptions here.

[Tyrathius]

Why do people say Old Gods and Undead hate eachother so much? Sometimes they coexist just fine.

Look at Ner'zhul for example, he's utilizing the dark star, a fallen Naaru, which gives him void powers but also able to control the dead.
Another thing, Yogg-Saron is called the "Old God of Death", which doesn't make sense if they hate dead things so much. It implies he has some sort of control over the dead. In the past there was the theory that Yogg-Saron was actually controling the Lich King instead of being afraid of it. Which fits with the story of Warcraft 3 more.

And don't we see Void beings in the Shadowlands in the Vol'jin questline?

I think people are reading too much into that Windrunners comic. The Void and Undead can work together just fine. The only thing they both hate is Fel magic like the Burning Legion.

People really, really, really want to believe Sylvanas isn't just evil and there's a reason for what she's doing. "Murdering everybody is somehow necessary to stop the void" is the best they've been able to come up with.

I agree it's a huge stretch given that Sylvanas and N'Zoth seem to be loosely allied at this point (Sylvanas and Azshara worked together to decimate the Alliance and Horde fleets in Nazjatar, and she arranged for the Heart of Azeroth to be delivered to them). Granted, we don't know her reasons for doing so, so it's possible there's going to be some kind of "I helped free you so I could kill you myself" twist coming. Still, it seems odd that the void would think of her as it's "true enemy" when she has thus far been helping it. A simpler explanation was that the void was trying to tempt Alleria into killing her sister because it wanted another faction war, which Sylvanas later started anyway.

[Hitei]

Dude, for the sake of argument, if I'm right and it was originally planned as an expansion then we don't actually know how far along it got in development. You're making some massive assumptions here.

I'm not, if you had actually bothered to read you'd see I literally just showed you how it makes zero sense as something extremely early in development, and also makes no sense as something late in development. It's problems are independent of development stage.

[Kohtra]

I'm not, if you had actually bothered to read you'd see I literally just showed you how it makes zero sense as something extremely early in development, and also makes no sense as something late in development. It's problems are independent of development stage.

I never said "extremely early in development". All I said is maybe it was planned as an expansion, then downgraded to become a content patch. And if it was from a presentation then there's no reason to think that one slide was literally the whole presentation.

[Hitei]

I never said "extremely early in development". All I said is maybe it was planned as an expansion, then downgraded to become a content patch. And if it was from a presentation then there's no reason to think that one slide was literally the whole presentation.

What are you even talking about? The issue is not whether it is or isn't part of a larger presentation. The issue is that it is a concept map made to look visually nice and sell itself as being real, rather than an actual concept map made to show a concept and communicate information.

[Revamp Man]

I feel like everyone trying to get more people to buy this poor excuse for fan fiction is either
1. Same person
2. Group of trolls
3. Really wanting to not be alone in the camp of doofs

[Kohtra]

What are you even talking about? The issue is not whether it is or isn't part of a larger presentation. The issue is that it is a concept map made to look visually nice and sell itself as being real, rather than an actual concept map made to show a concept and communicate information.

Forget it. We'll find out on Tuesday. Sorry to have upset you.