Afterlives - Maldraxxus

[Beet]

They must have wanted/needed a female orc, and arguably, Draka is the most well-known dead female Orc.

Bingo. Blizzard have gone extremely heavy on pushing diversity lately across all their games. Just look at the art of Hearthstones latest expansion for example as well as the upcoming skin colors for races in WoW. And that’s actually a great thing, but it shouldn’t be shoved in so hard where it doesn’t make sense. They should have just made this Garrosh or one of the many other big badass warriors we know from history. Yes that would have been a male, but so what? BFA was woman dominate with Sylvanas, Talanji, Azshara, and to a lesser extent Jaina. It let the women take charge and be focal characters. So it’s not like they have to bring up more new women ASAP to balance the current roles.

I mean as stoked as I am for Thrall being back, I feel Blizzard missed their chance at great exploration with his family in WoD. I don’t need nor want to see him with Draka now.

[Minikin]

Eh

Its really freaking hard to top Arthas, uther, maw and frostmourne lol.

Maybe they should have released that one last

[kaelhoel]

Meh... Beautiful, but where is the passion and personality? No goosebumps this time. Looking forward to the next one.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Bingo. Blizzard have gone extremely heavy on pushing diversity lately across all their games. Just look at the art of Hearthstones latest expansion for example as well as the upcoming skin colors for races in WoW. And that’s actually a great thing, but it shouldn’t be shoved in so hard where it doesn’t make sense. They should have just made this Garrosh or one of the many other big badass warriors we know from history. Yes that would have been a male, but so what? BFA was woman dominate with Sylvanas, Talanji, Azshara, and to a lesser extent Jaina. It let the women take charge and be focal characters. So it’s not like they have to bring up more new women ASAP to balance the current roles.

I mean as stoked as I am for Thrall being back, I feel Blizzard missed their chance at great exploration with his family in WoD. I don’t need nor want to see him with Draka now.

But on the other hand, it would get real old, real fast, if all the relevant characters in Shadowlands were already prominent in the narrative beforehand. It would tend to feel fanservicey real fast if it all came across a "greatest hits re-release." Considering we already have Uther and Kael'thas being very prominent on their Covenant stories, there's a definite point that not everyone that is relevant on SL has already been part of the narrative before.

As such, Garrosh would have been the worst choice -and to be honest, he is too intimate of a threat to just bring back like Uther or Kael. He needs something more involved than that-

So it feels like the point was to bring up a lore side character that we all know but never met and build that up. And yeah, of course they want to bring more female characters on the forefront cause Warcraft was kind of a sausage fest, and coincidentally, there's a lot of dead women as per backstory reasons, so SL is like the perfect context.

That being said, while the logic behind all is great, I'm not to enamored with the execution. This is indeed very little we get of Draka, and while the parallels between her death and using her new skills to survive a similar situation are great, I am wary of Blizzard's effort when they basically made her into Garona.

Cause yeah, they have this whole consistent logic of why a character like Draka should be our focal point, only to basically make her an undead version of Garona, the only mayor female orc character already existent.

[Cizr]

Imo it was not bad. Bastion was better but it was bound to be with Uther and Arthas. They set the bar pretty high there.


But wtf was that Shadowlands/Legion thing ? https://imgur.com/a/pbOr0Nr

I hope it has some story explanation and isnt just Blizz being lazy because that would be super lame.

[Kyphael]

Bingo. Blizzard have gone extremely heavy on pushing diversity lately across all their games. Just look at the art of Hearthstones latest expansion for example as well as the upcoming skin colors for races in WoW. And that’s actually a great thing, but it shouldn’t be shoved in so hard where it doesn’t make sense. They should have just made this Garrosh or one of the many other big badass warriors we know from history. Yes that would have been a male, but so what? BFA was woman dominate with Sylvanas, Talanji, Azshara, and to a lesser extent Jaina. It let the women take charge and be focal characters. So it’s not like they have to bring up more new women ASAP to balance the current roles.

I mean as stoked as I am for Thrall being back, I feel Blizzard missed their chance at great exploration with his family in WoD. I don’t need nor want to see him with Draka now.

I agree, I'm all for diversity but where it makes sense, not to the detriment of the story's quality. I think I saw someone throw Zaela's name out as a better choice for this role and I agree. In-game lore, she was presented as a fiercer warrior than Draka who is mostly known for being Thrall's mom.

[Extrakt]

Imo it was not bad. Bastion was better but it was bound to be with Uther and Arthas. They set the bar pretty high there.


But wtf was that Shadowlands/Legion thing ? https://imgur.com/a/pbOr0Nr

I hope it has some story explanation and isnt just Blizz being lazy because that would be super lame.

Pretty sure it was to save animation costs.

[Morgaith]

I can't take orc/troll/tauren females seriously, sorry.

[Ailyana]

I hope thrall gets to meet his mama

[Archmage Alodi]

This one was boring af.

[Azerate]

Looks pretty cool as usual but a lot less substance than the Kyrian one. They obviously used the best one for gamescom

[Clash the DK]

That was awful... After watching, I feel less likely to choose that faction.

The whole Draka inclusion feels forced and out of place. They should have chose a different character.

[Souflikar]

A bit underwhelming but it's difficult to shine when the opening act consists of Arthas, Uther and Frostmourne

[Relapses]

That was awful... After watching, I feel less likely to choose that faction.

The whole Draka inclusion feels forced and out of place. They should have chose a different character.

Bro... she's the key.

[Zeek Daniels]

A bit underwhelming but it's difficult to shine when the opening act consists of Arthas, Uther and Frostmourne

Doubt it. I feel like i already know who the bad guys are from the first one and who we will be fighting and trying to rescue, This one i have no idea whos attacking who, what these houses are. So im way more interested in finding that out than trying to make Uther good again.

[goldlock]

I mean on beta it doesn't really make sense. All you do is wander around finding out more and more of her house is dead.

[faithbane]

Soo this is blizzard:

Week 1 - Ignore the fact that uther was sucked into frostmourne that we even show in the clip but we will somehow tell you that he ended up in smurflands. Completely disregard the fact that his holy ghosts appears at his shrine after you kill LK and he even feels bad for Arthas.. He was actually blue with wings and throwing arthas in the maw a minute ago!..

Week 2- so yeaa, we won't tell you any reason why this orc who lived honorable didn't go to orc afterlife but ended up in scourge heaven.. and yea she was put in this afterlife because they needed strong warriors and she is picked over grom, garrosh, blackhand, saurfang, broxigar, durotan, doomshammer etc.. for reasons.

Also, maldraxxus protects all the realms of afterlife against.. stuff?

[Eazy]

That cinematic felt forced and cringe.

...also boring.

[Stacie]

Ehhh not a fan of these covenant / afterlife things. Would she not have died and went on to some Orc place along with other warriors? Also why her out of all the other fallen heroes that have been bigged up over the years to be the bee's knees. It just seems a horrid mess i hope it pans out but it feels forced and messy this time more than it normally does.

I hope they don't split the story between multiple things again and at least tell it in the game in full FOR BOTH FACTIONS!. It sucks when they put huge chunks in books, mini videos, and in game locked behind the other faction. It can be in other things also but it should be all in game and accessible for all those playing.

[Edlarel]

I liked it. It's a good piece of preview content for the story, and I expect we'll hear more as we travel through the zone.