Shadowlands doesn't feel like Warcraft

[belicus]

Previous expansions all added new places and creatures, but they brought existing elements there as well. You would find the classic races of Azeroth building settlements there, you'd see murlocs, goblin towns, human castles and so on.
Shadowlands doesn't have any of that. It's all completely different to the point where it feels like I'm playing some chinese knockoff of wow.
Even the loading screen looks more like something out of Narnia and that movie sucked.
Also, the fact that they added a bunch of existing characters that just sit in a corner in Oribos doesn't help.

This is my main gripe with the expansion and wanted to ask if anyone feels the same way.

[Relapses]

Nah, pretty sure it's just you buddy.

[belicus]

Nah, pretty sure it's just you buddy.

Alright then, thank you for replying.

[Yuli]

This is my main gripe with the expansion and wanted to ask if anyone feels the same way.

I don't feel the same because even though it's supposed to be otherworldly, you can clearly see warcraft in it.
Shadowlands feels like High Fantasy inside an already High Fantasy setting, which is pretty hard to pull off, but they did it.

[Daronokk]

Nah, pretty sure it's just you buddy.

Nope, he's not alone. Shadowlands isn't Warcraft, it's even more alien to the franchise than the asian Mists of Pandaria setting.

[Sunnydee]

Previous expansions all added new places and creatures, but they brought existing elements there as well. You would find the classic races of Azeroth building settlements there, you'd see murlocs, goblin towns, human castles and so on.
Shadowlands doesn't have any of that. It's all completely different to the point where it feels like I'm playing some chinese knockoff of wow.

You mean like the fire elementals in maw? or in torghast?
Or the bears and spiders in revendreth. Or that the big guards in oribos is just large human males(sorry for ruining for someone).
Or literally every undead in maldraxxus.
Or all the old gamebosses/npc's.
Or all the slimes...
Plenty of knights of the ebonhold around.
Just beacuse u have a new skin doesnt mean its the same model.

i could go on but u know.

Every expansion is 99% reskinned shit on base models.

also was it really worth making an account for this?
If you don't want new stuff why even play?

Even the loading screen looks more like something out of Narnia and that movie sucked.

Weird to add in but ok.

[Relapses]

Nope, he's not alone. Shadowlands isn't Warcraft, it's even more alien to the franchise than the asian Mists of Pandaria setting.

I mean, isn't that...kind of the point?

[RemasteredClassic]

Previous expansions all added new places and creatures, but they brought existing elements there as well. You would find the classic races of Azeroth building settlements there, you'd see murlocs, goblin towns, human castles and so on.
Shadowlands doesn't have any of that. It's all completely different to the point where it feels like I'm playing some chinese knockoff of wow.
Even the loading screen looks more like something out of Narnia and that movie sucked.
Also, the fact that they added a bunch of existing characters that just sit in a corner in Oribos doesn't help.

This is my main gripe with the expansion and wanted to ask if anyone feels the same way.

At least the classes/specs feel more fun this time

[Ermelloth]

2 months passed and expansion is still good and widely played
And it surpassed low expectations everyone had since BFA release. Y, its not perfect, but it's a lot better than I expected
This is what matters

About "doesn't feel like WoW"... Well, Torghast and the Maw both feel more like Diablo, that's true. But the zones are still very much Warcraft.

[Zalatoby]

Previous expansions all added new places and creatures, but they brought existing elements there as well. You would find the classic races of Azeroth building settlements there, you'd see murlocs, goblin towns, human castles and so on.
Shadowlands doesn't have any of that. It's all completely different to the point where it feels like I'm playing some chinese knockoff of wow.
Even the loading screen looks more like something out of Narnia and that movie sucked.
Also, the fact that they added a bunch of existing characters that just sit in a corner in Oribos doesn't help.

This is my main gripe with the expansion and wanted to ask if anyone feels the same way.

I believe this would be because we've moved into an entirely different realm of existence. It's not just a world of mortals, where you find a new variation of 10 bear arses, but a place beyond the beyond.

So I think it's intentional...

[belicus]

Nope, he's not alone. Shadowlands isn't Warcraft, it's even more alien to the franchise than the asian Mists of Pandaria setting.

I actually thought about MoP before asking this, but MoP still had stuff to tie into previous stuff, like ships and murlocs and horde/alliance camps and settlements.
Besides the general vibe it gave off of places like Stranglethorn Vale. It was pretty out there as an expansion, but it still felt warcraft enough to me, I guess. It was new and had familiar stuff as well.

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I believe this would be because we've moved into an entirely different realm of existence. It's not just a world of mortals, where you find a new variation of 10 bear arses, but a place beyond the beyond.

So I think it's intentional...

Yet we still pretty much find variations of 10 bear asses here.

[Bumbasta]

Previous expansions all added new places and creatures, but they brought existing elements there as well. You would find the classic races of Azeroth building settlements there, you'd see murlocs, goblin towns, human castles and so on.
Shadowlands doesn't have any of that. It's all completely different to the point where it feels like I'm playing some chinese knockoff of wow.
Even the loading screen looks more like something out of Narnia and that movie sucked.
Also, the fact that they added a bunch of existing characters that just sit in a corner in Oribos doesn't help.

This is my main gripe with the expansion and wanted to ask if anyone feels the same way.

I completely agree with you. This is basically my number 1 complaint about this expansion. I've always preferred the zones that actually are on Azeroth and where you see the whole culture of the warcraft races. These just feel like 6 completely different instanced zones.

[Masternap]

I don't know why everyone acts so unaware in this thread. I absolutely agree with the OP.

I like the setting, but both the world design and especially the NPCs don't even look like Warcraft anymore. It feels like they belong in another game, especially the Kyrians and Venthyr. Maldraxxus is the only zone that 100% fits the universe, but everything else has an entirely different design philosophy from before. It just doesn't feel like Warcraft anymore. At all.

If you honestly don't see how different this expansion is from the rest, purely from an art direction point of view, I don't know what to tell you. It's objectively different. Just put any NPC from Shadowlands besides any NPC from the other expansions. This isn't the Warcraft universe we've been to until BFA anymore. Which is fitting since we're in the afterlife, but I kind of feel like they went overboard with the weirdness.

[Adamar1]

For me, Shadowlands feels more like World of Warcraft than BfA, WoD, MoP and even Legion (mind you, I still liked MoP & Legion).

[Raetary]

Nope, feels like any other expansion to me.

[sirethas]

I don't understand, why does it feel like chinese knockoff? I don't see any auto-run complete quests, or paywall behind quest chain

How would you integrate dwarves setting up a settlement in a land of dead? You expect us to save everyone passing to shadowlands from Maw just so they can setup a camp and hunt some animals in Ardenweald...It just doesn't make sense bringing up the outer world into Shadowlands, we are already disruption to this ecosystem.
They setup a theme, to discover new zones of this huge world, you can't expect to have goblins hoarding gold in every part of the universe.

For me personally, it still feels like WoW

[belicus]

I don't know why everyone acts so unaware in this thread. I absolutely agree with the OP.

I like the setting, but both the world design and especially the NPCs don't even look like Warcraft anymore. It feels like they belong in another game, especially the Kyrians and Venthyr. Maldraxxus is the only zone that 100% fits the universe, but everything else has an entirely different design philosophy from before. It just doesn't feel like Warcraft anymore. At all.

If you honestly don't see how different this expansion is from the rest, purely from an art direction point of view, I don't know what to tell you. It's objectively different. Just put any NPC from Shadowlands besides any NPC from the other expansions. This isn't the Warcraft universe we've been to until BFA anymore. Which is fitting since we're in the afterlife, but I kind of feel like they went overboard with the weirdness.

Yeah, that's what I meant.
I probably should've mentioned in the title that I mean thematically so as not to confuse the speed readers.

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I don't understand, why does it feel like chinese knockoff? I don't see any auto-run complete quests, or paywall behind quest chain

How would you integrate dwarves setting up a settlement in a land of dead? You expect us to save everyone passing to shadowlands from Maw just so they can setup a camp and hunt some animals in Ardenweald...It just doesn't make sense bringing up the outer world into Shadowlands, we are already disruption to this ecosystem.
They setup a theme, to discover new zones of this huge world, you can't expect to have goblins hoarding gold in every part of the universe.

For me personally, it still feels like WoW

I meant like when they skirt copyright laws. We don't have dwarfs digging for gold, instead we have grudges digging for anima or something similar. And I expected dwarfs from wow and the expansion to be set in a way as to accommodate the iconic things.

[Orby]

Previous expansions all added new places and creatures, but they brought existing elements there as well. You would find the classic races of Azeroth building settlements there, you'd see murlocs, goblin towns, human castles and so on.
Shadowlands doesn't have any of that. It's all completely different to the point where it feels like I'm playing some chinese knockoff of wow.
Even the loading screen looks more like something out of Narnia and that movie sucked.
Also, the fact that they added a bunch of existing characters that just sit in a corner in Oribos doesn't help.

This is my main gripe with the expansion and wanted to ask if anyone feels the same way.

You make some good points, I think due to the fact Warcraft is pretty much running out of places to go, I do expect future expansions to get more cosmic themed going forward which I do pretty much agree feels a little too far flung from the the very grounded reality of time and space we are used to. :P

Am I a fan? Familiarity usually brings more interest, Kul Tiras, Outland, Tol Barad, The Broken Isles Northrend, even Pandaria, all places mentioned or seen in Warcraft 1 or 2 or 3. Shadowlands is a place pretty much treading new water and I gotta admit I am one of the few people not digging it due to it being new territory. Then again seeing interest go up for this expansion it seems me and you are probably two of the few people not really digging the setting :P

[CalamityHeart]

Maldraxxus just unpacks the starter kit for Warcraft's creepy/necromantic themes and painted it ever greener. Skeletons, spiders, leathery-winged beasts, ghosts, cackling wizards, bubbling slime, and disgusting flesh golems.

Ardenweald is basically HD Ashenvale. From satyr-like fauns and dryads to a lot of moving tree creatures, to an abundance of nature, magic, and majesty, it's easily the most familiar-looking and Warcrafty zone of the four. And you'll find your obligatory troll-themed content here as well.

Revendreth, along with Bastion, is probably the most unique in terms of how it looks, and what its themes generally are. But even Revendreth brings in a splash of familiarity with the Light and the Naaru, and the obvious unspoken connection that Sire Denathrius has to the nathrezim, and Bastion pulls back the curtain a bit on the spirit healers we've had since forever, and the val'kyr a little bit as well, along with hints of the Void we've seen there.

Oribos is all new for the most part, and even then, you've got the Brokers which are basically Ethereals.

Sure, there's no murlocs and no human architecture. But if you can't find existing elements in the Shadowlands of some of the things that make Warcraft feel like Warcraft, or familiar Warcraft-y things within these zones, you're just not trying. I've seen more than one complaint about Shadowlands that it's TOO much like Warcraft, that is, that you could drop any four of these zones somewhere on Azeroth and they wouldn't be out of place. And I understand those arguments more than this one. It feels more to me like the Shadowlands have struck an okay balance between all-new and reminiscent, the way that a new expansion should.

[Sencha]

I think it's just you.