I was thinking of shadowlands, and how I just seemed much less interested in it.. and wondered to myself why?
It's fantasy, it's an ethereal realm, it should be engaging and exciting , not only to explore but for stories etc... and then I realised, from a story point of view, Warcraft's world mmo is very poor at telling these sort of stories and what has come before is so incohesive, I'm more interested in resolving the issues and squabbles or seeing the progression of races, than exploring the ethereal after realm.
Don't get me wrong, a new realm is or rather can be an exciting premise, but as an interesting lore thin, there are way too many details and set up to make it polished enough to swallow.. furthermore, It's really become the adventures of the Warcraft legends...i.e. the Slvannas', Anduins, Thralls, Jainas, Malfurion's etc etc with me (the adventurer) tagging along for the experience as assistant.
To me, the story of the races is so poorly developed and presented, I don't have closure or satisfaction on them at all, and I really want more of that stuff first to be ironed out properly before I start tackling a new and wonderful realm. Everything seems to go from more ridiculous to more preposterous with no end in sight. no desire to rein it in, to flesh it out and even it out.. even the stories in the books offer no closure, they are just jargon to set up the new stuff for a game experience that barely gets away with telling something cohesive.
I keep wondering how games like Final Fantasy XIV, SWTOR, TESO, GW2 all somehow manage to tell their stories better, a lot better than wow, even when their presentations sometimes suck.. but then , only in wow do I feel the story is more of an after thought or secondary consideration meant to fuel the latest gimmick to try out than it is a dynamic part of the world and show they are trying to present.
It's like the story is advertising campaign for the toy.. except this one isn't told very well.
I have put up with it for years, but I must admit, I just don't have any interest any longer. Why should I have to always make up or come up with explanations to explain the many holes we have.. I know @Aucald is probably the best at doing this, and it can be fun though to use your imagination to see how certain things work without direct evidence or depth.
But one of the greatest faults of the creative team is ZERO community engagement, they could actually be aware of all the holes, or controversies, blank filling ins we wrestle with and argue over and actually do things both in game, via statements and in books that actually resolve a lot of these things or set the record straight which can help us.
We've offered many suggestions along the years to boost more lore engagement and presentation, even in game that is a necessary part of smoothing this thing out. Changes and controversies with discontinuities that are too much for most people to be expected to try and fill... we needed them to step in and do more than just leave it up to our imagination.
I can't continue to be so attached to lore that constantly changes, had no continuity, and is basically a stand alone volume with every expansion, and essentially begins to be retconned as the new one lands - it just tells me the story is for flavour for the action.. and I'm not that interested in the entire project.
Warcraft could work as an excellent fantasy, it has all the trappings and it has tried to be, it has had good stories before, and has had consistent lore before, - i got into the story as much as the game, but all those lovely sceneries and attachable characters I play mean little to nothing when their story or the information I have about them that gets me into them constantly changes all the time, they are just for cosmetics and those cosmetics hate to break it to you Warcraft, are not that great.. it's the package that was great, looks and meaning..
I think I've just gotten tired of bothering.
Not seen much in shadowlands that gets me excited about Warcraft at all, I wonder what new players think. I am willing to bet/guess, the story or the tale mean little to nothing to them,