Anyone else disappointed with how irrelevant our trip to the Shadowlands has been?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Shadowlands is the culmination of multiple failures on Blizzard's storytelling team. The absurd escalation to "the precursorers of the precursors!" and "Jailer and Sylvanas are even moar powerful!", trampling on the fans' investment in the lore of Warcraft with the retcons and smashing the religions of Warcraft, the lack of stakes with dying being rendered irrelevant and mundane, the unsatisfying and anticlimatic resolution to storylines such as Sylvanas burning the tree ("you must forgive the mass murderer who genocided your race!"), and so on.

The biggest problem with Shadowlands is that the audience no longer cares. The writers have destroyed any shred of credibility they once had. They have failed basic storytelling 101, failing to communicate to the audience what the villain's motivations are, or what the stakes are, or endear the audience to the characters. hardly anyone cares about the setting, or the Covenants and their leaders, or the Jailor. Fanart is a pretty good indicator of how much people like the characters, and yet I hardly see any fanart for Shadowlands characters. Denathrius is the only SL guy I can think of who got any fanart. When people talk about the Shadowlands story, it seems they only really care about old characters like Anduin, because of the audience's prior investment in those characters when they were written by better writers.

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

I hate all the retcons and focus on other characters...
Everyone we wanted to see is aparently now a new sort of character in the shadowlands. People turning into spiders/golums/kyrian and be turned into foliage.
Instead of the afterlife having its mystery, it's just another realm with even worse conditions than life - just making afterlife like hell for everyone.

So to all denizens of Azeroth; you better enjoy this life, because when you're dead, you're gonna hate the Shadowlands... until you die there and go to the afterlife-afterlife..

[Stormwolf64]

It was always obvious. You should have tempered your expectations

[Super Dickmann]

If anything that's the expansion story's saving grace, much like with WoD before it, though WoD had the better setting. At the end of the day, we'll be short one Sylvanas and up one trauma for Anduin while the only element that will follow forward will be the one that has the potential for further stories, so Gul'dan for WoD and Denathrius and the Dreadlords in SL. Everything else is irrelevant. SL's afterlife consequences are moot as soon as they close up the hole in Icecrown, in as much as since no character will have access to it whether they get their nipples tweaked by vampires for eternity bears no relevance to how their endings on-screen end up and matters only in so far as people fanwank about it on the forums.

Think of all the ink spilled about alternate timelines and the infinite Burning Legion when both had bugger all relevance to any plot going forward and you'll know the effect that the SL afterlives will have in the long term. Or how many people still remember that to resolve Cataclysm we had Green Jesus break the space time continuum to steal a super weapon, become an honorary dragon and blast Deathwing and how the net result of said time fuckery has not only never come up but most people don't remember it happened. It's because much like WoD or SL, due to its unimportance to the playable factions and the world they inhabit, which is all that matters in the long term as it carries over in every expansion, Green Metzen's trip through time wasn't more than a minor annoyance.

The most harmful consequence SL will have in that sense will be on Elune, because she's actually nestled in the main culture of a playable race and her assassination, unlike Kel'thuzad's, isn't on someone who the narrative had already dispatched. Whether the Legion stole Frostmourne or made it will be consigned to the same hole as the Titans being alive, then dead, then alive again all in the three year, pre-Chronicle to Chronicle to Legion stretch of time. No one cared before, a few people cared in the interim and no one will care after.

[Paperfox]

What else can you expect other than everything being throwaway or disposable with expansions centered around borrowed power?

[Soon-TM]

What else can you expect other than everything being throwaway or disposable with expansions centered around borrowed power?

Now that's smart, maybe borrowed power is just a RP move after all

[Aleksej89]

its almost like the whole wow story department are a bunch of talentless hacks who could not write a dictionary.

[Hastis]

i dont even know is jailer bad guy xd he seems to look bad but why we are going to fight with him? i dont know what he want to do i doont know is that bad or good? maybe the new reality will be better than current one? its already ending of expansion and we dont have any anwser for so many quetsions. And Voljin IQ over 9000 master plan to choose sylvanas warchief to open shadowlands to pretend to be ally for jailer just to do what? xD i dont understand why they are doing those shitty things at all

[Doffen]

The setting was cool, but they delivered on the story too slow. We should have seen more of the actual main story of the expansion already. Its a year and a half, give or take, from we enter Shadowlands until we actually see something that resembles this threat(9.2)

I am almost inclined to agree that small stories in WoW is the way to go, even if I like the cosmos thing the most. Take a story in a patch, a threat whatever, deal with it, then a new start next patch.

This continuation through multiple patches is taking too long to manage to engage players.

Adding:

I think Legion handled the main story much better. It even started before the expansion, the pre patch showed us the threat in front of us, Burning Legion attacking Azeroth. The threat was imminent. It was upon us.

In Legion, we started slow in EN and ToV raid wise, but Karazhan gave us the start quite early anyway, with Legion infiltrating the tower, together with Suramar(best story progression in WoW imo) where we had the Legion presence close.

It then went to Nighthold where we continued dealing with the Burning Legion through Gul'dan and saving Illidan, then we proceed quickly to 7.2, then just after 7.2.5 with Kil'jaeden, a rather prominent figure of the Burning Legion, to then open the way to Argus, that came just after.

I think the main reason why Legion went so much better is because the story had updates very often, so the great scale of it followed us closely.

In Shadowlands, what have we done in a year? CN with Denathrius, not much we got to know from that, just that it is the origin of the Nathrizim. Then 7 months later we go into 9.1, but we don't really got more than watching the jailor go into a portal. Thats it. Korthia? Well, what did we get to know? We gathered new sigils. To stop him. But stop him to do what? Change reality? How?

That we get to know 6-8 months after Korthia. I know, the Burning Legion is a well known threat. But doesn't change the fact (well my fact anyway) that giving more, shorter updates is better than a big one every 8 months.

[dope_danny]

It was always going to be a bad idea and come off as a 'filler' expansion purely because its about the afterlife. You cannot pull the curtain back on that without neutering every threat from then on.

Like say in 10.0 we go back to azeroth and a meteor is coming to hit kalimdor or something. Oh no if we dont stop it people might go to ardenweald or bastion! what a horrible situation!

Its a "dude, wouldn't it be cool if-" expansion where the initial idea wasn't given long term thought about its ramifications and you see the night elf diehard rp fanboys going into nuclear meltdown screaming about '3d printed elunes' and all i think is the old line "so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" and it has to be soft memory holed or reset in some fashion after the fact or death has literally zero threat or meaning anymore.

[shise]

Irrelevant?

Specially lore wise, this is a key expansion. THe ultimate plan to destroy Azeroth (for yet unkown reasons) is about to be solved.

[THEORACLE64]

Irrelevant?

Specially lore wise, this is a key expansion. THe ultimate plan to destroy Azeroth (for yet unkown reasons) is about to be solved.

Along with explaining and wrapping up *a lot* of stuff that's been core to Warcraft lore since WC3.

Gameplay it's obvious it hasn't reaaaally been the best. However, in terms of lore, this is completely wrapping up a giant chapter in Warcraft lore. It's what comes next kinda worries me honestly.

[justandulas]

I actually did, in stating SL isn't perfect, and the same for all previous expansions (or close to it). Nitpicking things that are trivial IMO. Also, you can't say with a straight face that there aren't many people who post here, just to whine and complain about the state of WoW/SL all the time. Like it gets old, we get it you don't like it.

There is no shame in liking a bad game, movie or show… but the trick is to be aware that it’s bad and go with it.

WoW is very much a bad game, and no one who’s ever taken as much as a 4th grade literature lesson would grade the story as anything but a huge fat F-. Shadowlands is without a doubt, the worst story telling in mmorpg history. There are MuDs run by 1 person with better story telling than SL. Even older mmorpgs on deaths door offer far superior story telling such as swtor

WoW writers are a step below whatever failed amateur is. Literally anyone on this forum could write a better story

[Pandragon]

I honestly had super high hopes for this expansion. From inevitably seeing Arthas again (hah!).

Arthas will be showing up after the Anduin fight.

[Orby]

The direction of woW right now seems to be a big turn off for me personally. The whole Shadowlands stuff was never a part of WoW I wanted to explore. And the fact that WoW may be exploring more cosmic expansions going forward is a big 'I'm out' energy, this is where I get out.

I know some people are excited about seeing this side of Wow, I personally am not... WoW is getting a bit too sci-fi fantasy than it is fantasy right now, I kind of miss the grounded side of WoW... Like can we stick to Azeroth. Or Outland or at least something more grounded in fantasy and less science fiction. Shadowlands, cosmic forces... its getting bit much for :P

[ercarp]

I already knew from the moment it was announced that Shadowlands was going to be filler like WOD, by virtue of taking place in an alternate dimension.

It's not really filler at all though, and that's the problem. Shadowlands directly confronts one of the major cosmic powers in play and introduces the literal creators of the Warcraft universe. Whether you like it or not (I sure as hell don't), the story developments are far from filler.

[justandulas]

It's not really filler at all though, and that's the problem. Shadowlands directly confronts one of the major cosmic powers in play and introduces the literal creators of the Warcraft universe. Whether you like it or not (I sure as hell don't), the story developments are far from filler.

Major story beats can be, and feel, like filler if they are shoehorned in at the last second… very much like SL has been from the start. It’s relied on butchering, and reconstructing stories told by better authors long ago. They story falls flat in SL because it wasn’t earned, they shoehorned everything from SL to the jailor, to even sylvanas fall and redemption to shoehorned in moments that don’t work or feel earned.

It’s very much like an 8 year old pretending to write LoTR and then being upset when no one likes his amateur hour production

[Itisamuh]

I honestly do not get the hate of this expansion, even accounting for the fact that every expansion gets complained about while live. I still think it is easily one of the best expansions yet in many ways, especially when it comes to the story. I would wager a lot of people are just burned out on the game, but refuse to quit out of habit and will never be satisfied no matter what happens. I also fail to see how our trip there could be seen as irrelevant in any sense, given that we are literally saving the entire cosmos. I agree the game has a lot of massive issues that need to be improved upon, but to me none are exclusive to this expansion.

[Mic_128]

Not sure that saving the entire universe is considered an irrelevant trip.

It's its irrelevant because nothing outside of Shadowlands will change, and we have no reason to go back there. The threat was introduced this expansion, he's getting dealt with this expansion. The only thing likely to carry on from it is the existence of the people above the Pantheon of Death, who are also above the Titans anyway.

[Hitei]

None of the points raised in the OP is "trivial", looks like you don't have arguments or didn't actually understand the OP.

Actually pretty much all of them are. In fact, basically all of the "points" OP brings up are addressed directly in-game, or have already been addressed prior to SL, but OP does not read quests or pay attention to what is happening, and instead just runs from point to point killing stuff and so missed all that happening (like you, I can only assume since you think these aren't trivial):

But I also think, in an effort to try to "be smarter than we are", they tried introducing all these elements like the Brokers, and other clearly-living races and beings, hand-waving things away as "oh don't worry about all that, YOUR perspective is just too simple-minded to understand that even in the afterlife, there are all these other beings and whatnot".

In what iteration of "afterlives" are there not other beings who simply exist in the world of the dead? What do you people think gods, angels and demons are? What do you think figures like Charon are? Or the guards of hell in Indian Buddhism and oni in Japanese Buddhism?

These zones are all very cool, but they literally feel more like "new elemental planes" than anything even remotely resembling an "afterlife". And the story and Lore have almost nothing to show for all our time here.

Except you know, completely changing the cosmology of the universe and how death fundamentally works.

Like... are you seriously gonna sit there and tell me, NOBODY'S views on the afterlife -- or even life itself -- have changed since setting foot in the Shadowlands? Well of course not, because Blizzard just hand-waves THAT away, too, saying "oh, everybody gets their own afterlife of their dreams, at least until recently". Which is incongruent with their own story being told. Are we to believe that Draka was deemed more worthy a warrior than the likes of Lothar or Doomhammer?

Where on earth did you get that? To begin with, Draka wasn't "deemed more worthy a warrior", she was deemed to have high potential as a spy coming from a warrior background. Her current position with the chosen is simply a result of the destruction of the House of Eyes and her being one of Akarek's trusted lieutenants.

Also, DA FUQ happens when I "kill" something in the Shadowlands? Since we and our allies are still living, does that mean we essentially all have "an extra life"?

The soul gets atomized into anima if it is not somehow anchored more deeply and held together, like the player character is via the First Ones' spirit obelisks, or KT and some of the Liches in Maldraxxus are via a phylactery.

Too much hand-waving things away, too much "don't think about it too much". And what's crazy to me, is that nobody even seems all that interested in the Shadowlands themselves, or what it might mean to them. I know getting Blizzard to create Class-based quests is like pulling fucking teeth, but how interesting would it be, to have EACH of the Class Halls asking questions, or having us further investigate, certain aspects of the afterlife?

For example, perhaps a Shaman losing a bit of patience, and hoping to actually meet their ancestors, rather than simply "believe they're watching over them". Maybe a Paladin whose faith is shattered when they here the afterlife is nothing like what was taught to them. Or a Mage who begins speculating that "immortality" may not be so infeasible after all, potentially leading them down a dark path.

I mean you have Thrall meeting his mother and Alexandros quite literally questioning his existence when the afterlife he was sent to was nothing like what was expected, and Kel'thuzad still absolutely obsessed with chasing immortality. I'm actually not sure why mage is even listed here, is this just not understanding basic warcraft lore? "immortality" was never infeasible, that is the entire reason Liches are a thing.

And I still think Death Knights should've been particularly tied to this expansion, and actually learn where the flying fuck Necromancy actually originates from, how it works, who designed it and for what purpose, and perhaps give a greater purpose to the Ebon Blade now than just "make sure the Lich King doesn't return".

Necromancy wasn't designed by a single entity, because it isn't even beholden to a single school of magic. All six cosmic forces are capable of it, sans maybe order. The necromantic magic specifically used by Death Knights and the Scourge originates in Maldraxxus and was designed by the Primus (originally as domination magic) to better enable the forces of Maldraxxus to fight the enemies of the Shadowlands by allowing them to more thoroughly protect their souls, modify their physical forms, and animate the empty bodies of the fallen. The House of Rituals (which like all the houses, he founded) exists for exactly that purpose, to perfect necromancy as a tool of the Maldraxxi.