Do you think Shadowlands was better or worse for the Warcraft lore as a whole?

[Wonderment2]

There were some cool ideas but it does way more damage.

I hate the idea of the First Ones. We don't need more mysterious world Shaping Gods when we still had plenty of lore to explore.

[Khaza-R]

There were some cool ideas but it does way more damage.

I hate the idea of the First Ones. We don't need more mysterious world Shaping Gods when we still had plenty of lore to explore.

Kind of my issue with the Cosmic Forces lore as a whole.

Its not interesting or unique. They are literally just taking old, well established lore elements and giving them a level up with a new face. First Ones supplemented the Titans. Zovaal supplemented the Lich King. Fel Lords will supplement the Burning Legion. Its not only boring but damaging to previous installments of the story.

[hulkgor]

Strictly speaking of lore? Absolutely horrendous.

The story, lore and overall writing in World of Warcraft has always been mediocre at best, but this expansion it was particularly bad.

It doesn't really matter as far as i'm concerned, since i play the game due to its gameplay, and its dungeons and raids. So, i just take it as the tool to make the game move forward to new dungeons and raids.

If i want a good, well written story, i'll pick up a novel from actual writers.

[deenman]

And I have no shame to admit it.

Only recently I have realized that when Mal'ganis told Arthas that he served the "dark lord of the dead", he wasn't actually referring to Ner'zhul, nor to Kil'jaeden, but to Zovaal the Jailer.

Now that I have realized this, my mind has become enlightened, and I seek other clues about Zovaal's existence that they have spread throughout the massive, multi-decade storyline that is Warcraft.

we are witnessing the greatest story of our generation unfold before our eyes,brings a tear *sniff*

[OwenBurton]

Take out Dreadlords serving the jailer and the progenitors and it would be ok. The problem is that with these two entities, they ruined all previous lore. Titans are no longer special because now there is a race of Death Titans (instead of Arcane ones) who just made the Shadowlands and then disappeared. Questions about them will never answered.

Dreadlords serving Jailer with the whole "everything including Sargeras making the Legion was actually the Jailer's plan" is completely inexcusable, and totally unnecessary for the story events that occurred. If the Dreadlords had simply traded for/stolen the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne, the Jailer could still have Arthas' soul because they were tied to those items that are in his domain. Sylvanas wouldn't have looked quite so dumb because she wouldn't have been killed and enslaved purely through the Jailer's machinations then decided to work with him later, knowing that.

The only reason you would do these two things is to make the Jailer seem more important and big bad guy (obviously didn't work, nobody cares). But it was done at the expense of everything written in the last twenty years.

I still don't understand what would have happened had the Legion won, hypothetically, and what kind of scenario exactly the nathrezim were expecting. Sargeras would have claimed Azeroth's power for his own, and together with Argus, Azeroth and the other members of his reunited "Dark Pantheon", would likely taken the Legion and have destroyed the Shadowlands afterwards, so the nathrezim's millennia of complicated secret manipulations would have gone to waste in any case.

[Itisamuh]

I can honestly say Shadowlands has been my favorite expansion apart from maybe Legion in terms of story, and even that was only due to the class campaigns. I do understand why many dislike it but I prefer large scale plots and being a very important character, rather than the random adventurer doing random tasks for random people thing. But then again I think Warcraft has always had a pretty silly story, so I see nothing offensive about making things go a bit off the charts so to speak since I never took it seriously in the first place.

[OwenBurton]

I can honestly say Shadowlands has been my favorite expansion apart from maybe Legion in terms of story, and even that was only due to the class campaigns. I do understand why many dislike it but I prefer large scale plots and being a very important character, rather than the random adventurer doing random tasks for random people thing. But then again I think Warcraft has always had a pretty silly story, so I see nothing offensive about making things go a bit off the charts so to speak since I never took it seriously in the first place.

What exactly do you find likable about the expansion though, can you provide specific examples perhaps? Do you like particular new characters, or Sylvanas's story development so far?

[Golden Yak]

I still don't understand what would have happened had the Legion won, hypothetically, and what kind of scenario exactly the nathrezim were expecting.

The Nathrezim serving the Legion at the behest of Denathrius/the Jailer could've worked with the angle of the Burning Crusade sending huge amounts of souls into the Shadowlands, which in turn would have resulted in a huge amount of power being fed to the death gods. Especially with the case of Denathrius being in league with the Jailer and pretty much being in charge of which souls get sent to the Maw.

I think the aspect of the Dreadlords being manipulative and vampiric could've worked with an angle in them manipulating mortals into warring on each other and indulging in their worst and darkest impulses, which would've sent more souls to Revendreth and would have especially empowered Denathrius.

All of it contributing to the Jailer's masterplan for re-writing reality from within the Shadowlands, which would've put him above the Legion and Sargeras.

I personally don't care for the Dreadlords being the manipulators of every faction, but there might've been an effort to also hamper the Legion from within while maneuvering them into costly conflict with other powers, like the Light, which was intended to ensure the Legion never won in any case.

[YogSoggoth]

Shadowlans is horrendous, pretty much a cheap Marvel knock-off. Danuser didn't even tried to hide that. How the hell does this man even still keeps this job is beyond me. Also getting into stuff like Zereths significantly lessens any stakes to have in other, more down-to-earth kinds of content.

[OwenBurton]

The Nathrezim serving the Legion at the behest of Denathrius/the Jailer could've worked with the angle of the Burning Crusade sending huge amounts of souls into the Shadowlands, which in turn would have resulted in a huge amount of power being fed to the death gods. Especially with the case of Denathrius being in league with the Jailer and pretty much being in charge of which souls get sent to the Maw.

I think the aspect of the Dreadlords being manipulative and vampiric could've worked with an angle in them manipulating mortals into warring on each other and indulging in their worst and darkest impulses, which would've sent more souls to Revendreth and would have especially empowered Denathrius.

All of it contributing to the Jailer's masterplan for re-writing reality from within the Shadowlands, which would've put him above the Legion and Sargeras.

I personally don't care for the Dreadlords being the manipulators of every faction, but there might've been an effort to also hamper the Legion from within while maneuvering them into costly conflict with other powers, like the Light, which was intended to ensure the Legion never won in any case.

But if the Pantheon of Death > the Jailer (they once banished him)
Then it only stands to reason that the corrupted Dark Pantheon of Order (including Sargeras) + Azeroth + Argus + the Burning Legion > the Jailer and the nathrezim.

Remember, the Jailer's plan in Shadowlands is to use Azeroth to rewrite reality somehow. Think about it, if Sargeras had wiped out the Army of the Light and reached Azeroth first and corrupted it somehow (with the Jailer still being chained to Torghast during Legion, and Sylvanas still having NOT killed most night elves to gather enough power to shatter the veil), then the Jailer's plan would not have worked. Furthermore, the Legion already attacked the Shadowlands in the past, so Sargeras obviously knows of its existence somewhat, and the Shadowlands were mentioned to have only barely repelled them, and they were much weaker back then.

Edit: Besides, the Legion did pretty much nearly win in the Burning Crusade. Most worlds were implied to be dead, most races in the Azeroth universe all but extinct or added to their ever-increasing ranks. In A Thousand Years of War - it is mentioned that Sargeras believes he has already defeated the Light, and the Xenedar was the Light's largest remaining refuge, and the only one able to wage war against them.

[uuuhname]

this expansion has done more damage to WoW lore than 4 other expansions (including Cata and WoD) combined. I honestly have no idea how they will ever recover from this to the point where I genuinely hope this is the last expansion for this game. I am dreading what new depths of stupidity the writing for this game will go to from here.

[Golden Yak]

But if the Pantheon of Death > the Jailer (they once banished him)
Then it stands only reason that the corrupted Dark Pantheon of Order (including Sargeras) + Azeroth + Argus + the Burning Legion > the Jailer and the nathrezim.

Remember, the Jailer's plan in Shadowlands is to use Azeroth to rewrite reality somehow. Think about it, if Sargeras had wiped out the Army of the Light and reached Azeroth first and corrupted it somehow (with the Jailer still being chained to Torghast during Legion, and Sylvanas still having NOT killed most night elves to gather enough power to shatter the veil), then the Jailer's plan would not have worked. Furthermore, the Legion already attacked the Shadowlands in the past, so Sargeras obviously knows of its existence somewhat, and the Shadowlands were mentioned to have only barely repelled them, and they were much weaker back then.

Yeah, you're right. *sigh* I generally try and put a positive spin on everything, but it's hard to make this not retarded. I guess they could've leaned hard into the Nathrezim manipulating everyone - they fed Lothraxxion info on Legion movements so he could ensure the Army of the Light always survived, so it could be well positioned to deal the Legion a deathblow. Maybe have them deliberately give Illidan the resources necessary to expose Argus... this is so contrived.

This is why I think the Sepulcher should've been the soul of the dead Titan Sargeras killed, and Jailer only made a move on it once Sargeras and the rest of the Pantheon were neutralized.

[Super Dickmann]

Remember, the Jailer's plan in Shadowlands is to use Azeroth to rewrite reality somehow. Think about it, if Sargeras had wiped out the Army of the Light and reached Azeroth first and corrupted it somehow (with the Jailer still being chained to Torghast during Legion, and Sylvanas still having NOT killed most night elves to gather enough power to shatter the veil), then the Jailer's plan would not have worked. Furthermore, the Legion already attacked the Shadowlands in the past, so Sargeras obviously knows of its existence somewhat, and the Shadowlands were mentioned to have only barely repelled them, and they were much weaker back then.

The only thing you'd need to solve this problem is to stop the retcon one step further back. Keep everything as is, with the caveat that the dreadlords at large only pivoted to the Bald Man after the Legion lost. Always on the winning side and all.

One of Shadowlands' main weaknesses isn't the breadth of its retcons so much as how many of them are not only pointless but counterproductive to the narrative that's attempted to be told. Dreadlords already were death-associated and created the runeblades and helm and demons already have a background as being something else before hand, including constructs of another power, see Doomguards formerly being titanic sentries. Having them be death-aligned spies who after their exile became demons for the Legion and then pivoted back to their origins would hit every single note thus far mentioned, opened them up for future stories with a more appropriate leader character in Denathrius than they ever had prior and not result in some of the most galling stupidity in the expansion such as the insane network of contrivances that the Argus situation implies.

@Golden Yak

One of the reasons I can't take the criticism that Shadowlands devalues the Legion seriously is how they've been clowned in virtually every appearance up to this point, including their own namesake expansion save for the opening scenario. The Dreadlord retcon can help explain how one ship was somehow able to take on the entirety of the Legion on their homeworld which was one of the most blisteringly stupid elements of the Legion story by a country mile. However, that it can doesn't mean it does - so much is never mentioned in the actual narrative and it does nothing to help with other topics. Like why they would ever expect twenty dickheads to be able to kill not one but two Titans or why they would from a pragmatic standpoint lose their chance to rule the universe with Sarg to instead put this unspeakably convoluted plan into action. The Argus explanation for the Arbiter shutdown makes leagues less sense than the "Denny D blasted the robot with the anima he'd been hoarding".

[Raisei]

Yeah the poll is kinda clear and rightly so.

Not even WoD managed to fuck up the lore as much as this one did. BFA was a master piece in comparison.

The entire story of the Shadowlands expansion was an incessant gloryfication of Danuser's waifu, every scene we see with her is about how powerful and smarter she is then everyone else. The Jailer was a horrible character (it is even questionable if he qualifies as a character tbh) because his only role was to be a vehicles for Sylvanas insufferable redemption.
And now where we finally have the chance to make her pay for all her crimes and beat the actual villain of the last two expansions, Danuser declares her innocent of everything and makes the empty shell called "Jailer" the scapegoat for her.

Basically nothing about this expansion mattered or will matter. It could have been done for in a 5-Minute cutscene, just have Anduin give Sylvanas a blank pardon for everything, without any reason and without any input from the players. The result would have been the exact same.

The entire can of worms that the writers opened by sending us to the realm of death and the realm of the creators of the realms of death will never be touched again, the different perspective on life that any character would get from this will never be touched, the characters will never be touched again.

It was all just a backdrop for this lame Sylvanas Redemption arc and that is just not enough to have a good story and it absolutely does not justify all the shit they are doing to lore that goes back to WC3.

I dread the next expansion that is called "Danuser's baby". Might even be literal. We follow Sylvanas marriage with a revived and redeemed Nathanos (because shut up) and see their kid grow up. What else do we need? Sylvanas is enough right? Riiight?

[Niwes]

There have been lots of complaints about Shadowlands from some parts of the player base, especially recently after Sylvanas was revealed to have her soul split (her fans think she is no longer a really strong, awesomely inspirational or independent character, and her haters dislike the fact that she is seemingly being let off easy).

Looking at Shadowlands as a whole - do you think Shadowlands was better or worse as an addition to the overall World of Warcraft lore, was its new lore and changing everything (for example, Elune being the Winter Queen's Life-realm bound sister and then not saving her people to save that newly introduced sister)? Is Shadowlands and everything this expansion has brought largely positive or negative for the overall story development and evolution? I mean, if you could theoretically do a reset, would you?

My positive points for Shadowlands:
- I really liked that Uther animated video, I thought that was really nicely done and very engaging, the others were not so interesting though.
- I (kind of) think the idea of the "Pantheon of Death" was promising for sure, but I'm not sure about the Arbiter and Jailer bits, they just don't seem that likable and / or original as characters, supporting or opposing.
- I liked the idea that the Pantheon of Death was not as "benevolent" as most people assumed, but they threw that idea out fairly quickly.
- Kael'thas Sunstrider and Draka returning as characters was really nice, I hope they can actually become Horde characters next expansion, seeing Ysera was also nice, although for some reason, I thought she might become a secret villain ("beware the eyes of emerald").

I didn't like the confusing lore pieces (such as the fate of most paladins and priests, do most of them now go to Bastion or the Light; the confusing relationship between the Emerald Dream and Ardenweald as afterlives, where exactly do most green dragons go; the bizarre Elune "revelations"; that statement about alternate realities and threads binding together, while not necessarily the worst one, also needs at least better clarification; the fact many prominent "dead" characters were completely ignored, etc.).

Everything just felt so out-of-universe and not as grounded, so distant from Azeroth's storyline, and the recent development with Sylvanas and the Jailer is pretty horrible also, and of course the whole thing with the night elves and the Horde is probably beyond resolution at this point. I understand that people are tired of the faction war, but this expansion is not better than the last one at all, it just felt very distinctly un-Warcraft in many ways.

https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlor...ve_failure_in/
https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlor...ailure_it_has/
https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlor...l_part_of_the/
https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraftlor...were_scrubbed/

This was the top-rated comment (over 350 upvotes) from one of the the threads, and I have to agree with them for the most part:
[/B][/I]

lol. you really even have to ASK this ?

i placed my bet about the poll results, even before voting to see results. hmmm, i was right (i said > 80% and it was 82%, close but correct). crazy. but obvious.

[Karawaka]

Shadowlands is a gold mine of untapped potential. By far the worst part of the xpac is how this is the place where all the souls in all universes go, and everyone looks the goddamn same. We barely get to meet any heroes, champions, or big villains of other worlds and the ones we meet from azeroth are extremely limited. They made an xpac with the potential for infinite scenarios and gave us the same kind of behind-the-scenes villainy as "somehow palpatine survived and funded a whole new empire and fleet of ships with no one knowing about it. also he kidnapped thousands, if not millions of children and no one followed up on them"

Honestly I feel like the playerbase deserves an apology for this whole fiasco and piss poor excuse of an expansion. Yes I would take WoD over this, and happily.

[voidox]

Kind of my issue with the Cosmic Forces lore as a whole.

Its not interesting or unique. They are literally just taking old, well established lore elements and giving them a level up with a new face. First Ones supplemented the Titans. Zovaal supplemented the Lich King. Fel Lords will supplement the Burning Legion. Its not only boring but damaging to previous installments of the story.

yup, you mirror my thoughts on the whole stupid cosmic war and first ones shit... it's not Warcraft and it's just so much retconning/changes to established lore to fit this rather generic stuff Danuser is pushing.

When you have to outright retcon the definitive lorebooks of a universe to fit all this new stuff, you know you're damaging said universe's lore and should not be doing that. You don't replace shit to add in your stories, you use the established lore and build off from it.

If everything is just going to be retconned to fit w.e new thing Danuser and his writing team think of next, then why should anyone care about the lore anymore? what's the point of caring if shit keeps getting randomly changed/removed for new stuff?

so ya, it's completely damaged the lore of Warcraft especially with how it's ruined so many characters/stories (like the Titans) and does not have a lot of fans for a reason.
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and as a side note, some people have brought up how Warcraft needs new stuff to continue expansions... but that point makes no sense when you look at how much established lore was thrown away in single patches to rush into Sylvanus and SL.

Legion's final patch was an ENTIRE expansion's worth of content/lore wasted, Azshara is an entire expansion on her own, Nzoth/Old Gods are an entire expansion on their own... three potential expansions with direct ties to established Warcarft lore were all wasted in single patches so Danuser could rush into his stupid cosmic war and Sylvanus story.
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as for SL specifically, and how it's been so bad for the lore:

I hate how everything now has a stupid pantheon, every power is not morally grey, everyone being a stupid robot (or w.e the exact story is for next patch on that), characters having their "secret real boss", dreadlords somehow manipulating everyone is too much, most everything around the First Ones was so poorly done and clearly not thought out well and the list goes on.

And as others have said, visiting the afterlife in a story is such a bad idea for IPs in general.

So from the onset it's a bad story direction to take, but on top of that Blizzard never had the caliber of writers to tackle that afterlife story/realm/characters... and we see how shit the Shadowlands realm and story turned out to be:

Zovaal as a whole (and how everything now has to freaking tie back to him), the entire concept of covenants (from lack of creativity to such boring characters), the First One zone being so bland and uncreative for what it's meant to be, the entire mystery and potential of the SL has been completely ruined... and so much more.

And this is all before the crazy amount of retconning/changes that Danuser has done to try and force his story into Wacraft, let alone how they clearly never had a plan for all this and are basically just winging shit as they go along. Then Danuser acts like he's a better writer than he is and keeps going forward trying to tackle topics even good writers struggle with (creationism, morality, secrets, alternate timelines, etc)

[geco]

It's amazing how they destroyed the Lore of almost all the PCs who touched in depth that matter in the plot in the future Sylvanas, Tyrande, Elune.

But at the same time they touched so little or nothing to the dead PCs that it's the only good long-term thing about the expansion.

[Soon-TM]

But at the same time they touched so little or nothing to the dead PCs that it's the only good long-term thing about the expansion.

I shudder when I think about what this sad excuse for a lead writer might have done with e.g. Arthas. The fact that he's been practically absent from this horrible story is unironically one of its few good things.

[Super Dickmann]

It's amazing how they destroyed the Lore of almost all the PCs who touched in depth that matter in the plot in the future Sylvanas, Tyrande, Elune.

But at the same time they touched so little or nothing to the dead PCs that it's the only good long-term thing about the expansion.

Kel'thuzad got anally devastated, Mograine is close enough. Uther got his best showing since WC3 and Kael and Vashj are better than in TBC. Draka remained aggressively, stupefyingly boring. It's mostly a wash, but they came out a lot better than the Bland Gang.