Shadowlands was truly filler after all?

[Niwes]

I didn’t play the last patches of BfA, but looking back there is a huge emphasis on dragon lore in those last patches. It’s amazing that the dragon foreshadowing is only paying off after this pointless excursion into robo-afterlife.

It is sad that the worst parts of BfA were so bad because they simply served as a prologue for Shadowlands. The first arc of that xpac, ignoring Lordaeron and the war campaign, is still great.

hi, plz declare, define or answer the following things:

- WHAT exactly defines a filler xpac?
- WHEN is an xpac defined, or planned, or declared a filler xpac? (before developing, while runtime…?)
- is a filler xpac something Blizz defines or we, as the community?

tbh, my problem with your post is, that i am even not sure for myself, when i should call a xpac „filler“. also i am not sure if a filler xpac shall be something that is planned as such (a filler) before development, ala „we put in this small addon, between BfA and DF“ or if at runtime Blizz decides to cut things or see ppl dont like things and move on.

in short: i am not sure about the real definition and happening when it comes down to the term „filler xpac“.

[cparle87]

dragonflight looks to be way more ''filler'',shadowlands atleast sets up stuff,and had nonsensical old lore painfuly retconned in to it

but im optimistic,the last truly filler expansion we had with mop ended up pretty good

What is your definition of filler? We fought Old God minions, depraved Titan minions, learned a huge amount of new lore that was then expanded on with many "aha" moments when Chronicles came out, discovered a new continent, recruited a new race to both sides, had an entire HvA patch, and the final patch laid siege to one of the two major capitals and overthrew a faction leader.

- - - Updated - - -

hi, plz declare, define or answer the following things:

- WHAT exactly defines a filler xpac?
- WHEN is an xpac defined, or planned, or declared a filler xpac? (before developing, while runtime…?)
- is a filler xpac something Blizz defines or we, as the community?

tbh, my problem with your post is, that i am even not sure for myself, when i should call a xpac „filler“. also i am not sure if a filler xpac shall be something that is planned as such (a filler) before development, ala „we put in this small addon, between BfA and DF“ or if at runtime Blizz decides to cut things or see ppl dont like things and move on.

in short: i am not sure about the real definition and happening when it comes down to the term „filler xpac“.

Agreed. People misuse filler and seem to use it as a way to diminish anything they don't like. I've heard every xpac from Cata besides Legion called filler. It seems if it's not Scourge/Legion/Old God heavy they call it filler. And from my other quote in this same post MoP had heavy Titan/Old God lore.

[Aleksej89]

Shadowlands wasnt intended as a filler expansion but the player reception to the story and gameplay was so negative blizzard cut SL short and went onto DFlight.

Shadowlands was supposed to get us prepared for the "VS Void" expansion but the story was told so poorly and written so awful that everyone hated it even before the last patch.

And the last SL patch brought a story conclusion that is exxxxxxxxxxxxxxtremely unsatisfying and dumb.

edit: imho what defines is expansion a filler is how much does it tie into the following expansions.
For example TBC had little to nothing with Wotlk, and WOD had nothing significant to do with anything after.
On the other hand Legion story and Cataclysm story were designed as "world impacting" and so are less filler (less irrelevant).

[deenman]

What is your definition of filler? We fought Old God minions, depraved Titan minions, learned a huge amount of new lore that was then expanded on with many "aha" moments when Chronicles came out, discovered a new continent, recruited a new race to both sides, had an entire HvA patch, and the final patch laid siege to one of the two major capitals and overthrew a faction leader.

we just faced an old gods dandruff,the titan dudes were just flesh corrupted broken down titan constructs,and the end garrosh stuff was a side quest,the only relevant thing happened at the end that leads in to wod that leads in to legion

not saying the content wasnt good,but literaly nothing important happened

[Lord Pebbleton]

I think that it's evident that it wasn't supposed to be filler, with most storylines being half-baked or having major plot holes, but they realized that there's such a large degree of friction between players and the current in-game systems and story that it just makes more sense to go all-in on Dragonflight, similarly to how they discontinued WoD development early and focused on Legion.

I agree 100%.

I don't think any expansion has ever been planned as "filler" from the get-go. In the eyes of the players, a filler expansion is one that doesn't expand a lot upon the existing lore and doesn't answer big questions. MoP is considered a filler expansion, albeit a very successful one, because they just took something entirely new and shifted away focus from the usual big bads.

It feels to me like an expansion becomes filler when it is not working. WoD was kind of a huge sidequest by default since it was not even our timeline, which probably made it easier for the devs to just abandon it when they saw players' feedback.

Shadowlands was super lore heavy. We saw a comeback of super important people like Vashj, Mograine and Kael, and we had the displeasure of knowing the Jailer, which apparently is the mastermind behind everything ever, something that will never not make me laugh.
Shadowlands clearly failed to deliver, so it stands to reason that Blizzard decided not to exhaust all their possible plots on it - namely how death knights feel about the whole thing and the scourge being without a Lich King (I expect the latter to be touched in a following expansion at least).

So yes, I think Shadowlands was filler, but it wasn't born as such, which is a pity. It is clear they wanted more from the Jailer. Now, if only they even tried to give him a personality, that might have flown way better.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Shadowlands ... ensured future deaths were meaningless.

How so? We've always known there was an afterlife in WoW. We have a playable faction of Undead. We have spirits all over the world. Player characters have canonically died multiple times. Life after Death has never been a question of if, merely of what. Knowing for sure what lies beyond the veil may remove some of the mystery, but it was already known that they would keep on living in some form. They didn't become more meaningless in the process.

[cparle87]

we just faced an old gods dandruff,the titan dudes were just flesh corrupted broken down titan constructs,and the end garrosh stuff was a side quest,the only relevant thing happened at the end that leads in to wod that leads in to legion

not saying the content wasnt good,but literaly nothing important happened

Do you have any argument besides "those examples don't count cause I said so and nothing important happened because I said so"?

- - - Updated - - -

I agree 100%.

I don't think any expansion has ever been planned as "filler" from the get-go. In the eyes of the players, a filler expansion is one that doesn't expand a lot upon the existing lore and doesn't answer big questions. MoP is considered a filler expansion, albeit a very successful one, because they just took something entirely new and shifted away focus from the usual big bads.

It feels to me like an expansion becomes filler when it is not working. WoD was kind of a huge sidequest by default since it was not even our timeline, which probably made it easier for the devs to just abandon it when they saw players' feedback.

Shadowlands was super lore heavy. We saw a comeback of super important people like Vashj, Mograine and Kael, and we had the displeasure of knowing the Jailer, which apparently is the mastermind behind everything ever, something that will never not make me laugh.
Shadowlands clearly failed to deliver, so it stands to reason that Blizzard decided not to exhaust all their possible plots on it - namely how death knights feel about the whole thing and the scourge being without a Lich King (I expect the latter to be touched in a following expansion at least).

So yes, I think Shadowlands was filler, but it wasn't born as such, which is a pity. It is clear they wanted more from the Jailer. Now, if only they even tried to give him a personality, that might have flown way better.

A filler expansion is a buzzword people use for anything they don't like which they use pejoratively to attack Blizzard and make it seem like they're doing something wrong.

On the lore side in WoD we were re-introduced to Khadgar for the first time since his cameo in TBC, a few important guys like Maraad died, Thrall got some character development, we got introduced to a villain who would be a stable for the next xpac and a half, introduced folks who would later become an allied race, perma killed the #3 of the Legion, and introduced a lot of new technology to both sides.

The mechanics side is a bit lighter, we got a new BG and mythic dungeons.

[deenman]

Do you have any argument besides "those examples don't count cause I said so and nothing important happened because I said so"?

i dunno how i can explain something so obvious,nothing of relevance happend in mop,simple as that,garrosh and some old god poop arent main wow lore story threads,it was the only expansion that did this,even shadowlands with its asspulls atleast inserted itself in the main mythos

[cparle87]

i dunno how i can explain something so obvious,nothing of relevance happend in mop,simple as that,garrosh and some old god poop arent main wow lore story threads,it was the only expansion that did this,even shadowlands with its asspulls atleast inserted itself in the main mythos

Ahh, ok. So no examples. Just wave your hands around, go look at how bad it is, and make the person you're making the argument do go look for evidence to support your argument, it's there if we look. Sorry, bucko, that's not how arguments work.

[Aydinx2]

i dunno how i can explain something so obvious,nothing of relevance happend in mop,simple as that,garrosh and some old god poop arent main wow lore story threads,it was the only expansion that did this,even shadowlands with its asspulls atleast inserted itself in the main mythos

MoP literally tells us the story of Garrosh' downfall which directly leads to the Legion invading.

What is the "main mythos"? Can you at least try to define it?

[kranur]

There's nothing wrong that an expansion's point is not to be the prologue to the next.
The very bad part is leaving all the shitty loose ends "to be used in the future" .. that is just fucking retarded.

Vanilla was not a prologue to TBC.
TBC was not a prologue to WotLK.
WotLK (aside from the last raid) was not a prologue to Cataclysm.

This did not make them a filler and they were great.

[Darknessvamp]

To echo what others have said 'Dragonflight' seems to be presenting itself as the next at least partial 'filler' expansion especially over Shadowlands, it certainly doesn't give off a Legion sense of "we're at least attempting to fix our mess ups from last expansion with all resources" but rather "what can we handwave till the next expansion for subs and sales till all our shit blows over *devs cross fingers* hopefully".
Shadowlands for reference was that one guy in roller skates sat at the side of ring, spinning his wheels and boasting about all the cool shit and tricks they can do and will totally do soon until late at night once everyone has left and they then promptly stand up only to slip over and fall smack on their face.

[Aresk]

I don't feel like it was filler. It resolved both the Sylvanas plot arc as well as Tyrande's plot arc. It removed Anduin from the narrative. We finally got to kill Mal'ganis. Ursoc is now perma-dead, and Ysera is no longer dead (just forever bound). It also introduced Denathrius, who was probably my favorite villain within WoW just in terms of how had handles his interaction with the player character, though obviously that's subjective. It also reintroduced the Scourge as a large threat, though it remains what becomes of that particular thread. It even concludes, to some extent, the ongoing Sylvanas-Helya question from Legion, though the recent novel addresses that far more thoroughly.

I do see how Shadowlands could be considered filler for other plot lines, though, as they are largely disregarded. The fate of the Forsaken, for instance, isn't covered at all, despite Calia making an appearance and Sylvanas ultimately having her storyline resolved. Azshara plays no role despite having an open thread at the end of BfA. It doesn't really touch on Horde/Alliance relations (specifically the ongoing conflict in Ashenvale). However, given the largest ongoing threads after BfA were Sylvanas' actions and Tyrande's vengeance, I think Shadowlands did a nice job of concluding those threads in a way that carries the narrative onward from them.

I do think it shares Cata's issue with the big villain introduced in the expansion being dealt with in the expansion with no really big consequences to the lore, but I don't think Zovaal was ever intended to be an interesting character, wheras Neltharion was just wasted in Cata.

Very true, but people often forget that WoD served as excellent world building that developed Draenei, Orc and Ogre lore to a very polished state. Shadowlands just added a layer of Titans over the existing Titans, retconned Arthas and ensured future deaths were meaningless.

- - - Updated - - -

I would argue in a way that BC was a filler expansion. I’m speaking narratively here, not in terms of game development. BC had no idea what to do with the Legion and Illidan stories, it also broke the lore thanks to the eredar retcon. WotlK resolved SEVERAL large plot points from WC3 and Classic. So in a way, yeah, it was filler for the narrative.

What Arthas retcons were introduced? Arthas' character seemed fairly consistent throughout Shadowlands, even emphasizing that the change in the Helm's origin actually didn't change any of Arthas' story. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by resolving plot points; are you talking about fixing things (given the rest of your post is about lore issues) or simply concluding storylines? If the latter, I feel like Shadowlands has a similar role (including fixing the "There must always be a Lich King" element introduced in WotLK).

edit: imho what defines is expansion a filler is how much does it tie into the following expansions.
For example TBC had little to nothing with Wotlk, and WOD had nothing significant to do with anything after.
On the other hand Legion story and Cataclysm story were designed as "world impacting" and so are less filler (less irrelevant).

I feel like Cata is probably the most filler expansion. The most interesting thing to happen in Cata happens at the beginning (namely the redesign of the old zones). From that point on, nothing we do really matters: we do nothing but win throughout the entire expansion, only to reveal that the ultimate success of the villain just involved him flying to the middle of the world, and then we killed him. Literally, aside from the Shattering (which was mostly covered in a novel anyway), nothing in Cataclysm really mattered. We could've gone directly from The Shattering to MoP by just coming up with some other explanation beyond Deathwing as to why the world shook so badly. Even the Alliance-Horde War was started in WotLK and concluded in MoP, with Cata just having a few set pieces in the conflict. Cho'gall and Deathwing's death were the most noteworthy conclusions from Cata, and I feel like both could've been used to better effect (as illustrated by WoD's Cho'gall being a more interesting villain than the main universe).

[Iheartnathanos]

‘New players will still start in Exile's Reach, then use Battle for Azeroth zones as their 10-60 experience before going directly to the Dragon Isles.’

‘Nuff said…?

To all the people whose only argument was that filler was a ‘buzzword’ here are some better words:

Inconsequential
Aberrant
Self-contained
Self-indulgent (for Danuser)
Alienating
Pointless

[Aucald]

‘New players will still start in Exile's Reach, then use Battle for Azeroth zones as their 10-60 experience before going directly to the Dragon Isles.’

‘Nuff said…?

To all the people whose only argument was that filler was a ‘buzzword’ here are some better words:

Inconsequential
Aberrant
Self-contained
Self-indulgent (for Danuser)
Alienating
Pointless

Apparently, the Blizzard developer-approved term for Shadowlands was "high concept." Don't know if the same term would apply to WoD from their perspective, but if so, then I'd say that's a rather telling term to watch for in the future.

[Iheartnathanos]

Apparently, the Blizzard developer-approved term for Shadowlands was "high concept." Don't know if the same term would apply to WoD from their perspective, but if so, then I'd say that's a rather telling term to watch for in the future.

I chuckled heartily at that, because in film and TV high concept means:

‘having a striking and easily communicable idea.’

[Super Dickmann]

Apparently, the Blizzard developer-approved term for Shadowlands was "high concept." Don't know if the same term would apply to WoD from their perspective, but if so, then I'd say that's a rather telling term to watch for in the future.

Clearly taken from my posts. But it's an accurate descriptor. It's the kind of fare that's rightly not gotten a full expansion over all, and still didn't because SL got cut short and everything regarding predestination, artificial afterlives, the constructs based on concepts and so on had to ride bitch on its own expansion while we handled the soap opera drama. A shame, since unlike with Cataclysm's toying with the same, SL actually considered it, but relegated most of it to side materials.

As far as filler expansions go, Shadowlands and Warlords are the most irrelevant, with Warlords' direct consequences being bringing in Gul'dan while Shadowlands's are removing Anduin, with everything else being functionally the same on Azeroth before and after. Warlords' long-term consequences were Yrel and the Mag'har, whereas Shadowlands' are likely to be whatever comes of Tyrande and the Seed + Denathrius and the Dreadlords.

[rhorle]

To all the people whose only argument was that filler was a ‘buzzword’ here are some better words:

Because it is? And listing more terms doesn't change it at all. Just like your "nuff said" implies every expansion except for BfA is filler because it isn't being used for a new player experience. There are a few reasons why Shadowlands might not be a good fit for new players and it has nothing to do with the story but how the story unfolds and how much is locked behind covenants.

[HansOlo]

I didn’t play the last patches of BfA, but looking back there is a huge emphasis on dragon lore in those last patches. It’s amazing that the dragon foreshadowing is only paying off after this pointless excursion into robo-afterlife.

It is sad that the worst parts of BfA were so bad because they simply served as a prologue for Shadowlands. The first arc of that xpac, ignoring Lordaeron and the war campaign, is still great.

Nope - you can't really call it filler when so many characters involved. The story is so immense, that they failed to deliver.

DF really seem to be filler though. And that's what we need. A good distraction.

[Hctaz]

I would argue in a way that BC was a filler expansion. I’m speaking narratively here, not in terms of game development. BC had no idea what to do with the Legion and Illidan stories, it also broke the lore thanks to the eredar retcon. WotlK resolved SEVERAL large plot points from WC3 and Classic. So in a way, yeah, it was filler for the narrative.

Interestingly enough, I agree.

I actually rewrote the entire narrative from the ending of Classic through Cata to make it all flow better.
It seems so odd that we end Classic by defeating Naxx and learning of the possibility of reforging Ashbringer only to then abandon all of that to go to Outland.

They should have done a better job tying the narrative together. Imagine if Illidan had kidnapped Darion Mograine for the purpose of forging holy weapons capable of defeating demons and THATS why we go beat him up. We need “Mograine’s second son” who could be found on Outland to forge a new Ashbringer capable of defeating the Lich King.

But oh well. It’s something that seems to happen quite a lot with the WoW narrative.

I think the main problem is that they fired Alex Afrasiabi in 2020 and wanted to purge the remnants of his story from the game but couldn’t just go “JK, we’re gonna do something else now.”
The story was basically a mess, and they’re just now coming into the first part of a narrative that Alex didn’t set up. They had to follow through with the plot points he put in motion, and I’m sure they were left with a ton of empty spots in the narrative after he was fired.

Fired for a good reason I might add. I don’t want this to sound like I think he shouldn’t have been fired, only that there were unfortunate repercussions that the narrative took as a result of him being a trash person and getting himself fired.