The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Nymrohd]

No, stuff were mediocre with Danuser. Now we can go back to "epic, but stupid", as your screenshot kinda proves.

And Epic but stupid is as good as it gets in a plot shackled with the constraints that WoW has.

[Nathanyel]

What's wrong with making it a gear slot? It can just be a stat stick like trinkets but with an actualy cosmetic attached to it.

Removing the stat sticks was a good thing.

Hunters competed with melee specs for weapons, and in turn Rogues and Warriors competed with them for ranged weapons. Eventually Blizz just gave the latter a vendor thrown weapon to prevent that.
(I calculated it back then, a Hunter would need to replace a quest green so that an ICC melee weapon was an objectively larger upgrade for them than a Feral replacing a Normal weapon with a Heroic one)

Druids, Shamans and Paladins had items with effects that should've been talents, basically an early version of Legion/SL legendaries. Most came from levelling content, but that meant there was no progression at endgame. Some were quest rewards, so you might have sold them, accidentally or because you weren't aware of the value.

[Dracullus]

And Epic but stupid is as good as it gets in a plot shackled with the constraints that WoW has.

I agree. Even most extreme cases of it - launches of WoD and SL (not Metzen baby, but Afrasabi) - brings huge hype for expansion. Imo theory that DF launch wasn't as hyped cause people were tired with SL is completely false.

[KainneAbsolute]

That's the main dividing line. We'll be hearing about the friends we made along the way and world peace between blandos either way. The question is whether this'll be in the form of heroic fantasy that puts spectacle (and violence) forward or if it'll be more sad orcs, sad elves and broadly happy but uninterested dragons.

Metzen, notwithstanding the whole collecting the four pieces of Thrall's mid-life crisis business has always understood at least this heroic fantasy, which is a good sign. But given TWW opens with a sad orc meeting a sad human to discuss the sad planet the feng-shui is foreboding.

Maybe Metzen wants to try again to tell the story he wanted for Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty.

[Shadowferal]

"Epically stupid" isn't a good selling point. It's "Shadowlands 2; Electric Boogaloo".and at the low low price of $150...yay?
...where'd everybody go?

[Nymrohd]

"Epically stupid" isn't a good selling point. It's "Shadowlands 2; Electric Boogaloo".and at the low low price of $150...yay?
...where'd everybody go?

Epically stupid is completely different from Epic but stupid and you know that.

[Super Dickmann]

Maybe Metzen wants to try again to tell the story he wanted for Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty.

When Danuser fled his office Metzen rummaged through his filing drawers and found in it a profane tome holding the script to Shadowlands. No sooner had he opened this grimoire of fell lore but did he realize it was just a copy of the Starcraft II one with the names changed and the word "essence" furiously scrawled out and replaced with "fractal". Going mad from the revelation he ordered the premises exorcised and the employees who had been exposed to this dark insight fired to cover for their harrowing mental state.

[Lady Atia]

Removing the stat sticks was a good thing.

Hunters competed with melee specs for weapons, and in turn Rogues and Warriors competed with them for ranged weapons. Eventually Blizz just gave the latter a vendor thrown weapon to prevent that.
(I calculated it back then, a Hunter would need to replace a quest green so that an ICC melee weapon was an objectively larger upgrade for them than a Feral replacing a Normal weapon with a Heroic one)

Druids, Shamans and Paladins had items with effects that should've been talents, basically an early version of Legion/SL legendaries. Most came from levelling content, but that meant there was no progression at endgame. Some were quest rewards, so you might have sold them, accidentally or because you weren't aware of the value.

Hard disagree. These things gave flavour and the only real problem was that anyone but hunters/rogues/warriors didn't have a cosmetic to go with that slot, which is something that Blizzard could change today thanks to 3d books/totems/orbs etc. And really, "most came from leveling content" isn't an argument since you know, if they would re-introduce that slot they would have them drop just like any other item in m+/raids. It's an RPG after all, and it makes no sense that a hunter can't equip both meele and range weapons. Similiary, both rogues and warriors can still loot ranged weapons but can't utilise them, not even through a glyph or something.

Last but not least, they could easily be used to add some missing cantrip effects to classes that don't get a canptrip weapon during a season, making cantrip weapons something more special again instead of just bloating the loottable with them.

Let's hope the devs played some BG3, realizing that the removing of that slot was maybe a short-term QoL but longterm, stole flavour and realism from the classes, instead of fixing the problem of missing cosmetic customization for that slot they just deleted the whole feature lol.

[Shadowferal]

When Danuser fled his office Metzen rummaged through his filing drawers and found in it a profane tome holding the script to Shadowlands. No sooner had he opened this grimoire of fell lore but did he realize it was just a copy of the Starcraft II one with the names changed and the word "essence" furiously scrawled out and replaced with "fractal". Going mad from the revelation he ordered the premises exorcised and the employees who had been exposed to this dark insight fired to cover for their harrowing mental state.

Now that's got potential as a story...

[Nymrohd]

When Danuser fled his office Metzen rummaged through his filing drawers and found in it a profane tome holding the script to Shadowlands. No sooner had he opened this grimoire of fell lore but did he realize it was just a copy of the Starcraft II one with the names changed and the word "essence" furiously scrawled out and replaced with "fractal". Going mad from the revelation he ordered the premises exorcised and the employees who had been exposed to this dark insight fired to cover for their harrowing mental state.

You really think the "Fractals" part was about badly copying SCII and not instead about horribly copying the Monomyth?

[Varodoc]

"He did it all because he wanted to protect his waifu Sylvanas" is not entirely true..

It is entirely true, down to Elune cucking Tyrande at the moment of her revenge because dear Sylvanas can't be hurt and Jaina inexplicably going along with working with the good girl who tried to brainwash her brother and kill her and her family.

But I'm sure you have already seen all the video parodies making fun and calling out the stupidity of that plot, enough said.

then everyone including Tyrande would've forgiven her or he could've gone the Starcraft 2 route and turned her into a godlike being like Kerrigan... instead she got sent to the Maw, not killing her off, but shelving her away.

"Shelving her away" is far more generous than anything that Benedictus, Staghelm, Putress, Garrosh, Kael'Thas, and every other "corrupted racial leader" got.

Had Sylvanas not been getting special treatment from Danuser, she would have ended like the other corrupted racial leaders: dead. Because that was the precedent for corrupted racial leaders (see Staghelm, Putress, Garrosh, Kael'Thas, we could even throw Elisande, Thaurissan, and King Mechagon in there).

And let this post also serve as a reminder that Alliance races have to take down their leaders too.

Human players had to kill Benedictus
DI Dwarf players have to kill Thaurissan
Night Elf players have to kill Staghelm
Mechagnome players (all 10 of them) have to kill King Mechagon

NOT ONE Alliance leader got the leniency and mercy from the other characters that Sylvanas got.

You don't see the plot bending backward to keep Benedictus or Staghelm in the story, even though they were arguably just as important as Sylvanas in terms of leader status (at least until Sylvanas was made Warchief).

[Super Dickmann]

You really think the "Fractals" part was about badly copying SCII and not instead about horribly copying the Monomyth?

Yes, because I am sure that Danuser has played through SCII but I am not convinced he's read a non-genre book. It was part of the general ZM vibe of Kirkbride by way of no drugs and no real literary experience.

- - - Updated - - -

Now that's got potential as a story...

It'll be in that new journo's tell-all about Blizzard as extra content. Danuser revealed this to me before his departure.

[Lady Atia]

When Metzen left whatever your issues with his redemption plots, Green Jesus or world peace, you could never deny him the showmanship or that he was the face and heart of the setting. When Kosak left you could praise the solid narrative direction of Mists and the de-emphasis of Green Jesus while having misgivings over the Cataclysm meme quests and how fucked up things like Uldum ended up. When Afrasiabi left you could give him props for still getting that the basic gist of the story is violence and the role of the orcs of the Horde, despite being responsible for the worst story the game has shat out in BFA.

With Steve, I've got nothing. I guess Denathrius is cool, I liked the Dreadlord retcon and a few of the ideas (the Maw relative to other villain factions, ZM's premise) had some meat to them. His worst, Shadowlands, was a trainwreck taking a bad premise and fumbling what interesting ideas he did have. His best, Dragonflight, was toweringly bland 99% of the time, with 1% (Gilneas, natch), just as abysmal as anything before the excuses started pouring about how he was now in charge. Though even that is charitable, sometimes we know which writer did what - we know for instance that Kosak was shadow-organizing Mists, hence why there was never a plot as organized before or since, whatever can be said of its virtues. We know he and Afrasiabi sparred over whether to axe Garrosh or Sylvanas and Afrasiabi was a Sadfang appreciator, which ultimately translated into BFA's Sadfang chronicles. Metzen's narrative contributions need no description. But with Steve, from what few interviews he has, is completely unpinnable. How much any the few good ideas of Shadowlands or the bland but functional parts of DF are on him is unclear. We know he's not the only world peace enjoyer, far from it, else the same twee message mongering wouldn't be going on in increasingly wretched forms three expansions in a row, so there's no reason to assume he can get credit for the good parts either.

In brief, man was a bad writer and made bad stories. Good riddance.

Tbh it's just sickening to read how much you guys party over a guy losing his job, especially someone who actually fixed the shitty BfA storyline. Shadowlands problem was never the story, but the content draught. To compare to that, the only good things about BFA's story were Drustvar and Nazmir ... which were the only zones not touched by Afrasiabis bad "Sylvanas is now evil" bullshit story. Anything to do with his "war campaign" was even worse than Green Jesus back in Cata, and he even wasted Aszhara (another prime female character he tried to destroy in a single patch) and N'Zoth.

Compare to that, Steve atleast saved Sylvanas in Shadowlands, gave us Denathrius, aswell as the other cool Eternal Ones and the zone stories and designs were all superb besides Korthia (which prolly just got hit with Covid since it was initially supposed to be a fucking city, not flying rock number 3). The covenant gameplay and the 9 month long seasons? These were shit. Not. The. Story.

Also, Dragonflight, while not as good as Legion/MoP, is easily in the Top 3 list of Expansions, both story and gameplay wise.

[Varodoc]

Tbh it's just sickening to read how much you guys party over a guy losing his job, especially someone who actually fixed the shitty BfA storyline. Shadowlands problem was never the story, but the content draught.

Shadowlands didn't "fix" anything.

Danuser's solution to Afrasiabi turning Sylvanas into a cackling supervillain was to turn Sylvanas into an idiot.

Play Warcraft III and you will see why Shadowlands Sylvanas is a complete derailment of the character.

The first thing WC3 Sylvanas does with her free will is tell Varimathras to fuck off when he offers her an alliance. WC3 Sylvanas was very smart and a good judge of character.

Shadowlands Sylvanas is an idiot who trusts a guy literally named "The Jailer".

Furthermore, just because you didn't like BfA Sylvanas doesn't change the fact that she existed and was written in that way, and a good writer would have kept that in mind. Instead, Danuser did a complete 180° out of nowhere turn for Sylvanas, which is not what a good writer does. A good writer still tries to develop a character in a way that is coherent with the previous storylines. He didn't try to "salvage" or "save" Sylvanas, he straight up rebooted the character, which is different.

You cannot reconcile BfA Sylvanas and SL Sylvanas. They are not the same character. Danuser didn't save or salvage Sylvanas, he created a new version of Sylvanas that he pushed as the Main Sylvanas. That's not the same thing.

The Jailer did not exist in BfA. BFA Sylvanas did not want to send souls to turbo hell; from her own internal thoughts, we know that she wanted to secure Kalimdor for the Horde and break the Alliance politically, ensuring that future generations will not start another war. No turbo hell, no Jailer, no "remaking reality".

Even Legion Sylvanas is unrecognizable and retroactively ruined. Legion Sylvanas was stunned in place when Vol'jin named her Warchief, a reaction that does not make sense with the SL retcon that Sylvanas and Mueh'zala planned for Vol'jin to name Sylvanas Warchief so that she could send souls to turbo hell.

If your idea of "saving and fixing a story" is introducing dumb retcons that retroactively ruin a character and contradict said character's previous thoughts, then, what can I say... there's a reason Danuser was shown the door.

Not. The. Story.

Yes, the story.

The Jailer was a shit villain who came out of nowhere. The idea that the Gods of the Afterlife are robots is stupid. The idea that Sylvanas trusted the Jailer is stupid and betrays her intelligent character from WC3. The way the Jailer gets all the Infinity stones and how all the Eternal Ones are dumbed down is stupid. The Lich King being discarded like literal trash in the very opening of the expansion is stupid. The Dreadlord retcon is stupid.

The only good things about Shadowlands story were the Denathrius (an accident that Blizzard didn't expect to become so popular) and the twist that the Forge of Souls underneath Icecrown was repurposed to extract the World Soul of Azeroth.

[Nathanyel]

When Danuser fled his office Metzen rummaged through his filing drawers and found in it a profane tome holding the script to Shadowlands. No sooner had he opened this grimoire of fell lore but did he realize it was just a copy of the Starcraft II one with the names changed and the word "essence" furiously scrawled out and replaced with "fractal". Going mad from the revelation he ordered the premises exorcised and the employees who had been exposed to this dark insight fired to cover for their harrowing mental state.

Complaining about bad storytelling and then posting this...

[Lady Atia]

Shadowlands didn't "fix" anything.

Danuser's solution to Afrasiabi turning Sylvanas into a cackling supervillain was to turn Sylvanas into an idiot.

Play Warcraft III and you will see why Shadowlands Sylvanas is a complete derailment of the character.

The first thing WC3 Sylvanas does with her free will is tell Varimathras to fuck off when he offers her an alliance. WC3 Sylvanas was very smart and a good judge of character.

Shadowlands Sylvanas is an idiot who trusts a guy literally named "The Jailer".

Furthermore, just because you didn't like BfA Sylvanas doesn't change the fact that she existed and was written in that way, and a good writer would have kept that in mind. Instead, Danuser did a complete 180° out of nowhere turn for Sylvanas, which is not what a good writer does. A good writer still tries to develop a character in a way that is coherent with the previous storylines. He didn't try to "salvage" or "save" Sylvanas, he straight up rebooted the character, which is different.

You cannot reconcile BfA Sylvanas and SL Sylvanas. They are not the same character. Danuser didn't save or salvage Sylvanas, he created a new version of Sylvanas that he pushed as the Main Sylvanas. That's not the same thing.

The Jailer did not exist in BfA. BFA Sylvanas did not want to send souls to turbo hell; from her own internal thoughts, we know that she wanted to secure Kalimdor for the Horde and break the Alliance politically, ensuring that future generations will not start another war. No turbo hell, no Jailer, no "remaking reality".

Even Legion Sylvanas is unrecognizable and retroactively ruined. Legion Sylvanas was stunned in place when Vol'jin named her Warchief, a reaction that does not make sense with the SL retcon that Sylvanas and Mueh'zala planned for Vol'jin to name Sylvanas Warchief so that she could send souls to turbo hell.



Yes, the story.

The Jailer was a shit villain who came out of nowhere. The idea that the Gods of the Afterlife are robots is stupid. The idea that Sylvanas trusted the Jailer is stupid and betrays her intelligent character from WC3. The way the Jailer gets all the Infinity stones and how all the Eternal Ones are dumbed down is stupid. The Dreadlord retcon is stupid.

The only good things about Shadowlands story were the Denathrius (an accident that Blizzard didn't expect to become so popular) and the twist that the Forge of Souls underneath Icecrown was repurposed to extract the World Soul of Azeroth.

I would rather take a retcon than having to work with BfA Sylvanas, so I literally have 0 issues with it. And it was BfA "Sylvanas" that 10000% didn't fit with Legion Sylvanas, not the Shadowlands version lol.

I will give you that the Jailer should have been build up starting with Legion though, but that's something they learned from, just look at Iridikron.

Edit: Also, the Dreadlord retcon is literally retconning and older retcon and is one of the highlightes of recent lore. Really hoping Kinthessa isn't dead since we killed her in Zereth Mortis lol.

[Super Dickmann]

the Top 3 list of Expansions, both story and gameplay wise.

Yes, short of the content drought (and that's a big short even Steve Carell might perk a brow at) SL was better gameplay-wise than BFA, DF is obviously leagues ahead of both. That has little bearing on the stories, which are respectively bad and uninteresting.

I don't think I really need to present my BFA-hater credentials. I've said consistently, even in the very post you're quoting that BFA is the expansion with the worst story in terms of both volume squandered and lasting damage to the actual vehicles through which we experience the setting, the factions and races, rather than abstract nonsense about the afterlife.

However, BFA being shit does not make Shadowlands good. Indeed, the one thing BFA does have over Shadowlands is that while it's completely overshadowed by how wretched and lasting everything to do with the main plot is, it did ultimately also provide things for people to latch onto and take into the future. Kul Tiras and Zandalar were fully realized areas, and the WoD orc lore, easily the best part of WoD, was formally brought into the factions to be used later. Shadowlands on the other hand is equal parts abstracted from much else of the story past its sleep-inducing main cast and yet mired in it as it busies itself trying to salvage completely irredeemable plot points like Sylvanas's BFA route and the Night Elves jumping on the world peace bandwagon, Dragonflight likewise re: Gilneas. BFA had the world to work with in terms of plots and without fail fucked up every single one, whereas Shadowlands had a terrible premise combined with horrible baggage to work with and was adequate at both.

However that premise and baggage are the entirety of it and it's why there's ultimately little to get out of it, it has little lasting impact except in said abstract setting motherfuckery and while it wraps up the Tyrande and Sylvanas plots in ways that are more servicable than their BFA turns, those turns still aren't good. Sylvanas the manipulatee victim of a giant Bald Man is not as bad as Sylvanas serving as the chainsaw through which the entirety of the Horde is eviscerated and emptied of purpose, but she's still only good in the context of accepting the premise of the Bald Man to begin with. The complete Book Sylvanas is better than the BFA Sylvanas and is a somewhat coherent execution of the Bald Man premise. But the Bald Man premise is shit, ergo it's only good as a patch job. Ditto the Night Warrior. Were they bad because they had to take on the impossible task of making BFA's routes conclude? Yes. Was there any way for them to turn out better while maintaining the BFA world peace paradigm? God no, but they were still bad. If you were given laxatives and shat yourself, then sure it's better if you clean up afterwards, but the cleaning up has no added value of its own relative to the clean office we had before and there are places the swab won't reach.

Where BFA's problem is the overabundance of bad, SL's is the absence of good. There's not much to take away from it by the end until the tree in DF and DF itself is the epitome of this. The story is vacant, I am baffled that there are people who can even be upset by anything short of the Gilneas part as it takes no risks, which is also why it can never serve as a baseline going forward. The pieces it sets up competently enough need to be paid off with a drastically different tone to be worth it and "The real aspects were the friends we made along the way" repeated ad infinitum through every questline may not be actively bad enough to offend or damage, but it can also produce next to nill interest. There's a reason even SL was far more discussed than DF. There's no better proof of the tone and dialogue's utter inability to deliver than DF's own tie-in book, which is the product most true to Warcraft tonally released in half a decade, working off the exact same premise and much the same cast to results that are night and day.

[Nathanyel]

Danuser's solution to Afrasiabi turning Sylvanas into a cackling supervillain was to turn Sylvanas into an idiot.
[...]
Shadowlands Sylvanas is an idiot who trusts a guy literally named "The Jailer".

Gaslighting is a very real thing. The Jailer fed her half-truths and lies, and by the time she started to realize she was only being used, she felt she was too far in to stop now. It took a breaking point (the Jailer torturing Bolvar, Jaina and Thrall instead of just going to Zereth Mortis) for her to truly reject this path.

Furthermore, just because you didn't like BfA Sylvanas doesn't change the fact that she existed and was written in that way, and a good writer would have kept that in mind. Instead, Danuser did a complete 180° out of nowhere turn for Sylvanas, which is not what a good writer does.

Sylvanas was written well in A Good War, showing her caring about the Horde, giving her an actually logical motivation to conquer Teldrassil and hold its citizens as hostage to prevent Alliance interference on Kalimdor, or particularly action against Undercity and Silvermoon, a strategy that even Saurfang agreed with, to minimize casualties. She was an anti-hero, willing to use questionable methods, but in the name of the greater good (for her nation)

Then all that was thrown out because a dying Night Elf talked back at her. BfA Sylvanas was liked by no one except the players that wanted "WAR!" for war's sake, a simplicistic black and white story.

[Super Dickmann]

Complaining about bad storytelling and then posting this...

Don't be cross with me just because you don't have my peer-reviewed sources into the inner workings of Blizzard.

[Varodoc]

I would rather take a retcon than having to work with BfA Sylvanas, so I literally have 0 issues with it

That is not how a good writer operates.

nd it was BfA "Sylvanas" that 10000% didn't fit with Legion Sylvanas, not the Shadowlands version lol.

Watch this video, and then say that it makes sense that Sylvanas, Mueh'zala, and Jailer plotted behind the scenes to make Sylvanas Warchief so that she could kill as many people (Horde included) as possible. Try to reconcile this video with Shadowlands:






No matter how you try to spin. They are not the same character. Legion Sylvanas was stunned, confused, and at a loss for words, for a long time (Lor'themar and co. had time to remove Vol'jin's body and give him a proper burial before Sylvanas finally did anything). That is not the reaction of someone who had planned from the start with Death entities to manipulate Vol'jin into naming herself Warchief.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Irrespective of Afrasiabi, Danuser still failed to write Sylvanas in a way that was coherent and logical with what came before. Therefore, he failed to write a good story.

Edit: Also, the Dreadlord retcon is literally retconning and older retcon and is one of the highlightes of recent lore. Really hoping Kinthessa isn't dead since we killed her in Zereth Mortis lol.

There was no need to retcon anything about the Dreadlord.

The Illidan novel from Legion already gave us the definitive version of the Dreadlords. They were adept spellcasters Demons from the Fel planet Nathreza, who joined the Legion as infiltrators and spies. A definitive version of the Dreadlords.

The Shadowlands retcon was not only unnecessary, but also contradicts prior storylines.

The Dreadlord retcon completely contradicts WC3.

With the idea that the Dreadlords were always agents of Death serving the Jailer (who was apparently the creator of the Lich King), it does not make sense that the Dreadlords in WC3:TFT attempt to kill Arthas, who was an agent of the Maw wearing Maw-forged artefacts in the mortal world.