I would like to see some really dark shit in Shadowlands

[Cosmic Janitor]

Something doesn't become dark because a part of its concept is dark in isolation. That is not how it works. You need to keep a certain believable tone going for it work in that way. Death is not dark if you don't show consequences, depression is not dark if you then start rolling a fat panda back to his village (by kicking him) while the fat panda complains about being rescued, suicide is not dark if the person then just spirit rezzes a few seconds later.

Cause, (inter)action and effect. You need to show it all and keep the tone serious, if you turn one of these parts into a silly looney toon skit you've just taken away any impact it might have had.

I recently did BfUC again and realized despite the situation, it just lacks any impact.
The horrendous ingame pseudo-cutscenes, with the most silly gestures and mouth animations possible,
the cartooney art on supposedly dangerous things like plague tanks, mechanical weaponry,
the badly utilized actors like gnomes and their pathetic bravado or a race of technomancers attacking you with a spear thrower,
the comical animations of supposedly deadly machinery that should be awe inspiring/ fear inducing,
the utter lack of stakes for the main characters since none of them are in any danger,

sorry to tell you this OP, WoW will never have you see actual dark shit, certainly not on a consistent basis. It will only ever be interspersed in between all the silly shit this game is pretty much centered around on. It's a themepark (like disneyland) after all, it's supposed to be a tourist attraction to dazzle the simpletons, not a simulation of a rich world. You aren't supposed to experience the plight of little people, you are supposed to enjoy the whacky adventure while staying within the safety of the ride.

[Pakheth]

It actually started with Pandarens.

Yeah let's just ignore that gnomes exist shall we...

[Kaver]

I would like to see a raid boss which gained power by eating babies.

[Thage]

Ah yes the Pandaren are to fault for having stories such as a tauren father losing his wife, accidently crushing to death one of his sons, and having to give up his other for a better life.

Also, the entire metaplot of the expansion centering around a power-mad racial supremacist whose stated goal for sending a recon party to the pandaren mainland being to 'paint it red,' a statement with multiple implications given his personality at the time (the top two of course being, wash the streets in blood, and conquer the land and strip the resources for the Horde), throwing a continent full of agricultural meditatives into the center of a war they didn't ask for, with the closest thing to an organized military overwhelmed as local threats became as powerful as ancient legends claimed (and the implications there were that the legends had been significantly overblown through generations of retelling).

Seriously, for some reason people seem to want Warcraft to just be a mishmash of 90s Dark Age tropes, apparently. Well, y'all got your wish in BFA with Sylvanas, aaaaaand oh it went over about as well as a wet shart because "IT'S NOT A PHASE DAD, READING ATLAS SHRUGGED AND NIETZSCHE CHANGED MY LIFE!" doesn't make for a compelling story arc.

That's not to say I don't expect some darkness. I'm about 90% sure Revendreth and that other dark zone will have pretty bleak storylines to counter the night fae being more whimsical and the kyrian being very pride-and-honor Lawful Good types, never mind the almost-literal shitstorm the Maw will inevitably end up being.

[Asotcha]

Why not break the mold? Why not have something positive?

The last expansion lead to both factions armies being decimated...countless deaths including civilians...and we learned innocent souls are being funneled to WoW hell

Why does every single little thing need to be dark? To the point that even Star Trek....a show built on a hopeful utopian future for the human race has gone full on dystopia because people want everything soooooo dark

Well the world is dark...fuck that I want something inspirational and meaningful, not just another slaughter.

I feel you--besides, if you just keep throwing dark shit all the time, it just looks like pandering to edgelords. Gotta balance some shit now and then.

[Thage]

I feel you--besides, if you just keep throwing dark shit all the time, it just looks like pandering to edgelords. Gotta balance some shit now and then.

It's actually a recorded phenomenon. The Walking Dead has been getting hit hard by it these last few seasons. Constantly just hitting the audience with increasingly-bleak situations causes most people to tune out and stop caring, and if they tune out and stop caring, it's significantly harder to recapture that audience (and conversely, the audience that likes everything super bleak is often quite a niche one; Netflix's The Witcher knew this and was smart in balancing the generally-bleak tone with Geralt's seen-it-all apathy and Jaskier/Dandelion serving as his chipper foil both making for plenty of funny moments that don't disrupt the story's flow overmuch). Eventually, you have to take a break from, "And then there's this asshole who makes everything EVEN WORSE!" or your audience is going to throw up their hands and cry, "Then why fucking bother?"

It's worth pointing out that Warhammer 40k is so over-the-top because it's a direct parody of franchises that just keep hammering the 'Make it darker!' button relentlessly. They're taking the piss and making fun of the misconception among mediocre writers that dark writing and good writing are synonymous, and do so by making everything they do so extreme that you can't take it seriously. When's the last time someone applauded the God-Emperor of Mankind as being a well-written, compelling figure in the 40k narrative versus people having a good time making jokes with each other about the EMPRAH?

[huth]

That's not to say I don't expect some darkness. I'm about 90% sure Revendreth and that other dark zone will have pretty bleak storylines to counter the night fae being more whimsical and the kyrian being very pride-and-honor Lawful Good types, never mind the almost-literal shitstorm the Maw will inevitably end up being.

Since the Night Fae appear to be based on the Winter Court, i wouldn't necessarily expect whimsy all that much.

[Thage]

Since the Night Fae appear to be based on the Winter Court, i wouldn't necessarily expect whimsy all that much.

The Unseelie are still pretty whimsical, it's just that their mercurial nature tends to be more inclined toward mean-spirited pranks than the more harmless shenanigans the Seelie fae are known for. As a comparison, Wonderland (yes, that Wonderland) and Looking-Glass Land were whimsical lands where madness was the norm, and they felt most distinctly unfriendly to mortal interloper Alice, up to and including a mad queen demanding those who displease her be decapitated.

[Rustedsaint]

Plenty of dark quests in bfa and wow in general
Horde literally feeds baby dinosaurs their parents remain, we go around pranking allied trolls then kill them when the rightfully enraged at us.

[jellmoo]

I really don't want to deal with heavy moral dilemmas in my escapist fantasy. I still have never killed Bossie.

[Dracullus]

Warcraft already has many brutal stuff, but overall story is pretty silly. And it always was, at least since WoW. I had bigger problem with Diablo III, which become very similar to WoW - yeah, we had corpses & company, but it felt like another Burning Legion invasion, it had no depth.

That's why I'm hyped about Diablo IV, especially since creative director from Witcher/Cyberpunk works on it.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Wow is pretty dark. Isn't Thaddius for example made out of butchered people who's souls are still trapped inside, crying for help?

Aaah don't remind me.
Naxx 10 was the first raid I ever entered back when I was new, and the ambient screams still show up in nightmares that really wanna wake me up...

[Kuja]

Aaah don't remind me.
Naxx 10 was the first raid I ever entered back when I was new, and the ambient screams still show up in nightmares that really wanna wake me up...

Really? That's horrible! Perhaps you should avoid Shadowlands I feel there's going to be something even worse coming! Although the realm of the dead seems pretty bright and colorful from the previews.. so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ravenmoon]

Since we're dealing with the realm of death and torment (forget that flying fairies heaven part of the presentation), it would be cool to have some quests outside the shadowlands for example:

A mom's kid gets killed by a gnoll, so she goes and steals some dark magic books from a warlock guild while pretending she wants to join them, then she fucks up a resurection spell on her kid and he come back soulless, and we as players have to decide whether to kill the kid cause the mom can't do it, or to go in the Shadowlands and get the kid's soul, but in the process risk angering the powers that be at fucking up the balance.

And anyway regardless of our choice, the warlock guild then comes for the mom to get their book back and to kill her for her betrayal, and we have to decide whether to let the mom die or to kill the warlocks and protect her.

I would trade 50 "go collect some dumb shit" quest for one well written quest like that that just rewards the same amount of XP.

You mean, eveyrone dying, going into the death lands, teh MAw where no souls returned, jailor of the damned is not dark enough?

It is literally hell we are going to, except it has pretty zones in it

[Varodoc]

Really? That's horrible! Perhaps you should avoid Shadowlands I feel there's going to be something even worse coming! Although the realm of the dead seems pretty bright and colorful from the previews.. so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Does this look bright and colorful to you?

[Powerogue]

To be fair, Pandaren was horsecrap except for Shaohao

Pandaria was the expansion where I felt one of the biggest disconnects between the stories and the in-game representations. In the shorts and short stories, the Sha are terrifying. But how exactly do you represent a monster that can't be fought with conventional weapons in a combat oriented video game?

Burdens of Shaohao was great all around. I remember quest for Pandaria where the tol'vir brothers, one of whom supported Deathwing, ultimately refused to reconcile and Li-Li watches his execution. The Blank Scroll where the worst possible end of the world occurs. Picture the Garrosh nightmare taken to its ultimate conclusion. Nightmare fuel. And one of my favorites, Trial of the Red Blossoms, where at least half the child soldier recruits die brutally in their trials. Shado-Pan clan aint to be f***ed with.

"Of course, you can refuse the mercy I have extended and confirm Tao-Long's suspicions. And then we will take the scroll from you, as well as your life. But don't think that this means we will simply kill you, thief. When the Shado-pan take your life, it means that your life comes into our possession. We will bind you, take your eyes, your feet, and all but two of your fingers so that you can feed yourself. Then you will be strapped to a mount and carried to our monastery high in Kun-Lai Summit. Upon your arrival, you will be placed on an ice-rimmed ledge to wait for our Truthseekers."

Here, the beer-dipped Shado-pan—Tao-Long—smirked and twisted his sword ever so slightly. It was obvious which option he preferred.

"The Shado-pan Truthseekers will teach you that the previous removal of your eyes was only the first and most gentle of our gifts. They will find out how you have been corrupted by the sha, what you know of their designs, and whether we should toss you to the canyon winds for judgment."

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/st...a/red-blossoms

[puddypounce]

It actually started with Pandarens.

Pandaria was by far one of the darkest expansions.