What is in your opinion more worse ? WoD story or SL story ?

[Aresk]

I voted WoD solely because of the way it started: with Garrosh escaping trial by traveling to an alternate Draenor at the behest of some crazy bronze drake who wanted to create an infinite Horde to rule the multiverse...and then killed the drake before we even got the expansion pre-launch event. If you removed that aspect and had WoD as a standalone story without the hurdles to make it feasible from a lore perspective, I think it would have been better. The ending of WoD left a lot to be desired (they really could've used more Iron Horde resisting Fel Horde and turning to the Horde/Alliance to sell the ending), but most of the story up until that was pretty good; there were a few instances that could've been improved upon, such as Ner'zhul's plot.

Shadowlands fits more cohesively into the Lore than WoD did, but the story has one big issue with it, and that's Sylvanas. At least Garrosh had the decency to take the back seat in WoD; Sylvanas remains front and center with nebulous motivations and an unsatisfying narrative arc. While her characterization is fine for a sideplot character, I'm getting really tired of her appearances after two expansions of significant plot relevance following one with two significant B-plots. I am also done with her "Name. A disparaging noun paired with a traumatic event." greetings with every NPC that confronts her. Her appearances have become too formulaic to be interesting.

Edit: While this is slightly off-topic, I feel it should be noted that the two proposed are not narratively the worst expansions of WoW. Both TBC and Cataclysm have greater narrative issues than either of the ones being polled about.

[Velerios]

That's easy: shadowlands. The Story part of WoD was actually good, not only it had a good storytelling, the whole story about WoD was fun. Just that blizzard cut the crap out of it, both at the beginning as totally in the endgame, because of Garrisons. Shadowlands is simply a bunch of missed opportunities.

[kamuimac]

Hey,

inspired by another SL story thread, i asked myself what MMOC ppls say:

Which one had/has the more worse story? WoD or SL ?

This thread should not feel like its purely targeted to ppl that do not like the SL story. Or to disgrace SL (or WoD). But i also do not want to add some „i liked both, but WoD more“ and „i liked both, but SL more“ options, since when you like SL factor 100 more than WoD, it still answers the question. In short: I purely wanna find out what ppl vote solely between the 2, even when that poll feels a bit negatively associated (what is not my intention per se).

So, without any real rating HOW good or bad you find the story of the 2 xpacs: Which one had/has, in your opinion, the more worse story ?

WoD or SL ?

Happy voting



Edit:

REMINDER: Dont forget we talk solely about the story/writing/lore here, NOT about the xpac itself (xpac as a whole)!

both WoD and SL have pretty decent story . just because some dont like it .

if you did all 4 campaign quests you see how things connect

is it cliche ? its fantasy most of fantasy stories are full of cliches.

WoD had 1 problem - the sotry was cut short . leveling story was on amazing fun level. same as establishing Yrel as character.

then it all fallen apart when blizzard cut WoD to work on Legion

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That's my biggest issue with SL, besides the hamfisted push to redeem Sylvanas (The most recent campaign questline lays the groundwork, it's slathered on pretty thick), it doesn't feel like Warcraft anymore, for all its failings, WoD at least had the Warcraft vibe, we were fighting armies, not a bald bondage-club refugee with the infinity gauntlet.

its basicly warcraft expanded universe - establishing new lore patch for next 10 expansions.

when look at distance - its not a bad thing now that we know deaths is not the end in wow . gives soo much oportunities

and that original wow will be put into timecapsule bubble of legacy server every 2 years from now on. so in 2023 wolk and 2025 cata and so on . its a good thing .

[Kauko]

SL story is fine. Some people just don't get it... or expect something special. WOD story was broken. They couldn't run the whole story because the dev team lagged behind with the world. So they had to redo most of the story...

[Dawon]

Both are dogshit. Timetravel is lazy shit as you can do whatever you want and then just go "Lol joke!", also sending us to a place like Shadowlands where AGAIN there will be zero lore implications in the next expansion is lazy as hell. Blizzard needs to stop using these "we reset everything back to square 1 when it's over"-expansions.

[Paperfox]

I'd say SL is broken, for the simple reason that you need to level a toon in each covenant to see the full story.

[Arakkar]

Personally I don't think the story was the issue with WoD.

[Tiwack]

The story wasn't the issue in WoD as much as the way they presented it to players. And aside from that only shadowmoon and a few dungeons brought something new to the table in terms of aesthetic. WoD was way worse than SL, ya'll just hating cause it's the current expansion, same cycle every expansion...
SL is awesome to me, it's fresh, tries a lot of new stuff in terms of zones and themes and presents the story elements well albeit slowly as they sorta have to with being an mmo and all.
If you're confused then you've not caught up with covenant lore on 3rd party sites or gone out of your way to get a character in each covenant by now and that's on you.

[Selah]

At least WoD had the ability to be faithful to the characters in the story and, despite its oddity, still made sense in established lore bar a few loose ends.

SL really was just a case of, "well, we're tired of the old lore so we're going to do everything we can to instead make it about the cosmic war"

[Al Gorefiend]

Nothing defeats the stupidity of WoD.

Though, you certainly picked the next runner-up to compete against it.

Time-traveling to another planet's past VS. Teleporting to Heaven to realize you'll be doing the exact same thing in death as you do in life right down to needing food, sleep and weapons to survive.

[Soon-TM]

Nothing defeats the stupidity of WoD.

Though, you certainly picked the next runner-up to compete against it.

Time-traveling to another planet's past VS. Teleporting to Heaven to realize you'll be doing the exact same thing in death as you do in life right down to needing food, sleep and weapons to survive.

The best part is that you can skin beasts, harvest plants and even fish in the freaking afterlife

[Dazmalak]

Storywise I was probably more disappointed with WoD, but only because I got my hopes a bit too high. As a fan of the Old Horde, I was excited to see the OG orc clans and leaders again. I was willing to forgive time travel silliness for it. And then...they all kind of just rolled over and died as generic villains. Garrosh's ending was more of a whimper than a bang. I had fun playing that expansion though, which is more than I can say for Shadowlands. The leveling and zones were enjoyable. I wasn't a huge raider but even those were ok. I loved Ashran, mass chaotic PvP was always my jam. Garrisons were whatever to me. I took a couple breaks during WoD, but...

I straight up quit in SL. I had far less expectations going into it and it still managed to disappoint me. It took me a couple of weeks to nope out of it. Gated gearing, alt-unfriendly, abysmal state of PvP, Choreghast, and more of the same shitty story and characterization carried over from BfA, but worse. Retcons that trivialize previous lore. There is not a single positive thing I have to say about SL. Therefore, it is the worst expansion to me by a long mile.

[Sodia]

WoD was at least SOMEWHAT consistent. There is absolutely no consistency in SL and there have been more retcons than any other expansion.

What story in WoD ? There was a story there? i know that we got nice cuts but? story ?? Could you remind me what it was about? Was it collect more crystals?/ The End? ahh yes that was it.

[Demeia]

WoW lore is like a world designed by a bad D&D DM. I don't see this expansion's dumb story as any dumber than any other story line the game has done. They are all equally awful.

[ablib]

strange, looks like you voted for WoD. at least before you posted it was 1:1. now its 2:1 for WoD. maybe missread the title ?

The title is broken English. I had to read it a few times to understand it.

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Shadowlands is the first expansion in a long time, where I was actually interested in, and could get behind the story. I remember at the ending of Revendreth....I couldn't wait to get into Castle Nathria and kick Sire Denathrius' ass. I can't remember the last time I cared about an end boss, or an end boss whose story made sense.

Normally, I stop playing when they time gate quest lines, but I couldn't wait for Tuesday to get the next piece of the story. I think everything has been meticulously done in Shadowlands, and I HATE video game stories. I can't stand all those nerds that think Christie Golden is hot shit. I haven't read one book, short story, or anything, in the Warcraft universe where I didn't start laughing at how shit it is by the 2nd page. Video game writing is usually terrible.

I don't understand all the Shadowlands hate.

[Ivarr]

Embarking into the afterlife is already a hornet's nest fiction-wise. It's rarely satisfying and prone to screw up everything established beforehand.

But it's not impossible to pull off if handled carefully. The Shadowlands could've been a pretext to create mystical worlds and explore the philosophies of existing races further, see how they look at life and death.

But instead we got a highly mechanistic structure of largely new cultures that only tangentially related to the world of the living. It's as if the Shadowlands were supposed to be a plot-twist in and of itself. An "Your afterlife theories suck" kind of move.

And to make matters worse, all of the Shadowlands, even all of existence has to be at stake. It couldn't just be a slightly troubled place with tensions that have to be resolved. No, it had to be on the brink of collapse, taking everything with it.

These two choices combined make for an incredibly dour setting. I get that the first words that people associate with 'death' are 'grim', 'tragic' and 'bleak'. But that's a rather Western point of view. Plenty of other cultures, including fictional Warcraft cultures, look at death as just another passage, as a celebration, as tranquility and reconciliation with your ancestors. And sure, Shadowlands hit on a few of these points. Bastion and Ardenwaeld gave a glimpse of that, but then also had to stuff it with zealotry, and pettiness.

WoD was overly ambitious if you look at all the stuff that was cut. But at least conceptually and especially thematically it all worked. Meanwhile in the Shadowlands, the themes feel uncanny and uncomfortable, not just in a few places, but all throughout the expansion.

I didn't even mind all the gameplay aspects of Shadowlands. Good attempts. But if that theme isn't right, it repels me from the game.

[Jester Joe]

WoD literally had to drop most of its plot out a window.

Never mind the fact that it's being compared to a story that's still in progress.

[terminaltrip421]

shadowlands is painfully cringe-inducing. I also found three typos in one of the chains of domination campaign chains.

[Jester Joe]

shadowlands is painfully cringe-inducing. I also found three typos in one of the chains of domination campaign chains.

... Literally every expansion has had plenty of typos.

The first boss of Antorus had typos in the dialogue lines for quite a while, pretty sure it lasted nearly the entire final patch last I recall.

[Niwes]

The title is broken English. I had to read it a few times to understand it.

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Shadowlands is the first expansion in a long time, where I was actually interested in, and could get behind the story. I remember at the ending of Revendreth....I couldn't wait to get into Castle Nathria and kick Sire Denathrius' ass. I can't remember the last time I cared about an end boss, or an end boss whose story made sense.

Normally, I stop playing when they time gate quest lines, but I couldn't wait for Tuesday to get the next piece of the story. I think everything has been meticulously done in Shadowlands, and I HATE video game stories. I can't stand all those nerds that think Christie Golden is hot shit. I haven't read one book, short story, or anything, in the Warcraft universe where I didn't start laughing at how shit it is by the 2nd page. Video game writing is usually terrible.

I don't understand all the Shadowlands hate.

yep, you are totally right. english is obviously not my native language. the „more“ seems rather missplaced here. i corrected that. not sure if its 100% correct now. is it?

sadly i can not change the poll title (whyever). but at least, i tried.

sorry for the bad english and thx a lot for pointing that out.