Just this morning, for the first time, started Shadowlands and so far about half or 1/3 of the quests have this issue.
I was annoyed when this happened occasionally in BfA quests over the last week as I have just come back to the game, but it’s on another level in Shadowlands.
Ironically, when I go to YouTube to see these quest’s dialogues, I see that these quests were working fine in beta Shadowlands. Well, they’re broken now. Got to appreciate that Blizzard polish.
This is the kind of issue that can turn a player off forever. Especially when it’s explained away as “minor”.
Quests are the mainstay of Warcraft, there’s nothing minor about them being broken. If quests don’t work, the game doesn’t work.
Yup. Took me everything to convince myself to come back in the first place cause I am burned of Wow beyond words. I knew I would not have the same fun I once had specially with how Wow is nowadays. The lore is what was the convincing factor.
Of course, it’s well established now that lore is impossible to follow now, and worse, Blizzard has disregarded that issue completely. This to me shows the reality of what the beloved company Blizz once was has become and I just don’t see myself trusting them for Wow anymore. Not until I see them raise their standards of quality to what they used to me… but I believe that may be utopic…
I enjoy the lore and the stories, so to not hear what was said is kinda disappointing. Is there any record out there of what was said? It would be nice to replay or restart them if they don’t work the first time. I checked Wowhead and didn’t find anything.
Unfortunately youtube isn’t always reliable when it comes to recorded dialogue, so if you’re ever told “just youtube it” it’s not a guarantee for every interaction. I was seeking some Covenant campaign missing dialogue for Necrolords and not a single video had the missing conversation I was after.
I would not be able to say it better myself. Agree 100%!
Can someone bring this to bellulargaming on Twitter? We need some notoriety for blizzard to take some action
That’s a great idea. He is one who cares about the lore and maybe get a reaction from blizzard.
Came here to report this as well. Started Shadowlands a few days ago and the entire quest dialog for both Oribos and Bastion are not triggering or they only trigger for half of the NPCs who are part of the quest dialog. I typically love the lore and storylines and this makes it so difficult to follow. 
Reposting my video for newcomers and cause I feel it’s the best example of this problem. But I mean, who needs dialogs anyway right? It’s so trivial and optional
Wow, subbed yesterday to play through SL in prep for dragon flight only to get this big. I’m missing huge parts of the story which is the only reason I subbed. I’m getting a refund.
The missing Dialogue, especially voiced lines, but also text-only RP, has been happening to me since Legion. This is not just Shadowlands and BfA. This has been happening for THREE Expansions now, and its only getting worse and happening more often as more and more of the game is voice acted or has a text RP scene play out.
I’ve been having the vanishing Dialogue (especially voice acted lines, but text vanishes too) bug since Legion on my account. It’s not just one character, but its more obvious on characters I play more.
This needs to be addressed, especially if Blizzard wants to actually provide decent storytelling in game. And many times the quest dialogue is used to explain the steps in a quest, and when that bugs it makes completing the quest difficult and confusing for players.
Most players assume a long period of silent npcs means they’re done, so they run off without staying for the story, whether they mean to skip it or not. A lot of players are probably not reporting this issue because they don’t even realize they’re missing entire chunks of the story RP. Because when it doesn’t trigger, it’s just a long few minutes of silence and nothing happening.
I’ve submitted many tickets and bug reports, and it’s never been properly addressed. I usually get canned responses from Support, or they blame it on addons or say just turn in the quests and move on. I’ve tried everything on the standard list of ways to ‘fix’ issues. Reset the quest/RP, removed all addons, re-created cache, even re-installed the game. Nothing works to fix it.
Resetting the quest has very rarely caused some of the dialogue to re-appear, but I’ve spent hours resetting a quest to try to get all the dialogue to trigger and still had missing parts. This is not fun or good gameplay for the time wasted trying to enjoy the game. I’ve often had to go to Youtube just to see the entire quest dialogue, and sometimes I’ve seen it bug out on the Youtube videos, or the video ends before the RP plays because the player didn’t realize the RP even existed because it was missing for them too!
This bug is most obvious in voice-acted dialogue when there are long extended periods of silence as the NPC moves around as if they are talking, but say nothing. But I’ve seen it happen with text-only dialogue too during BfA. In Legion, even the popup talking head toast windows failed to trigger along with the voice acted lines.
The most memorable instances off the top of my head happened during major storylines:
With more and more lines in game being voice acted, and with Blizzard focusing more on telling story through these RP dialogues inside the game, this needs to be fixed. This bug has existed since at least Legion without being addressed. It causes story beats to be missed, and results in a confusing story that doesn’t make sense to the players, who are missing chunks of the story but don’t even realize its missing.
Please fix this Blizzard. It’s only getting worse as you add more RP story dialogue to the game.
Disgusting how we keep watching Classic being hotfixed day after day after day while Retail remains with game breaking major bugs.
Words cannot describe the amount of dissatisfaction Retail players are having right now.
Seeing this issue as well. Just did the quest ‘Lost Shipment’. Says speak to Katherine Proudmoore. I did, and she just stood their for a solid minute not talking and then Genn Greymane starts his dialogue in response to Katherine.
So this is still going then? And we have no news on the cause or any trouble shooting methods?
Still going for more than 2 months. Blizzard gave us a workaround in this thread that doesn’t work in any way, shape or form.
While I’m pleased (for a lack of better words) to know it’s not just me with this issue… I am completely in awe at Blizzard’s lack of a fix! Have they even acknowledged this issue exists & that it’s still going on?
I re-subbed a couple days ago, after having been away for a good 18+ months. I have a LOT of Shadowlands to do yet, and being as I’m coming back this late in the game (pun intended)… I figured I would take my time and do the whole thing. I’m not in the mood to skip over all this expansion has to offer just so I can participate in the upcoming expansion as soon as it’s released… I would be missing out on half of the story if I did that, and would end up with too many questions to be able to enjoy it.
But, it seems no matter what I do, until Blizzard fixes this, I’m literally “missing half of it” anyways!
I will say this much: If the upcoming expansion is broken & missing half the dialogues & cutscenes like BFA & SL currently is… I fear it will hurt the game & Blizzard, irretrievably!
Lol, SL is the worst story they have ever done and its almost like they are covering it up by not letting us experience it. What was the work around? I didnt see it anywhere in the thread.
So I’ve recently been levelling alts since we’re on the bonus experience and I’ve noticed it’s NOT just Shadowlands. I was running an Ally to get that side of the story for BFA and there were countless times that my character just stood there with everyone silently staring at each other. Sometimes booking it half way across town fixed it, sometimes you just got these long awkward silences before the quest just progressed itself. And no, none of these were “Stay a While and Listen” options; these were all basic dialogues in the questlines.
Yeah BfA is having this issue too, to a lesser extent. Reports of it happening in older expansions and even in Classic as well. This really needs to be patched asap. It’s affecting the game as a whole.