Reboot the Shadowlands, but with a New Story? Thoughts and Ideas please

Moon Guard
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After reading the views from many players so far, what if a new story could be transcribed?
While still using some of the characters, but cutting out any links to just Azeroth as a basis. Would it be plausible to want to play there?

Could you still enjoy the characters/the quests/or the function of the covens just not for the story blizzard intended?

A story built by the players, while still using the shadowlands for its intended purpose centered around what happens when we die.

Roleplaying is partially about covering up some events while using zones/areas for a different purpose.

A force/group/uprising by souls that were killed seeking revenge in some manner.
Toss out zovaal (bye bye bald guy), and leave just a group(s) seeking to end existence and claim revenge on those who caused their demise?

You get pulled into the Maw and escape to stop the groups evil goals, finding sanctuary in Oribos. (No sylvanas) Tyrande got pulled in by kaldorei seeking punishment for not saving her people. Her story could still work just her own penance for not doing more.

Instead of the main characters being pulled into the SL it would be enemies of a group (players themselves). Of course what group(s) would go to such lengths to attack death itself to usurp it all and get revenge?

(Scarlet Crusade is one for example) (Or the Twilight’s Hammer) (Victims of Lordaeron/Stratholme) (Victims of Teldrassil or the 4th War would join later as the Shadowlands falls apart) The list goes on.

A player based story that many could involve themselves without the nonsense. In some ways the events of the four covens having their own enemies still works but they all are linked to a common goal, restoring the SL but not for the same intentions.

(Get rid of the reference to the jailer being responsible and instead the group(s) actions to destroy the shadowlands. End their existence and take the players with them or other ideas. Using weakened azeroth to fuel the process would still be plausible since the cult of the damned would have knowledge about the machinery still remaining.)

The sky being torn not caused by sylvanas but by the group invading our realm in some manner. The location for the same purpose. keep the helm in some fashion as it could still be linked as an instrument of the maw but not with some other vile excuse for control.

Or just remove it altogether.

The list for ideas for a sound story could still be put together that others can use.

The Arbiter being knocked out by a spell or rage of the souls responsible for their plan.

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else have as much of a dedication to something so communally reviled. I remember the threads and if my recollection isn’t too faulty, OP has based characters and guilds around the expansion.

I feel like it needs to be said that starting this off after being told that the community response to the expansion was near completely negative and entirely negative if you focus only on the narrative content of the expansion seems. Imprudent. Dismissive of the fact that you’re swimming alone at night while everyone else is on the beach, so to speak.

But I don’t want that to be the only content of this post, and would like to actually engage with the intended topic.

This is all going to result in the same problem. The issues with Shadowlands are telling us about things that we shouldn’t know, information that people shouldn’t have because it fundamentally destroys a sense of enigma and mystery around the story and setting. Any story which results in the clarification of fundamentally unknowable facets of existence is a story that becomes self-contained by the very nature of the absolute scale of the story.

So unless your plan is to introduce the Super-Shadowlands that are where you go when you die in the Shadowlands which is it’s own host of problems, I don’t really see this as an idea that can go terribly far. I am open however, to being proven completely wrong.

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In order to preserve my rapidly-failing sanity while playing in Shadowlands zones, I often told myself that what I was experiencing wasn’t actually the realm of death, but just some random worlds in the Twisting Nether.

Oribos was just a big temporal “airport” run by previously-unknown branches of the ethereals (actually got that one half-right), and the Jailer was just some big dumb Titan Keeper that went haywire after being corrupted by spooky sorcery.

So I guess there’s that.

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I would rather never visit “the afterlife” It makes so much more sense to me that this would be a place of mystery and the unknown both for my characters and me OOC. Having a “one afterlife fits all” also makes no sense to me. Tauren are an example of this and as someone who is quite fond of the race, the way the view their ancestors and what happens to their spirits once they move on, makes no sense with Shadowlands at all. I much rather see Shadowlands never being released at all but that train has long since left the station lol

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I don’t believe the community is truly negative about it. Alot of ‘if only they changed it up or delayed/extended it’. Only a small portion responded to the OP with their thoughts and ideas. Many of which made sense. The rest just liked negative comments from other posts. Like people who use meme’s to convey opinions rather than their own words.

You can’t really hate the map, which many said was decent or loved, because the art is a whole department entirely different. They just create a world based on loose ideas provided by a story crew and alot of descriptive images.

The shadowlands is an entity anyone can use to recreate a new story and still maintain that sense of wonder.

(Example: Since anima is the product of a life’s experiences, could a beings own anima be used to cure themselves from a withered state? They still have a soul that would transcend to the plane of death. Meditate on this.)

Look how Warlords of Draenor had a beautiful map but so many empty spaces that weren’t used.

A story can be changed and many players can make their own narrative. Best example is anyone who is a Scarlet supporter. Or a ‘survivor’ of Lordaeron. That way you can still tailor it and still have fun with it in some manner.

That’s just an excellent reference to re-imagining a world. Nothing wrong with it. A perfect opportunity to enjoy the map with a different path.

I know many roleplayers also have a love of DND. And in some ways you can still just use the map, or parts of it, and make it your own world. (Just gotta clear zones to remove the quest markers, or unlock everything to make it normal-ish.)

Rather than just ignoring the addon, I would love to see more players there using it for their own stories and still having fun. Use the transmogs/titles/toys but from your own story.

The idea of ‘infinite afterlives’, i don’t think it is just linked to the Shadowlands. If you think about it, even an afterlife could be the plane of existence from whence we came from. Imagine a space within a zone that is a reflection of its mortal self, or is still connected to the plane.

A soul that goes before the arbiter is send to an afterlife that is back where the soul came from, nourishing the land or under the control of a loa, eternal being, other.

Like how elemental souls don’t go to the shadowlands, they go back to their plane of creation, even if they are brought there.

If a soul refuses to journey to the SL, could it still remain on the same plane of its existence?

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You know, I was going to write something negative in response to this based off of your past post history and what I’ve observed from you over the months. Anyone that likes to read over the MG forums probably knows what I’m talking about.

I can tell that you are clearly enthusiastic over a piece of the game’s history that most people would rather leave behind. I get it. There’s nothing wrong with that, and nobody can say otherwise. We can tell you, and we definitely have, that most of us don’t like it, but that doesn’t, nor shouldn’t, dissuade you from enjoying what you do.

I mean this genuinely, and with absolutely no vitriol, when I say that you should just start a guild and actually stick with it. You will be infinitely more contented with yourself when you have others that share your enthusiasm for Shadowlands to write with. It has to be much more fulfilling than preaching about it to an at best lukewarm response on the forums.

Shadowlands is dead. It won’t come back. It won’t be rebooted. The most we will ever have going forward are bits and pieces of its somewhat less egregious locations and characters making small debuts going forward, and while I wish none of it showed up at all, I can compromise with seeing Shadowlands content in K’aresh if it makes the people that like that sort of thing happy.

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I’d compare this community’s obsession with bashing on Shadowlands to beating a dead horse, but I think at this point the dead horse has received less beatings.

I just want people to stop talking about Shadowlands. If you liked it, great. I didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it either. But every single time anyone brings it up in any context whatsoever, threads just devolve into the same tired bashing. No one is allowed to like it or discuss it in good faith, and that annoys me. It’s like people sit around like vultures waiting to swoop in and pick on the Shadowlands carrion with eager bloodlust, and their eyes light up as their skin erupts in goosebumps at each opportunity as if what they’re about to say hasn’t been said a billion times both recently and not-so-recently.

It’s all overly dramatic to me. So bro, if you enjoy Shadowlands, enjoy it. I’m not sure what good fantasizing about a re-write does. But the sooner people stop bringing this crap up the better. If we collectively hate it so much, let’s just allow it to fade into obscurity. Kinda like WoD. Remember when people thought that was the worst expansion ever? I do and still think that. And nobody talks about it anymore. And it’s awesome that they don’t. Let sleeping dogs lie, and let Shadowlands lie with it.

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Can I just say there’s not that much stopping anyone from just making their own SL-lore based guild and just getting like minded people?

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My main question. Why did this need another thread?

None of my close friends liked SL. Blizzard has openly said sl did not do well and they messed up so there will not be a reboot. Instead you should just make some friends in game that like the same stuff you do and enjoy it if you enjoy it.

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still trying to make fetch happen…

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I’ve noticed you haven’t asked GD for their opinion on Shadowlands, is there a reason for that? There’s also the /r/WoW and /r/WoWRolePlay, that you can ask for more feedback on Shadowlands.

Maybe they can be more insightful than both the RP servers on why it was negatively received by the majority of people who have an interest in WoW lore.

Sure players could spend their time making up new names and reasons for every single zone for every single NPC and altering every single questline to “fix” or “refreshen” Shadowlands, that’s a large time investment and what’s the payoff?

RPing in Shadowlands? People actively avoided doing that when SL was content, there’s very little interest for trying to rehabilitate RP for the Shadowlands but you do you.

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I will never understand the sheer hate for SL getting a mild retcon, it wouldn’t even need to 100% change anything that happened in Shadowlands, just add more context to it.

Denathrius could always go the route folks wanted with The Primus and have been controlling Zovaal from close to the start and be using him as a setup or fall guy. Sylvanas lied and kept the secret that Denathrius was behind it all along, and that wouldn’t be out of character for her either, she’s been a master liar since Cata and someone even Garrosh finds repulsive for her methods.

Nothing really needs to be changed, just added on to, and that’s a simple matter.

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SL being what it is, it’s easy enough to just say “I didn’t like it therefor I won’t engage with it”, but it’s an interesting thought experiment to see what you can salvage from it. It’s like having a massive lego set where the end design sucks but there’s a lot of cool pieces in there so maybe you can figure something out with what you have.

There’s good stuff to work with, the challenge would be picking out what.

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If I say I don’t like a turkey sandwich, adding mustard isn’t going to make me like it either. What I dislike is still there. It’s still the main part of the meal. Mustard might make it a bit more appetizing, but it’s still not what I want.

Shadowlands is a universally disliked expansion and I want nothing more to do with it. No amount of retcons can save Shadowlands for me. I want to move on from it. Not constantly revisit it with little tweaks here and there as if putting a bandaid over a gushing wound is going to save it.

That doesn’t mean Shadowlands enjoyers can’t roleplay the things they’d like to see changed. The world is your oyster when you collect enough like-minded people to all agree to one headcanon or another. Do whatever you like within the foundations of your own guilds and roleplay! But do I want to reengage with it in any meaningful capacity? Not really, no.

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I think the answer best suited to silence those who only see the bad or constantly hate about the SL is:

“Wow brilliant idea, taking something negative about the SL and coming up with an innovative new idea is better than just giving up and hating it. The true spirit of any RPER is to find new solutions, never just give up. If a problem arises you come up with your own story and still enjoy the experience and don’t make people feel inferior because they adapt or love it.”

Someone once told me there is a moon guard wiki page where many groups are combining changes and recreating a new narrative that covers up the mistakes of blizzard story creators. A fresh look at lore. Most is the same, the mistakes are altered.

As a BE i have looked at what a cure could be like just like Antonidas did for the orcs. The Arcandor storyline felt like it was close to a cure for the withered. When the first arcanist used a spell to make their memories appear you could see they still had some memories of things even if its buried beneath the hunger.

Their anima as a cure would work but doesn’t that mean it can only be fixed if they venture to the SL? Unless an attendant comes to our location. Are they even able to or would they dissolve?

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Blizz has already kinda did a mild retcon since shadow lands. There is some things in the books released. Basically it makes the jailor kind of a fool which sucks. We also know the brokers are just kareshi now. First ones are considered a “myth”.

Definitely some down playing of the stuff that happened in sl. I was intrigued by the idea of the first ones but overall I’m happy if it all just kinda goes away as a shaman talking to your ancestors lore type character lol

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I’d argue it kinda just makes him look MORE of a fool, I mean he does basically get shown up at every turn as is… the bigger problem is Sylvanas was played up as a 5D galactic chess megamind working for Zovaal, so it sort of gave us higher expectations without a payoff.

They made two very big miscalculations with Zovaal: 1. they made everyone else dumber to compensate for the gigabrain standard they set for Zovaal that he realistically did not live up to, and 2. they SOMEHOW gave Denathrius all the credibility in the plot for all these thousands of years long feats which ZOVAAL should have had on his resume instead.

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Eh sorta… I kinda liked him right up until

This. Actually hated this part so much. If they made him a mastermind behind sylvanas and the war sure. Behind everything ever?!? Holy what the heck were they thinking. Actual trash tier writing.

Any case… I’m of the opinion that sl was the worst lore expansion because of it (even considering time travely dumb stuff with wod :rofl:). I hope the op finds a few friends who shares his passion but he definitely needs to stop looking here…

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Yeah… though in retrospect, if I were gonna retcon anything, it’d be that to place Denathrius in Zovaal’s position and Zovaal in Sylvanas’ as the puppet used and disgarded, that’d actually kinda of made sense.

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If you think back to warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos/Frozen Throne long before Wow was released, it filled some of the gaps that made Wow successful up to Cata. They had a sound baseline to build the game from.

The trick that blizzard should have done is released small games to fill in the gaps between addons. Instead of writing books and publishing comics. Any movies that are made into a series always have big holes if they aren’t made in sequence.

The warcraft 3 series i think is what made wow Vanilla/BC/WoLK all successful. Already knowing the story and playing into it. Each addon afterwards was practically its own world.

If they made a warcraft 4 (Tremors of Azeroth),5 (A New World),6 (Break in Time) so you can play the events between or see them from the perspectives of the races would it have been more successful? *I just made some names for what they could be called.

(although technically Pandaria was its own world with no references between the rest of the game. No Night elf ruins in Pandaria, or panda ruins across anywhere else in the game. It was pristine but also cut off.)

We can only hope that the Worldsoul saga is successful for this reason as it is continually written in sequence.