They probably sighed in relief when Blizzard promised they wouldn’t do it again + Told the players so, then choked when they were told to do it AGAIN with Sylvanas 
Seriously though, the writing from BFA & Shadowlands seems like snoozefest fan fiction on the forums met with a cringe fan fiction ‘influencer’ from Twitter and just went wild.
In terms of poor writing and terrible lore that applies especially with ‘the Jailor’ plot. Like literally every single lore-content creator along with half the forums has said - Inserting his ‘lore’ behind most of every major event in WoW to elevate his status is super cheap, and such a cop out. Not to mention it cheapens those lore events and the characters that were originally involved.
5 Likes
I hate when this is done in fiction in general.
“You thought those events played out the way they did because of the choices made by important characters, and the consequences that followed? NOPE! It was all secretly by my design, peasants!” - Some generic doomsday villain who never existed before
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I kinda got that feeling when they were like “there’s this new character, the Jailer” and there was this silhouette of like a knockoff of the Lich King’s helmet.
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RIP my boy, Kel’thuzad. The whole “I never actually cared about Arthas, and was working for the Jailer the whole time!” thing pissed me off.
I hate the Jailer and SL lore so much. Makes me wish this whole expansion was just a crazy dream that our characters had, and we all wake up after it’s over to see that N’zoth never actually died and took over Azeroth.
12 Likes
With all of you there, yeah. I just…there’s so much disappointment with the grand scheme of things. I’d love to see bits and pieces of things be ‘horrific visions’ all the way to the tree. I’d love for the tree itself not to have been burned in the first place, but that to be a vision.
We could keep the BfA zones the way they are and say they happened, maybe bits and pieces of the war campaign but reality would be garbled.
Shadowlands, idk, zone stories and such could be intact but something would be off, all of their ‘issues’ could actually be due to void influence or something, I dunno. The overarching story I’d love to toss to just ‘void visions’ for sure.
7 Likes
To lean in on the discussion, I liked the red shirts guy idea for shadowlands story. At least the basic structure.
Much more grounded in Warcraft.
As for me, I would change up the Covenants a bit and add Scenarios for other afterlives that serve a similar function to Torghast.
Ven’thyr = Redeemers of Wicked Souls.
Necrolords = Teachers of Souls who failed in life but have untapped potential.
Night Fae = Guardians of the Natural order of Death and Rebirth. A more direct link/mirror to the Emerald Dream.
Kyrian = Guides to Lost or Tormented Souls. Literally what Spirit Healers do. Makes the memory wiping make more sense.
7 Likes
Blizz can’t win for losing sometimes. They needed to come up with a new threat for Shadowlands. They knew people wanted a Lich King-esque xpac. What better end boss than the one that basically created the Lich King? I think Shadowlands is a really good xpac but fell short probably mostly because Blizz refused to let go of the convoluted systems, multiple currencies, timegating, and RNG rewards.
One of the biggest bummers for me was that Shadowlands is a prime opportunity to incorporate San’layn but they haven’t done it so far. I know a lot of people would complain that they would rather play Venthyr but I think Shadowlands “races” should remain unplayable. Instead, Blizz should release Azerothian race options that are infused with Shadowlands magic like San’layn and Drust
6 Likes
Surprisingly I haven’t seen as many people who’d rather play Venthyr, and personally I really don’t get the appeal. (This isn’t to say they don’t exist. I just see the ‘not interested/don’t want afterlife races playable’ view quite a bit.)
The ‘no more elf’ crew rallying behind it makes no sense given venthyr literally just look like another breed of wretched elves. With shorter ears.
There’s not much difference between them in terms of aesthetics aside from the ears & nose. They don’t bring anything unique to the table that San’layn don’t already do & do far better (IN MY PERSONAL OPINION! Again this is my point of view and I respect the opposite.)
Especially when it comes to lore. Venthyr sit around at parties all day, don’t even drink actual blood (their fangs are literally pointless) and just… yeah.
I’d rather have ex-scourge tacticians who were at the top of their game and came around like Death Knights. Actual fighters who know Azeroth & have agency to protect it, and would give us an actual upper hand against the scourge given they’d know the ins and outs. Slap a nosferatu-face-option onto San’layn and boom, you have a venthyr without afterlife lore and without the need to justify a dead soul coming back to fight for Azeroth when their purpose is to be in the afterlife.
This is why just ‘prettying up’ venthyr would not be satisfactory to me (as of now we only see them as nosferatu, so people who draw/depict them as the typically aesthetically beautiful admittedly make me roll my eyes because that’s what San’layn ALREADY DO). We have azeroth vampire lore, we’ve had it for many years before this shadowlands soul nonsense. Why they’d abandon it, I don’t know.
10 Likes
To be honest, you shouldn’t expect too much logic or reason from the “no more elf” crew to begin with.
As long as it’s not called an elf, they’re generally fine with it, even if it’s obviously an elf.
Or close enough that they’d blow a gasket over it if it were actually called an elf.
13 Likes
Yeah. Why people latched onto nosferatu elves that bring nothing new to the table that San’layn don’t already do (and better, like I said, again just in my personal opinion), I don’t understand, while at the same time putting those of us who like San’layn down for years for checks notes liking elves & vampires.
At least Stoneborne actually have unique aesthetics. I’d support them far more than venthyr.
AGAIN this isn’t meant to be an insult toward those who like them, by the way. Those who enjoy them but don’t put down those who like vampire elves are great. While I might not ever understand the appeal (as I explained above), I respect the person.
People will say the same thing to me for liking San’layn or elves in general, anyhow, and as long as they’re respectful, I’ll respect them back.
12 Likes
They don’t see the irony of the situation. Not sure if that’s funny, sad, or both.
If they absolutely had to make Shadowlands races playable, I’d agree that Stoneborne would be more interesting than Venthyr, at least for me.
That and that way, San’layn remain an option in the future, without people just pointing to Venthyr and saying “Nu-uh! The vampire race ship has already sailed!” despite Venthyr not really doing it for San’layn fans.
10 Likes
Yeah. The best solution would make both playable in some fashion with some lore, but there’s people who are adamantly against afterlife races being playable (and I can’t blame them, really.) I’m eh on the subject but more open to it if Blizzard FINALLY acknowledges and adds things people have been asking for from Azeroth like I said above.
Tossing in a large group of customization and ARs would satisfy very many parties.
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This is probably the main reason some push for them, sadly.
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Agreed, this would be lovely to see.
Sadly, this is very likely true. The zeal with which some oppose elves really calls their entire character into question.
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Hopefully if we go back to Azeroth there’s a chance of San’layn allied race or customization. Their fake-out in BfA infuriates me to this day. Carrot on a stick nonsense that generated hype & excitement only to give people even more ammo “BUT THE ALLIANCE KILLED THEM ALL” even though we have no idea where they came from nor whether many actually got away from the ordeal.
sigh There’s so many easy wins for them and some of us are just asking for bare minimum yet we can’t even get that.
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Yeah, that was just ridiculous. I first did the War Campaign on the Alliance, so I was super excited to see San’layn as a possible Horde AR.
I was very disappointed with how that went.
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Same. As someone who plays both factions, it felt like: "No, San’layn won’t join the Horde and be playable… and you’re the reason! Haha! 
"
Ugh…
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Yeah, it felt like “Wait, it’s completely because of what I’m doing? Can’t I just throw my character off a bridge, then?”
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They could have chosen to build up the Jailer over a longer period of time. Not knowing who he is or even caring lent to him not being very threatening. They tried for mystery too much. And he just came off lame instead. He now has this feeling of being shoe-horned into the lore with no substance.
10 Likes