Shadowlands had the right concepts Initially

Lore Story Forum
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I’ll split it down the middle and say that visiting the afterlife can be a valuable addition to a game world’s lore, but it’s super-tricky to get it right and the dev team doesn’t appear to have been trying very hard to avoid the obvious pitfalls like invalidating a lot of the established religions of Azeroth. I’m not even sure they cared about whether they did that, as they seem to be very eager to establish their new cosmology as laid out in Chronicles.

Also, I stumbled across this Reddit post yesterday that makes some good points (EDIT: even if accidentally), I think:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/weeq7d/shadowlands_biggest_flaw_was_turning_wows/

An excerpt:

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Side note apparently that post is some guy who thinks it’s an “extreme take” and is an attempt at trolling that failed lol

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Really?? I just glanced at the OP and didn’t read the discussion. I guess Poe’s Law applies.

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Honestly the whole thing with every soul being part of the ‘machine’ made me think of Pillars of Eternity where every soul is a part of the wheel and the various deaths keep the wheel turning.

The overall concept that Blizzard created is, in my opinion, a good one. Again, lots of potential, just squandered due to issues within the company. If they weren’t dealing with those issues and we got a more fleshed out experience, I don’t think it would have been as bad as people have made it out to be.

I mean hell, when you think about it the entire concept of religion in WoW was shredded when they established the origins of the cosmos. At that point, at least to me, it was obvious that Elune, An’she etc, were beings of the various cosmic realms, with life being the most likely of the lot.

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Yeah check posting history

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I think it’s a concept that could work just fine in a brand-new game where the lore is a blank slate, but trying to graft it onto a long-established setting that already had afterlife lore is a bad idea. So many of the problems with the last couple of expansions come from writers trying to brute-force their new version of things (afterlife, societies, factions, characters) on top of existing lore, instead of building on it or working with it.

That goes for the cosmic chart as well.

Oh, I believe you! It just wasn’t obvious from the post. It seemed a little hyperbolic, but not any more so than a lot of posts we see on this forum. Unless those people are also trolling? :laughing:

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No it’s an example of people who lack media literacy not realizing they’re on the verge of an epiphany of they only had the range and competency

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  1. Agreeing with everyone that pointed out that ripping the veil kinda ruined the mystique for a lot of the immersive world-building RP part of the game. You’re right, no death will be nearly as important to me now. After anyone dies, I’ll be sitting there wondering which Realm I can go visit them in soon. “Hey man, great death! So I guess you’re Kyrian now? Blue looks good on you…”

  2. Its more or less ruined most of the religions and tribal beliefs in WoW history. Not to mention the significance of pretty much everything that’s happened to this point.

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As a fan of D&D’s Planescape setting, I know that the ‘afterlife as a place to go adventuring’ can work. SL needed to worked through more thoroughly, in both overall Azeroth-relevant story (which was possibly already poisoned no matter what due to having to continue that dumpster fire of BFA’s story) and in it’s own backstory/history/meta. Personally, I would have added a couple more zones, such as an ancestral-based afterlife to placate shamanistic cultures, and re-arrange the zones slightly (as purgatory, Revendreth is ‘beneath’ Oribos and ‘above’ The Maw for example. No soul goes straight to the Maw, the Venthyr get to give everyone ‘one last chance’).

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Did WoW really have after-life lore though? I don’t think it did. We had lore that clearly showed beings like Cenarius and Ursoc coming back thanks to the Emerald Dream, and we knew about Elune and the Night Elves becoming wisps. But as far as a life after death was concerned the lore around it was pretty light.

I’d say at best we got pieces of a puzzle, and in our heads we formed an idea of what that puzzle would look like when it was completed, only what we thought the afterlife was going to be wasn’t close to what it actually was. Which kind of makes sense, because even Blizzard didn’t really know what the afterlife was going to be early on. The Shadowlands was supposed to be an end-game zone in vanilla, until it was ultimately cut from the game (along with a ton of other content that was planned during development for vanilla WoW which included Outland, Northrend and the Dragon Isles).

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It had enough to be incompatible with what SL presented, as has been noted many times.

And selectively validating or invalidating the beliefs of different playable races is not equal treatment of the playerbase. A few players (trolls, mostly) had their beliefs confirmed, while the others were told “Your character’s religious beliefs about the afterlife are objectively false.” Even in cases where there had been previous suggestions that they might be true, at least on some level. And the Night Elves had their beliefs straight-up replaced by something new.

I will bet money that it wouldn’t have looked anything like what we got in this expansion, because I don’t think any of the writers who worked on Vanilla are still around, certainly not in a guiding position. (It could still have been bad, though.)

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The concept for it was that when you died in vanilla you were sent to the Shadowlands (which was the spirit version of WoW where you run to your corpse) only instead of only seeing yourself, you’d see high level players fighting zone monsters etc, which was supposed to serve as incentive to get you to level up, since you could only see the high level players fighting the mobs, you couldn’t help or interact with them.

This honestly is not even a bad thing. Not all religions are going to have their beliefs confirmed if there is an afterlife. I mean, look at the real world on that for example. If you look at the most popular religion, which is worship of the christian god, you have an afterlife teaching there as part of that religion which says if you’re good you go to heaven, and if you’re bad you go to hell.

But then you look at faiths like buddhism, which focuses on reincarnation. Taoism which is a variation of reincarnation where you’re reborn in another form based on your previous lives. You even have people who still worship the ancient greek, norse and egyptian pantheons, all of which have their own afterlife mythos with various gods and goddesses playing a role in that mythos.

Now let’s assume that one of them is true, or maybe two of them. What about all the others? The people who practice those faiths are going to learn the hard way, when they die, that their belief of what an afterlife is doesn’t stack up with reality. Not all afterlife beliefs can be true. Hell none of them could be true.

I think the idea that not all religions versions of the afterlife are going to be accurate in WoW lore is something we should have accepted a long time ago.

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Actually they could’ve gone the DC Universe route and have all beliefs be true

But that requires a careful construction of metaphysics via meticulous worldbuilding

Ideally navigating concepts like syncretism

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This. 100%. I have nothing to add except to highlight this because it couldn’t be more true.

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35

It kinda sounds like they may have reused that idea for the rifts in Korthia.

We’ll just have to disagree on that. This isn’t about what’s realistic—it’s about treating your playerbase equally and giving them all a chance to buy into the fantasy of the race they chose, which I think is more important than realism. The Shadowlands, as revealed in the game, require players of certain races (but not others) to deal with the fact that they’re playing as characters whose religions are simply wrong. I don’t think that is a smart marketing plan.

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36

Marketing doesn’t really play a role in world building. No one is sitting at the table when building a world and saying “Yeah, this is going to sell.” or not making a decision on the world building because it might not allow the game to sell as many copies.

As a roleplayer, something I do is act as if my characters are real, as if they live in the world rather than just exist as avatars. And in that respect, Shadowlands hits the nail on the head when it comes to the fact that not all faiths are equal, because they’re not. From a story perspective that would be even harder to accomplish, especially when you then consider various couples/families and where they go.

At least with the Shadowlands as it currently stands, even if family members are sent to different afterlives, it is possible for them to travel to Oribos and find each other there. That’s much harder to accomplish if, say, every religion is equal and light worshippers end up going to the realm of light. Because it’s a LOT harder to go from the realm of death to the realm of light than it is to go from Ardenweald to Oribos.

So families, friends, lovers, they’d be potentially split up forever in your version of the game, which doesn’t really make for good story at all. If anything it creates a cruel world where if you didn’t both believe in the same thing while you were alive, you’re condemned to be apart in death for the rest of eternity. That’s not great.

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Funny you should mention that as I was thinking of said Afterlives: Specifically the ones with Talking Animals that were once people who reincarnated.

There are 2 Outer Planes where Talking Animals including Dinosaurs are found: Mount Celestia and Beastlands(AKA the Happy Hunting Grounds).

Mount Celestia’s Lunia has a Land Before Time-esque Island alongside a Redwall-esque Island Kingdom.

Beastlands has both a Narnia-esque setting, a Lion King-esque setting(despite Aslan being the King of the place), a Werebeast-esque setting, a Frost Sprite-ruled Icy Setting and a Sholazar Basin-esque setting. Hunters love the place!

The main problem for Hunters who enjoy the Beastlands outside the adult Animals and their children(who I assure you are not to be mistaken for Souls reincarnated as Eternal Child Animals who would likely be kept by Hunters as Pets) themselves is the Tiefling who hates Hunters in the First Layer and who caters to the whims of some Half-Fiend? Honestly in a proper Campaign(where a Paladin isn’t using Detect Evil 24/7 while the Players kill everything Fiend they come across) the Half-Fiend would quickly wind up dead.

People like Movies and TV Shows with Animals because they like to see Child Animals and while they may grow to emphasize with them when they grow up they would also be happy if the Animals were incapable of growing up because it would be a reminder of their childhood innocence!

We honestly need a Planescape Cartoon Segment on some TV Channel with Beastlands as it’s own Cartoon Show(with 3 segments: the Narnia-esque stories, the Werebeast Kingdoms and the Immortal Hunter with a group of unaging Animal Pets), Mount Celestia as 5 Cartoon Shows, Sigil as 1 Cartoon Show(featuring invasions of Baator and the Abyss) and Arborea & it’s Mirror Tartarus as 1 or 2 Cartoon TV Shows.

Speaking of the 5 Mount Celestia TV Shows:

  1. Lunia would have 3 Settings the main characters travel between(Land Before Time-esque Dinosaur Island, Redwall-esque Rat Kingdom and a traditional Medieval Kingdom)
  2. Mercuria would have 2 Settings for the Cast to travel between(Japanese-esque Lands and Hindu Indian-esque Lands)
  3. Venya would have 2 Settings for the Cast to travel between(Shire-esque Setting and an Old Forest-esque setting complete with a Tom Bombadil-inspired Character)
  4. Solania would have 2 Settings for the Cast to travel between(Dwarven Kingdoms and a Feudal Chinese-esque Setting)
  5. Mertion would have a Desert Setting with a City awash with Temporal Anomalies being regularly visited

On the Mertion Plot Line: A Tiefling Paladin(who only became a Tiefling because some random Balor disguised as an Angel turned her into one) would be one of the Main Protagonists fending off a couple Temporally Anomalous Copies of her Human Self manipulated by the disguised Balor(who is stupid enough to use the term “cruelest stroke” giving itself away to the Copies of Paladin he is manipulating constantly and receiving a Smite Evil for it’s efforts).

Another Plot in the Mertion Setting would be dealing with the legendary talented Paragon(hyped to make everyone think she is a Mary Sue) who fell and became a Succubus.

It would turn out she took an Oath of Glory which means she is still a Paladin despite being pure Evil. She lacks fear and throws a tantrum when slain and cries like a brat when captured and unable to fight. She is also incredibly lazy(which is exactly why she fell) relying on sheer talent and abusing the Abyss’s corruption to get where she is now.

She too would wind up involved with the City of Time creating a still Human Temporally Anomalous Duplicate who noticed her other Demon self’s defeat(shattering her Mary Sue-esque Hype) at the hands of the Protagonist(who actually worked hard to get where she was) and decide to instead attempt to abuse the City of Time’s temporal anomalies to quickly and effortlessly get Elite Time Magic so that she can simply speed blitz her opponents.

The Protagonist would quickly notice “Belief Shapes the Planes” and realize despite the Fallen Paragon’s pedestal being shattered she can use her Belief to manifest a version of her that embodies the ideals that the Protagonist believes in to help fight the Chaotic Evil Fallen Paragon and help spar against the Fallen Paragon’s True Neutral Temporal Paradox Duplicate.

There is a lot that can be constructed from the Outer Planes to say the least especially Mount Celestia(the 7 Realms of the 7 Celestial Bodies of our Solar System seen with the Naked Eye), Arborea(which has Olympus, Elven Lands, Medieval Town-esque World, Atlantis-esque World and Egypt-esque World), Beastlands(the 3 Realms of Day, Twilight and Night), the Infinite Layers of the Abyss and the 9 Hells(just call it Baator when depicting it on Kids’ TV).

Unfortunately Shadowlands has Zones not endless worlds to explore so it’s attempt to depict the Afterlives falls flat.

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I’m not so sure. Some questions should never be answered, either because that adds to the mystique of the setting or because the answers to those questions are rushed/will disappoint a significant amount of the playerabase. As far as Shadowlands is concerned, I think it’s a mixture of both.

I would have preferred they did that to the SL we got. Play into the logic that the Earth Mother is just as real as the Church of the Holy Light or any other religious outlook.

I remember some fantasies and other works that really go hard with the idea that Gods, and religion/spirituality/mysticism in general are both empowered and willed into existence by those who believe in them. Essentially, the ideals of justice, order, faith, and afterlives are made real by the faith and belief of people. That reality in these works are, quite literally, what we make of it.

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40

I realize that was not particularly clear shorthand. But I think the two things are intertwined in the sense that if you’re creating a world for a subscription-based MMO, you want to construct a world that will please all of your players, no matter which race they choose.

I believe they should be constructed as such, in a created world. Especially one that was built on the premise of two equal sides that don’t see eye to eye, yet both have reasons for their perspectives. I don’t care if it’s a little artificial. Player experience trumps realism in this case.

If you have free rein in building the afterlife, you could make an Oribos-like place without actually invalidating anyone’s beliefs.

How do you know? They didn’t build the afterlife that way, so how can you say one would be harder than the other? And if you’re basing this on that cosmic chart in Chronicles, I consider that part of the retcon that led to all these problems in the first place.

Are you kidding? In the right hands, this can actually drive phenomenal storytelling—see The Lord of the Rings and the whole deal about how elves and men (humans) have different afterlife expectations. Arwen’s choice is poignant because she knows she will have to be separated from either her family or her husband for eternity. Not that I expect anything on that level from WoW, but it is an example.

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Because if it was easy, Elune could have popped in for a quick chat with the Winter Queen and said: “Hey sis, heard you were having some trouble, just thought I’d drop by and see what’s going on. Oh? Anima drought? Damn, okay, well I can’t really send any souls because they’d just get consumed by the Maw, but I’ll hold onto as many souls as I can to deny the Maw any more juice, okay?”

And then all the Night Elves who died at Teldrassil would have become wisps instead of getting sucked into the Maw. Because the reason why they got sucked into the Maw was because Elune heard the Winter Queen’s cries of pain, but couldn’t directly communicate with her, so she didn’t have the specifics about why and send all those souls to the Shadowlands to aid her.

And if the leaders of the various cosmic realms can’t pop over for a quick chat, then there’s no way in hell some random soul is going to pop over and be able to say hello to mom and dad.