All of that is stuff that came into the game post-Chronicles, though. I really think that’s where the afterlife problems start.
True it is post-chronicles, however all the cosmology related stuff, that was all created by Chris Metzen and co. How much was he directly responsible for? I can’t say for sure, but he envisioned a world where there were various cosmic realms and I can’t imagine he believed those cosmic realms would have been easy to get to.
I often wonder if he would have written the WoW narrative the same way that the current Blizzard developers did. I believe so, because otherwise he might have stayed on as a consultant rather than a full time employee to make sure that the writers at Blizzard didn’t screw over his creation if he didn’t trust them with it. But we’ll never know unless Chris Metzen does a major interview about his time at Blizzard and what he thinks about the direction the game has gone in.
They absolutely should be. Not only because the principle of this game makes ranking cultures and religions in a hierarchy really awkward, but also because up until Shadowlands, it was best to assume every single deity worshipped in Warcraft was real, since we very regularly witnessed proofs that they were indeed. Be it Orcs, Quilboars or Draenei, pretty much everybody had their religion confirmed at some point.
Ranking Warcraft religions should sound as ridiculous as ranking real world religions
To be perfectly honest, this wouldn’t be nearly as cruel as what the Shadowlands are currently. This afterlife system is exceedingly cruel and dysfunctional, even without the excuse of anima drought.
Also, by all accounts, the SL afterlife you go in depends on the kind of life you lived, rather than on the religion you used to follow
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So lets say the humans decide that they want to revere something crazy, like, a flying spaghetti monster. Should that suddenly become a real thing in the game so there’s fairness among all religions? No? Didn’t think so.
Not all religions are created equal and that’s fine. It’s not creating a ‘ranking’ system or creating favourites, it’s just a simple matter of world building being what it is. Every universe has its share of gods that either don’t exist or are not at all like they’re envisioned. Take the Pathfinder universe for example, there are a ton of gods and faiths in that universe, some of them are dead and as such do not have a plane of existence for their followers when they die. But those dead gods still have followers and people who play the RPG do create characters who follow these dead gods. Should the Pathfinder universe simply ‘undo’ the dead gods and allow them to exist because it’s not ‘fair’ for people making characters in that universe to have their god be dead? No, they shouldn’t.
Wat?
How is being separated for all eternity somehow less cruel than the Shadowlands? I mean, it’s really worth noting that the chaos that the Shadowlands is currently in is thanks to the Jailer, and now that he’s gone things are finally going back to a sense of normalcy.
Which is fine, this is literally how all religions work anyway.
Look at the real world religions for example. If you’re a catholic and you were a real horrible person, it doesn’t matter how faithful you were, if that religion were real you’d still end up in hell based on your actions in life. Literally all religions follow this concept where no matter what your faith happens to be, it is your actions that determine where you end up.
Even the ancient greek afterlife followed this rule, where you could end up in the underworld, or you’d be damned to float through the River Styx for eternity, or if you were a righteous hero in life, you could cross the Styx and be admitted into the Elysian Fields, which was a paradise reserved for the demi-gods and ancient heroes of legend.
Actually, yes ? Absolutely ? By WoW standards, if some Humans start revering a flying spaghetti monster, best bet would be that there is indeed a flying spaghetti monster worth revering out there.
Two things here. First, there’s the Warcraft conception of what religion is, that is, most of the time, an actual being that worshippers can more or less directly interact with, whose existence we have proofs of, and that a society decided to build its culture around the worship of. Second, the conception you’ll rather encounter for real world religions : a set of symbols, motifs, rituals and unverifiable stories that come to constitute a full-fledged belief system that people not only think corresponds to reality in some way, but also and maybe more importantly, use as a reference point for the foundations and characteristics of their societies.
In both conceptions, all religions are created equal. In the Warcraft conception, the only difference is that the various gods are not equal in power. The Oomlot tribe of Pygmies worship a giant fire turtle named Volcanoth, the Quilboars worship Agamaggan, the Kaldorei worship Elune ; you can rank those 3 gods according to their power (Elune > Agamaggan > Volcanoth), however you can’t rank them according to how real they are, since they’re all real.
In the real world conception, the way I see things all religions are created equal, because they’re all equally unverifiable, and they’re all equally important to their respective followers, arguably. You can rank them according to how widespread they are, but not according to how real they are, because that’s not measurable (and sometimes, that’s even besides the point).
The initial premise of WoW is that players get to play as various races that all have their own cultures, religions and perspectives on things. You just don’t get to point out the Tauren religion as invalid. It hurts immersion, breaks the balance between races, and conflicts with what the game sells you.
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I’m really not sure why people think this, there always was the Shadowlands in lore. Even if the characters did not know about it, they knew there was some kind of afterlife. Why would death no longer have an impact?
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Because races like the trolls, orcs, tauren, taunka, draenei, who have VERY SPECIFIC belief systems are now deemed wrong, and those races dumb for having believed their ancestors were actually communing with them 
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Who says they are wrong?
The Shadowlands has thousands of different afterlives, whos to say that one of the planes does not have what they believe in? They already stated the 4 covenants are not the only ones, they just cant add all of them for game mechanic / time reasons.
Also Trolls (at least Zandilari) were covered with Bwonsamdi.
This!
There are an infinite number of afterlives, we only saw 5 of them because, well, Blizzard developers are human and can’t make an infinite number of afterlives for us to experience.
I mean we know for example that Durotan is in one of these afterlives. As is Lothar, Kargath Bladefist, Orgrim Doomhammer, Blackhand etc.
Baine’s mother, Tamaala is also somewhere out there (although Cairne is not, his spirit is watching over Baine as Tamaala watched over Cairne until he died).
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Shadowlands to me are something Blizzard allowed/wanted players to use a bit of headcanon. You have to think, that an afterlife would be MASSIVE and all its inner workings would take years to really write out.
Now for me, they did drop the ball on the whole “your soul can just die” which to me actually made an afterlife pointless. However, they then explain how the timelines work that every reality soul is connected and the people we see getting erased in our timeline still live on in others.
I usually don’t like time stuff in writing but I think WoW actually does timelines right for this reason.
But we know their concept of the Shadowlands was different, as you mentioned upthread. I believe (although I have no proof) that the concepts that have been mismatched with earlier lore started showing up about the time Chronicles came out.
You’re talking as if the humans in the game aren’t created by the game developers. They don’t have minds of their own and can’t spontaneously decide to start a cult of the spaghetti monster unless the devs say they do.
Exploring Kalimdor.
This. 
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I didn’t get to read that, I heard other issues with that book and honestly I’m not too sure I even accept some writing as Canon anymore.
But even if that does say anything against it, that would be contradicting what the developer said about the shadowlands having an infinite number of afterlives. So it would be in fact non canon
No it wouldn’t—? In the first place, ancestors who are hanging around on Draenor or Azeroth aren’t in the Shadowlands. In the second place, infinite numbers of afterlives doesn’t mean every conceivable afterlife exists. And in the third place, we know for sure that some of the ancestors that the orcs and tauren would be communing with are actually in Bastion or Maldraxxus.
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Im pretty sure this covers most of them.
As for the whole ancestor thing, you have examples of ghosts and spirits hanging around Azeroth all the time. It’s more than possible for a soul to just not move on.
But tauren ancestor worship is built around the idea that they all are available to talk to, not just a select few.
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Not to mention the Red Rock Mesa is supposed to be their holiest site where ALL tauren souls reside when they die.
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Well i dono then, some got it wrong.
Imagine how Kul’Tiran players (me) felt when they find out the Tidemother was likely a Naga.
Tauren got it easy lol
idk kyrian maybe? the rest had plenty of soul in them with old characters and new alike. now the maw and the automa? sure. also the fact that we went there during a literal drought all sould being funneled straight into the maw… i mean maybe that had something to do with it? im not saying its perfect or anything but maybe a little overkill ?
Id say the kyrian in charge of their soul acquisition didn’t have cell service for his/her gps in that area. Or maybe a few of them called in sick that day and they were short staffed?
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To quote Maar from SC2. “Some secret should remain hidden”.
Shadowlands is an example of that.
I subscribe to the theory that the Tidemother is actually Elune due to how the moon in real life affects the tides. And Elune being “Mother Moon”, one can draw a connection. Also it is totally in character for Azshara to think that she is above Elune. So tricking Lord Stormsong into thinking she was the Tidemother is well within her character. Obivously the Tidesages don’t know who the Tidemother actually is, but Elune can easily fit into that role unintentionally.
I compare it to H.A.D.E.S in Horizon Zero Dawn and how it played into the role of the “Buried Shadow” to deceive the Shadow Carja into becoming its personal army. The “Buried Shadow” being the Carja’s take on the Devil character in their religion.
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