That’s…kinda how I’ve looked at it.
and…I mean goodness, I don’t really know how else TO look at it. I don’t think Blizzard really knows…how to handle WoW at this point.
Because you’ve got this game that, gameplay-wise, depends on a constant stream of lightly repeatable content. That depends on constantly finding fresh ways to re-interpret your sets of classes - it’s like being asked to re-invent the wheel instead of making a better wheel.
And…the story can’t keep up with that. a game which, for all intents and purposes, is driven by it’s story, has to put it second because…that’s not why a lot of people play.
i would’ve preferred lots of story patches. Hell, maybe not even patches. If we just got lots and lots of story quests that didn’t function as poorly disguised exposition dumps, I’d…appreciate it. Because right now I just.,…feel like we were thrown in here. And we’ve done…something? But not really anything?
We’ve just been here. And there’s been names dropped and things happening, but none of it’s been impactful.
And just…what…how do you fix this?
When i was going through Cata, and Mists, and even WoD and Legion, I felt…like i was a part of the world. Like I was involved in a movement, but I could choose where to focus my time, my energy.
But more and more i’m feeling like a passenger. Like the WORLD is passing me by while I remain stationary, and…I dunno. i don’t think that’s the kinda game I wanna play. I don’t wanna just stand here and have content thrown in my face. I wanna discover it. Put it together. help it grow.
Make it mandatory for every person, from the top to the bottom, working on the game to play four hours a week in groups of around eight a 1980/1990s PnP RPG with a professional GM for six months straight. Then repeat for another six months but with different groupings of around eight with players as GMs instead of professionals.
Now, I won’t say it would have been possible for Shadowlands to be great, but…
The ways it’s shriekingly obvious how it could have been better are vast and numerous. One of the most major issues? 0 build up.
If the Shadowlands wasn’t such a blank slate, if the Jailer was hinted at earlier, if any of these points had any previous establishment within the Lore, this would all work so much better.
They should have made it clear very early on that Sylvanas had some sort of evil cosmic patron. They should have hinted that something within the realm of death was broken before Shadowlands was unleashed, either through Helya, Bolvar, or some other means. And they really, really needed to give the Jailer a lot more credit before expecting us to just accept him as the new Sargeras without actually seeing him do anything.
That could have been started as late as the Shadowlands Cinematic - have Bolvar wipe the floor with Sylvanas, only to have her get one final lucky shot off against the crown. One tiny crack and the Jailor’s power is unleashed and revealed. It shreds the sky, blasts the Lich King to parts unknown, and destroys Icecrown glacier, Silithus Style. Do that, and yeah, we might not know who this Jailor character is, but we’re immediately confronted with a threat that absolutely means business, forcing us to care.
But none of that happened. And so, Shadowlands feels… tacked on. Floating. Separate from the established lore and game and far lesser for it. I’m not saying Shadowlands could have been good, persay, but it absolutely could have been far, far better.
People keep saying this and I don’t see how people think it could even remotely work.
The Jailer wins, okay, well his goal is to make reality into a realm of suffering where death is the most powerful force in the cosmos, not Order. So the entire game is just the Maw. All the time. Is that really what anybody wants?
He’s Great Value Thanos. This isn’t the same as Marvel where Thanos at least wanted to wipe out half of all life in the galaxy which would feasibly allow there to be something to go on afterwards. It’s not the same with the Jailer.
I don’t think that is what will happen. It will be another, Aight, we’re gonna head home kind of situation. But hypothetically they could have us kill the Jailer off as he remakes the Universe, but he is no longer alive to make it a realm of death. By no means is it a good ending or good writing, but it gets us out of the situation we are in.
Just to tie up loose ends, make it known that the Titans are actually the First ones, and they made the covenant leaders as overseers of the Shadowlands and Zovaal was trying to usurp their position of leadership. Because I hate the whole idea of the first ones otherwise. The whole concept of the first ones makes me feel like us meeting the Titans in Legion was less impactful.
Yeah. Although I feel like even with foreshadowing Zovaal would still suck. He’s just not good.
There’s not one scene where you can really say “This is who the Jailer is”.
Zovaal needed a scene like this. Something that established some kind of connection between us the Maw Walker and our enemy, something that let us know “This is what the Jailer is about, this is why he does what he does, this is who he is and why we have to stop him”. And no, “Death comes from the soul of your world” doesn’t count. We literally still have no idea what makes Zovaal tick or what he wants beyond “remaking the universe”, which we can’t even mentally fathom.
It would have been so easy for Blizzard to imply Zovaal is disgusted with mortal beings, that he saw their sins, millions at a time, when he was the Arbiter, and wants to make a universe free of the sins of mortals. That he wants to erase every living being in the current universe to start fresh.
We literally just came fresh off the heels of a war where we butchered each other in the name of faction pride. It would have been perfect for Zovaal to pick at that thread. To taunt the Alliance or Horde player for their part in it, and to tell them they’re not worthy of his world.
Just anything. Something. Ugh. Why is Danuser such a hack bro?
shadowlands cannot possibly be a fever dream because my imagination isn’t powerful enough to dream up someone as sexy as sire denathrius. your entire post is invalid.
Thanos is much deeper and more human than the Jailer. His reasoning for reducing the population isn’t vapid. He’s trying to save the universe. He even reveals deep emotions when losing loved ones. His life before his crusade was ordinary and his mission was paramount.
The point of Thanos was to show that evil is in the eye of the beholder and life is chaos to some cosmic degree where variances inevitably come into conflict and the only right answer is one side wins.
God, Denathrius probably should have been the big bad somehow. He is so much more interesting and charismatic than Zovaal. Only this narrative team could take the guy behind the most beloved character in Warcraft history and make him boring.
From what i’ve read, he wasn’t originally supposed to be so awesome and that the voice actor did such an ameizing job that they couldn’t bear to kill him off. Hence why hes not dead yet and will likely show up later.
No yeah, that’s crazy. I remember hearing that as well. It’s comical to me that it was the VA that was responsible for how awesome that character was. It’s crazy. He was written cartoonishly evil, but that Voice Actor really brought it all to the table; the voice was everything for Denathrius.
And it’s just dumb because I can think of a dozen backstories for the Jailer that still make him undeniably evil but would at least make him interesting. Danuser couldn’t think of anything?
The only possible reason I can think of not to give the Jailer a backstory is that Danuser wanted to dedicate this expansion to Sylvanas’s redemption arc, and didn’t want the Jailer eating up her screen-time. It’s so stupid but that’s legitimately what I think must be going on. His love affair with a 2D character trumps the writing of a game played by millions. I can’t believe someone is actually that incompetent otherwise.
Honestly, having Sire D running the show and then being betrayed in 9.1 by his chained brother Zovaal could have worked as well if you really wanted Zovaal as the final boss. Mal’ganis could have been the final boss of 9.0, and Sire D could have been the final boss of 9.1 - the final battle taking place as Sire D attempts to use the final key to remove Zovaal’s chains (he would literally still be in chains at this point), but once Zovaal is free, he leaves his brother at our mercy.
The traitor becomes betrayed himself. I think it’d have a lot better ring to it. And Zovaal being in chains all this time might be an interesting twist. He wasn’t the threat his siblings made him out to be… until he was unshackled. And once the chains come off, you could have that same scene of his chains dominating everyone in sight, showing just how strong he is, only for him to leave Sire D to us anyways, because, well, he’s evil, and even he knows the sins of his brother.
Edit: I guess “freeing the villain that is shackled and then betraying the one who freed him” is literally what they did in Eternal Palace… but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it?
I don’t know, anything. Something. Our current version of Zovaal is just totally lame.
This probably would have been ideal for me. And come to think of it, I forgot that literally all of the promo art for Zovaal had him shackled and physically imprisoned in place in the Maw. How the hell did he get freed? The first time we saw him he was just walking around freely.
Honestly, my ideal backstory for Zovaal would have been that the Titans are the first ones (keeping them as the actual creators of the universe) and they are just known by a different name in the Shadowlands. All of the covenant leaders are essentially Titan Keepers that were given different domains to rule over in the Shadowlands. Denathrius could have seen the power of the Titans and wanted to usurp the Pantheon, making that his end goal and swaying Zovaal, who is much powerful than him as the Arbiter, to do his bidding and get him there.
I really don’t understand the things we are beginning to hear about Zovaal. We are told he is cunning, manipulative, good with convincing people with words alone. Where is this shown? At all? To me, this perfectly describes Denathrius.
It is entirely possible. I’m not sure myself. Maybe the timeline is being shoved onto them from above. Like 8.3 happened and I can’t get over that one.
Still it seems like you’re not wrong. That a certain woman has hogged up the story and poor Baine. I mean why is this character even alive at this point?
Literally the 3rd to last boss, one of the biggest lore-encounters wrapping up this whole expansion, is against Dreadlords. Who are the creations of Denatharius and loyal to Denatharius. Sire D was essentially the one who manipulated the Legion, created the Scourge, etc. Somehow, we’re supposed to attribute this to Zovaal? It doesn’t even make sense and they literally JUST made this lore. Wut?
I agree, Zovaal as the sledgehammer makes way more sense. In a lot of fictional settings, you see a villainous pair of the “Mastermind” and the “Monster”. Lex Luthor and Doomsday. Joker and Bane. So on and so forth. One is the cunning manipulator who is weaker, the other is a powerhouse of raw evil. Zovaal could have literally been “The Bane of Life”, this hulking monster of hatred towards the living. Zovaal has no personality, might as well lean into it.
You would think someone like Danuser who presumably studied this stuff and who does writing professionally would have put some thought into it. I just can’t understand it. This writing failure this doesn’t make sense unless there’s something else going on, like the waifu angle.
