The Shadowlands is simply the atferlife. I mean personally speaking, it does make sense on why it would feel like it would be removed from anything were familiar with.
Not to get into Religion territory here, but if a Hell, Heaven and Limbo does exist and is accurately depicted what’s in the book (whatever you may read), it’s not going to be simply just where we are now, only better or worse or not at all, nothing at all as we know it now would be in either of those places.
I know this doesn’t sound like much of an answer here, but i think it’s oddly appropriate to have Shadowlands feel alien to the rest of the places we visit in WoW, again for the reason i have stated at the very beginning.
I also have to add on to what Clark said here, and say that Argus is also divided up into zones. So while i get the criticism that Shadowland’s zones are divided in a way that Flight Masters are needed, i do find it a touch inconsistent that we are giving Argus a pass on this.
While i disagree with you and OP, i do have to ask this, what will make Shadowlands feel like a part of WoW then?
And this is another issue with it. If it is an afterlife to many different worlds, Oribos seems like a very small airport for it. Then we get the 4 covenant zones. These specific 4 are the only ones related to Azeroth? Why these 4? What about other worlds? Do those have anima? If so, do they all have a drought? Why wasnt Denathrius taking anima from the hundreds of realms? If Denathrius was siphoning anima from ALL realms, why werent there more people trying to stop him?
Just too many questions that pretty much the only answer to is this. These 4 Realms, The Maw, and Oribos are ONLY the afterlife for Azeroth.
But then that is potentially shot in the foot by Korthia. Its a long lost realm of the shadowlands being pulled into the maw. Is Korthia part of our afterlife or another world’s? If its part of our afterlife, which souls went there? How did it get lost and how did the arbiter lose it? Did the Arbiter forget it existed when sending souls places? Where did the souls that were supposed to be sent to Korthia get sent instead?
If its not related to our afterlife, what world did it come from? Does it have its own arbiter? Are other worlds heroes now coming defend their afterlife?
Since the Shadowlands is made up of 100’s of worlds, the 5 slivers of it, we get to see, also seem small.
Would have it been better to have just had the Shadowlands be Azeroth’s Afterlife? Had All four zones connected around the Maw in the center. Then have Oribos floating High above the Maw and all the other zones. And instead of having Torghast be a towering spire, have it go Down through the belly of the Maw, Deeper and Deeper. The polar opposite heading away from Oribos.
Having the Shadowlands Structured this way, would, seem to me have been more cohesive to the gameplay. Also when we implement flying, it would be cool to fly up from Maldraxus or Bastion, on our own, Straight to Oribos in the distance. All the while looking down and seeing the imposing Maw. There is also a built in reason why we couldnt fly down to the Maw, but Over it. The anima siphoned off, created such an unstable anima cloud/barrier that the only way through is the Portal in the center of Oribos.
I Just realized. I am Describing the Layout of Legion, with Dalaran… Maybe because traversing around legion felt good. Connected and Cohesive.
I guess I don’t see how it’s removed. We’ve known of the Shadowlands for years and we are now exploring it. It has always been connected to Azeroth in some way.
LOL at least Warlords of Draenor had potential, and existing lore to work off of. The developers, unsurprisingly, failed. But this garbage? This fanfiction trash? Sorry, but WoD was leagues above Badolands.