So why the praise for Shadowlands questing?

It seems like the team doubled down on one of Legion’s story weaknesses in fragmenting portions of the story behind the Order Halls. They have done it again, I’d argue with a bit more intensity with the Covenants, and I don’t understand why?

At least in Legion, the Order Hall questlines were self-contained, and tangential to the main plot.

In Shadowlands, I put off some dungeons until I had done the zones but I am completely lost in places like Mists of Tirna Scythe, Spires of Ascension etc. I don’t know some of the characters, and I dont know what they are talking about? For instance, why are Devos and the Archon at such odds?

Overall, it also made the zones feel unfinished while levelling. Which does not bode well for me.

Generally, it seems like a big step back in terms of storytelling compared to BFA.

is there something, a questline or quests, i missed?

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Care to site examples of praise of questing or are you just making it up to have a reason to post?

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There was a good amount of praise and enjoyment while the game was in beta. Granted, that may have been on the quality of the storylines.

You didn’t watch the Uther cinematic?

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Is that all there is to it? I have not seen Uther in game at all (I dont have Kyrian characters yet) IIRC.

I think you’ll find that, in general, beta praise was coming from streamers trying to curry favor with Blizzard, not from rank & file beta testers.

Only seeing a quarter of the story, because of covenant locking, was DEFINITELY a complaint during beta.

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Uther shows up a couple times in the Bastion leveling experience.

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That’s fair. I also regret leading with that now since in hindsight, I realize my gripe is something else.

I does seem like Blizz wants me to get 4 characters to 60 to see the story of each covenant, but I’m afraid that ain’t happening. As for dungeons, I think in every version of WoW I have played I end up doing dungeons without seeing the quests that lead up to them, so I often have little idea of what’s going on.

I mean leveling is mostly fine imo, just the story is bad.

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Was it in capacity to further the story, or more “hey, it’s character I know with more to be told later”?

Devos was in the first Shadowlands video, and was the mystery leader of the Forsworn throughout Bastion… like you had to of just not paid attention to story at all to not know this.

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Ok. tenchar

And it’s “had to have”, not “had to of”.

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I’d say a bit of both. The first time you see him, he’s already a Forwsorn and it’s only for a quick second. He’s trying to convince a Kyrian that is almost falling to join.

I don’t know. I thought it was a slog to quest through Shadowlands. I’m not sure where the praise comes from. The writing isn’t any better than it’s been lately, the setting is uninteresting, the characters aren’t compelling (and I honestly struggled a lot to remember any of the characters because almost all of them share the same exact model).

I don’t care if the story was incredible and the writing groundbreaking (it isn’t on either account), but if the story isn’t being told in a compelling way, then nothing else really matters. Shadowlands could be fantastic, but the story is largely told as: “stand around while NPCs talk” and “walk beside NPC while it talks.” I’m sorry, but that’s horrid. It’s the same problem FFXIV’s storytelling has and the same reason I don’t understand all the praise that game gets (albeit, I’ll concede FFXIV at least has much more compelling set pieces, characters, and actual writing). This method of telling a story puts the game on hold, and a game shouldn’t do that. Go write a book if you want to tell a story in this way.

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its far better than the discombobulated BFA crap, so thats enough for me, lol.
I enjoy the revendreth / venthyr vampire thing about as much as I enjoyed Mists content.
For RPG flavor, SL its pretty good so far.
if I was a competitive player, I might be fuming about it like some are, and probably justifiably so.

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And the second time, he’s RIGHT THERE in Kyrian HQ sabotaging their security system, and nobody says anything or even notices him.

It’s pretty hilarious. (Not in a good way.)

Oh yes, I recall now. I ended up feeling that that didn’t go anywhere. That was really the feeling each zone left me with and I can’t say I cared for it.

for me it comes from “THANK GOD BFA IS OVER!” lol

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Yeah having no guards even notice him was pretty off there.