All I want is more insight into how their society operates via interactions with your average John and Jane Deadmann.
I think WoW’s at it’s best when we’re exploring and learning about the fascinating societies that exist in this kooky world full of everything from slavic space goats to pint sized petropunk bombers.
And at it’s worst when we’re stuck in the background of a soap opera about demi gods with poor communication skills.
1000%
This is something I loved about Legion and BfA, the small details. We saw glimpses into the whole Nightborne society with Legion and had interesting snapshots into places like Thunder Totem and how it’s denizens deal with their day-to-day. Dazar’alor and Kul Tiras were also beautiful world building despite the garbage dump of a story they told, they still stand the test of time in terms of just being gorgeous hubs where you can see the goings on of it’s everyday citizens.
I hope if/when they do rebuild Lordaeron (and possibly a new NE hub) they really give us some of that feel. I’d love to see the daily routines of Rotts McKenzie and his pickled mushroom business, or Elfina PurpleEars and her mooncakes recipe. I’d love to help with the mundane tasks like that, instead of figuring out who the next shirtless giant idiot of the expansion will be.
They KIND OF had this in Shadowlands, but the whole setting feels so stupid and disjointed with the rest of the game. Why should I care about what this Broker is doing? I won’t see them EVER again. It’s really hard to feel invested in even the best characters because there’s no realistic scenario that would bring them to Azeroth in the future.
Yeah the Covenants were interesting. But also so disconnected from Azeroth that it was kinda hard to care. Especially seeing as everyone is universally already dead.
But they were still interesting enough to me to basically work. Where it completely went wrong was with the Maw and Brokers. Because the Maw is nothing but empty suita of armor with frowny faces on them. And the Brokers are god damn lava lamps. Kinda hard to find anything relatable there.
I didn’t think Blizzard’s esports could get any worse.
The enemies in the Maw wouldn’t have been soo bad, if there was some variety to them. It was just the same basic gray suite of armor in the Maw, Korthia and Zerith Mortis.
One would think as we entered the other two zones, we would’ve seen more powerful and unique automatons in Zoovals possession
That certainly sounds weird.
That little brief stare at GD reminded me of how dumb people are, though. Do people think the lore books take away from development resources? I really do wonder how some people function.
At any rate it seems harmless if a bit baffling. Seriously a foot race is going to be completely determined by a class’s mobility. And if thats disabled it’ll still be hard to tell. Ever play WoW with someone in the same room as you? Because your exact position in the game is a lot vaguer than you’d think. And watching someone level sounds extremely boring but that’s essentially what streaming is so, sure it has an audience.
We actually did a soccer esque game called Kick Fish which was fun if a bit maddening because where you’ll kick it exactky is up to the winds of fate. But that seems more creative than this tbh.
I’m getting the cookbook tomorrow (with Adrienne Mayer’s new book).
…actually looking forward to it. The little details about the world (like how a well made spider kebab tastes) are a lot more interesting to me than… well, Shadowlands, honestly.
I am wondering what sort of technology they have to ensure this. Sounds like Mojo from X Men. Or a Poltergeist.
Yea, and what happened to seeing more Afterlives!? We saw the original 4 and literally no more afterlives. Korthia and Zerith Mortis were not afterlives.
It was just bad from the top down. One thing I’ve really noticed is how instanced SL is.
It reminds me of Old Republic. Which is a solid game in it’s own right but entire planets were 1 - 2 zones only accessible via a space port. Which made this sprawling planet hopping adventure seem pretty boxed in. In particular planets like Coruscant were just a series of corridors. Not exactly the sprawling metropolis I’d pictured.
WoW on the otherhand is the master of making a living feeling world that you can quite literally get lost in. Even BFA’s relatively small 3 zone areas still felt massive and became more breath taking with flight.
I guess being able to walk to Maldraxxus from Bastion wouldn’t have made sense in context. But having to get a layover flight at O’Hare anytime you’re trying to jump zones just kills the pacing. And it’s never not weird to have your bat, butterfly, etc. turn into a weird ethernet cable caterpillar everytime you go through the portal.
It’s stilted and awkward in a way WoW never has been before.
You forgot De Other Side!
I remember that being my initial complaint from the beginning, the weird floating island nature of the realms made it feel so contained and different from any other expansion. At least with BfA, Zandalar and Kul Tiras were separated by boat, and you still got a really great area to come to and explore rather than one shoebox forest that is literally a blacklit assault to the eyeballs.
I will say though, zoning into Maldraxxus the music is amazing. TBH the SL score overall was really awesome.
You’re right I did! I wish we got more of it than just a Dungeon.
I still don’t know the purpoe of Brokers. I would have had them be former mortals, instead of energy beings native to the Shadowlands for some reason.
Or blizz could have made them part of the Etherals or something. Something that we’re at least familiar with
Overall I did like most of the Covenants. And I can’t really say there’s anything wrong with Bastion but it’s got the Jedi problem of being about zen paragons. Which isn’t as interesting as sadistic sugar plumb faeries or your friendly neighborhood bioweapons.
But things only got less interesting from there as we focused on automatons, lava lamps and a Halo ring.
I’m still confused why we didn’t just use the Etherals. We already have beings of pure energy stuffed into a vaguely humanoid shape who serve as cosmic scuzzy bazar merchants.
Why the hell do we need two?
It seems like early on they elected to scrap a good chunk of content. They can claim they didn’t remove a patch until they are blue in the face and I won’t believe them. Not to mention how much they look to of chopped down 9.1 — City of Secrets my foot. It was a bit of ruins.
I guess their stance is the Etherals are stationed in the Twisting nether, not the Shadowlands. It felt like some content got scrapped for them as well. They are obviously intended to serve some greater function in the Shadowlands than self important merchants, but what it was never got revealed.
One of the new Blacksmithing specialisations is called “Spartan Blacksmithing.” New human kingdom called Sparta, confirmed!
I guess they could be using the lowercase definition, marked by simplicity, frugality, or avoidance of luxury and comfort. But even that has it’s roots in the Spartan Culture which is how it gained it’s meaning. This wouldn’t be the first time Blizzard injects real world things into WoW where it doesn’t really fit though.
I mean there’s something called Alteraci Swiss. Which is odd because it’s also called Alpine cheese. Granted Alpine refers specifically to ‘of the Alps’ so no real winning there but it would sound less weird.