But some of the other plot threads in Shadowlands were actually quite good!
The Covenant campaigns, especially the Maldraxxus one, were written rather well.
Everything with Sire Denathrius felt top tier. A villain you love to hate.
The small interactions between Bolvar and Taelia were so good.
Why can’t we have a main story written like these smaller threads?
The writing team can do self contained stories quite well, but when it comes to creating an overarching plot, it all seems to fall apart. I am just sick of the “wait and see” method of storytelling when it comes to the closing of an expansion.
A story should have exposition, a climax, and some sort of resolution. It doesn’t have to answer absolutely everything, but it should at least give us some answers and not just “you are not prepared for what is to come.”
TLDR; Blizzard please write your overall story arcs with the same care and love that you give the self contained stories.
Yeah, my assumption is that they actually have a lot of extensive lore and history written for the Jailer. On poster paper, in a meeting room. Which they forgot to put into the game.
The night fae campaign was my favourite just for the fantastic payoff for Vol’jin.
SL’s side stories were solid; I really liked the Kyrian campaign and Devos was a legitimately good villain. Let’s not sugarcoat things. But anything involving the Jailer and Sylvanas was miserable, even by Warcraft’s standards.
The thing is, this has been happening for a while. I’ve really enjoyed the zone specific stories, but the over arching narrative always falls flat. It’s practically a Blizzard staple at this point.
In my humble, lonely opinion they need to just stop with the over arching narrative and focus on the zones again, and build up characters they’ve introduced in the expansions. And for God’s sake do NOT divide the campaign into four.
This is what I miss the most. Though we did see a bit of that return in BFA and Legion with the zone specific stories due to having the ability to complete them in any order.
As bad as the systems were in BFA, I really enjoyed the Drust story, the pirate story, the Vol’dun story. That is where the writing feels good. Stuff like the Defias, The Scarlet Crusade, the Highmountain Tauren. Even Suramar shows they know how to do zone specific stories well.
Yep, I was going to say I think Suramar was my favorite story that they’ve done. I felt for the plight of the characters, right down to the jerk who kept asking me for more and more mana.
And as mentioned, Maldraxxus shocked me this expansion. I was dead set on it being the most boring zone of the expansion, and I think it turned out to be one of if not my favorite. They had such personality, the stories were tragic (RIP House of Plagues) and the only real problem I have with it was I felt like it was silly killing off Margrave Krexus so soon when he was the face of the Maldraxxus leadership.
They introduced so many good, interesting characters, and instead opted to shove more Thrall, Jaina, Anduin, and Sylvanas down our throats while introducing the worst villain in the entire game (poorly written, and above all else just…boring). And yeah, Denathrius was underutilized but I’m hoping since the Dreadlords have his sword that he’ll be back. Easily the best villain of the expansion.
I think it might have something to do with a lower level of investment on those side stories, and they’re not “in the way” of the story they want to tell. Blizzard writing is mostly just getting from Cool Point A to Cool Point B, with the connections between existing only to facilitate those intended high moments. The side stories are allowed to exist in a vacuum and tell their own stories, completely unrelated to those big “Wouldn’t it be cool if the Jailer was a ROBOT!?” moments.
Or have an overarching narrative, but break it up with a solid middle chapter that diverts to something tangentially related, but different. If you ask me the best example of this was MoP. We saw the looming threat of Garrosh’s orc supremacy throughout, but the diversion to the throne of thunder gave all that a lot of room to breathe. It helps that the isle of thunder was just cool as hell.
I mean look at the two expansions that have fallen the flattest; WoD and now SL. They both quite literally have a chapter missing.
Yes. Absolutely this right here, thank you for pointing that out. In all my frustration with Shadowlands I forgot that they’ve actually done a decent overarching plot previously.
But remember, according to Ion the expansion is ending just as they planned it. Which still feels slimy to repeat.
I think something that also helps a lot is both of these characters were more or less new. Warcraft needs more new characters, not to keep dragging around ancient baggage. The Jailer is really just an extension of Sylvanas, but generally when they introduce new characters they’re rarely disappointing.
I can still say I have a lot of love for Jaina, Thrall, and even Anduin and Baine to a lesser extent. But I am so sick of them at this point. Yes, they are main characters. But that’s a problem in its own right. They’re these big looming planets of characters that everything ends up revolving around. It’s a big world but having the focus on the same characters this much makes if feel very small.
Imo letting Thrall, Jaina, Baine, etc retire and be inactive mentors for the fresh faces would be wonderful. They can still exist and grow as people, but they shouldn’t be solving problems.
The story is best if you don’t pay too much attention to it. Which is why they story has gotten so bad, they are effectively forcing it down your throat.
Let me sum up the story of Shadowlands. You mess up and help up the bad guys. Even when you are winning the bad guys pull a Deus Ex Machina from their asses. Repeat for the entire expansion.
its sad that they could of made it so much better.
all they do is lie. no communication cause they are just too lazy and pathetic.
not even man enough to admit there faults. sad.
The jailer - including his impact on the faction leaders stories, on Arathas, and the WTF-ness of Sylvis arch were all trash.
But the worst it’s now 4 years with a very, very unsatisfactory resolution to the Nelf story.
Setting Taranda up for revenge only to suck it away at last moment, so Sylvy could have a pretty pathetically told redemption arch, was the worst part for me by far.
Having Elune consistently screw her most devoted over for almost 3 expansions now is getting old, and I have no faith (see above) they have the skill to tell that story well.
Your right though. They do ok with the small stuff. Most of the quest stuff, etc…
They just seem to be on some vendetta against fan favorite lore characters lately.
The new Cosmic plot lines are wrecking the things that made the world/story interesting. This new stuff is meh.