Before the Titans there were the First Ones who were brought into existence by the Mysterious Ones who were the offshoot of the Beforers who were ascended by the Ascenders who descended from the Descenders who were born of the firstborne who were birthed by the primordial ones who were themselves crawled from the womb of the matorn ones who were fathered by the patriarchs who were formed into being by the clay of the god ones who were forged by fire by the solar pantheon who were thought into being by the Thinkers who were given shape by… You know… This is getting ridiculous.
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Ridiculous? Possibly - but limiting an entire universe to only a dozen or two progenitor species seems a bit shortsighted. After all there are likely an infinite number of layers to the multiverse, and who knows how often they intersect?
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Can’t we just have some things left to the imagination? The more we keep explaining the inner workings of everything. The mystery is lost and even worse, treads on the feet and mythos established by the races of Azeroth. Stuff like the Earthmother are going to take a severe hit the more we keep going deeper.
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I personally refuse to accept anything from Shadowlands as Canon for that reason alone. Not that anything from it will remain 100% canon come next Expac where it’s all retcon away. #TaurensDon’tBecomeBlueHumans
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They mentioned “the clockmaker” in some lore book or thing in the past few years too. IDR much on that except it made me make a face like I took a shot of lemon juice.
These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood. And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah. And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters. And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber. And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters. And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg. And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters. And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu. And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters. And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug. And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters. And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor. And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah. And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
They failed this lore in several ways.
Mainly, the First Ones serve no purpose to the narrative that the Titans fulfilled. It’s one thing to have mysterious gods whose technology is so advanced it’s mistaken for magic. It’s another thing to repeat the same story in the same universe. They even exhibit all the same traits. Introduced in a death expansion, have relics we encounter, and have mysteriously vanished to leave their servants questioning their purpose. It’s uncreative, tired, and lazy.
Then, they failed to give it the setup it deserves. They had two freaking expansions they could have done before this: Nazjatar and Ny’alotha. As we explore both, four whole year’s of content, they could sprinkle in lead ups to the Shadowlands lore. Have Sylvanas pop up once or twice, only to vanish again to a mysterious realm. Have some spooky grim reaper style spirit healers stealing people away into the darkness. Have people encounter weird anomalies that are distinctly different to Titans instead of just more math and stone structures. They not only denied two very important villains to the history of the game their rightful etended spotlights but sabotaged their current lore by rushing for the payoff. Oh and they aren’t even delivering compelling payoff but that’s another topic.
Then they fell for the same mistake they tried to rectify: Explaining away the mystery. Yes, seeing the Titans and having everything about them removed a great deal of enigma around them. And that took away their cool feature: Dead gods we couldn’t even behold. So they wanted to make a new mysterious force for us to theorize about and be in awe of.
Then they explained it all and had us show up to one of their main zones two patches after they were introduced.
And lastly, on a personal level, I dislike everything having one unified origin. I liked how the Light and Void were these weird omnipresent forces that birthed the universe. I liked that arcane and fel magic came from this big bang and simply existed as facts of physics. I liked that death and life came about through that beautiful miracle of growth, decay, and rebirth. That death exists as simply the antithesis of life. Making everything engineered and come from the same place takes away the fascinating relationships between these forces that once made them unique and now makes it all six flavors of magic juice.
We didn’t need to go this far out. What made The Frozen Throne such an exciting sequel to Reign of Chaos was that it explored how the world and characters reacted to the previous events. I want to see that again. I want to know what the night elves (not Tyrande, she is an individual, not a race) are going to do next. I want to know what’s going on in the Twisting Nether now that the one authority in it is gone. I’d like to see new characters rise up to prominence and introduce new concepts and ideals to their people.
I simply do not care about recycled stories taking place in other planes of reality that have very little on screen evidence to tie it to the world I’ve become attached to.
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This would be ideal in most respects. In theory I do like the concept of us going to the underworld, after all that’s been a thing that heroes have done since at least ancient Greek literature - I’m not sure the execution was managed as well as it could’ve been.
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The issue was that the Underworld was never universal or really explained to merit exploration. The Shadowlands alone was always this vague notion that most people believed to be the realm between life and the afterlife. Much like our ghosts wandering Azeroth. The closest to the Underworld we had was the Twisting Nether, which was considered hell.
Honestly, Blizzard more than just missed the ball. They did a complete circle, and smashed the Catcher’s helmet in with the bat. Shadowlands retroactively left me confused, annoyed, and uninterested. I find the artificiality of the afterlife extremely painful since we don’t even remotely explore pockets of said infinite afterlives, let alone know what they’re undergoing while we’re chasing the Jailer.
There’s no more mystery. The Afterlife; as we have seen. Sucks eggs. If we are to believe there’s other afterlives out there, we should’ve been exploring them long ago.
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I’m of a mind that afterlives in Azeroth are much like afterlives IRL: whatever it is we think we know is almost certainly wrong.
Point to me any fantasy universe that fleshed out its own mythology and backstory and remained successful. Especially modern fantasy - there’s a strong desire to over-explain “mundane” aspects of the fantastical that just remove the magic from a setting entirely.
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Did someone say, “MIDICHLORIANS?!?”
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Personally, I am also not a fan of the path the story has taken in recent years. There are so many potential stories to be told on Azeroth, in a more down-to-earth narrative. There was no need for all of this cosmic stuff. Like many of my fellow posters have stated, this story merely stripped the setting from its mysteries and wonders. It all now feels far too…mechanical.
Alas, it is what it is. All we can do is either accept it or ignore it. For the sake of roleplay and enjoyment of the world, the latter is a far more advisable option, regrettable as it may be.
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This.
This is why my character has no idea people are in the SLs right now. What’s next, we are gifted a manual that explains how everything in the world works, what our destinys all are and which afterlife we are all going to when we die (and we are told when we die)?
KEEP the mystery!
If this expansion doesnt end in a way that reorders the afterlife right as we’re returned to Azeroth, so that NO ONE KNOWS whats to come… I’ll be pissed.
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… Remember when this game was about stopping a big, angry fire-boi and a couple of dragons? Then a demonic night elf, then an undead king?
I miss those times.
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yeah and nobody complained either /s
I mean, sure. People complain where they will. I’ve not had much of an issue with many of the bosses and endgame enemies until WoD/Legion came around.
I don’t like how we treat this game like another season of Dragonball Z. Always a bigger, badder, more evil enemy either.
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are you ready for how the cypher of the first ones will be unlocked by the mortals of Azeroth to finally decode the languages of our world? translations??? finally, after 32 LC years the races of Azeroth will be able to harness the power of…
cross. faction. conversation.
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My question is how does one developer manage to be so obsessed with his waifu that he makes it all of our problem and somehow said waifu’s outfits keep getting worse.
You’d think he’d advocate for something a little cooler.
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The lore is becoming a nesting doll full of spoiled borscht.
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