Was the Shadowlands really that bad? Thoughts and opinions please

Moon Guard
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*Read this as a person, not in-character please.

In a short period today while engaging other players, I was discussing the Shadowlands regarding mobs.

I pondered the idea if a raid were to be formed could they still bring down Athanos, the Goliath of Bastion during the Assessing your Spirit quest, but even outside the quest. He would be the ultimate mob/boss in a way. Try to get as many hits in before he humbles you.

I also was curious if anyone ever saw the giant Heraclor brought down during the WQ.

During that conversation, two players immediately had to say they did not support or even acknowledge the Shadowlands as canon, even during an OOC conversation. It wasn’t meant to be treated as an IC discussion, we were just talking theories.

Its just a cartoon game of imagination and fun with avenues for every possible idea, and almost an answer for each question. But some players come out as super aggressive and I have to ask why?

Are there things that were so bad about it to completely cut out the content? I’ve even engaged one of them who told me they are ignoring me just because I discussed it.

While I understand how some players don’t include it in their roleplaying simply for the reason they did not take the leap into the unknown like others did. That is completely understandable and I do respect that choice because it was without a doubt a harrowing experience for those that did. It could be a life changer.

At best they hear the stories or rumors, or see the ramifications/results of it. Like Tyrande free of the rage of the Night Mother.

And of course there is always parts of addons that people don’t agree with or things that are so beyond impossible that it seems illogical. Everything we knew revolved around the titans, and then find out even they were the creation of someone/something else. It’s hard to agree with so many new questions or changes.

Like for me, I don’t think that every soul should get a second chance if they don’t change their ways. Some are just born evil thus the maw serves it purpose. Hellscream made that clear but in the end chose non-existence. Sorry for those who were a fan of his.

Shadowlands is just a continuation of existence with extended rewards and opportunities, and even a chance to atone.

Bastion: Angel for Eternity; Maldraxxus: Life of a Soldier; Ardenweald: Live as a Beast Revendreth: Vampire Lord forever.

I understand if it’s because every action now you know the consequences of those choices and players who have seen it know ‘be good or be punished for eternity’ unless you find a way to gain immortality to some degree like the elves.

Could make a pact with demons and trade an innocent soul for 10 years extensions. Or go Dorian Grey style once homes are released. Could drain the life energy from victims to sustain every full moon, or consume their hearts for nourishment.

Resisting the Shadowlands would be an understandable power move. Deny death the chance to claim you by any means necessary. Cheat death to be specific.

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I suspect Shadowlands may be a particular sore spot for many narratively due to the nature of its setting and how it clashes with what little was previously known about the afterlife in the setting prior. Just about every race’s known interpretation of the afterlife was (arguably) retconned in favor of a handful of homogenous afterlives based on one or two generalized themes. Certainly, there’s the throwaway detail that the ones we visit over the events of the expansion aren’t the only ones, but that hardly matters much for many and still kind of invalidates the cultures who partake ancestor worship.

There are also the other unsavory aspects surrounding the narrative, the inciting incident with Sylvanas seemingly effortlessly soloing Bolvar and tearing the Helm of Domination like cardboard was one of my personal pet peeves, as well as the rather tortured redemption arc she got and the deus ex machina in her fight against Tyrande prior. Speaking personally, there were a lot of moments like that; things that, in addition to taking place entirely out of Azeroth, just brought the experience further and further down. Then there’s Zovaal and the devs attempts to make him seem like the penultimate villain by tying seemingly every major crisis previous faced to him and his machinations. I find such writing short-sighted, and its execution rather poor, perhaps even borderline insulting to the legacy of the setting.

I think timing may have also been a factor. Again, speaking personally, I recall being quite tired of Sylvanas’ antics through BfA so opening Shadowlands with her, and giving her a somewhat significant role in the general plot, also hurt my personal disposition. This was additionally more or less the beginning of the whole cosmic warfare trend we seem to now be stuck in, which I simply can’t bring myself to care about.

I generally tend to believe its folly to outright ignore Shadowlands and its lore, largely because rp-wise, only people portraying specific things would have any significant reason to call attention to it anyway and generally the bulk of it mostly negligible. I somewhat find some negative reactions to the expansion and its lore a bit hyperbolic, but I generally understand why some might feel the way they do. While there were things to like about what we got from it, they are surrounded by plot and/or experiences that couldn’t help but rub folks the wrong way.

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Yes it was. I thought you quit and went to FF14?

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I went to ESO but came back after my account got hacked and they couldn’t fix it, restore my purchases, do anything to assist me, blah blah blah excuse after excuse for their system being crap.

They did end up refunding me a year’s worth of subscription time so it’s something. 200 total. So I gave it to blizzard to help their payroll.

I decided to return and do what I do best, torture others for eternity until I feel better. I think putting a soul between two rollers to flatten while they are pinned to a soft flesh like avatar really brings out the suffering.

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Welcome back.

As far as I am concerned, yes it was. IC my characters will not acknowledge its existence (most will find people a bit off the rocker when they speak of it) but I try to just steer around it rather than spoling anyone’s fun. OOC I am obviously aware and while I do not look back at Shadowlands with any kind of fondness, I also accept that there are those who did enjoy it. To each their own, just not my cup of tea.

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I am torn on my views on Shadowlands. I have never not acknowledged a WoW expansion, even when lore was bad or weirdly thrown in. BFA, Warlords, whatever. HOWEVER, I think there’s a lot that made Shadowlands definitely difficult for RPers.

  1. Blizzard scandal. People got sour during it when Blizzard’s scandal and drama blew up and the State of California was investigating. Can you blame them?
  2. The lore impact. So the Burning Legion didn’t matter? It became a poorly done way (at least in many RPers views) with the story changing for the Jailer. Were there hints before? Maybe. But it felt shoehorned it.
  3. BFA and Timing. BFA was received well at first. Look what happened at the end. People were very sick of Sylvanas and also a lot of the story felt off. Jumping from BFA to Shadowlands was big too. “Oh we’re going from a faction war, to N’Zoth, now to Shadowlands. What?” There was not a ton of connection, though obviously there was still some.

Then you have content and such. I think a lot of people were tired of Blizzard over-promising. Shadowlands was not received well by a lot of PvE and PvPers too, it wasn’t jsut RPers. It became a grind. You were more limited at first with covenant abilities, etc. There was not as mcuh wiggle room.

Me personally? I liked Revendreth and loved Maldraxxus (shout out to the House of Rituals for looking amazing).

I think also a big part of it was it wasn’t easy to just incorproate it into RP. Not a single one of my characters knows what transpired there. Most characters probably wouldn’t? Or at least writers tend to go that route.

The biggest thing to me is the lasting impact from Shadowlands. People are more grumpier towards it, the RP Community has definitely changed from pre-Shadowlands to post-Shadowlands. Things are different, and a lot of it is good, some of it is bad.

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Something just dawned on me about the whole event that occurred around the Shadowlands.

Pretend for one moment that you never saw the cut scene for Shadowlands.

The only way anybody even knew anything was going on such as the tear of the veil over icecrown was if someone saw it when they visited. So how many people decided to go on an adventure and loot icecrown during that period?

If they were informed by the leaders, although I don’t think the leaders want to cause further fear about it and spread the news around, rather keep it to themselves. Heroes and many soldiers went on an expedition to an unknown location.

Lastly, if anybody spoke or was affiliated to Mograine or the death knights near icecrown or acherus.

If you knock those details out of the equation, Other than rumors/stories from people who have come and gone, you really would have no knowledge of what Sylvanas did, what occurred in the Shadowlands, or even who was behind it.

With no knowledge of the events involving the expedition into the Shadowlands, everybody would be more worried about things that are locally based.

Such as building relations with the horde, repairing what was damaged during the fourth war, restoring society or doing ambassador work.

Another thought that crossed my mind is after the rift closed and peace restored back to the shadowlands. If anybody wants to visit it now years later, it would be a completely different story and series of events.

Especially if somebody died recently. It would be just a fresh start to the Shadowlands as if you were now experiencing it. Like someone going to the memorial for 9/11 but not being born when it occurred.

If you play that your character isn’t 40 years old or more having been around since the dark portal a lot of history you can shrug off without being affected or even acknowledge it but still play it long after the battles have passed if that makes sense.

For instance, what if someone was stationed at one of the bases in the Howling fjord or the eastern plaguelands , lived there ever since.

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Given the anguishing people regularly do over whether or not to even accept the events of it as having happened within RP, I would say yes.

Most defenses of it I’ve heard have been relegated to defending ideas, concepts, or themes behind what was actually in the expansion rather than the content itself. Most acceptances of the events that have happened have also had to come from people playing characters that exist within the Shadowlands and arguably by that nature aren’t really particularly suited to be played in most public formats. Personal biases or vested interests in that aside as well.

There’s a trend in RP towards wanting to involve characters in everything that happens in an expansion. If something comes out dealing with Dragons, everyone is now a Dragonsworn. If something comes out dealing with pirates? You better believe the house has been remortgaged and the college fund for the kids has been used to buy a boat and some illegal firearms from Booty Bay.

Contrary to my mockery, there isn’t really anything wrong with this. It’s topical and easy material to develop a character in a way that’s fun, interesting, and has a lot of new and shiny things to thematically jive with it.

You can’t do this with Shadowlands outside of taking a cool tier set (Castle Nathria, let’s be very clear on this one) and just saying it’s some nifty armor you’ve always had.

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Firstly, yes it was terrible writing. Too much conflicting lore with established lore.

Anyway, the argument that people would know about this is a stretch. (Let’s keep the politics out of it, just using the issue as a point here) The conflict between Isreal and Iran is an ongoing issue. How much of that do you know of? Just because it’s happening doesn’t mean we know it all, we are a single individual in a WORLD we are not omnipotent. So no, logically not everyone would know of the Shadowlands.

This is aside from the whole mary sue, mawwalker storyline.

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Yes.

And the vast amount of players who were here pre-Shadowlands who are no longer here post-Shadowlands is a constant testament to that fact. It hindered the game and the lore so badly that many people have never returned to this day.

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I didn’t like shadowlands as it was very alt unfriendly in the beginning.

Also you HAD to do torghast to get your legendaries at the start.
if they had made soul dust drop off of raid bosses, M+ dungeon clears, or rated pvp, with torghast as an optional way to get it, the system would have been way more enjoyable.

I bought the most wow tokens in SLs because the legendaries were crazy expensive.

The pvp gearing system was THE WORST it has ever been. Massive honor grind to upgrade and players with high rating had an advantage over lower rated players adding to the difficulty of pushing rating.

Crit was changed to be 175% increased damage instead of the current and previous 150% in pvp causing the game to be very bursty. Ret paladins could sneeze on you and oneshot you and someone standing next to you on accident.

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It was bad for many reasons (for me, YMMV).

  1. I found it weirdly grindy and not very alt-friendly. I also HATED pathfinding. I tolerated it in Legion because Legion was awesome. I skipped most of BFA. I skipped most of SL.

  2. The story was weird in all the worst ways, and it retconned/messed up a lot of older lore to the point where it actually made me kinda mad, and I’m not even that big of a lore junkie.

  3. The Jailer was dumb.

  4. Torghast was a slog.

  5. It just wasn’t very fun overall for me.

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Yeah it was pretty bad. The areas were some of the best in WoW, pretty cool mogs, but the actual play experience and story were disheartening.

Also, the Helm of Freewill was the most seemingly deliberate rage bait ive come in contact with in a big name video game.

Also, its the first experience where critter enemies featured near elite level health and actually mob counts were off the charts. Every area was a chore to clear. Especially Korthia.

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I’ve returned to the game after like six years away and was running some Shadowlands raids for some mog-hunting and this bit really kind of sums up my opinions on the matter. It was a whole lot of "wait, really? feelings as I watched all the various cutscenes and pre-boss dialog.
Granted my experience is spotty since I don’t think I’ve ever completed the actual leveling campaign but apparently my impressions aren’t very far off.

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I think there are a lot of story elements in Shadowlands that get a lot of negative response from the community that’s totally understandable even if I don’t always agree with them. Things like issues with the way Shadowlands slots into existing lore, how it affects things like in-universe worship and cultural/religious beliefs, and whether or not the afterlife should’ve been explained at all are all valid things to take issue with.

I do, however, think Shadowlands suffers at least as much for having followed up BFA and being a bad expansion of the -game- regardless of its story/lore. BFA’s story was baffling and frustrating in ways that I think (rightly) poisoned the well for Shadowlands’ story. Blizzard was then in the position where there was no escaping the train tracks they’d placed themselves on and instead just had to ride those out with Shadowlands and move on from there.

Had that been all there was to it, the community might’ve been able to grin and bear it a bit, but then Shadowlands itself had horrible patch cadence, one of the more frustrating implementations of borrowed power imaginable, an expansion feature with huge wasted potential (Torghast), and a cool idea in covenants that was implemented so poorly a lot of players never grew to like it even after some improvements. I think an expansion with good gameplay and shorter patch cycles would be received with more exasperation and less hostility. There’s no way to really prove this, just a gut feeling I have about the effect remembering how we felt when we played a game might have on how we feel about its story.

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Yes. Every time you ask here on the MG forums on a new alt my answer will always be the same.

Cosmetics and zone were cool. Some aesthetics were neat. Lore and gameplay was awful and nearly killed the game. I’m glad to be rid of it, but frustrated that because of Shadowlands we now exist in an era of Blizzard being remarkably safe and sterile about every little bit of new content and storytelling they produce.

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It was bad. A lot of missed opportunities for things that should have been in there, lore changes that actually brought some solidarity among an otherwise extremely contentious group (lore nerds and rpers) in that everyone hated it, tone that was all over the place for something that honestly required a degree of maturity and solemn contemplation, stuff that definitely suffered from Blizzard going through ‘some stuff’, etc.

I played through it once for the experience after coming back to WoW after a hiatus and that was enough for me. Don’t get me wrong the transmogs are sick and some of the zones are great and some of the lore it added was cool but it was a mess.

That said OOCly it’s canon even if your character ICly doesn’t know about or acknowledge it. I think it has potential for a cool setting for RP events and the occasional transmog hunt but that’s about it.

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The lore that they created for Shadowlands caused a retroactive butterfly effect, making all the established canon about the afterlife and how ambiguous and flexible it could be close to basically irrelevant because writers said so.

No disrespect to Scottish people, but if you’re aware of what is and how Haggis is made, you’d probably avoid it based on the description.

That’s how Shadowlands felt and still feels by a majority of RPers.

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This one wasn’t me T_T
(I made a thread about this 20 days ago on my DH)

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Logs into Korthia, City of Secrets

There are no secrets.

There is no city.

This is the mid-expansion major content and I am trapped here.

I want to scream but I have no mouth.

Yes, Shadowlands was trash and deserves every ounce of hate it gets. There are nice things, but they are buried under a mile of poorly done retcons and some of the most attrocious game design known to modern humanity.

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