I mean…they matter to the people that go to them.
You’re not alone. The guild that I had made fell apart on a less populated server then the one we transferred to during BFA this is when the mess started for us we moved to a more populated server, we were sure would not fall shadowlands kicked off it was good times for about a month and a half who knew that Blizzard only made a month and a half to two months worth of content in which was fun The mythic plus we were given in this expansion at least in my opinion are the worst dungeons that the game has come up with.
My account is only active today because I was playing TBC with a friend who has quit. I tried logging into retail the other day just to see what was going on that rating guild I spoke about has all but fallen apart there were two people online I looked back in the chat history only to see a total of four people have spoken in the past week, sat there for a few minutes staring at trade chat only to see 10 to 15 posts of wanting to sell things everything from myth kills for the raid or 15 mythic plus runs.
I’ve tried other games to get my mind off of what’s happening with wow but honestly wow is the only game that has kept my interest as far as games are concerned. Maybe this is a personal problem maybe I’m just too old now I have been playing this game for 15 plus years sometimes serious sometimes casual I’m somewhat sad to know that my time is coming to an end with this game.
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The problem as said is we still have no clue what is going on. Blizzard is dragging this, at best this is a misguided believe that “shock dumping” everything in the final patch of SL will spark major interest for the patch and whatever expansion is next or worse case they dont actually know how to end the pandora’s box that is BfA.
Having said that it is clear some of the story beats of(hopefully) future expansion. They will likely end up showing the night elf “renewing” themselves. Most likely get a new capital if not next expac, the expansion after that. Zovaal is clearly a setup for how they want future lore to progress. Namely, having us explore the other planes of magic. However witb any luck Blizzard also realizes players care about Azeroth and need to go back to Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor.
A huge chunk of the players whose opinions I respected most have quit the game for now, yeah.
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Making revenue and doing worse than before are not mutually exclusive.
You’re coming in as if anyone here is defending Blizzard, flashing the union buster as a “gotcha” or something. Thing is, nobody IS defending Blizzard. You’re just psychotically mouthing off for no reason.
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Unless she was stopped, it would have been the end of Tyrande, at last as she is now. Jaina was stopped, and apparently Blizzard sees attempted genocide as something that can be forgotten about. Otherwise she would need to be found to have been corrupted, controlled, changed (and changed back), etc. to be a leader otherwise. And even then, maybe not. I think silvans is reaching the end of her story-arc. I think she will, at best, move forward and a Medhiv character, unless they want to leave her as a villain.
Not once did I say he defends Blizzard.
However he put it on player subs witch sounds like a strange point to make.
It’s not about player numbers.
The union busting was a response to something that will never happen.
that’s a copious amount of coping.
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They see genocide of any form as something can be forgotten about. Since Tyrande’s forgiven Sylvanas so she can head down her path to redemption unimpeded.
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BfA at least had relatable settings to attach a story to. WoD, for all its issues, drew on old lore from the RTS game and BC.
Shadowlands is just random bullcrap to me. I can’t get invested. It’s like movies that feature characters from a show you love, but have a self contained plot that just feels out of sorts.
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What could’ve been (am bored):
- Ulfar takes Alliance to Ardenweald, Bwonsamdi takes Horde to the Other Side
Winter Queen is confirmed to have taught the Drust druidry out of slight jealously of Elune’s followers, and confirms Athainne/Athair have her favor and their patron. She calls Ulfar to the Shadowlands because the Drust are invading and she demands an explanation and assistance since it’s been ages since the Drust invaded.
Bwonsamdi asks us for help because Mueh’zala has suddenly come back after leaving him in charge and is abusing the dead. It’s revealed Trolls come from Death, and much like the Winter Queen is the patron of Death Druids, so to is Mueh’zala the father of Trolls. Bwonsamdi is the child of the Winter Queen and Mueh’zala.
Winter Queen and Mueh’zala used to have a relationship like this:
Mueh’zala doesn’t look dumb and is an Eternal one:
The Other Side is an actual proper zone:
Ardenweald stays mostly the same, with the exception that Aessina is confirmed to be a Droman of Ardenweald and the Elune convinced her sister long ago that her favored children would be able to return as wisps. One of the Tirna Trees is just FULL of a bunch of Dead Night Elves from history/previous expansions. Ardenweald is confirmed the Night Elf afterlife and Winter Queen remarks Elune and her are twin sisters (validating the whole “Night Elves see Elune’s face”, because it’s the same face).
Oh and all races that come from Wild Gods or are magically bound to one automatically go to Ardenweald because it’s the Wild God realm.
It’s revealed certain races get marked by Mueh’zala to serve as Guardians of the Veil on each world.
On Argus it was the Draenei, on Draenor it was the Orcs (and later Draenei), on Azeroth it was the Trolls and Tauren and later Dwarves, Kul Tirans, etc.
The Other Side is a giant city that is meant to be an endless party when not on duty, where the faction wars mean nothing in death.
Each racial enclave is lead by a Baron (similar to how in IRL voodoo there’s a bunch of Barons). It’s revealed Bwonsamdi is properly Baron Samdi, but has ruled the Other Side in Mueh’zala’s stead for centuries. Azerothian races have all the enclaves cuz it’s one of the few heavily populated worlds left with rational beings. A lot of worlds have life but not “intelligent” life (ie a bunch of Genesaurs everywhere).
- At the end of Ulfar/Bwonsamdi intro questline, we are thrown into the Maw by Gorak Tul and Mueh’zala
- Same Maw sequence, while we were in the Other Side/Ardenweald, Sylvanas breaks the helm, Bolvar comes thru, etc
- Bastion → Maldraxxus → Revendreth plays the same
9.0 Covenants campaigns:
- Winter Queen is in agony because her sister’s favorite children are being cast into the Maw, she knows of Tyrande because the many elves who died over the centuries speak highly of her. Ysera/Tyrande/Shandris and Ulfar/Gorak Tul are the main plots.
- Bwonsamdi is horrified Mueh’zala has betrayed them all. Rastakhan/Bwonsamdi, Baine/Cairne, Thrall/Durotan, and Jaina/Daelin are the main plots (each dad is a Baron)
- Maldraxxus plays exactly the same (there was no Thrall/Draka in 9.0), except we get more Darion/Alexandros and some Shandris/Vashj, and some Lilian-in-Maldraxxus adventures.
- Bastion plays the same, except Devos’s motivations are clear so we understand why she would do this
- Revendreth plays exactly the same, no changes.
9.1 campaign:
- Everything the same except Elune isn’t dumb, and in the Other Side we save the Other Side and re-stabilize the veil (fixing the hole in the sky).
So the 9.0 choice is:
- Alliance/Night Elf centric zone, with some Worgen/Vulpera/Pandaren stuff
- Horde/Troll/Orc/Tauren centric zone, with some Human/Dwarf stuff
- Maldraxxus aka Tomb Kings Light, faction neutral
- Revendreth aka Castlevania Ravenloft Light, add an Alliance character to balance out Kael’thas (maybe Garithos?)
- Bastion aka Angel Land, maybe add Anestarian next to Uther
The point of Shadowlands being to respect pre-existing lore as much as possible, have One (1) Nonwestern Fantasy zone as every other expansion has, and ensure each zone ties back to our races/factions/azeroth.
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Personally I find this forum’s obsession with segregating races to be offputting.
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I am in agreement about the drip-feed method of story-telling and the impact it has had on discussion around here. There’s frankly been nothing worth discussing about for a while now. Even before the lawsuit and the revelations that came after.
Looking back to the topics I had been most involved with over the years here, oddly enough what was most engaging was when the story wasn’t exactly the clearest. The deepest discussion came from things that were up to a little bit of interpretation, be it as far back as the pre-patch of Catalcysm and the debates I had with Kyalin over interpretations of Night Elf victories across Kalimdor and how they were presented, to as far as even at the end BfA and noting to Ëlësåna how the Val’kyr at Darkshore were using shadowy purple chains just like Sylvanas was using against Bolvar at the top of Icecrown and how looking back hints about the Jailer empowering them might have stretched back further than we noticed.
Now, though, as slow as the story has been stretched out, it’s also being laid out in a rather matter of fact way. There’s no need to speculate or wonder, because the story is being given to us like bullet points being squeezed out of a pipette. It doesn’t matter if the story doesn’t make sense, there’s basically nothing to interpret. The quests and cutscenes just tell us what the story is without room for discussion. Regardless of if the dots actually connect or not, whatever the latest plot point is it is what it is, consistency or merit be damned, because that’s the story Blizzard wants to tell right now, and somehow they think that’s good enough.
So there’s nothing to talk about. There’s no reason to, when it all just amounts to waiting for the next slide on the PowerPoint to be ready.
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Probably but homogenizing them is also an issue.
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But is it so? I do not have a confirmation, etc., however according to https://www.ign.com/articles/special-report-the-inside-story-of-blizzards-departures-and-a-company-at-a-crossroads the reward for the devs after the Shadowlands record sales was reducing their bonus by 50%.
So, financially supporting the game does not contribute to helping the devs. Money go to “money people”, and how they distribute it - seems to be inefficient at best. [from the quality of the projects and the dev experience PoVs]
gl hf
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I mean it’s what the ABK Alliance folks been saying in some tweets and Twitter Spaces I’ve tuned into
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I’m not really a massive regular to the story forums but I feel it’s less segregation and more tribalism. Like everybody is going for their favourite sports team except the teams are fantasy races and the game is watching blizzard give them story development or lack thereof
Of course they are under a lot of stress. Blizzard fired a lot of people. Coupled with their terrible wages and work environment it’s not a good spot to be in.
He his right.
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Aren’t these two points potentially contradictory for the tauren? To be fair, it’s not confirmed, but Brann speculated that they might have been sourced from Niuzao on Pandaria.
Although the idea of the two zones having a custody battle over cows is delightfully spiritually hick.
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Why convincing? If you want to be respectfull to ingame religion then : the nightelfs would be going to elune and follow her across the stars
The humans would be one with the light
The tauren would protect the veil. This entire sl nonsense mad never really sense in the first place for almost all ettablished religions
Only shamanistic people had this need of such an place, all other religions thought they would join their gods or force.
i mean…i get it, you want more importance for non european fantasy…and …atleast one equal footing (Mueh’zella as …Eternal one), but the entire Sl made never sense in the first place…for almost all religions.
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