https://i.imgur.com/ir61jWx.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xXUImkk.jpg
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Also talking in terms of mortals makes no sense as Shadowlands beings are simply ageless. They are less immortal than demons outside the nether. Normal living things simply have their OG living flesh instead of whatever body a particular part of the Shadowlands makes for them, or sort of become (like how those souls hanging out in Bastion can one day become and gain the body of an aspirant).
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The Covenants were great. Bastion was the weakest link for me but I do chalk that up to not having any characters that fit in. And to the best of my memory I donât remember people being upset about the Covenants. Some were of course but that was a minority opinion.
Where it fell flat was the Maw, the Jailor and Torghast.
The place really does feel designed to be forgettable. Particularly with Torghast it actually took me awhile to realize things were randomly generated. It was all so samey and gray that switching it around meant nothing as my brain cells refused to absorb any specific details outside like a boss fight mechanic.
The Maw is probably the worst designed piece of WoW content Iâve seen in ages. I can appreciate taking our mounts away to force us to more carefully navigate an area, and I did like how you could GTA a mount from the Jailorâs minions.
But the trade off there is youâve to give us an interesting world to navigate. And the Maw is aggressively boring. Dark gray, blue gray, charcoal gray, itâs like the designer challenged themselves to make a zone dogs could enjoy just as much as human players.
I get itâs supposed to be the last place in creation youâd ever want to be but it does itâs job too well.
Argus I feel was supposed to illicit similar feelings but that place was non stop chaos. Even the landing zones were embattled and it was nigh impossible to get anywhere without attracting a conga line of demons who were one daze dismount away from overwhelming you. It was exciting.
And the Maws anything but. Even the big lumbering baddies feel more like waiting for a freight train to pass then some threat. And the biggest insult is the Jailor glaring at you like he asked you to leave by 9pm and itâs 11:30pm. Buddy I donât want to be here either, stop road blocking my progress and Iâll be out of your lack of hair sooner.
9 Likes
Not mad with the Shadowlands story so much as disappointed.
I looked forward to exploring the afterlife of WoW as implied by the various religions, philosophies, spirits, and other glimpses Iâve gotten from it.
But instead of exploring that, we got a kind of generic afterlife that doesnât really have any connection with previous religions, philosophies, spirits, and other glimpses outside of general aesthetics.
But seriously, the cosmology and afterlives presented in the Shadowlands could be plopped down into any generic fantasy/D&D clone setting and work with minimal changes. I donât want that. I can go to any fantasy/D&D clone and get that. I enjoy WoW most when itâs doing new things with genre tropes, not just playing âthe classicsâ straight.
15 Likes
To be fair Ardenweald and Maldraxxus do sort of broaden our cosmic perspective on the domains of life and undeath at least. I at least found it interesting how not only are they not diametrically opposed foes, but the Winter Queen refers to the Primus like heâs an old, trusted friend.
Seems like something that the Forsaken at least would be fascinated to learn but none are present outside your PC, and theyâre mute most of the time so good luck spreading that news.
And thatâs sort of the problem. If we had more characters reacting to this shocking revelation that their understanding of the afterlife is at least wildly incomplete then this could be interesting. But thus far weâve seen none of that.
And Blizz gave us a outright cowardly answer that actually thereâs a million billion SL afterlife apartment complexes so nobodyâs religion is explicitly wrong. But these realms canât be seen or accessed from the central hub to which all souls flow, and nobody ever makes reference to them.
And Iâm all for loose canon so RPers can be inventive but thats a little silly. I could claim thereâs actually a raspberry jam themed paradise only accessible to devoted berry farmers and no one could argue with me.
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Objection.
I mean the real question here is. How is anyone fine with the SL story in any way?
How is not everyone mad and disillusioned with this mess of a âstoryâ?
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Iâm an easy lay for gothic vampires, and Maldraxxusâs wholesome death metal vibe is just chefs kiss. So I was having fun at least.
1 Like
There is a shadowlands story?
OT: the only thing current WoW is good for in terms of story is taking the good stuff about its stories by cherry picking and developing AUs.
I am Thankful for Epsilon existing.
When it comes to Maldraxxus, I always thought the point of undeath was that your body and/or soul hadnât passed on the afterlife. Undead are undead because theyâre stuck back on the mortal plane. So the idea that thereâs actually a whole afterlife full of zombies and ghosts and Frankensteins kind of mucks up the whole point of being undead.
Maldraxxus basicalyy exists to be a spooky scary land and itâs only ties to Azeroth are by retroactively making it the source of where all the Legion/Scourge/Forsaken aesthetic come from.
Similar with Ardenweald. It completely scraps the original idea of the Emerald Dream as a place of life/creation that exists opposite the realms of death. Instead, it makes the Emerald Dream partially eclipse it all in the name of having your standard dark/winter fae enchanted forest.
I think what we were given is competently done. None of itâs actually terrible. But it feels like it was created by someone who doesnât know much about WoWâs existing history and then tied to it after the fact.
And yeah, the infinite afterlives that we never actually get to see and that never actually matter to the story is absolutely a cop out. Like theyâre telling us they could have had something more imaginative and reflective of WoWâs brand, but decided not to.
I mean, what we got is competently enough done. Thatâs why I donât hate them. I actually love Revendreth -despite it having absolutely NO previously established relationship with anything in Lore and the crazy idea that a timeless afterlife servicing all realities and possibly predating creation would resembling such a specific place/time as Victorian England- but I like the characters and their interactions and aesthetic and all that for what they are.
17 Likes
Thatâs the thing though. I find it interesting that necromancy is a divine power that wasnât meant to be on the material plane.
The Maldraxxi also have imperfect connections between soul and body but to them thatâs a feature, not a bug. Bodies get destroyed all the time in Maldraxxus, itâs actively encouraged. But itâs not a big deal because you just go and get a new one. The place is literally made of flesh and sinew.
This obviously doesnât work as smoothly on the material plane. Because while thereâs an abundance of body parts to play with their current owners tend to get awfully offended when you declare them an early access organ donor.
Additionally the Lich King deliberately gave his undead weird glitches just to be a dick. Hence the Forsaken craving humanoids and the DKs needing to cause suffering.
And Revendreth fits in curiously. We know Sire Denathrius worked with KelâThuzad so that explains gargoyles, dark hounds, the SanâLayn and Iâd say giant vampire bats but I think those just sort of exist.
1 Like
I donât hate Shadowlands, I just want to go back home.
Whenever the expansion pack or patch takes place off-world, I never truly shake the desire to get back to Azeroth. I didnât like TBC, I didnât like WoD, I didnât like Argus. I want to be on Azeroth, I want to see more of those lands. Shadowlands just feels like a lengthy detour and from the moment it was announced I was already beginning to fantasize about what comes next.
4 Likes
Thatâs probably more a practical thing than just being evil. Having those sorts of behavioral modifiers imposed upon his undead would make it so the rank-and-file Scourge keep doing their jobs once unleashed without needing the Lich King himself to hands-on pilot every corpse all the time.
It honestly wouldnât surprise me if that was specifically an Arthas thing, too. Nerâzhulâs portrayal as a semi-ethereal (albeit anchored to the Frozen Throne) entity with enormous psychic power always came across more like he was actively âinsideâ the heads of the Scourge all the time, seeing what they all saw, ever-present to assume direct control or strip the agency of any subordinates who might think to step out of line (such as when Arthasâ initial hesitance to leave Lordaeron in TFT was met by Nerâzhul inflicting pain on him through their mental link), and also possessing the ability to exert mental domination over mortal creatures in relatively close proximity.
Conversely, once Lich King Arthas was up and walking around, he never really came across as retaining that sense of his awareness perpetually being âbroadcastâ throughout the Scourge to the same degree. He just didnât seem to have the same psychic reach as Nerâzhul did. As if much of that was particular to Nerâzhulâs specific nature as Kilâjaeden had remade him, perhaps compelling Arthas to implement more âautomatedâ measures to keep the Scourge on task without needing an omnipresent puppet master in their heads manipulating every little thing at all times.
Itâs also why Arthas scourge was also filled with plenty of Liches and other high level scourge who could command the army for him, without him, like you said, being in their head 24/7. Itâs damn efficient and allows Arthas to carry out his more personal plans. 
And I donât hate the Shadowland story, I really do enjoy it. Iâm just mad at the massive and haphazard retcons blizz is throwing around to fit Zooval/Jailer into everything, without actually explaining about him.
Shadowlands story is amazing. Those who disagree are just a bunch of haters.
I had to foot the bill for BfA by having everything that I like about WoW be sacrificed so that Horde players could have their power fantasy and Human Players could go deus vult through Lordaeron again. I then was told to care about another subset of boring useless humans and their problems while Night Elves continued to get dumped on and receive nothing in the way of positive content meant to instill that #FactionPride. Now Iâm supposed to care about the world being destroyed by some evil instagram model because heâs Sylvanasâ Glucose Guardian all of a sudden. Why should I care about Azeroth being destroyed? If the Night Elves are just gonna be destroyed anyway then good. You all can go down with us.
on the flip side the Jailerâs schemes are so grand and large scale that it immediately removes any sense of tension or believability. He essentially wants to undo the entire world and heâs never once displayed any semblance of being able to actually do so. The idea that they would even consider ending the expansion with the Jailer getting the W isnât even remotely believable so why should I care?
(For comparison Sargeras wanted to slice Azeroth in half and destroy the planet to prevent Old God Corruption and that chance that might happen was believable because we were given examples of him successfully doing so to other worlds. His threat was believable.)
The realm of Death has iNfInAtE rEaLmS but itâs nothing more than a cop out to explain why weâre not exploring any of the afterlives that had already been established through the faiths of mortal races living on Azeroth. It doesnât matter if those afterlives exist in the shadowlands when weâre never going to see them. Furthermore thereâs only four afterlives that actually matter enough to have a figure head thatâs part of the Death Pantheon working with the Arbiter so the cop out of there being infinite realms in the Shadowlands is at best the laziest form of lip service possible.
2 Likes
Lol when did this happen?
When Night elf civilians were able to stall a dedicated Horde invasion?
When the Horde wasnât able to defend Loraedon?
When the Alliance invaded an allied capitol and got away scot free?
When the Alliance canonically won everything?
Please tell me what âpower fantasyâ I was apparently missing out on in BFA.
2 Likes
I mean pretending the horde didnât win at Teldrassil in a big way, isnât going to change anything. Can we just stop pretending the horde lost everything ever?
And Lordaeron was a loss for the alliance. They failed to achieve their objective, but you do you
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Considering the Horde objective (not Sylvanasâ objective) was not to torch Teldrassil but instead to force the Alliance to the table to come to an actual tenable peace agreement and to actually punish their warcriminals like Genn instead of cheering them on, Iâd say Teldrassil was a failure for the Horde if UC was one for the Alliance.
The phrasing is problematic because fantasy implies itâs something we always wanted.
Teldrassil was an âundesired show of powerâ rather than a âpower fantasyâ
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I watched Horde players salivate over burning Teldrassil for years prior to it actually happening.
âWe could pull up a couple of ships with flamethrowers and the thing would go up like a campfire!â
âWe could bomb it with zeppelins!â
âWhy doesnât Gallywix just fire his cannon at that ugly stump?â
3 Likes