Yes and no because the general public does care about gameplay more but having no coherent story exacerbates the gameplay problems which shapes how it’s remembered.
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I wasn’t there for the OT criticism, wasn’t old enough to understand, well, wasn’t alive. But if Empire got feedback that it didn’t advance the plot, then I can only imagine what they thought about the 30 minutes dedicated to the podrace in Episode I.
Yeah, you can draw parallels between things not being warmly received at their time of launch, but there are things that are objectively low quality. I really just don’t see the artistic vision behind Shadowlands being anything more than just shallow.
Yeah, sure, George didn’t really know how to express a downfall, or write dialogue… He used stretched the ‘point of view’ thing, but he didn’t completely crap over his own story.
And yeah, there is a lot more parallels going on then I realized before… I just hope Darth Sylvanas doesn’t turn on the Jailer because of Anduin Skywalker being tortured… please.
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I’m not a fan of the over the top cosmological stuff either. The stakes are so high and every expansion it’s a new “200% MORE EVILZ!!!” and its just an eye roll. It’s just really hard to get into. Even harder than AU time traveling orcs.
When people were theorycrafting Shadowlands back when there were some rumors/leaks i was skeptical about it. Though there could be some cool concepts with it, the idea of an expansion based in the realms of death always left a bad taste in my mouth. Spending an entire expansion in the “afterlife” just kind of ruins the mystery of the afterlife imo. I’m way more interested in what’s going on back in Azeroth with the Scourge running wild.
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I am feeling a bit better about the lore than, say, from post -Tides of Vengeance BfA.
Perhaps because I was a Loyalist who agreed with Sylvanas and Saurfang’s stated reasonings in “A Good War”. I thought BfA had a lot of potential even through Rastakhan’s death and Zandalar’s humiliation. But all of a sudden, the Horde openly rebels because Sylvanas is mean to Jaina’s brother, so she tells the Horde they are nothing and poofs away. Great.
What ever her real motives may be, she used the truth to convince Saurfang. The Alliance remains an unrepentant, hegemonic threat to many, especially the Horde. But that is left out, as we go on an apology tour.
Most might say - filthy loyalists should have had their characters deleted or forced to recant in game or perma-locked in the Maw, those Players deserve NOTHING! - and I understand that. But, that aside, I am enjoying the aftermath.
The Horde has been obsequious garbage, so it is nice to take a breather from all that. When we actually have good reasons for a war, we are still the bad guys in the end.
Shadowlands has felt like a respite. I feel like I am doing my own thing in a new place, helping sort out the Afterlife while I am alive to do it. Almost like setting up a retirement plan for my soul. I am not too sure who is right - but I can be involved in settling it.
After a whole narrative on Azeroth focused on Saurfang and Anduin’s jail house rendezvous, and how evil the Horde is, while the Alliance can do what ever it wants… I am just glad for a break. Something different.
The prequels gave us lots of memes, “The Clone Wars”, “The Bad Batch” AND Ahsoka Tano!
Yes, but that’s not really difficult considering that Battle for Azeroth was a complete dumpster fire from start to finish. Everything is pretty much better than it. Well except the leveling zones. That’s the one thing were BfA is honestly better because nothing can top Drustvar and Zuldazar.
Don’t remind me about this complete and utter sh**-show. Whoever wrote the Alliance plan of attack deserves to be fired…oh wait it was written by the five-year-old son of the lead writer so he can’t even be fired.
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Sylvanas is actually Anduin’s father. Calling it now. Just you wait.
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Little did you know but it is not the Jailer who is the true enemy, rather he is being controlled by a “Super Jailer” and that Super Jailor is the true foe… blah, blah I just don’t care. I just don’t care anymore. While I once looked to WoW or at least when Warcraft was an RTS as an example of good storytelling done in a video game medium, the lore now, the writing now is just so meh…
It is not even about “Horde is evil, Alliance is good, Lets focus on Sly for another expansion”. I am at the point where I cannot be bothered to care.
If nothing else at least blizzard employs writers, pays them a good salary and provides what I assume are good benefits and with how hard it is to find a job, good on blizzard for hiring people to write, to write something, I mean the lore is “something” at least…
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Yes… the Jailer is being controlled by someone we call the Warden but even the Warden’s authority cannot be compared to the State Governor. And the governor? Oh man wait till you hear who he reports to… the President. You didn’t see this coming did you?
-Blizzard
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Now that is some hot trash for a player “picking the wrong side”. Players shouldn’t be punished for Blizz’s shizz.
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If we continue the chain, then after the President should there be Parliament (or should Parliament stand next to the President?) Or the People, that is, ourselves?
Alot of people have brought up some great points in this thread but this one basically hits it on the head.
Basically the players agency has been pushed aside as the writers characters take over the protagonist roll. Plus the story is purposefully obfuscated to the players so we have no stake in it story so we simply don’t care.
We are basically sitting in the back seat with no idea where we are going.
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It was more the execution that was the problem. The prequels work on paper but given Georges’ lack of dialogue writing skills, that drags it down. Just have to look at interviews and behind the scenes of Episode 4 to understand that dialogue from George is his biggest downfall. World building is great, characters talking to each other… leave it to a better writer. With Attack of the Clones getting the worst lot of it.
The thing that pisses me off the most is that blizzard marketed BFA as a “faction war” expansion that wouldn’t have Old Gods as a main plot point. At least in MoP the Old God stuff (the sha) was tied to the faction conflict from the start. With overlaps later on, such as the divine bell being able to “control” the sha and of course the Heart of Y’shaarj. Actions had consequences. Which is why I prefer MoP over BFA when it comes to faction conflict and an Old God storyline on the side. I didn’t mind G’huun as his influence was solely on Zandalar however that did damage the story from the Alliance. Our reasons for going into Uldir was basically, “Brann found titan building again… and an Old God is trying to escape…again”. So it does feel that Azshara and N’zoth got robbed of an expansion that could mainly focus on them. If Deathwing could be an expansion villain and he was just a puppet, surely Azshara could’ve being the expansion villain of her own. Could even end it the same way EP does on live. With her freeing N’zoth. Then have N’zoth as the main villain of the following expansion.
This is why I feel that Argus and Ny’alotha were probably going to be their own mini expansions when blizzard tried to do that whole 1 year expansion nonsense with WoD. I mean Legions story more or less ends with ToS. We got the main McGuffins and reclaimed the Tomb. However when WoD failed to be a “1 year expansion”, blizzard most likely just put Argus and Ny’alotha as patch content on the ends on Legion and BFA respectively. It does feel disappointing seeing Ny’alotha finally in the game and it is just 3 buildings, Il’gynoths butt and N’zoths body.
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It depends very much on age. Considering the demographic statistics of WoW and your perspective on the prequels, I would hesitantly predict that you were a young adult when the prequels were in theaters (at least by the time RotS came out). A younger audience has come of age, and it is clear that they do not view the prequels with the same cynicism. You dont have to go far to find the internet gleefully memeing on the dialogue of the prequels. They have become classics in the same way the original trilogy was.
No I was 10 years old when RotS came out. I just didn’t get until Star Wars until a while later. I do like watching them ironically though (at least TPM, AotC and some of RotS) due to the memes that have spawned from them. But the cringe is still real. In particular that infamous scene where a horny teenager tells his crush that he has an anti-fetish about grainy rocks.
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I stand corrected, but the generalization typically holds true. The internet nerd-culture at the time hated the prequels, to the point of driving Jar-Jar Binks’ actor to the brink of suicide. Millenials are typically much kinder to the prequels… and are fond of the dialogue (as cheezy as it is).
Though I think some of what plagues wow is that same demographic cynicism among the same age group, what dooms the story in the long term is trying to mitigate that unstoppable force instead of unapologetically executing their creative vision (and the fact that many writers are clearly not invested in the history of the franchise, a problem the sequels had).
I remember each one being critically mixed-to-immediately-beloved upon release… for about a month.
“It was really good except for Jar-Jar.”
“…and young Anakin.”
“…and midi-chlorians.”
“…and too much CGI instead of practical effects.”
“…and it sucks that Darth Maul had so little screen time.”
“… and all the boring political talk.”
“… wait, were the Trade Federation racist Chinese stereotypes? And Watto a racist Semitic one?”
“THIS MOVIE SUCKED!”
And three years later I was reading forum threads titled “George Lucas has redeemed himself!” over the incoherent mess that was Attack of the Clones.
At least Revenge of the Sith was genuinely decent if not ‘good’.
EDIT: I suppose that I should also talk about Warcraft and not just Star Wars.
I think that the current batch of writers just aren’t that good, though I can’t be sure how much they’re having to ‘write through’ corporate’s mandates from above. It defiantly feels like they’re looking back at past expansions and going “I liked that one so I’m gonna try to do the same thing!” or even 'I can do better than that!" and then falling flat on their faces right into piles of poop. BFA was an obvious re-hash of MoP, just with such an incredibly stupid story they had to mix in an obvious re-hash of Cataclysm. And Shadowlands is an obvious re-hash of WoD, which is by itself is a truly horrible sign of Something Went Wrong.
It’s clearly too much to ever hope for, but the Warden from Superjail would actually be the most awesome final boss of an expansion EVER.
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The Jailer already looks like Alice without her wig on. Now we just need a fun Jailbot.
Every once in a while, there will be some world building thing in SL, and instinctively, I might start reading it… but then I stop.
Why should I read it? Why should I care how the faeries of the Night Fae interact? This has nothing to do with any of my characters, or any potential future characters I might make, so I have no reason to be invested.
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Perhaps the greatest summary I’ve seen to date of this game rn.
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Things are pretty fun in Revendreth. There’s a lot of gallows humor and we occasionally throw parties for the res rof the Shadowlands main characters to attend. Honestly I’ve had a pretty good time in Castlevania purgatory.
I have to agree with this sentiment. As much as people in this thread are pining to go back to Azeroth and a more open ‘world’, the Azeroth we most recently left behind was a hot mess. I’m glad to have a break from it. My only real complaint is that we haven’t gotten a new major patch in Shadowlands as of yet so everything’s kind of languishing and not moving forward away from all the dangling BFA plot threads.
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