Year 5 of never forgiving the writers for SL

[Archimus-bladefist]

Has it already been that long? Man time flies.

[Illaandra-gilneas (Illaandra)]

The funniest part to me was deliberately making the Maw miserable because they wanted people to feel miserable playing in it as a reflection of it basically being hell.

Somewhere along the way they forgot the difference between gameplay friction and just blatantly deliberate aggravation. It damn near cost them this IP, lol.

[Boredumb-alexstrasza]

@Veruu-moon-guard

Shadow Lands has some immaculate transmogs.

The only good thing about sadgelands, tbh.

[Taurtuga-moon-guard]

Arthas was a menace, He offed his daddy. I agree with the op they butchered my boy

[Gnomenclatur-detheroc]

This is certainly not the only place I see it, but it is always hilarious when people “defend” something by asserting that it was always terrible and therefor has not gotten worse.

[Illaandra-gilneas (Illaandra)]

What’s interesting to me is how often people try to gloss over how bad Shadowlands actually was with bad faith arguments, including “people thought it was bad because streamers said it was bad” and, as you mentioned, “WoW always sucked to some degree” nonsense stuffs.

WoW’s never had top shelf masterpiece storylines, but Shadowlands was exceptionally bad even for WoW, lol.

[Torvald-area-52]

@Magnarok-amanthul

There is plenty to criticise about shadowlands, but it does not include how they handled Arthas. They did that perfectly. Because Arthas had no more story of his own. He is long since dead, both in the story and to us the players. All that was left to do was for characters who had been the most affected by him to make peace with their trauma and move on. And we got that.

I disagree that Arthas’s story was naturally done at the end of Wrath. It was a major plot point of WC 3 Arthas that his soul was the first soul stolen by Frostmourne, and that everything that followed was a soulless Arthas. What happened to the soul of Arthas was a natural direction for WoW to want to explore.

Setting an expansion in the afterlife was a bad decision (we’re used to having souls and spirits be an issue in Azeroth, no need to go to the afterlife itself). But if they were going to set an expansion in the afterlife, the one significant benefit of that would be the ability to bring back a host of fan-favorite characters, with Arthas chief among them by far, and getting to address those lingering plot threads.

Instead, they squandered even that. Again: the single best argument for using the afterlife, from a marketing or writing standpoint, is the ability to use those characters. We got the worst of both worlds - Sylvanas giving a speech about Arthas should just stop existing. It was like watching the writing team bitterly insulting the original writers.

[Agrranna-azgalor]

Lore consistency is not Blizzard’s strong suit. Too many new generation devs focusing on what they think is cool instead of following the actual storyline. And the storyline is really great, that’s what is so frustrating with what we are getting.

Unfortunately, I doubt it will change.

[Fortuna-sentinels (Fortuna)]

Have you all considered spending all your time obsessing over a game you actually like?

[Brewa-hyjal]

Arthas was a goober and the pedestal some people put him on is weird to me.

But Shadowlands had a lot of really dumb writing. And the “important” NPC’s had a terminal case of the stupids. The only reason the Jailer got those signet pieces was because all the “leaders” were idiots.

Anduin walks right up to the Archon and stabs her, all because Kleia was swooning over him and just let it happen.

As for the Winter Queen…

Lady Moonberry: “The Winter Queen will stay behind and guard the sanctum.”
(5 minutes later…)
The Winter Queen: “Champion! The sanctum is unguarded but under attack! Go there at once!”
Player: “Aren’t… aren’t YOU supposed to be doing that???”

[Vinipally-moon-guard]

Everything about this expansion was bad.

[Brewa-hyjal]

The Venthyr were pretty cool. And the voice acting for Denathrius, Renathal, The Accuser, etc. was great.

I could listen to Prince Renathal read the phone book aloud for hours.

And The Accuser was the ONLY CHARACTER in the Shadowlands who ever gave a damn about the souls of the dead. It was criminal that she didn’t become the new Arbiter.

[Aendriel-malganis]

This franchise never recovered from the time-traveling dumpster fire that was Warlords of Draenor.

Mists of Pandaria is the last vestige of good, coherent, linear storytelling for World of Warcraft and that is saying something.

After that it has been retcon, after retcon, after retcon, and pulling dead rabbits out of garbage bags.

There were small pieces of story that were okay, here and there (some Legion, some BfA, pretty much all Covenant intros) but Blizzard in true fashion has NEVER, in the history of EVER known how to handle female protagonists.

Like… it’s sort of hilarious when you think about it.

Jaina, Sylvanas, Tyrande, etc. etc. and Kerrigan and Lilith from SC and D4.

They make one amazing character, and immediately proceed to burn it down into the ground lol.

[Illaandra-gilneas (Illaandra)]

@Fortuna-sentinels

Have you all considered spending all your time obsessing over a game you actually like

Oh, I like WoW in general. I just didn’t like Shadowlands, which is why my activity fell off in the launch patch and I unsubscribed a week into the first patch, lol.

[Slotmachine-sargeras]

I figure if you wanna good story go read a book ,

[Lendoranah-stormrage]

5 years? Daaaang…

[Maurdeth-moon-guard (Maurdeth)]

@Sanazri-stormrage

The thing is we still need a Lich King…so it’s only a matter of time before the whole ordeal returns. The Scourge isnt gone.

The way they handled the rampant Scourge is honestly funny.
It was such a huge thing at the very end of Wrath, then the Helm of Domination gets shattered at the start of Shadowlands and the world is so overwhelmed with Scourge that afterward the capitals are untouched and a bunch of people decide to spend precious resources on a lark to the Dragon Isles.
Deathwing’s Radical Romp had more of an impact on the world than the so-called nightmare of the Scourge unleashed.
I don’t think any of the characters that make the trek to Oribos even say anything about it.

And then when you think about it the Helm of Domination isn’t even really gone. It looks different, it has a different name, but it’s right there on Pelagos’ head.

[Cursewords-tichondrius (Cursewords)]

I love the tears of the salty Arthas fan boys. It brings me great joy.

Watching Sylvanas snatch the Helm off of Bolvar, like she was snatching off his weave, was one of the best cinematic moments in the franchise. Especially as he looks up at her with that dumb struck face.

And watching Sylvanas talk at Arthas’s fart cloud as it dissipates from the story was the fate he deserved.

Ah, thanks Blizzard. Threads like these make Shadowlands the gift that keeps on giving.

[Simplyred-hydraxis]

I don’t blame the writers that much, because there was very little writing involved in Shadowlands. I say that half jokingly because there were so little side stories that it made what could have been a great expansion mediocre.

I loved the world of the Shadowlands, and got attached to many of its denizens, but if you wanted side content you had to write it yourself. (Which I did)

[Azstarys-wyrmrest-accord]

@Snowpine-ghostlands

Listen. I like Warcraft 3, but uh…

it’s not exactly high literature, man.

Yea. WC3 story was good, but the masterpiece story was the second war.

I’m so happy for the younger generations to be able to finally experience it with the re release of WC2. Sadly the game alone doesn’t do it justice and you have to read the lit too, but the 2nd War story telling is up there for me with the likes of LotR and TWOT imo.