The Expansion That Almost Killed World of Warcraft

Wanted to try a new style of videos. This video discusses the expansion that was Shadowlands. Hope you guys enjoy.
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[@LastEpoch456]

disenchanting Arthas was the worst crime they did in Shadowlands

[@AkiRa22084]

His fight and end was epic.

[@Netherstrasz]

Yeah I didn’t like that we were teased something about Arthas early on and got nothing

[@ThyFleshConsumed]

This needs to be retconned or have Arthas return somehow. Idc how the story is shot already anyway.

[@Netherstrasz]

@ I hate to say it, but if Blizz jumped on the multiverse bandwagon they could easily fix it, among other lore issues. We have it established from WoD. I’m not a fan of it because it devalues significant events, but I’d take it for Arthas and leave it at that

[@litterbox2010]

They literally turned my boy into a fart.

[@derekszaflarski6537]

Thematically the Maw was perfect. It really made you feel like you were in hell.

[@sunderwire]

Still can’t believe they didn’t let us mount there, unless you were a Druid. Insanity

[@nzoldak]

Or shammy xd ​@@sunderwire

[@TheStygian]

​@@sunderwire They let you mount what you mean? You just need to earn it by discovering the second landmass.

[@danielhill5889]

@@sunderwire or a worgen with running wild. worgen druids were basically movement gods in the Maw

[@burnttoast26]

It's just that they also made it feel like hell to actually play in the worst ways

[@Dantarn]

Never forget that they had an entire expansion where Anduin was kidnapped by Sylvanas and Genn Greymane, the man who saw his son be killed by Sylvanas and saw Anduin be kidnapped, decided to stay behind and not help rescue him.

[@AnnaJo2000]

I was hoping Genn would travel to the Shadowlands and ended up finding his own son Liam in the process. But nope, nothing. 😖

[@zelashizzz1278]

Not to mention watched varian being killed, you'd think he'd be a bit protective of anduin after that...

[@joezar33]

Yeah, I thought people didn't like the expansion, based on the *discombobulated* lore/story going on . Only thing we got is why Sylvanas was so Over Powered and a Mary Sue combo

[@khansterbeam95]

WAIT he wasn't there??? Brother... I think I just realized I thought Genn was such a perfect fit for the Shadowlands story that I actually wrote him into the scenes in my own head... 😭

[@Sombrero_707]

The writing in Shadowlands is shockingly bad, like high school tier fan fiction bad. To this day I still can't believe someone was PAID to write this.

[@justin9744]

It doesn’t get any better either. Current writing is still bad.

[@voidox]

@@justin9744 yup, it's the same writers who shat out Dragonflight and while Danuser is gone his team wrote War Within and it shows in how bad it still is.

[@baconSlayerX]

You people wouldn't notice a good story anyway, you skip every dialogue lol

[@myb8955]

​@@baconSlayerXThis is shill cope. If everyone had skipped everything nobody would be complaining about all the key moments where the story failed.

[@dorbie]

It's Blizz, you can rest assured that they were not paid very much.

[@josephv494]

The only memorable part of Sanctum of Domination for me was the Garrosh cutscene where he basically said "I did bad things and I'll do it again". Bro was probably the only character to not be ruined by Shadowlands.

[@witcherpie]

sanctum of dom was literally one of the best raids retail wow has ever seen, you d*mb f*ck xD almost every single boss was insanely unique and badass, sylvanas fight was insane, it was all great. Keep crying kiddo

[@kyrsie]

varian dead, illidan in a cutscene, garrosh dead, all of the actual chads in the wow story are just gone

[@Turnips]

The city of secrets that had neither a city nor any secrets...

[@woogle463]

I feel like that place was meant to be the hub instead of Oribos

[@Darkkfated]

Haha, yeah, at least the Shadow Labyrinth (another famously unfitting name) had lots of shadows and poorly lit areas.

[@lukas8708]

@@Darkkfated not really unfitting, since it was derived from Shadow Council

[@Darkkfated]

@@lukas8708 I was referring more to the "Labyrinth" part, seeing as how the entire dungeon is a single corridor with no branching paths to speak of.

[@Mito383]

The secret was why anybody thought it was a good idea

[@TheDoomlord7]

This was the expansion that freed me from World of Warcraft. Been playing since Burning Crusade but Shadowlands broke the camels back. It’s nice not feeling the need to grind or play everyday. Been playing a lot of other games now.

[@elthionel]

IMHO Legion was the end of wow. Every seeded plotline from Warcraft 1-2-3 and WoW vanilla was addressed. the old guard was retiring or leaving, and wanted to wrap the game up. The storytelling in BFA was bad, but people were expecting a 'bounce back expansion'. Instead, BFA looked good in comparison... there was nothing fun in Shadowlands. bad questing. bad dailies. bad dungeons. bad story. bad power systems. bad travel. bad class abilities. bad crafting. the story was so bad, I've just abandoned retail forever. don't care about Dragongflight, or the new azeroth themed expansions...whatever man. its bad comic book writing. the magic is gone, the systems are just hamster wheels. its a product, nothing more.

[@HumanThoughtExpression]

BFA and Shadowlands did that for many of us lol

[@OnlyMe-y5e]

It sent me away to classic realms. Until everyone quit because of Cata.

[@notNajimi]

@OnlyMe-y5e I don’t get why they didn’t leave some realms in TBC and WotLK for people who like those eras. Classic progressing through old expansions is cool but most people were excited for a couple eras in particular, so moving past them is just kinda forcing those players back onto pservers

[@akpade]

@@elthionelI swear to god Legion was the best expansion ever, I felt like the game had reached its peak fun content enjoyable grind and badass lore, can’t wait for it to rereleased

[@MrGodzilla9191]

As a casual player, I didn't hate the gameplay of shadowlands. What I DID hate was the lore. I read the books, comics, short stories online, and combed through the wiki for hours before this expansion. Ever since SL, I really struggle to care about the actual WORLD of warcraft anymore.

[@Smokie1523]

Omg, ikr?! The joy i had at one point learning and talking about the lore, exploring it in game... all lost.. i quit then and never went back. Ill occasionally get a video about why wow sucks now or what went wrong, like this video and ill check it out. This use to be what gave me the itch to play again, the occasional youtube video with wow in it.. now a days i know it isnt what it use to be and never will be, for me atleast, so i dont even bother..

[@witcherpie]

​@@Smokie1523 you stupid? xD you realize that we all get through the "lore" phase in our lives right? Blaming SL that you grew out of that phase and the game, is ridiculous little boy. There are people who started playing wow in SL that still play religiously to this day and love every second of it like you used to once. Wake up kiddo, the game is not for you anymore, that doesn't make it bad tho

[@audiolols]

It really didn't help that the expansion right after was furry/scaley disney "everyone is friends with everyone" moral lecture etc etc... dragonflight was probably my least enjoyed worldspace in all of wow. TWW is better, but there's still more to be done to make it feel like WC again

[@sirbillius]

@@audiolols Short of just declaring that Shadowlands was a bad dream, there is nothing that can fix the story assassination.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

Dollar Store Thanos (I mean Zovaal) is probably the worst and worst written villain I have ever seen in any media. He was obviously retconned in out of nowhere, the "we've been planning this since WC3" was a lie they told so they could compete with FFXIV Endwalker (because Yoshida made a statement about how this conclusion was 10 years in the making - except in FFXIV's case it was true). Completely destroyed the Warcraft cosmology, and since then (especially in Dragonflight), they've been walking back bits of SL lore. Danuser was also a TERRIBLE writer, with him gone and Metzen back hopefully the lore can be what it once was. "We've got Thanos at home!" Thanos at home: Zovaal.

[@RobtheStampede]

Frankly, I believe them. Not the specifics, but the broad strokes. After all, the greater story of WoW was "then there's an even bigger bad guy behind the last one." Metzen's not getting away from that, he LOVES that kind of stuff.

[@preds43]

@@StormsparkPegasus How have they been walking back on SL lore? DF literally doubles down on it multiple times over lmaooo

[@preds43]

@@StormsparkPegasus Also, what do you mean by "destroyed the WC Cosmology"?

[@kyleflickinger4271]

Fortunately TWW has a really good story compared to other xpacs. Ironically I think the worst part of the story so far is xal’atath brings up the SL in one of the cutscenes 😂

[@stoney202]

It wasn't true in WoW and it's also not true in FFXIV. You can tell when you replay the story. It's not until Stormblood that the story really builds into what is it in Endwalker, which includes retconning things in the base game and Heavensward

[@enrikosuave5704]

Tettles in his video essay arc

[@TheGraveyarder]

in a few weeks he's gonna start his onlyfangs arc 😂

[@Glorious_Stance]

First vid ive wanted to click

[@itsyaboiguzma2325]

Saurfang dying and turning into a trinket is mad funny tbh

[@Nicole_Auriel]

Wouldn’t be the first time either! Deathbringers Will still best ICC trinket

[@ransac16]

@@Nicole_Auriel Wasn't even the first Orc to do it! Gul'dan's skull is lootable from Illidan.

[@Nightstalker314]

BFA had the main issue that all systems compounding demanded way too much playtime for maintaining your character. Shadowlands should have cut that down way more than they did. I met a completely new player through the newcomer system at the time and he was constantly overwhelmed even during the leveling phase and lost interest and motivation right after we unlocked flying for him (post 9.1) after an excessive grind period. He came back to the game in TWW and has now spend several months leveling 6 characters and unlocking tons of transmog and mounts. Completely different experience for him.

[@Nightstalker314]

From my personal experience: Checking off all rares in Korthia each day was the #1 terrible chore each day. Dailies compared to this were a joke. The respawn times and competition over rares that would die within 10 to 20 seconds was abysmal and if you weren't shard hopping like a maniac you would never complete the list.

[@alewis514]

hunting rares was always cancerous. I remember this starting in 6.2 in Tanaan Jungle. If a rare was any further than 15 seconds away you had no chance.

[@cocacoola7166]

The arrogance from Blizzard during Shadowlands was crazy. It is such a shame to think about since Shadowlands had so much potential. If they hadnt completely effed the story and timegated literally everything to an insane degree it might have been ok. But in the end it seems they just scrapped any focus on the expansion mid lifetime to work on Dragonflight. There was no saving it.

[@liucconen]

They also had a cut content patch, which led to a very long content draught mid-expansion, which ever since what happened with WoD is one of the biggest ways an expansion can flop. On top of that, Maw wasn't good content, and Torghast became bland very quickly. Even if the story had been a success and the timegating didn't exist, these issues still would drag it down significantly. Not to mention that pandemic combined with actiblizz lawsuit deffinently dragged down the overall player sentiment.

[@Muhlum24]

I'm not one to wish misfortune on others but I hope every writer that had a hand in shadowlands story got canned and never touches a piece of fantasy storytelling again.

[@NoOne4k]

Luckily Danuser is gone. He "left" before he got thrown out by Metzen after his return to WoW

[@preds43]

@@NoOne4k Considering he left around Blizzcon, and considering he said he had a hand in architecting the next couple of years of WoW, imma assume he and Metzen worked together in creating the Worldsoul Saga's foundations

[@preds43]

@@NoOne4k Idk, I think y'all need to think before saying shit

[@NoOne4k]

@@preds43 nah it has been confirmed multiple times that Danuser had a big role in the bfa story and shadowlands was his "baby". Also after metzens return there were reports about disagreements in the story department

[@preds43]

@NoOne4k Dragonflight was his baby, not Shadowlands. Also, blaming these expansions on 1 person is never a good idea.

[@alexsimkin6414]

This was a really enjoyable video, it was very well put together. I would love to see more videos like this

[@defenestrationstation5771]

It's actually kind of insane how whenever I see a video shadowlands was so bad, regardless of the length, I can think of two or three things that that video didn't touch. Like how all of the features they released came out buggy and broken or they started swapping to automated customer service while firing 80% of the customer service staff forcing players into CS purgatory whenever they had an issue that required more than an automated item restoration

[@soupwithfriends]

the story can never be blamed enough

[@domehammer]

Shadowlands was the straw that broke the camel back for me when it came to story. The story was just so depressing, all the after lifes we were shown were basically versions of hell where you suffered for eternity in some way. So I just don't give a flying duck about WoW story anymore. An it has not gotten better since as Blizzard continues to write story with basically the philosophy of "Why create new lore when I can go ruin the established lore?". Because they just keep curb stomping on WoW lore to write the worst stories. When in the past it was all about expanding the lore to write new stories, it's now just cannibalize the good lore for bad stories. They are incapable of just adding on new lore without ruining old lore.

[@woogle463]

@@domehammer Right? I resubbed on a whim after seeing that blizz added a playable dragon race after not playing since nzoth visions, only to see Dalaran yeeted. like ????? why would you randomly just destroy a fantastic place like that just to glaze a big bad you know is going to lose anyway Needless to say I only paid for one month.

[@jordanread5829]

I still maintain that Legion IS the true end of the "first book of Warcraft" and not Shadowlands. Regardless of what Steve Danuser said. Sargeras being imprisoned, The Burning Legions high command killed, their portal network offline, their war machine dismantled and most importantly, their super fast rez battery was drained of its power. The final nail is Velens sign of reflief at the end. The Burning Crusade is over. The main antagonist faction of Warcraft since WC2's lore revamp is now gone. Then Shadowlands came along and went "lol, you thought Sargeras was the main antagonist of the series? Bitch please, this bald guy is the true villain, you people were too stupid to notice that he was there the whole time".

[@woogle463]

@ The annoying thing is that you can actually tell that the Jailer never existed prior to Shadowlands. No evidence, no hints, no foreshadowing at all, and yet Danuser will gaslight you into thinking he's been there since orcs & humans

[@Aztonio]

The story was in the UPPER half of the bucket of WoW expansions. You barely when through the lore if you think otherwise, which is quite normal as it's a inhuman mess, still not an excuse for spreading your ignorance around.

[@LurkingAnon]

Remember the 1-2 punch of 9.1 and all the lawsuit stuff with Blizzard hitting at the same time

[@malin9314]

I was going to mention this as well-it feels a bit strange that Tettles completely overlooked why so many of us quit Blizzard back then. Sure, the expansion being awful didn’t help, but skipping over that context kind of feels like letting down the victims and the courage it took for them to speak out.

[@Aztonio]

@@malin9314 The victims being the ones who crafted this expansions, while the abusers lefts years ago.

[@Silver-iz4ev]

i feel like most people gloss over pretty heavily that another part of the reason so many people quite was the actiblizz lawsuit. personally, that was why i stopped playing.

[@khansterbeam95]

I think that it's easy to gloss over because the game was already in a terrible state at that point, its' lowest to that date. If the game was great like in peak Legion or Wrath people wouldn't have cared.

[@Roseygolde]

I was frustrated with the story from the get go. Turning Bolvar from this broken spirit who turned his tragedy into a selfless sacrifice for the world whilst seeing none of the renown for slaying the Lich King, choosing to be forgotten to time and spend eternity in hell to protect Azeroth from the scourge to what is basically a glorified seat warmer for a few expacs is one of the most awful story decisions I've ever seen. Taking the beautifully tragic ending of the reality that mankind was never going to defeat the scourge truly and quite literally breaking it apart just.. wasn't a great way to start off and I just choose to forget that it happened so the ending to WoTLK remains as powerful.

[@Malacine]

Shadowlands freed me from being invested in the story and lore, turning into the perfect "shut your brain off" experience while listening to KZbin videos and podcasts. Biggest step to bringing me back into that is Blizzard apologizing for pissing all over the Lich King's lore and legacy. Dunno who they lost between Legion and Shadowlands for that to happen, serving the Lich King's will during Legion was absolute peak.

[@Kalrell]

Oh snap the Conduit Energy system.. Remember this was a compromise system, they gave this after feedback in beta. In Beta Conduits were consumable and were meant to spend gold / get drops to get extra Conduits to replace old ones like gems etc.

[@sunderwire]

Conduit energy gave me mobile game vibes

[@tw1ZTER]

0:34 pirate at the top, not for long *hold my beer*

[@deenman23]

no1 will care,assman is a literal natzi and he has a huge fanbase

[@abrvalg321]

roach software

[@StickyBuns1390]

This message was brought to you by Raid: Bug Spray

[@tehbetus569]

Cringe

[@popojaga7312]

Man im sad we never got to play original iteration of torghast, pushing as much as you want with unlimited power....

[@Riftimmortal]

I know! That was the thing I was looking forward to the most from the beta feedback for shadowlands

[@PrussianZwei]

And now we got torghast 2.0 with awakening the machine. Recieved well on beta that I've been told and now it's 20 wave snooze fest

[@popojaga7312]

@@PrussianZwei yep...

[@trehenry413]

DF is exactly what was needed after the disaster that was SL. It having what felt like lower stakes at times, and a return to fantasy/adventure, and player friendly makes it one of my favorite expansions.

[@liucconen]

It felt like a reset after a hard work week, in many ways. It had nothing to do with what had happened previously, but it didnt take the game into the unknown either.

[@gnarlkill1]

Video essays from Tettles is something I never knew I wanted, and I now can't live without.

[@Jedithtv]

I like the new format! was a good reminder of all the pain points in SL and how far we've come since then. I do think we took some of it for granted, thematically. Seeing Torghast in the skybox of the Maw was kinda sick

[@onkek]

Ion should have been replaced after SL.

[@shakeitoff1000]

Agreed. But instead, he's now SENIOR director lol

[@cmoney163]

Fr get that old head out of there 😂 bro thinks he knows what’s best for the community

[@carneios08]

Having Covenants be tied to your identity works if the power with the Covenant choice isn't there. Using the spectrum analogy that Ion used, the performance of a player is more affected by more volatile choices have to make, e.g., gear, stats, trinkets, gems, talents, etc. and is less affected by race, class, etc. (assuming racials and classes are balanced perfectly in a vacuum). If you want to have Covenants bee on the race and class side of the spectrum, it should have the lowest impact on performance (or none ideally). What happened in reality is that they had large impacts on DPS and survivability numbers, which meant that "meaningful choice" was a facade. Had they made it purely aesthetic, it would have landed way better with players. This wouldn't have magically saved the expansion (because Torghast still existed), but it would have not had nearly the dramatic effect that it did.

[@alexandrupetrea8267]

IMO on the surface his argument makes sense, but covenants were too surface level to satisfy their design goals. Classes are meaningful choice, but within the class you can switch specs and talents, and thats where the balance comes from. With covenants, you chose what you like, but the soulbinds weren't really impactful, and you are just stuck there. Mage and rogue are well balanced. Maybe not all specs, but if you choose the best mage spec and the best rogue spec, they are well balanced, while covenants were not. There was a clear best choice in most cases. Also, specs have talents that you can tailor to your needs (M+/Raid) while covenants didn't really. I loved venthyr warrior and hunter (the theme of the abilities and the visuals), but the abilities were purely single target. Not only was it underperforming, but it felt bad on trash (and I only do M+). So the choice was made for me.

[@Newbtuber]

it screw over hybrid classes harder. Saddest part is that we told them all this and they just keep acting like they knew better.

[@cabrondemente1]

I agree on most issues about Shadowlands but not this one. The dps difference between the best and worst covenant was 5% or less for most classes; even guides from Mythic pros gave you this context. Players' anxiety over min-maxing got the better of them.

[@BbKlarinette]

This was good, Tettles! Some things that I was hoping you would mention but I didn’t hear: - not only were the other shard meta bonuses worse numbers-wise, they were also worse graphics-wise. Blood and Frost had next to no animation while Unholy had the cool Shadowmourne effect. - Sub numbers were dropping during this time as well because of some bad PR around Blizz’s office culture. Not related to Shadowlands, admittedly, but might be worth mentioning. Thanks for the content! I really enjoyed it!

[@Kunori]

Shadowlands absolutely burned all my trust in the WoW team. Being terrible was one thing (and it was uniquely terrible - the game stuff was horrible but the lore stuff just tainted their whole setting and world forever), but it was how they repeatedly lied and misrepresented everything they were doing.

[@Nick-4K]

Still can't forgive them for effectively setting up a solid redemption of Arthas or atleast have him help us defeat The Jailor where he sacrifices himself or something... and they just kinda forgot about him haha

[@Seaswan4]

I loved Shadowlands. The story drew me in and even made me cry a few times! I loved how the professions were so simple to level so I felt like I really had something to offer my friends to help them play. I really liked all the different covenants, what they had to offer, and the lands associated with them. Very interesting to explore and unique from each other. I also enjoyed each new major patch like Korthia and Zereth Mortis. I met a lot of great people as we all ran around doing the quests and killing rares. So, everyone has an opinion about what makes them happy. This expansion made me happy.

[@fredriklind6727]

Jailer atleast gave us Handsome Squidward Jailer

[@jenniferfernandez7840]

I've been casual for years and that whole December I was home with a nasty strain of omicron and I liked it. I enjoyed having 4 different stories for alts. I feel like if they had made covenants and torghast esthetics, transmog, pets, and mounts it would of been much better received. I

[@MojitoFTW]

Do you have other videos in this format? Going over old previous updates and the history along with it? Love this type of content

[@derryberry7991]

I would love for someone to make a video where they go around and ask WoW developers what their /played is

[@mr_swan9246]

Hot take of the day... I actually enjoyed the expansion. There were problems for sure, but I did enjoy it.

[@Gorre022]

Season 4 was alright tbh… maybe cuz it was about to end 😅

[@bschs]

PLEASE MAKE MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS, THIS IS THE TYPE OF CONTENT THAT I LOVE AND I HOPE PEOPLE LOVE AS WELL

[@Gnolde]

in all honesty, Shadowlands was the expansion that felt like the best one for me. I really started to get more friends online, found people to enjoy the (for me) amazing M+ expirience with, joined a guild and got into raiding with transitioned into making more friends, from getting my first KSM to getting KSH Portals into Mythic progress rainding in the (for me) much inferior expansion Dragonflight. I personally feel more like TWW is killing wow...the fun in m+ is at an all tiome low, raiding sucks with 4 "easy" bosses into wall after wall after wall...(like amirdrassil before)... But to be fair, I did not start with beta shadowlands and was hanging in the void for most of the early expansion...in season 1 I was as casual as it gets...I get that after watching the video: Oh I forgot domination shards and stuff...god damn...why did you have to remind me of this? damn you tettles!!! *shakes fist at clouds*

[@jakestrauss2776]

This is great 2nd monitor/tab content. I'd love to see more of it.

[@Poooopdollar]

Awesome video, would love to see more like this covering other expansions!

[@1un4cy]

The funny thing about shadowlands is that after that launched every other mmo started going to their versions of the afterlife too.

[@Kalrell]

I remember when Beta went live, and all Covenant abilities, all Conduits, all Soulbinds and all legends unlocked, and it was interesting to toy with these. Then they implemented the Renown, Legendary and Sanctum grinds and Conduit ilvl and loot drops and all the fun was taken away by locking them behind the systems..

[@joeblack2809]

Yeaaa the choregast grinds were fun depending on which class and which powers you got. But after a while the runs got very monotonous. Especially when the legendary you wanted didn’t drop.

[@bravgji]

I know almost nothing about WoW, but considering every convenant had a ability for every class (or something like that)... then you'd have to create a new character, of EACH class, for every convenant that you wanted to test out, right? I don't know, this sounds bad

[@MrHuntervad]

It wasn't Shadowlands alone doing it, it just the the icing on the cake .

[@azir64]

7:43 you can see Preach thinking "man I got to keep a straight face while being bullshitted on"

[@lukas8708]

Preach: "Because of Blizzard controversy I will no longer make videos about their games" Also Preach: "Boooohoooo I didn't received a Dragonflight alpha! Viewers pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaseeeeeee write to Blizzard!" A brothel employee has more honor since she does not pretend who she is.

[@sepsam4556]

He was doing his best to understand what Ion was saying but it just sounds like a truly terrible experience lol

[@shae899]

I've never watched one of your videos before, but got the notification for this one. Love it. Understand it's a departure from the norm. Will be keeping an eye out for more like this.

[@supersingular]

The experience I had the first days of the shadowlands expansion was the best I ever had after vanilla. The feeling I was in hell was as real as I can imagine I can get in a video game.

[@Testifiable]

Love the video essay format of just about anyone who does it. Now for feedback because it's important: 1. Could definitely tell you were running off a script, but the tone felt like it was off the cuff? Just a weird difference between the two is all. 2. Could've gone over the controversy surrounding blizzard, but not necessary to the gameplay of the expansion/video topic. Overall solid first try on the format!

[@polarstate]

Loved this style of video. Would be interesting to hear by expansion impact on the game etc. or just more retrospective content.

[@-dubu]

I loved SL (read on) and I wouldnt still be playing if not for it. I started levelling at the end of BfA and without something to compare it to I had a ton of fun exploring the shadowlands areas and covenants and I really had a good time. A large part of this is because I picked Warlock and NF was bis for all of them so I didnt encounter the struggle until I levelled a mage and wanted to play frost and fire in SoD, and they wanted different covenants. I really loved the aesthetic of the NF zone so I am lucky I picked it first. The seasons lasted too long and by the end I was yearning for some new dungeons, getting friends into the game was really hard because they were so far behind with dungeon knowledge and gearing took a long time, and I think that had I had experience in legion and bfa I wouldnt have liked it as much. Either way, I look back very fondly on it as the first time I really played a lot.

[@aaronwjacobs]

This was cool to see you branch out into a video essay. Keep upping the production quality with some music and I think these will continue to be a hit with the WoW community.

[@brothir]

The gap between each parting of your hair should be called The Maw.

[@AxLPeazy]

First video I ever saw of you. I enjoyed. Well done!

[@skakid88]

Shadowlands was a huge banger for the first month. Most people don't remember how well it was received initially. The biggest issue in SL was the release cadence imo.

[@herbeste]

9.1.5 until the end was awesome. Slands gets a lot of misplaced hate.

[@ghost-in-the-ciel]

Exactly

[@Bepples]

This really isn't the case at all. Shadowlands had negative reception right from announcement with the obviously bad systems design being discussed and it was predictably bad on launch. Systems design, namely covenants, was far and away the biggest issue of Shadowlands.

[@Bepples]

@@herbeste Shadowlands hate is 100% justified. Covenants were handled absolutely awfully until the end when they were forced to fix the situation due to overwhelmingly negative feedback. Also Sanctum of Domination had some horrifically designed fights, and Korthia is the worst end game zone ever released.

[@herbeste]

@ Covs were fixed in 9.1.5., giving us 2 and a half seasons w/o locked Covs. S3 and S4 are easily in the top 3 M+ seasons ever. SoD had 7 good fights, 1 bleh fight, and 2 bad ones. Pretty par for the course. Korthia was 100% awful and also 100% optional. Was SL the best expansion? No. Was there some awesome stuff in there? Absolutely yes.

[@CurtisWetherly]

Really loved the video style, I know these take a lot more effort and appreciate it. Thanks Tettles

[@brundlefly45]

I liked this video especially given that you are clearly well informed personally having played at a high level at the time, I think my only criticism would be that the delivery is very much you reading a script, it's only minor but it could sound a bit more natural!

[@shark_2283]

i liked it. please do more. id love to see your retrospective on the wow expansions.

[@Taldemarr]

Really enjoying this new style and editing. Well put together 👍

[@free_b0rn]

I liked Shadowlands M+ more than TWW or DF tbh. There wasn't so many bs oneshot mechanics and survival problems

[@chugchugwoopwoopwee]

'zerith mortis was solid' the words of a man who didn't farm rares for transmog the amazing gameplay of waiting 3 hours at a rare spawn because if you aren't there when it spawns you're not on time to tag it to get loot

[@murillow484]

This was a banger! I love this type of video looking forward for future content you make.

[@Lemiwinks55]

I honestly feel a knot in my stomach anytime I have to revisit Shadowlands content. I remember leaving for work during Corthia, when the final major content patch dropped I couldn't bring myself to come back.

[@cheeseorwhatever]

you know sometimes I feel like SL is just too harshly in retrospect, this is a good reminder that a lot of that is recency bias as to how the expansion felt to play towards the end Having the launch laid out this is just crazy to think back on

[@mattphoenix4702]

There’s a theory out there that Tazavesh was actually the original choice, but it was changed to the floating island Maw V.2 edition shortly before 9.1 went live. There’s a healthy amount of evidence to support it. Every single one of the Broker cartels were after Ve’nari. We were warned a couple of times that Ve’nari is not what she is presenting herself as, and that we should never trust her. Ve’nari was being hunted. She picked the safest place she could to hide out, the Maw. She even has us eliminate the Brokers who were determined enough to find her that they accepted the risk of being stuck in the Maw. She somehow knows far more about Torghast than should be possible. She even provides us with relics and items that can manipulate the environment of The Maw and Torghast. And… she is amassing a MASSIVE amount of Stygia. Never says why. The theory is Ve’nari sold the current location of Tazavesh to the Jailer. Somehow, news of this betrayal got out and Ve’nari had to go into hiding to avoid the assassins the brokers kept sending after her. Why would she help us? A distraction. Or… she regrets her betrayal. Either way, helping us helps her. In Maldraxxus, we can help a Broker gain access to the Primus’ personal library. We are given a sort of sidestep response when we ask the Broker what he wants from this library. Since the Primus’ sigil was hidden in Korthia, this very well could have been a fact-finding mission to figure out what exactly this sigil does, and perhaps how valuable it is. Tazavesh leans heavy into the “unique and powerful artifacts handled by enigmatic and not entirely trustworthy merchants” vibe for sure. Plus, you know… Tazavesh is a CITY. A city, you could say, full of secrets. The fact that after 9.1 Ve’nari seems to just disappear from the plot. She went from a somewhat central figure in the story to a stygia vendor over night basically, almost like it wasn’t intended to have her stick around after 9.1 concluded so they had to just give her some sort of reason to exist in game still. We know a lot of stuff had to be cut from Shadowlands. It was like Warlords all over again. The Drust story in Ardenweald feels just as unfinished as Ve’nari. Oh and 22:49 It was established a LONG time ago that the Night Elves stuck around after death as a wisp. Ardenweald is also the mirror of and directly connected to the Emerald Dream. Loa, Wild Gods, and other nature-type beings can return to the Emerald Dream and life after a sort of like nap. I’m not the biggest fan of them confirming that Elune is in fact very real, but her existence is used to explain WHY the Night Elves had a unique sort of afterlife as a wisp. She intervenes before the soul can be taken to the Arbiter for judgement. This isn’t a backtrack or retcon or anything. This exact situation exists between Odyn and the Valajar. His Val’Kyr swoop down when a worthy warrior dies in combat, and they are taken to Odyn’s hall to fight and drink with other brave warriors before the Ascended Kyrians can claim them for judgment. So again, the centaur of the Dragon Isles are VERY closely connected to the Emerald Dream as well. Elune could simply be intervening with the centaurs as well, and the centaur version of a wisp could be a wind spirit.

[@Dekipoo]

I'm an extremely casual player-playing on and off since 2008. I'm not kidding when I say that I quit Shadowlands 2 hours into its launch. I came back a few months later to finish leveling and that was it.

[@thonyx203]

My experience on Shadowlands: I stopped playing wow in BFA and came back in 9.2, in the first day I unlocked flying in Zereth Mortis and the rest of shadowlands. I really enjoyed all the covenants and the stories. I played my Druidtank to 3k rating (in this season we had the best season affix ever in the game, Encrypted, also I still think Shadowlands had the 2nd best Dungeon set from all expansions, BFA obv better) The raid was fun (I raided only HC) I always love come back to shadowlands, because I had such a good experience in this Expansion. But the points you brought up, are all brought up by friends and that 9.2 fixed all that shit.

[@jamesjohnsoniii8068]

Warlocks BIS covenant being the tree huggers was criminal

[@jabeltre1]

Great video! I would continue to do them. Maybe about the history of M+ could be next? a specific season?

[@contristatus]

definitely keen for more video essays! I also feel like blizzards lowest points are when they go fully into the mindset of "We know best, we know what you want", it seems to take a mass amount of people to unsub in their game before they will switch their philosophy to something more consumer friendly and actually listen to the feedback(the same feedback they get during ptr and beta tests that they refuse to listen too) Covenant swapping, target caps, GCDs and over bloating raid & m+ mechanics just to name a few examples are all things have had to walk back. It makes me sad they just seem to keep going in the same direction, i thought after s3 of SL when they took big strides to try and fix things they would learn but this expac it feels like they have been doing the same thing just slipping further and further into what they want and not listening. I guess we will see in the upcoming seasons.

[@icresp4263]

I love these styles of videos, would love to see more. Only criticism is that its very obvious youre reading from a script, specifically when the camera is on you. Of course everyone reads from a script, but this just felt very noticeable to me, when youre speaking more about somethint and looking at the camera you look way more animated and enthusiastic. Great video either way, definitely want to see more!

[@tnaxpw]

12:20 I was farming mats and crating plate ones for my guild, nobody paid me more than mats cost, and through that (each rank needed like 5-10 crafts, can't remember) I was able to craft rank 4 and 6 in no-time for anyone in trade chat, for basically "mats+tip what you want". It was basically "spend time and DIY or pay whatever fee is out there" and the 200k+ fee was gate kept for like 2 months, for a max rank item for this tier (that lasted a long time eitherway and I think was a normal/heroic level for next tier), and 200k was like a wow-token maybe 1.25 token (at one point the price went down to like 140-160k, I bought a ton of them for a bnet balance influx). So ye you could get it without paying the absurd gold cost.

[@angrykagg421]

Shadowlands was the culmination of years of bad choices from narrative to game play. Blizzards outright refusal to listen to any constructive feedback back about any of it and lie to us all about changing anything was the real chef’s kiss. Covenants should have never been a power choice, but they gas lit the whole community about this “rip cord” that either never existed or they never intended on pulling it. Now look back at azerite gear. A whole expansion spent trying to make it work when they had feed back in ALPHA that no one liked how it worked. Covenants will work if we add enough grind to them right??? The story was an absolute mess. Terrible, world shattering, decades of lore toppling story. If anyone had noticed they have almost written shadowlands completely out of the story. It was literally the ugly art work on the wall of the house the story of amirdrasil represented. I have randos try and gas light me that this isn’t true, but time is only proving me right. Huffffffffff!!

[@ustunnedgg]

Awesome vid tettles. As someone who played daily during this expansion, you covered a lot of the points well. Funny enough, PVP was actually in a better spot than it was in BFA and Dragon flight during Shadowlands

[@BioKek]

What a great video. Thank you. I quit at khorthia. Had no idea what happened after. Haven't played since.

[@dgsunny23]

I am a PvPer and still waiting for the day that the outdated reward system will get a complete overhaul....

[@D2Mephisto]

this is so academically presented it is kinda funny how you mention at 13:20 about power vs fantasy, and use holy pally as an example with divine toll. the same is true even now in war within. I *WANT* to play sunfury arcane mage. but would I? HELL NO, not with how they neutered that hero talent tree in the last 1-2 months and just left it dead to rot forever. I guess it's getting some buffs in 11.1, but then again, they also made some notes JUST YESTERDAY reverting some of the planned buffs/changes to sunfury arcane for 11.1. You could argue that this problem still exists today in WoW, but with the hero talent trees. I *want* to be Kael'thas with 5 floaty fire/arcane orbs above my head, doing big Arcane Barrages, but can I without majorly compromising my damage in competitive content? Nope, I can't. I have to play Spellslinger, due to balance issues.

[@Mira-dp6di]

but there's no friction to changing. you could play a sunfury for the theme when it doesn't matter, and optimize the numbers for when it does, if you want. it's kinda impossible to eliminate this fully. there's playstyles and talents we don't pick because they are just bad, or we need other, less interesting ones, to make the spec run smooth. I could want to play a druid for the theme, but hate the playstyles, rather want to "play a druid like you play a mage", but I can't just get that. I hope it's balanced well enough that it's not a disaster to pick 'wrong' hero talent for whatever reason, and ideally which is 'best' rotates a bit, so everyone gets their favourite spec as the best spec some of the time (unless some are unplayable garbage like pack leader currently, then plz change it, or at least keep it bad so no one has to suffer xd)

[@Metaphix]

Torghast was the big one. People got to end game and were like this is it? This is endgame? It immediately felt like a chore that you dreaded doing but needed to do for legos

[@Tyranno-Bore-Us]

Let's be real, the warcraft universe as we once knew it is dead. Now it's just a bloated tourist attraction.

[@TheAngryPenguin92]

I know, and people act like Metzen being back it's going to be better forgetting the fact that when he was there last he was memed pretty hard for questionable and corny/cliche writing. And now everybody and even himself are starting to prepare excuses for TWW inevitable flop because now he's saying you won't really see his vision until midnight because this pack was already almost done blah blah blah

[@stonesec]

yo tettles this video is great, definitely keep this type of content up. theres some minor nitpicks i have (you're looking down at your script every time the camera is on you) which i think will just smooth themselves out as you do more of this content, but this is fantastic even outside of the context of it being your first time doing this style of video

[@ekdavey]

"Didn't have the heart to tell her they're in Maldraxxus" LMAO I never thought of it like that. Yeah, all the WoW lore got hit hard with that one

[@Airugarion]

Yo Tetties, you are really good at this type of video. Honestly make more of them. Preach used to do stuff like this all the time and in a way has slowed the cook down in that respect. Fill that void my man. Also poddyc rules.

[@MrPottiez]

Love these types of videos. Preach also makes very good video essays such as these, but I feel that Preach's focus, knowledge and experience is more suited towards the older expansions of wow, when he was still playing hardcore. Since you have been playing hardcore from legion onwards, you are much better positioned to provide an in depth look at more recent events in the wow universe.

[@Technichian462]

I’ve been playing since 2009. I noticed very early on, Bluzzard does not class balance. They have their facorite classes from time to time, and that one just dominates. I got tired of chasing the best class for “X” and instead started playing for shear fun. Thats why I have about 80 hunters, about 10 are level 80, 20 or 30 at 70, and the rest are smeared around in the early to mid levels.

[@Mike-cb2cr]

Great video! Would love to see this style for current expansion cause mythic + needs help

[@snidercats2618]

I am a fan of more long form content. I like this direction from you (for some content). If i can suggest, I'd say going a little bit deeper on the points you make by either using hard #'s or multiple anecdotes. For example when discussing the maw/korthia/torghast i know what you mean when its not fun, but im sure you couldve pulled up more forum/reddit posts with people talking about what killed it for them, then showing the trend of "blizzard not listening" by showing how each of these things had similar (worse?) trajectories. You also didn't bring up the legal scandals at all, which I know have been regurgitated ad naseum, but its also been 3 years and the reality is that it did have an affect: not only on players but also on the employees. I think an acknowledgment of it before moving on and not speaking about it would be fine. I'd say 7/10 overall, i'd love to see you keep branching out and trying to improve your content

[@Tettles]

Ty for the well thought out feedback. I appreciate it.

[@SauROnmiKE]

Thank you for pointing out the legal scandals that surfaced at the time. It completely turned me and so many others away from the game and most channels don't cover this as a reason.

[@The_Noise_Marine]

Covenants could’ve been solved in the beginning like this - commit to 1 for story and cosmetic purposes, then all the new player power toys are an extra talent row.

[@thenerdbeast7375]

And let's be real, the lawsuit certainly didn't help things.

[@Yosty]

Loved this very entertaining watch as someone who went through Shadowlands 👍

[@erdmarti]

Nice new format! Do more videos like this please!

[@Tom-Pendragon]

I was there...and I never returned. 9.1 was the needle that broke the camel's back for me.

[@andromega8627]

Very interesting, Tettles should really make a video about Shadowlands

[@Shiirow]

you so easily handwave the major issues the game has or rose tinted glasses them. world content wow has been a snorefest since day one. daily quests become world quests and the game has 10k flavors of world quests. patch content hasnt evolved since TBC.

[@Austinwize]

Good video! Watched the whole thing. Id watch more like this.

[@Hayderino42]

This is fire, looking forward to more essay style videos! Shadowlands was such a monumental disappointment. When I first saw the promotional concept art of bastion, my head was filled with ideas of an Elysium with a lord of the rings style, a Feywild and Shadowfell harkening to D&D and its influence on Warcraft, and who knows what other core fantasy mainstays we would see. What we got was just... ugly. Maldraxxus was a blurry mess of green and brown and grey. Ardenweald was an assault on the eyes and not at all whimsical or mysterious like a Feywild should be (Why is half of the zone just dealing with beetles???). Revendreth was basically a setpiece with no substance, just a big paperweight of a city. Bastion was legitimately beautiful but the questing and lore was some of the worst in the games history. The Kyrian belief system was clearly flawed from the beginning and our characters are forced to take part in it. Shadowlands could have been the biggest and most successful expansion in the games history what with everyone being at home playing, and they absolutely squandered it.

[@burnttoast26]

I don't think the game will ever fully recover from the damage that SL did tbh

[@Aztonio]

It was recovered within a mont. 10 years later we're still suffering from Warlords of Draenor mess. And Dragonflight doubled down on idiocracy.

[@VinylDashMusic]

Shadowlands was the expansion that my friends convinced me to come back to WoW to play with them after many years of me not playing(iirc I last played in early Cata before this). I ended up quitting and never returned during Shadowlands because of how frustrating the Maw and Torghast were.

[@kaakrepwhatever]

My then boyfriend quit wow forever after trying the Shadowlands beta and realizing it would not be ready to play. I said that if they gave it to me for free, I might play it. Eventually they did give it to me for free, and I spent the last few months of the expansion grinding out flight.