Why the Story of Shadowlands Failed so Terribly

[@iam.thecaptain]

they even ruined the burning legion and sargeras , " tHe jAiLoR wAs BeHiNd eVeRyThYnInG " the burning legion was a a legit threat in the story and well established in the lore , and suddenly you hear this giant 15 foot vampire bodybuilder was behind it all ...

[@termagant425]

Who is only a robot :)

[@preds43]

Considering the Void Lords were a thing, and considering Legion went out of its way to have the Legion be bumbling bafoons and whatnot... Well established, sure... A legit threat? Hardly...

[@kyubeycoobie3568]

@The Sinners Gate How was the legion not a threat? They were the #1 threat in the wow universe

[@preds43]

@@kyubeycoobie3568 They were the most physical threat out there in Reality, but being a threat means more than brute strength, and we were kicking much of the Legions ass in Outland regardless. The Void kinda mocks them or straight up doesn't care, and regardless of their battle with the Light, it didn't really matter how badly the Light was losing, since in the span of 1-2 patches, we went to Argus using 1 ship a bit after defeating KJ, went to the Legions Seat of Power with the Army of the Lights remnants, dismantled the Legion rather quickly there while also halting their invasions on other worlds around that timeframe and destroying their chain of command at Antorus, we freed the Titans, and ontop of that, we stopped Sargeras from succeeding in claiming Azeroth and Reality like...3 different times and stopped 3 different plans with similar results IN A SINGLE RAID LMAOOOOOO And did I mention Legion kinda hints at the Jailer also? Varimathras, the Lich Kings echo Voice Lines, Argus... Yeah, the Legion was kinda fucked for a bit now.

[@preds43]

@@kyubeycoobie3568 I don't doubt their destructive capabilities, cause yeah, they were heavily damaging to the Cosmos, but you'd be lying if you think they were much of a "threat" to us. Hell, the old lore initially implied it so that Sargeras would be jumped by Old Gods, till Chronicle made it so that Sargeras can literally 1 shot em without care, which imo is a good change and I'm glad they did it. But still...Zovaal did more damage to Azeroth and the Cosmos entire in 1 patch than Sargeras did throughout his entire history lmaooo

[@jordanread5829]

Ner'zhul became one of my favourite characters and still is. Simply because he succeeded in screwing over Kil'jaeden. The demon that tricked him into going to war against the Draenei and basically dooming the Orcs until Groms sacrifice in WC3. After becoming the Lich King, he tricked the Legion into believing that the best way to destroy the humans and the high elves was from within. By corrupting Arthas. While also conceiving them that Kel'thuzad would be the only one capable of summoning Archimonde to Azeroth. So when Kel'thuzad was dead and Arthas had picked up Frostmourne, he ordered his new Death Knight champion to 'kill' Mal'ganis. Raising a red flag to the Legion but by that point it was too late to do anything about it. Archimonde was getting impatient. Kel'thuzads remains were decaying and most of the scourge at the time was destroyed. Of course the Scourge did its job. Kel'thuzad was resurrected, stronger than before. Archimonde was then summoned and the Legion began its invasion into Kalimdor once Cenarius was taken care of. But what the Legion didn't expect was Arthas sneaking his way to Kalimdor to have a chat to a certain demon hunter about the Skull of Gul'dan and Tichondrius. After the Legions defeat, Kil'jaeden realized too little too late why that was the case. Ner'zhul was undermining the Legion from the very beginning. Kil'jaeden fought to be clever and use Illidan, the very demon hunter Ner'zhul via Arthas had interacted with, to destroy the Lich King. But in the end Ner'zhul won. Illidans forces were defeated and he was finally free from the Legion. Even if he was usurped by Arthas, he still achieved his goal of giving Kil'jaeden the bird and there was nothing the great demon lord could do about it. That is until Shadowlands revealed that Zovaal was the one truly behind the Lich King and one has to wonder if Ner'zhuls schemes were still his own or if it was Zovaals. Like what role was the Lich King meant to do originally. Zovaal considered Ner'zhul a failure for being usurped by Arthas. According to Ner'zhuls dialogue before his boss fight in SoD. Blizzard ruined a great revenge plot between two villains just to try and paint this new character as this master schemer.

[@silverhowl9331]

Fucking hell, thats just amazing lore thats gone down the drain!

[@kyleganse4978]

Correct it was a great story of different evils fighting amongst each other. To then be CO-OPTed as this random evil being masterfully pulling the all the strings of the string pullers lol. ConVoluted

[@TheEvilWarlock]

Arthas didn't usurp Ner'zhul, though. Their minds and souls essentially fused when Arthas first put on the Helm of Domination.

[@jordanread5829]

@@TheEvilWarlock You might want to read Arthas: Rise of the Lich King. After donning the helm, DK Arthas, Ner'zhul and the real Arthas (represented as a child) are sitting at a table within Arthas' mind. DK Arthas kills the child then turns on Ner'zhul. Ner'zhul in SoD also says that Arthas usurped him. As that was listed as one of failures Zovaal claimed.

[@kyleganse4978]

@@TheEvilWarlock In the book Arthas at the end you discover Arthas Stabs the spirit of Ner'zhul inside the helmet and destroys it supposedly. Almost as a revenge for what he had done because in WoTLK you short of find out the tiny piece of good inside him was holding back the scourge from devouring azeroth. That is how we ultimately defeat the lich king and its kind of portrayed that way with some quests around icecrown citadel.

[@Viviaana_silvermoon]

It made zero sense that Sylvanas would hate the lich king so much then literally find who created him and immediately become his best friend, they never explained why she was ever involved

[@jennifersmith-clark6418]

That was my point too.

[@preds43]

They do explain it. Tho, the problem is that, like usual, it's in a fucking book called Sylvanas, and the explanation itself kinda blows tbh...

[@Devin7Eleven]

@L Even tho they explained it doesn't mean it doesn't still suck imo

[@estrellanarvaez-reynolds7387]

I never thought of it this way! I still hate to think the Jailer was his creator though. Gonna force myself to forget that

[@preds43]

@@Devin7Eleven Literally this

[@MatthewGalon]

The other problem with the Sylvanas point was that not only did they re-write her story but many of the “old guard.” Jaina in bfa changed a lot and then flipped back into irrelevance, sylvanas’ dorection changed Tyranda’s character to essentially do nothing for all of SL, Malfurion has been absent for like 4 xpacs for some reason, and don’t even get me started on Bolvar losing to Sylvanas. All the new character directions have been bad imo.

[@logancopper3385]

So sad to see them butcher pretty much every cool female character. Jaina and Tyrande were some of my favorite characters in WC3. Now Jaina is literally WOW hitler (look up the dalaran purge lol) and Tyrande is just an edgy 13 year old's wet dream.

[@masterjoda999]

Malfurion's in the Odinsleep again I bet

[@siegwardinspirit]

@@logancopper3385 Tyrande tried to choke a ghost

[@a.nonyme2532]

What about Talanji ? She don't seem too bad for a bfa character, maybe a little too close to a "Mary sue" on some points, but i think she might even have some potential with her revenge agains't the Alliance, or even her lack of experience as a leader. I just hope she won't become a "Tyrande 2.0" or something like that, will make some mistakes and learn from it, or have a real character arc in general, with actual development and all.

[@MatthewGalon]

@@a.nonyme2532 talanji was an entirely new character so wasn’t a target for this post. By “new character directions”, I mainly was referring to established characters that were going in a new direction.

[@rebecca2494]

The ONLY good mini story in Shadowlands was the quest in the Kyrian campaign where you replayed Ben Howell’s final moments before the scourge invaded Redridge. it was such a breath of fresh air to be back on Azeroth.

[@dabihwow5550]

See I would've liked to have seen more of that, he didn't deserve what he got in the end though.

[@michaelb9683]

Yup! lol it’s only time I felt like I did something afterlife appropriate

[@biketrailing4277]

The Ysera story line wasn't bad - but yeah, just about everything else was lackluster.

[@vannthybun2546]

This 100%.. my favorite moment in the Shadowlands was the 5 minutes we spent in Redridge Mountains

[@kelupthegnome2871]

The poor man got shafted because Azeroths strongest heroes were busy in Nothrend farming a bag.

[@Comedymakesmelaugh7]

Honestly Sylvanas becoming warchief could have worked if they moved her into a somewhat more heroic direction as the Legion promo website implied she might be. Having her emerge from the shadows after having spent years with the Horde and feeling some sort of camaraderie with them, even if it's not the same as she felt with her people in life. I'm not saying she had to be a paragon of justice, that would be stupid. But even her shock and seeming worry for Vol'Jin's safety during the Broken Shore implied that she had changed to some degree. The problem is, that story was abandoned and they took her even farther in the opposite direction to make her a worse version of Garrosh.

[@SoulDevoured]

It seems to me that blizzard can't help but make the horde the bad guys again and again. It seems like that's always the story they fall back on when they don't know what else to do.

[@HelghastTrooper]

EXACTLY.

[@melissas4874]

@@SoulDevoured But by replacing Sylvanas with this almost "holy" looking leader from BFA? To me the reason SL and BFA didn't work is they all seemed to focus on Sylvanas and the people who would replace her. It's almost like all of it was a story they wrote out of necessity because they wanted "fresh" or "positive" looking characters and cities. I feel they totally burned the Undercity and did all this stuff as a business move and that's why the story and game was such garbage the last 2 expansions - they were writing the story around steps to get rid of her and create new leadership.

[@SoulDevoured]

@@melissas4874 main character syndrome isn't really "holy". Blizzard has repeatedly done this. Completely fucking off with plot threads of other characters, or the progression of the character in question, to make a big bad or a good good. Imo blizzard has always had good ideas. But never were overall particularly good writers. Tbf part of the problem is the structure of the games themselves. Warcraft, as a game, needs good goods and big bads.

[@archdruidbookwalter951]

Yeah, that would be way more interesting of a story. Sylvanas has always been a 'do bad things but for good reasons' kind of character, and she said as much in the War Crimes novel that she didn't want the responsibility of and the attention from being a warchief. If she were to be made warchief against her will, that would actually be a good source of character drama and potential growth. Like, maybe she does something bad (like burn Teldrassil, as a good example) because she thought it was necessary to win against the Alliance, but the Horde disagrees, resulting in a conflict between her and Saurfang. Not a copy of what happened with Garrosh, but more of a heated argument between advisor and leader, and over the course of Legion and BfA, Sylvanas grows to understand the value of Honor, and by the end of her character arc becomes a good and honorable warchief.

[@Yoshilisk]

my biggest gripe was definitely the way shadowlands constantly spit on old lore in order to prop itself up. the jailer created the lich king to be his pawn. the scourge's architecture and many of its undead creations were ideas taken from maldraxxus. the nathrezim are actually death beings, and their role in the creation of the legion was part of zovaal's plan. the emerald dream is no longer where wild gods are reborn when they die. elune has a sister who is a robot, which potentially has implications about elune herself? the helm of domination got turned into A GODDAMN QUEST GREEN. etc etc and yeah the robots thing was weird. "manufactured gods" COULD be an interesting plot, but leaving it until the last major patch in an otherwise very fantasy-esque expac just kinda... takes the wind out of the setting's sails. whatever little wind there was.

[@gampie13]

it's the worf effect on a story scale, and it never does anything good for the media it is in

[@koo1770]

They ruined their own shadowlands story with the jailor too. Every zone was made worse by having the jailor be behind it all

[@sansoo9497]

same, it felt as if shadowlands were more of a dog marking its territory than an expansion of storyline.

[@GTFOIMAO]

Amazing comment. I dont even care reading it. Stopped in cata and this expansion can be written off as propaganda roflmao.

[@GTFOIMAO]

@@gampie13 but we had dinosaur in sweden. That means earth is upside down! :$

[@furiousdave5379]

The fact they turned The Lich King (One of Azeroths biggest villains, and one of the best tragic hero stories) into a literal puppet of a man they pulled out of thin air. They had a chance to give Arthas a redemption story he kinda deserved and they did nothing of the sort. Would've been kinda cool to see Arthas and Sylvanas fight the Jailor

[@homelander2243]

The fact that blizzard sinks so much money into this shitty game is stunning. They literally scrapped overwatch 2 because all they’re funding goes into this game. Watch Diablo 4 flop because they only care about wow

[@kou7191]

What did it for me is the hypocricy. They made it seem as if Arthas did everything he did willingly, and thus deserves to be disenchanted and forgotten, but Sylvannas, who did do everything she did willingly, was just a victim of having her soul incomplete and couldn't think straight... Even if she's not forgiven ingame, it's VERY clear the writers already redeemed her.

[@verti3213]

They destroyed both Arthas and Sylvanas. I loved them both but they took dump upon them.

[@stoagymahalo5268]

No kidding. I hated the idea that SUDDENLY they wanted to bring out "it was me the whole time" trope where I'd been ok with the Dread Lord plot still playing out without the cast knowing what had transpired to the endgame and why we needed to take down whatever big bad. Where I liked the idea with the DKs being adopted into the armies as another point and Warlocks as another to produce multiple stories as the over arching plot. But no... we got Gruncle Stan trying to go all Thanos on us.

[@shadowwolf9909]

​@@stoagymahalo5268Vince it was me Austin, it was me all along. J.R. Oh son of a b*tch

[@SharrkyX]

I think just revealing the afterlife ruins so many things, it just wont be the same going back to the "real" world when you know how the afterlife functions.

[@SouthernGuy5423]

I said it before and I'll say it again... they should put out an OFFICIAL Retcon at the start of Dragonflight, stating that the reason they're headed to the Dragon Isles is that everyone on Azeroth was pulled into the Emerald Nightmare, and the whole expansion was just a horrific, Matrix-style, dream prison - only there to psychologically torture the players! Its a better damned explanation for what happened than what we got from the expac!

[@TecTitan]

after a few decades of storytelling doing something new can be exciting. The problem is that making something like this work is tedious and needs to be a work of love when we all know Blizzard doesn't care if it makes sense and they're definitely going to move forward as if there's no real consequences to this stuff.

[@SouthernGuy5423]

@@TecTitan Oh, sure. There's no chance of them doing what I suggested - I said it's what they SHOULD do, not that it was likely.

[@TheFroztfire]

It also could be so much more... I dont like the direction they went with Kael'thas but at least they did something, same with Garrosh. Its afterlife for god sake. Why Sylvanas havent meet her brother, Kael'thas also could talk to his father. So much potential... and they gaved us... Ardenweald... yck

[@cheekygnome]

It's a game. It's not really like that. It's all black in the real word.

[@naciabell7903]

Another isssue in my opinion is that they couldn't mae up their mind about how good or evil sylvanas was. They kept wanting us to feel sorry for her or sympathise, while also having her do lots of evil stuff without explination. Her character was very inconsistant cause they wanted her to be bad without being 'Bad' if that makes any sense. In battle for azeroth she was the villain. Now she's more sympathetic in shadowlands and we need to forgive her cause it wasn't really her fault and etc. Etc. They didn't want to let Sylvana's be properly evil despite that being a big part of her original appeal. And shadowlands just constnatly went with that and as a result she never felt like she was conistant. Contrast that with Garrosh who, whatever you feel about him. OWNED who he was and that he was bad and did bad things. And felt no shame or guilt and would do them all again.

[@wraithflaire1639]

I think Blizzard abandoned the storyline they had planned for sylvanas half through the expansion because they couldn't fit her entire story in their arbitrarily Ridgid 2 year expansion cycle especially with covid affecting the development.

[@ickyfist]

And there were so many layers of copouts that none of it makes sense. They insist her soul wasn't split into a good and evil half but rather 2 equal halves which is just nonsense. They did it like that because people were like uhh so the sylvanas we knew for 20 years is just gone now and replaced by "complete" sylvanas now? So by saying she was split into equal parts they can say she's the same character. But then why has she been evil all this time? She wasn't controlled by the jailer, her soul being split somehow didn't make her do bad things and she's still responsible, but yet she's good now? Why is her personality functionally the same if it's split in half, what is even the point? It means nothing if it's like that. It's all a load of bullshit.

[@siegwardinspirit]

@@ickyfist yeah the soul split Sylvanas was very strange, the way it was shown and the way they explained how it worked didn't add up. Even in the cinematic, they differentiated between the two Sylvanas as if one was a completely different person from the other. Why is it so hard to be consistent? It feels like Danuser thinks he can please every base at once by just adding some throwaway lines.

[@sighman9209]

@@ickyfist Equal halves is a copout of the soul split, which is a copout of the plot that we're opposing her, which is a copout of making the Horde shallow motivationless arbitrarily evil villains again, which is a copout of writing it like the Horde has a point regarding Aliance/Anduin. If you disagree then answer me this. What was the narrative purpose of the time period between her turning on the Horde and flopping back to being on team protagonist?

[@ShadowTheHedgehogCZ]

They played with the "Domination" narrative, yet they botched it. Sylvanas doing so much unspeakably evil things, ALL of which were done when she was free of anyone's control, is somehow supposed to be sympathetic. Yet Arthas, who was according to this new story Dominated (Anduin was supposed to mirror that) was supposed to still be blamed and hated.

[@nicholasscratch5828]

Ah yes Wrath, the before time wherein Arthas was not disenchanted into 35 anima power I never ended up using.

[@preds43]

Tbf here, his soul was basically torn tf yp and almost gone, to the point where once he was "released", he wasn't a soul anymore essentially...

[@Devin7Eleven]

@@preds43 Which regardless was a dumb story direction.. it feels like they were retconning or trying to remove any WC3 ties, especially with one of the most important figures of Warcraft identity.

[@preds43]

@Jack Marcuson I never said I liked it, quit calling me a Blizzard drone all because I'm recapping the story for OP.

[@preds43]

@@Devin7Eleven It is dumb, yes. But tbf here, it's 10.0, regardless of it being dumb or not, the fact remains that Blizzard seems to be wanting to move on from WC3s ties, which is fine, but the problem is that much of the story is either rushed or simply half assed. Sylvanas especially should not have the last say in Arthas' story there, and Jaina should have more a reaction... It's fucking stupid really.

[@mbazoka]

@@preds43 With enough Anima infusion (since there was no drought anymore, we fixed it), Arthas could've been reformed eventually. And that is what he deserved - to rest in the afterlife as his true self, not as the Lich King. What they did to Arthas' soul in Shadowlands is a disgrace, and will forever be a massive stain on Blizzard's lore going forward (as if the expansion itself isn't a crater of lore to walk over already)...

[@Mr_Edwards_1995]

What I enjoyed about Warcraft’s older lore and stories, there is always this sense of mysticism. You are given enough knowledge to understand greater cosmic forces such as the legion, old gods, life and death, how magic works,etc. Enough to dream and wonder but not soo much it takes away from the fantasy and intrigue of the unknown.

[@aureate]

Agreed. I feel like we're at a point where we know too much. We went from a state of wonder and speculation to basically being ambassadors putting out political fires. I don't like the idea of our characters influencing the decisions of the Titans and the makers of the universe.

[@BIacklce]

because they are bad writers who dont know how to keep the audience engaged by not explaining every damn thing. I dont need to know all magic is just space radiation created by various elder beings, I just like to know it can do a lot of neat stuff.

[@DistendedPerinium]

I do love some of the shitpost level silliness of the old lore. For example; Kil'Jaden fishing an old sword and helmet out of a cosmic junk drawer, strapping it to an orc who'd been through one too many teleporter accidents, sticking this whole concoction in a freezer, then yeeting the resulting abomination down to a planet so it can fight a bunch of bugs as a prelude to invasion has always amused me.

[@fistofram5526]

They didn't care, they pandered to the casuals and other retards who allow Blizzard to muster any piece of shit and present it, because they will clap like the retards they are.

[@Kemot300]

To add into the confusion: Just like in WoD when they said there are infinite timelines. Here Blizzard claimed, if I remember, that all alternate timelines lead to the same Shadowland. And then they did nothing with it. Like only one version of each person existed

[@laertesindeed]

Which makes no sense..... because there was already an Ursoc in the pure heart of the emerald dream, and Ashamane, and Ysera. The Emerald Dream was their afterlife. Literally, by Metzen lore. And then the replacement writers made some stupid nonsensical afterlife that has no connection to Metzen lore and somehow there is an Ursoc somewhere else.... and an Ashamane somewhere else..... and a Ysera somewhere else. Not to mention we had already spoken to the ghost of Uther the Lightbringer during Wrath of the Lich King..... and he was not in a Smurf Valhalla.

[@Vermy_NO]

They broke Archimonde and the legion with this didnt they? cause they suddently said something about "aaah,the Archimonde that died in BFMH is the same one as you fight in Hellfire". And that the legion can go between timelines and shit...?

[@laertesindeed]

@@Vermy_NO No, that could have worked.... because it was about existing lore in the fact there was a twisting nether dimension where agents of the burning legion could be reborn. So they were writing canon with the assumption of the mythic version of the raid being done.....where Archimonde gets killed in the twisting nether. You would just have to plug your ears and pretend nobody who did heroic or normal or lfr counts for the canon lore.

[@Sara-it9se]

@@laertesindeed The current writers have been erasing all of Metzen's lore slowly but surely and replacing it with their own fanfiction. We should have never had stepped foot in the Shadowlands and it should have always stayed as a mysterious place only heard in whispers. It just doesn't feel right to be stepping in and out of the afterlife whenever we please nor does it make sense.

[@monkeysk8er33]

WoD wasn't when they verified I finite timelines. That was in Vanilla with the Bronze Dragonflight. We've known this for over a decade. And yes, all timelines merge into one afterlife. That absolutely is the ONLY way to do things. You can have multiple timelines (these are timelines mind you, not universes) but not multiple timeline afterlives (one universe, many timelines). What this does is allow situations like Arthas, Sylvanas, Gul'dan, and Uther to occur. I get that most of the fanbase doesn't comprehend the intricacies of both quantum mechanics and thousands of years of lore, but that's not Blizzard's fault for making a beautiful, complex story, its your fault for being uneducated.

[@spockman4250]

I think that the main problem with Shadowlands is truly the feeling of disconnectivity like you said. And the main let down is they had the perfect opprotunity to have that connectivity via their characters. We should have revisited old characters, developed new characters, and seen the Shadowlands through the eyes of recurring characters. In Bastion we should have been greeted by recruit Maraad and taken to see Anduin Lothar to fight against his fallen friend Uther. In Ardenweld we should have hung out with Cairne Bloodhoof and Sen'jin, both attached to the spirits and nature in their own way. Revendreth should have had the court of harvesters being recruited from enemies of the past who represent those sins (Wrath for Garrosh, Pride for Kael-Thas, Dread for Van Cleef, Envy for Sicco Thermaplug, Desire for Onyxia, etc.) We should have followed the characters we rescued in Maw as they're reunited with people from their past, like Jaina reuniting with her father or Thrall reuniting with Garrosh. We should have had new characters like Calia and Taela, who have explicit personal connections to the Lich King and are being set up as major characters going forward, be developed via working with us and Bolvar so that we can understand and like them more. But no, they either had characters sitting around doing nothing the entire expansion, disappear after 9.1, or be so unremarkable that we don't care about them. The saddest thing to me about Shadowland's story is what it could have been vs what it ended up being.

[@suzie2787]

Damn true. It just surprises me as well that Greymane, for example, doesn't even have the slighest thought that his son, he still so badly wants to avenge, that he could be in the shadowlands as well. And spoken about Garrosh.. where the hell did Garrosh go after we freed him in the raid?? He legit disappeared into thin air, nobody even knows that he was even there... except for the player character.... or am i mistaken?

[@termagant425]

To be honest, the unveiling at the end that every major being is nothing but a damned robot felt waaaay more destructive. It totally demystified and devalued just...everything.

[@Secularis.]

The thing is, they had a "jailer" type character that was behind so many great villains, corrupted Deathwing, Azshara, orchestrated a huge amount of events and has been built almost since the inception of the game and even referenced in war3. But they just had to kill him in a patch like a basic b. Not to mention the other old gods with simillar build up and influence, as they were always rumored to only be imprisoned, even after their defeat

[@atraxian5881]

Of course cosmic beings like the titans couldn't kill the old gods without killing the planet itself, but a bunch of 10 to 25 (or 40) random adventurers can kill creatures as large as continents by poking their pimples with swords.

[@estrellanarvaez-reynolds7387]

THIS! i HATEEE BfA and the fact that no one talks about the huge plot points that were used as simple raids or patches. Azshara and NyaLotha could have been entire separate expansions.

[@AkiRa22084]

What does "kill him in a patch" mean? Every boss ever was killed in a patch. What is wrong with you people? And he got what he deserved. We collected the energy and means to kill him for over a year.

[@estrellanarvaez-reynolds7387]

@@AkiRa22084 i think it means that bosses like Azshara or NZoth should have been expansions rather than patches used to save a crappy current expansion

[@AkiRa22084]

@@estrellanarvaez-reynolds7387 That's silly. Many endbosses were introduced later on, in a patch, as a "surprise". It's boring to base a whole expansion on a single thing. BfA was amazing, even Asmongold admitted it, now that he's sad that Corrupted Gear is gone. There's nothing more fun that 5 mask 5 chest Horrific Vision.

[@nopyronoparty1253]

The Uther memory regarding Arthas was really, REALLY good. However, instead of giving Arthas a final moment with Jaina or Uther, or atleast something showing us that his soul was free, we got 35 anima.....

[@Devin7Eleven]

They were building up to Arthas with the cinematic and everything but in the end, all we get is a Sylvanas monologue who did just as bad things as Arthas.

[@neh1234]

If I didn't know better it's like Blizzard was purposefully trying to put their old characters down just to make their new ones shine more.

[@scribbles1424]

@@Devin7Eleven I'd say she's worse. She made continously evil choices willingly.

[@Lorfo11]

@@scribbles1424 I hate to be that guy, but Arthas did everything he did willingly. He killed most of Stratholme's population (even if, let's be honest, there wasn't much else to do). He chose to betray the mercenaries he paid to fight for him. He stranded his own man in Northrend just so he could pursue his vendetta against Mal'Ganis. And he sacrificed his own humanity to claim Frostmourne out of thirst for revenge. We can argue that he did it all for his Kingdom's safety and such, but at the end of the day, he gave up his soul for vengeance...

[@zaurenstoates7306]

Made me lol my drink outta my mouth (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

[@deadfishy666]

Sylvanas could have been a great villain in my opinion. She spent so much time fighting Arthas to ironically become just like him. It's missed potential.

[@logancopper3385]

But instead she just went and worked for the guy who they retconned to have been controlling arthas the whole time. Makese sense

[@siegwardinspirit]

@@logancopper3385 He showed her the lava eel vore world and suddenly she's on board with remaking reality with Satan, honestly relatable.

[@katsarelas1947]

I also wonder why Bolvar and the Ebon Blade were so focused at first and then…not much really happened with them. This was Bolvar’s plan all through legion…and he and his elite hand-made forces just kinda…watch the whole thing…

[@Dayz3O6]

It is rumored that blizz writers cant remember more than 3 days into the past.

[@samraduns7756]

Still wondering what happened to Nathanos.

[@kou7191]

@@samraduns7756 Hopefully he was disenchanted too

[@AndereundIch]

@@Dayz3O6 it is rumored that the Blizzard writers are a couple murlocs in Human costumes, lead by the true hogger in a murloc costume.

[@Shannara360]

They didn't learn their lesson from Wrathion. He also fell off the face of the earth for a few expansions. Maybe Bolvar will fuck something up in the books. starting the next expansion then fuck off until 2-3 expansions later and come back with a hotter character model?

[@moonrose333]

Sylvanas was a character very dear to my heart since childhood and I can’t stop feeling like they ruined her. She had so much potential and yet… they did THIS.

[@NostraDavid2]

She was such a fun and interesting character in WC3 :(

[@moonrose333]

@@NostraDavid2 Honestly I still loved her all the way up until Teldrassil.

[@xinlou6707]

@@moonrose333 i mean yea look at the Legion cinematic where she just swoops in and gives Varian a nod like a badass she was but man i still can't get over how they fucked her up i don't know did they wanted to do some shit like woman power or other retarded shit? i mean wasn't she an actuall strong respectable female character?

[@scribbles1424]

She's always been a terrible character who had her fan boys writing her into everything.

[@xinlou6707]

She could have been this cold calculating 200 IQ leader but still loyal to the hrde which would make her badass but well we got THIS

[@immortalgamer3960]

I think that Sylvanas becoming Warchief COULD have been good. Taking her out of her established role and having her develop as a character by needing to take a position in the foreground could have been some good character development. Instead they decided to go: "Hey, you know that thing we did that made everyone hate Garrosh? Maybe if we do it with Sylvanas it will work because everyone loves her so much."

[@mellowsunset7730]

So true Nixxiom - the lack of foreshadowing was a huge problem. The fact that shadowlands barely had any connection to previous lore. It just doesn’t feel like a real world.

[@preds43]

Because it's not a real world, it's the Afterlife...

[@preds43]

Just wish the characters were written better

[@neh1234]

@@preds43 Did you really imagine the afterlife of Azeroth to be a weird mishmash of some Draenor forest, angel Stormwind, Draculas castle and ICC 2.0 ? I think that's the core issue.

[@preds43]

@@neh1234 It's the afterlife if the Warcraft Cosmos for Mortal Souls. And the realms we explored have influenced Azeroth in different ways. Nathria is namely influenced by Castlevania and is the home realm of the Dreadlords, Maldraxxus is where much of the Scourges stuff, the plague, etc came from, Ardenweald is the sister realm of the Dream located in the Realms of Death (the Dream exists in the Plane of Life, with one of its lower layers being used as the Blueprint area for Azeroth), and Bastion, which inspired Odyn to make the Halls of Valor and the Val'kyr

[@albodav9602]

@@preds43 yeah we know all of it It doesn't mean it makes any sense to put something new and claim it was the real deal and Azeroth was shaped like this It is like putting new underrealms and claim that these are the ones who give form to Shadowlands.. because of some First Ones Would you really buy it? For it is just an insult to og fanbase and common sense overall

[@Belvie]

One of the things I really hated about this expansion is... we got this cool race of strange travellers who journey between dimensions, they're in these cool caste systems, with spies and intrigue, back stabbing and inter-house politices and have these cool leaders and a really cool aesthetic.... anyway they were called Ethereals and for some reason they were replaced by brokers who do the exact same thing except somehow way worse.

[@LoudWaffle]

Ethereals were the coolest shit ever and it's completely criminal and baffling that they were never included in anything after TBC. If I were a writer or something similar at Blizz I would just be dying to re-include them in the WoW plot. But I guess Blizzard's actions being unexplainable isn't new at this point...

[@llynellyn]

Gotta agree with Sylvanas being awesome in WC3/Vanilla. One of the reasons I made my first character an undead in vanilla was because the race descriptions in the game manual (remember those? lol) basically stated that they were allied with the Horde as neither could stand alone against the Alliance but they weren't a true part of the Horde and had no loyalty to them, only to Sylvanas and her dark plans. It was the first time an MMORPG had let me play an evil/neutral race instead of just different flavours of "good guys".

[@PeteTemplar101]

Man I miss those days. I rolled my Forsaken Rogue at the time with that frame of mind. The humanization of the Forsaken has honestly ruined them as a faction for me. Don't even get me started on the whole "light undead" stuff with Calia 🤬

[@bellcross9985]

True. I never saw Sylvanas as a Warchief. She was the leader of the Undead foremost and second a member of the Horde. What should they have done is go on this neutral/ everyone hate them route. They could easily become a pariah if their only way of breeding was going to battlefields and reviving the dead (both Alliance and Horde).

[@trentsims]

The of the biggest things that set me off about this narrative was that everyone, and I mean everyone was completely incompetent. The Jailor is meant to be this super brilliant master mind and for whatever reason, he watches our character go through a portal to escape the Maw, and takes no measures to insure we can't access the portal again. Even after we come back to break into his tower and free some of our companions, and we know he knows we were there, because he still had his Eye watching us. Then it forces us to make dumb choices like going back into the Maw to save Alexandros Mograine for some reason. Seriously it makes no sense for us to do this. Mograine isn't that important, at least not important enough for us to risk being trapped in the Maw again, after going to all that trouble to escape it. For all we knew, the Jailor would have put is whole army on top of the only portal. We don't even question this idea and as it turns out it was all a trap meant to get us out of the picture, so even the developers agreed it was a dumb idea. However, that wasn't the dumbest idea. The dumbest was us taking the Necrolord's sigil into Torghast, which is basically the Jailors house, all to remove a ward on the sigil meant to prevent the Jailor from making use of the sigil if he did get it. Why did we do that!? We didn't need the sigil at all, our only job was to keep it away from the Jailor, and the ward didn't prevent us from moving it around and hiding it. The NPC's even call out how dumb this idea is and we just say screw you and your logic we're moving the plot forward no matter what it takes! Then there was the Paragon ignoring Devos when she came to her about the Lich King and then getting completely stomped when Anduin attacked her. Seriously, you're like an immortal warrior queen of the afterlife, you are a very big deal. And one mortal rolls up and wipes the floor with you in the seat of your power, while you have your weapon in hand, and are surrounded by your strongest followers. That is just a depressing display. Also Devos deserved better than getting killed in a five man dungeon like that. She was actually an interesting character. Also the Winter Queen sucks at protecting her valuables. Did she seriously think they wouldn't look under her throne? And why was security around it so lax when she knew the enemy was there looking for it? It is like watching a super hero show where none of the actual authorities can actually take down a villain, only in this case the hero is too busy to do it themselves, and the villains suddenly don't know what to do because they never thought they'd get this far.

[@SplatastictheRealOne]

I think what was a kick in the teeth is that it "felt" like A second reason to give Deathknights some dumb/unknown purpose, creating this second unknown faction, Death's Advance or whatever, when Knights of the Ebon Blade would've still worked, with just the "Army" affix attached to it, not to mention When playing as one. The Helm and shards of Domination are too dangerous of an item to be in the hands of a Deathknight, because they can succumb to it's influence yet again, because they're not "Alive" anymore, they are STILL Undead, with just free will, that can be re-shackled, and thus, further increasing the forces of evil's army power, and it makes you say How tf did blizzard miss this Key problem with The Helm and shards of Domination? Anyone that does know, is because it's lazy writing. Not to mention that every great character before this expansion, Uther, Arthas, Draka,Alexandros Mograine and Kael'thas, just became COMPLETE NOBODIES, because of the garbage writing, to make room for this already powerful character Sylvanas Windrunner, and then butcher her character for, a Complete waste of resources and assets known as the infuriating character Zovaal.

[@oluftheexplorer9476]

Sorry to tell you this, but Sylvanas was only a half decent character in Warcraft 3. Everything after that is just her being whiny for the sake of being whiny, and all of a sudden she becomes Rey from Star Wars, a Mary Sue

[@lonelystarslibrary9326]

Not to mention Garrosh, who it seemed Blizzard intentionally tried to ruin butaccidently wrote as one of the few consistent characters in the entire expansion.

[@Glavinius]

So annoying to see interesting characters be underused, i was really hoping for a a reunion with the paladins.

[@randomthings1293]

@@oluftheexplorer9476 yeah, "character seeks vengeance for having been enslaved" is not that original of a concept... With Sylvanas we were very far from Arthas or Illidan territory to begin with, in terms of writing

[@vyacheslav4217]

Shadowlands used to be this mysterious realm, where ghostly apparitions and tortured souls linger(like was shown in dk mount quest). Now its just another few zones with animals, plants and people. Some things need to stay a secret from a writing pov

[@keymacaroon-uh7kj]

For me, the big appeal of the WoW story up until Legion (and to some extent BfA) was that it was made up of highly interesting and complex individual parts which all come together to shape the world of the main narrative, if there even was a main narritive. It was this big clash of thousands of different forces and storylines that all felt individual enough to be unique and interesting in their own right but connected enough to make them blend into the same universe and you were sitting right in the middle, witnessing and experiencing the results of those clashes. The only thing that really connected the origins of the whole universe was the lore bit of everything being made from the WoW equivalent of the big bang, which was acceptable because its a fairly simple event that starts off the complex lore and, well, everything's gotta start form something. Shadowlands fails from this lore perspective because it takes all these complex forces, events, and storylines and tries to melt them together into one mega storyline and then mount it onto the new stuff they made when that was clearly never the intent. Completely ignoring the fact that the new stuff they made sucked, they took all the old stuff and cheapened its value by permenantly combining it with the Shadowlands stuff. There's hardly anything left over from old WoW now that can't just be passed off as part of the Jailers master plan for... something, I'm honestly not sure. By making the Jailer the source of 90% of the story progression, it takes away the quality that made it good in the first place, that being all the individual stuff coming toghether to make what you're experiencing, turning it all into a one dimensional and scripted experience, and then proceeds to replace that quality with nothing of value. And if that wasn't bad enough, since these pieces were never ment to be melted together into one mega plotline, it leaves the story with massive plotholes and turns what were previously perfectly normal story events into nonsense, a third of which still hasn't been explained, another third of which has been "explained" incredibly poorly, and another third of which has been retconed into something completely different and nowhere near as interesting, such as Sylvanas storyline. And again, all of that is ignoring the fact that Shadowlands itself makes no sense and is a blatantly stupid and self contradictory narrative.

[@arcamean785]

So many people hated legion because of the weapon grind but I feel like personally not only was the story engaging but even a casual like myself could have fun in that expansion. BfA was a nice story IMO but the gameplay was "eh" not terrible not great just forgettable. SL was so disjointed that as a roleplayer I'm honestly tempted to "retcon" that time period or act like it was a nightmare because they got knocked into a coma :p

[@keymacaroon-uh7kj]

@@arcamean785 Agreed, I honestly find that its not only easy, but makes the story 10x more enjoyable if you just wipe Shadowlands from your immediate memory or just use your own fanon version of Shadowlands that actually makes sense in its place.

[@Kaleestraza]

You're exactly right about the total loss of a diverse world and smaller stories. Metzen never would have sidelined the night elves in their own story like this.

[@cultist1762]

I'd add that in Blizzcon they said if they do show Arthas they'd have to be very careful and delicate as he was such a beloved character and they failed completely with that.

[@zeo5527]

undoing their previous lore threads by poorly retconning aspects of the story in order to piggyback off the work of the earlier writers is par for the course for blizzard.

[@mudshrooze]

20 fucking years of lore raped butcherd and destroyed by this fan fiction expansion. I hate it I didnt play past the first month and i... cant go back they have ruined wows story and that's the only reason I loved the game

[@polsar749]

You hit the nail on the head. I stopped caring about Shadowlands before it even started, when Sylvanus effortlessly owned Bolvar in the trailer and it was clear she was just going to get away free despite everything she had done in the previous expansion. Though I do think you should have also mentioned that her final "punishment" in SL was basically becoming the new Jailer. Yeah, she has to hunt down all the lost souls in the Maw, but she was more or less already doing that the entire expansion (granted now she's sending them to the arbiter instead of absorbing their power). The players definitely did not wipe out all the Jailer's forces, we didn't free everyone, we didn't even get to interact with a lot of the stuff going on down there; and now Sylvanus is de facto in charge. Personally, I think Blizzard is 100% going to try and pull a full redemption arc out of their ass at some point in the near future.

[@avoidingpear8414]

Here first I guess. The main gripe was not being synergetic with the old lore and destroying the main all time favourite things like arthas, the helm of domination, Frostmourne and all that

[@mudshrooze]

You werent though.

[@mudshrooze]

But yes they ruined everything

[@avoidingpear8414]

Probably not! Internet lag and whatnot

[@daniellook7165]

Imagine, if all of this was just Vol’jins vision… suddenly start at the moment where he choices a warchief, but ends up being someone else

[@aureate]

A retcon would be welcome at this point.

[@Woozy.0]

Please God

[@jakahawk]

Basically reiterating what you said about Sylvanas, but there is a difference between a strong female character and a "strong female character", and this is just a problem with other female characters in WoW, like Jaina for example, who were already strong female characters in WC3 and early WoW, but Blizz decided to add that *touch* to these characters, which then turns them into "strong female characters"

[@termagant425]

It could have become interesting if she'd somehow doublecrossed the jailer in the end and took the power from him. Some really, really smart move nobody would have seen coming. I'd have loved that. but noooooo....

[@Shannara360]

Almost every example of a "strong female character" in WoW ends up going insane or is insane. Jaina goes crazy, Tyrande goes crazy, Sylvanas goes crazy, Ashara in WC3 started off crazy but was one of the most powerful beings on Azeroth ever. If they are strong and female (and get significant screen time) they are or go crazy eventually... It's real strange.

[@termagant425]

@@Shannara360 Its kinda sad that "strong" always seems to mean "kickass and dominant". I really miss some smart, cunning tacticians which convince through charisma and unexpected moves.

[@Shannara360]

I forgot to mention Maeve Shadowsong.

[@Mars-mf4pr]

​@@termagant425 it's such a bummer, too. because when this happens it really overshadows some well written female characters. blizz really shoot themselves in the foot with this stuff.

[@David-ux5wn]

Blizzard didn't even have the guts to kill off Sylvanas. Instead they gave her the predicted redemption arc... now she lurks through the maw collecting souls or whatever.... In Legion we got the redemption arc of Illidan, now he lurks in space watching over Sargeras... But at least he was made into a believable character through the story of Legion. Sylvanas was just like "oh part of her soul was missing, that's why she was evil" and now she is no longer evil.

[@melonman6522]

In the Zoval fight, his mechanics fall into three categories, the room itself, domination magic and his mace. The first two things are the most important things in order to not die, and neither are his, the room is just the First Ones' control room, Domination magic is just something he stole from the Primus, the mace is the only thing that seems to be his. This super powerful character and the only thing that actually belongs to him and him alone is his mace, the least dangerous of the three categories of mechanics in his fight.

[@BrokenTablesPodcast]

It's much easier to figure out than most would think... Ask people who their fav characters are and it's usually Sylvanas and Lich King Arthas... You had one kill the other and then turn into a terribly written enemy...

[@kohlicoide2258]

I was a big Sylvanas Fan, Forsaken is one of my favorit faction and Legion was for me like "Sylvanas is now Warchief? fucking nice!" then came BF.. then SL and in the end my only tought was "Please just kill that stupid character ffs" "You died als well written character or lived long enough to became a joke." was Sylvanas for me in the end. Sorry for my english

[@hausy]

Making the Jailer the reason sylvannas and arthas did the things they did is such a huge cop out. Arthas was a vain prince who couldn’t handle not having complete control over events happening around him and it drove him mad, landing him in a tragic, yet powerful situation. It’s so sad what was done to his character.

[@BoredOuttaMyMind]

Not having control? Vain? Arthas was seeing his people that he loved and cared for die repeatedly around himself and having to then re-kill them when they were summoned back as undead spawn. If anything, the man cared too deeply and grieved without rest or a chance to collect himself I’d never call Arthas vain. He cared too much for others for me to consider that adjective an apt one

[@verti3213]

Arthas named his horse Invincible for the gods sake. He was such an awesome character because he was FLAWED. He became mad because he loved his people too much but at the same time he was incredibly arrogant and decided to do things himsrlf instead of seeking help.

[@LoudWaffle]

Arthas is one of the best executed characters in gaming, and deserves his legendary iconic status amongst fans. Yet it seems like his perfect decline of morality was a complete fluke by the writers.

[@MrXaihnz]

I'm convinced the entire story of World of Warcraft from the end of Catalcysm to present was created by N'Zoth as a part of the return of the black empire. All expansions since then have seemed like madness.

[@schippes24]

i loved MOP to be honest, dont know why people hate on it so much.. the worst part about it was "garrosh here, garrosh there" urgh :D

[@MrXaihnz]

@@schippes24 gameplay wise sure, MoP was great. It's lore tho? Not so much. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against pandaren or pandaria's lore, it was all very rich. My problem was with taking Garrosh, an established original World of Warcraft character, and completely massacring his story to push the expansions narrative. Garrosh did nothing wrong and WoW's writers did him dirty.

[@Adam-082]

The character assassination they did with so many characters in BFA/shadowlands was just sad. The worst being Arthas. Our boy Arthas was done so dirty It actually hurt alittle seeing them do that. When Blizzard told us they would not us arthas in shadowlands unless it was in a meaningful way and then consolidate him to a weapons soul gem and then Sylvanis just tells him to get lost and be forgotten :****( Just heart breaking. I don't think I can ever forget or forgive Blizzard for that.

[@michaelbeck4587]

I love how even Blizz hypes up Wrath Classic like they know on some level that the game was much better back then and still they move farther and farther away from everything that MADE it great. Like when BfA came out I can only imagine the meeting going something like this: "Hey, you know everything that made Legion so much fun? Let's go ahead and do the EXACT OPPOSITE with BfA."

[@Tragedous]

The biggest reason for me was just that despite being a lore nerd, everything was just confusing and needlessly retconning, by 9.1 I found I did not care about ANY character from here (Ve’nari and Denathrius was cool enough) I did not care about where I was, what was going on, who was talking or what they were saying because I knew none of it would matter in the next xpac.

[@laertesindeed]

There was nothing cool or interesting about denathrius or venari other than the quality of their voice actors. The former was a malfunctioning robot vampire, and the latter was a robot confidence scam with no origin. Literally, we "NEVER" once learned what any broker is......if they are a life form, or previously living soul, or manufactured robot, or anything else. Not one quest or voice line ever gave us any idea or reason to attach them anywhere in our lore, anywhere.

[@Tragedous]

@@laertesindeed true about the brokers and the whole robot part is just dumb I agree, i like the titan watcher robots but this just felt like a poor imitation. but I do like venari, I can’t really name a specific reason but I enjoyed her character. Denathrius I like because he was the only villain in this whole xpac who made me care. To me he had charm, a good asthetic and somewhat of a story, had he been the primary villain and given more focus I think he could have been a good foe

[@laertesindeed]

@@Tragedous Except the titan keepers were not written as robots..... in the Metzen lore we were being told that we should kind of assume the titans bonded a normal living soul into some material from Azeroth's crust to serve as their workers because they were too big to do the details work on the surface. That was why Metzen named Eonar as "the life binder" ...... but then Danuser ignores all that and doesn't know any of that and didn't bother reading or researching what he was writing for.

[@AnxiousPsyche1003]

Im tired of people praising Denathrius and Revendreth or whatever, it was literally just generic vampires carried by the quality of Denathrius voice actor, take that away and its as shallow as the rest of the shadowlands

[@laertesindeed]

@@AnxiousPsyche1003 Yep...... it was a very poor re-naming and re-imagining of the San'layn into something totally unconnected in a different dimension.... which does not match the existing warcraft lore.

[@cynnabean2797]

Honestly at this point, if blizzard were to say "this was an alternate timeline and never happened" I'd be grateful.

[@ElBandito]

Just don't play WoW.

[@SuperXdrake]

For me, there was no real purpose for the jailer. You need a bad guy with a visible motive. For the other xpacs it was easy. BC:stop illidan because he wants to do visible evil looking things with his possie. WotLK: stop Arthur from unleashing undeath on the world. Cata: stop an old god corrupted dragon from destroying the world because the old gods want it that way. MoP: bad guys here differed, but each one had a motive. Lei-shen wanted to get his empire back. Garrosh wanted to "make the horde great again" and the sha were just ethereal beings of negative emotions. WoD: orcs wanted to invade azeroth because they wanted to invade and plunder. Legion: kinda self explanatory. Bfa: faction war over resource that slowly became stop old god from corrupting and controlling everything because he wants to control. And SL: stop the jailer because he wants to do stuff for some reason that is never made clear, his "motives" are never made clear in the slightest only until the last moments before we take his batteries out, and EVEN THEN we dont have any hint of who or what he dud this for. For me, a good bad guy is something you can, if only a small but, understand or comprehend its motives or why we need to stop him. SL story was the worst as a hole. I enjoyed revendreth personally, but the over arcing story fell flat, and I was as bored playing it as Baine was during the whole xpac. (Why they do my boy dirty and just put him in time out for the whole xpac I mean really, and NO CAIRNE!! WHY NOT HAVE HIM REUNITE WITH HIS DAD, THE WHOLE MAW THING HAPPENED WAY AFTER CAIRNE DIED I MEA COME ON!!!)

[@termagant425]

You really have to sit back and let that stuff slowly sink in. They retconned SO MUCH of the old, established lore. Famous characters which such a rich background. Great villains. And everything, all of it happened because of the plan of an uninteresting, lame character you dont get to know about at all. With some lame lines babbling about a greater evil. And this guy...this guy all of the rich lore got butchered for...is nothing but a stupid robot, created by the next instance of cosmic escalation. That somehow feels like really enjoying a good meal for years, then someone suddenly drops by and tells you that its made of snails. Yeah, i know some people like that. But ugh...the lore just doesnt taste good anymore, knowing that the godlike beings are just bots.

[@preds43]

There is a reason for everything, SL has a reason also: Stop Zovaal from Dominating the Cosmos and rewriting Reality for his own twisted ways. Why did Zovaal want to do this? Because he went over the edge cause he thought the Design was flawed and that creating 6 Cosmic Forces and separating them in their own dualities was stupid and that the 7th power, whatever it may be, would consume them all in the end regardless, making the pattern temporary, no matter what. He had a good motive, but he way of doing it was stupid at best, and his characterization overall was fucking retarded as shit at worst.

[@preds43]

@@termagant425 Would argue a lot of it was recontextualized tbh. Reminder, the Old Lore did some weird shit also, with the LK and Ner'Zhuls soul and how it was with Arthas, to the WoTA stuff, to the addition of the Void Lords, to them rewriting Sargeras and Titan lore entire like 4 times over...

[@MattBrain9336]

The Jailer wanted to destroy all creation in preparation for an enemy that wants to destroy all creation 10/10 story telling Blizzard

[@Vermy_NO]

I think Sylvanas got somewhat ruined for me around legion launch, I tought it was cool that she became warchief. it looked like she was finally gonna be a part of the horde. (compared to before). Quickly changed my mind about her in Stormheim tho..

[@oluftheexplorer9476]

At least Genn got to bitch slap her across a room. 😆

[@docrob2236]

Clearly Blizz was moving to a “larger world” for her with that scene after Voljin dies then they 180’d that real quick.

[@Kaleestraza]

Not sure how stormheim is different from all the other shit she's done tbh.

[@Vermy_NO]

@@Kaleestraza during the prepatch to legion, when she got the mantle of warchief. She spoke like she was gonna bring honor to the Horde. But it took a quick flip when the questing did start (Stormheim, the first we see her in legion)

[@Jeffry_Ab]

The existence of the jailer is like that scene from Star wars sequels with the ship ramming an entire fleet at light speed, in the sense that it retroactively ruins the entire franchise, the journey of the characters that you love, the pain they went through, the stakes in place and their heroism it all becomes meaningless in retrospective

[@luckynugget9576]

One thing that has burned into my memory. Before Shadowlands, Blizzard said that the Eternal Ones power level was Titan++. Not one, not even the Jailer came close to displaying power anywhere near the Titans. WoD suffered from a lack of content and story but at least what we got wasn't on Shadowlands level.

[@warllockmasterasd9142]

no no. the Jailors power was Titan++

[@bayard6954]

@@warllockmasterasd9142 Yet it feels like you could put a thousand jailers in front of Sargeras and he'd cut them all in half

[@termagant425]

Thats somehow funny, right? Now we know that the eternal ones are just robots made by the first ones. So..they are...eternal ++? Power escalation is one of the fastest ways to loose any interest from your audience. Sargeras stabbed a planet, how can anyone imagine what planetstabbing++ would look like? And, more importantly, why would anyone care? Some would just say "nope, that not my job i dont own the deathstar which would be needed to stop this." Others would just add in "i dont want to fly the deathstar im here to play a fantasy mmo, not some scifi nonsense. Keep things down to azeroth please."

[@warllockmasterasd9142]

@@bayard6954 because the Eternal ones are just bigger Titan Forged, and the First ones are just super Titans. And Zooval is Sargeras 0.5. But more importantly. We still have no Clue what the Story even was.

[@mikhailg4667]

For me, it was having absolutely no foreshadowing for Jailer. It was so hard to not feel like they just did Sargeras 2.0 (who was built over 20 years. From slaying Mehdiv with Lothar in WC1 to playing Horde as Guldan opened his tomb in WC2.... zovaal could've been joevaal or bobvaal, just felt unoriginal and cheap...)

[@Voldrim359]

We had a lot of foreshadowing about Mue zala with Odyn's lore, also foreshadowing about Shadowlands on the Death Knoghts campaing when you create one and you need an undead horse... But nothing, absolutely nothing about the Jailer

[@jennifersmith-clark6418]

The thing about the Sylvanas storyline was that given her entire story up till Lich King she was out to get revenge against Arthas for what he did to her, Nathanos, her homeland, her people and the Forsaken. It didn't even make a little sense that she would ever be in league with the very person who orchestrated those very events. Sylvanas isnt stupid and considering she has necromancy at her disposal it wouldn't have taken much time for her to realize the Jailers responsibility in all that she and everyone she had cared about suffered, The guy even stole half of her soul (indirectly) and kept it like a paperweight. The past Sylvanas would have been so enraged by this little tidbit that no promises the Jailer could have possibly made would have persuaded her to be anything but a double agent at best rather than a willing co-conspirator. What did he promise her exactly or anyone else? The thing was you never saw what was promised or began to understand what would have been so compelling to make so much havoc and make besties with the person who arguably was your worst enemy.

[@Akiraspin]

Nathanos is a retcon self-insert of a creepy dude that works for the writing department of Blizzard. He literally tried to make the character look like himself so he "could bang Sylvanas". They had zero relationship prior to BFA other than him being "a pretty good tracker and loyal to Sylvanas."

[@atomicpunk8878]

Another big aspect is that we as players weren't grounded any more. What do I mean with this? 1st: The story went nuts. While many mysteries are still unsolved (what makes Azeroth special, what titan would she become, what's the nature of light and void) SL opened a whole new book of questions. What makes Azeroth THIS special? Who are the First Ones when not titans? And our so far known picture of the cosmos does not fit any more. So there is now more confusion in the story than before. And 2nd: We were thrown into a completely new world. We learned that the Nathrezim played us since the beginning of the franchise. So nothing we ever did matters anymore. Even the defeat of Arthas was just a tiny throwback for the Jailer. At the end he was close to getting what he wanted. But we even don't know what makes Azeroth's Anima so special that you can recreate existence itself. That's so over the top that players cannot connect to this any more. It's like getting depressions because you realize you are just a grain of sand in the endless expanse of the universe. And I really hope I don't have a trauma from this. Because what does the new expansion even matter in the endless expanse of the great dark beyond? Damn, this is like the Hobbits coming back to the Shire. >.

[@Good4uGrim]

Now that I think about this, if the Jailer is gone, wouldn't our DK's now cease to wield the power that they hold..? The Scourge also would be gone since all of that sourced to the Jailer... But the Scourge and DKs still remain just like The Demon Hunters meaning Sargeras hasn't been fully defeated yet. Lore lately is weird for WoW, just ends up with the puzzles and some logic that makes no sense to how the outcome played in the end... xD

[@preds43]

Not really, as Domination isn't of the Jailers origin, it's of the Primus'. And regardless, just because you made something, that doesn't mean it HAS to die with you. The Titans made a lot of things that influenced our existence, same with the Old Gods and whatnot, yet we're still around when the Titans' physicsl bodies fell to Sargeras, and we didn't return to our OG Titan esc forms when we defeated Yogg'Saron and the other Old Gods. Why would it be similar here? I mean, the Maw is still around, and that was used to be the Jailers prison essentially.

[@preds43]

Besides, Sargeras didn't originate the Fel, so it's not like the Demon Hunters would go regardless, even if you were to use that logic. Sure, he gave Illidan his magic eyes and whatnot, but it's not like Sargeras is solely responsible for that magic, or the power of Disorder entire. You'll have to talk to the Progenitors about that one.

[@Good4uGrim]

@@preds43 I know lol, its like the Death Knight part mainly, I know there obviously is a source clearly beyond Sargeras but its like for the DKs it seems to originate from the Jailer, the only thing I can see why the power persists would only be the Shadowlands existence for the whole DK and Undead

[@preds43]

@@Good4uGrim It can originate from another source, but it doesn't need to end with them though. The Death Knights appear to be forever cursed regardless.

[@Good4uGrim]

@@preds43 Valid point, I just find it funny anyways since the lore doesn't entirely add up fully to everything, the cosmos though does, it just doesn't seem to coordinate how the powers would fade. Plus the only flaw with this shadowlands lore was obviously that we didn't even have proper buildup of Zovaal for old expansions anyways like its said. If Blizzard is gonna touch the cosmos they need it to be precise and the build up also needs to be accurate and hinted upon, like every story teller has to hint the sources or reveal it in some sort of ancient discovery, but keep a lot of info of their existence, power level and such obscure until they appear in the future with the story. The only thing that will be the issue is the players who pay no attention to it, as with BFA we never got any real hint of Zovaal with Sylvannas if we chose to follow our faith in her or not. It was a mess and if BFA had us heading to northrend instead and finding these hints it would've been so different. So Blizzard needs to next time give us tiny glimpses at the existence of these beings like they did with the Titans and Sargeras, otherwise we are left dumbfounded and our character would be like [Player]: "Who are you?" [Zovaal]: "I'm the very creator of the very Lich King and Frostmourne..." [Player Character]: "Eh?"

[@lordcorgi6481]

The biggest problem with Shadowlands story is that it made absolutely no sense. If there is one person that would want to kill the being behind the Lich King it would be Sylvanas.

[@Tom-Pendragon]

Shadowland did its job. It set us free.

[@Migolcow]

I'll add that for all "this is the Afterlife!" expansion Shadowlands claimed to be...we had precious little in the way of famous characters and lore. Where was Jaina meeting her father, or Baine meeting Cairne? Where was Archmage Antonidas? Where was Medivh? Grommosh? Kinndy Sparkshine? We got a few random outlands villains, Garrosh part VIII the re-reckoning, and a few other tidbits. But otherwise the plot centered on blue people having a pointless civil war, the vampires are scheming something and this place called Korthia that noone liked.

[@naturalmystic5098]

Sylvannas was cool in WC3. I've heard that blizzard have different staff members involved with the Lore since WC3.

[@Sara-it9se]

I called it back at the start of Legion, the moment Sylvanas was announced as the new Warchief I knew that it was gonna eventually end in disaster. She had already proven herself to be quite blood thirsty and vile so puting her in that positon of power was a recipe for disaster, it was calling for a Garrosh 2.0. She should have stayed in the background as that was how she best worked as, but Blizzard wanted to cash in on her popularity and ended up ruining not only her as a character, but the entire franchise as well. I'll be glad when this expansion is done and I hope we don't have to hear from her for a long time, and I'm saying this as someone who used to adore her.

[@termagant425]

Thats the sad part, right? That so much of a rich lore is retconned for such a chear "payoff" at the end of SL. For a dumb robot, the whole magic was sucked out. I told a friend of mine who doesnt play warcraft about it and all i got was minutes of laughter.

[@Sara-it9se]

@@termagant425 Don't get me started about what they did to Arthas. The most iconic villain in the entire franchise turned into 35 Anima. That was the biggest slap in the face to age old fans. And as for the Jailer, yea, even Hogger scales higher than him on the villain tier list. I really hope these last two expansions were nothing but a fever dream we wake up from caused by Xavius and the Emerald Nightmare and we're back in Legion.

[@termagant425]

@@Sara-it9se Yeah...that would be nice. But i very much doubt it since they didnt really had the guts to go on stage and admit their mistake. They just blamed someone else who aparently "forced them because they wrote the story into a corner". If you cant admit mistakes, theres no real hope.

[@houseviking4352]

For me it was for the following reasons. 1-Plot hooks turned into plot holes = In BfA, we had Vol'jin talking to us about something ''hunting them'' in the shadows, that he would in turn, ''hunt back''. Finally, we never saw him, heard from him or walked in his footsteps whatsoever. Completely backstaged, forgotten and ignored. 2-Universal rules casually broken = We're told the Arbiter decides where you go but... Elune had th victims of Teldrassil ''flagged to Ardenweald in order to solve the drought'' so, what is it, Arbiter decides or not!? 3-Great storylines sacrileged = Athas, Kael-thas, Ner'zhul, Garrosh. Great memories, brand names for great, truly morally grey stories. Arthas had his decisions downplayed to give value to a villain, Kael'thas was for a moment important to finally join Vol'jin in the backstage of irrelevancy, Ner'zhul and Garrosh were just labels. Label on a boss fight and a 1-minute cinematic to permanently scrap an awesome character that we loved to hate/hated to love... A disoriented, inconsistent, over-tuned and underachieving expansion.

[@Saiku]

Shadowlands should have been entirely about Revendreth and Ardenweald, Blizzard's take on Curse of Strahd and the Fae Wild from D&D. It could have been such a great expansion.

[@SociedadeDoRPG]

Absolutely! And being realms of death, not realms of the afterlife

[@ryanebrecht5651]

I like that idea.

[@Arouxayis]

lol no. modern blizzard has all the resources and still fails on every game they make.

[@Saiku]

@@Arouxayis Whatever you say Nancy, but Ardenweald, Revendreth and Castle Nathria were actually pretty good. Best parts of the expansion. The wagon pulling up to you in the Revendreth quest was already a reference to Curse of Strahd. Imagine how much better it would have been if you removed all the dogshit jailer/first ones nonsense. Denathrius was the best villain WoW has seen since the Lich King himself.

[@SociedadeDoRPG]

@@Saiku Denathrius should have been the big bad of the expansion, with how much power he has with his nathrezim network of spies.

[@BreakerBeat]

An expansion can be bad, but once it's over you get a new story. But the established lore doesn't go away - something that I think writers should always have in mind. They may have thought seeing the afterlife was cool, but it was just for ONE expansion. Now, for the rest of Warcraft, the mystery of the afterlife have been taken away. They have explained the mechanics of death and there is no wonder left in that. They did the same with the Titans. Originally these mysterious "creators", gods of the warcraft universe. Now we know everything about them. We also understand so much about other planets (we have even visited some), it's like we are starting to understand the whole Warcraft universe, which is a shame because it's a fantasy world and requires some sense of wonder and mystery in my opinion. We can never feel like adventurers again, because we, in a medieval time, have traveled cosmos, defeated gods, explored the afterlife and so much more over the top stuff. These are things they can never go back on, it's part of the game. Sometimes I wish they would consider how all of this impacts the general feeling of the game down the years instead of just thinking of "oh, how can we make some hype for ONE expansion, regardless of how it ages or works with all the other expansions?".

[@disguy6556]

My main problem with shadowlands was how incredibly lame the main villian was: the jailor. They tell players hes a super genius bad ass, but everyone knows they pulled him out of their ass in the last few years so when they tell you about how he orchestrated all these schemes behind the scene it just comes across as cheap and undermines the storylines it rewrites. And its hard to see him as all that powerful or scary when you so easily avoid him and thwart his efforts at every turn, you start off the expansion by diving straight into his realm, where he trys to stop you and fails. Also he is very much like Sargeras so you can't help but compare the two but in that comparison the jailor falls short because Sargeras was a cosmic horror that could cut planets in half and the only thing sparing Azeroth from him was that he was litterly to big and bad ass to be summoned there, where as the jailor is just a very convicing dom. Also there are a bunch of little lore things that I think were handled poorly like Elune being a "life" entity instead of the light entity she was clearly intented to be.

[@YiaMdj]

You can't make your fanbase hate a character so much and then give her a redemption arc. The fuck.

[@FreedomAndPeaceOnly]

*Why the Story of Shadowlands Failed so Terribly* Because first Arthas was betrayed - then excluded from the story - and afterwards berated by the most unfit nuclear Karen to ever rise her disgusting voice at him. 😏

[@mudshrooze]

The entire expansion was a ahitty fan fiction that unfortunately blizzard roled with

[@OmniDan26]

zased

[@DrPluton]

I'll be honest. I've wanted to kill Sylvanas since Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. Even when I made my first Horde character many years ago, I was confused as to why my orc shaman would be allied with somebody who is an enemy of all life.

[@sabretoothMajs]

When they first announced shadowland I instantly went NOPE. Going into the afterlife, knowing what is behind death and the fact that it was a place you could basically walk in and out of it ruins the implications of death. The beauty in death is not knowing what's beyond. That and that character arcs either didnt lead anywhere or completely into the trash. -The lich king was just a pawn. -Sylvanas doing all this shit only to turn around in the end. -Elune and the night warrior set up spawn doom, when ultimately nope. -ignoring Anduins past struggles. Now giving him a new one that almost shattered all that he built up in just just one patch.

[@DeusVultTKD]

The second they touched Arthas I was done with retail.

[@Finnboy-ml5jv]

The story was rewritten form the ground up like 6 months before the expansion came out. The story that was in the leak looked much more interesting.

[@kirgan1000]

What was the leaked story?

[@Riftrender]

@@kirgan1000 commrnting so i get to see answer.

[@Finnboy-ml5jv]

@@kirgan1000 There is no exact script. We don’t know exactly what it was. But here are some of it’s elements in this Belullar video kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4vLeWurrJumrq8 (rewind to the beginning of the video I accidentally made the link to send you to the middle)

[@avoidingpear8414]

Yeah they had something in mind for the old gods doing evil stuff in the shadowlands

[@avoidingpear8414]

Whoops nevermind

[@snygnyx9242]

My primary issue is that Blizzard were and still are cowards about killing off Sylvanas because she was being blatantly evil for so long. But no, it totally wasn't her fault, ever. She was being mind controlled.

[@mustafaaziz4245]

Totally, it sucked! Jailer is the worst character and Sylvanas was so poorly written and Tyrande is horrible.

[@mudshrooze]

They ruined them

[@aeo-gard]

I really feel like Zovaal having no build up, no character, no real dialogue, no real motivations and then only revealing there's an even BIGGER, MORE BADDER BAD out there despite him being built up as basically the ultimate evil? It ruined so much, even more than I think ruining Sylvanas did. But I think gameplay wise the expansion still had quite a lot of friction for most players that made the game feel really unfun, especially with huge content droughts.

[@rqn2274]

Soon much wasted potential. This could have been one of the best expansions ever. Sylvanas should stay in the center - her goal should be to secure a different future for her and others in the afterlife. We should have believed in what she does and should try to help her. We enter the place where Lich Kings armor and sword were created. A different world, where plans for our world were made. A place that created Arthas. How fascinating this should have been! We should discover and explore this world. With time Sylvanas should discover that what she does will not bring anything good to her or the world. That things are set up as they are for a reason. She should have struggled with herself and get to some conclusion at the end. Even the burning of Tedrassil (although is should have never happened) could be explained to us by Sylvanas - "we do this now to help us secure a better future. There is a need for those poor souls in Shadowlands now. Once we redo shadowlands all of them will live and be happy again". And great - I would have believed that and help her. In fact such promise would put a lot of pressure and expectations from us players on Sylvalas to make her plan work and bring them all back. And a lot of those things are there but done all wrong. Jailar should have never existed or at least not as he does. He is the worst character in WOW history. Flat, cartoonishy evil and uninteresting. Sylvanas should be a relatable character and not an evil maniac too. The story ends up being silly and childish rather then fascinating and engaging.

[@Majora48]

Don’t forget that saying the jailer made the lich king actually retcons pre written lore that Kil’Jaden made the helm with Ner’zul and Frostmourn to boot. It’s flat out disrespectful of current writers to cheaply disregard the old stories because they lack the ability to think of something original to make us care.

[@Gre-unit]

You can tell the amount of sexual harassment at a company by how much they push their female characters. The more they push, the more they harass.

[@sparv1067]

Great logic 😂

[@ThomasdWell]

Steve Danuser doesn't read the lore, at least that's what I hope, this should have been Bolvar's big come back leading the death knights and us to finally bring down Sylvanas scheming, but instead he sits around for 2 years with Bane who really could have grown as a character by meeting his dad in the Afterlife since he hasn't really had anything to do for some time. I remember when Burning Crusade was considered a stretch by the Blizzard team cause it was 'too scifi' but it still had the basics to make it feel like Warcraft. Shadowlands is lore for a different game that we didn't ask to play.

[@rawcyan8730]

Sylvanas’s story has always been about being forced into situations beyond her control and seeking vengeance against those who did so. Tbh her character type isn’t fit to be a leader, but she took lead of the forsaken in rebellion against the Lich King. Rather than making her Warchief, her story should have progressed to her trying to find someone who could actually lead the free undead

[@fistofram5526]

She could. The Horde accepting the Forsaken can be weird, but not entirely wrong. Baine could have easily been warchief. It's just stupid. Fuck that game.

[@NeoDragonCount]

Zovaal was a fanfic writer's villain who was responsible for every goddamn thing from the Titans, to the Burning Legion, to the Old Gods to every ultra-intricate factor like people going literal timeline hopping, the World Souls, going to Argus and all that, so many variables, and that Zovaal was just somehow behind each and every occurrence. Was he behind goddamn Hogger and his hill too? And the fact he was never alluded to, nor any other crap about the afterlife (thanks for demystifying Elune, fuck you Blizzard) makes it sting even more.

[@DarkRogue107]

Well said. Zovaal was never mentioned, ever. Dragonflight is now re-hasing Cataclysm lore hopefully to not erroneously retcon it for some stupid Alternate Universe plot twist they now use just to pathetically rewash their lore, that's pretty much over.

[@NeoDragonCount]

@@DarkRogue107 Read about it; apparently the Dragon Aspects can just somehow regain the powers they lost in Cataclysm because they say so.

[@Dayz3O6]

I came back a bit for that new dk drake mount and couldnt stay long afterward at all, seeing oribus again is a nightmare.

[@tili4710]

They undermined one of the most influencial warcraft characters (Arthas) for the sake of a random bald guy who has... what? 5 scenes in total?

[@daniellook7165]

They needed to focus more on the old lovable characters, like the ashbringer, Thralls mom, Uther, the blood elf prince, like every quest was maybe about their past life a flash back to Azeroth. Idk I just wished we focused more on the old favorites that are dead. That’s what I expected.

[@lordskyline9766]

To sum up my opinion about anything story past MoP with one quote: "They replaced mystery of the cosmos with something so much less compelling. An explanation "

[@Wildchildinc]

Blizzard could've easily done something epic with Sylvanas and Arthas getting redemption.

[@IgnizNova]

instead they give redemption to sylvanas and used Arthas to fuel her "history" a whole expansion just to redeem sylvanas, in the most retarded way ... pretty stupid ...

[@Esty568]

Denathrius should have been the main villain and the Jailer is the side-villain betrayed by him. This would have made so much more sense, since the Dreadlords all work for Denathrius and they have been known to manipulate everything. This would have been in character! Also this being the afterlife of the Warcraft universe, makes no sense. It’s not spiritual, it has no real structure, it’s just a themepark. Where are all the innocent souls spending their eternal rest? Is it possible for them to be with their loved ones? Is there any place for just good souls who are not warriors? No. Nobody thought about that.

[@Hungry73]

In my humble opinion, i like the stories of the covenants and the inner workings of the way creation and the afterlife works in the WoW universe. all that i found very interesting. I was the Jailor, and sylvanas to a lesser extent. you introduced Thanos but gave him like 12 lines in the expac. there was know way any of us would be able to connect with that character. but thats not the worse part, the worse part was the " it was the jailor all along" aspect. you re wrote/retconned years and years of lore to make him fit into the story. and dont forget what they did to my boy arthas... they did him dirty at the end

[@siegwardinspirit]

Also... also... why did they pull that bullshit at the end with "I was only protecting you from a bigger bad." He said fuck all, to anyone. Neither to his siblings, nor to us. Ooh death comes to your world. Ooh you cannot escape. Ooh I will mind control everyone and leave Sylvanas with the rest of her soul to toy with her. Wait I'm a good guy, stop beating me up!

[@evgeniiferdiuk9535]

"Sylvanas was fan favorite character" What? Who liked her ever? I never cared about her. None of my friends who played WOW ever cared about her. Yes, Shadowlands were a problem because of her, but not because she was changed or something, but because she was put in the front of expansion. "Shadowlands weren't in the lore" True. That was a problem. It could have been great if the Shadowlands would have been filled with characters we know, but instead we found the Jailer who was an absolute nonsense.

[@nexmeles8023]

To be fair, it was an epic conclusion to a story a decade in the making! The main villians machinations and their goals culminating in a surprising twist that explained a great deal in the end, and lead us to a fight in the very ends of creation to save our world... Oh.. wait, that Was FF14. Shadowlands was a the suddenly culmination of the story line set up in WarCraft 3 where the Jailer set up all of this in a game of 5D chess, the Jailer whom was never actually mentioned in the story until now, and was just another stepping stone to an even greater threat so this was pretty much ultimately pointless. I hope Dragonflight does well.. because oh my god.

[@M0DIDDLY]

Don't know if we can forget how Blizzard lied about what the BFA story would be and that they weren't going to redo MoP, only to redo MoP but worse that led to Shadowlands. Feels badman

[@gregww101]

The moment Bolvar lost the fight, Shawdowlands lost its audience.

[@dan240393]

The first real Big Bad in the Warcraft series (Gul'dan), is a necromancer. He specifically fucks around with the spirits of the dead. WoW characters regularly interact with ghosts, phantasm and hauntings; theres a ghost quest in most zones. And at no point have any spirits ever mentioned any sort of Elysian Fields situation. It just doesn't fit.

[@dumah8227]

That fucking crown...... That its so infuriating

[@mudshrooze]

The very start if the expansions was just fan fiction bullshit

[@dumah8227]

@@mudshrooze agree honestly

[@jordanread5829]

When it comes to Sylvanas being at the forefront of the story, I feel like it could've worked if the framing of the story was different. This applies to Shadowlands as well. In contrast, Bungies Destiny 2 expansion, The Witch Queen, and even the seasonal content of Beyond Light brought Savathun, a schemer from the shadows into the spotlight. Here Bungie framed the story around why. Why has Savathun come out of the shadows? Why is she exposing herself to her enemies, which at the point of Season of the Lost was everyone. We wanted her dead for many reasons, Queen Mara wants her dead for cursing the Dreaming City back in Forsaken and Xivu Arath, Savathuns sister wants her dead for betraying their master, The Witness. It turns out is that she wants to be free from her worm and needs Mara's help to achieve it. Mara agrees to this. Knowing that without her worm, Savathun is no longer protected by her throne world. She can permanently die. The thing is, Savathun knew this as well. And that is what she wanted. Because she wants the light. She had tried several times to steal it but each attempt failed. It wasn't until she lived alongside the Guardians, posing as Osiris that she learned why she had failed to take the light. If she wants it, she has to earn it. Which of course she does. Following the exorcism, she flees from the Dreaming City only to die overlooking the Traveler. For her devotion, bravery and sacrifice, she was reborn as a Lightbearer. The Witch Queen story line is framed as a mystery that we have to solve. From our point of view, Savathun fled the dreaming city then a few weeks later she was back and now wielding the light. Not only that, but also has an army of Hive lightbearers with their own ghosts. So the story is figuring out how did Savathun get her hand of the light. Only to have the rug being pulled from under us. Revealing that she didn't steal the light. The glaive fragment we found on her ship was intentionally left there for us to find. Since she was counting on us to help her regain her memories if her gamble paid off. As you lose your memories when you become a lightbearer. In doing so, we reminded her of her scheme. To hide the Traveler in her throne world and seal it away. Thus protecting the Traveler from The Witness. I feel like Shadowlands might've been better if Blizzard focused in on the mystery aspect. Like why is Sylvanas serving Zovaal? What did Zovaal do that caused him to become imprisoned? Why did Daddy D switch sides and become an ally of Zovaal? It also didn't help that Blizzard wrote characters to act stupid just so the plot could go on. Such as the Archon not listening to Devos about Uther, Frostmourne etc instead of passing that on to Maldraxxus so the House of Eyes could verify it. Even if it was not Bastions place to interfere with the mortal world, a mourneblade being loose on the mortal plane is a very important issue. It also didn't help that Blizzard flip flopping on whether Sylvanas wanted to be Warchief or not. Before the Storm has her monologue about how she didn't want to be Warchief as she was no longer being able to hide in the shadows and scheme. Then they claimed that she always wanted to be Warchief following her deal with Zovaal (which happened during the Edge of night short story now cause reasons) as it would help her deliver them souls to her new master. TL:DR: The framing of the story should've been different. Characters shouldn't have been written to be dumb just so the plot could go on. If a scheming character needs to be in the spotlight. Make it their own choice as to how, when and why.

[@tylergregory7142]

I was talking in /2 the other day in WotLK classic, and people were saying WotLK is the perfect excuse for blizzard to start over with a better storyline that follows, and I kinda agree. Lore wise legion was my favorite as my favorite baddy had always been kil jaeden and sargeras (even if generic baddies). It would be cool for wow classic to continue in another direction, not that blizzard in a million years would do that, but still

[@kiloneie]

They desperately need a reset with Wow 2 with good story, modern graphics, gameplay, and possibly in VR. Expansions wont do anything but delay the death.

[@dissonantchaos7724]

highly doubt it

[@Shiirow]

they didnt just ruin heaven and the afterlife, they literally turned creation into a cosmic 3D printer.

[@remip2]

Good video Nixxiom.. agree on so many point. Nice to hear others with the same feel.. I havent even touched wow in years.. and I really want to.. but there is only so much you can handle.. I played Warth of the Lich king when it was current tier.. and I can never get that feeling back. So.. Peace World of Warcraft.. we had a good 10 years.. but "No king Rules for ever, my son"

[@kolbydavenport4696]

btw was anyone else confused when thrall suddenly had the power to control elements back this expansion after he lost that from cheating against garrosh

[@TheTraderStan]

I agree with all of this, plus the questing is getting really bad I feel.

[@IvyTinwe]

Also, they changed story directions. During the first campaign levelling through the disconnected islands floating in the Shadowlands, I always thought that the Primus was the Jailer. But suddenly, the Primus came back and was this benevolent deus ex machina, who knew everything. It was just a big mess and coming after BfA, it felt even worse. They had the chance to reset everything and chickened out. The writers struggled to find a purpose for Sylvanas after the Lich King was defeated, and then they tried to build her up as this big, strong, female character. Guess what, it didn't work.

[@FreedomAndPeaceOnly]

Beautiful summary video. 10/10 and everything on point. 👏👍

[@jacobwiren8142]

Remember that time in Shadowlands where you are playing as the Horde and get trapped in the Maw and encounter the soul of Varian Wrynn? And you have to reconcile your differences with him to escape? NO? you don't remember? That's because it DIDN'T HAPPEN! Remember when you were playing Alliance and got trapped in the Maw and encountered the soul of Garrosh? and had to reconcile your differences with him to escape? No? that's because it DIDN'T HAPPEN EITHER! Remember when you encountered the Old Gods? the ones that were slain in previous expansions? and they combined into a single horrible monster that tried to claw its way back to the living world? NOPE! The journey to the afterlife is a common theme in fantasy and myth. Hercules did it, Tolkien did it. The story practically writes itself! HOW DID THEY FUCK THIS UP?!

[@Kacpa2]

Jesus christ...dont use Reforged footage....i beg You...