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Just realized at 2:08:11 the bird's eye view camera and music, as well as the fades to show the passage of time, are all exactly the way it's executed at the end of Legion where Sylvanas is staring at the throne after just becoming warchief.
It's funny how Phil says over and over again that he likes it and that it makes sense, while people in chat say it's the worst thing ever. Truth is, by far the biggest problem with Shadowlands was the lack of content. The second biggest problem was awful systems in the first half of the expansion (conduit energy, covenant lock-in, etc.). The story? Bad mostly by association.
"So the Titans are the closest thing to Gods"
According to the titans
The Sylvanas 'defeat' cutscene:
When Arthas cut her down, Frostmourne ate her soul and even though Arthas restored her in the distorted form of a Banshee, the strike alone made Frostmourne rip a part of that soul out of her and kept it (just as it did with Uther), that's why this fragment of her is like frozen in time, only knowing what had happened to Sylvanas to that point of her death – and being forcefully reunited with this soul pushes them both into chaos, what makes her body collapse.
Sylvanas overall goes against Zovaal not about regrets, but that he simply betrayed their goal and instead of freeing mortals just takes over and enslaves – if not simply killing them.
As his last line says: "Be the first who witness realities' end."
Reality it the realm of mortals between the realms of the cosmic forces (Death, Life, Order, Fel, Light, Void) – and Zovaal obviously wants to get rid of it, seeing mortals as nothing else but a dangerous waste of critical energy.
That's also the reason why he isn't talking much to mortals at all. They are like… insects at best.
If he would think otherwise, he wouldn't be the bad guy.
Sad enough many people are too used to the actual not really good witing that is more about rule of cool and shiny villains (what can be fun, sure), who have big monologs before they are so stupid to let the protagonist live for no reason.
Zovaal sees nothing in mortals and for sure not as a threat, so of course he kept that a secret in regard of Sylvanas and alike, since as long as he was chained and disrtorted by an important pal of his own soul robbed and sealed, he needed tools to succeed.
It's quite likely that he is indeed thankful for Sylvanas' service – seeing her as more than that and would have accepted her at his side, as his "A pity – still chained by mortality" suggests.
Of course he also does not care at all that she wants to leave instead and die with the other insects.
That scene shows that Sylvanas never lied: it was all about freedom. If it would have been for herself or for power, she would have laughed her ass of at the others and just go with big daddy Zovaal.
Some people yelled about that she stries to shoot him – but it was solely to get his attention. She knows, that she can't stop him by force, since 90+% of her power comes from him in the first place.
Other cried about how she yells "I will never serve you!", blaming her for havin served him all the time, but being a coworker or employee is different to being a slave. On top of that her "I will never serve", is actually her answer to what side she is standing on – not his, but mortals'. It's her version to say "I AM one of these "everyone"! I fight for mortals! If you got against them, I go against you!"
The scene with the Ranger General Sylvanas soul fragment is about Uther explaining to a ~20 year frozen in time sliver of a soul to accept its place.
The actual soul got no problem to accept it, since the past of High Elf Sylvanas is of course part of it, while tha sliver is just pushed into an even darker future (including the knowledge how that monster who murdered her raised her as another monster and forced her to slaughter her own people until she was able to freak free from that) with ~20 years of insanity, where all this suffering had distorted herself from a heroic dying Ranger General to a dark queen that used brutal means herself to reach her goals and of course so in denial of all this that it doesn't even care about thinking about the reasons (that's what the Banshee Sylvnas is annoyed about "It's the only way! How can you not see that!?").
The little sliver does not want to see and hear this, even less think about it – that's why Uther as a guide has to step in to at least give it the chance about making a choice – what is of course to become part of that soul again and suffer all the consequences, what is likely much less about the fear to be judged, because she clearly never had a problem to give her life, but more that she has to live with all these sins, accepting them as her own.
Imagine you wake up, missing years and then have to accept that your "body" has done all kind of shit in that time. And then someone tells you to accept all this as your doing.
What certain peopel hated about it was their idea that this whitewashed her from all sin, that she is just redeemed by "oh, it wasn't her, she was a split soul" – what the cinematic wasn't about at all, in contrary.
WoW got a crowd of peopel who just love to hate it, fueled further by streamers who love to create drama for click bait.
Take yourself but instead of saying "wow, this is awesome", you say "wow, this is shit" (and that without even explaining it, just to spit at it). This creates a quite big hate cloud that keeps fueling itself.
Regarding intefering gods:
The whole background setting is about balance. The cosmic power must be in balance everythin else is bad. But every cosmic power in itself is radical, seeing itself as the norm (what is the reason why the balance is so important…) and constantly mistrusting the others, especially their counter, what leads to that endless cosmic war in which mortals are often pawns – and for example are allowed to use the power bestowed by cosmic forces, what is the most widespread 'interference'.
Avoiding massive spoilers, Sylvanas basically got convinced by the Jailer that the current system of life, death and the cosmos lacks freedom and is flawed. The Jailer promises to break the system. Unfortunately, not all anarchists offer something better. And the Jailer is a liar. He shows his true colors when he gets his power back. He would indeed reforge the cosmos. But just into one where all suffering under his domination.
Nobbel87 is THE lore master
because of him, I started to read Warceaft Books
I think we jumped into the Chains of Domination but skipped like all of the base expansion Covenant story lines. I can't remember if there were a lot of cutscenes, but the whole Bastion and Maldraxxus story was skipped.
WoW community is full off nostalgic andies that hate on the game for the sake of it.
True, no one liked Bobby kotick as he was main reason for Blizzard scandals, also is Steve danuser to be blamed for not telling whole story of Shadowlands or was narrative a total miss?
Shadowlands was more fun to play then BFA, only lack of content was a problem.
People that just hate game for existing, and you can deny it however you want we know you are out there reading this comment, those people are most likely emotionally unstable for not getting their "favorite toy" in a game.
Get a life… how so everyone that has kids and family i talked to didnt hate on Shadowlands as much as sweaty classic andies did.
Wow platinum is the best lore "deliver". He makes the lore fun to watch.. His videos are the best ❤ he made a Video about shadowlands and why this Expansion was Not the best
1:39:59 That scene gave me chills and a tear when I first saw it. I'm not a very emotive person, but sometimes it bubbles out of me unexpectedly. Just seeing her blue eyes again and talking without the banshee echo.
2:05:00 Annddd… that was the other one. Still hits hard. After you've grown up playing this game and seen the progression of her character the tragedy just runs so deep.
2:15:00 Speaking of parallels, not only is this Vol'jin's 'funeral' song, but the characters in attendance fade away in the same way they do in that scene, except in that scene Sylvanas was the last one standing there by Vol'jin's body, in disbelief. Playing here in this scene, I believe the intended effect is that we see the passing of a warchief. Except, of course, in this case Sylvanas wakes up.
You are so close to seeing a scene in game where Anduin gets the flash back when Thrall puts his hand on his shoulder in the War Within cinematic. I’ve been awaiting that reaction. Can’t wait
52:40 – The thing about Devos is that she wanted change, and gathered kyrian who felt like her. However, none of the paragons were willing to listen, so she turned to the only one who (allegedly) would – The Jailer. However, like all who ally with him, he essentially twisted them and forced them into submission. Devos became convinced that the only way to change the system was to destroy it and seize it with might. She had to go.
2:16:20 – We know now that the loa who whispered to Vol'jin that Sylvanas should be warchief was Mueh'zala who was working for The Jailer. As such, we can assume that she's been working for him since, at the very least, Legion.
I missed this stream so I don't know if the chat answered this. Transmog (short for transmogrification) can be done in any major city. The problem is while you are levelling you don't always have the time to go to a major city. So you can buy a mount that carries a transmog NPC with you. That cost is for the mount.
Most viewers here and generally of warcraft reactions are way too dumb to help the reactors understand or describe what’s wrong with for example Shadowlands. Even when asking directed questions about the Jailer and Primus, not to mention Sylvanas, people have no idea what they’re talking about.
A somewhat short but still long TLDR: Shadowlands was rewritten super close to release, and they changed bad guys, models, motives and if we include BfA as well most likely also Sylvanas entire arch multiple times. Legion/start of BfA they most assuredly were writing her a grandiose villain arch. We were supposed to really hate her up until a potential last hint of regret if that. But then they tried to shift into the end of BfA/start of Shadowlands and ultimately completely redeem her, basically. So. It’s very very inconsistent and does neither align with character portrayals nor veteran players’ expectations. Not to mention “the machine of death” really ruining SO much and devaluing stuff that came before. Arthas devalued, death devalued, Tyrande thrown in the bin etc.
Despite being locked in to a story about death, Blizzard lost track of Warcraft through loosing all real godfathers of the story. To fatigue, greed and the harassment scandals. After which the people who took over wanted to shift completely into woke, illogical peacecraft. So all male characters are devalued Shadowlands and forward, female characters must be bossbabes despite any flaws and preferably as little war and death as possible. As much family, friendship, coming together and representation as possible.
I've been enjoying gold making lately, I make a 100k in under a day of playing. Like 3 hours
The biggest issue with shadowlands story is that they invented the jailer in shadowlands and then said "oh yeah the jailer is behind everything that has happened since warcraft up until now, Surprise!!!🎉" thats why its abit meh, before we usually got hints and stuff that tie it all together, the jailer just came out of nowhere and hit us like a train
2:18:00
I really think Elune saying she Intervine is very vary bad, Cause… Now we have only 2 options.
1. Elune either didn't Intervine hoping that souls will goto Ardenweld ( cause if he Intervine she would know about Maw).
2. If she did Intervine.. it means she Intervine to mortal world not Shadowlands judgement process. ( This makes me feel like she has hand on burning the nightelves)
So many cut scenes and lore stuff from pandaria and wod that were glossed over 😢 wish we could go back to those
I can never take the people that think committing genocide on the Night Elves was justified at all. I don't care if you're Horde or Alliance
I am accepting the work of artists and developers by paying subscription. But here is the point: you can rerecord sounds, upgrade graphics and fix bugs, but you can't change plot and erase people memory. There is no choices in this game influencing story. You should be really careful with drastic events. Night elf players are one of the biggest parts of game community (by statistics) and they were really upset. And I am one of them. We were told in BFA: wait Sylvanas is morally gray character, there is more to go. And later in Shadowlands we got that. Her bad part did all things, she tried to build better world, it was Jailer all along. It was how many years from BFA and Blizzard still making amends to NE players (current story, no spoilers). Someone says it was long story arc but I think this is risk control. Scrape things which didn't work and give players what they are asking for. Waiting for Dragonflight cutscenes reaction, there are questionable ones from cinematic standpoint (hello Avengers).
It is great how you describe Ardenweald having this dreamlike quality when it's azerothian counterpart on the Plane of Life is called The Emerald Dream.
55:00 The whole Devos storyline was essentially part of the Shadowlands levelling and early endgame quests. She was killed early in the expansion after which we began to reform the Kyrian. Devos spoke truth, but she wen't too far. In the end she fully allied with the Jailer and was going to destroy Shadowlands with him to get her reform.
56:16 beings born/formed in Shadowlands can still be killed/destoyed. Their souls would dissipate into anima.
Important to know that the Nobbel lore video is based on the Chronicle which was written from the perspective of the Titans, & we now believe that some of what is written there is untrue or partly true — pro-Order propaganda.
For example, it seems that world souls are not actually nascent Titans, but rather are blank slates that could become an avatar of any of the fundamental forces. It's not so much as the void lords 'corrupt titan babies,' but that world souls could become titans, or void gods, or a leader of any of the 6 fundamental forces… or perhaps they could remain 'unaligned.'
Hi Phil. Been lurking a lot, but wanted to give some context on all the Sylvanas frustration that keeps coming up.
The whole war campaign that led to burning the tree was seen, at the time, as really out of character for her. The story had been building her up as like, a good force for the horde, a lot of work was done to get Horde players behind her, etc, so a lot of Horde felt very blindsided and kinda betrayed that they were, again, being given a villain warchief (after it was done very well with Garrosh.) So some negative points from Horde players there, already, at the start of BFA.
That story decision was brought about by a creative director who was ultimately discovered to be super toxic. Being drunk at work, harassing coworkers – really bad stuff. Many more points of negativity. Talk about this guy sabotaging the story, things like that. JUST THIS caused a ton of angst in the community; when people found out how terrible this guy was, players and dev team alike just wished they could undo everything he did. But that's not how game production works, and we're only just now getting away from the storyline he started.
Then, you get to the end of BFA and the start of Shadowlands, and you find out that all of this stuff she was doing wasn't even for her own plans – they were for someone else. The Jailer. The Sylvanas fans are a little bit miffed now; all of their leader's (or favorite antagonist's) brilliant maneuvering wasn't even hers. So even more negative points. (Worth noting, by this time, the story team was trying to clean up the mess of the previous creative director and dealing with Covid at the same time).
Then it's revealed in Shadowlands that, in fact, her soul has been split the whole time; the people who HATED Sylvanas this whole time are irritated that Blizzard is, seemingly, setting up for Sylvanas to get off the hook for everything bad she's done. Which is kind of true! the story team is trying to redeem a fan favorite/team favorite character that the previous creative director had turned into a big bad on a whim, against the will of the rest of the story team. They didn't want to be tied to the story direction that he had set, and were trying to clean up his mess.
Obviously they did this fairly well – Sylvanas talking about having to take responsibility for those actions and everything – but it still upset the players who were tired of Sylvanas and just wanted to see her gone.
On the artistry side, as you've said, they did all of this very well. The cutscenes are *good*, and it's presented expertly through Shadowlands. The Old Soldier series is a fan favorite. But this all played out over the course of four years for us, alongside a lot of other out-of-game drama and a lot of gameplay negatives going on in-game – so it's tied to a lot of frustration, throwing hands up, sighing, etc.
This all makes it, like… tricky to talk about Shadowlands stuff. The community was exhausted, and anything Shadowlands gets hate by association.